My Fantasy RPG World, Feedback and Ideas appreciated

Yeah but I didn't want to be greedy. I wanted to solve my short-term problem of what to run for players. I wasn't setting out to immediately create the greatest tabletop RPG game system that ever was or ever will be....that comes later.

It's important to playtest modifications so I can fine tune the greatest tabletop RPG game system that ever was or ever will be.

For instance so we've learned.

-Making potions by version 1.0 rules was too hard and too expensive. I lowered the base price for making potions and scrolls and I made some fairly generous rules to let characters with Hearth Wisdom and Alchemy scavenge for magical regents in the wilderness.

-The White Wolf system for fighting multiple opponents is very harsh for a heroic scale fantasy setting. We reduced the penalty for fighting multiple opponents substanitally.

-Version 1.0 I was so concerned about making magical attacks too powerful I over compensated. Invocation magic sucked. I had to boost it substantially.

-Since I am giving NPCs quasi-realistic limitations on how much gold they can realistically have, this means far less treasure than a typical D&D game which means I have to lower the price for magical goods and services a lot. A top of the line magical sword of legendary power now costs around 20,000 gold pieces, not 200,000.


Much remains to be seen. I am curious if I made elves and gnomes balanced compared to humans or if they would OP. We haven't played enough to find out. I don't want to force players to not have choices but I kind of wish someone played an ordinary human for comparison.

The d10 system operates on a 1-5 scale for attributes not a 3-18 system. That means it's a lot harder to make a small nudge to an attribute.

-Elves get a -1 difficulty break on all non-magical Dexterity rolls. That's very powerful.
-It remains to be seen whether the compensating weakness balances it out. 9 health levels instead of 10. +1 difficulty penalty on physical saving throws.

Gnomes were creating to be perfect diplomats. They were made small so they would be less threatening.

Gnomes get a +1 difficulty penalty on all nonmagical Strength rolls. That's very limiting since that penalizes all damage rolls, apart from crossbows which don't directly rely on the strength of the user.
Gnomes get a -1 difficulty bonus on all nonmagical Charisma and Manipulation rolls other than intimidation and seduction. That's very powerful. We'll see if that's fair.

I realize I made gnomes into a race of Tyrion Lannisters but I came up with this concept BEFORE I even saw season 1 of Game of Thrones.


So far, D&D10 seems to favor specialists over generalists which is fine.

 

Accidental double post, but rather than delete it, let's talk about a magical mafia/thieves guild.

Typically in D&D and D&D-esque settings you have a thieves' guild. The thieve's guild takes a cut of all thievery in it's territory. In exchange they provide some strength in numbers and insider invasion to avoid the law.

I have no problem with this but I feel like this is small potatoes and a little weird. How often in history has organized crime unionized pickpockets and burglars.

Naturally we'll want some extortion rackets.

I'm going to steer clear of human (or demihuman) trafficking for now, though I believe that can fit into a fantasy world but I want to keep things fairly light for now. They could take a percentage from a PG-13 brothel but I don't want to dive down the rabbit hole.

One thing the criminals can do in Fumaya is importing and exporting of mundane goods. Yeah that's not exactly sinister but it's cutting down on taxes and commerce fees that the legitimate government gets. Remember the government is strapped for gold and beset by many challenges.

What about narcotics or other illegal substances? Is that too modern? Realistically only the merchant class and nobles would be able to afford most recreational drugs. What would be contraband in a medieval fantasy world. Unicorn horn could be a contraband but even in a high magic world you aren't going to see a lot of unicorn parts.

 

Love the sentiment but you spelled my name wrong...

Yes. Just for reference, here are some examples of what the best of the best divine spellcasters can do.

Regrow amputated limbs, cause trees to attack, call down lightning bolts, transform into a polar bear, let a dozen people fly, make a working golem (after spending thousands of gold on rarified components), ask your god a direct question and get a riddled reply back in return, create an undead warrior with the strength of ten men (after spending hundreds of gold on rarified components), summon an ogre sized elemental.

These are the level five powers. My PCs have level three powers and that's enough to make a lot of people brownnose them.

They do not operate interchangeably. Orcs and goblins are more likely to work with each other than they are anyone else, but they still are mostly seen separately.

Goblins were created during the Second Age by the goddess Greymoria to punish the elves who refused to worship her as much as she deserved. This is an old story. Dozens of races were created by Greymoria to punish those who didn't worship her enthusiastic enough. Most of her monstrous children eventually forsake Greymoria too. Goblins were one of these. For a while, the goblins lived on the fringes of civilization staging raids on elves but eventually an elf king had the idea, "what if we captured these creatures alive and enslaved them to do our grunt labor that's beneath the dignity of elves."

Within two centuries 90% of goblins were enslaved to the elven kingdoms. The modern dark elves never stopped enslaving goblins. If you ask an elf from Loren or the Elven Empire, they will tell you that fewer than half of the ancient elven kingdoms practiced goblin slavery and none of their ancestors did this of course. Modern goblins don't buy this. They will almost always attack elves first. Not that they hate anybody that is not a goblin, and they don't really like other goblins much.

Modern goblins don't worship Greymoria. As far as they're concerned she abandoned them to slavery. For that matter, the rest of the Nine never did anything to help goblinkind either. There are minor exceptions, but most goblins don't really worship anyone.

During the Second Unmaking most goblins died just like most elves died, but most of the survivors were free goblins. When panicked elves were trying to save their own hides, very few put any effort to stopping their goblin slaves from running away (though a few elf nobles tried to use them as live bait to distract demons).

During the Second Unmaking a lot of goblins hidden, but a lot of goblins chose to fight back. especially against the Demon Lord known as the Successor. The Successor wanted to raise humanoids like livestock and goblins are the fastest breeding humanoids in the world. They way modern goblins tell it, goblins saved the world and the other races are ingrates for not thanking them on bended knee.

Modern goblins no longer have a language of thier own. Their native tongue is an extremely degenerate version of Elven.

I want most goblin tribes to be distinctive in some ways if feasible. One thing I thought of is their slave past would come with some limited perks. If their ancestors used to work in blackmiths shops they would retain a metalworking tradition of sorts. If they used to be herders their descendants would probably be herders. On the whole though, goblin generational knowlege of civilization is degrading. Generational knowledge of low warfare is increasing.

Orcs do not have nearly as much background material because they don't have as much history. Orcs are one of the very few races in Scarterra that are younger than humans. Even rarer, they are a race that was created without Greymoria's involvement. Orcs were basically created because Maylar and Nami were bored. According to orc legend, they had a playful lovers' quarrel where Nami clawed out Maylar's eye (don't worry he grew another one, he's a god and Nami wasn't using her full might). The first orcs budded from Maylar's severed eye. And thus Maylar has never taken his eye off the orcs, his favored children.

Orcs and goblins both live just on the fringes of civilization. When they meet, the bigger and stronger orcs normally dominate the weaker goblins outright at least until the goblins get an opportunity to turn the tables with treacher or run away.

When orcs and goblins manage to work together semi-amiably, they are a deadly combination. Goblins are terrible front line warriors but over a thousand years of fighting stronger better equipped foes has made them the masters of dirty fighting, they especially like to slit opponent's throat's while they sleep. Orcs are the battle axe crashing down on your forehead while goblins are the knife in your back.

I think my friends would not be too confused. When we run out of other conversation topics, we often bring up pandas.

I figure in their true forms, the Nine are pandas as pandas are the closest thing to perfect beings that we know. But when the Nine present themselves to mortals they will take on a form that Scarterran mortals can relate to easier.

That does go into an awkward question. I need to figure out when and how the Nine can interact with mortals and when they cannot. That's one minor (put persistent) plot hole in my fluff. Sometimes the Nine are extremely hands on with their meddling, sometimes they are extremely standoffish but that's a metaplot issue that I'm willing to tackle later.

Assassins guilds are really common in D&D worlds and fantasy worlds based loosely on D&D. I always thought that was weird. That's not to say that my world won't have badass assassins in it but I just find it implausible how many meritocratic apolitical societies of elite assassins pop up in fantasy and sci-fi. I figure most elite assassins would be attached to the upper echelons of a priesthood or government.

