My Fantasy RPG World, Feedback and Ideas appreciated

Runesmith my favorite D&D Youtuber just released a short video on Kenku. So this is how D&D 5th edition does Kenku.



The ancient legends of tengu of Japanese folklore vary considerably. I basically took very little from them except the name and a vague trickster theme.



So my Tengku use Kenku as a baseline, but I smoothed the rough edges to make them less annoying.

Tengku are skilled mimics of sounds, but unlike kenku, they can talk and they don't use sounds in place of speech.

Tengku, unlike Kenku, did not have their creativity removed. Given that corvids are so hyper intelligent, it seems a weird thing to impose on them.

Tengku are greedy and have a reputation of being untrustworthy and greedy. I gave them a lot of Ferengi traits. I have considered giving them a code of conduct similar to the Rules of Acquisition, but opted not to do that. Though I'm sure Scarterran Tengku teach their children similar values.

Tengku, like Kenku have a vague unsubstantiated legend that in the distant past they had the ability to fly and lost it somehow creating a deep longing. I melded into the corvid fascination with shiny things. They lost their ability to fly because they were literally grounded for their greed.

Tengku have no homeland and wander around many places. I could draw parallels to some real world ethnic groups in a similar vein, but I hadn't made it a big deal of it. Scarterran Tengku want to fly almost obsessively. Most Tengku would like their people to have a homeland, but it's not a priority to them.

I didn't make Tengku wanderers because they are homeless outsiders (they are homeless outsiders). I made Tengku wanderers because a nomadic lifestyle is them subconsciously trying to fly around.

Tengku strengths are a bonus on all commerce rolls, mimicry, enhanced Dexterity, and enhanced eyesight.

Weaknesses are fragile bones, they take extra damage from blunt trauma. Unofficially they have the weakness of being disliked and distrusted by the more human-looking humans but flaws related to their reputation and background are encouraged but not required. They have a small freebie point cost because on the whole their powers are greater than their weaknesses relative to humans.

Nothing I haven't covered before, but I liked the video so I thought I would revisit Tengku and open the floor Tengku related questions.

Also, I have pondering adding more Tengku NPCs to my current RPG campaign.

 

A very productive RPG session

I ran a very delightful solo RPG session today.

The debut session for my friend playing Koramtin, hunter of evil mages. Kormatin was charged with rooting out Swynfaredian spies in his homeland of Fumaya.

Quick recap, last session he followed some clues and caught an illusion savvy sorcerer of unknown lineage masquerading as a traveling storyteller. For unknown reasons he was collecting demographic data of villagers near the Swynfaredia/Fumaya border.

The sorcerer technically didn't do anything other than act out of self-defense but they had his bodyguard dead to rights on an attempted murder charge or at least aggravated assault. He was turned over to the king of Fumaya directly.

Later he followed another set of clues to capture a House Kovenoth invoker/enchanter that was trying to obtain ordinary military intelligence. He was cooperative, and the king on Kormatin's recomendation was merciful and let him go.

New Session starts here.

By the time Kormatin brought in the second spy, the first spy was processed. The sorcerer offered to pay a 2500 gold pieces as a fine (aka ransom or bribe) to free his bodyguard. Since the king is cash strapped, that seemed like a good deal. As a thank you for helping catch two spies, Kormatin and his sidekicks were given 500 gold.

They also tried to follow the money trail to figure out what house the sorcerer was from but that didn't work. He went through a lot of trouble and expense to cover his tracks.

I told Kormatin's player that I had some story hooks prepared to throw at him, but I prefer Kormatin's player to decide where Kormatin goes and what to do. I'll throw him a story hook if he gets stuck. He agreed that this was a good idea.

Since Swynfaredia's aggression against Fumaya greatly resembles the annexation of the now dead kingdom of Talama 120 years ago, Kormatin's player asked me for background info between sessions, so in character Kormatin spent time in the library. Out of character, I prepared these bullet points from three books Kormatin's character read.

Spoiler: Not a Spoiler, but boxed up for clarity

From a History Book written by Swynfaredians

From a Collection of journals of Talaman witnesses


From History book written by Fumayan archivist trying to connect the dots between the

What Started the War

Essentially, the Swynfaredians gradually aggravated the Talamans into reacting violently and then claimed to be the victims.


There was an anti-sorcerer rabble rousers in Talama never identified. It was later speculated that the rabble rouser was a sorcerer spy uses illusions or transmutation to take on additional identities. The anti-sorcerer sentiment morphed into mostly anti-Greymoria sentiment.


A lot of diplomatic incidents between Swynfaredian and Talama were spin doctored by Swynfaredian propagandists. The flashpoint event was party of Swynfaredian adventurers were caught and executed. Accused of murdering the king’s court wizard and a few servants and guards (ancillary to targeting the wizard). They were accused of attempting to kill a bunch of other courtiers. Four sorcerers, a Greymoria theurgist, and a non-spellcasting stealthy warrior were captured by the priestly triumvirate and put to death.

Swynaredia called them innocent martyrs. Talamans called them war criminals and murderers.

The Fumayan historian checked on the background of the martyrs. Four of them were out of favor nobles. The theurgist was essentially a mercenary, and the party leader was a die-hard loyalist to the Queen of Swynfaredia. His working theory is that the leader willingly sacrificed his life for this ploy and the others were set up as patsies.


What did the Priesthoods and Theurgists Do?

Greymoria’s Children, both in Talama and Swynfaredia backed the Swynfaredians actively. Most of the few theurgists that took the battlefield on behalf of Swynfaredia were aligned with Greymoria. Talaman wizards that did not swear an oath to Greymoria or give the Children a cash bribe got put on a list of names (along with their known addresses and magical abilities) and the list was handed to Swynfaredians.


Talama’s king had always aimed to create priestly triumvirate giving the priesthoods of Phidas, Hallisan, and Khemra equal footing, hence forth, Talamas alliance of these groups will be called the Triumvirate. Most of the Masks, Guardians, and Keepers within Swynfaredia sat out of the war or provided minor logistical and medical aid to the Sywnfaredians from behind the front lines.

The Triumvirate was the back bone of Talmans military defense forming a crucial part of their military’s leadership and raw power. After the war when the Swynfaredians drafted a peace treaty the Triumvirate signed it with only a few token Talaman secular leaders signing it. The Triumvirate was exempted from retribution for any supposed war crimes committed during the conflict. The secular Talaman leaders were not given this protection.


The Stewards of Korus and Tenders of Mera declared themselves neutral in this war, but they did try to help treat wounded and dispossessed people that they came across showing blatant favoritism to Talamans.


