My Fantasy RPG World, Feedback and Ideas appreciated

Realistic or not, I will fight this conclusion.

My stated goal for this setting was to create a Medium Magic setting. Maybe that's not possible. Noticeably less magic than a typical D&D setting, noticeably more magic than say Game of Thrones. Shadowrun might be the best popular example of a medium magical setting, but maybe the Shadowrun developers consider their setting a high magic setting.

i was thinking about castles in the context of modern weapons. When you have artillery that can dust most fortifications, fortifications are largely abandoned. Even the Pentagon doesn't have really look like a fortification despite it being the central HQ for the strongest military on Earth.

To be effective, modern military is designed to be strong and mobile. Fortifiying a single spot is not as viable like it used to be.

The D&D 3.5 supplement Complete Warrior brought up different possible ways to integrate magic and hyper abilities (crazy hit point counts and borderline supernatural warrior feats) into a military. The authors clearly leaned towards the notion of treating a magical military like a modern military. Copying a lot of tactics and whatnot. Teleporting elite soldiers in and out in lieu of heliocopters pick ups and drop off, etc. A lot modern military tactics work with very little adaptation with magical military tactics.

I'd prefer not to use that strategy, but I will adopt that strategy if I paint myself into a corner I cannot get out of. From a fantasy stand point, I'd like to have feudalism be the norm.

I like the paradigm that magic is easiest when it works with mundane stuff. Thus, a magically fortified wall would be easier to enchant than a transparent magic forcefield dome.

It's probably not going to be used in any stories short term because none of my PCs are either friendly or hostile to Korus but I did create a Korus Bishipric that is sort of like Hogwartz in that it's used to train new spellcasters. Instead of a castle, they live on an island where a large portion of the plants can come alive and bludgeon would-be attackers.

They are the experts on Plant magic, so they work with what they have. Most magical factions specialize in one or two fields of magic rather than adopt a jack-of-all-trades approach.

Fortifications would be good for guarding a static resource such as a mine or magic font, but they would not be very good at controlling a bridge or road junction because magic could be used to go around the fortification and return to the trail.

I have created a knightly order of Dwarves (which includes spell-casters among them) to provide protection to travelers because I figured a series of fortification wouldn't defend a trade route very well.

It depends on what historian you ask if the main purpose of castles was to defend the lord from their own subjects or defend the region from invaders. A castle can do both.

I figure a world with monsters in it would make castles more appealing, not less appealing.

Right now they are "fairly rare." I suppose the true rule is my setting has "There are as many or as few powerful wizards as the story requires" but I'd like to keep things consistent. A big problem with Season 8 of Game of Thrones was Danyr's human and dragon minions became stronger or weaker as the story required rather than as past events and logic dictate.

This is actually my next planned discussion topic. Power could take the form of gold, land, weapons, magic, or prestige. Lords and kings are going to try to regulate all of these things to the best of their ability. They are certainly going to try to make sure the only people with potent magic ability are either the rulers or the rulers trusted lieutenants. The discussion is how will they try to regulate magic and how successful they will be.

Short version is that rich and powerful people will have disproportionately more access to magical abilities but not monopolistic access to magical abilities.

It's a bit railroady but this seems like the only viable option to allow prevailent castles to exist in mysetting.

So my world has Allips, ghosts, and Faceless (a homebrew monster). When Faceless were common, this was the period known as the Second Unmaking when 95% of all people died. Now Faceless are fairly rare. Ghosts and are not that rare but ghosts that are capable of inflicting serious harm against the living are rare. Allips are rare.

Ghosts, allips, and faceless share one thing in common besides being incorporeal undead. All three are created by accident and all three tend to act in a disorganized fashion. I was on the fence about whether my world should include undead shadows. Shadows are incoporeal undead that are created by necromancers acting deliberately. After writing my last post and reading your post I think I'm off the fence now. I don't want to include shadows.

Beyond castles, I think teleport magic is problematic in and of itself. I'm on the fence whether I want to allow it at all.

Flying is a staple of fantasy. It would be hard for me to imagine a fantasy setting with no flight in it. Flying while dropping heavy rocks is another thing. We are talking about unladen swallows of course. A five ounce bird cannot lift a one pound coconut.

Even a big creature like a dragon can only lift so much while flying. For a real world parallel, the greatest swimmer in the world wouldn't be able to swim very well carrying a hundred pound weight.

You got me!

The predecessors to castles is a discussion in and of itself summed up in a fifteen minute video. The immediate ancestor of medieval castles is probably Roman forts.

Unless you have a monster that eats people, the main threat to a village or fortification is probably going to be rival nations not random monsters. As long as the enemy doesn't fly or is incorporeal a stockade will probably do relatively well against casual orc raiders and the like.

I disagree. Between 2nd and 3.5 D&D evolved into a grid based combat system. Numerical descriptions of range and volume of magical effects is intended to work within the grid system. The nine levels of magic in D&D get to be crazy powerful. A meteor swarm can turn a castle to rubble with one spell and a lazy caster. Transmute rock to mud (4th level I think) can collapse a wall. It's not that hard to cast a 4th level spell.

A D&D setting with lots of high level casters would realistically have virtually zero functional castles. The only castle's you'd have would be toys for the rich. I doubt the castle at Disney World could repel many invaders...


I guess if I want to make castles viable I need to make static magic defenses viable too.

I don't have a more feasible solution.

 

In my D&D campaign (3.5E, Forgotten Realms) it was my standard way of explaining why some stuff just was like it was.
And yes it was a tad railroady, but my players saw the logic behind it, since there was the tradeoff of workload and speed.

A circle of 2nd - 4th level wizards (or clerics, druids, even sorcerers) could cast spells of relatively high levels, but it took them 100 times the material, and days instead of turns.
I had a formula back then, don't quite remember it anymore, but it was enough to explain why some goblin shamans could fortify their palisades, the Candlekeep wizards could basically make Candlekeep invincible, and why the players couldn't just go into every castle and rob it, despite being higher levels than most people they met.
At the same time I had a reasonable explanation on why the NPC Priests, wizards etc. that were more powerful than the players gave them quests.
Once a player (4th level or so) asked "if that cleric of Helm is 16th level, and some of his buddies are also around 8th level, why don't they do that themselves!?" And I could answer that they were right in the middle of renewing the wards of the city against demons, and the task is just not important enough for them to interrupt the rituals.

The important thing is to balance those rituals a bit.
But they work well.
And they add another layer of coolness to the player's own houses/castles or so, since they finally can spend all that money, and the castle suddenly makes more sense than just hiding somewhere using magic.

 

It is the adjective to "ganking" I guess.

 

I've used this explanation a lot. As my dad liked to say, "You don't need a racing horse to pull a wagon of milk". It also works for powerful fighters who are generals, super skilled thieves who are in charge of the underworld, etc.

In my game system system, the gap between the most powerful people and the least powerful people is lower. In my system, in theory a peasant with a lucky shot could kill a master warrior. A 16th level fighter can basically fight an infinite number of peasants because it would take 100 lucky shots to kill him.

As a consquence, my players are more likely to talk or puzzle their way out of situations as opposed to fighting out of them, which is fine by me. When they do choose to fight enemies, they will carefully plan ambushes in great detail. That's the kind of game we enjoy now.

I ran a D&D game years ago where the main long-term goal of the PCs was to make a castle. The game ran a long time but we never started the castle because everytime time we talked about the castle, someone else came up with an idea for something to add to it. The more treasure the PCs had, the bigger their future castle became so it was never started.

Also, most games we moved around too much to create a really strong base. We had a few epic games where everyone started with a castle or a fleet of pirate ships, but we also moved around a lot so we rarely got to use our castle or fleet.

Attempts to buy commercial property generally didn't go well though we did pull that off in a Star Wars game briefly. The PCs had a Corellian Corvette. When they didn't have an adventure to do, they converted the interior ship into a pleasure yacht to ferry rich people around on cruises.

Gank: Verb. To greatly limit the actions of your players, children, or employees in an unfair manner.
Snynonym: Railroading.

Though railroading can be a good thing. It's usually not. But good examples of railroading are such "I need you guys to lose this fight and get captured because I have an epic prison break story planned."

In one case a player scored a phenomenal killing blow hit and I said "Oh he dodged it." It was very clear the defender didn't roll that high but I was setting up the villain for an over dramatic Bond Villain death. It was agreed later that was a good call.

The biggest personal example of ganking was when I was playing Vampire: the Masquerade. My Malkavian woke up locked in a shed with no memory how he got there. Okay. "Is there a window?" "No." "Is there a tool I can try to pick the lock with?" "No." "I'm going to spend a bunch of blood points to turn my Strength to 6 then batter the door down." "No." "I'm going to use my level five power to astrally project my soul outside this shed and look around to see what's outside." "You can't send your astral form outside the shed." It's not that he made the difficulties too high, and I failed the rolls he just flat out said I failed at everything I tried.

Basically he wanted me in the shed until an NPC came to get me BUT he then moved to another character whose player he liked a lot better and he never got back to me. Gankiest experience every.

Hmmm, I hadn't thought much about Hexing because it's the newest magic in my setting. Before Hexing and Wrath was one domain, Wrath. The first dots of Hexing and the last two dots of Wrath. It was pointed out that the gods (and their followers) who smite are unlikely to want to curse people or spread disease. The gods (and their followers) who spread curses are unlikely to want to use blunt force very often. So I split Wrath into two.

Quest based castle defense is a good idea. It just needs refinement. If the quest isn't fun and challenge appropriate, this mechanic could be ganky.

That's basically the plan, but I want it to look like it makes sense in the setting. The reason you cannot easily bypass a castle is "logical metaphysics" and not "I like castles."