I was planning to involve one or more goblin tribes but I haven't considered having them working for the Doppelgänger. The way I figure it, goblins just love to kick people they are down and for the most part, Fumaya is down.

Also, including goblins would show continuity. The very first session of my game involved a small band of goblins trying to sneak into the PC's camp and murder them while they slept. I was going to have a larger band of goblins ambush them on the road a few days later, but they defeated the first band in a very spectacular and dramatic fashion and left survivors to tell the tale, so the goblins chose discretion. I believe in cause and effect.

They briefly discussed making a gruesome example of the goblins they killed but opted not to. If they had they done that, vengeful goblins would have followed. Cause and effect.

That is a very good idea. This of course made me think of Eron12's guideline. If you have a small nation you need a plausible situation why a larger nation didn't conquer or co-opt them.

So Meckelron and Stahlheim both are mountainous kingdoms where most of the people live underground. Between them is pretty hilly. Also, fast moving rivers of snow melt from both sets of mountains makes the area wet and swampy. So you got a couple small patches of highly fertile arable land with good soil and good irrigation but these patches of farm land are metaphorical islands surrounded by crappy near uninhabitable land.

I need to come up with a more creative title for this region but in the meantime we'll call these the Borderlands. The dwarves to their north and south do not really want to conquer these humans because the land is not especially valuable to them. Also both dwarf nations are still reeling from their centuries long war with the orcs. Their birthrate is very slow and their populations have nto fully recovered. A war of conquest is not a good idea in that situation.

To the west of the Borderlands is the nation of Kantoc. Kantoc are sort of a good guy nation but even good guys will anex land if they can get away with it. Their spiel is that Kantoc is a land of sweeping plains and steppes. Kantoc's economic and military might comes from having the best horses in the world. The Borderlands are a really lousy place to run cavalry maneuvers, so it would be more trouble than it's worth to conquer or peacefully vassalize them.

To the east of the Borderlands is Fumaya. Fumaya is sort of a Borderland nation themselves. They are not in a position to conquer the Borderlands and never were. Swynfaredia is very aggressive and expansionist nation. If they conquered Fumaya (or just richer southern half of Fumaya) they would be able to annex the Borderland Barons one by one.

This means the Borderland Barons might be persuaded to back the Fumayans but the main obstacle to this is the Free Rider problem. Lets say for the sake of argument that there are five petty barons in the Borderlands. If four of them contribute money and soldiers to back Fumaya against Swynfaredia, the fifth baron reaps all the benefits (Swynfaredia is held at bay) while shouldering none of the costs. All the barons would like to be the fifth baron. If only say one baron backed Fumaya and Fumaya is conquered anyone, that baron has just painted a target on himself. All the barons want to avoid being that fifth baron.

For more characterization (and because that's basically what one of my hand drawn maps would show anyway.) Centuries ago, the Elven Empire was truly worthy of the name. Early in the Third Age, they were not just a coastal power, they controlled most of the southern portion of West Colasia. The Borderlands represents the limit of their expansion. By the time they got to the Borderlands the Elves were overextended so the Borderlands were the first humans to really bloody the Elven Empire's collective nose.

Later in the Third Age, Mordock the Conquerer conquered most of the northern half of West Colasia (he was great at conquering lands but not so great at holding lands but that's neither here nor there). In any event, his southern push was eventually haled as his forces become overextended and could never get a solid foothold in the Borderlands.

Thus the Borderlands humans are a proud and stubborn lot. They claim, not without reason that they are the only humans that never had to suffer a foreign conquerer. Thats not 100% true but it's close enough. Besides the terrain, this means the locals are a stubborn willful lot that would be difficult to rule. To win their loyalty you would need to either give them exhorbinant bribes or pacify them with naked force which is just not worth it. In theory, a genocidal conquerer could displace but then said conquerer would have to repopulate the land with is own people. In general, the farmland is nicer in Fumaya, Swynfaredia, and Kantoc and farmers in these places don't have to deal with as many monster attacks. What self respecting noble or commoner would willingly pack up and leave their old lands to farm in the Borderlands? Nobody that's who.

In some level the people of the Borderlands are becoming less isolationist. Stahlheim Dwarves making a pilgrimage to visit the Great Stone have to pass through the Borderlands. Pilgrims still need to eat and it helps to have a local guide you through the natural hazards of the Borderlands. Thus, Borderlands humans are making a nice pile of gold from the tourism industry. There is historical precedent for this in the real world. A lot of merchants sold souvenirs and overpriced snacks to religious pilgrims not unlike modern merchants do today at tourist sites. Barter is probably more valuable than coins in a place like the Borderlands so the Borderland's scrappy little militias are probably armed with the best weapons and armor that dwarves can make.

 

I suppose if I want to have the PCs take a bite out of crime, I'll need a map of the capital at least.

 

• Whew, I took one day and a half with no Internet and you guys gave me a lot of good questions and suggestions.

King Henryk's father was a wasteful man and blew through the treasury his father and grandfather built from years of thrift.

They also had a below average year for crops. I might throw in another mundane problem like a mine collapse or something similar.

-Like 99% of the countries in my world, Fumaya is an agrarian society.
-Fumaya has modest mineral resources
-Fumaya has pretty good timber resources
-Fumaya's untilled lands produce slightly more reagents than the Scarterran average ("reagents" is my generic catchall term for "stuff that goes into magical items, mandrake root, bezoars, etc).
-I might throw in one or supernatural features with positive effects
-Fumaya can make money acting as a middleman for trading between Loren and the two nearby Dwarf nations.

Yes.

Not deliberately, but his various criminal activities have been embezzling money from pretty much all of Fumaya's income producing resources listed above.

Nah, that's a little too crunchy for my tastes.

That's not a bad idea. I already had the PCs fight a Murder Tree for a random encounter, a homebrew creature loosely based off D&D's Gulthias Trees. I could make this part of a larger trend of malevolent plant creatures.

That's not a bad idea. I'll put a pin in it for later. I'm still pondering the idea of rewriting SCIENCE! to make mines that slowly replenish mined minerals channeled from the Elemenal Plane of Earth. Under this system, Hallisan, Phidas, and to a lesser extant the rest of the Nine use their powers to funnel fresh ore to mortals that please them. If I go for this mechanic, Meckelorners would have little to no incentive to poach from struggling Fumaya. They are on fairly good terms with both Hallisan and Phidas.

I have started a similar list.

That would Jaromir, the royal bishop. One of the very few characters that I have actually statted out fully. Just for reference, Willpower operates on a 1-10 scale. Literally everything else operates on 1-5 scale.

Attributes
X Handicapped
● Weak
●● Average
●●● Good
●●●● Exceptional
●●●●● Amazing

Abilities
X Untrained
● Novice
●● Proficient
●●● Experienced
●●●● Exceptional
●●●●● World class

Jaromir is substantially more advanced than the PCs but Jaromir is not an adventurer and he can barely fight his way out of a wet paper bag.

Spoiler: Jaromir

Jaromir
Willpower 7
Dexterity 2, Strength 2, Stamina 3, Appearance 2, Charisma 3, Manipulation 2, Intelligence 4, Perception 4, Wits 3
Simple Abilities: Alertness 2, Animal Ken 1, Athletics 1, Brawl 1, Dodge 1, Empathy 3, Etiquette 3, Intimidation 2, Leadership 3, Stealth 2, Subterfuge 2
Trained Abilities: Commerce 3, Hearth Wisdom 3, History 4, Investigation 3, Law 4, Medicine 2, Melee 1, Seneschal 4, Survival 1, Theology 4
Specialized Abilities: Crafts 2, Expression 3, Performance 2, Ride 2
Rare Abilities: Arcana 3, Spellcraft 1, Use Magic Device 1
Divine Spheres (Khemra patron): Crafts 2, Divination 3, Purification 3
Languages: Common, Elven, Dwarven, Gnomish, Draconic, Terran

When it comes to vassals
-House Polnoc's lord is loyal to the king, but he is incompetant and cowardly. The tragic deaths of many loved ones has driven him slightly mad. All his sons and most of his daughters are dead. The heir apparent is his six year old grandson. He has nearly all of his soldiers manning his castle to protect his grandson.