The Lanterns joined the war relatively late. Shortly before the war, a Lantern agitator was killed in Talama “while resisting arrest” and they were reluctant to fight on his behalf until tales of Swynfaredian atrocities started to trickle in. The Lanterns harried the Swynfaredians unsuccessfully for many years after Talama was officially annexed becoming all the harder when a large portion of the surviving Triumvirate joined their Swynfaredian leaders in return for some minor concessions.


Most Rovers of Nami were neutral in this conflict (a great many fleeing the area entirely), but one weather witch was very patriotic towards Talama and killed a lot of Swynfaredian soldiers before the Swynfaredians were able to bring her down.


Maylar’s Testers were conspicuously absent. At one point the Swynfaredians tried to claim that opportunistic Tester raiders were following in their wake, but this is largely believed to be a thin veil to deflect blame from their own wartime atrocities.


The Swynfaredia War Coalition

Almost every battle between Talaman soldiers and Swynfaredian soldiers that did not have a significant sorcerer presence, the Talamans dominated. Talaman soldiers were better trained, disciplined, and equipped than their Swynfaredian counterparts. For the most part, Swynfaredians neglect their management of their soldiers in favor of a magical focus. Rather than go into the minutia of this, the net effect is that the average combat pool of a Talama/Fumaya reservist is one die higher than a Swynfaredian reservist. (4/5 dice), the professional soldiers (5 dice/6 dice), and the knights tended to have 7 dice combat pools compared to the talon warriors average 6.


The exceptions to this rule are House Gareth and House Fremiss B which have a military focus. Note historians don’t say their soldiers are elite or anything, but they are competent and adequately supported on par with their counterparts in less magical lands.


The Swynfaredians had two generals and two armies. Essentially one army represented House Numaness and their allies. The other army represented House Goirsonad and their allies. Towards the end of the war, the Talamans realized that the two armies were barely speaking to each other and they never really reinforced the other faction when threatened but they discovered this weakness, it was too late.


There was an anti-war coalition in Swynfaredia, but they didn’t do much but complain about the war including most of House Kovenoth. The war went pretty smoothly so the Swynfaredian doves got politically sidelines for decades to come.


Aftermath Conflicts

After the war, Numaness and Goirsonad feuded over who to install as the leaders of the newly conquered land. At least five dragonbloods died suspicious deaths as well as a few high ranking squibs. The most hotly contested lands were the ones with magic fonts on them. Also, there was a literal gold mine that was hotly contested.


Some Talamans retreated from their homeland and settled in Fumaya while others fled into the Border Baronies. There was one very bloodthirsty sorcerer that wanted to kill Talamans but he got assassinated shortly after the war and the Lanterns claimed credit for his death. For the most part the Swynfaredians only actively hunted Talaman nobles.

The Swynfaredians control a puppet state in the Border Baronies, Uwcharedia. Uwcharedia is a dumping ground for favored squibs who can pretend to be powerful in their little slice of Borderlands. This group tied to catch Talamans that fled through their territory. Most of the Borderlanders nominally sided with the Talamans. The Borderlands has a lot of exiles and fugitives among them and it’s a national pastime to waylay bounty hunters and government agents that poke their nose in the Borderlands. More than a few Swynfaredia agents who went into the Borderlands hunting down fleeing Talaman nobles disappeared there.

Note that Altudaredia is founded by a Swynfaredia exile, but relations between Altudaredia and Swynfaredia are not warm.

The most famous pair of Talama exiles was a princess (the last surviving direct heir of the Talaman king) and her bodyguard whom she fell in love with. Storytellers love to tell tales of their heroic exploits. The two established the Barony of Love, and their descendants ruled the barony for about a century until orcs and goblins killed their grandson who was either a very poor ruler, or a good man undermined by Swynfaredian spies, or he was a poor ruler undermined by Swynfaredian spies leaving the realm ripe for an orcish assault. The dwarves didn’t want to tolerate an orc Barony on their doorstep so they took out the orcs and installed the Barony of Bats in its place.


War Crimes

A lot of Talamans were tried and executed for war crimes after the war, but these were mostly trumped up charges. There was an incident towards the end of the war when the Talamans were short on supplies and ended up executing many POWs out of expediency but for most part, Talamans did not commit many real war crimes.

Dragonblood nobles rarely were involved in attacks against the civilian populace, but the Swynfaredian’s soldiers were not very disciplined. The Numaness coalition army ordered his soldiers to take efforts to not harm civilians but did not prosecute violators very hard. The Goirsonad coalition actively encouraged looting and turned a blind eye to soldiers raping civilians.


With three major exceptions, the dragon bloods did not normally directly target civilians.

There was an invoker in House Fremiss A that liked using civilians for target practice. Officially he died from an invocation miscast, but all appearances suggest that another Swynfaredian invoker fragged him.

There was a Fang Warrior in House Gareth who killed elderly civilians ostensibly to help ration food supplies in the region during the winter, but he seemed to be wanting to move a bunch of Swynfaredian farmers there instead. He disappeared without a trace after the war, but the Lanterns claimed credit for his death.

There was a Numaness noble that tried to coerce Talaman soldiers to surrender by threatening their families. Talaman soldiers managed to capture him and torture him to death before the war was over. He was the highest profile dragon blood to die in the war.

The main takeaway, is that there is concern that the Swynfaredians are trying to manufacture a diplomatic incident in order to justify an invasion.

After having his fill of the library, Kormatin and his two NPC sidekicks went to the border and chatted up soldiers on border patrol duty and tried to gage popular opinion determining.

-The Guardians (priests and holy warriors of Hallisan) were 99% certain that an invasion of Swynfaredia is imminent.

-The nobles think the odds of Swynfaredia invading are 50%, 50% symbolic saber rattling. Some of the nobles are pissed that the Guardians have moved all of their resources to the southern border and left the northerners to twist in the wind for the random monsters, goblins, orc raiders, and assorted brigands in the north.

-The civilians are just concerned. No one wants war on their doorstep. Enemy soldiers are likely to rape and pillage. Allied soldiers are not likely to rape and pillage, but they are likely to "requisition" food. Civilians have started hiding food stores.

-When Swynfardia invaded Talama 120 years ago, they killed every wizard they could find. The wizards of Fumaya were warned. Some of them are very concerned, some of them are very unconcerned.

Once Kormatin's player got tired of asking random people questions, he asked for me to toss him a story hook, so I told him there was a nearby sighting of a wild fire elemental seemingly created by a concentration of lots of magic spells.

Investigations reveal it was not a wild elemental created by a concentration of magic, it was someone summoning a fire elemental deliberately to try to make it look like there was a concentration of magic there.

The Fumayan army has an elite army scout who happens to be a Tengku. His name is Noggra. A Swynfaredian set up an elaborate scheme to frame the Tengku for treason, fueled by racism, but there were a lot of holes in the frame up, so Kormatin and his allies were able to clear the Tengku's and capture the Swynfaredian sorceress who used illusions to set Noggra up. Noggra was now Kormatin's friend for life which is nice because Noggra is pretty badass.

