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Next I will cover Maylar’s nemesis.

While the concept has drifted away from this, when I was first plotting out the Nine, I wanted my Lawful Good Deity to be based on Pallas Athena. This started as Hallas. Then I switched it to Hallisan to make it sound a little softer.

My biggest concern is that Hallisan is one-dimensional. He is basically Captain Good Guy. Every other deity has a fringe faction that, while still loyal to their god, ruffles a lot of feathers with the orthodox priesthood.

Khemra has the Night Order, a group with questionable methodology.

Phidas has the Blessed One Heresy, a group which goes against official teaching despite great optimism

Nami has two groups that are threatening to create a Civil War, the Bacchites and the Gentle Rain.

Zarthus has the Mask Breakers whose methods are dark and extreme. Zarthus priesthood also has adapt to controlling Apseldia where the Lanterns are “the Man.”

Maylar has the Shepherds, a group that is intolerably nice to people.

I haven’t come up with any Hallisan faction that is heavily schismatic or heretical. Maybe I can give them a cult of Hallisan worshipers who justify necromancy, but that’s dull. Almost all of the Nine dislike Necromancy at least a little bit and almost all of the priesthoods secretly have necromancers in their ranks.


Hallisan in Great Detail


Hallisan “The Just Crusader” “Great Craftsman” “‘Brave’ Sacrificer”
Alignment: Lawful Good
Priests’ Nickname: Guardians of Valor. Short form, Guardians.
Favored Weapon: Battle Axe
Most Common Symbol: Crisscrossed Axe and Shovel representing hard labor and the need to be vigilant at guarding the fruits of your hard labor.
Favored Magic: Augmentation, Craft, Protection
Divine Tool of Power: Hallisan forged one of Turoch’s legs into a battle axe
Primary Dominion: Regulation of minerals entering the earth from the Elemental Plane.
Primary Gift: Mining and metalwork.
Synopsis: Hallisan promotes the value of hard work as the cornerstone of a good society. One must work hard and strive for excellence in all they do. He is the patron of metalworking and other skilled crafts. He also emphasizes the importance of vigilance in martial readiness to protect one’s home, family, and the fruits of one’s labor. He teaches that a fair just society is the best way to promote both honest hard work and martial readiness. He is said to be the primary shaper of new materials that enter Scarterras from the Core of Creation. Some say without his efforts the lands of Scarterras would all splinter apart.
Priests and Primary Followers: Hallisan’s priests are recruited primarily from the non-inheriting children of nobility unless the local nobility is very tight with another priesthood in which case they tend to recruit their priests primarily from the children of professional soldiers. Feudal lords and professional soldiers alike want to appear to be brave and chivalrous even when they are not, so Hallisan is the primary religions of both these groups. Hallisan is the most common primary deity officially endorsed by human and demi-human nations. Hallisan is credited with spearheading the creation of Dwarfs and most Dwarfs worship Hallisan primarily as a result.
Common Times to Invoke his Name: Hallisan is often prayed to before beginning a difficult work project or after its completion. Hallisan is often prayed to before entering battle and thanked afterwards for victory.
Basic Tenets: -Promote hard work for this is the key for all to better themselves.
-Stand resolute against all who would threaten good people.
-Pursue excellence in all you do, if you diminish your crafts you diminish yourself.
-Promote justice and fairness for a just society forms the basis, both for vigilance against evil and prodigious industry.


Hallisan’s Portfolio includes but is not limited to: Stone, minerals, metalwork, mining, chivalry codes, bravery, just war, oaths of service, strength, protection, life stones, dwarves,

Godly Rivals

Hallisan’s chivalry drives him to protect Mera whom he loves. Mera often balks at Hallisan’s violence and his patronizing nature, but this doesn’t stop Hallisan from trying. When the Guardians and Tenders work together they are a very potent team. Powerful warriors are even more effective when they have skilled healers to keep them fighting longer.

Hallisan may not like Khemra as much as he likes Mera, but the two work together well. When Hallisan and Khemra are working together, government itself generally becomes more efficient and a true force for the common good.

Hallisan appreciates the services Korus provides sustaining nature, but Hallisan tends to take Korus for granted. This attitude carries over to Hallisan’s followers.

Zarthus is a frenemy that Hallisan grudgingly respects. They share the same general goals but disagree on tactics almost all the time. This attitude certainly carries over to Hallisan’s followers.

Hallisan and Phidas are frequent competitors, but Hallisan has no respect for Phidas. They compete for Khemra’s affections and this symbolically mirrors them fighting for the soul of civilization itself. Hallisan views Phidas as a spineless coward, and he is furious that Phidas and his followers tend to outmaneuver Hallisan and Hallisan’s followers with their superior grasp of realpolitik.

Hallisan finds Nami to be incredibly annoying but does not see her as a threat. Originally Hallisan was going to regulate the seasons and Phidas was going to be in charge of regulating elemental discharge of minerals between the Elemental Plane and the underground realms. When Phidas had to abandon his original dominion to shore up the Barrier to the Void, Hallisan took over Phidas’ dominion and Hallisan’s dominion got folded into Nami’s dominion of weather. In a way, Hallisan views every bout of unseasonable weather as a personal insult.

Greymoria is viewed as a true threat and Hallisan opposes her whenever he can but she is more subtle than he is and he often doesn’t know how best to oppose her. Due to their association with Greymoria, Hallisan’s followers are largely distrustful of arcane magic and monsters in general, even mages and monsters who are relatively benign.

Hallisan has no solid evidence backing up his assertions but he believes Maylar is trying to becomes Turoch’s successor to enslave all of Scarterra into a soul farm. Even if Maylar isn’t trying to destroy the universe, he is both a figurative and literal plague on all good people. Also, there is an element of pride in their rivalry. Hallisan embodies the principles of High War and Maylar embodies Low War.


Hallisan Spirits

Hallisan prefers to act through his mortal followers rather than send spirits to do his dirty work, but he recognizes his followers cannot be everywhere at once.

Hallisan has a wide variety of types of spirits at his disposal including healers, advisors, assistants, etc, but most spirits he deploys have a martial bent. Hallisan doesn’t deploy spirits very often, but when he does he usually either wants to protect something or smite something.

The default land animal summoned by Hallisan theurgists is a lion. The default air animal summoned is an eagle. I’m still not sure what type of aquatic animal would answer Hallisan’s summoning call. Hallisan has a regal image on land and a more humble image in the sea. A crab or lobster probably doesn’t have the swimming speed to compete with the rest of the Nine’s aquatic minions.

Hallisan and Geo-Politics


Hallisan’s priesthood is strong wherever feudalism is strong. Where there knights, samurai, or whatever dwarves call their knightly equivalent, there are Guardians.

Phidas, Hallisan, and Khemra are usually fighting for the stop spot of most human nations. Hallisan is the official state patron of the knightly nation of Kantoc, the Samurai loving people of Azuma, and the Dwarf nations of Stahlheim and Meckelorn. Hallisan is the unofficial state patron of a great many nations. Hallisan’s Guardians have a respectable niche in most nations. They have the number two spot in Khemarok, Mondert, Nishi, and the Elven Empire.

There are very few places where Hallisan’s followers are marginalized. Hallisan isn’t disrespected by most Wood Elves or Apseldian half-elves but they don’t view Hallisan as being very important. Hallisan’s Guardians are a distant third for priestly influence in Uskala. The real place the Guardians are marginalized is Kahdisteria. The Guardians themselves are not sure if they should try to change Kahdisteria’s brutal policies from within the system or without.

Hallisan Creatures

Hallisan had help creating the first dwarves, but dwarves are very much a Hallisan race. They like honor, marital prowess, metal working, and tied to the earth. I feel an urge to expand the Hallisan creature roster, but for now dwarves are pretty much Hallisan’s only spiritual children.

The Clergy

Hallisan might have more priests, priestesses than any other deity in Scarterra. It’s a close race between Hallisan, Mera, and Korus. Hallisan certainly has the most holy warriors of any of the Nine.

The Guardians actively recruit both adults and children. Most children inducted are the sons and daughters of nobility, or the sons and daughters of established Guardians. Most adults inducted into the Guardians are brought in for pure merit. Adult recruits are usually highly skilled in something. The Guardians will try to recruit whatever skill sets they don’t have.

They have a bias towards recruiting war heroes and master craftsmen, but they also need clerks, scholars, herbalists and other utilitarian roles.

Hallisan’s core followers call themselves Guardians of Valor because they view themselves as righteous warriors. At least half of the Guardians make their primary contribution in a non-martial capacity working as clerks, scholars, and blacksmiths among many other jobs. Even those who serve far from the front lines have some basic combat training. The Guardians love to share stories where their clerks and blacksmiths surprise enemies expecting them to be soft targets.

Sometimes, the martial culture causes problems. Guardian culture rewards war heroes, so many Guardians take unnecessary risks or they seek military solutions when a diplomatic solution may be better. There are exceptions, but Guardians are usually pretty bad at handling cloak and dagger politics. Many Guardians will proudly say “this is the time for swords and lances, not cloaks and daggers). For Game of Thrones fans, the Guardians are a lot like House Stark.


Hallisan has slightly more favored souls than Khemra but they are still pretty rare. Unlike Khemra’s favored souls, Hallisan’s favored souls are not treated like royalty. They get a weird mix of respect and distance.

A great many of Hallisan’s favored souls have extremely awful childhoods and adolescences. Quite a few of them are the lone survivor from a village that was destroyed or they otherwise have to avenge the death of their mother, father, brother, sister, or romantic interest. This tends to motivate them to say “Never again!” and become tireless foes of evil.

It is generally believed that Hallisan empowers favored souls to combat evils that need flexibility to be defeated. Most Guardians will provide Hallisan’s favored souls aid when they can, but they believe that it is Hallisan’s will that they mostly stay out of the favored souls’ way.

Stereotypes exist for a reason and a majority of Hallisan’s few favored souls do have childhood trauma to avenge, but not all of them. One problem is that if the Guardians do encounter a favored soul of Hallisan that is not an embittered crusader they will still treat him or her like an embittered crusader. Most Guardians will try to outfit and train any favored soul they find as lone knight for justice whether or not that is what the favored soul wants.

Material Needs

Phidas may be the god of commerce and greed but Hallisan may have the priesthood with the most coins. Because of this relative abundance, Hallisan’s temples tend to be large and well-adorned boasting large supporting staffs.

In most places, the Guardians have a good relationship with the local princes, so they can get a decent amount of large donations from the elites. Hallisan is fairly well-liked by most commoners (given that the Guardians defend them from monsters and whatnot), so the Guardians get a small but steady trickle of small donations.

The Guardians theurgists have an aptitude for making magical items and the Guardians, both with magic and without, value good craftsmanship. Hallisan’s make decent money selling magical items to adventurers and nobles and selling finely crafted metalwork to all levels of society.

Priestly Ranks

Most other priesthood use the term “temple” to refer to any place of worship, but for the Guardians, there are chapels, temples and grand temples. Chapels are the basic places of worship. Each temple has jurisdiction over four to ten chapels. The Grand Temples hold jurisdiction over several temples. Originally the Grand Temple was supposed to direct policy for all Guardians but there are at least four temples auditioning to be the Grand Temple for the entire world.

Son or Daughter: Trainee member
Brother or Sister: Full member
Mother or Father: Priest or priestess in charge of a chapel.
Revered Mother or Father: Priest or priestess in charge of a temple (which in turn has jurisdiction over two to seven chapels).
Elder: The highest rank in the priesthood of Hallisan. There are three elders. One in the Elven Empire, one with jurisdiction over Meckelorn and Stahlheim and one that theoretically has jurisdiction over all human temples though in reality the Elder doesn’t have much pull in the southern continents. Elders are elected from a vote of all the Revered Mothers and Fathers.

Regent Mother or Father: There are two Regent Fathers in Umera and one in Penarchia. All of them hope to be recognized as a full Elder for their continent.

Harbinger: Refers to priests or priestesses whose primary temple is “the road,” charged with maintaining ties between distant temples and serving as they eyes, hands and mouth of the Elder.

Scroll head: Derogatory term for priest or priestess that has no spellcasting ability or significant combat prowess. Technically scroll heads are equal to everyone else but very few of them are promoted and none have even been remotely close to being elected Elder. Given that they handle most day-to-day tasks, some Scroll Heads wield a lot of informal power.

Master: Informal form of address for a priest or priestess who is very skilled in metalworking, capable of crafting permanent magical items.

Captain: Head of the local marital forces. Replaces their normal title in nearly every situation besides formal council situations. It is common for Captains to also be the heads of chapels or temples.

On paper, rank is based on seniority and merit. In practice, highborn Guardians are slightly more likely to be promoted than lowborn Guardians. Theurgists are moderately more likely to be promoted than non-spell-casters. War heroes are far more likely to be promoted than non-combatants.