-House Zimoz's lord, Lord Cezerary, is not treasonous but he's not loyal either. He is pissed that the King is backing him up against the orcs and goblins assailing his citizenry. He doesn't know that is son and heir, Andrzej, is actually robbing the southern nobles to make up for their funding shortfalls. Technically that is treason.

Since Andrzej is the most physically active NPC, I have statted him out. He has exactly as many character creation points as a newly created PC though he has much better starting equipment. He has a top quality war horse, the best non-magical armor money can buy, and I am likely to give him a minor magical weapon of some sort.

Spoiler: Andrzej Zimoz

Andrzej Zimoz
Willpower 6
Dexterity 4, Strength 4, Stamina 3, Appearance 2, Charisma 2, Manipulation 2, Intelligence 3, Perception 3, Wits 3
Simple Abilities: Alertness 1, Animal Ken 1, Athletics 3, Brawl 3, Dodge 2, Empathy 1, Etiquette 1, Intimidation 3, Leadership 1, Stealth 2, Subterfuge 1
Trained Abilities: Archery 2, Commerce 1, Hearth Wisdom 1, History 1, Investigation 1, Law 1, Medicine 1, Melee 3, Ride 3, Seneschal 1, Survival 3
Merits: Noble, Mentor (his father and court advisors)
Flaws: Dark Secret (treason)
Languages: Common, Dwarf, Elf

-House Frymar's lord, Lord Nanda, is nominally loyal but he is greedy and selfish.

-House Linijka is the king's house. King Henryk doesn't have a lot of adult relatives apart from a few uncles and cousins that are fairly loyal. Unfortunately he has a lot of bastard half-siblings. At least one of these is going to be in league with DDDD and another one is going to be putting out feelers to collaberate with the Swynfaredians.

A clever poster on the Order of the Stick RPG discussion forum, suggested that the Swynfaredian ambassador have a scandelous crush on one of the king's bastard sisters.

King Henryk was also created with the same amount of character creation points that the PCs got. Naturally PCs normally may not take the "King" Merit which I gave Henryk for free

Spoiler: King Henryk

King Henryk
Willpower 6
Dexterity 3, Strength 3, Stamina 3, Appearance 3, Charisma 3, Manipulation 2, Intelligence 3, Perception 2, Wits 2
Simple Abilities: Alertness 1, Animal Ken 1, Athletics 2, Brawl 3, Dodge 2, Empathy 2, Etiquette 3, Intimidation 1, Leadership 3, Subterfuge 1
Trained Abilities: Archery 3, Commerce 2, Hearth Wisdom 1, History 3, Law 3, Melee 3, Seneschal 1, Survival 2, Theology 1
Specialized Abilities: Ride 3
Rare Abilities: Arcana 1, Use Magic Device 1
Languages: Common, Elven, Dwarf
Merits: King
Flaws: Broke, political enemies

-The Lord of House Wiern, Lord Garland, is very loyal to the king. He's the king's father-in-law and grandfather to the Crown Prince. Unfortunately, Garland is so fixated on doting on his daughter, the queen, that he has no clue that the rest of his children are terrible people. His son and heir, Bodhan is simply lazy. His youngest daughter, Felicja secretly joined a depraved Maylar cult.

Worst of all the scheming middle child, Lord Tacitus. He is planning to collaberate with the Swynfaredians. By Swynfaredian law, only sorcerers may own land above that of knight's estate. It just so happens that Lord Tacitus has discovered that his young cousin Lady Pallavi, is by dumb luck, a budding sorceress. He murdered everyone else who knew Pallavi's secret and then arranged to adopt Pallavi as a fosterling. If Swynfaredia conquers Fumaya, they will want a tie with the pre-existing nobles to legitimize their rule. Tacitus naturally wants to trade an arranged marriage to Pallavi in exchange for a cushy government post that pays lots of gold. Pallavi is way too young to marry off yet, but Swynfaredia isn't invading tommorow, so he thinks he has time. Tactitus is going to suggest to the Swynfaredians to wait a few years because Fumaya is destablizing itself just fine on their own.

-There are two other Houses that have no interesting characters or major bearing on the plot, at least not yet. I am calling these houses, Hufflepuff and Ravenclaw.

His name is Urlewg. I have not statted him out yet. While he is still strong, he is past his prime. As far as Urlewg is concerned, he has nothing to prove. He has (by orcish standards) pretty wives and a nice extortion racket going where he can get gold and silver from puny villages while barely lifting a finger.

If Urlewg dies a natural death or a younger male defeats him in a challenge (some his adult sons are considering this), it is likely the orcs will start acting more aggressively. It is traditional when a young chief ascends to the head of a tribe that the new chief to declares war on someone to prove his mettle.

I like the name Dirty Crow Tribe. Thanks for that.

Silug is the chief's main lieutenant. Arguably Silug is the true power in the tribe because Urlewg pretty much trusts Silug completely and virtually always follows Silug's suggestions. Silug is the tribe's high priest. His divine patron is the goddess Nami. Silug is the one who came up with the revolutionary idea that the Dirty Crows will get more treasure in the long run running an extortion racket than they would have through traditional pillage.

Murash is the second most powerful spellcaster in the Dirty Crows. She is the high priestess of Maylar. She believes the Dirty Crows should be more proactive and more aggressive. She would love to become the chieftain's main advisor but she cannot bring herself to murder Silug and usurp his place as the tribe's high priest because she is in love with him much as Maylar is frequently in love/lust with Nami.

These two can be lumped together. Since there are only three PCs, I don't think their rivals should number more than four.

This is a fine character concept, well thought out. Sadly, I do not plan to use her.

-My world doesn't have paladins. It's a point based system, so there are no character classes.
-A character can be paladin-like if they join a knightly order affiliated with one of the priesthoods BUT since the PCs are led by a Lawful Good character I think it would be better to make the rival adventuring party led by someone who is Chaotic Good.

My concept, as of yet is not statted out and is not as detailed as your but by sheer coincidence, is a half-elf albeit male half-elf who was raised by humans not by elves. His name is Rab. His elf father supported his mom a bit finacially, but he didn't want to tell the Elves in Loren that he sired a half-elf. Rab is a priest and spellcaster of Zarthus. I have not figure out which magic domains he is going to specialize in.

Zarthus' followers love the idea of righteous rebellions. Unfortunately over 90% of these attempted revolutions fail and 90% of those that succeed don't last very long, but Rab has a good feeling about the next rebellion! Rab figures if the southern Fumayans are leaving the north to twist in the wind, maybe the north should form a separate nation...

I have not thought of this yet though most professional soldiers in Fumaya have Hallisan as their divine patron, so the officers will always at least consider the advice of the Guardians. The highest ranking Guardian is Revered Mother Aleksandra Frymar. She is the sister of Lord Nanda Frymar. Aleksandra and Nanda do NOT get along. Nanda thinks his sister is stuck up and self righteous. Alesandra thinks her brother is undisciplined, selfish, and lecherous. They are both right.

Aleksandra is convinced that Swynfaredia is the greatest threat to Fumaya. While she wishes she had enough warriors and priests to defend both the north and the south, she believes defending the south should take precedence. Many of her lieutenants disagree with this assessment but the Church of Hallisan is built on a foundation of obedience to one's superiors, so no one is questioning her openly.

At some point I need to flesh out DDDD's organization. I'm thinking three lieutenants will actually know that he's a doppleganger. A skilled stealth fighter and master thief to be his chief enforcer. A machiavellian gnome to be his seneschel, and a wizard to provide some magical power, probably going to specialize in illusions and charm spells.

Maybe I'll throw in a sexy evil seductress but I think I'll save that particular character for when I pitch the TV adaptation of this story later...HBO is obviously going to need a new flagship show to make up for the Game of Thrones Season 8 debacle.

Beslyfle the gnome is the high priestess of Mera would qualify as the Local Order of Sweetness and Life. I haven't figure out if I want to give her a more fancy title than high priestess, but this is probably not necessary.

One of the PCs (a gnome named Neshik) has frontloaded his character to be very good at two things: 1) talking to people and 2) magically healing people. Every spare moment of downtime he is either brewing healng potions or he is scavenging for magical regents to brew healing potions. As long as Neshik is alive, the PCs can recover from any ass beating as long as they have a safe place to sleep.