According to the 3rd edition Draconomicon a dragon can fly in an anti-magic field. They cannot use their breath weapon or spell-like abilities but they can fly. They don't even explain it. They hang a lampshade on it. "Magical scholars have not figured out why this is so."

I guess I have no reason to follow this notion in my setting. I guess in my mind I've always thought, "In a fantasy setting, wings are all the explanation you need, you don't need wings large enough to displace the weight of the indvidual."

I believe I can justify these creatures flying with SCIENCE! if I choose. I probably should not choose to do that, but I can.

 

So back to controlling the supply of magic users. This is going to be long but I have spoiler tabs to make it easier to peruse.


Okay, I’ve seen some on the Internet argue that if magic was real in the historical medieval era that all princes would be magic users. I initially balked at that at first, but I then I realized that about half of my developed nations are run by magic users.

Instead of saying “kings, nobles, guild leaders, elders, shadowy puppet masters, consuls or whatever”, I’m going to take a page out of Machiavelli and use the generic term “prince” to refer to “powerful leader of his or her respective government.”


The theocracies of Meraland (which needs a better name) and Khemarok are dominated by divine magic users. Kahdisteria (the dark elves) choose their leader via a magical duel. Anyone of royal blood can rule the Elven Empire but the selection process is heavily biased towards wizards. Swynfaredia’s nobility is made up of sorcerers. Magicaland (which needs a better name) has a non-magical king who is a puppet to the local wizards. Uskala’s king is a seemingly immortal sorcerer.

So far that just leaves Meckelorn, Mondert, Loren, Stahlheim, Appseldia, and Kantoc and the rest of the Colassian confederacy are not ruled by magic users, but magic users wield influence in all these societies.


Whether or not the princes are magic users themselves, the rulers are going to want to regulate other magic users within their realms to the best of their ability.

Whether power takes the form of land, gold, weapons, prestige, or magic the local rulers are going to want as big of a piece of the power as they can get a hold of.


So let me cover some fantasy realms I know well.

Spoiler: White Wolf Games (old school WW at least)

Old World of Darkness and the old dark medieval of White Wolf publishing.

In both the modern and medieval settings, the vast majority of all the supernatural factions have some kind of variant of the Masquerade. Vampires, changelings, werewolves, and to a lesser extent mages all fear what normal people would do en masse if they knew there were monsters in their midst.

In the modern age games, maintaining secrecy is a sacred rule. In the Dark Ages setting, maintaining secrecy is a strong suggestion. The peasants and nobles know that there are Things out there, but it’s handy for the Things if the peasants and nobles have very little concrete information on the Thing’s numbers, strengths and weaknesses.

Another reason to maintain general secrecy is that the werewolves and vampires hate each other. The mages and Fae are often rivals. Sometimes mages will get in conflict with werewolves and vampires. The vampires, fae, werewolves, and mages are very much factionalized within their own groups. They don’t want to make it easy for their rivals to find them. The medieval Roman Catholic Church also has supernaturally augmented monster hunters. Not a lot, but enough.

Spoiler: Regulating magic in Shadowrun

Shadowrun is based on real world Earth and is set in the future in the 2050s or the 2060s or the 2070s depending on which book you open. The game was created in the 1980s and real world history diverges around the year 2000. It’s now well passed the year 2000, but Shadowrun is still based on many assumptions of 1980s futurists (Japan is the dominant economic super power).

Anyway Shadowrun is based on the assumption that every 1000 years or so the planet Earth shifts from being a low magic place to a high magic place. Around 2000, millions of babies were born with pointed ears and the basic traits of mythological elves and dwarves. About ten years later the great Goblinization event happened and over a few weeks millions of adults painfully transformed into orks or trolls. The idea is that there were always elves, dwarves, orks, and trolls, just for most of known history, they looked like humans. You also had parallel changes in the animal kingdom with normal horses giving birth to pegasi or unicorns.

Also, magic came back. In North America, Native Americans gained access to magic before everyone else and a number of them uses this new power to secede from the United States. More than a few other countries faced magic backed civil wars.

Beyond magic, another thing that happened was the rise of the mega-corporations. The ten largest multi-national corporations basically were able to claim that they are not subject to the laws of nations because they are independent of nations. The ten AAA rated corporations pay no taxes, they have their own laws, militaries, police forces, citizens, etc.

The game of Shadowrun assumes player characters will play Shadowrunners, mercenaries who perform illegal or quasi-legal missions against targets for big fat paychecks from Megacorps.

Any event, corporate extra-territoriality not-withstanding. Murder, theft, vandalism, etc is still illegal. Corporations and nations alike have maleficium which is refers to illegal use of magic. If someone murders someone with magic, they get charged with murder and maleficium. In some nations and corporations, magic users need to get a license to practice magic, in which case they need to register their powers. In most cases, the penalty for unlicensed magic is only a fine if no other crimes were committed.

There are a gazillion different magical practices but there are only really only three distinctions of magic users that count. Mages, adepts, and technomancers. Mages cast spells and/or summon spirits. Adepts have magical abilities that are extensions of their normal abilities, they can run really fast, talk to animals, instinctively know how to fix broken machines, etc. Technomancers can operate computers with their mind or project their astral self over the Net.

Mages generally need a license to practice magic. Adepts sometimes need a license but they often hide their powers and just play it off as being really good at mundane things. Technomancers are hated and feared. A lot of governments try to kill or capture them for experiments. They are viewed as huge security risks given how freakishly good they are hacking computers. Magic is a resource in the Shadowrun world, and the megacorps are greedy for any and all resources. They work hard with carrots and sticks to keep magic users in line.

Spoiler: Dark Sun D&D Setting

Dark Sun, the world of Athas.

Dark Sun was a popular fantasy setting in D&D second edition. In middle school, I read the Dark Sun pentad of novels. In hindsight they weren’t amazing but thirteen year old me didn’t know any better.

Athas is a very bleak setting. I’d rather live in the Warhammer world than live on Athas. It’s that miserable.

Arcane magic draws on the lifeforce of plants. Preservers are mages who work carefully to not take more life force from plants than the plants can spare. Defilers drain plants to death, which also blights the soil for decades if not centuries. Most of Athas is a desert because there are far more defilers than preservers. Don’t worry though. Despite the lack of water, the desert has plenty of implausibly large and ferocious monsters.

Very high level preservers can draw power from the sun in lieu of plants. Very high level defilers can draw power from animal life in lieu of killing plants. This is brutal, because they can drain part of the life force of their enemies then use that very same energy to blast them with a spell. Nasty.

Most of Athas’ human and demihuman population is in the seven city states. Each is ruled by a sorcerer king or queen. All seven are defilers. They don’t like preservers because preservers oppose their rule on sheer principle. They don’t like other defilers because defilers are completion for their magical resources. The sorcerer kings are BRUTAL in repressing rival mages.

Any mage that is not a minion of a sorcerer king can expect a painful execution if caught. In a world where almost everything is illegal (including hiring assassin as long as its not against the state), trading in spell components is illegal. The best a magical regent trader who is caught by the authorities can hope for is to be sold into slavery.

But wait, the sorcerer kings aren’t the worst thing out there! Athas is terrorized by the Dragon of Athas but the Dragon is actually sort of the boss of the seven sorcerer kings. In Athas, all dragons are actually transformed humans. Together these seven and the Dragon maintain a prison to keep their old genocidal boss, Rajaat, imprisoned eternally. Every year or so they have to sacrifice the life force of ten thousand slaves to keep Rajaat’s prison intact.


Athas has bards, but they obviously do not have magical ability. To make up for this, bards in Dark Sun games are experts at poisons. All the old gods of Athas are literally dead. The few divine casters worship natural powers. The winds, the sun, the sea of silt. This tend to bear a physical toll on those who practice it. The Sorcerer Kings rarely worry about these casters if they don’t make enemies of themselves.

Psionics is pretty widespread. It can be taught and others are born with it. Psionisists in Athas don’t require outside materials so poor people can become psions. It does take a lot of time to learn, so a lot of rich people have their kids study psionics. The sorcerer kings don’t really regulate psionics much (oh, the sorcerer kings and queens are all high level psionists and not just high level mages). Because psionists can be anyone and their powers are subtle, the tyrant kings couldn’t really regulate psionics even if they wanted to.

The cherry on top. Dwarves are all completely bald. They are proud of their baldness. One universal constant is that dwarves are proud of all things dwarf, whatever that happens to be.

Spoiler: Other D&D worlds

I haven’t read much Dragon Lance, Planescape, or Forgotten Realms fiction. I’ve played in these games. I don’t know if my gaming sessions are indicative of the setting a whole but in these settings, governments operate mainly like real world medieval societies except they happen to have magic being common place and normal with very few major ramifications on day-to-day society. Adventurers seem to have a free reign to do as they please, checked only by various monsters and other adventurers.

Divine magic comes from the Nine. The Nine can wield divine magic with the same ease that a mortal can lift a finger. They can just will changes on the world. When a mortal uses divine magic, she is wielding the magic of the gods.


Arcane magic comes from universal laws. Like creating a fire by rubbing sticks together. There is universal law that friction makes heat and fire comes from heat. Arcane magic is just applying much more difficult and obscure universal laws. The Nine can wield arcane magic too, but they have the follow the same basic rules to cast magic that mortal arcane casters must follow.


My RPG world is in beta test. I’m not including psionics in the beta test. Psionics is magic from within. A psionisist draws on power within his own mind and soul to create effects.

Spoiler: Divine Magic

Divine spell-casters are either theurgists or favored souls.