Factions, Schisms, and Heresies

I haven’t figured out any extreme groups on the outs with Hallisan. The biggest internal split is that there are several Grand Temples and there should in theory only be one.

Kantac has what is probably the most legitimate Grand Temple holding true jurisdiction over all the human Hallisan worshipers in West Colassia. Their representatives are politely listened to in East Colassia, Penarchia, the Elven Empire, and the dwarven lands, but they have little real power in these distant lands. Umeran Guardians don’t even pretend to be polite.

The Grand Temple of the Great Stone is the spiritual center for all the Hallisan worshipping dwarves of Stahlheim and Meckelorn alike. Once in a while, a few Monderian dwarves make a pilgrimage to the Great Stone.

The Grand Temple in Lunatus is the spiritual center for all Guardians in the Elven Empire. They actually claim jurisdiction over all elven Hallisan worshipers, but the Wood Elves (whose Guardians do not follow the Chapel-Temple-Grand Temple model) view this as laughable. The Apseldian half-elves do not recognize them either.

Guardians generally do not like playing cloak and dagger politics, but they are getting a crash course. The Elven Empire and Kahdisteria are in the middle of a bitter cold war. It just so happens that one of the only communication lines open between the Dark Elves and the Grey Elves is between their respective Hallisan temples. Guardians around the world are weighing in on this, not just elven Guardians. Some Guardians want to reform Kahdisteria from within while others think peaceful reform is a lost cause there, so the Guardians should lend their might to the illegal cults of Mera and Zarthus among the slave populations.

Two temples in Umera and one temple in Penarchia are all auditioning for the part of being the Grand Temple of the southern continents, but as of yet, these temples have very little real political power and are paper tigers at best.

There are Guardians who view the feuding over who answers to what Grand Temple to be a huge distraction. Some of them have gone so far as to swear off the hierarchy altogether. They have been nicknamed Errant Guardians though most Errant Guardians shun the name as they shun all titles. Adventurers to the core, Guardians Errant travel the world righting wrongs and helping people to the best of their ability and refuse to let ecclesiastical red tape in their way.

Scaraqua

Hallisan is a bit player under the sea. He is still a patron of useful of crafts, but Sea Hallisan has much of a less martial edge than Land Hallisan. Hallisan worship is common among the Scuttlers, but Hallisan is barely a footnote to most Scaraquans.

Hollow Earth

I haven’t worked out the details yet, but Hallisan is going to be a major player underground. He is probably still going to operate primarily through his chosen people the dwarves. Tiamalan Kobolds tend to worship Hallisan often. Maybe an oddball goblin tribe or two worships Hallisan.

Given that Hallisan is going to loom large underground, I should probably widen his tent there.

Anyway, hope you found this worth reading. I’m open to suggestions and feedback on fleshing out Hallisan and his followers further. I will answer any Hallisan based questions if you feel I left something out.

 

Next I will cover Maylar’s nemesis.

While the concept has drifted away from this, when I was first plotting out the Nine, I wanted my Lawful Good Deity to be based on Pallas Athena. This started as Hallas. Then I switched it to Hallisan to make it sound a little softer.

My biggest concern is that Hallisan is one-dimensional. He is basically Captain Good Guy. Every other deity has a fringe faction that, while still loyal to their god, ruffles a lot of feathers with the orthodox priesthood.

Khemra has the Night Order, a group with questionable methodology.

Phidas has the Blessed One Heresy, a group which goes against official teaching despite great optimism

Nami has two groups that are threatening to create a Civil War, the Bacchites and the Gentle Rain.

Zarthus has the Mask Breakers whose methods are dark and extreme. Zarthus priesthood also has adapt to controlling Apseldia where the Lanterns are “the Man.”

Maylar has the Shepherds, a group that is intolerably nice to people.

I haven’t come up with any Hallisan faction that is heavily schismatic or heretical. Maybe I can give them a cult of Hallisan worshipers who justify necromancy, but that’s dull. Almost all of the Nine dislike Necromancy at least a little bit and almost all of the priesthoods secretly have necromancers in their ranks.


Hallisan in Great Detail


Hallisan “The Just Crusader” “Great Craftsman” “‘Brave’ Sacrificer”
Alignment: Lawful Good
Priests’ Nickname: Guardians of Valor. Short form, Guardians.
Favored Weapon: Battle Axe
Most Common Symbol: Crisscrossed Axe and Shovel representing hard labor and the need to be vigilant at guarding the fruits of your hard labor.
Favored Magic: Augmentation, Craft, Protection
Divine Tool of Power: Hallisan forged one of Turoch’s legs into a battle axe
Primary Dominion: Regulation of minerals entering the earth from the Elemental Plane.
Primary Gift: Mining and metalwork.
Synopsis: Hallisan promotes the value of hard work as the cornerstone of a good society. One must work hard and strive for excellence in all they do. He is the patron of metalworking and other skilled crafts. He also emphasizes the importance of vigilance in martial readiness to protect one’s home, family, and the fruits of one’s labor. He teaches that a fair just society is the best way to promote both honest hard work and martial readiness. He is said to be the primary shaper of new materials that enter Scarterras from the Core of Creation. Some say without his efforts the lands of Scarterras would all splinter apart.
Priests and Primary Followers: Hallisan’s priests are recruited primarily from the non-inheriting children of nobility unless the local nobility is very tight with another priesthood in which case they tend to recruit their priests primarily from the children of professional soldiers. Feudal lords and professional soldiers alike want to appear to be brave and chivalrous even when they are not, so Hallisan is the primary religions of both these groups. Hallisan is the most common primary deity officially endorsed by human and demi-human nations. Hallisan is credited with spearheading the creation of Dwarfs and most Dwarfs worship Hallisan primarily as a result.
Common Times to Invoke his Name: Hallisan is often prayed to before beginning a difficult work project or after its completion. Hallisan is often prayed to before entering battle and thanked afterwards for victory.
Basic Tenets: -Promote hard work for this is the key for all to better themselves.
-Stand resolute against all who would threaten good people.
-Pursue excellence in all you do, if you diminish your crafts you diminish yourself.
-Promote justice and fairness for a just society forms the basis, both for vigilance against evil and prodigious industry.


Hallisan’s Portfolio includes but is not limited to: Stone, minerals, metalwork, mining, chivalry codes, bravery, just war, oaths of service, strength, protection, life stones, dwarves,

Godly Rivals

Hallisan’s chivalry drives him to protect Mera whom he loves. Mera often balks at Hallisan’s violence and his patronizing nature, but this doesn’t stop Hallisan from trying. When the Guardians and Tenders work together they are a very potent team. Powerful warriors are even more effective when they have skilled healers to keep them fighting longer.

Hallisan may not like Khemra as much as he likes Mera, but the two work together well. When Hallisan and Khemra are working together, government itself generally becomes more efficient and a true force for the common good.

Hallisan appreciates the services Korus provides sustaining nature, but Hallisan tends to take Korus for granted. This attitude carries over to Hallisan’s followers.

Zarthus is a frenemy that Hallisan grudgingly respects. They share the same general goals but disagree on tactics almost all the time. This attitude certainly carries over to Hallisan’s followers.

Hallisan and Phidas are frequent competitors, but Hallisan has no respect for Phidas. They compete for Khemra’s affections and this symbolically mirrors them fighting for the soul of civilization itself. Hallisan views Phidas as a spineless coward, and he is furious that Phidas and his followers tend to outmaneuver Hallisan and Hallisan’s followers with their superior grasp of realpolitik.

Hallisan finds Nami to be incredibly annoying but does not see her as a threat. Originally Hallisan was going to regulate the seasons and Phidas was going to be in charge of regulating elemental discharge of minerals between the Elemental Plane and the underground realms. When Phidas had to abandon his original dominion to shore up the Barrier to the Void, Hallisan took over Phidas’ dominion and Hallisan’s dominion got folded into Nami’s dominion of weather. In a way, Hallisan views every bout of unseasonable weather as a personal insult.

Greymoria is viewed as a true threat and Hallisan opposes her whenever he can but she is more subtle than he is and he often doesn’t know how best to oppose her. Due to their association with Greymoria, Hallisan’s followers are largely distrustful of arcane magic and monsters in general, even mages and monsters who are relatively benign.

Hallisan has no solid evidence backing up his assertions but he believes Maylar is trying to becomes Turoch’s successor to enslave all of Scarterra into a soul farm. Even if Maylar isn’t trying to destroy the universe, he is both a figurative and literal plague on all good people. Also, there is an element of pride in their rivalry. Hallisan embodies the principles of High War and Maylar embodies Low War.


Hallisan Spirits

Hallisan prefers to act through his mortal followers rather than send spirits to do his dirty work, but he recognizes his followers cannot be everywhere at once.

Hallisan has a wide variety of types of spirits at his disposal including healers, advisors, assistants, etc, but most spirits he deploys have a martial bent. Hallisan doesn’t deploy spirits very often, but when he does he usually either wants to protect something or smite something.

Hallisan and Geo-Politics

Hallisan’s priesthood is strong wherever feudalism is strong. Where there knights, samurai, or whatever dwarves call their knightly equivalent, there are Guardians.

Phidas, Hallisan, and Khemra are usually fighting for the stop spot of most human nations. Hallisan is the official state patron of the knightly nation of Kantoc, the Samurai loving people of Azuma, and the Dwarf nations of Stahlheim and Meckelorn. Hallisan is the unofficial state patron of a great many nations. Hallisan’s Guardians have a respectable niche in most nations. They have the number two spot in Khemarok, Mondert, Nishi, and the Elven Empire.


There are very few places where Hallisan’s followers are marginalized. Hallisan isn’t disrespected by most Wood Elves or Apseldian half-elves but they don’t view Hallisan as being very important. Hallisan’s Guardians are a distant third for priestly influence in Uskala. The real place the Guardians are marginalized is Kahdisteria. The Guardians themselves are not sure if they should try to change Kahdisteria’s brutal policies from within the system or without.

Hallisan Creatures

Hallisan had help creating the first dwarves, but dwarves are very much a Hallisan race. They like honor, marital prowess, metal working, and tied to the earth. I feel an urge to expand the Hallisan creature roster, but for now dwarves are pretty much Hallisan’s only spiritual children.

The Clergy

Hallisan might have more priests, priestesses than any other deity in Scarterra. It’s a close race between Hallisan, Mera, and Korus. Hallisan certainly has the most holy warriors of any of the Nine.

The Guardians actively recruit both adults and children. Most children inducted are the sons and daughters of nobility, or the sons and daughters of established Guardians. Most adults inducted into the Guardians are brought in for pure merit. Adult recruits are usually highly skilled in something. The Guardians will try to recruit whatever skill sets they don’t have.

They have a bias towards recruiting war heroes and master craftsmen, but they also need clerks, scholars, herbalists and other utilitarian roles.

Hallisan’s core followers call themselves Guardians of Valor because they view themselves as righteous warriors. At least half of the Guardians make their primary contribution in a non-martial capacity working as clerks, scholars, and blacksmiths among many other jobs. Even those who serve far from the front lines have some basic combat training. The Guardians love to share stories where their clerks and blacksmiths surprise enemies expecting them to be soft targets.

Sometimes, the martial culture causes problems. Guardian culture rewards war heroes, so many Guardians take unnecessary risks or they seek military solutions when a diplomatic solution may be better. There are exceptions, but Guardians are usually pretty bad at handling cloak and dagger politics. Many Guardians will proudly say “this is the time for swords and lances, not cloaks and daggers). For Game of Thrones fans, the Guardians are a lot like House Stark.


Hallisan has slightly more favored souls than Khemra but they are still pretty rare. Unlike Khemra’s favored souls, Hallisan’s favored souls are not treated like royalty. They get a weird mix of respect and distance.

A great many of Hallisan’s favored souls have extremely awful childhoods and adolescences. Quite a few of them are the lone survivor from a village that was destroyed or they otherwise have to avenge the death of their mother, father, brother, sister, or romantic interest. This tends to motivate them to say “Never again!” and become tireless foes of evil.

It is generally believed that Hallisan empowers favored souls to combat evils that need flexibility to be defeated. Most Guardians will provide Hallisan’s favored souls aid when they can, but they believe that it is Hallisan’s will that they mostly stay out of the favored souls’ way.

Stereotypes exist for a reason and a majority of Hallisan’s few favored souls do have childhood trauma to avenge, but not all of them. One problem is that if the Guardians do encounter a favored soul of Hallisan that is not an embittered crusader they will still treat him or her like an embittered crusader. Most Guardians will try to outfit and train any favored soul they find as lone knight for justice whether or not that is what the favored soul wants.

Material Needs

Phidas may be the god of commerce and greed but Hallisan may have the priesthood with the most coins. Because of this relative abundance, Hallisan’s temples tend to be large and well-adorned boasting large supporting staffs.