Kormatin has a policy. Prisoners who cooperate get to ride a horse in a dignified matter with their hands lightly bound. Prisoners who are not cooperative get fully bound and slung over the back of a horse like a sack of potatoes. This sorceress chose transportation Option B.

Kormatin was unsure if she acted alone or had an accomplice. Kormatin's player decided that it would be handy to have some Rainbow Vellum to figure out the magical capabilities of his prisoners. Kormatin made a plan to buy some. Kormatin's sponsor agreed that this was a good idea and gave him 1000 gold to buy some.

Kormatin ordered the army to detain the sorceress spy and went on a little errand.

Kormatin and his two Guardian sidekicks (Tihalt the human archer and Ragana the gnome apprentice conjurer) ditched their holy vestments and impersonated a rich gnome and her two human body guards. Noggra tagged along as her tengku servant.

The party crossed the border into Swynfardian without incident. They traveled to the nearest town. Ragana and her bodyguards bought some Rainbow Vellum on the black market while Noggra visited the Tengku District (aka the Nest) and he was able to find out whom the lady spy was (previously she was using a fake name). She was an unmarried heir apparent of a House Gareth baron. Because she was very physically attractive and going to inherit a piece of land, she was considered a highly desirable marriage partner and had many suitors despite not having much of an ancient lineage. Noggra also found out there her little brother was something of an idiot savant that was very good at summoning but good at anything else. He probably summoned the fire elemental.

By the time they got back, the Gareth Lady was actually pretty smug. Under interrogation she was a little taken aback that Kormatin figured out her true identity, but she essentially said "I'm young, pretty, and prestigious. If anything were to happen to me, it would be a major diplomatic incident."

She was prisoner for 5-6 days. The news of a high born gorgeous sorceress spy captured spread fast. The local Duke sent his son Tacitus to investigate.

Kormatin, did not want to create a diplomatic incident, but on the other hand this was third spy he captured and he didn't want to keep releasing them with a slap on the wrist.

Tacitus suggested transferring her to custody from some nameless army guys to the Duke. She became a "guest" at his castle. After talking with Tacitus, the spy lady suggested arranging a ransom payment for her freedom and that seemed to be an idea the duke like.

Duke Garland Wiern politely invited Kormatin and his companions to dinner. Kormatin brought up his concerns of a possible Swynfaredian invasion. Duke Wiern essentially "I am not sure if the Swynfaredians are planning to invade or not, but I am going to home for the best and prepare for the worst. I am making military preparations blah blah blah."

Garland loved to gush about his eldest daughter because Garland is the king of Fumaya's father-in-law. His eldest daughter was not present because she in the capital with her husband the king. She and the king have a four year old daughter and a nine month old son. Garland is very loyal to the king for obvious reasons.

Garland's second born and heir apparent is Lord Bohdan (mid twenties). When the dinner started, Bohdan put his foot in his mouth very quickly "Why are we entertaining priestly guests when it's not a holiday" pissing off his father and siblings. Bohdan was quiet for the rest of the evening.

Lord Tacitus (early twenties) was what Kormatin's player deemed "the smart reasonable child of the duke." He seemed to have a good head on his shoulders and was taking reasonable precautions to defend the realm against a possible Swyfnaredian invasion.

Lady Felicja (18) was Garland's daughter, was a deliberately obnoxious. Kormatin's character background is that he was an illegitimate bastard son of a noble woman and unknown father. As a child he was shipped off to the Khemra's temple. Lady Felicja gave him a backhanded compliment that, dressing it up in flowery language but she essentially said "It's really great that you have been capturing all those bad sorcerers. Maybe we should send all our bastards to the Keepers for training."

Kormatin did not respond to the barb but inside he was seething.

Kormatin's player had run out of investigative things to pursue and he was okay to leave his prisoner in the Duke's custody. She is a prisoner, but because of her social status she is an honored prisoner in a nice room.

Kormatin's player asked for a new story hook. Conveniently I had a story hook specifically for the town near Castle Wiern.

Kormatin was able to visit the castle but he was not staying there. A lowly stable hand approached Kormatin and begged him for help finding his missing friend. Kormatin not having anything better to do, agreed.

Investigation revealed that in recent months there were six disappearances. All of them were vagrants, beggars, or turd shoveling laborers. Four men, two women. People with little to no living family that no one would miss.

Kormatin found a loose geographic pattern to the abduction, while investigating this, he spotted a mysterious stranger tailing him. Kormatin turned the tables on the man following him. He tried to deny doing anything wrong, but as soon as Kormatin's gnome friend suggested "Let's search him!" He pulled a sword and stabbed her.

Kormatin and his sidekicks took the man down pretty easily but he fought to his last breath. They searched his corpse and found a Maylar holy symbol. It's not illegal to worship Maylar but it is cause for suspicion and attacking people in an alley is illegal.

Kormatin kept it quiet that this man was a secret Maylar cultist, he told people "I was investigating missing people, and this man tried following me and then attacked when I questioned him." Everyone was shocked by this as the man's public identity was an unassuming bachelor peasant laborer who liked spending his nights getting drunk at the tavern. They searched his house and found he had a hiding place with a surprising amount of weapons and armor for a harmless drunkard.

They questioned his friends at the tavern. Kormatin's gnome friend Ragana suspected one of the men at the tavern knew more than he let on. Ragana followed him (being far stealthier than Kormatin or Tihalt). The suspect took a circuitous route the servants entrance of Castle Wiern then left the castle.

Kormatin and company went to his hovel in the middle of the night, and accosted him. "Why are you sneaking around and visiting the castle late at night." etc.

He made up a BS story that he was trying to seduce a chambermaid who worked in the castle. They searched his house found another hidden holy symbol of Maylar and more weapons and armor than most peasants own. They arrested him and threw him in the guard house lockup. Kormatin didn't tell the soldiers why, he pulled rank and said "Hold him until I say otherwise." No one questioned the scary Keeper because the last man he brought over was a corpse.

They went back to the castle the next day, and quietly told Lord Tacitus what was going. Lord Tacitus ordered the chambermaid in question to clean something and while she was away, Kormatin and his buddies searched her room, found another Maylar holy symbol and a dagger with a bit of dried blood on it. The chambermaid denied everything and unconvincingly claimed she was set up. Lord Tacitus helped them quietly move her to the castle dungeon.

Lord Tacitus gave Kormatin and his buddies the work schedule of all the servants in the castle. While they were doing chores, Kormatin and his buddies were going to search their quarters room by room.

They found two more servants (one man, one woman) with hidden weapons and Maylar holy symbols. The man had a map with the disappearances in town marked and another site outside of town marked).