Spoiler: Where Theurgists Come From

Theurgists are basically the Clerics of D&D. I'm using the term "theurgist" instead of "cleric" because it's possible to be a cleric without having special power but it's not possible to be a theurgist without special power. A Theurgist asks one of the Nine to provide him or her with divine power. A favored soul is given divine power.

Princes can influence the number of theurgist by influencing who gets trained and who doesn’t. They can provide money and support to religions that support their regime and their ideals and they can put restrictions on religions that preach beliefs that oppose their regime and ideals. There is almost nothing that prince’s kings and queens can do to stem the creation of favored souls short of assassination.

Fortunately princes who to regulate the practice of divine magic, Theurgists outnumber favored souls at least four-to-one. Maylar is the only deity that has roughly one-to-one ration of theurgists to favored souls. This is largely because it is illegal to train Maylar theurgists in many lands. With Khemra and Hallisan, it’s closer to a hundred-to-one ratio. Phidas has no favored souls at all.


A would-be theurgist cannot just ask one or more of the Nine for power. He or she has to prove proper piety. This takes at least two years of service in faith, usually it takes much longer than two years for a theurgist to earn their first taste of divine power. It’s not uncommon to take ten years or more.

A theurgist’s first magical power is going to be an extension of his or her aptitudes. If a would-be theurgist wants to learn the sphere of Healing, she would do well to study medicine. A would-be theurgist who wants to learn the sphere of Plants had best take up gardening. A would-be theurgist who wants to learn the sphere of Augmentation had best exercise a lot and strive to be physically fit.

A would-be theurgist needs to demonstrate true piety and a willingness to work hard. The exact nature of the training doesn’t make much difference to the end result. Each deity has theurgists trained in clean and expansive libraries in the shadow of giant castles and each deity has empowered theurgists who trained barefoot in the wilderness. The only reason why most of the lawful deities’ theurgists are the literate children of civilization is because most of the lawful deities’ core followers live in the heart of civilization. It’s not a requirement. You can find mud covered bare-footed Khemra priests in the wilderness if you look hard enough.


Recruits typically either volunteer as adults or their parents oblate their kids. It is generally understood that not all clergy develop magical powers. A great many clergy serve distinguished and pious careers without ever learning an iota of magic.

There is an element of piety. Most parents are proud to boast of their children in the clergy, but there is often a pragmatic or selfish reason behind a parent’s decision to oblate their children. Rich people like to oblate their children into a church so their non-inheriting children have an opportunity to develop some political power. Poor people often oblate their children so they have one less mouth to feed.

In most human lands, the three lawful deities end up picking most of their recruits from the children from the families of the wealthy and powerful. Hallisan tends to get militaristic nobles, Phidas tends to get economically savvy nobles, and Khemra tends to get politically savvy adept nobles, but these three faiths will almost never turn down the children of the wealthy and powerful even if their aptitudes seem to be fitting for a different deity. If one of the other six deities has unusual political power in an area, children of the upper class may be oblated to a non-lawful deity. For instance, given how important magic is in Swynfaredia, Greymoria has a fair number of high born priests and priestesses there.


The three lawful deities get most of their clerical recruits oblated to them as children. In order to accept an adult as a new recruit the new recruit needs to already have some useful skills that the priesthood desperately needs (commonly warriors). As adults or children, low born recruits are usually given harder entry tests than high born recruits.

The three chaotic deities take most of their recruits as young adults. They prefer their recruits to make informed decisions and not be merely carrying out the wishes of their parents. When they do take new recruits as children they generally require the families of child recruits to show exceptional devotion and piety. More often than not, the chaotic deities’ priesthoods don’t have long lines of would-be recruits knocking on their temple doors. Priests and holy warriors will encounter young people that impress them and the existing theurgist or priest will invite the youth to follow him as an apprentice. High born recruits are very rare. If a high born person joins the priesthood of Maylar, Nami, or Zarthus than he or she is probably deliberately trying to upset his/her parents.

The three neutral deities tend to have a roughly equal mix of recruits who begin their training as children and those who begin their training as adults. It’s uncommon but not unheard of for high born people to join these preisthoods. Korus and Mera have hordes of peasants begging them to take them in or their children. Since very few of their recruits bring a pile of gold with them when they join, the Stewards and Tenders usually make would-be recruits prove themselves with difficult entrance tests. Greymoria’s priesthood rarely accepts volunteers. They’ll find you. Greymoria’s recruiters will shadow potential recruits and throw obstacles in their path to see how they deal with adversity. If they pass all the secret tests, then they are invited in. Sometimes, they might even have the option to say “no” and walk away alive.


There is also a weird oddball case. Compact priests. Most Scarterrans are polytheistic to some extant but the Cult of the Compact preaches that all mortals should strive to serve all the Nine equally and not play favorites. Most Scarterrans do not have the desire or ability to be both this pious and impartial at the same time, so the Cult of the Compact is very small. A disproportionately high number of the Cult of the Compact is made up of theurgists, theurgists that wield divine power on behalf of all the Nine.

The Cult of the Compact is unpopular and small, but they are not actively persecuted or oppressed. No one wants to risk the possibility of pissing off all the gods at once. In any event there are fewer Compact theurgists than Zarthus or Maylar theurgists (Zarthus and Maylar are the two deities with the fewest theurgists).

Spoiler: Where Favored Souls Come From

To a player character, there is almost zero mechanical difference in how a theurgist and a favored soul casts spells. There is one major difference. If a theurgist grossly violates the religious edicts of her patron than the theurgist’s patron deity can throttle her magic until she atones. Apparently, the magic cannot be removed entirely, it can only be made more difficult, but it’s a huge warning that most theurgists will immediately take to heart. If a favored soul grossly violates her deity’s wishes, that deity cannot take any of the favored soul’s powers away. The deity can still kill the favored soul, but they cannot take away any of the power given to them.

The thing is, most mortals in Scarterras don’t know this. It is widely assumed that favored souls do not have free will that way that other mortals do. Most favored souls are almost robotic in the way they spout their patron’s dogma. A popular story told by minstrels (that serious historians say is a farce) involves a favored soul of Mera that for some reason decided to raze villages for fun and murder hundreds of people. According to the bards’ stories, a survivor from one of these attacks swore to never let this attack happen again and grew up to become a famous hero saving thousands of lives…exactly as Mera planned. There are similar unsubstantiated stories of kindly favored souls of Maylar rescuing a helpless child who then grows up to be a monstrous tyrant…exactly as Maylar planned.


Where do favored souls come from? There are several commonalities. First, favored souls are often the children or grandchildren of mortal-spirit couplings. Second, favored souls commonly are born to couples whose piety to one of the Nine is beyond reproach. Third, favored souls are commonly born during their respective deity’s zodiac year. Fourth, favored souls are often created for pragmatic reasons. One of the Nine wants a powerful servant, and they want it now (or you know in ten to twenty years is pretty close to “now” for an immortal being). Fifth, barbarian and monstrous people tend to produce more favored souls than civilized lands, especially if the tribes and cultures in question have no cultural theurgist practices.


I can easily (and happily) write pages of material on each of the Nine’s preferences when empowering favored souls but for the purpose of this thread, it’s not really important. Princes don’t have the power to stop the Nine from empowering favored souls. I suppose a despotic prince could try a genocidal pogrom against favored souls, but that’s really hard. Unless the favored soul is a half-spirit (and a lot of half-spirits aren’t favored souls), a favored soul is a favored soul is completely indistinguishable from an ordinary person until their powers emerge at puberty. At which point the favored soul can now resist enemies with his or her full supernatural might.

Also, most people are leery about trying to harm someone who is literally a living avatar of a deity’s might, even if it’s a deity they don’t like.


So regulating favored souls is near impossible for a prince to do, but a prince can influence theurgists. Princes can bias a priesthood in their favor by making sure most of the theurgists are drawn from their families and those of their friends and allies. It takes money and resources to train theurgists. Rulers of all levels are going to throw money and support to temples that support their rule and throw obstacles (or make worship and recruiting illegal) to temples that oppose them.

Spoiler: Princes and Korus' Stewards

I have yet to come up with a single culture where the ruling class is anti-Korus. About half of Korus’ priests and priestesses are considered Stewards of the Dominion. These are tree hugging druids. The other half of Korus’ priests and priesthoods are considered Stewards of the Gift. These are friends of the farmer. Stewards of the Gift are almost always an unambiguously good thing for princes. They almost never make waves, they will help mediate minor disputes, and they help keep the crops healthy.

Stewards of the Dominion can become problematic if they go all Lorax on a prince’s expansion into the wilderness or timber industry. In most cases, they are open to compromise, but there are a few hardliners that are never satisfied. If these eco-terrorist goes too far, a prince is likely to try to have these upstarts killed…quietly. If a prince gets a reputation for being a murderer of Stewards even the Stewards of the Gift will turn on him.

Another point where the Stewards can become hostile to a prince is when two nations or tribes are at a war. It’s rare for a prince to face an insurrection from the local Stewards, but a lot of Stewards will patriotically follow their liege’s army against external foes. Stewards in barbarian tribes (both human and otherwise) are especially likely to go to war on behalf of their tribal leaders.

Spoiler: Princes and Khemra's Keepers

Khemra and her Keepers are normally so pro-status quo that the Keepers are only likely to turn against a Prince if the ruler is astonishingly tyrannical or incompetent. Normally, a prince only needs to toss the Keepers a few crumbs to keep them loyal. The Keepers will generally back their princes in times of war but they don’t like to march into foreign lands on campaign.

The point where the Keepers become a problem is when they are so enmeshed in the ruling structure that the Keepers are micromanaging things. The Keepers are unlikely to foment a rebellion but they are going to have opinions on everything from how much the tariff on regents should be to how much the army should be paid to how many ships the navy really needs. If the Keepers truly have their way in a nation, they will often attract hostile attention from the followers of the three chaotic deities.