In most places, the Guardians have a good relationship with the local princes, so they can get a decent amount of large donations from the elites. Hallisan is fairly well-liked by most commoners (given that the Guardians defend them from monsters and whatnot), so the Guardians get a small but steady trickle of small donations.

The Guardians theurgists have an aptitude for making magical items and the Guardians, both with magic and without, value good craftsmanship. Hallisan’s make decent money selling magical items to adventurers and nobles and selling finely crafted metalwork to all levels of society.


Priestly Ranks

Most other priesthood use the term “temple” to refer to any place of worship, but for the Guardians, there are chapels, temples and grand temples. Chapels are the basic places of worship. Each temple has jurisdiction over four to ten chapels. The Grand Temples hold jurisdiction over several temples. Originally the Grand Temple was supposed to direct policy for all Guardians but there are at least four temples auditioning to be the Grand Temple for the entire world.


Son or Daughter: Trainee member
Brother or Sister: Full member
Mother or Father: Priest or priestess in charge of a chapel.
Revered Mother or Father: Priest or priestess in charge of a temple (which in turn has jurisdiction over two to seven chapels).
Elder: The highest rank in the priesthood of Hallisan. There are three elders. One in the Elven Empire, one with jurisdiction over Meckelorn and Stahlheim and one that theoretically has jurisdiction over all human temples though in reality the Elder doesn’t have much pull in the southern continents. Elders are elected from a vote of all the Revered Mothers and Fathers.

Regent Mother or Father: There are two Regent Fathers in Umera and one in Penarchia. All of them hope to be recognized as a full Elder for their continent.

Harbinger: Refers to priests or priestesses whose primary temple is “the road,” charged with maintaining ties between distant temples and serving as they eyes, hands and mouth of the Elder.

Scroll head: Derogatory term for priest or priestess that has no spellcasting ability or significant combat prowess. Technically scroll heads are equal to everyone else but very few of them are promoted and none have even been remotely close to being elected Elder. Given that they handle most day-to-day tasks, some Scroll Heads wield a lot of informal power.

Master: Informal form of address for a priest or priestess who is very skilled in metalworking, capable of crafting permanent magical items.

Captain: Head of the local marital forces. Replaces their normal title in nearly every situation besides formal council situations. It is common for Captains to also be the heads of chapels or temples.

On paper, rank is based on seniority and merit. In practice, highborn Guardians are slightly more likely to be promoted than lowborn Guardians. Theurgists are moderately more likely to be promoted than non-spell-casters. War heroes are far more likely to be promoted than non-combatants.


Factions, Schisms, and Heresies

I haven’t figured out any extreme groups on the outs with Hallisan. The biggest internal split is that there are several Grand Temples and there should in theory only be one.

Kantac has what is probably the most legitimate Grand Temple holding true jurisdiction over all the human Hallisan worshipers in West Colassia. Their representatives are politely listened to in East Colassia, Penarchia, the Elven Empire, and the dwarven lands, but they have little real power in these distant lands. Umeran Guardians don’t even pretend to be polite.

The Grand Temple of the Great Stone is the spiritual center for all the Hallisan worshipping dwarves of Stahlheim and Meckelorn alike. Once in a while, a few Monderian dwarves make a pilgrimage to the Great Stone.

The Grand Temple in Lunatus is the spiritual center for all Guardians in the Elven Empire. They actually claim jurisdiction over all elven Hallisan worshipers, but the Wood Elves (whose Guardians do not follow the Chapel-Temple-Grand Temple model) view this as laughable. The Apseldian half-elves do not recognize them either.

Guardians generally do not like playing cloak and dagger politics, but they are getting a crash course. The Elven Empire and Kahdisteria are in the middle of a bitter cold war. It just so happens that one of the only communication lines open between the Dark Elves and the Grey Elves is between their respective Hallisan temples. Guardians around the world are weighing in on this, not just elven Guardians. Some Guardians want to reform Kahdisteria from within while others think peaceful reform is a lost cause there, so the Guardians should lend their might to the illegal cults of Mera and Zarthus among the slave populations.

Two temples in Umera and one temple in Penarchia are all auditioning for the part of being the Grand Temple of the southern continents, but as of yet, these temples have very little real political power and are paper tigers at best.


There are Guardians who view the feuding over who answers to what Grand Temple to be a huge distraction. Some of them have gone so far as to swear off the hierarchy altogether. They have been nicknamed Errant Guardians though most Errant Guardians shun the name as they shun all titles. Adventurers to the core, Guardians Errant travel the world righting wrongs and helping people to the best of their ability and refuse to let ecclesiastical red tape in their way.

Scaraqua

Hallisan is a bit player under the sea. He is still a patron of useful of crafts, but Sea Hallisan has much of a less martial edge than Land Hallisan. Hallisan worship is common among the Scuttlers, but Hallisan is barely a footnote to most Scaraquans.

Hollow Earth

I haven’t worked out the details yet, but Hallisan is going to be a major player underground. He is probably still going to operate primarily through his chosen people the dwarves. Tiamalan Kobolds tend to worship Hallisan often. Maybe an oddball goblin tribe or two worships Hallisan.

Given that Hallisan is going to loom large underground, I should probably widen his tent there.

Anyway, hope you found this worth reading. I’m open to suggestions and feedback on fleshing out Hallisan and his followers further. I will answer any Hallisan based questions if you feel I left something out.

 

I’m stuck inside, so I’m going to keep posting deity biographies…

On the surface of a pond it looks like a duck is gliding calmly and effortlessly along the water effortlessly but if you looked at the duck from below you would see he is kicking is legs and paddling like crazy.

Korus is a very hard working deity with a very complicated existence but most outsiders don’t see half of what Korus does. Most gods and mortals alike take Korus for granted. Korus generally prefers it this way.

Korus is a bridge between Law and Chaos, Good and Evil, Nature and Civilization, Spirits and Mortals. Fey and the Nine. He and his followers often straddle two worlds.

Nami is the goddess of literal rainbows, but Korus is the god of figurative rainbows. I’m not going to go too deep into social justice issues. In fact most stories this will never come up. But the bridge between two worlds thing also means Korus is the god of non-binary folks. I’m not pulling this out of nowhere to please an SJW mob. There is real historical precedent for nature shamans engaging in gender bending behavior. It’s there if people want it. If people don’t want it, people can ignore it. The fact that Korus is the patron of people who do not conform to gender norms is not a very big part of his porfolio.


Korus in Great Detail


Korus “Divine Mediator” “Lord of Nature” “The Uncaring One”

Alignment: True Neutral
Priests’ Nickname: Stewards of the Dominion or Stewards of the Gift. Short form, Stewards.
Favored Weapon: Flail
Common Symbol: Light enshrouded tree (though in places where trees are scarce you can see a light enshrouded cactus or kelp plant)
Favored Magic: Animals, Divination, Plants
Divine Tool of Power: Korus crafted the bones and sinew of one of Turoch’s arms into a flail.
Primary Dominion over Nature: The interplay of ecosystems
Primary Gift to Mortals: Agriculture
Synopsis: Korus includes and all of Scarterras’ ecosystems under his domain. He is said to have taught mortals the first principles of agriculture. He also enjoys the unique position of none of the other Nine having a problem with him so he and his agents often serve as mediators in many conflicts great and small. In fact, without Korus as a mediator the Nine would not have been able to put aside their differences long enough to defeat Turoch. While less pushy in his agenda then his siblings, he nevertheless promotes sustainable and responsible use of nature’s bounty.
Priests and Primary Followers: Most priests tend to either take a wilderness focus or an agriculture focus. The former are pretty reclusive and the latter tend to be active parts of their community. The two groups don’t mingle much but they get along fairly well when they do meet. Agricultural focused priest tend to accept oblates from their communities who start at a young age, while wilderness actively recruit somewhat older youth who they believe have the skill set and temperament to be good priests. Because pretty much everyone depends on living off the land to some extant, Korus is the most widely worshiped deity on Scarterras though relatively few people worship him primarily.
Common Times to Invoke his Name: Korus is often prayed to during major agricultural undertakings and most places have a festival in his honor during harvest and planting times. Korus is also prayed to for protection when entering wilderness areas. Korus is often prayed to for patience when dealing with someone of extreme views.
Basic Tenets: -Help others appreciate nature’s bounty.
-Learn to live off the land in a sustainable way.
-Learn about the cycle of nature and how things are interconnected.
-Leave others to their own devices unless they refuse to do likewise for others.


Korus Portfolio includes but is not limited to: All plants but especially trees, the seasons, predator/prey balance, forests, fishing, agriculture, plant creatures, horses, compromises, prophecy, deviation from gender norms, bridges


Godly Rivals

When the Nine were plotting the Divine Rebellion against Turoch, Korus’ role was not very glorious but it was important. He kept the Nine from killing each other long enough, so they could kill Turoch. Even in the Third Age, Korus and his minions still intervene to stop the Nine from killing each other, both figuratively and literally.

Korus gets along especially well with all the ladies, who happen to be partially neutral. By a happy coincidence the four goddesses are more directly tied to nature than Korus’ four brothers are tied to nature. The sun, magic, water, weather. These are all basic things intimately tied to the plants and animals that Korus manages. Khemra is a little hidebound, Greymoria is a little petty, Mera is a little naïve, and Nami is a little reckless but none of their schemes and machinations really threaten nature on a large scale.

Korus doesn’t get along as well with his brothers, but there is very little bad blood. Sometimes Maylar goes too and destroys too much at once. Sometimes Hallisan’s pushes progress too far and his minions chop down more trees than Korus would like. Sometimes Phidas’ schemes magnify the worst of civilization. Zarthus is probably Korus’ favorite brother, but even he can cause disruptions on his personal crusades.

If Korus doesn’t have any true rivals among the Nine, who is Korus’ worst enemy? Korus worst enemy is….himself.

Korus is the god of the wilderness and he is the god of agriculture. While Korus can wring his hands and fret about urban blight, the real threat to the wilderness is not forests being overtaken by cities, it is forests being overtaken by farmland.

Because Korus’ internal issues are his most important trait, I am going to hit factions first.


Factions, Schisms, and Heresies

Korus’ Dominion is Nature. Korus’ Gift is agriculture. The vast majority of Korus’ followers identify themselves as Stewards of the Dominion or Stewards of the Gift. My world does not have character classes or rigid character alignments, but if it did, the leaders of the Stewards of the Dominion would be druids with a bias towards Chaotic alignments and the leaders of the Stewards of the Gift would be clerics with a bias towards Lawful alignments.

The Stewards of the Gift and the Stewards of the Dominion do not work together very often. When they meet, they usually rely on ritual and tradition to keep them civil, but interactions are very rigid. There are a lot of protocols that must be observed, so it’s hard for them to interact informally in a congenial manner.

There are hardliners on both sides (okay most of the hardliners are Stewards of the Dominion). When hardliners cross paths there is often bloodshed. When Stewards fight Stewards, this is considered a private matter. It is taboo to involve outsiders. Most other priesthoods have no idea how deeply divided the Stewards are. They would lose their status as trusted arbiters if this civil strife was widely known. To outsiders, there isn’t much difference between Stewards of the Gift and Stewards of the Dominion, they are simply “Stewards.”

The Stewards of The Dominion

The Stewards of the Dominion recruit most of their priests and priestesses as adolescents or young adults. They usually stick to a single mentor and learn on the job. These Stewards usually have very long apprenticeships compared to the other priesthoods. Even before making a mentorship official, a Steward will often shadow his would-be apprentice from afar for weeks or even years. They will often throw obstacles into their potential recruit’s path to see how she copes with challenges.

The Stewards of the Dominion do not have overwhelming numbers but they are individually potent. Very few Dominion Stewards are non-spell casters. The few non-spellcasters among them are all exceptionally skilled with a wide array of four dot and five dot skills. They rarely interact with Korus’ worshippers directly. They will either live in the wilderness full-time or they exist as hermits on the fringe of society. Defense of the wilderness is what the Stewards of the Dominion are all about.

The most hardline faction of these Stewards are the Talons of Korus. The Talons believe civilization has grown too large and needs to be pared back by any means necessary including blood. Most Talons focus heavily on learning Animal magic above all other forms of magic. Upon achieving mastery of Animal magic at five dots, the caster can become virtually any natural animal.

The most moderate faction of the Stewards of the Dominion are Tribal Stewards. Tribal Stewards are Korus priests and priestesses that advise nomadic barbarian people, both human and monstrous. The Tribal Stewards are rarely in charge, but they are always listened to. Technically Tribal Stewards are Stewards of the Dominion, but their day-to-day activities and relations with outsiders are very similar to the Stewards of the Gift.