Neshik is an extremely high ranking priest in the Church of Khemra so they could offer him shelter. Favored souls are born into their priesthood instead of trained into it. Khemra only has about twenty favored souls in the entire world and Neshik is one of them. Neshik is the first gnome favored soul of Khemra in roughly 200 years. At the very least, every Khemra priest has to at least pretend to respect him. He also took the "Folk Hero" Merit, so most peasants will hide the PCs in their barn if they ask. He also took the "Order of Delas" Merit so most gnomes will probably give him shelter if he asks.

Aramil Anastasia is a wood elf on rumspringa. He took the Merit "Noble", so he could theoretically pull rank to get shelter from a human noble or demand help from a commoner elf on rumpsringa though at the moment he is preferring to travel incognito and is pretending to be a lowborn elf. He took the Flaw "Out of Favor Noble." On paper House Anastasia is a respectable house, but the head of their house, Aramil's uncle, has a (deserved) reputation for being a fool and a bumbler.

Sveltana the half-orc has neglible social skills and no real community ties. She is an expert at surviving the deep wilderness and is very good at hitting things very hard, causing them to fall down.

????????

I'll think about it.

Ohm here are my stats for DDDD. He is only slightly more advanced than the PCs in terms of his abilties but he is a doppleganger which I let him be a doppleganger for "free." If a player wants to make a Doppleganger PC, they have to be willing to take a huge hit to their character creation points.

Spoiler: Doppleganger Crime Lord

Doppleganger Crime Lord
Willpower 6
Dexterity 4, Strength 3, Stamina 3, Appearance 4, Charisma 3, Manipulation 4, Intelligence 3, Perception 3, Wits 3
Simple Abilities: Alertness 3, Animal Ken 1, Athletics 2, Brawl 3, Dodge 3, Empathy 1, Etiquette 3, Intimidation 3, Leadership 2, Stealth 2, Subterfuge 3
Abilities: Archery 1, Commerce 1, Hearth Wisdom 1, Investigation 2, Law 2, Medicine 1, Melee 3, Seneschal 1, Survival 1
Specialized Abilities: Expression 1, Performance (acting) 3, Ride 1
Rare Abilities: Escape Artist 3
Languages: Common, Elven, Dwarf
Merits: Doppleganger

Upon posting my various statted NPCs, I noticed that I did not include Politics on my list of abilities. I am wondering if I should correct this oversight and add Politics or not bother. Politics could theoretically be absorbed into the abilities of Seneschal, History, Subterfuge, Etitquette, and/or Law.

My original plan was that one inch is 400 miles (I used normal printer paper to sketch my map). My primary world building advisor Eron12 (I wish he could actually play my game as a PC but real life issues means we only see each other every two months or so) stated that seems very small. I very likely will change the scale at some future point.

Assuming I leave it at that scale and using this website to do the math. Fumaya has about 1.1 million citizens, roughly 85% are human. Swynfaredia has about 16 million citizens, roughly 90% are human. Swynfaredia's chief rival Uskala also has about 16 million citizens.

Meckelorn has roughly a million dwarves and about fifty thousand gnomes and maybe ten thousand humans give or take. Meckelorn used to have a population closer to four million but they have only recently retaken their homeland and pulled out a multi-generational nosedive (they probably have at least a million goblins squatting in their territory). Loren has about four million elves and 400,000 non-elves which includes half-elves, gnomes, and a mengerie of forest-dwelling humanoids the wood elves have allied themselves with.

Maybe. Anyway Fumaya is sort of shaped like a boot. The top part is split between House Polnoc and Zimoz (Zimoz is bigger). The middle of the boot is split roughly evenly split between House Linijka and House Frymar. The big southern part of the boot is dominated by Wiern, Hufflepuff, and Ravenclaw. Every one of the houses here except House Polnoc has lesser vassals, but I thought it would be a waste of time to name and develop every single lesser noble house and province. In terms of land, House Polnoc is almost as big as the major houses but in terms of people House Polnoc is quite small, they control the least productive land in Fumaya.

Most of the rivers would be fed from snow melt from the mountains of Meckelorn, but because this is a magical world with a very proactive water goddess and a lot of elemental shennigans, not every waterway needs to follow real world physics or geography. The major towns and cities are certainly bordering rivers. The capital, (Fumaya City? No, I need something more clever than that) is probably either going to be at the junction of two rivers or appear where a river meets a lake

 

Here is another long one of general world builidng stuff. This isn't a short term issue because I don't feel a strong desire to include the Fair Folk in Fumaya's problem but I would like to make the Fae a major part of the world. Note, Fae and Faerie are a derviative of the Fair Folk. They are not called the Fair Folk because they are nice or pretty. They are called that because you do not want them to hear you saying bad things about them. I'd like them to be myserious and scary but consistent within their own framework and world view.

Spoiler: Theories on the Origins of Fae

Origins

The Fae’s history and origin is shrouded in mystery, speculation and contradictory accounts. The Fae themselves are pretty tightlipped and cryptic when pressed up about their people’s origins. The only universality is they like to boast or at least hint that they are the ancient beyond mortal’s comprehension.

Most theories about the Fair Folk’s creation are based on the core notion that the that the Fae are the orphan children of divonity. Some say they are descended from spirits created by the Nine who either chose not to serve the Nine or were cast out from the Nine. Unable to draw on their Nine’s energy for their substance, they had to partially merge with physical creatures and take on physical forms.


Another theory gives the Fair Folk an even older origin. In primordial times, the Nine (and the unnamed Tenth known only as the Traitor) were the best and strongest servants of Turoch but they were not the only servants of Turoch. Turoch had thousands of servants of lesser power.

Some of these lesser servants joined the Nine whole heartedly. The survivors were adopted by the Nine and joined their entourages. Some of these lesser servants sided with Turoch and were destroyed. Some theorize that the Eight Demon Lords were survivors that somehow avoided the Nine’s wrath. However the vast majority of Turoch’s lesser servants chose to neither side with the Nine nor with Turoch. These beings are supposedly the progenitors of the Fair Folk.

There are many similarities between the Fae and the Nine’s spirit minions. Both spirits and the Fair Folk are especially harmed by wrought iron weapons. Both spirits and Fae are repulsed by a line of salt. Both spirits and Fae have a tendency to develop Echoes after prolonged exposures to mortals. Echoes are special weaknesses unique to that Faerie and not universal to all Fair Folk. Example, Rumpelstiltskin is harmed by people saying his name. Certain Fae and spirits may be unable to harm a mortal wearing his clothes inside out. Certain Fae and spirits cannot stand the sound of bells.

Spoiler: History of the Fae

The First Age

The Fae claim that they existed in the First Age. Dragon historians claim this as well, but dragons claim that the Fae rarely visited the mortal realm during this time and had very little impact on world events and the Fae claim that they were the true movers and shakers in the world. During the First Unmaking they bunkered down in the Fae Realm not leaving it at all.

The First Unmaking

There are virtually zero surviving written records concerning specific events that happened during the First Unmaking. Most of what is known (or believed) was preserved in oral history. These oral histories were distorted by thousands of years of retellings and hundreds of generations of biased storytellers putting their own slant on things.

Modern dragons say that during the First Unmaking, the Fae retreated into the Fae Realm and sealed the gateways shut behind them leaving the ancient dragons and other mortal races to fend for themselves. Modern Fae remain vague but they like to insinuate that their ancestors helped stabilize events in the mortal realm and saved countless lives.


The Second Age

Early in the Second Age (or perhaps sooner), the Fae Realm began to wither from s lack of spiritual sustenance. The Fae eventually determined that they needed the spiritual energy of mortal devotion. To sustain themselves and their home, the Fae began cultivating worship of mortals setting themselves up as gods. The Nine did not tolerate this and sent their priests and spirits to harshly rebuke these false gods.

After losing a very brief war with the Nine’s minions, the Fae became more subtle. Rather than cultivating worship, the Fae realized they could gain power by stimulating emotions or otherwise occupying the minds of mortals. They could also bind mortals to them in pacts. The Nine tolerated this as long as the Fae didn’t claim to be gods. Thus the modern phenomenon of interfering Fae began.