Spoiler: Princes and Hallisan's Guardians

Hallisan’s Guardians generally go out of their way to ingratiate themselves to princes. If a prince encounters hostile Guardians, they are probably agents of a foreign power. Internally the Guardians can become a thorn in the side of princes when they pick political or literal fights with their rivals.

If Phidas is the patron deity of a state, than the Guardians are going to constantly be whispering complaints. If a prince decides that public Greymoria and/or Maylar worship is permitted, the Guardians are likely going to harass the Children and Testers and loudly complain about the smallest misdeeds of these two groups, even when they are provoked. Professional soldiers often take Hallisan as their patron deity. The Guardians are rarely directly implicated in citing military backed coups, but they have chosen to look the other way when a military coup is against someone they don’t like. Relative to the other eight priesthoods, the Guardians are the most likely theurgists to feel threatened by arcane casters. If the Guardians run out of more obvious enemies they are often poke the local mages with a stick. This could be a good thing if a prince wants to keep the mages in check, but it often causes headaches.

Spoiler: Princes and Phidas' Masks

Phidas’ Masks are usually content and loyal to princes as long as they are well paid. A prince who is in good with the Masks can often make off-hand suggestions and have enemies and rivals disappear while maintaining plausible deniability. The downside of being in tight with the Masks is that they love to use their debts, both monetary and otherwise as leverage. Another drawback to the Masks’ patronage is that princes that make their piety for Phidas public are likely to draw the ire of Zarthus worshippers. Masks are more likely to go to war than Keepers, but far less hawkish than Guardians.

If a prince is openly disdainful of Phidas, the Masks can become a dangerous enemy. The Mask’s most basic method of undermining a political enemy is to give gold to their enemy’s rival. The Masks have less subtle thieves and assassin in their employ. A more sophisticated tactic is to subtly create a problem for a prince, then swoop in like heroes and solve the problem…for a price.

Spoiler: Princes and Mera's Tenders

In most lands, Mera has more theurgists than any other priesthood, but they seem to favor quantity over quality, with lots of relatively weak casters among the Tenders. Most Tenders are a net-asset to princes. They usually focus on healing and rarely make political waves. Even an evil prince usually wants his peasants to be healthy and disease free. The most combat capable Tenders, the Firebringers and the Wayfarers, again are usually assets to princes rather than threats. The Firebringers mostly fight monsters, not soldiers. The Wayfarers serve to keep trade routes safe.

Even if a prince is an ironfisted tyrant, it is rare for the Tenders to take up arms against the local government. They are provide healing and succor to the tyrant’s victims but little else. The Tenders can become dangerous when they ally with a more militant faction. A militant group of rebels with reliable access to healing magic is easily twice as dangerous.

The nigh heretical faction known as the Paladins is a threat to princes. It’s rare, but the Paladins have initiated coups before. In general the Paladins target princes who are incompetent and weak, while leaving ironfisted tyrants alone as long as they are savvy tyrants.

It is extremely uncommon for Tenders to work with armies if the armies are on offense but they will usually join the local army to provide aid in the event of a defensive war.

Spoiler: Princes and Nami's Rovers

Nami’s priests and priestesses are nicknamed Rovers because most of them don’t have a fixed address. Nearly every nation has at least one festival in Nami’s honor and these festivals are rarely on the same day in different lands. It’s not uncommon for a Rover on a circuit to presides over anywhere from six to twelve annual Nami festivals each year. Nami is a patron to travelers. Most of Nami’s permanent temples are build near major trade routes. These temples usually operate as inns for all travelers and they provide aid and support to circuit priests.

Nami preaches freedom above all else. Sometimes Nami’s followers use personal freedom to justify doing disruptive and destructive things, especially when they team up with Maylar’s followers. Rovers will generally step up to strike down fellow Rovers when they turn to rape and murder, but mainstream Rovers are surprisingly tolerant of theft, arson, and they seem to encourage drunken brawls.

For a prince it’s a careful balancing act. They don’t want to let the Rovers get away with destabilizing things, but if a prince gets a reputation for being anti-Nami, then that’s as good as invitation. Nami’s followers love to go where they are told they are not welcome.

This practice may be coming to an end. Rovers traditionally give other Rovers latitude to do as they please, but tension between the Gentle Rain (Nami's most orderly faction) and the Bachites (Nami's least orderly faction) are getting higher and higher. A civil war may be on the horizon, and Rovers may stop automatically giving shelter and succor to their fellow Rovers without checking their credentials.

Spoiler: Princes and Zarthus' Lanterns

Zarthus and his Lanterns are a tricky issue for most princes. The Lanterns are well-known for their love of fomenting rebellions and uprisings. There is a tiny number of Lanterns who are anarchist or pro-democracy that hate all princes. “All taxation is theft!” is a common refrain. Most Lanterns are pragmatic enough that they won’t call for rebellion every time the prince does something they won’t like, but they will complain loudly.

If a prince is publicly killing a hostile follower of Maylar or Greymoria, chances are the general population will applaud their ruler. Zarthus’ followers are generally considered to have some legitimacy to their actions, so a prince who has a reputation for being too anti-Zarthus is going to get a reputation for being a tyrant, deserved or not. When this happens, the Lanterns will often convince large portions of Mera’s Tenders to support them. Because of this, it is rare for a prince to make Zarthus worship illegal.

Zarthus are likely to be a thorn in the side for princes if the prince condones slavery or publicly praises Phidas. A few hardliners are also likely to vehemently oppose princes who publicly endorse Khemra and/or allow serfdom. The Lanterns don’t particularly like Hallisan, but they are rarely likely to foment rebellion against pro-Hallisan princes though again, they are likely to complain loudly.

The vast majority of Lantern backed coups fail outright or their new governments collapse within less than ten years. The one exception is the nation of Apseldia. Apseldia is Scarterras’ only true republic and they have tenaciously hung on to power for over two hundred years. Despite the rarity of these events, princes generally try to avoid Lantern backed coups. It’s common for princes to try to buy the Lantern’s loyalty, or at least buy their silence. Princes often become public patrons of artists and musicians. Princes also like to have Lanterns standing next to them when they perform charitable acts for the poor.

Spoiler: Princes and Greymoria's Children

Greymoria worship is rarely banned outright. At the very least princes will permit venerations of Greymoria twice a year, on her holy day and during the New Year’s celebrations. When Greymoria’s minions attack they nearly always use the justification that their targets didn’t love and cherish Greymoria enough. Thus token worship twice a year is considered good insurance. That’s not enough to placate most hardline Children but the Children don’t have huge numbers so they cannot attack everyone who shuns Greymoria. They cherry pick the worst offenders or else they opt to take a shot at high profile Mera worshippers.

When the Children aren’t smiting non-believers, they are trying to spread the arcane arts. A prince who puts few barriers to learning arcane magic is a prince who is probably never going to be hassled by Greymoria’s Children. That’s great and all, unless a prince fears what a large unregulated population of mages will do.

A lot of monsters and monstrous humanoids worship Greymoria. If a group of Gilgren kobolds is attacking, shouting “I worship Greymoria, don’t kill me!” is not likely to work.

Spoiler: Princes and Maylar's Testers

Maylar worship is frequently banned barring specific observances on specific holy days. Banning Maylar worship may lead to the Testers retaliating against a prince, but publicly supporting Maylar doesn’t help much. The Testers are almost as likely to “test” their friend’s mettle as their foes. A prince is unlikely to face much of a backlash if they publicly kill Testers.

The fastest growing faction of Maylar worshippers is known as the Herders of Men. The Herders are actually trying to improve Maylar’s image by helping people rather than infecting them with disease or stabbing them. The Herders are not huge on charity to those who wish to remain weak. They are willing to give people a hand up but not a hand out. The Herders have been helpful to the populace in areas with a wide frontier and a lot of grazing land but it remains to be seen whether publicly endorsing the Herders is worth the backlash from the other priesthoods.

Orcs, gnolls and a number of routinely hostile humanoids often worship Maylar. They are just as likely to attack areas with Herders as they are to attack areas without Herders. In fact, Herders seem to attract a lot of challengers.

Spoiler: Princes and the Cult of the Compact

The Cult of the Compact is too small and apolitical to warrant a response from most princes. The few areas where the Cult of the Compact wields influence, the Cult usually gets along well with the local prince. Areas where the Cult is strong are usually areas where fighting between the nine major priesthoods is at a minimum. Most princes consider this a good thing.

I guess the question is, do you make the worship of deities you don’t like illegal or do you just make it discouraged? There is also the question of whether rulers want to oppose a rival faith openly or discretely. If the priesthood of Maylar is causing a local lord problems, sometimes banning Maylar worship outright will only win the priesthood quiet support while driving the Testers underground. Some rulers may adopt a policy that “I want my enemies where I can see them.” Even that can backfire. In a lot of cases Maylar, Zarthus, and Greymoria have a public temple and a secret “real” temple.


There is another limit on theurgists. Besides the fact that theurgists are ultimately answerable to their gods, they are also answerable to their own ecclesiastical superiors. A theurgist has to really fall hard to warrant divine punishment but it’s pretty easy to get on the high priest’s bad side. In fact, one of the number one reasons that heresies persist and grow is that the heretics point out that their divine magic works perfectly as proof that they have their deity’s support. This is often true even when theurgists are literally killing each other.