Kormatin and his buddies arrested the them both. The woman did not fight. The man tried to fight to the death, but they managed to knock him unconscious, he was almost dead. They had to magically heal him in order to interrogate him.

Under interrogation, the woman denied everything. The man spilled his guts making a full confession and saying that they followed a Tester who wore a mask and operated under the pseudonym "the Reveler" and they were murdering lowly people who not be missed. He said the out of town site was where they were hiding the bodies. Note he asked for clemency after spilling his guts, not before. Moderately suspicious.

He named names. The dead man, the two captured women, and another manservant whom Kormatin promptly threw in a cell. The man denied everything until he found out that his compatriot sold him out and which point he shouted that "The traitor will die!" which is effectively confessing "Yes I am a Maylar cultist too."

Kormatin and company searched the rest of the servants quarters at the castle and identified no new evidence of Maylar additional cultists (at this point they killed one, and captured four), so Kormatin and his sidekicks went to investigate the burial site.



The Maylar cult wanted Kormatin to find the map. Kormatin was able to spot the trap before walking into it, but he still was surrounded by a bunch of well-armed heavily enemies.

Kormatin's player had to leave to pick up his sons from daycare in twenty minutes. This fight would take way longer than twenty minutes to resolve. So we hit the pause button at this cliffhanger. We will probably be able to pick this up again in two weeks. If we are really lucky we can pick this up in one week. If we really unlucky it will take longer than two weeks to set up a new session.

Is Kormatin's player is reading this post, the following should not be read by him, but anyone who is not him feel free.

Spoiler: Maylar Cultists and Other Scum and Villainy

Kormatin trained his whole life to find and take down nefarious mages. He is currently tasked with rooting out Swynfaredian spies. The Maylar cult has no connection at all to Swynfaredia and they are not mages.

Kormatin is a not a heartless robot. He is very much opposed to Maylar cultists murdering random peasants for fun.

Kormatin has a very high dot rating in Theology, so his character knows all about Maylar's many political factions. I said his character suspects this Maylar cult is affiliated with the Decadents and recommended that before our next session he read this article.

Kormatin's player ran almost as many RPGs as I did and he is good at crafting political intrigues. I'm sure he suspects one of the nobles in Castle Wiern is connected to the Maylar cult.

Because they have names, I'm sure the top suspects are the Duke's adult children: Lord Bohdan, Lord Tacitus, and Lady Felicja. Felicja acted like a bratty bitch, so she is probably the top suspect, but it might be too obvious.

In the past, Kormatin's player ran a game where the secret traitor was a lazy nobleman very similar to Bohdan. In another RPG he ran, a common born character that was quiet an unassuming ws a spy. In his games, quiet but always present characters are frequently spies.

I ran a game a while back where the secret traitor was a very helpful NPC running a long con and Lord Tacitus has been a very helpful PC.

Lord Bohdan is lazy and not the brightest, but he is not a villain. He's a red herring.

Lord Tacitus is plotting something nefarious, but he has no connection to the Maylar cult. In fact, he is genuinely interested in bringing the Maylar cult. The Maylar cult is a threat to his interests, so he wants to do everything he can to bring it down. If he come out of this looking like a hero, even better, this will make it easier to hide his evil schemes later...

Lady Felicja is secretly running the local Maylar cult. She is not a very complicated villain. Felicja is a spoiled brat with daddy issues. Felicja is jealous that her older sister is considered to be prettier, smarter, and better liked than she. She is upset that her older sister got to marry the young king of Fumaya and that she is likely to be married to a man that is far older, moderately less handsome, and far less rich.

Felicja would never admit it. More importantly, her older sister is the golden child and is father's favorite.

She went through a rebellious a teen phase and got recruited by a Maylar cult. With her connections and ruthlessness she rapidly rose in the ranks. He father is so hyper focused on his eldest daughter the queen and his eldest son the heir apparent that he doesn't even notice how suspicious Felicja has been acting.

Lord Tacitus did notice she was sneaking off a lot but he assumed she was having an illicit love affair. He didn't think she was part of a murder cult. Though, now that Tacitus is aware that there is a secret murder cult right under his nose, I'm sure he is putting two and two together. But Kormatin didn't bother informing Tacitus what he was doing before he went to the secret sight. Maybe this was an oversight or maybe Kormatin's player did not want to tell Tacitus in case Tacitus was affiliated with the Maylar cultists.

Lady Felicja knew all about Kormatin's background because Kormatin is an elite investigator. Naturally the leaders of secret murder cults want to keep tabs on elite investigators. She figured that since he was not investigating her specifically, she would just sit quietly and wait for him to go off chasing rumors of Swynfaredian spies.

She told her cultists to pause their evil shenanigans until Kormatin left town. She didn't count on a dogged peasant asking Kormatin to investigate an old crime.

I rolled Perception + Investigation for Felicja, and she failed. She didn't notice Kormatin was investigating her Maylar cult until one of her cultists was dead and three were in the dungeon. She was able to find out that the servants quarters were being searched so she had her remaining cultists throw out their incriminating possessions, but she chose one cultist to be a fall guy and left the map in his room, to set up an ambush. Her male lieutenant is being set up as the cult leader though of course he is a potential fall guy.

Her remaining cultists are setting up the ambush and Lady Felicja threw some gold coins out to quickly hire some local criminal thugs to augment the cultists.

I'm not sure if Lady Felicja is going to be at the ambush in person (with a disguise) or if she is going to be a coward and wait in the castle while her minions try to kill Kormatin and company.

Maylar's followers have many brave and bold members and they have many cowards. They have very few people in between. I have two weeks to figure out if Lady Felicja is going to be at the ambush site or not.

On one hand, Lady Felicja does not want to be implicated with this cult. If she's implicated, she will be either executed or exiled and lose her comfortable position. On the other hand, whether the ambush succeeds or fails, she will lose a lot of face with Maylar worshipers if she sits this battle out.

As a consolation prize, if she is outed as a Maylar cultist and is not killed for it, she will have to go into exile, but at least she will avoid an unwanted arranged marriage.

Felicja trained in basic combat training, but Kormatin would stomp her flat in a straight up fight. Felicja is a theurgist has three dots in Hexing and three dots in Spirit Magic so she can provide useful support to her cultists provided she stays out of sword reach of Kormatin and his allies. Even if she is disguised she would become a priority target if she starts demonstrating this magic.

Felicja is rich and privileged but her money is not infinite. She has a quietly purchased a wide variety of potions to temporarily make her into a super badass for about ten minutes, but she can only pull this trick off once. Even then, the potions would, at best, make her Kormatin's equal in battle, not his superior. (Also Kormatin is a PLAYER CHARACTER, PCs always are mighty and routinely defeat enemies stronger than them). She also a potion of invisibility and a potion of flight to run away if needed. Kormatin has a magical item that counters invisibility and Felicja knows this because she heard detailed accounts of how he took down the Swynfaredian spies.