The Stewards of the Gift

The Stewards of the Gift recruit most of their priests and priestesses as children and train them in classroom settings with a lot of practical field work. In their case, field work is usually literal. The Stewards of the Gift maintain a fairly high numbers, but even so, they have to turn away applicants. Peasant family’s love to have their children become Stewards. First off, it’s one fewer mouth to feed. Second off, since the Stewards don’t do the Jedi thing and make children sever ties with their family, when the Stewards come back fully trained they can apply their magical know-how and advanced plant lore to make their parents’ and siblings’ farms more prosperous. Every spring, would be applicants to the join the Stewards of the Gift make themselves known. The Stewards will subject the applicants to a variety of physical, mental, and spiritual tests for six months. Then in the fall, those who passed all their tests are recognized and formally inducted.

The Stewards of the Gift arguably favor quantity over quality. If a village doesn’t have a Steward living among them, there is probably a Steward in the next village that visits often. They can cover more ground that way. Officially, the Stewards of the Gift help promote sustainable agricultural practices, but they do a lot more to make them welcome nearly everywhere they go. These Stewards help provide good advice and mediate disputes. They have midwives and veterinarians to help facilitate healthy births for both people and livestock. Most Stewards have several dots of Hearth Wisdom and are like walking apothecaries, even if they don’t have actual healing magic.

The most hard line faction of the Stewards of the Gift are the Urban Stewards, a group that makes other Stewards of the Gift uneasy sometimes. The Urban Stewards believe that large cities have complex webs of relationships and life cycles as compelling as those in forests. Urban Stewards are usually very good at reading people and make great investigators. Urban Stewards get called in to mediate minor disputes between townsfolk all the time.

The most moderate faction of the Stewards of the Gift are the Wardens. The Wardens are usually fairly potent warriors who train as rangers. They view themselves as the thin line between the darkness of the forest and the peaceful villagers of their protectorates. They sometimes defend the forests from the depredations of Man.

Korus Spirits

Korus has a fairly high number of active spirits. Most of Korus’ spirits are affiliated more with the Stewards of the Dominion than the Stewards of the Gift. Korus is a diverse deity with a wide array of tasks that need doing, so his spirit minions have a diverse set of roles and abilities. Naturally, a lot of Korus’ spirits are nature spirits, many of whom double as guardians of sites of natural wonder.

It is very popular for Korus’ Stewards to learn summoning magic. The default land animal summoned is a wolf and the default air animal is a hawk, but almost anything could conceivable. There is even more variety for sea creatures. Basically any sea creature not directly associated with another deity is fair game.

Korus and Geo-Politics

Korus has a nuclear option. He doesn’t use it much but it hangs over the head of everyone. Korus could create a famine if he is pushed too far.

In civilized lands, princes avoid insulting the Korus, Korus’ Stewards, and Korus’ spirits because Korus could cause their crops to fail. In uncivilized lands, barbarian chieftains avoid insulting Korus, Korus’ Stewards, and Korus’ spirits because Korus could cause game and edible plants to become scarce.

Korus’ Stewards are welcome pretty much everywhere, but they are often taken for granted. Korus Stewards are usually apolitical, so Korus worship is usually far deeper and more visible among commoners than nobles, but even nobles will pay Korus his due respects at least on holidays (which usually correspond to planting and harvest time).

The most Korus friendly civilized nation on Korus is Loren. The Wood Elves practice a mix of farming and nomadic hunting and gathering. In a sense, they are the one place where the divide between Stewards of the Gift and Stewards of the Dominion doesn’t really apply.

Korus worship is big in Kantoc. Hallisan may be the state patron, but Korus is what unites commoners and nobles here. All Kantocians love horses and Korus is the god of horses.

The least Korus friendly nations are Meckelorn and Stahlheim. Korus’ influence in Hollow Earth is limited and most dwarves don’t think twice about chopping down trees. That said they are aware that Korus will be angry if they push too far. These dwarves just push farther than most.

Among uncivilized people, Korus is especially popular among Kobolds. They are usually better at living with the land rather than off the land compared to most monstrous humanoids. The orcs are probably the least Korus-friendly. Like the dwarves, they don’t think much about chopping down trees when it suits them. Barbarian nomads that rely on horsemanship tend to worship Korus a lot.


Korus Creatures

Korus hasn’t spammed the world with humanoids or intelligent monsters, but he has created a lot of animals and animal-like monsters. It is unclear which animals were created originally by Korus or by Turoch but it matters little, Korus is the god of nearly all animals.

Korus is a dichotomous individual. Sometimes he and minions creates animals to aid civilized folk and sometimes he creates minions to hamper them. The former include horses and horse-like beasts like hippocampi and pegasi. The latter include rust monsters and cockatrices. Most of Korus’ creations are collaborations. He created rust monsters with Nami. He created dogs with Mera. If you believe the stories, Korus created trolls with Maylar.

When it comes to humanoids, the obvious Korus creatures are human-animal hybrids. There are so many creatures like this in folklore around the world that it’s hard to choose! One limiting factor is that a lot of human-animal hybrids are fey creatures and lycanthropes and I’m not 100% sure how I want Fair Folk and lycanthropes to fit into my world yet.

As of now I’m thinking of Fair Folk being the descendants of Turoch’s lesser minions who chose to sit out of the fight between Turoch and the Nine. My thoughts on lycanthropes is that they are a legacy of the Second Unmaking. The Demon Lords magically bio-engineered the disease of lycanthropy in an attempt to make pliable super soldiers but they accidentally created rabid uncontrollable super soldiers.

The leading candidate is centaurs. Given that Korus is big on horses it kind of makes sense, but centaurs are kind of an extreme variation of humanoid, I’m not sure if I want to include it.

I am intrigued by the Nezumi of the fantasy setting Rakugan. These Nezumi are like non-evil Skaven. Besides Splinter from the Ninja Turtles, it’s pretty uncommon to find benign ratmen. They would be a good template for a Korus created humanoid race. Rakugan has a corrupted region called the Shadowlands that spawns horrible monsters and corrupts normal people who visits. There are magical spells and talismans that can protect people adventuring there but it's only a short-term fix. Nezumi are the only race that is immune to Shadowlands taint.

Something based on Rakugan's Nezumi might be a good template for a Korus created humanoid race.


The Clergy

As mentioned above. The Stewards of the Dominion favor quality over quantity. They have a small cadre of very powerful priests and priestesses with a wide variety of skills. The Stewards of the Gift favor quantity over quality. They have a very large cadre of priests and priestesses, most of whom specialize in one or two fields of expertise which they pursue to perfection.

I already covered training and recruitment above, so I will skip to favored souls. Korus has a lot of favored souls. Korus has fewer favored souls than Maylar, but he has more favored souls than pretty much everyone else. Korus’ favored souls are nicknamed Seedlings. Korus seeds his favored souls equally among civilized and uncivilized folk, among humans and monsters.

Some Seedlings join the Stewards of the Gift or the Stewards of the Dominion, but most do not bother seeking priestly trappings. They roam the world as free agents. Their goals, methods, and powers are too diverse to pigeonhole. They can be almost anywhere doing almost anywhere.


Material Needs

The Stewards of the Gift get a lot of donations. Everyone wants their crops to be healthy. They get a near constant stream of small donations from the peasantry and they get sporadic large donations from the upper crust of society. This is good, because the Stewards of the Gift maintain large staffs and have a lot of people to feed and clothe.

The Stewards of the Dominion occasionally get some monetary donations by people who want to buy them off and don’t know any better, but most Stewards of the Dominion are more than capable of living off the land indefinitely. If they really need filthy civilized coins, they can sell pelts, herbs, regents, or potions.

Sometimes princes and potentates give the Stewards land rather than gold and this suits the Stewards just fine. Korus probably has more bishoprics than any other deity on Scarterra. Bishoprics run by the Stewards of the Gift are usually extremely productive pieces of farmland where they train their new members in plant magic and mundane herbalism while using the farming proceeds to provide food and money to all the myriad temples. Bishoprics run by the Stewards of the Dominion resemble modern nature preserves.


Priestly Ranks

Stewards of the Gift
Pastor: Full member of the Stewards of the Gift, informally they are called “gleaners”
Reverend: Full member who holds a command rank
Green: Honorary prefix for priest skilled in herbalism and plant magic

Stewards of the Dominion
Druid: Full member of the Order.
Warden: Full member who holds a command rank
Talon: Alternative title for druids skilled in combat, frequently they are shapechangers

Both Factions
Initiate: Trainee member of Korus’ priesthood. Informally they are called “buds”
Steward: Full member of Korus’ priesthood.
Auspex: Honorary prefix for priest skilled in divination
Seedling: Nickname for favored soul of Korus, especially if said favored soul is iterant and doesn’t claim a single territory as home.
Venerable: Honorary prefix for a priest or priestess with a long service record

In full formal settings, Brynn the highest ranking Steward in Fumaya might be called Venerable Green Reverend Stewardess Brynn. But Generally she is called Reverend Brynn.


Scaraqua

Scaraquans consider Korus as one of the three Sisters of the Sea or the three Daughters of the Sea depending on how you translate “Seeyirah” from Scaraquan Common into English. Along with Mera and Greymoria, Mera is considered one of the preeminent deities of the sea. Outside the Three Seeyrah, the other deities are considered sidekicks, helpers, or minor annoyances to the Three Sisters.

Sea Korus is a bit more standoffish and asocial than Land Korus, but she retains Korus’ impartiality as much as possible. In general Sea Korus believes that good fences makes good neighbors and her followers normally endorse Scaraquans minimizing their contact with Scarterrans.

Korus is the main nature goddess of the sea. This means that Sea Korus is basically the goddess of fish. Every sea creature not directly associated with another deity is essentially considered part of Korus’ purview. Even then, Korus has indirect influence over sharks, crustaceans, cetaceans, swordfish, and all the other fish that are symobilically tied to another deity.


Hollow Earth

Korus is one of the three most powerful deities in Scaraqua. Korus is among the most influential deities on Scarterra if he isn’t the most influential. This stretches Korus’ powers and divine sight pretty thin.

As far as the denizens of Hollow Earth are concerned, Korus is the least powerful and least important deity. That is probably part of the reason why dwarves give Korus less respect than most other demihumans due to the fact that dwarves spend roughly as much time in Hollow Earth as on the surface of Scarterra.


Anyway, hope you found this worth reading. I’m open to suggestions and feedback on fleshing out Korus and his/her followers further. I will answer any Korus based questions if you feel I left something out.

 

Thanks to @Papalugy for this thread about my life. First World Problems.

Since it's unlikely I will be able to play an RPG for at least two months, I might as well occupy myself diving into the weeds of my game system.

Magic!

So I have made a detailed profile covering the deity portfolios of all of the Nine and their followers. Well most of the Nine. I haven't posted my profile on Greymoria because I realized something. My magic system needs polishing, and Greymoria is the goddess of magic. I cannot profile her until I peg down the details of how magic works in my world.

Here is a succinct video on how magic works in D&D 5th edition.




36 word summary of magic in Scarterra

Divine magic represents the natural abilities of the Nine. Divine spell-casters get their magic directly from the Nine.

Arcane spell-casters get their magic from learning how to use the natural laws of the universe, aka SCIENCE!


(as if I'm going to stop at 36 words...)


The meaty wordy stuff
Replacing the Weave

Okay so in 5th edition "the Weave" is overarching thing that encompasses all magic. I originally envisioned Scarterra as a setting for D&D 3.5. At one point I was going through all the source books I have and figuring out which prestige classes I wanted to have and which I did not (total waste of time, better to add or remove such people as needed).

Anyway, I was really intrigued by the Seekers of the Song. These are basically bards that seek out the primal song of the universe. I really liked the idea of the primal song of the universe. I was also running a White Wolf game Demon: the Fallen at the time. Anyway, in Demon, God was too powerful and too perfect to actually create the universe without breaking it or Himself, so he created angels to be his hands. The angels literally sang creation into existence. That seemed poetic to me.

My friend who was helping me brainstorm Scarterra pointed out that in Tolkien's Silmarillion, the original deities of Middle Earth sang creation into existence. I took this as a green light. I had not heard of "the Weave" but I like the idea of an overarching something that envelopes the universe. So Turoch sang the Ten and the first version of Scarterra into existence and the Nine sang their will upon Scarterra later. When the Nine work together they literally harmonize. When they fight they make discordant noise.

I also wanted to create a D&D world with as few plot holes and inconsistencies as possible. In 3.5 with Unearthed Arcana (a supplement my group really liked), bards could be traditional bards, divine bards, savage bards, or bardic sage. It didn't change the fundamentals of the class much. They had 80% of the same spells regardless of what they picked. I figured this worked because they were different expressions of the Celestial Song.