There are two conflicting imperatives that would affect the number of theurgists. Most wizards would secretly like it if there were fewer wizards. The fewer wizards there are, the more valuable each wizard’s services are. Most theurgists would prefer that there were of their own kind, the better to project their patron deity’s divine will. Even if no kings or lords are working to slow down the training of theurgists, the nine priesthoods are limited by piety. In theory, every mortal has the potential to become a theurgist but only a tiny number of people focus their piety towards one set of ideals with the intensity required to unlock divine magic.

Not every super pious individual even wants to learn divine magic. All of the Nine have a large amount of fervent worshippers and even clergy who have no divine magic power at all. Greymoria has a lot of priests and priestesses who study wizardry instead of divine magic. Maylar has a lot of priests and priestesses who choose to hone their martial prowess instead of their magical prowess. Zarthus has a lot of priests who are artists with no magical talent at all.


Divine spell-casters, both theurgists and favored souls do more than help or hinder the powers that be with their magic. They also bear some legitimacy as being a living font of a deity’s power. Divine spell-casters can motivate worshippers to do things. Even if the priesthoods had no access to magic, they would still have this influence and this influence can be scarier to a secular prince than a magical pillar of flame.

Spoiler: Arcane Magic

So there are three kinds of arcane spell-casters, or mages. Wizards, sorcerers, and warlocks. For simplicity I’ll use the term “mage” as a catchall term to refer to someone who is a warlock, sorcerer, or wizard.

Note the female form of a sorcerer is sorceress. The female form of warlock is witch. The female form of wizard is wizard because “wizardess” is not a word. When talking about the plural form, I nearly always am referring to males and females. Mage is a gender neutral word too. Once in a while I will throw in the female form of a word to show how inclusive and woke I am.


Wizards are mages who unlocked their magic through careful study. Arcane magic is accessible from manipulating universal rules. Wizards study these rules carefully. There are a lot of different schools of wizardry but in game terms the end results are the same. They roll the same dice rolls to cast the same spells. The difference is mainly cosmetic. Is a wizard a bearded guy in a robe reading from a loft book or is he a tattooed savage chanting or is he a bard casting magic from his lute?


Sorcerers are born with arcane aptitude. They are sort of savants that instinctively are able to manipulate the universal. The biggest difference is how a sorcerer or sorceress got his power. Sorcerers get their aptitude from having the blood of dragons in their veins, the blood of the Fair Folk in their veins, from having Greymoria’s blessings, or as a random accident of swirling magical energy. It is very hard to look at a sorceress and figure out where her power came from. Many sorcerers will just claim whatever is most socially acceptable in their homeland as the source of their power.


Warlocks get their magic from making pacts with Fair Folk of spirits. One of the most important universal laws of magic is “Magic always has a price” and they pay unorthodox prices for their power giving up anything ranging from the color of their hair to their very souls.

In my gaming circle both of player characters and almost player characters (friends who would like play but I don’t seem often enough for a regular gaming session to be feasible), no one is very interested in warlocks. I might remove them from my setting or have pacts be a means for a wizard or sorcerer to enhance their power. There is nothing to stop a wizard or sorcerer from later seeking out a mystic pact to jumpstart his existing powers. In this way, the line between warlocks and other mages can be blurred.

Spoiler: Sorcerers and sorceresses

Sorcery is a hereditary trait though it can and often does skip a generation or two. In Swynfaredia, the nobility uses arranged marriages between sorcerers and sorceresses to make sure the ruling class maintains their power.

Assuming the princes in a nation other than Swynfaredia decided sorcerers were a threat, then they could murder or sterilize everyone they find with sorcery. Ethical issues with that notwithstanding, adult sorcerers are frequently well equipped to defend themselves. Sorcerers and sorceresses are fairly vulnerable in adolescence when their powers are visible and flashy, but hard to control. You could almost think of sorcerers as being similar to mutants in the X-Men universe. In fact, the Order of the Stick parody comics made this parallel more than once.

Sorcerers can face discrimination and oppression that stops well short of genocide. Generally, wizards tend to look down their noses at sorcerers because the sorcerers are like idiot savants who didn’t earn their magic. A lot of sorcerers or parents of sorcerers who fear persecution will migrate to Swynfaredia. Even when sorcerers are not persecuted, a sorcerer or sorceress of above average skill can migrate to Swynfaredia and marry into the nobility surprisingly easily.

I have yet to develop the continent of Penarchia at all beyond “There lots of small kingdoms that alternatively trade or feud with each other. I might add a mini-Swynfaredia where the ruling class is made up of sorcerers. On a direct level, magical powers by birthright and sorcerer nobles seem to be a natural fit. Princes that are not sorcerers would be likely to be threatened by sorcerers. Powers by bloodline that are not them? That’s a threat.

Whether discrimination of sorcerers is subtle or genocidal, I believe sorcerers and sorceresses would naturally migrate to places where sorcerers have special privileges. It would either be countries where sorcerers are held in high regard, Kahdisteria, Swynfaredia or with groups that value sorcerers such as Greymoria cults.

A lot of places would not persecute or elevate sorcerers. I figure a lot of places, princes judge sorcerers by what they do, not what they are. If a sorcerer is willing to work for the regime, great! He was clearly blessed with great power by a benevolent force. If a sorcerer is opposing a prince, the sorcerer is a monster who is channeling unholy power. To most non-magic users, sorcerers are indistinguishable from wizards.

Spoiler: Wizard apprenticeships

Wizardry is a lot easier to regulate. In theory, almost anyone can learn wizardry. But in practice it takes years of hard work and study to unlock the basics of arcane magic. On a very simple level, most peasant families need every able bodied person working the fields or working the hearth. Most poor people cannot afford to have a child study wizardry even in the unlikely even that a would-be teacher is not charging anything. This biases wizards to be drawn from upper classes. Even a barbarian tribe with some kind of savage variant of wizardry is probably going to limit their training to a specific bloodline.

In most places, neophytes learn wizardry in a one-on-one apprenticeship with a more experienced mentor. Wizards can take on apprentices for favors or money. Most wizards also are concerned with their legacy. They are probably going to screen would-be apprentices for their intelligence, work ethic, tenacity, and even their personality.

Wizard mentors have a well-deserved reputation for trying to mold protégés into younger versions of themselves. I figure most wizard mentors feel like they can demand both a bribe and a suitable candidate. It’s not unheard of for a wizard to tell a king or queen “Sorry, I cannot teach the prince, he lacks the discipline for the mystic arts.” On the other hand, if the local wizards look for “X, Y, and Z traits” nobles can try to instill these values into their children if they really want their children to become wizards. In a lot of ways, one-on-one mentorship is a perfectly natural for medieval nobility. Since most children of nobility get mundane education from individual mentors rather than schools.

Unless the ruling class is made up of sorcerers, very few nobles would object to wizards mentoring the children of nobility for coin provided by nobles. A wizard that due to principles or ego prefers to choose apprentices solely on merit (however they define merit) might seem like a threat to a prince. A prince could outlaw non-sanctioned wizarding training. That would certainly cut down the number of wizards in an area, but it would virtually guarantee the wizards that are left are hostile to ruling regime.

Spoiler: Wizarding Schools

Not every wizard learns the mystic arts from a single tutor. It is possible to learn wizardry in a school setting. I may add more in the future, but for the time being, Scarterras only has two arcane magic schools, one in Apseldia and one in Uskala. I probably should add a magic school or three sponsored by Greymoria’s priesthood somewhere else.

King Drosst of Uskala set up the world’s largest magic school. In theory, the magic school is independent of the government. Anyone who demonstrates basical literacy and has hundreds of gold pieces to spend can attend. In a lot of cases, nobles send their children there because it’s cheaper than hiring a tutor. If a candidate is literate and demonstrates exceptional intelligence, King Drosst will front the gold to provide a scholarship for a penniless wizarding student in exchange for five years of government service. In most cases, alumni get a government position for money after their mandatory five years. The magic school has about a hundred students and twenty instructors at any given time. Drosst may be evil, but he recognizes the value of using carrots as well as sticks.

Apseldia has a bardic school that has a bardic magic school as part of it. The magic school has about twenty students and six instructors at any given time. They are supportive of the local government but they are hardly extensions of it. They choose students based on the gold or prestige they can bring in.

Spoiler: Covens

Besides one-on-one apprenticeships and magic schools, there is another option for someone to learn wizardry. Someone can join a coven. I understand a coven means a group of warlocks or witches but in the case of Scarterra the definition of coven is this:

A group of mages (usually wizards) who legally owns and rules over a small piece of land that is part of a feudal hierarchy.

This is the arcane version of a bishopric. A Coven owns a parcel of land and they have the full farming, timber, fishing, and mining rights for their land. Much like a bishopric or feudal lord, a Coven draws income from their land and answers to a feudal superior. Unlike a feudal lord, instead of providing gold and military levies (or in addition to providing gold and military levies), a Coven is obligated to provide magical services to their feudal lord when requested.

In most cases, a Coven is allowed to select their own leader without the feudal lord having any input. Usually, a Coven leader is the most powerful wizard in the wizard, or sometimes the oldest. In most cases, a Coven is allowed to choose their new recruits without interference from their feudal lord, but some lords require a coven to maintain a maximum or minimum of members. One-on-one apprenticeship is the norm, but after the apprenticeship is over, someone other than the neophyte’s mentor probably administers their initiation test.

Covens are not generally threats to princes because their legal rights and privileges are all backed by feudal contracts. Some princes like to have Covens, others view them as more trouble than they are worth. It’s very common that a newly established Coven will be very deferential with the wizards falling over themselves to obey their prince’s every request. Three generations later, the Coven leaders often show an attitude “You called me for something this small, your majesty.” More than a few princes prefer to have a wizard among their personal retinue as opposed to giving them land and a title. That way their court wizard knows that she can be fired the second she tops being useful to her lord.