Records are spotty on what the Fae looked like during the First Age, but by the time the Second Age drew to a close, many of the Fae began to resemble elves in their appearance showing elfin facial features, thin builds and distinctive pointed ears.

-One theory is that the Fae always looked like elves and that the Nine modeled elves using Fae as the template. Many Fae and more than a few elves speak about their physical forms represent divine perfection or as close to perfection as the Mortal Plane is capable of sustaining..

-One theory is that after well over a thousand years of drawing their spiritual sustenance from elves, they began to take on the elves’ physical and cultural traits.

-One theory is that the Fae consciously or subconsciously chose to emulate elves so they could relate to them easier.

-There are lots of stories about Fae kidnapping mortals who are never seen again. One theory is that some/most/all of these missing mortals were used as breeding stock and elf blood mixed in with Fae blood.

These theories are not mutually exclusive. When asked about this or anything else the Fae love to be mysterious and say things “All things are true and nothing is true.” Time will tell if the Fae will gradually begin to adopt more human traits as the Third Age progress.


The Second Unmaking

Records of the Fae during the Second Unmaking are scant, but they are not nonexistent. When the Fae were seen in the mortal realm they usually demonstrated bravery and compassion fighting to help defend mortals against the Void Demons. One could argue that this was not motivated by altruism because the Fae seem to rely on the mortal races to survive.

One thing nearly all accounts seem to agree on is that the Void Demons were universally hostile to Fae. Either they shared an old enmity with the Fae or the Fair Folk’s souls were viewed as extra delicious. When given a choice between attacking a mortal or attacking a Fae, demons nearly always chose to target the Fae.

The Fae were rarely seen in the mortal realm. Speculation is that the Fae were mostly cowards who chose to abandon the mortals to fend for themselves. Another theory is that the Void Demons managed to force entry into the Fae Realm forcing the Fae to defend their home.

The Third Age: Early in the Third Age the Fae were rarely seen. When the first humans began organizing themselves into tribes and later kingdoms the Fae rarely helped or hindered them. This differs from the start of the Second Age when the Fair Folk very frequently interfered with the ancient Elven Kingdoms during their infancy. Common theory is that the Fair Folk were still licking their collective wounds from the Unmaking and/or the Nine were far less permissive to Fae interference in the Mortal Plane.

The earliest recorded instances of Fae in the Mortal Plane were among the wood elves of Loren. A disproportionately high number of the Fae that chose to fight alongside mortals during the Second Unmaking fought alongside the ancestors of the modern wood elves. Most wood elf nobles claim to have some Fae blood in their veins and their oral history has lost of torrid love affairs between elves and Fae.

The Fae seemed to favor the gray elves and dark elves more than humans, dwarves and gnomes but this favoritism was much more subtle. Dark elves are often hostile to Fae, or if they are not hostile they like to keep their dealings with Fair Folk secret. Greymoria is the goddess of magic and Greymoria is the state religion of the dark elf nation of Kahdisteria. Fae seem to have a natural talent for arcane magic and they are willing to teach mortals magic for a price. In this way, Fae are direct competitors with Greymoria’s spirit minions, both groups are fond of Faustian bargains.

As the centuries continued on in the Third Age, the Fae gradually began to visit the mortal realm more often and in larger numbers. They also have gradually abandoned their favoritism to elves and are more likely to interfere with humans. A few Fae love to lord it over lowly peasant villages, but on the whole the Fae seem to have a preference for dealing with powerful mortals.

Spoiler: The Fae Realm

The Fae Realm: The Fae Realm and the Mortal Plane roughly seem parallel. If a mortal steps through a Faerie Circle in a forest fifty miles west of a tall mountain in the Mortal Plane, he will probably emerge in a forest fifty miles west of a tall mountain in the Fae Realm though the forest is likely to either be especially lush and beautiful or else very sad and sickly.

Many scholars say that the Fae Realm is actually the refurbished remnants of Turoch’s original spiritual home, abandoned by the Nine after they killed Turoch. The Fae usually deny this when pressed saying the Fae created their own realm. They hate to admit that any feat is truly beyond their power, even the creation of alternate layers of reality.

The Fae have a limited ability to reshape land in the Fae Realm to their whims although this ability is largely subconscious. The higher the social rank of a Fae the more power they have to do this. In the demesne of a Faerie king or queen, the very weather seems to reflect their moods.

The palaces, castles, forts, towns, and even farmhouses of the Fae are often larger than life structures nearly always beautiful. They could beautiful and terrifying, but they are rarely boring and ordinary. Inhabited areas are the exception to the rule. They are proverbial islands of beauty and splendor in a sea of bleakness and decay. Uninhabited areas are usually grim and desolate places.

Many mortals who disappear into the Fae realm are never heard from again, but some do return (often displaced in time arriving decades after they left). Scholars of Fae lore note that firsthand accounts from mortals who visited the Fae Realm and then return to the Mortal Plane during the Second Age report a much grander and more beautiful realm than accounts from mortals in the Third Age. It is believed that in the Second Age the stretches of wilderness in the Fae Realm wasn’t as sad and lonely as it is today. This certainly leads credence to the notion that the Void Demons did manage to invade the Fae Realm during the Second Unmaking and managed to damage it somehow.

The stuff above is ideas I have that I like a lot and am very committed to keeping. The further down we go the more my stuff appears like braining storming and "what ifs"

Spoiler: Faerie Pacts

Faerie Pacts: I am fascinated by stories involving Faerie pacts.

Ability to cast arcane magic comes from three sources.

1) Hereditary Magic (usually credited to dragons or other magical creatures that can interbreed with humans or demi-humans) Aka sorcerers.

2) Years of complicated study. Aka wizards.

3) Pacts with Fae or Greymoria’s (or far less common Nami’s) spirit minions. Aka warlocks. Warlocks can also occasionally pass their magic onto their descendants blurring the line between warlocks and sorcerers.

Besides offering tutelage in the mystic arts, the Fair Folk can bestow mortals with great strength, cunning, beauty, musical talent, almost anything. But always for a price.

My game system uses a system in White Wolf games called Merits and Flaws, the mechanic exists in many other game lines by other names, but the basic premise is that if you take a Merit, your character gains a positive trait and you sacrifice some points to develop your character elsewhere. If you take a Flaw your character gains a negative trait and you can get some extra points to develop your character elsewhere.

I have created a smorgasbord of merits and flaws related to Fae pacts. Sadly none of my PCs wanted to take any flaws or background elements related to pacts with the Fair Folk. But I figured when a Fae gives a mortal something they always demand something in payment and the payment is usually going to be weird. They might take a mortal’s shadow as payment. Here is a non-comprehensive list of supernatural flaws I came up with. Most of these could be the result of a pact with Faeries.

Spoiler: Supernatural Flaws, not directly related but possibly interesting

Always Cold (1): Your character is always cold. Appropriate clothing and shelter will keep you alive, but you always feel cold.

Blood Mark (1): You signed a pact in blood. When you pricked your finger to mark the blood, this wound never healed. Your bandaged finger rarely gives you a penalty on die rolls, but the perceptive will notice this eventually.

Cassandra Syndrome (1): This has to be paired with supernatural senses or prophetic powers. People don’t believe you when you relay information you received with supernatural means.

Master’s Voice (1): Your character signed a pact. Your master/patron can speak through you either with its own voice or yours, but doesn’t do this often.

Resistant to Divine Healing (1): Divine magic heals you at half the normal rate, rounded down.

Soul is forfeit (1): Your soul ultimately belongs to someone else. It doesn’t have a mechanical in-game effect but this should be roleplayed.

Twisted Reflection (1): Other people see your normal reflection, but you see bad things. Maybe your flaws are magnified, maybe you see yourself as a corpse. Whatever it is, it’s not pleasant and you probably avoid mirrors. If you cannot avoid your own reflection, you receive a +1 difficulty penalty on all rolls due to the distraction.

Animal Attractor (2): A certain species of predatory animal tends to follow you around from a respectable distance. They won’t attack or go against their basic nature, but people will notice if you are always followed by a flock of crows. Anyone capable of talking to animals or reading an animal’s mind will just sense that the animals are waiting for something. You cannot avoid this by moving out of an animal’s natural habitat because a similar animal will take over in that case. For instance, if you are normally followed by wolves and you travel to a warmer climate, you may find you are now followed by jackals.