When I turned my setting into my home brew system of D&D10, I kept running with the Celestial Song. When I tried to explain the concept to my three players (who do not include my friend who helped brainstorm Scarterra with me), they told me the concept of the gods singing the creation into existence was "hokey." This made me sad....

I think "The Weave" is a bit hokey.



Rationing Magic, Vancian versus Video Games

In most cases in RPGs and video games, if you let characters use their magic an infinite number of times, it’s too powerful and it sidelines non-magic users.

Originally, D&D used variants on “Vancian spell casting”.

Spoiler: Mildly interesting tangent on Vancian Spell-casting

First a quick history lesson on Vancian spell casting. Vance was a science fiction writer who was influential to Gary Gygax when he was creating 1st edition Dungeons and Dragons.

In Vance’s novels, wizards spent hours preparing spells. They would cast 99% of a spell simply awaiting a trigger word to finish the spell. The stored spell took the form of a demon which was bound in the wizard’s head. The strongest wizards could hold maybe six or seven demons in their head at best.

When this transitioned to D&D. The wizard would still prepare 99% of a spell ahead of time minus a trigger word. No demons were involved though. 2nd edition added bards. They cast magic the same way as wizards, they just couldn’t do it as well since they were only dabblers.

3rd edition introduced sorcerers who cast the same spells as wizards but they did not have to prepare spells. They had more spells per day but less variety. 3rd edition changed bards. Before bards were musicians that also dabbled in spells. In the new edition, bards cast their magic through their music. A 3rd edition supplement introduced Warlocks who could use their magic a limitless number of times per day, though their magic is a bit weaker.

In 4th edition, warlocks were popular. 4th edition D&D was not popular, but some things carried over to 5th edition. Warlocks, sorcerers, wizards, and bards largely exist in 5th edition like they did before but now all four of them can use cantrips an infinite number of times. They have relatively fewer spells than they used to.

Most video games use some kind of mana system. Magic takes mana points. I opted to use this. It’s possible although unlikely that a player would choose to play a character that is a divine spell-caster and an arcane caster, so I created too points system. Divine casters have a mana pool, and arcane casters have a quintessence pool.

I have toyed with the formula with playtesting, but this seems to be fair.

Mana = (Character’s Willpower score + sum of all the character’s magic dots) x 3

Quintessence = (Character’s Willpower score + sum of all the character’s magic dots) x 4

The numbers created seem to be balanced. Spell-casters have a lot of variety of options in combat, but they have limited mystical resources forcing them to not be wasteful.

I could create cantrips that can be used an infinite time, but as of yet I have not come up with any spells that minor.

One dot powers cost one point of mana or quintessence, two dot powers cost two points, and so on and so forth. Nice and simple.

Invocation magic is different. Invocation has one spell “Make Things Go Boom.” They roll Stamina + Invocation to make the Boom. Then they roll Dexterity + Archery to aim the boom (Aranil’s player is bitter that his very best invocation roll he ever made missed). The better the roll, the bigger the boom, and the more quintessence is spent.


Divine Magic

There are a few minor things I am likely to tweak but I am fairly pleased with the basics I have developed. It is fairly easy to grasp and understand for new players (or experienced players who are groggy from too much pizza), but it has a lot of depth for building character variety.

I have thirteen spheres of divine magic are based on mundane skills, and all of them use a simple attribute + ability. So the better you are at mundane medicine, the more potential you have for magical medicine.

Animal Magic: Charisma + Animal Ken
Augmentation: Charisma + Survival
Craft Magic: Manipulation + Craft
Divination: Perception + Theology
Healing: Charisma + Medicine
Hexing: Manipulation + Theology
Necromancy: Stamina + Theology
Plant Power: Charisma + Hearth Wisdom
Protection: Wits + Theology
Purification: Stamina + Hearth Wisdom
Spirit Magic: Charisma + Theology
Weather: Stamina + Survival
Wrath: Strength + Theology

None of these pairings are set in stone, but I'm not going to change something that impairs a character in play. Neshik's player bought a little bit of Plant magic just because he noticed his Charisma + Hearth Wisdom dice pool was very high at nine dice. When I first drafted my magic rules, I thought about using Stamina or Survival in place of Charisma and Hearth Wisdom. It would be ganky for me to change to Stamina + Survival now (which Neshik has four dice in).

I could add a fourteenth sphere of magic if I really wanted to, but I don't have any ideas that I think would be a good fit. Being a big fan of Rick Riordan, I briefly toyed with the idea of using the D&D10 system for an Ancient Greek based setting. Greek mythology has gods messing with mortals' minds all the time, so I'd probably add some kind of Mind Manipulation power for Aphrodite's, Ares', and Dionysus' spell-casters to wield. That's not a great fit for Scarterra because free will is big deal in my setting and Ancient Greek mythology is more built on the will of the Fates.


Like most of the powers in most of the White Wolf games we play, the divine spheres follow a one dot to five dot progression. You have to get the one dot power before you can get the two dot power, and so on and so forth.

One exception. If a character pays extra, he or she can take the Divination ●●●●● power without buying the prerequisite powers. Such people are called “oracles.” Most oracles are one-trick ponies who have no other powers of note and basically set up shop somewhere and wait for petitioners to visit them. A few of them roam the earth like Cassandra.



In theory, any divine spell caster in my world can study any of the thirteen divine spheres, but each of the Nine has three "favored spheres." Their followers receive a -1 difficulty break when casting magic in a favored sphere.


Greymoria: Crafts, Hexing, Necromancy
Korus: Animals, Divination, Plants
Mera: Healing, Protection, Purification,
Nami: Divination, Hexing, Weather
Maylar: Animal, Hexing, Wrath
Zarthus: Augmentation, Crafts, Hexing
Phidas: Crafts, Protection, Purification
Khemra: Divination, Purification, Wrath
Hallisan: Augmentation, Crafts, Wrath
Pantheon: Choose three of the following: Augmentation, Divinations, Crafts, Hexing, Purification, Protection, and/or Wrath

Divine spell-casters are not required to take any of their deity’s favored spheres if they so choose. Neshik initially took zero of Khemra’s favored spheres but since character creation Neshik has bought two dots of Divination and one dot of Purification because these are very handy for adventurers. It is a safe bet that Neshik is never going to pick up any dots of Wrath. He is personally at peace with the fact that he is helpless if his friends cannot fight for him.



Thanks to @NIGHTBRINGER for the meme. In this case Svetlana the half-orc and Aranil the elven invokver are collectively the Wookie. That's why Neshik the weak charismatic gnomes seeks to stay in their good graces and routinely outfits his much stronger deadlier friends with potions and other magic items.

Characters that spend 8 experience points or four freebie points to buy a fourth favored sphere in a sphere of their choice, representing a personal aptitude. Neshik’s player did this and took Healing as a favored sphere. He pointed out that if my game took off and became mainstream, it seems likely that a lot of people would do this. Healing magic is the most useful of all the magic to a typical adventuring party and it’s only a favored sphere of one of the Nine.

I am satisfied that I made it relatively easy for any divine spell caster to be really good at Healing magic if they choose.


D&D 5th edition has clerics, paladins, rangers, and druids casing divine magic. 3.5 had Favored Souls which are a charater class that really captured my imagination, but favored souls have not transitioned to 5th edition yet as far as I know.

D&D10 does not have character classes but a player can approximate a druid by taking high ratings in Survival and Hearth Wisdom and picking up as many dots of Plant and Animal magic as the player can afford. Neshik’s player has joked that he is turning into a druid, but that’s a side effect of the fact that they have been doing a lot of wilderness adventures and all three PCs are raising their wilderness related skills.

A player could approximate a ranger if they loaded up on combat skills, Survival, and Stealth, and then bought a couple dots of Plant and Animal magic.

A player could approximate a paladin if they loaded up on combat skills and then took a few dots of Healing, Protection and/or Augmentation magic. I figure in Scarterra I would use the term “holy warriors” instead of “paladin.” All of the Nine would have their own holy warriors, but they would be interpreted different. Greymoria’s holy warriors would probably focus on hexing (like the hexblades from 3.5 edition!). Mera’s holy warriors would resemble old school D&D paladins. Khemra’s holy warriors would probably focus on Wrath magic and hit things very hard.


Finally, divine spell-casters in my world have three different possible origins for their magic. They are either favored souls, formally trained theurgists, or self-taught theurgists.

Favored souls are born and theurgists are made. Other than that they cast spells pretty much the exact same way.

Theurgists require three things to manifest. Willpower at least five dots (Willpower ranks between 1 and 10), focused piety, and a focus on a related mundane skill. Most theurgists are conditioned to have these three things via training from their mentors, but a few theurgists are self-taught. They are lay people of great piety who stumble onto having divine magic. Sometimes they use their new theurgy to seek out a place in the priesthood associated with their favorite god or goddess, sometimes they decide that they are better than the formally trained theurgists, and oppose the more organized elements of their religion. For Game of Thrones fans, this would be like the Sparrows.

So I am pretty much fully satisfied with both the fluff and crunch I established for my divine spell-casters. I am NOT fully satisfied with what I have for arcane casters so far though I cannot put my finger on exactly what is bothering me.


Arcane Magic

Originally I created five possible mystic traditions for arcane spell-casters. Mages were either warlocks, Hermetic wizards, savage wizards, draconic sorcerers, or bardic mages.

Warlocks (female witches) made a pact with some of kind otherworldly being. Most commonly a spirit of Greymoria, but it is possible for a warlock to make a pact with a Faerie Lord, Void Demon, or spirit of Nami.

Hermetic wizards resembled Hogwarts students. They use spell books, wands, formal studies, etc.

Savage wizards are basically the mages of barbarian tribes. They chant and dance, have ritual scarring, tattoos, and face paint among other things.

Draconic sorcerers are born with their magic because their ancestors mated with dragons and they channel a portion of their draconic ancestor’s mystic power.

Bardic magics use their music to tap into the Celestial Song.


I also lifted the eight schools of magic from D&D and Pathfinder. Abjuration, Conjuration, Divination, Enchantment, Illusion, Invocation, Necromancy, Transmutation,


Each of these five mystic traditions had strengths and weaknesses. The players suggested that instead of packaging strengths and weaknesses together like this, that I just break down every strength into a Merit and every weakness into a Flaw. The players could create their own mystic tradition this way. At this point I had potential players who were interested in joining my game but flaked out later, so I had even more feedback than I have now.

I agreed.

What did everyone do? They all chose to take no Merits and Flaws. They just wanted the dots of magic and didn’t want anything complicating it.

You got to give the players what they want, but it sort of me bugs that this most mages look the same. Even if I made the Flaws very generous points wise and the Merits very cheap, they still didn’t want them.


A bardic wizard has the flaw that he or she must sing or play a musical instrument to cast spells. That means the bard can never cast magic quietly. Other mages can cast spells without speaking it’s just much harder. Bardic mages also cannot have more dots in a magical skill than they have dots in Performance.

That’s an 8 point Flaw. In game terms, it means the Bard starts out with just shy of three dots of extra magic at character creation, but there were no takers.

Fun fact, there is a loop hole in the rules that I put in on purpose. A character who wants to be able to cast divine magic and arcane magic can take this flaw twice and get 16 freebie points and essentially only be hampered by the flaw once.

This was intentional based on my hokey Celestial Song. The Celestial Song encompasses both arcane and divine magic, so bards can utilize both magic types easier.


Book bound is a 7 point flaw. Roughly equal to 2.5 dots of free magic. Book bound casters cannot replenish their quintessence points without a spell-book. Something wizards have had to deal with in D&D forever. There were no takers.

Focus bound is a 4 point flaw. You need special tools like wands and whatnot. That’s essentially 1.5 dots of free magic. If you don’t have your tool, you get a penalty when casting magic. There were no takers.

Mystic Marks was a 4 point flaw. The downside is that every peasant can tell by looking “Oh he is probably a wizard. No takers.


Greymoria is the goddess of magic. I had this big thing planned with various factions built up around different styles of casting arcane magic but then I realized they are pretty much all the same.



Arcane magic dots are considerably cheaper than divine magic dots BUT mages have to buy their individual spells separately. Exception is Invocation. Invocation costs more than divine magic, but it has no spell list. As mentioned, it’s just variations on making things go boom. It just so happens that most players and perspective players gravitate towards Invocation. I don’t if that is because they are attracted to the simplicity, or if it’s because gamers like to make things go boom.

Even though Aranil captured a big fat spell book, Aranil’s player is not in any hurry to spend his hard earned experience on learning new spells. He is choosing to focus on mundane abilities above magic. Aranil’s player says I should not change my rules on spell-casting to make them cheaper and just run with it. Perhaps I shouldn’t read too much into this. Aranil’s player really likes jack-of-all-trades characters. He doesn’t gush over giant spell lists.


Each spell has an attribute + casting attribute pairing.