Spoiler: Witches and Warlocks

Warlocks (and witches) are individuals who gain arcane power by making pacts with spirits or Fair Folk. Most warlocks get their power from pacts with the Fair Folk. Less commonly, warlocks get their power from pacts with Greymoria’s spirit minions. A rare few warlocks get their power from pacts with Void Demons. Rarest of all, Nami’s spirits sponsor a few warlocks, maybe once every ten years.

The Fair Folk’s motives are always mysterious and their pacts and the associated costs are often strange and hard to predict. It is believed that the Fair Folk draw sustenance from their witches and warlocks, literally feeding off them. The Fair Folk are not big on answering direct inquiries but they insist that these relationships are symbiotic with both sides getting something rather than a parasitic relationship they are accused of.

Greymoria generally empowers warlocks to serve her bidding. A Greymorian witch that works tireless on behalf of Greymoria’s interests is likely to never see any negative aspects from her pact. A Greymorian witch that resists her Mistress’ will is likely to accumulate all sorts of odd curses.

Void Warlocks (better known as Infernalists) are generally given a pact that either forces them to kill or puts a target on their head. As long as the Void Warlock ends up killing a lot of people in some way, the Void Demons are generally satisfied. Essentially, the rare few demons capable of empower warlocks create a warlock or witch, send her somewhere she will do lots of damage, then never give their minion second though. A small number maintain contact with their patron and enact complex schemes.

Most assume that Nami’s witches and warlocks are created solely for Nami’s entertainment. They often get an inconvenient curse. Nami’s spirit might say “The payment for your power is a lifetime of deception” and the newly minted warlock finds he is now incapable of telling lies, much like Jim Carrey. Unlike Jim Carrey, the “no lying” curse mysterious disappears whenever the warlock is exposed to magic that detects lies or forces the truth. In these situations, the warlock can lie and have magical divination say it’s the absolute truth. Other than an oddball curse, Nami warlocks are given a free rein to do whatever they want. Nami warlocks tend to live very interesting lives with giant alternating swings of good and bad luck.


I figure that witches and warlocks usually face systemic discrimination. Some of it is even deserved.

Infernalists are universally despised. They have every secular and religious authority gunning for them. Consorting with demons is a death sentence in pretty much land. One common thing infernalists do is impersonate another type of warlock or their frame non-infernalist warlocks for their crimes. This means that witches and warlocks are often distrusted as a matter of principle. Any warlock might be a pawn of the Void.

A few noble families claim to have Fae blood in their veins and some rulers have mercurial Fair Folk allies, but for the most part the Fair Folk are considered by secular authorities to be a dangerous X-Factor. The nine established priesthoods are not big fans of the Fair Folk. They don’t want to push too far because the Fair Folk are dangerous enemies and the Nine themselves seem to tolerate the Fair Folk, but on some level every pact between a mortal and one of the Fae is denying the Nine their rightful worship. Fae powered witches and warlocks often find themselves on the bad side of religious authorities wherever they go.

It doesn’t help that in Greymoria is generally an unpopular goddess that is widely considered evil and disruptive and that Nami is often widely viewed as being unnecessary disruptive. This doesn’t help the image of witches and warlocks in general but at the very least these warlocks can expect aid and succor from the priesthoods of Greymoria and Nami respectively.


In theory, a local government could be based on warlocks and witches. At some point in the past, the monarchs or their ancestors figuratively or literally sold their souls for political power as well as mystical power. Their entire bloodline could be part to the pact.

Since my Fair Folk are not super well developed yet, I’m putting this idea on the back burner. I’m not 100% sure I want faustian agents to have enough power to indirectly control entire nations. If I create a nation ruled by witches and warlocks, it should probably be a small nation.

Spoiler: Music, the Greatest Magic of All

Music, the greatest magic of all.

So back when I developed Scarterras as a setting for D&D 3.5 I was going through the prestige classes decided which ones fit and which ones do not. I was immediately intrigued by the Seekers of the Song in the supplement Complete Arcane.

Generally it’s just taken as a given that bards can cast spells. The Seekers of the Song are a prestige class available to bards that refer to a group of mystics who seek out a universal song that hums with the power of all creation. Some Seekers seek good ends, others evil ends but all they all seek the primal music that underlines all the universe.

I am all about this. Tolkien had the gods and goddesses sing the world into creation. Some lore on angels suggest that angels sang the universe into existence at God’s behest. I am claiming this for my fictional world. Turoch and the Nine originally sang Creation into existence. They created is known by philosophers as the Celestial Song.

Bards cast their magic by either knowingly or unknowingly tapping into the power of the Celestial Song.


But now that’s not using D&D, but I built a homebrew system, I needed to work in bardic magic somehow. A fantasy setting doesn’t need magic bards in it, but I like the concept of the Celestial Song too much to not use it.

For simplicity, both arcane and divine bards have the same spell lists and the same dice rolls as regular spell-casters. There bardic theurgists and bardic favored souls. Their bardic wizards, bardic sorcerers, and bardic warlocks. Bardic magic cannot be cast silently, which is a drawback, but bardic casters get lots of flaw points to compensate.


A favored soul is going to develop their magic in a way personalized to them. If a favored soul is musically talents, her magic is almost certain to develop as an extension of her music. Most favored souls are not very musically inclined, which is why most favored souls are not bardic casters.

If a priesthood is training a new recruit to be a theurgist and the new recruit happens to have musical talent, then the recruit’s teachers are going to personalize the new recruits training to capitalize on it. Divine bards are useful because they are great at swaying the masses. If a new recruit is tone deaf, no big deal, they can learn their magic the “regular” way. I figure the priesthoods of Zarthus and Nami will seek out new recruits who are musically gifted. The other seven priesthoods don’t mind if they serendipitously pick up a musical prodigy but they don’t go out of their way to train divine bards.

Because Zarthus is the god of music, he probably has at least as many divine bards as more traditional favored souls and theurgists. Divine bards would be pretty rare elsewhere.


It’s rare, but not unheard of for a budding sorcerer or sorceress to instinctively wield her magic through music but this is not common. For wizards and warlocks it’s usually pretty straightforward. A bardic wizard cannot apprentice someone to cast non-bardic magic. A non-bardic wizard cannot apprentice someone to cast bardic magic. Warlocks naturally become bards if their mystic patrons are music lovers. Alternatively a mystic patron that is not musically inclined may empower a bardic warlock if their supplicant happens to be musically talented already.


It takes a lot of time and effort to learn arcane or divine magic. It’s not impossible to learn both types of magic, but it is rare that people try. Of those that do try to learn both, the majority of them are bards. These are the Seekers of the Celestial Song. They hope that if they can musically manipulate divine and arcane magic they can tap into the universe’s music.


I don’t see princes being any more or less threatened by a bardic spell-caster versus a more conventional spell-caster.

So how can a prince regulate magic users in his or her realm?


1-A prince can try to influence who is or isn’t trained in magic.

2-A prince can try to pass laws limiting who can cast magic and when.

3-A prince can bribe magic users to back his regime.

4-A prince can kill magic users who threaten him in some way.

5-A prince can control the supply of regents or materials that magic users need.


I think #1 would be the easiest to do. An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.

#2 would require that a prince has someone in law enforcement capable of detecting and countering magic. At the very least, a prince doesn’t want to give magical criminals a free reign to do as they please. At the very least in most jurisdictions I should take a leaf out of Shadowrun. Murder, theft, assault, rape, and vandalism are all illegal. If magic is involved in any of these crimes and the perpetrator is caught, the punishment will be more severe.

I don’t think most places could feasibly enforce, “all magic without the prince’s permission is illegal regardless of effect.” A prince would need a lot of magically adept minions to enforce this. Swynfaredia would probably try to enforce this to make it difficult for warlocks and wizards. Rather than have skulking agents casting Detect Magic over and over again, it would probably be easiest to just require visiting wizards and warlocks to buy a magic license (and register their name and abilities on a census).

Other nations may or may not have similar licenses. These licenses would range from token (25 gold pieces a year) to exorbitant (500 gold pieces a year) depending on how much the prince wants to throttle mages.

I don’t see divine magic being tightly regulated. For a prince to try to do so is tantamount to putting secular and religious authorities at each other’s throats. Also, a person who is worshipping a deity who is opposed to a prince’s regime is almost as dangerous without magic as with it. Princes are more likely to regulate worship than to regulate magic. Regulating worship also would impact recruitment, item #1.


#3 makes a lot of sense. The best way to handle a potential enemy is to make him your friend. I don’t think a prince can hold on to power without at least a few vassals or retainers with magical power.


#4 makes a lot of sense. Death is the most final way to eliminate one’s enemies. The problem is a prince who relies on this is going to make sure hostile magic users are galvanized in their opposition.


#5 would hard. Regents are valuable in making potions and scrolls. Spells with permanent effects (such as creating undead minions) consume regents, but most magic doesn’t need regents. Most magic requires very little in material resources to cast.

In most cases, the best a prince can do is levy a tax on regent trade. It’s possible for an iron fisted prince to make the state the only legal supplier of regents, but in most cases it’s more feasible to stick to limiting regent harvesting practices that are especially deplorable like breaking kenku eggs. They can also limit where regents are harvested. If a prince considers it poaching to kill a prince’s deer in the prince’s forest then it’s probably also poaching to harvest regents in the prince’s forest without his permission.

I haven’t decided how common or rare to make natural magic fonts, but it’s a safe bet that a prince worthy of his crown knows where all the magic fonts in his borders are and is striving to make sure he has a say in who gets to use them. Magic fonts help casters recharge quicker but the real value is that regents are much easier to find near magic fonts than in most mundane places.