Alien Humors (2): One of your normal body excretions is abnormal and extremely disturbing, but you can hide it most of the time. Maybe your character cries tears of blood or maybe your blood is an extremely unusual color.

Amorous Power (2): Random strangers fall in love with you often. This is sometimes helpful, but it is usually not.

Body Switched (2): You made a pact and switched bodies with someone else, possibly taking the body of an aged witch to get her residual powers. This certainly makes interacting with your past friends and family difficult.

Blood Drinker (2): You crave blood, much like a vampire. Animal blood is acceptable, and you don’t have to drink large quantities of blood to survive but people tend to look poorly on blood drinkers regardless. You can still eat normal food too.

Bottomless Stomach (2): You made a pact and your master is feeding off you…literally. You have to eat roughly double the food normally needed to sustain a healthy member of your race. Even then, you never really feel full.

Dark Chorus (2): Your character hears disturbing music in his head. This can wear at the sanity. Also, it imposes a +1 difficulty penalty on auditory based Perception rolls.

Elemental Foe (2): Must be an arcane caster. For whatever reason, wild elementals are initially hostile rather than initially neutral. Spells to summon or bind elementals are +2 difficulty. To add insult to injury, elementals are more likely to spawn in your wake than other arcane casters.

Emotionally Dead (2): Either your character experiences all emotions are there but muted somewhat or one particularly emotion is completely alien and unreachable to you. Perhaps your faerie ex-lover cursed you to never love another again.

Energy Magnet (2): Arcane invocation spells and divine magic from level four and five Wrath are at -2 difficulty against you.

False Prophecies (2): You periodically predict things that will never happen, but no one can convince you they are wrong. You can take this flaw even if you do not have actual divination magic.

Heirs Endangered (2): Your children are promised to your master in some way, but nothing is stopping you from being celibate and chaste…right?

Luckless (2): You are hopeless at playing cards and dice. Whenever your character is at the mercy of something truly random, he almost always fails or chooses the wrong answer. If you try to outsmart your curse and do the opposite of your initial guess, it turns out your initial guess was right. Fortunately this is in-character. This does not impact dice rolls the player makes.

Monochromatic Vision (2): Your formed a pact and your master took away your color. Your character sees in black and white and cannot distinguish colors at all.

Mystery Pawn (2): Your character was bestowed with supernatural power with no price demanded, but you know your patron does nothing for free. You just do not yet know what your benefactor intends to gain from investing power in you.

No reflection (2): Your character doesn’t have a reflection. Alternatively your reflection is off in some way for all to see.

Offensive to Animals (2): Animals, especially domesticated animals, react negatively to you out of instinct.

Proxy Spy (2): You made a pact with a supernatural being. Everything you see and hear, your benefactor also sees and hears.

Repulsed by Salt (2): Your character suffers a one-die penalty for a scene after eating especially salty food or if you are covered in salt. You need to pass a Willpower roll to cross a line of salt and suffer five dice of soak-able damage (bypassing armor) when crossing a line of salt. Sea water is not a problem. You can carry a box or bag of salt with no problems as long as you don’t touch the contents directly.

This is a common flaw for characters that are descended from mortal-spirit couplings or who have frequent workings with spirits.

Requires Invitation (2): You cannot enter a home without invitation or you take one unsoakable level of lethal damage every turn. Public places extend an invitation to all by their nature. This flaw does not prevent you from gaining invitations under false pretenses.

Rip Van Winkle (2): Your character was either in a magical coma, temporarily lost in another plane, brought back from the dead, or lost in a time warp. Whatever the cause, everyone and everything you knew from your life before is dead or at the very least are very old, and your knowledge of current events and politics is woefully out of date.

Compulsive Liar (3): Due to a pact or curse, you cannot ever speak the whole truth. You can use obvious sarcasm so people understand what you really mean…usually. You can mostly tell the truth and mix in a relatively small lie. If you are targeted by a spell that normally forces the target to tell the truth, you may lie freely, or tell the truth as you see fit.

Compulsive Truth Teller (3): Due to a pact or curse, you cannot speak something you know to be untrue. You can say something true sarcastically and imply that the truth is a lie. You can still lie by omission or refusing to speak. “Do you know where the Master at Arms?” You can “He was in the hall” which is technically true though “In the arms of your chambermaid” would have been a more informative answer. If you are targeted by a spell or effect that normally forces the target to tell the truth, you may lie freely.

Delicious Soul (3): Demons and undead that feed on the living will usually seek you out first in encounters. Tracking rolls for demons and undead with the “Life sense” power work on you at -2 difficulty.

This is a common flaw for divine spell casters and/or those who work with spirits a lot.

Forgettable (1/3): People overlook your character and forget his face and name. Your adventuring party is probably exempt because they are around you a lot and probably have high Willpower scores, but building relationships with others is difficult at best. This is a common side effect of casters proficient in stealth powers.

This flaw is worth one point if it is always in effect. It is worth three points if the flaw magically goes away when it’s inconvenient to be found such as when hostile people are asking about you.

Harmed by Sacred Ground (3): You cannot set foot on sacred ground, or you take one unsoakable level of lethal damage every turn. If you are a divine caster you can enter sacred ground specifically sacred to your divine patron, but no one else. If you are an arcane caster and have a mystic patron, you can enter your master’s sacred ground.

No shadow (3): Your character doesn’t have a reflection which very rarely means anything good in most folklore. Alternatively your shadow acts of its own accord for all to see.

Vagabond (3): You mystically compelled have to keep moving. If you sleep more than three nights in the same place you cannot recover Willpower. Worse could happen if you continue to linger.

Vulnerable to Cold Iron (3): Cold iron weapons inflict aggravated damage against you. Touching cold iron inflicts a level of bashing damage which you can soak but do not get to apply armor to. If you want to hold onto a cold iron object, you take one unsoakable level of bashing damage every five minutes you hold it. If you are wearing gloves or gauntlets the damage occurs every ten minutes.

This is a common flaw for characters that are descended from mortal-spirit couplings or who have frequent working with spirits.

Vulnerable to Silver (3): Silver weapons inflict aggravated damage against you. Touching silver inflicts a level of bashing damage which you can soak but do not get to apply armor to. If you want to hold onto a cold iron object, you take one unsoakable level of bashing damage every five minutes you hold it. If you are wearing gloves or gauntlets the damage occurs every ten minutes. If you wear gloves you can handle silver coins without problem as long as you deposit it in your purse or pocket quickly.

While there are far fewer silver weapons out there than cold iron weapons, vulnerability to silver is considered a mark of being unclean or unholy. This is a common flaw for characters that practice a lot of necromancy.

Tithe (1-3): Your arcane master or divine patron requires a monthly offering of some sort. The higher the flaw value, the more difficult the offering is to provide. Missing your tithe adds a +1 difficulty to all spellcasting for each offering you fail to deliver until amends are made.

Impervious to Divine Healing (4): Your character cannot heal wounds with divine magic at all. This does not impede the magical removal of curses.

Nightmares (4): Your character has horrible nightmares almost every time she sleeps. Regaining Willpower by sleeping is impossible. You can only gain Willpower from accomplishing things.

Permanent Wound (4): Your character starts three health levels in lethal damage down every day or every night usually occurring at dawn or dusk. You can heal this with magic, but it will return the next day. If you do not heal this, you will not continue to take additional damage each day, and your permanent wound will not become infected from not being treated.

Repulsive to Children (4): Children hate you instinctively, either hiding from you or seeking to torment you in some way. No one is understanding or sympathetic to you if you retaliate in anyway.

Spoiler: Different Ways I could organize the Fae Courts

The Courts: This is one of the things I cannot make up my mind over for Fae. In both modern and classical Faerie Realms it’s fairly common for Faerie lords and ladies to preside over courts of some kind.

Mono-Court. The king or queen (or both if you have a power couple like Oberon and Titania) ostensibly rule over all the Fair Folk (though many of their subjects rebel in small ways when they can get away with it).

On the whole I would prefer to not have the Fair Folk be a unified bloc.