For instance going to level one magic. Charm person is Appearance + Enchantment. Sleep is Manipulation + Enchantment. Daze is Wits + Enchantment. You get the idea.

I went through the list and assigned attributes to them.


Recap the attributes that all characters have are Strength, Stamina, Dexterity, Appearance, Charisma, Manipulation, Appearance, Intelligence, Wits, and Perception.


Strength isn’t used much by mages, it’s normally only paired with spells with extremely brutal and violating physical attacks. So a fair bit of Necromancy and a little bit of Transmutation.

Due to SCIENCE! I figure whenever a spell-caster is channeling the power of the Elemental Plane, they are using their own body as a mystic conduit. That is Stamina. That makes Stamina important for Conjurers. Anything that toughens the body is based on Stamina making it important for Abjurers who want to resist damage (most of them). Transmuters use Stamina when altering themselves.

Dexterity is my catchall. If I have no idea where to put something, I make Dexterity because ummm, requires complicated hand motions. This pops up in Transmutation and Illusion. Back in 2nd edition, Transmuters and Illusionists had minimum Dexterity scores. It’s also used if the character is magically wielding or shaping something because Dexterity is used if the character is mundanely wielding or shaping something. If a spell has to be aimed, Dexterity + Archery or Dexterity + Athletics (player can choose the better one) is the to-hit roll.


Per usual, Appearance is the least rolled attribute. I use it for Blur, Mirror Image, Charm Person, Charm Monster, and Mass Charm. That’s it. If I borrow Majesty from Vampire the Masquerade, I guess that would use Appearance, but I’m considered Majesty is just too powerful as it makes almost all around the caster drooling morons, allies too.

Charisma is used as the basis for most buff spells cast on a willing subjects. This is vital for Enchanters and Transmutes whenever they are bestowing a bonus on someone else as opposed to twisting their minds and bodies against their will. Illusionists use Charisma for advanced spells to disguise groups of their friends and allies. Conjurers roll Charisma when summoning spirits that are well-disposed to them already. In a lot of cases, spirits are eager to answer a conjurers just because they are bored. Necromancers use Charisma to cast speak with Dead, and to animate mindless undead.

Manipulation is big on Illusion as illusion is all about tricking people. Abjuration uses Manipulation when the goal is to hide from enemies rather than banish or deter them. Necromancers use Manipulation to summon and bind free-willed undead.


Intelligence isn’t used much in the magic of D&D10 which is odd to me because Intelligence is vital to wizards in all forms of D&D. Divination uses it for detailed analysis spells. Intelligence is used for high level spells that deal with the fundamentals of the universe. Opening portals to other planes or violating the laws of nature grossly, so it pops up in advanced Conjuration and Necromancy magic a fair bit. Most spells that stay active when the wizard stops concentrating use intelligence. So programmed illusions use Intelligence. I guess making permanent magic items could use an Intelligence roll but making magic items is more about forking over loads of resources than making a gazillion dice rolls.

Perception is used for anything involving magically augmented senses making it the cornerstone of Divination and mildly important in Abjuration, Transmutation, and Necromancy (you cannot bind a ghost if you cannot find a ghost).

Wits is used when the wizard is reacting to someone else, so it’s hugely important to Abjuration magic. All power word spells (the most popular of which is Feather Fall) use Wits. Most spells that require active concentration or focusing on two things at once require Wits. Some Divination spells that throw your senses somewhere else while still looking out of your own eyes. These multi-eye spells use Wits. Many illusions that involve concentrating on something active and changing use Wits.


I had the thought that if I paired every school of magic with a single attribute, that might simplify things in a good way. That way players have less to keep track of. On the other hand it might lead to easy min-maxing. In D&D 5th edition (and all the previous editions), it is not easy to raise your base ability scores. In D&D10 it is not very hard to raise your base attributes. It’s not that hard to raise an attribute to the maximum rating of 5. By design attribute ratings of 5 are supposed to be fairly rare. By forcing players to utilize a wide array of attributes this prevents everyone and their grandmother from having five dots in something.

Or maybe I shouldn’t be that concerned. Svetlana has five dots in Strength, Stamina, and Dexterity and a 10 dot Willpower. It just so happens that if a player character chooses not to be a spell-caster and not load up on Merits, that character can put all her freebie points into mundane and get these freakishly high scores. In the real world, five dot attributes are practically a one-in-a-million trait, but Scarterra is a heroic fantasy setting. Both “heroic” and “fantasy” imply people with amazing abilities.


And the Rest!

Spirit Loas channel the spirits of ghosts and the honored dead into the living to let living people utilize the abilities of friendly dead people. That's magic. It's not spell-casting, but it's magic as least as far as real world people consider. But it uses establishes rules of Scarterra's universe so it's SCIENCE!

Any monster or creature with innate supernatural ability is essentially in the same boat as a Spirit Loa.

Alchemy is like that even more so. Alchemy is the epitome of SCIENCE! since it uses a few lower case scientific methods.

Psionics was going to be a third form of magic in my setting, but my players were pretty clear they thought it would better not to include them in the beta test of our game system and they weren't huge fans of psionics anyway.

D&D tends to associate psionics with distant planes and universes beyond. I was/am planning to link psionics to the Void. Void Demons are telepathic so I figured I'd give them more psionic powers. Also, as for mortals with psionic powers, only mortal races created after the Second Unmaking have psionic potential. In other words, psionics is something humans can do that elves, dwarves, and gnomes cannot.

My story plan is that most people are very superstitiously biased against human psions. After all, psionics is "demon magic."


Anyway, I meandered a lot but the bottom line, I feel like my magic system is missing something. It's not required to go deep into the weeds to just smash some orc heads, but I want to create an internally consistent hard magic system. It's not super important to have an internally consistent magic system for a casual game, but I would also like to write stories set in my world.

 

Hmmm, no response on my magic musing. I guess it was kind of dry and mechanical compared to my previous points.

Let me cover something sort of topical.

Plague!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

So the First Unmaking was precipitating millions of rampaging elementals. The Second Unmaking was precipitated by genocidal Void Demon Armies.

Both Unmakings killed at least 90% of all animals and people essentially hitting the reset button on the world. But not every major event has to reset creation. There are historical calamities that shape things for generations to come but they don't end civilization.

I thought about having one such event be a plague. Years ago when I was building Scarterra as a D&D 3.5 setting I pondered having a plague be the main meta event.

I wasn't sure what the symptoms and contagion vectors would be, but my basic plan was that whatever it was, it spread faster than the world's magical healers could deal with.

I thought of a small portion of the population being completely immune to the plague, but when they are exposed to the plague, it changes them physically so it's obvious for all to see. Maybe an odd skin pigmentation. Maybe something like Harry Potter's forehead scar It just so happens that all of the people who bear the mark are young people with great potential. In other words, low level PC classes. Some are heroes, some are villains, some are in between. Let's call them the Marked.

My thought is that the Nine are too busy arguing to take collective action. Maylar and Greymoria deny having anything to do with the plague and no one believes them. Anyway the Nine all independently immunized a segment of people who shared their values, but they were unwilling or unable to give anyone instructions. Thus the Marked have to fend for themselves.

I thought it might be interesting to have a lot of civil war and unrest as people react to the calamities around them. Some view the Marked as their saviors and others view them as witches that are infecting everyone else. As the plague spreads, towns and fortifications are abandoned and this emboldens monsters to push in from the wilderness. Monstrous humanoids are both emboldened and made desperate as they start catching the plague too.

I figured this would open an RPG campaign to a wide variety of adventures. Eventually as the players level up dealing with monsters and unrest, they would go fight some spirit or Void Demon to get a McGuffin to make the plague go away. Or maybe the Mystery Villain is causing the plague and his/her/it's death will stop the plague from spreading.

I took a straw poll from my player base and from strangers on the Internet and it seems that a plague world is not a great setting for heroic fantasy setting that people would enjoy. This was in the Before Time. I certainly would not want to run a plague setting now. RPGs are all about escapism.

 

Yay, new likes and replies! I was panicking that no one was reading my posts on this thread any more.

When you do get around to writing it down, I would like to read it.

As of right now, the mysterious realm is not very developed. It's mostly a blank slate right now.

In classic D&D, the Underdark is dominated by the conflict between the Illithids and every one else and the Drow and everyone else. My world does not have Illithids or Drow.

My friends and I have not met since social distancing has become the norm. We may or may not try playing a game over web cameras. I need to see if I can find a cheap serviceable camera at Wal-Mart the next time I venture out of isolation for supplies or see if I can order it online.

The last time we met the PCs had a little Hollow Earth adventure. They ferried a bunch of supplies looted from Guldur the lich underground so as not to draw the attention of the Dirty Crow Orc tribes. Covered in detail on page 30 btw.

Large portions of this were on an underground river, so this adventure was water themed. They had to deal with a sludge elemental. Then some inverse water elementals. Then some water trolls, then a goblin ghost and his drowned zombie minions, a couple overly playful water elementals and a more or less friendly Delver who they negotiated help to avoid a giant snake monster. The players were freaking out because they thought it might be a dragon, nope, just a really really big snake.

Anyway the next adventure that the players said they want to do is to help the northern villagers defeat the Dirty Crow Orc tribe that has been shaking them down for tribute. That should take up at least two game sessions. Three or four game sessions is a possibility.

After that I'm not 100% what I want to do next. Fumaya is a small nation with a lot of problems. If the PCs defeat the Dirty Crows, they will pretty much have pacified all of Fumaya's northern problems.

Fumaya's southern problems are two fold. The main external threat is that Swynfaredia is probing them to see if a mass invasion is feasible. The internal threat is my Game of Thrones inspired noble intrigue. There is a potential fourth player that could join our group that would eat up noble intrigue with a spoon, but I don't think the three players I have would be very interested in noble intrigue.

Speaking of noble intrigue. Swynfaredia can field about five times as many soldiers and ten times as many spell-casters as Fumaya. It should be no contest, but Swynfaredia is not very unfied. They have a whole bunch of feuding houses. All of them want to make sure that if Fumaya is invaded, they want their house to get the lion's share of the spoil and they want the others houses to absorb most of the costs and the losses.

We had a lot of good engagement crowd sourcing coming up with concepts for 10-20 Border Baronies.

Now I'm hoping we can crowd source 6-15 noble houses.

 

That's a good start. The details for Swynfaredian history is way back on Page Three.

Anyway here is the additional background stuff I was working on when Warden wrote his thoughtful reply.

Spoiler: Where I got the concept from Swynfaredia from

So I based my nation of Swynfaredia largely off my friend’s nation of Discermercordia (DEESER MER CORD IYA). Discermercordia was created for a 3.5 D&D game. In fact, one of the player characters was a Discermercordian noble woman who took up adventuring in distant lands in order to avoid an unwanted lands.

Dungeons and Dragons from 1st edition through 5th edition has had five basic types of Chromatic dragons: Red, blue, green, white, and black, and five basic types of Metallic dragons: gold, silver, bronze, brass, and copper.

Chromatic dragons are pretty much always evil and metallic dragons are pretty much always good. Each of the dragons has a set breath weapons and a basic personality.

Going to the chromatic dragons. White dragons live in cold areas with lots snow, their breath weapon is ice, and their MO is as a cunning predator. Green dragons live in forests, their breath weapon is poisonous gas and their MO is as a brutal puppet master. I don’t need to go through all of them, there are youtube videos that can do that.

Discermercordia was founded by ten half dragons, one of each type. Supposedly the ten dragons worked together to found nation. In traditional D&D one dragon of all ten colors cooperating is extremely unlikely, but whose to argue with a cool idea. Also, it’s possible the story of DIscermercordia’s true founding was lost to legend. In any event, Discermercordia has ten houses, one house per each of the founding dragons.

I could revert to classic D&D where dragons are color coded for convenience, but I probably will not do so, unless I end up selling the rights of Scarterra to Wizards of the Coast (not in cards). I Scarterra, my dragons don’t come in subspecies. I have one species: “dragon.” Any two dragons of opposite sex and breeding age can make baby dragons. Most dragons prefer to mate with dragons like themselves and most dragon babies resemble their parent’s powers and personalities

So right off the bat, I don’t think I want to have ten houses based on the ten D&D standard issue dragons, but I do like the basic concept of Discermercordia.

Anyway my friend said I could use his idea but insisted I not use the name Discermercordia. I googled the translation for "sorcery" in several languages and in Welsh I got "dewiniaeth" I like all the S sounds in Discermercordia so I added an S to Dewinaeth and some how morphed it into Swynfaredia.

So a group of dragons had a bunch of half-dragon/half-human children and they helped set up the half-dragons as the rulers of a small human nation. The dragons went away or died but their descendants possessed great magical power which they used to cement their power.