In short, I can go either Felicja

Spoiler: So what is the deal with Lord Tacitus?

Lord Tacitus believes that if Swynfaredia invades Fumaya, Fumaya is probably doomed.

By dumb luck, he found out his eight year old cousin, Lady Pallavi is a budding sorceress. Frequently, when a feudal nation conquers another feudal nation, the conqueror will try to legitimize their rule by marrying a noblewoman associated with the conquered government. By Swynfaredian, only sorcerers and sorceresses may hold noble title.

Lady Pallavi is the only child of the nobility that eligible for a proper marriage in Fumaya and Swynfaredia. Lord Tacitus is Lady Pallavi's mentor and he is the only one who knows she is a sorceress. If Swynfaredia conquers Fumaya, Tacitus' plan is to essentially sell Lady Pallavi to the Swynfaredians.

If you read the backstory, remember when Kormatin captured a high ranking Swynfaredian spy. It just so happens that Kormatin let Lord Tacitus interrogate her...alone. The he helped arrange for her to be honorable ransomed back unharmed to Swynfaredia.



In the meantime he is going to help Kormatin bring the Maylar cult (he has no loyalty to his bratty sister). If Tacitus helps bring down the Maylar cult he will gained the trust of an honest cop, and get the investigators out of his hair.

Going back to Swynfaredia. Swynfaredia has a magical advantage and a numbers advantage, they should be able to crush Fumaya with no effort.

The problem is that the Swynfaredians spend roughly as much time plotting against each other as they do plotting against Fumaya.

But someone is going to connect the dots. Kormatin captured three spies, one from House Kovenoth, one from House Gruffyl, and one from House Gareth. These three Houses are not allied, but eventually someone is going to sit up and notice. "Kormatin and his two sidekicks keep finding and catching Swynfaredian spies, we should do something about this!"

Kormatin not only thwarted a Kovenoth spy, but he managed to publicly humiliate the whole house in the process. Kovenoth does not have a strong spy network and they have very few friends outside their house. Kovenoth would love to kill Kormatin to restore their besmirched honor, but they cannot effectively do anything about it while he is Fumayan. They are waiting for the invasion of Fumaya and they plan to find Kormatin on the battlefield and kill him.


House Gruffyle was thwarted but they were not caught, they did not lose any face, they just lost some money. Kormatin is a bastard with heterochromia. It just so happens that the patriarch of House Gruffyle has heterochromia and sired a bunch of bastards. As soon a the patriarch of House Gruffyle gets wind of what's going on, he's going to send spies to find everything they can about Kormatin without engaging him, then assess.

Unofficially, the patriarch is a horndog. Officially, he was trying to sire bastards on cosmological auspicious dates to try to breed sorcerers. Imagine his surprise when he finds out one of those bastards grows up to be a holy warrior who hunts down sorcerers! Until he can get all the facts though, he is going to keep this family embarrassment a secret.


House Gareth is not yet sure of what is going on, but they will find out soon. Assuming their operative is ransomed safely, they are probably not going to be super vengeful. House Gareth are only relative newbies at spycraft and assassinating a foreign holy warrior is not in their bailiwick. But it is in House Numaness' bailiwick and Gareth works for House Numaness. Maybe they could persuade Numaness to deal with Kormatin.

If Kormatin catches a fourth spy, this might be enough to convince Swynfaredians team up with rival houses to take him down. Allies or not. Kormatin has not caught any Goirsonad spies yet. Goirsonad does play around, if Goirsonad decides he is a threat, they will use their criminal contracts to put a contract out on him.

Fun times are ahead.

 

I'm just happy to have an active player who has read most of my Scarterra wiki. It's been so long since I could scratch my RPG itch. I was so happy when he made the comment about the Maylar cultists.

"The Maylar cultists are having murder parties while the Swynfaredians are planning to invade! They need to get on board like the Children. They know what's up!"

The comparison is delightful because the Children are arguably no less evil than the Maylar cultist but they happen to be Kormatin's side in this story.

 

No, Pendrake, you are wrong. This is not relevant to Mera's Lake. This relevant to all of Scaraqua.

EDIT: A casual rereading showed a lot of errors. Apologies for any uncaught typos, I wrote this all pretty fast in a haze of excitement.

There have been 906 posts on this thread. Probably 500-600 of them are mine. This might be my all time favorite feedback someone gave me ever though the map you made of the Border Baronies was and is beautiful and useful and I really appreciate @Warden helping me with Heraldry.

So nice I wish I could like it twice. Then like it four times. I want to like 8 times. 2 to the third power.

Droopy saying "You know what? I'm happy" is not sufficient.

The first 30 seconds of the video blew my mind.



Until watching this video I assumed that all the world's seas were essentially one big ocean and the divisions between the oceans were pretty arbitrary.

They are not arbitrary. Some of the divisions are very obvious. I didn't know this. My crude map of Scaraqua's oceans and seas uses fuzzy arbitrary borders based more on the culture of the people swimming there than the physical differences of the seas.

This is big. I am not good at making maps, but I am trying to get started on this. They are very useful for communicating information and when it comes to getting views and likes on World Anvil (and often fantasy novels), fans love maps.

I have been trying some crude maps, but mostly I've watched Youtube videos on the subject of fantasy maps and pre industrial real world maps and borders.

Now we have very precise GPS. Before that the Industrial Revolution brought in technology for long range communication and mass production of signs and markers. In the 1600s, cartography science became very advanced.

But before all that, borders were usually rivers or very obvious natural landmarks or artificial landmars like manmade walls and fences. If Tribe A and Tribe B own adjoining pieces of land, they are almost invariably going to bicker and argue about where one group's land ends and the other begins.

In fact, it's still happening between India and China, between the Phillipines and China, and between Vietnam and China, and Japan and China, but that's another story

Before modern cartography, fuzzy borders led to disputes, so historical most "settled" borders were on rivers or very obvious landmarks.

I just assumed that Scaraqua would have mostly fuzzy indistinct borders. I figured that any border regions that are in or near valuable resources would see near constant wars, so most of the settled borders be underwater deserts (which still have sporadic fighting). But if you have 50 miles of desert between Merfolk Nation A and Merfolk Nation B, the ruling matriarchs are probably going occasional scouts to reconnoiter the area, but they aren't going to worry about people trespassing "their" territory even if both leaders claim the same desert.

Ocean clines change everything. If anything, this means that contrary to what I believed, Scaraqua is likely to have fewer fuzzy border regions than Scarterra!