 

Agree in principle but not implementation.

3/4 people with basic magic might be a little high. I considered 10% rather high.

That's pretty similar to what I was thinking, though it's rather easy to move from level one to level two for player characters. It probably should be reflected in the general population.

Experience wise divine magic progression looks like this. Arcane magic advances like this but only for the school of Evocation.
● 5 experience points
●● 5 experience points
●●● 10 experience points
●●●● 15 experience points
●●●●● 20 experience points

Arcane Progression like this
● 4 experience points
●● 3 experience points
●●● 6 experience points
●●●● 9 experience points
●●●●● 12 experience points

But arcane spellcasters have to buy each indivdiual spell separately. New spells cost the level of the spell x 2 minus any applicable discounts.

The main thing is that NPCs generally accumulate experience points much much slower than player characters.


So I'm not sure what the baseline for how many people in the general population get magic period but it's probably going to look like this.

● 100% of magic users make it this far.
●● 80% of magic users make it this far.
●●● 50% of magic users make it this far.
●●●● 20% of magic users make it this far.
●●●●● 5% of magic users make it this far

So far none of my NPCs have more two or three different arcane schools or divine spheres. Neshik's player is eyeballing four or five spheres. He's already got Healing ●●●, Crafts ●●●, Divination ●. He is near certain he wants to pick up Purification eventually (though he bought a wand that duplicates Purification in the interim, for strange reason the PCs decided they don't like being poisoned). He considering picking up Spirit Magic too.

Aranil's player is far more interested in raising his mundane skills than his magical ones.


By design level ●●● effects and below deal with fairly routine situations. ●●●● and ●●●●● powers are not routine. Healing is a good example. ●● will fix 90% of the bumps and bruises farmers are likely to get. ●●● will fix most battlefield wounds. ●●●● will heal the life draining attacks from undead. ●●●●● will heal amputees. That's of a course a huge deal to amputees but not every village has an amputee. A single person with Healing ●●●●● could earn a lot of gold or a lot of gratitude healing the grieviously injured.

I was thinking of using a quest to assault a castle. A castle's enchantment would deflect most/all hostile magic unless the attackers had a special MacGuffin. The MacGuffin required would differ from castle to castle and require research to determine.

Though I suppose putting in defense enchantments can require a MacGuffin. I made a chart for crafting magical items. It's possible to make a magic item entirely by spending lots of gold on rarified materials, but the cost of a magic item can be reduced through quests.

Mitigating Cost Sample Difficulty of Quest

500 gold pieces Item needs to be kissed by a princess before it’s enchanted.

500-1500 gold pieces The person enchanting the magical item is doing literally involved intimately with every aspect of creating the item starting with mining the base ore. The more processing steps involved, the more valuable this quest is.

1000 gold pieces Weapon needs to be used to defeat a worthy foe in one-on-one combat before it’s enchanted.

2000 gold pieces Item needs the blessing of a high ranking priest of all nine of the Nine.

3000 gold pieces Item involves a paradox or riddle-like challenge or scavenger hunt. The item crafter needs to find a “fool’s brilliance” and a “politician’s sincerity”.

4000 gold pieces Metal needs to be forged in dragon’s breath.

5000 gold pieces A powerful spirit needs to willingly allow you to bind it to the item.

 

That's a good idea. Iron filings would at least keep spirits out. There would need to be at least a bit of silver or silverwood to keep out undead and demons. I guess in lieu of "Cleric" I'm using the term "theurgist." since the definition of cleric is "a member of the clergy."

A member of the cleric does not have to have magical power to perform his or her duties. A theurgist does not have to be a member of the clergy to cast divine magic. Though there is certainly overlap. Or I might use the Blessed with a capital B to refer to anyone with any divine magic powers of any sort.

 

I meant "any magic at all."

I don't have cantrips in my system.

For simpliciity I wasn't going to put an intelligence requirement any spell-casting. I don't have a bell curve. The points buy system is just an abstraction. A character that takes the time to learn magic has less time to develop his or her mundane skills.



Everything is a points buy system for character creation.
Nearly every trait is rated 1 to 5 or 0 to 5. Willpower is the sole exception at 1 to 10.

Heroic characters (PCs and major NPCs) get 24 dots to split between the nine attributes, and 25 points to spread between the 30ish abilities. Starting Willpower is three. Characters start out with two languages.

Then they get 40 freebie points that can be spent to raise attribute abilites, buy Merits, buy magic power, or raise Willpowers. Characters can choose to take on Flaws to get extra Freebie points.

Attributes 5 freebie points per dot
Abilities 2 freebie points per dot
Willpower 2 freebie points per dot
3 Experience points 1 Freebie point
New Language 2 experience points

Arcane Spell Caster 3 freebie points
Arcane Magic Dot up to 3 3 freebie points per dot
Arcane Magic dot above 3 4 freebie points per dot
Evocation dot up to 3 4 freebie points per dot
Evocation dot above 3 5 freebie points per dot
New spells 2 experience points per level of spell

Divine Spell Caster 3 freebie points
Divine Magic Dot up to 3 4 freebie points per dot
Divine Magic dot above 3 5 freebie points per dot


So a character can use his freebie points to buy magic abilties or sink the freebie points into mundane abilities and be super bad ass at normal stuff like sword fighting. My most important goal is that a player character who is a magic user and a player character who is not a magic user should be roughly equally as useful in adventuring situtations. That goals seems to have been achieved.

My secondary goal is that the world at large makes sense.


Nonheroic characters have as many dots as they need. Ball park, most normal peasants have 2 in every attribute except for one 3. They 20ish points of abilities.

Most nobles are in the heroic category because they grow up with ors giving them a wider array of skills than a peasant's education is likely to be, but a commoner that had a rough informal on the hard streets and survived could easily have as many dots as a typical noble. A lazy noble that didn't apply himself to his education much would not be a heroic characters.

Heroic characters have 10 health levels, and non-heroic characters have 5 health levels. Humans, half-elves, half-orcs, and gnomes anyway. Elves have 9 or 4 health levels. Dwarves have 11 and 6 health levels.

Run out of health levels, your character is dead. Characters can take a Merit to buy an extra health level or a Flaw to give up a health level.

 

Before I said that power could take the form of magic, land, gold, prestige or weapons. Princes want to regulate all forms of power to the best of their ability. Lets talk about weapons and the knowledge of how to use them.

The right to bear arms....or not.

Youtube channels that focus on HEMA (Historical European Martial Arts) or medieval history have argued about how common weapons and combat training was in the medieval world. The medieval period covers a long stretch of history and a wide variety of nations and cultures. There were times and places where the lower classes were not permitted to carry weapons. There were times and places where most adult males were required to own and carry swords. These examples from real world history are pretty limited. It seems like in most places, kings didn’t pass a lot of laws or decrees about how well armed the lower classes are.


Both real world and fantasy world princes have to balance two conflicting imperatives. A well-armed populace might eventually rise up and overthrow their prince. Thus if a well-armed populace is an internal threat. On the other hand, a poorly armed populace means a prince’s realm is going to be vulnerable to hostile foreign powers.


Okay so my fantasy world has the same problems with bandits and wars that the real world medieval period had, but it also has literal monsters in the wilderness, the sewers, or materializing spirits coming down from the sky. This might mean that a prince might not only allow, but encourage the peasants to gather weapons and learn how to use them. Even an ironfisted tyrant doesn’t what goblins raiders eating half of his workforce.

At some point I need to read Shadiversity’s fantasy novel. I’m just concerned that his hyper focus on realism is likely to hurt the story. Maybe not. But Shad really likes swords, so he created a world where most people carry a sword. So his world has no night, the sun is always shining. If a person is trapped in darkness for 24 hours, they turn into a malevolent monster. Besides killing non-monstrous people, these monsters will also kidnap people and trap them in darkness to raise their numbers. Because of the prevalence of these monsters and the fact that these attacks are fairly random, most adult males and more than a few women carry a sword with them for self-defense. Because most adults carry a sword, his people developed a dueling culture.

I know that Shad worked backwards from “I want lots of swords!” to “This is why there are lots of swords.” Shad puts for the idea that “If I know that I’m going to have to fight for my life, I’m going to wear the best armor I can afford, get a big shield, and carry battlefield weapons. If I think there is a chance I’m going to have to fight for my life, I’m going to carry a sword and maybe a buckler shield.” Staffs were often kept for self-defense too. So I guess there is a difference between keeping a piece for self-defense and keeping a set of full military gear in the attic.


On the other hand, assuming the local prince is a powerful magic user, or has powerful magic users loyal to him, he might not need a well-armed populace to defend his realm.

Another possibility is that with the prevalence of magic users, local princes don’t even care whether their peasants are swordsmen or not. Princes are too busy trying to control the local magic users to even spare a second thought to how well-armed his subjects are with mundane weapons and armor.


On the whole, I think the natures of my world of Scarterras tilt the deck towards “princes generally want their populace to be well-armed.” I’m not married to this supposition. If someone thinks this would not be the case, I would be eager to read how you came to this conclusion.

I think Scarterran noblemen who are effete weakling couriers who cannot fight would be fairly uncommon. I think the peasant and merchant classes on Scarterras would have more combat training and weapons than their real world historical counterparts, but I'm not sure how much better armed.

Most peasants could get a hold of spear, shield, and some cloth armor without a lot of fuss. If the local nobility wanted citizen soldiers, it would not be infeasible to supply the peasantry with swords, crossbows, and medium armor. Merchant class peasants would probably be able to get their own swords, crossbows and medium armor. If the local nobles provided them military support, they could easily afford long bows, halberds, and the like.

Should the Scarterran people generally be well-armed or should the nobles jealously guard their power.