On some level, they hold on to their political power with raw might (on some level, all rulers do that). But most rulers like to create some kind of state myth to legitimize their rule. In this case, they built a mythology about how great their dragon founders were, how great dragons are in general, how the descendants of dragons are awesome, and the descendants of the founding dragons are especially awesome.

When most fantasy writers create a setting, they envision the fantasy world in the present and then work backwards to develop a history for their setting. I tend to go the opposite when I develop Scarterra. I literally started with the gods creating the world! But maybe this time it is better to work backwards from the present. I would like somewhere in the vicinity of 10 noble major noble houses in Swynfaredia, give or take. Anywhere between 5 and 15 really. Probably should avoid 9, because that might be confusing, so my noble houses are not confused with the Nine.

I figure the original houses would be based on the Founding Dragons. I’m probably going to have four Founding Dragons, but I could easily make the number anywhere between three and ten. Probably should avoid nine, because that might be confusing.

That was a thousand a years ago. 20-30 generations later, due to intermarriages, most Swynfaredian nobles have the blood of ALL the Founding Dragons in their veins. This would create new blended families. It’s highly likely that a powerful and charismatic leader of a blended family could petition to be recognized as a new house altogether. They also married a ton of sorcerers and sorceresses into the noble family. This could also create new noble houses. Over those 20-30 generations, Swynfaredia grew in geographic a lot.

Lets say I have five founding houses. They are probably still intact it’s possible that over 20-30 generations of fighting one was driven to extinction (at least in name) or one was reduced into a paper tiger. A very powerful sorcerer might be given recognition as a new House to cement an alliance.


The top down approach. “These are the house concepts I want now. Once I have the houses established I will work backwards to figure out how the houses came to be.”

The historical approach “These are the original houses. A bunch of stuff happened. These things caused new houses to form and old houses to die.”

I tend to favor the historical approach but that is a lot of work to write, and it might be thoroughly. If the grand history of Swynfaredia does not impact the stories I’m telling, it is not necessary to write them.


I need to draw a more detailed local map of this region of West Colassia.

Swynafaredias northwestern border is with Fumaya. Their northeastern border is with the Wood Elves of Loren (edit, renamed Codenya to avoid being sued). There western border is going to be the dwarf nation of Stahlheim. They might share a very tiny border with the Border Baronies in the northwest. In the southwest, Stahlheim Borders one of the last West Colassian colonies of the Elven Empire (Timberland). Swynfaredia’s eastern border is with Uskala.


Basic Recap of Geography

Loren (Codenya): Basically the same as the Wood Elves of Warhammer Fantasy Lore though they are somewhat less xenophobic in my world than in WHF.

Stahlheim: Stahlheim is a break away dwarven nation that now eclipses the dwarf homeland in both population and wealth. They still fit the main dwarf stereotypes (love beer, hate orcs, long beards) but they are less isolationist because they love commerce.

Fumaya: The beleaguered scrappy nation where the PCs have done all of their adventures in or near so far.

Elven Empire: Has-been super power. They are not weak, but they are less than half what they used to be. They lost most of their overseas colonies when their human subjects clamored for independence colony by colony.

Uskala: Arguably the strongest nation in my entire world but they are roughly on par with Swynfaredia. They ruled by an ironfisted king who is a dragon pretending to be a vampire pretending to be a human.


How Geography applies to Swynfaredia.

Both Swynfaredia and Uskala started out as small nation and they gradually by the pen or by sword they gradually added new lands to their lands to their kingdom over many centuries. Uskala now doesn’t have much room to expand. Uskala can only expand through the Wood Elves of Loren or the Sorcerers of Swynfaredia, or Uskala can expand north and east where the lands are not nearly as fertile.

King Drosst of Uskala is very patient and he likes starting wars with nations much smaller and weaker than his. He’s not eager to conquer Loren or Swynfaredia though he is watching them like a hawk for any signs of weakness.


Swynfaredia could in theory annex the Elven Empire’s nearby colony. At least once, maybe twice in history, a colony of the Elven Empire rebelled and then Swynfaredia “rescued” the rebels and brought them into Swynfaredia for their own safety. At the time, this was viewed as a good thing. At least we are answering to a human lord now. Some of are regretting what their ancestors chose.

I need to name the colony in question. Timberland sounds too much like a pop singer, but we’ll go with that for now. Many of the peasants of Timberland are convinced that the elf lords or the Elven Empire are much nicer lords than the sorcerers of Swynfaredia. While the humans of Timberland would love to gain their independence they do not want to trade their Elven lords for Swynfaredian lords.

The Elven Empire’s military and economic power is based on the fact that they have the finest navy in the world. Timberland is the center of the Elven Empire’s ship building industry. The Elven Empire cannot afford to lose Timberland. The current empress is using both the carrot. The carrot is that she has lowered taxes for her subjects in Timberland and promoted several humans and half-elves to token government positions. The stick is that she has a lot of soldiers stationed in Timberland. Swynfaredia would love to conquer Timberland but they don’t need it. They have a lot of timber in their own lands.


Dwarves do not like arcane magic much, and they are somewhat suspicious of a human nation run by sorcerers, but they like sorcerers’ gold. If the noble houses of Swynfaredia unified, they could probably conquer Stahlheim after a long and bloody war, but the dwarves are worth more alive than dead. Swynfaredia produces more grain than they need. They sell most of their excess grain to Stahlheim in exchange for dwarven metalwork. Everyone wins.


Swynfaredia has enough soldiers and sorcerers that they could theoretically conquer Loren. The thing is the Wood Elves are very good at guerilla fighting. Any territorial gains the Swynfaredians make would be very expensive. Also, as mentioned before, Swynfaredia has enough timber for their basic needs already. The most coveted thing that Loren has that Swynfaredia wants is a lot of magic fonts.

The Wood Elves have separate treaties with Swynfaredia and Uskala. If Swynfaredia invades Loren, Uskala promised to back them up. If Uskala invades Loren, Swynfaredia promised to back them up. Both Loren and Uskala have broken treaties in the past, but mutual self-interest applies. Neither Uskala nor Swynfaredia wants to see their rival get that much land.


Houses by Geography

At least one noble house is going to have lands that border Timberland. At least two houses are going to have lands that border Fumaya. At least two houses are going to have lands that border Loren and at least two houses are going to have lands that border Uskala. At least one house is going to have lands that border Stahlheim. At least two or three houses are going to be in the interior not bordering any foreign lands. At least three houses are going to be on the coast.

Houses by Resources

Swyfaredia as a whole is fairly self-sufficient in terms of resources. The nation has crop land, pasture land, timber land, mineral resources, magic fonts, fishing, and trading ports. Not every house has access to everything. Some houses are richer than others.

Since all the nobles are sorcerers or sorceresses, magical reagents are greatly valued. Magical fonts are the most desired resource. Mineral resources are the next most coveted resources. Swynfaredia has a fair bit of their own mineral resources but they import a lot of minerals from Stahlheim and Fumaya. In fact, the main reason they want to seize Fumaya is for the mineral resources.

But even if a noble has lots of resource X, they certainly want more of it.

Someone brought up the racial insult for Swynfaredians being Swine herdians. I suppose I can make pigs a common resource here. That’s not exactly unique for Swynfaredia though. When I did some cursory resource on what medieveal Europeans, I see “ham, pork chops, and bacon” show up a lot.


Houses by Supposed "Purity"

Social class in Swynfaredia works like this \/

Sorcerers > all non-sorcerers
Draconic sorcerers > all other sorcerers
Sorcerer legacies of the Founding Dragons > all other draconic sorcerers.

Squibs > commoners
Squibs with ties to the Founding Dragons > all other Squibs

Recap for those who are not Harry Potter fans. A squib is the child of two sorcerers who does not manifest sorcery.

This means that some of the noble houses are going to have a lot of blood of direct blood ties to the Founding Dragons and some of the noble houses are going to have very indirect blood ties to the Founding Dragons.

Also, you are going to have some houses that are hardliners that really preach the glories of their royal dragon blood and their liberal houses that don’t put as much emphasis on this.

There are exceptions to the rule, but in general sorcerers who are purists generally shun Greymoria and sorcerers who are more meritocratic generally worship Greymoria fervently.

Even the most snobby purists still worship Greymoria more often than nobles of other lands. Swynfaredia is one of the few human-dominated lands where public Greymoria worship is common.

Along the lines of purity. Officially sorcerers are great and wizards are charlatan peasants with delusions of grandeur. That said, almost every noble is willing to trade in potions, scrolls, and reagents under the table.


Houses by Piety

Divine spell-casters are on odd middle class in Swynfaredia. They are considered well below sorcerers and well above commoners. That said, almost every well-traveled priest or priestess from almost every priesthood would prefer to deal with nobles who are not Swynfaredian. Swynfaredians are not known for their general piety. This galls most priests and priestesses.

Swynfaredian nobles view the Nine more as dispensers of divine magic as opposed to a spiritual force deserving of worship. Priests and priestesses who do not possess any divine magic are usually ignored completely by the nobility and this attitude has trickled down the commoners a bit.

Given that I set up this stereotype that in general, Swynfaredians are not a pious lot, there probably shouldn’t be more than one or two houses that break the mold.


Civil War

Swynfaredia had three civil wars that engulfed the entire nation. They had X + 1 minor dust ups and skirmishes between individual houses where X is an unreasonable number. Houses that backed the losing side would lose prestige, wealth, and land for generations to come, assuming they manage to survive with their house intact at all.

This creates winners and losers and it plants the seeds for house rivalries.


For a long time, 100% of the Founding Dragons’ descendants bred true for sorcery. Then it became 90%. The first Civil War occurred when a squib was the heir apparent to the crown. So one faction backed the Crown Prince Squib and the other backed his younger brother. When the smoke cleared, Swynaredian law was changed so that Squibs could not inherit titles above the rank of Baron.

Then 80% bred true, then 70%. The Second Civil broke out when the king’s most direct heir that was not a squib was his daughter. So some nobles backed the Princess. Some nobles backed the king’s nephew. When the smoke cleared, Swynfaredian law was changed so that titles pass to the eldest child regardless of sex…as long as that child is a sorcerer.

The most recent civil war occurred when the most powerful sorcerer in the land was of common birth. He and his backers want to replace the system with a magical meritocracy. This time, no laws were changed, the rebel sorcerer was killed and the status quo was restored. But the would-be usurper killed a lot of nobles before he was finally put down.

I’ll probably make the most recent civil War, one or two centuries in the past. Out of living memory, but the wounds still burns.

 

There is a sticky wicket in my fictional system that could either derail a good story or create a good story. Probably both.

For inheriting titles, if Swynfaredians are not patrimonial and they are not matrilineal, but they are magic-lineal this complications things a lot. If a man from House A marries a woman from House B. Then both House A and House B could claim the child as "a true member of our house." If the child is a screw up, "the child is a clear member of the other house."

I'm not sure how the law would try to smooth over these disagreements, so I'm not sure how Swynfaredians would try to circumvent the law.

 

What I want is engagement. I have no problem with backtracking.

via Imgflip Meme Generator

I like it better than Scarsubterra, the first name I came up with, but Scarcaverna doesn't really roll off the tongue.

Going back to my favorite White Wolf game, Werewolf the Apocalypse, the Camasotz were nice people but had an ill reputation. It just so happened their unique power not shared with other lycanthropes was the gift of Prophecy. Werewolves were Gaia's Warriors, werebears were Gaia's Healers, weredinosaurs were Gaia's Memory, etc. Werebats were Gaia's Voice.

Good idea.

Also a good idea.

True. But neither the Camasotz or the Kalasotz are very numerous. They cannot mobilize the numbers to attack large cities even if they wanted to.

Hmmm, I thought I covered vampires already on L-O. I have LOTS of material on vampires in my personal notes.

I'll cover vampires in detail later if there is demand for it, but I want to cover old stuff and Swynfaredia before adding a new topic.

Malthius was an advisor to a succession of elven kings in the Second Age. Malthius was growing old and he knew that the kingdom could not survive without the great wisdom and perfect ethics of Malthius. Malthius became a lich.

Malthius hid the fact that he was a lich with illusion magic for many years, but eventually people questioned why he didn't die of old age. Also, Malthius endorsed using undead soldiers and quietly used poor people as guinea pigs because "In the long run it would save lives." Others were too short sighted because they lacked the wisdom and perfect ethics of Malthius.

Malthius was exiled from the kingdom. Malthius couldn't blame them because turning into a lich is a temptation to corruption for everyone who lacks the wisdom and perfect ethics of Malthius.

In exile, Malthius tried to redeem his slandered good name by killing evil liches. He certainly didn't attack the other liches solely to steal their magical items, laboratories and spell book.

Then the Second Unmaking hit. Malthius thought, "Hey, undead are immune to energy drain of Void Demons. Maybe we need a new undead race to protect the living. We just need to make sure they are wise and ethical, like me Malthius."