Because Scaraquaterra is a geocentric universe, Scarterra either has no Coriolis effect or they have a very different Coriolis effect.

Spoiler: Unrelated Tangent on naming things

Unrelated Tangent: I do not like the name Scaraquaterra. I need a term to refer to the entiriety of my setting including Scarterra, Scaraqua, Scarnocta, the Void, the Aetherial Plane, and the Elemental Plane. A name that only Scarterran and Scaraquan sages use. Since common folk don't think about the realms they don't live in, a common Scarterran uses "Scarterra" to refer to the universe and a common Scaraquan uses "Scaraqua" to refer to the universe.

My first thought is Pantera. I cannot put my finger on why I don't like the name, but I don't like it. I'm accepting submissions.

I am going to blow past the Coriolis effect for the moment. Lets just assume that due to a combination of science and SCIENCE! that Scaraqua has clines.

This opens so many doors for me!

1) Political boundaries are easier to figure out which means it is easier for me to write background for historical wars, battles, struggles, and migrations.

2) I could color differentiations or other physically different markers to come up with names that are both simple and easy to understand but still feel like fantasy names.

3) I could use clines as a catalyst for different races and ethnicities within various Scaraquan peoples. Sure anyone can tell the difference between a Merfolk and a Karakhai, but I can use clinal differences as a catalyst for why the Merfolk of one sea look physically distinct from the Merfolk of another sea.

4) If I choose to depart from real world SCIENCE! I can come up with exotic fantasy explanations for clines that would make good setting legends.

5) Metaphysics is big on conjunctions and balance. Anywhere where two or more forces converge is magically significant. I can use the border regions of clines as a catalyst for exotic supernatural landmarks, the spawning grounds for weird fantasy creatures, and/or a good excuse for a region to be rich or poor in reagents. This a certainly a good thing to consider when figuring out where to put magic fonts.

6) Even in Scarterra, I could use this to add pizzazz to my rivers and maybe lakes.

7) This is just me pondering this for 20 minutes, I'm sure more brain waves will come.

 

Many pages ago, I asked for help fleshing out the shape changing crimelord that was fleecing the good people living in Fumya's capital city of King's Lake.

So Kormatin's player read an article how Swynfaredia uses Rainbow Vellum to register their sorcerers and wizards, so they know what every mage can or cannot do.

Kormatin's player said that when he created his character he geared his character as a killer of evil wizards (and sorcerers). His extended assignment has been going after evil sorcerers, but his superiors want him to bring back his targets alive.

He also realized he is not as intimidating as he would like to be, so it's likely that some of his prisoners would try some kind of escape attempt while being transported. If they have magic he is unaware of, there odds of escape are higher.

So Kormatin's player opted to travel to Swynfaredia (which still is allowing travel to and from Fumaya) in civilian clothes and buy some Rainbow Vellum on the Swynfaredian black market. "If I make my prisoners imprint themselves on a sheet of rainbow vellum I can have a rough idea of what magic they can or cannot do."

I just winged it. The player came up with a good idea, so I wasn't going to make it hard. Thanks to his more social sidekick, Kormatin was able to buy ten sheets of black market rainbow vellum at a 30% markup over the normal price.

But anyway, maybe in the future, Kormatin's player (or another PC) will have reason to interact with Swynfaredia's black market again.

It also occurred to me that at some point a Swynfaredian villain will decide that rather than sending sorcerers or soldiers to take down Kormatin, someone might want to strike at Kormatin using criminals as intermediaries.

And of course the Swynfaredian noble houses are a Byzantine nest of vipers. Some of them are probably going to use the underworld to undermine their rivals.

Fumaya is a small nation and is mostly rural. It was conceivable that one very clever crime lord could monopolize the crime in Fumaya.

Swynfaredia is a much larger nation and has a lot more urban areas. It is not plausible that a single criminal enterprise could dominate entire country, even if it had the unofficial sponsorship of one of the major dragonblood houses.

So in Swynfaredia, murder and theft is illegal because I want the Swynfaredian government to be realistic. Obviously there would criminal groups with murder or theft per hire and numerous fencing organizations.


I'm not sure if prostitution and gambling is illegal or legal but highly taxed. I'm sure there is organized crime covering these activities. It probably won't matter. None of the player characters are the sort of people that would be interested in this. Three of the PCs are straight laced heroes who would not deal with this kind of thus. The fourth player is playing a wildcard half-orc that doesn't play by the rules, but the player is mildly uncomfortable around the topic of prostitution so I have a good reason not to include it. Maybe said half-orc would be interested in gambling, but I find that to be unlikely.


Given that Swynfaredia practically worships dragons, trading in dragon parts is almost certainly illegal (not the player characters are dealing with dragon parts).



The Royal Office of the Arcane Registry (I didn't mean to create an acronym but it's R.O.A.R. ) started out a few centuries ago as a bunch of boring paper pushers, but they are now a very powerful political entity. They keep track of blood lines and magical ability. Lots of sorcerers would love to hoodwink the Arcane Registry. I'm sure there is an entire black market industry entirely based on circumventing the R.O.A.R.

Some sorcerers like to bluff and pretend to be stronger than they are, so they need to forge credentials for magic they don't have. More often sorcerers prefer to hide their true abilities and pretend to not have access magic that they do have.

The Arcane Registry also regulates the trades of scrolls, potions, and reagents. Lots of sorcerers don't want the Arcane Registry asking "Hey why are you hoarding all this, are some planning something dodgy?" Also the Arcane Registry slaps a surcharge on all legitimate transactions of scrolls, potions, and reagents so there is a financial incentive to black market trade of these things and not just a privacy/political motivation to do so.

Lots of people want to bribe the Arcane Registry to divulge secret information about their rivals.

It's possible, although very difficult and punishable by death for all parties involved, that forged documents through the Arcane Registry could pass of a wizard or a warlock as a sorcerer and thus let a non-sorcerer buy their way into a higher social class.

It is possible, but also punishable by death for all involved for blood line credentials to be forged to either create or prevent politically potent marriages.



Necromancy is a big mess. It's powerful and useful and some sorcerers develop Necromancy aptitude without trying to, so it's not illegal to be a necromancer.

Scarterrans are terrified of undead. Mostly they are terrified of becoming undead. It's a PR nightmare for a noble to showcase a horde of undead soldiers unless the noble in question is really committing all out to being an iron fisted tyrant.

It's not illegal (for the upper class) to create or have undead minions, but it is illegal for nobles to send their undead minions into battle without written permission of the king or queen. They are a lot of loopholes and provisions, so a noble who breaks the rules can wriggle out of punishment if he is paid up with the right people. Also there are loopholes and provisions that allow a noble that has made enemies of the wrong people to be punished for necromancy even if they seem to be following the rules.