Another question is if most commoners are carrying a sword, quarterstaff, or hand axe for self-defense and/or keep a set of light armor, shield and spear in the barn, would this mean that there wouldn’t be slavery or serfdom?

Peasant levies were sent into combat in the real world historical Europe, but these troops were basically untrained generally little more than arrow catchers. It takes a lot of work to become a world renowned sword fighter, but a month of solid training is probably enough to make almost any able bodied adult reasonably competent (At the ●● level at least). I still think the standard battlefield armament for most commoners, even trained ones, would be spears, shields, light armor, and maybe crossbows. City folk probably have rapiers, bucklers, and maybe crossbows.

If most of the peasants have basic armaments it’s harder to push them around. Not impossible. A knight in full plate can run roughshod over dozens of foot soldiers. A single knight could theoretically take on a hundred foot soldiers if he kills enough of them quickly enough to cause the line to falter and break. Magic of course, can bully soldiers too.

Even if a prince has the power to bully armed populace, it’s probably easiest to make a rousing speech of “We’re all in this together. Together we must defend ourselves from the outside aggressors.” That level of propaganda would not be very difficult in a world full of fantasy monsters.


There were historical examples of slave soldiers. I personally think that’s guano crazy. The Unsullied in Game of Thrones were an exaggerated version of real world eunich soldiers. Basically they were brainwashed from a young age to lack the capacity to rebel. But in Game of Thrones, they did rebel anyway. I don’t know any real world examples of slave soldiers mutinying, but Spartacus was a gladiator slave who led a massive revolt.

I certainly cannot picture the dark elves of Kahdisteria arming any of their slaves as soldiers. That doesn’t close off the possibility of other nations having slave soldiers, but that’s still weird to me. I don’t know if any nations would have gladiator traditions, perhaps as means of capital punishment or elsewise. In the real world, it was not that uncommon for gladiators to survive a match. It’s expensive to keep and train gladiators, game masters had an incentive to let their gladiators to fight again. Not every gladiator was a slave. Some freemen fought for gold or glory.

In a world where magical healing is a real thing, gladiatorial conflict can be visceral and bloody without being automatically lethal. There is still is a good chance that someone can die in the arena (and the crowd probably secretly is hoping for a death) but gladiatorial combat with magical healers waiting in the wings could make blood sports less suicidal, so free gladiators fighting of their own accord is more feasible.

Where and how should I include gladiatorial combat in Scarterras, if ever?


Dwarves and elves live a lot longer than humans. Dwarf and elf pregnancies are about 11 months and 24 months respectively and it takes a lot longer for a dwarf or elf baby to grow up to adulthood than a human. Dwarf and elf nations cannot bounce back from massive casualties the way that humans can. I am betting that it’s rare for an adult male (or any adult really) of these species to not have some basic combat training.

Most existing fantasy writing has elves teach almost all their children how to fight with swords and bows. Most existing fantasy writing has dwarves develop a machismo/martial culture not unlike the Klingons. In fact, some call Klingons “Space Dwarves.”


Gnomes live long and breed slowly too, but I don’t figure gnomes would have much of a martial culture. Gnomes have a +1 difficulty penalty on all Strength rolls which has a huge impact on combat. For simplicity I chose not to give gnomes a combat penalty on attack rolls due to their limited reach compared to most other races. They also get a penalty due to their small size in grappling and bull rush maneuvers in unarmed combat.

I need to some up with a local Scarterran proverb. A gnome’s sword is his tongue. Gnomes get a -1 difficulty bonus on nearly all Charisma and Manipulation. In most cases, they talk themselves out of trouble or they die. I don’t agree with everything Shad says, but I agree with the gist of his Youtube video on how halflings and other little people would fight. They would fight dirty. Gnomes at war rely on stealth and subterfuge. Poisoning enemies or killing them in their sleep, then using their silver tongues to explain why it couldn’t have possibly been them who did the deed.


Kenku are in a similar boat. They are good at talking and not very good at fighting. Only slightly shorter than humans, their big problem is their hollow bones. They are better at fighting than gnomes though because they get a -1 difficulty break on all Dexterity rolls but they prefer to wheel and deal with their way out of problems rather than fighting if they have the choice.


Orcs and even less aggressive barbarians would probably generally know how to fight. It’d be rare to find any intelligent creature living outside of civilization that doesn’t develop their combat skills.


The main combat skills are listed below. They go on a one to five scale like nearly everything else. A character with a specialty gets a bonus die on all rolls within that specialty. It’s pretty easy for any character to get a specialty. It gets increasingly expensive to buy a second or third specialty. They aren’t cumulative either, a character that has a specialty in “axes” and a specialty in “parries” would only get one bonus die when parrying with an axe, not a two-die bonus.

So I figure anyone growing up in a rough upbringing would be almost certain to pick up ● level combat skills.

If the local lord encourages the lower classes to be part-time citizen soldiers, ●● level combat skills would be very common. I figure most barbarian adults would have this level of combat training just to be able to handle all the monsters in the wilderness.

●●● level combat abilities represent people who have had lots of training but very little real fighting experience, or very little training and a hellish lifetime, or moderate training and moderate real combat experience. The average orc or other barbarian that makes a living raiding weaker people probably has this level of combat training.

People with ●●●● fighting skills are probably going to be local celebrities regardless if they are highborn or lowborn. ●●●●● fighters are living legends, almost treated like potent magic users.


Brawl
Your ability to fight unarmed.

● You don’t immediately fold in the face of a fight.
●● You’ve had your share of tussles with neighbors and local brawlers.
●●● You fight with confidence and competence, and you can count on winning or at least coming through a fight and remaining standing.
●●●● You can take on most opponents and expect to win.
●●●●● You can do as much with your fists as many soldiers and knights do with their weapons.
Specialties: Boxing, drunken fighting, grappling, showing off, throws, wrestling, magical touch attacks


Dodge
Ability to move out of the way of harmful things.

● You reflexively avoid most minor sources of injury and show a measure of grace in your movements.
●● You’re hard to hurt unless someone or something catches you by surprise.
●●● It takes serious effort for an opponent to hit you; you get out of the way of most thrown objects as well as immediate dangers
●●●● Only skilled warriors can expect to hurt you very much.
●●●●● Wherever a threat is, you’re almost invariably somewhere else.

Specialties: By situation (back step, dive, finding cover, leap) or by attack (pole weapon, brawling attack, thrown weapons, magical bursts).


Archery
Your skill with bows and crossbows.

● You can shoot adequately as long as the circumstances are not distracting. You can maintain a bow but not repair it.
●● You can hunt and fight competently with a bow. You can maintain and repair a bow but not build a new one.
●●● You can handle a bow with grace and style, and you can make weapons that are respected for their craftsmanship.
●●●● Warlords and others who require superior archers seek you out.
●●●●● Neither distance, darkness, nor anything else seems capable of stopping your arrows from going precisely where you want them to go.

Specialties: Quick shots, moving targets, hunting, horseback, ambushes, fields, forests


Melee
Your skill in close combat with weapons.

● You can handle simple weapons and any weapon popular in the area you grew up. You can maintain but not repair a weapon.
●● You can fight moderately well with common weapons. You can do basic repairs on an axe or other simple melee weapon.
●●● You know how to use a wide variety of weapons well, and you can make a living as a professional soldier if you choose. You can basic repairs on a sword or more complex melee weapon. You can manufacture simple melee weapons.
●●●● You routinely distinguish yourself in battles, tournaments, and other martial displays.
●●●●● Everyone who uses your favored weapons knows your deeds –which may breed challenges as well as respect.

Specialties: By weapon (swords, axes, clubs), by situation (fighting in formation, duels, multiple opponents) or by maneuver (rapid draws, disarms, weapon drills)


In combat Dexterity is king. Most combat rolls involve Dexterity + Dodge, Dexterity + Melee, Dexterity + Brawl, etc. A character with Dexterity ●●●●● Melee ● fights exactly as well as someone with Dexterity ●●● and Melee ●●●. In a way, Dexterity is probably the single most important of the nine attributes because of its role in combat. That’s arguably a weakness of the system but that’s neither here nor there. Taking Dexterity as a dump stat is going to hinder a character far more than taking any other attribute as a dump stat.

Dodge can be used to avoid any attack. Characters can also use their Brawl or Melee to block or parry close combat attacks. Characters can block or even catch arrows IF they buy expensive Merits to represent advanced training. Few characers do, but the option is there if a player wants to mimic the abilities of a D&D monk.

Fun fact. Characters fighting on horseback get a bunch of bonuses but a character cannot roll more dice in Melee or Archery than they have in Ride. Thus a character with Melee ●●●● and Ride ● will always want to fight on foot.


Mundane skills that aren’t used for combat are pretty similar and I have fluffy descriptions for the one to five levels of all of them. Most typical peasants and noble courtiers NPCs have ●●● in whatever skill they base their livelihood on. People with ●●●● skills can generally make good money and attract the attention of nobles and anyone else who want the best musicians the best estate managers, etc. People with ●●●●● skills are probably world famous and can basically dictate terms to their employers.

Unless a character's speciality is Subterfuge or Stealth of course. One of my favorite Game of Thrones lines of Sir Davos Seaworth applies.
"I was never a pirate, I was a smuggler?"
"What's the difference?"
"If you are a famous smuggler, you aren't doin' it right,"


It’s not uncommon for PC level characters to have multiple ●●● abilities. Neshik and Aranil both have three threes. Aranil has a gazillion twos. His player likes playing jack-of-all trades types. It’s not uncommon for PC level characters that opt not to play magic users to have lots of really impressive. Svetlana’s whose player sadly opted out of the game early, has six threes.