Two Courts: Traditionally you have the Seelie and Unseelie Court. Other fantasy settings use a Day and Night kingdom or a Light and a Dark Court. Others have a Faerie Court and a Troll court. If the Fae are nature oriented you might have a "life" court and a "decay" court like with Epic. Summer and Winter Courts are also a common motif (some use these terms synonymously with Seelie and Unseelie)

On the whole I do not like a two court split. Almost invariably this leads to a Good Guy Court and a Bad Guy Court. I would prefer to stick with blue-orange morality for the Fae and have no one be a clear good guy or bad guy all the time.

Four Courts: Disney’s Tinkerbell series has Spring, Summer, Fall, and Winter Faeries. They get along fairly well but they don’t mix much. White Wolf’s Dark Ages Fae series had Spring, Winter, Autumn, and Winter Courts as well. These Fae did not mix and they did not get along.

Another common thing is North, South, East and West Courts. This is often lumped into the seasons. North for Winter, South for Summer, West for Spring and East for Autumn. Ditto for the four classic elements. Fire is associated with Summer, Water with Winter, Earth with Spring, and Air with Winter. The Exalted series had five courts for each of the five elements of that setting (Wood, Water, Wind, Fire, and Earth) which were associated with the East, West, North, South, and Center respectively though Exalted is practically a four court setting rather than a five court setting because the Fae of the Earth/center are extremely docile, predictable, and friendly to mortal creatures while the other four are very active, unpredictable and hostile to mortals.

I am leaning towards a Spring (West), Winter (North), Autumn (East), Summer (South) system of Courts. For one thing, I can use this as my baseline without infringing on trademarked intellectual property. I also like multi-faction free-for-alls.

Dark Ages Fae in my opinion is one of the finest published work White Wolf ever made. Sadly, it was not commercially successful. It was the only Dark Ages setting that never got a supplement. The Winter and Summer Courts were traditionalists and the Autumn and Spring Courts were adaptable and usually welcomed change. The Summer and Spring courts were hardly warm and cuddly, but they tended to favor mutually beneficial arrangements with mortals while Winter and Autumn Courts usually showed open disdain for mortals.

Stereotypical Winter Pact: (to a whole village) “Stay out of my forest grove, and I won’t eat you.”

Stereotypical Spring Pact: (to a poor family) “If you lay out bowls of cream for me periodically I will clean your cottage once a week”.

Stereotypical Summer Pact: (to a poor family) “Here is a golden coin. Do not spend this coin. As long as you keep this coin safe, your livestock will be free of disease and they will have many healthy young. If you spend this coin misfortune will fall you.”

Stereotypical Autumn Pact: (to a journeyman blacksmith who hates his boss and covets his boss’ daughter). “I will strike your overbearing master down with a slow illness. Gradually he will have cede more control of the shop to you. Within a year you will have the old man’s shop and his daughter. Periodically I will stop by, and you will craft things for me. Nothing beyond your skill of course.”

I am leaning towards copying the four season courts from Dark Ages Fae because I could use the rich background created by the game with minimal adaptation but there is a voice in my head that says I should come up with my own system. My own system is below.


Lots of Courts. There are more than four courts. In this case Court would be more like competing nation states than alternate philosophies although the Courts could have competing philosophies.

I have the base concept that the Fair Folk can mystically draw power and substance by stimulating mortal emotions, but I haven’t fleshed out the specfiics. One concept I had is that Courts would differentiate themselves by how they interfere.

The Court of Pain: The Court of Pain relies on the power of fear and hate to gain sustenance from mortals. These Fae are bullies and monsters.

The Court of Mists: The Court of Mists relies on stealth and subterfuge to gain sustenance from mortals. These Fae are mercurial and enigmatic. These Fae delight in pulling mortal’s strings from afar.

The Court of Gold: The Court of Gold relies on formal pacts to gain sustenance from mortals. These fae are stern, but pragmatic. They want to make sure that mortals get strong rewards for aiding them and harsh punishments for failing them.

The Court of Light: The Court of Light relies on stirring up positive emotions to gain sustenance from mortals. While it seems like they are the “good guys,” they often leave behind addicts, heart-broken wrecks, and burned out husks in their wake.

The Court of Harmony: Aware that Fae change and morph over time based on how they interact with mortals, the Court of Harmony seeks to vary their tactics in dealing with mortals, so as not to be pulled too far in any one direction. They also try to conserve their power and magic relative to the other courts, so as not to have “feed” too often.

With more Courts to follow.

My main misgiving is that these sorts of Courts seem a little plot holey. Since The Fair Folk have Blue-Orange morality I think they would all pragmatically use whatever means of interfering with mortals provides them the best pay-off. The Courts above tend to reek of mortal’s moral relativism and are not alien enough.


The Courtless: A lot of Fae don’t belong to any Court. They either try to live solitary existances, or they behave as mercenaries and go-betweens for the Courts. I can have Courtless loners and mercenaries in any Court system.

Spoiler: Should Fae be Nature Lovers?

The Natural Connection

Lots and lots of modern Faerie Tales tie the Fair Folk into the forces of Nature. Disney’s Tinkerbell series makes nearly all the Faeries apart from the Tinker Faeries tied with some aspect of nature. The movie Epic provided a (slightly) darker version of this. Environmentalism was an undercurrent in Hellboy 2. Environmentalism was a central platform to the Faeries of Artemis Fowl’s literary universe.

Sometimes, Faerie Tales only involve the wilderness indirectly. The Fair Folk value their privacy and it just so happens that the deep wilderness is private.

In all the umpteen iterations of Alice and Wonderland as well as Spirited Away (the greatest Faerie Tale cartoon every made) the Fair Folk seem very much creatures o civilization.

The difficulty here is that if the Fair Folk are defenders of nature I need to figure out this relates to the Nine. All of the Nine are intimately tied to at least one aspect of nature and Korus is my de facto nature god. I need to figure out how and when the Fair Folk and the Nine get along and when they quarrel.

Spoiler: Should Fae have ties to the four classic elements?

The Elemental Connection

There is a lot of aspects of the Exalted I don’t care for but I was intrigued by the Fair Folk in that setting. In Exalted the world has five elemental poles.

Center is the Pole of Earth. An impossibly high mountain is surrounded by a large fairly uniform and stable land mass.

West is the Pole of Water, the further west you go the smaller and more widely spaced the land masses become until eventually you get all water, keep sailing and the water will overtake the sky.

North is Pole of Wind, the further north you get the colder it gets until there is nothing but wind and snow.

South is the Pole of Fire, the further south you get the more arid and inhospitable the land gets until there is nothing but everlasting fire.

East is the pole of Wood, the further west you get the thicker the vegetation becomes until you hit a literally endless and impassable wall of solid wood. The highest population density is Center-West where the land is able to be cleared for farming and very fertile.

Anywho, the Fair Folk are spawned in the inhospitable regions of the poles and they interfere with mortals largely out of boredom. All the Fair Folk are immediately identifiable by their elemental affinity.


I’m not 100% if I want to adapt this idea or not. It does fit pretty well with my existing backstory. During the First Unmaking elemental forces ran amok and elementals went wild accidentally destroying everything in sight and radically altering the landscape.

My concept with the Fair Folk is that while the elementals did not manage to break into the Fae Realm and run amok there, the Fae Realm did metaphorically “sprung a leak.” Elemental energy leaked in to some areas.

I could make whatever Court system I use based partially or completely on the four classic elements but I also like the idea of elemental influences being undercurrents that transcend court lines. Again this goes into blue-orange morality.


Here’s what I figure is a good baseline for what Fae would be like under the influence of certain elements.

Water: Creative, empathetic, secretive, mutable, indirect.
Common Powers: Transmutation and Enchantment

Air: Talkative, independent, curious, restless, fickle
Common Powers: Illusions and Divination

Earth: Loyal, predictable, unyielding, perfectionist
Common Powers: Abjuration and conjuration

Fire: Impulsive, passionate, inspirational, dramatic, honest to a fault, narcissistic,
Common Powers: Invocation and Abjuration

Spoiler: Stealing ideas from real world folklore, what to use, what not to use?

Western Versus Non-Western Fair Folk
I am a product of Western Civilization. I don’t have a problem with taking most of my Fair Folk concepts from Western folklore. Western Folklore is also disproportionately influenced by Celtic mythology though Germanic folklore and Greek mythology are major contributors.