It's such a hassle, that if a Swynfaredian wants to use undead minions, it's probably best to do so through a third party minion that they can disavow if needed. So there could be underworld contacts. Any underworld group that practices forbidden necromancy is probably working through the Children (Greymoria worshipers). That gets fuzzy too. Swynfaredia has public law abiding Greymoria temples and they have secret law breaking Greymoria temples. It's an open secret that these two groups are in constant communication but if a Greymoria cultist is irrevocably caught doing a heinous act everyone pretends that this was a "lone wolf operating outside the wider hierarchy."

When it comes to using undead minions to help invade Fumaya, I'm thinking this would backfire. About half of the priesthoods in Fumaya are staunchly opposed to Swynfaredia and about half of the priesthoods in Fumaya are officially neutral. If they used undead soldiers that would galvanize at least seven of the priesthoods against them.

Enslaved or bribed ghosts. That's another story. Ghosts are lot harder to notice and ghosts don't terrify the general populace the way the wights, ghouls, skeletons, and zombies do.


Greymoria's Children dabble in black market necromancy. They also dabble in black market everything magical related. To some extent, Nami's Rovers and Zarthus' Lanterns also dip their toes in the water of extralegal "magic for hire." Maylar's Testers also are involved in this kind of thing, but they are not really into organized crime. They are more into disorganized crime.

All necromancy that does not create undead minions is fully legal in Swynfaredia (for noble sorcerers at least). Wizards have additional restrictions in Necromancy (and many other things).


Swynfaredian nobles have a love-hate relationship with wizards. Their ideological doctrine states that wizards are inferior to sorcerers. In fact, wizards officially hold less social status than non-magic users. On the other hand, wizards are useful.

On average, wizards are better alchemists then sorcerers and they are usually pretty good at processing reagents and making scrolls and potions. Wizards are sneered at by the upper classes in public, but many sorcerers quietly pay them lots of gold for their services under the table. Some of these interactions are legal, some are not. A lot of wizards choose to operate via the black market rather than the R.O.A.R. because of their pride or simply to avoid the tariffs and fees.

The biggest legal restriction wizards face in Swynfaredian is limitations and fees spent on training apprentices (mainly, it is forbidden to teach wizardry to squibs). Because of this, most wizards in Swynfaredia are foreigners trained in foreign lands.


I covered black market tengku eggs as a thing in a post a while back and on a wiki article here. Tengku eggs are illegal to buy and sell in Swynfaredia but Swynfaredian nobles are slightly more racist than Fumayan nobles so it's not enforced as stringently.

I'm sure there are other forbidden reagents which are bought and sold in Swynfaredia. Dead unicorn parts are illegal. Most Swynfaredian nobles don't really care about unicorns one way or the other, but it is common knowledge that killing unicorns pisses off Korus. Korus may be a patient god, but he can still cause famines or conjure monsters when he gets upset. Korus does not unleash his divine fury often, but when he does he does not play around.

I'm not sure if murdered humans or demi-humans can be processed into reagents or not. If the answer yes, then trade of these reagents would be forbidden.

I'm sure the list of forbidden reagents will become larger as I come up with more ideas. Also, even non-forbidden reagents can become forbidden if the R.O.A.R. doesn't get their tariff.


Some houses in Swynfardia have outlawed goblin slavery and some have not. This is a major point of contention and it's one that thus far no king or queen of Swynfaredia has dared to take a hard stance on. The previous queen created a compromise that left both the pro-slavery nobles and the abolitionist nobles distinctly unhappy.

By royal decree, nobles may move goblin slaves through noble fiefdoms that have outlawed goblin slavery and the nobles cannot confiscate the goblins and free them, but the slave owners have very severe restrictions on what they can make their goblin slaves do outside of lands that they do not own.

Among the nobles there are more abolitionist nobles than pro-slavery nobles, but the abolitionists are a deeply divided block. If you polled the Swynfaredian nobles, the survey would look like this.

30% Goblin slaves are useful, lets use them to do our menial labor as a courtesy to our human peasants. This is official policy of House Fremiss A and House Gruffyl.

30% Goblin slaves are not worth the hassle, but if the nobles over there want to use them, I don't care. This is official policy of the Queen and House Numaness. This is the unofficial policy of all the Houses that have not made a public declaration on "the Goblin Issue."

17% Goblin slavery is amoral and wrong. Abolish slavery for like justice and equity. This is official policy of House Fremiss B.

3%, Goblins have a knack for sorcery. Free goblins that are treated well could be useful to the state. This is the official policy of House Fremiss C and they get a lot of criticism for this. Even much of the rank and file of the House disagrees with their leaders' official stance.

20% Goblin slavery is foolish and wrong. They are bound to escape, breed like rats, then murder us in our sleep. Abolish goblin slavery and then kill them all like the vermin they are. This is the official policy of House Manasch. This is unofficial policy of House Gareth and House Cefnor.

I'm sure the criminal underworld would be involved in trafficking goblin slaves. Ironically the underworld would also be involved in goblin liberation and goblin extermination.


In the Order of the Stick forum, some one suggested that given the Byzantine state of Swynfaredian politics, there would be an incentive to magically suppress budding young sorcerers and sorceresses. This would not only be a crime for it's violence, but it would probably be treasonous and blasphemous, so it would be probably be even more illegal than murder with very harsh punishments for it. But as someone pointed out, there is a high incentive to do it.

I'm sure what combination of magic, alchemy, SCIENCE!, and or poison would be able to prevent an adolescent or preadolescent child from developing their natural sorcerous ability, but someone would try it.


I think I covered the bases for what Swynfaredia's criminal underworld would operate in. In Fumaya, the underworld was like 90-95% opposed to legitimate government, 5-10% getting involved with the nobles in clandestine deals. There was much celebration when the PCs took down Etch's crime syndicate.

In Swynfaredia, the relationship is more of a love-hate relationship. Almost all the Swynfaredian Houses dip their toe in underworld dealings once in a while. Some of them deal with the underworld a lot.


Like I said before, I don't there should be a monolithic crime syndicate that runs everything. There should be several competing groups. They could be regional based or based on a particular black market industry or one based on which house is secretly bankrolling them (though I'm not sure I want any criminal syndicate to be formerly allied to a legitimate house). There could also be criminal syndicates built around a single charismatic or feared individual.

Anyway I'm open to feedback and suggestions here. The fun thing is, this time, the PCs will be not always be opposed to the underworld figures, sometimes they will be working with or through the criminals. The PCs are pretty straight laced and law abiding, but Kormatin is the most "I am the law!" character in the bunch and buying stuff from Swynfaredia's black market was his idea not mine.

 

I got a page by page table of contents at the start of this thread and wiki on World Anvil. What would a glossary provide that is not included already?