By the time Malthius had completed his prototype for a new race of free-willed undead, the Second Unmaking was over centuries ago. Malthius figured that apart from Malthius, all liches are invariably corrupt, so he wanted to create a free-willed undead type that did not require the subject to be a spell-caster. He intended up creating the Blood Stone. He used the Blood Stone to turn 12 legendary warriors into the first vampires.

Not too long after that, some of the liches Malthius pissed off centuries ago caught up to him and they convinced one or more of the vampires (probably Vladimir) to betray Malthius. So Malthius is finally dead.

Vampires created from the Blood Stone are for more powerful than vampires created by other vampires, but the Blood Stone was lost when Malthius died. Roughly half of the 12 original vampires also died in that fight. So far I have five survivors. Vladimir the Conqueror, Rallark the Loyalist, Lorsellis the Successor, Vralic the Dark Hunter, and Dalek the Dark One. I could add a sixth or seventh survivor if I come up with a concept I like.

I'm still working out the details, but the 12 original vampires all were individuals. They developed magic powers based on their mundane aptitudes. Lorsellis primarily fought on horse back. She developed the ability to summon a spirit horse at will that is far stronger and smarter than an average horse and infallibly loyal. All vampires of the Lineage of Lorsellis has the ability to summon a similar spirit steed.

Dalek had a silver tongue and while he never studied wizardry, he developed magical mesmerizing powers. He passed this on to his lineage. And so forth and so on.

Most vampires today are of the Lineage of Vladimir. Vladimir favored quantity over quality and he really went nuts creating new vampires whereas the other Blood Stone vampires are very selective about whom they turn.

Vladimir eventually faced a coup among his own children. The coup failed, but it left him temporarily vulnerable to Rallark catching up with him and killing him.

I'm still working on the powers of the lineages. I figured since Vladimir is based on Translyvanian vampire lore I'd give him bat powers. Vralic is a sort of an all around beast master, but I suppose he would have more kinship with bats than most other beasts.

I suppose I could make one of the original vampires a Zotz, but Malthius was a racist among his many other moral failings. So far I only have him selecting humans and elves.

Those are good ideas, especially the second one. I was already planning on making the Dwarves and Kalazotz fairly friendly with each other. When Mordock the Conqueror exiled the dwarves from their own homeland, the Kalazotz were practically the only underground race that didn't throw their lot in with Mordock's coalition.

Not that the Kalazotz helped the dwarves a lot in fighting, but they might have provided food and shelter to some refugees. Dwarves repay their debts.

That's a good idea. It might apply to people who are not Zotz. I will ponder this.

I came up with this idea already but you explained it far more eloquently than I ever could have. Ditto with the water elementals.

Nope, you have to ask the genealogist to look at your family tree in their dusty tomes and hope none of the chroniclers were lying or simply mistaken.

In theory an Oracle can ask the Nine about at this point all nine of the Nine have decided to stop answering Swynfaredian's inquiries on how much dragon blood they have.

Yeah, I may have written myself into a corner on this one.

 

Rest assured, people are reading this.
I always feel like a jerk for not answering, so I at least like the posts, but to be honest occasionally I often either get a bit lost in your thoughts (a lot of interesting new stuff you have there, and not always simple to wrap my head around) or I just don't have something meaningful to add.
Or I don't have much time to read, and your posts aren't exactly short. Which is a good thing though.

 

I meant to include this earlier. Mainly it's funny, but if you read between the lines this can be a handy tool.



I don't want any house to be pure good or pure evil, but since the player characters are very sympathetic to the nation of Fumaya, then as far as they are concerned, Swynfaredian nobles who want to invade Fumaya are bad guys. Swynfaredian nobles who do not want to invade Fumaya are good guys.

 

So I put out feelers to the Order of the Stick forum, and I got some good feedback on how egalitarian magical hereditary might work.

I got some very detailed answers, which can be read here, but I'll try to summarize below.

I was concerned that without patrimonial succession, if a Lord from House A had a child with a Lady from House B that the AB child could claim titles from both houses.

Someone pointed out the solution that the eldest sorcerer or sorceress inherits all titles regardless of sex. If you don't want House A and House B to merge into one House, than you need to make sure the first born legitimate heir of House A marries the second or third born children of House B.

Unexpected deaths can still cause a single noble to inherit titles from multiple multiple houses, but this would be fairly rare.

But it would still be a less stable system than a traditional noble system because of the hit-or-miss thing of sorcery. I think I should lean into the Chaos.


It was brought up that a prince or princess with primogeniture but no sorcery might try to fake sorcery by becoming a wizard or a warlock. Again this means I need to develop the distinctions more because my system has very little difference between sorcerers, warlocks, and wizards.

Whether it is easy to fake being a sorcerer or really really hard, someone is going to try to fake it.


Another thought someone brought up is if you have a scion of a great house (A) marry someone from a lesser house (B), the sorcerer children automatically are attributed to House A and the squibs are given to House B. Hypothetically it can get dicey if the squibs of House B go on to have sorcerer children of their own.


It was also brought up that an experienced sorcerer could adopt a younger sorcerer as an apprentice and also adopt the younger sorcerer into the mentor's house. This could trump typical blood-tie families in some cases.

Again, I think the more prestigious houses would have more leeway to legally adopt non-blood relatives than less prestigious houses.

 

Here is my rough draft for the four founding houses. If someone suggests a good character concept for a dragon, I can boost this to five or six founding houses, but for now it's four. Maybe a fifth dragon that loves the sea, or maybe not. Swynfaredia has a lot of coastline now but they probably didn't when they were founded.

The four dragons: Framiss the Vibrant, Goirsonad the Wise, Numaness the Mystic, and Kovenoth the Builder.

All four of these dragons were at least somewhat concerned with the human houses that bore their names. All four wrote treatsies on their philosophies, ethics, and preferred style of rule. These treatsies have been copied down and translated a lot. Framiss probably wrote one or two books while Goirsonad probably penned dozens of tomes. In any event, most of the tomes have been copied a bunch, so most Swynfaredians of means have copies of tomes of all four of the dragons, not just their house's dragon.

Academic scholars probably debate minutiae of the writings of all four.

@Warden is all heraldry. I'm sure there are very intricate paintings and statues of the Founding dragons but I guess in heraldry it has to be simplified a bit. They physical descriptions are not set in stone, I can adjust them later.

Framiss the Vibrant

I figure Framiss was bright red. He was bigger and more muscular than the other Founders. Sort of stocky by dragon standards. Very prominent horns. In some ways he is a quintessential western dragon. Maybe I'll play up the feline traits of Framiss.

Framiss was a strong proponent of being kind to the lowly. Framiss was a bit of a hedonist. He certainly sired more half dragons than the other Founders. I’m likely to have given him around 20 half-dragon children with seven or eight human lovers.

Framiss was a bit of a hedonist. He sired more half-dragons than any of the other Founders. This attitude carried over to Framiss descendants. House Framiss has a reputation for infidelity and promiscuity. Because so many siblings are half-siblings, House Framiss has more fratricide than the other Houses.

House Framiss tries to brand themselves as the “princes of the people.” They have an annual festival where the Lord or Lady is ceremonially mocked by the commoners. They have another more somber festival where commoners can present the Lord or Lady anonymous complains about the ruler. The lords and ladies also love to boast about commoner friendly they are. Sometimes they can be condescending about it.

House Framiss loves to throw a lot of festivals, tournaments, and feasts. This combines their hedonism with their desire to be nice to commoners. This also gives Framiss a reputation for being spendthrifts.

House Framiss encourages their sorcerers to be battle ready. Cowardice is detested. Risk taking behavior is generally looked on favorable. This and the hedonism leads to House Framiss is often stereotyped to be reckless people who live hard and die young.

House Framiss frequently endorses Zarthus, Nami, and Mera. They are usually leery of Phidas and Maylar.


Goirsonad the Wise

Goirsonad was skinnier than the other dragons, but tail to snout, Goirsonad was the longest dragon. That means he's going to kind of be snake-like, maybe have a crest that resembles a sages beard like a stereotypical Eastern dragon. Probably make him a relatively unassuming color like stony grey.

Goirsonad’s central philosophy was summed up by “The dragons must bestow their wisdom on the ignorant humans for the humans own good.” I’m likely to have given him around 8 half-dragon children with one or two human lovers.

House Gorisonad values education and learning. They also are fairly hidebound in traditions. They tend to be a little more tolerant of wizards than the other Founding Houses.

House Goirsonad is a bit more pious than the other Founding Houses. Among other things, Goirsonad himself believed that it is the dragons’ responsibility to educate humans so they don’t create a Third Unmaking. House Goirsonad is very aggressive against Void minions and to a lesser extant The Fair Folk. House Goirsonad also is generally anti-necromancy, not that many nobles are publicly pro-necromancy.

Between their fear of the Dark and their love of traditions, House Goirsonad tends to favor harsh policing.

There is a stereotype that House Goirsonad will bury their heads in ancient books and ignore the world around them.

House Goirsonad frequently endorses Khemra a lot. They also tend to be fond of Hallisan and Korus. They are usually leery of Zarthus and Nami. They are extremely hostile towards Maylar worshipers.



Numaness the Mystic

In my world, dragons that focus on their mystic power more than their physical might or mental acuity tend to be shiny, so Numaness is definitely going to be shiny. I'm thinking a medium purple. A little bit stockier than Gorisonad, but still on the long and lanky side. I'm thinking of giving her a crown-like frill.

Numaness was only the female dragon among the Founders. She had fewer half-dragon children than the all males, if only because carrying half-human children is time consuming and irksome.. I’m likely to have given her around 6 half-dragon children with one or two human lovers

House Numaness has a higher percentage of sorcerer births than the other houses. Not a lot higher, but high enough to notice.

Numaness herself talked about the weak should serve the strong, and nothing proves strength like magic. House Numaness really pushes their sons and daughters to excel at magic as much as possible. This has led to a stereotype House Numaness are helpless without magic. They don’t learn swordplay, diplomacy, useful crafts, or any mundane skills that aren’t directly tied to spell-casting.

House Numaness is reputed to be more contemptuous of the peasantry than the other Houses. They will often counter back, “The peasants benefit from our properly managed realms, we don’t feel the need to show off how commoner friendly we are like the drunkards of House Framiss.”

House Numaness believe in making hay while the sun shines. They identify with Aesop’s ant, not the grasshopper. House Numaness is reputed to be the most miserly and tight-fisted of the Houses. They spin this as a positive saying they can handle the hard times better than the others houses.

House Numaness frequently endorses Greymoria. They also tend to be fond of Phidas and Korus. They are rumored to be closet Maylar worshipers. They are usually leery of Hallisan and Zarthus.



Kovenoth the Builder

Kovenoth is going to have an "average" build for a dragon somewhere between stocky and muscular like a lion and long and lanky like a snake. He was probably one of the rare burrowing dragons. Burrowing dragons tend to have shorter necks. So maybe a longish body and a shortish neck. Since he's a builder I'm thinking of making his claws proportionally bigger compared to the rest of his body. He's extra vain, so maybe I might make him multi-colored like a coatl.

Kovenoth’s main goal was to create a grand lasting legacy. I’m likely to have given him around 12 half-dragon children with two or three human lovers.

House Kovenoth really loves to build grand things. Monuments, castles, fortresses. This attitude has rubbed off on the other Houses over time. This has lead to a reputation for House Kovenoth being vain though that attitude has also rubbed off the other Houses.

Kovenoth was the most Machiavellian of all the dragons. He wrote the most political treatises. House Kovenoth nobles are very concerned about the various aspects of rulership. House Kovenoth view themselves as wise and detail oriented. They have a reputation for being intrusive micromanagers.

House Kovenoth frequently endorses Phidas, Hallisan, and Khemra. They have a love-hate relationship with Zarthus. They love art and music Zarthus encourages but loathe Zarthus’ revolutionary spirit.



Anyway, those are the original houses. I haven't meshed out the history in detail but Swynfaredia is going to be somewhere between 500 and 1500 years old. That's a lot of time for a house philosophy to evolve and change, or warp and devolve. Even if the Houses intended to follow their Founder's principles to the letter, this could change over time.

Swynfaredia annexed neighboring lands several times. They had three major civil wars that enveloped the whole nation. They had a lot of minor civil wars that was just between two or three houses. They might have had to face an invasion from outsiders a few times. They absorbed a lot of sorcerers from outside the original bloodlines to avoid atrophying. Most of the dragon Founders were polygamous so there could be distinctive subhouses based on which branch of the dragon's bloodline someone hails from.

So there is a lot of room for new houses to be formed, old houses to die off, current houses to split in two, or houses to merge. At this point due to intermarriages, most Swynfaredian nobles have at least a little bit of the blood of all four Founding dragons.

Hopefully this foundation of the four founding dragons can get the ball rolling.