Creatures commonly associated with the Fair Folk include but are not limited to trolls, selkies, sirens, pooka, redcaps, willow wisps, unicorns, boggans/boggarts/brownies, sphinxes, among many others.

Native American have many mysterious gods, spirits and monsters that fill similar niches to the Fair Folk, rock men, floating heads, sasquatch, wendigo, river cannibals, water babies, snake people, jackalopes among many others.

My knowledge of Eastern folkore is more limited but I think trickster monkeys, kappa, kitsune, and snake people and dijinn all seem like good fits for the Fair Folk.

My knowledge of African folklore is even more limited but I am a big fan of stories about Anansi the Spider, so I am likely to have a Faerie race of spider people or maybe one Faerie king who happens to be a giant manipulative spider.


I could have each major continent of Scarterra follow the mythos of a different real world culture, but my inclination is to just dump them all into one big pot.

One nice thing about Fair Folk is that I don’t have to feel as constrained by real world scientific rules. A mortal race with little or zero innate magical ability needs a large sustainable breeding population to be realistic and viability but Fair Folk are so inherently magical that they don’t have to be constrained so much. Who is to say that a troll and a Kitsune cannot interbreed and have a baby pooka? Shape changing is a pretty common power affiliated with Faerie tales and in metaphysical terms, shape changers can interbreed with a wide variety of creatures.

Spoiler: Time Flies like an arrow, Fruit Flies like a banana

Time

One common thing in Faerie Tales is a displaced view on time. I don’t want to screw over player characters on this too often but one common thing in real world legends of the Fair Folk is an awkward relationship with time. A mortal could spend a night partying with Fair Folk and wake up the next morning to find that a whole year as passed.

I like the idea that the Fair Folk themselves have very long lifespans but they do age. Despite not being immortal Fair Folk in Scarterra are proud of their long life span and tend to address humans and demi-humans as “mortals.”

Spoiler: Cold Iron, science versus SCIENCE!

A long time ago I decided that the Nine's minions would be especially vulnerable to cold iron weapons because iron ore is metaphysically originating from Turoch's bones. Void Demons and Void influenced undead are vulnerable to silver because silver is a divine metal the Nine created specifically to counter Turoch's essence and to shore up the Barrier to the Void.

When I said "Spirits and fae are especially harmed by cold iron weapons." My smartest player pointed something out. In medeival times, most normal weapons were iron weapons, not steel.

That was a mahrlect moment...

In a 20th or 21st century setting like the Leprechaun movie series, it is relatively difficult to find cold iron (also called wrought iron) on short notice.

I think I need to do one of these three things

1) I need to come up with a second requirement. Some extra step or ingredient to empower iron weapons.
2) I could just handwave it away "In Scarterra, steel working is far more common than you would think given the rest of their technology.".
3) I need to toss out the iron weakness and come up with something else.

but, but, but iron is TUROCH"S BONES!

 

This idea is good, but I think I critically miscommunicated my meta history.

The dragons dominated the world for somewhere between 10,000 and a 100,000 years. This is the First Age.
The elementals "ruled" the world for somewhere between 10 and 400 years. This is the First Unmaking

It's possible that because of supernatural reasons that is fast enough to create elemental based dragons but it doesn't seem likely. Though I have thought about giving the Fae Realm a tiny number of extra-magical dragons. Elemental dragons could live there. Another alternative is that some elementals in the Elemental Plane could start changing their forms and adapting dragon-like traits.


The elves dominated the world for somewhere between 4,000 and 50,000 years. This is the Second Unmaking.
Demon armies walked the earth for somewhere between 5 and 200 years. This is the Second Unmaking.

The main lasting reprucssions form the Second Unmaking is a bunch of new flavors of undead monster are spawned. A few living mutations created by the demon lords also survived and reproduced so as to blight the Third Age including lycanthropes and death giants.

I also have the idea that the Second Unmaking was the birth of psionics. My players were very clear that they had zero interest in playing psionist characters and they figured since the entire world is in a beta-test that it would make things harder if i had to playtest divine magic, arcane magic, and psionics at the same time.

In a short version, psionics are kind of a cross between psychic powers and the Force from Star Wars. Within Scarterra, all Void Demons have natural psionic abilities. Just like the aliens in Independence Day, Void Demons have no mouth or speech, they communicate telepathically. More advanced demons have more advanced psionic powers.

Elves, dwarves, gnomes, goblins, dragons and the like seem to have zero psionic potential but among creatures that were created after the Second Unmaking (this includes humans, orcs, umber hulks, and derro among a few others), a tiny number of people are born with natural psionic potential. There is lively debate amongst everyone else whether this is a sign that Void Demons have irrevocably corrupted the world or whether the Nine pushed this psionic potential on the New Races as a sort of defense should the demons ever come back in force. Is psionics inherently evil? Wizards, sorcerers, and divine spellcasters like to say so. They don't like the competition.


I figure the human race would have been walking around for somewhere between 500 and 3000 years. This the Third Age. The axe of the Third Unmaking has yet to fall. While these people are not very numerous, every generation has a few crackpots claiming that the Third Unmaking is just around the corner.

Frost Giants are a strong possibility, but I am not likely to bring back the chromatic dragons. Green, Black, Blue, White and Red Dragons have been around at least since 2nd edition and have been a staple of D&D all the way through 5th edition (along with the five metallic dragons Gold, Copper, Silver, Bronze and Brass), but I am not a fan of that system in my world.

I want the world to make sense. A single dragon requires a lot of territory. A complex species likes dragons needs at least a few hundred members to maintain genetic diversity unless you hand wave that away with magic. If thousands of dragons are crisscrossing the planet that doesn't leave much room for humans or elves or goblins and the like.

Also, since Dungeons and Dragons has made dragons so iconic every player has read the full dragon entries for all the ten most common dragon types. That means if a dragon shows up the players immediatley know what it's powers and weaknesses are, as well as it's favorite tactics, preferred treasure, and whatnot. Even if the PCs don't see the dragon they are rarely surprised because green dragons favor deep forests, black dragons favor swamps, red dragons favor mountains, white dragons favor cold regions,a nd blue dragons favor deserts. Also, note chromatic dragons are nearly always evil and metallic dragons are nearly always good.

In my world there is one species: dragon. Any male and female dragon could produce viable offspring. It's very rare for "good" dragons to mate with "evil" dragons but it can happen, especially if dragons change their moral outlook over time and grow apart. Dragons also have a preference to mate with dragons that physically resemble them. It is very rare for a firebreather and an icebreather to mate (and it's scandalous to boot!). Young dragons are about 45% likely to manifest their mother's breath weapon, 45% likely to manifest their father's breath weapon and 10% likely to throw their parents a curveball. A few asshat parents have driven out or even killed their young for manifesting the wrong breath weapon.

Anyway this has several purposes. 1) the dragons can maintain a dispersed viable breeding population very easily now and 2) the players have to do some work to unearth any particular dragon's favored environment, special abilities, favorite tactics, and moral outlook.

I am still working on the weeds for my dragons and it's more crunchy than fluffy so I don't think anyone would be particularly interested in it.

I haven't mapped that out but that depends on scale. I figure we got about 200 miles (half an inch) of glaciers, 200 miles of a dangerous sea of icebergs, and 400 to 600 miles of a perfectly habitable albeit cold, tundra biome. Give or take.

That is a very good idea, or rather a bunch of good small ideas. one inch is 400 leagues certainly sounds like a reasonable world size. I could go with this as one face of the world.

Another option is to keep the basic land mass orientation but make it bigger. At this point, the player characer's entire "world" consists of Fumaya, Meckelorn, Loren, Swynfaredia and maybe Uskala. I can easily keep these nations the same size and just give Loren, Uskala, and Mecklorn new neighbors that just happen to have neglible impact on events that the players care about. I do have a fairly sizeable collection of tribes and nation concepts that I came up with that didn't make the cut. If I make the world bigger I can add more peoples.

This is actually a pretty common strategy. It is very common that game masters start with a single nation or cluster of nations and expand outwards, gradually building the wider world over time.

My strategy is less common, I am starting with the forest and then adding trees, metaphorically speaking.