 

I hadn't though of Panterra being a band. That's I probably why I don't like the name. Pantera's music is not my cup of tea, but I don't actively dislike them. When I'm exercising I like to listen to angry heavy metal. When I'm doing literally anything else I do not like to listen to angry heavy metal.

Other than you spelled Scaraqua wrong, your points are valid. I suppose the first I included it, it does not say Scaraqua. Originally I called it "the sea."

A glossary would be of value but it would be hours of work on my part to do, I'm not sure if it's worth it.

I would point out that a key word search on Barony of the Dead will pop up the article I made on my World Anvil account and the Map of the Border Baronies is on page one the Scarterra World Anvil homepage because I have three maps and the Border Baronies is the only nice map and the only one with map pins.

If you hover over a map pin, it will provide a hyperlink to the article about that map location and display the first few paragraphs on it. At least on a computer. I don't know what comes up on a mobile device.

I could probably cook up this in a single hour. At least for the races and towns. I'm not sure if I could come up with a short glossary for the Nine and be satisfied. The Nine and the nuances of the Nine are the foundation of my world. Every time I try to come up with a short summary I will start adding details till it stops being important. My world is based on the Nine, so it's kind of assumed that people that want to look at my world will be familiar.

I guess I can start a Glossary here.

Divine Stuff

The Nine are the deities of Scarterra. They became gods when they defeated their tyrannical progenitor Turoch. Turoch's death created the malevolent nothingness known as the Void which occasional spawns Lovecraftian soul eating monsters called Void Demons. Turoch has nihilist cultists today collectively called infernalists.

The Nine created an agreement to run the universe world together called the Compact, but it didn't hold together very long after Turoch died.

The Nine live in the Aetherial Realm, aka the sky. They create spirit minions to serve them, roughly equal to angels and demons, and they empower divine casters to act as their proxies in the mortal plane. Favored souls are divine casters who are born with their power and theurgists are divine casters who gain divine magic through piety.

Khemra is Lawful Neutral. She her main dominion is the sun. Her main Gift is writing. Her primary followers are called Keepers ("of the Compact"). In the current RPG I'm running, two of the player characters are playing Keepers .

Hallisan is Lawful Good. His main dominion is the planet's crust and volcanic activity. His main Gift is metalworking. His primary followers are called Guardians ("of valor").

Phidas is Lawful Evil. His main Dominion is the barrier against the Void. His main Gift is the concept of currency. His primary followers are called Masks ("of Phidas").

Korus is True Neutral. His main dominion is the ecosystems of all life. His main Gift is agriculture. His primary followers are called Stewards ("of the Gift" or "of the Dominion".

Mera is Neutral Good. Her main dominion is the water. Her main Gift is control over fire. Her primary followers are called Tenders (of the Sacred Hearth).

Greymoria is Neutral Evil. Her main dominion is arcane magic. Her main Gift is wizardry. Her primary followers are called Children ("of the Dark Mother").

Nami is Chaotic Neutral. Her primary dominion is weather. Her primary Gift is free will. Her primary followers are called Rovers ("on the wind")

Maylar is Chaotic Evil. His primary dominion is disease and decay. His primary Gift is animal husbandry and hunting. His primary followers are called Testers ("of Strength")

Locations

Scarterra is the term for the land and land people of my world.

West Colassia is the largest continent in Scarterra and is the main setting for both my RPG and my WIP novel. Because of it's important I put more detail into West Colassia than all other locations combined.

I started adding details to East Colassia, but the other landmasses, Umera, Penarchia, and Khemarok barely have any details at all.

Spoiler: Nations within West Colassia

Fumaya is the scrappy sock shaped nation where my RPG is set. They are hardy folk surrounded by stronger powers and struggling to survive.

Swynfaredia is a nation with a sorcerer based aristocracy. They are south of Fumaya.

Meckelorn is the home of the original recipe dwarves we are all familiar with. They are west of Fumaya and north of Border Baronies.

Stahheim is the home of dwarves that have assimilated a bit of human cultural values and adopted a more mercantile trading stance. They are South of the Border Baronies and West of Swynfaredia.

The Border Baronies is a region of rugged wilderness including swamps and mountains and very small independent nations sandwiched between Meckelorn and Stahlheim. An interactive map is here and you can read about all sixteen Border Baronies via the map. The Border Baronies is the setting of my WIP novel.

Kantoc is the distant but powerful horse loving nation loosely based on Camelot and Rohan. West of the Border Baronies.

Uskala is the distant but powerful nation with a seemingly immortal tyrant ruling it. They are east of Swynfaredia.

Codenya is the home of the Scarterra's wood elves. They are east of Fumaya and northeast of Swynfaredia and northwest of Uskala.

The Elven Empire is a colonial power where most of the leaders are elves and most of the colonists are humans. They have some small holdings along West Colassia's southern coast but their main strength is elsewhere.

Is this helpful or did you have something else in mind when you two suggested a "glossary." I could keep going but if you wanted something totally different I will scrap this.


Scaraqua is my term for the sea and the aquatic people of my world. This is not quite as fleshed out as Scarterra but I got a lot of stuff here.

Scarnoctis is my term for the subterranean realms and people of my world. I barely begun developing this setting. I haven't even set on the name, sometimes I called it Scarcaverna or Hollow Earth.

 

POOOOOOOOOPPPP!!!!

A Youtube channel I like recently released an interesting video.



Normally, I don't bring up excrement much in my RPG. I will note that in the last solo session I ran, the villain of the week was someone who killed peasants for fun, generally picking the lowest people in society to "disappear" so the story started with Kormatin looking for a missing turd shoveler. (Which I guess is officially called a "gung farmer" according to the Youtube video above).

At some point I need to accept the fact that George R. Martin is definitely not going to finish his series before he dies and he is probably not going to release Winds of Winter before he dies. I just to suck it up and read the books he has released for background reading as I try to craft my own narrative.

When it comes to divine magic in my setting. Like most things that I need to codify, I create ratings between 1 and 5 "dots." In a lot of cases, the level one dot and sometimes two dot powers of divine magic are not especially useful to most adventures on a routine basis but would be very valuable to ordinary medieval people. The stuff adventurers really crave is usually at the three dot level.

For instance Healing ● prevents infection.

Healing ●● heals everyday easily recoverable injuries saving people days of recovery and

Healing ●●● is what completely fixes serious sword wounds.

It occurred to me, that Purification magic could be used to deodorize or perhaps dry out and process feces. Note that Purification magic is the most commonly practiced branch of magic in Scarterra, so this could go a long way to improving sanitation, though it wouldn't fix the problems entirely. There isn't enough people with Purification magic to eradicate all medieval sanitation issues, but there are enough people with this magic roaming around that's it's feasible, a Purificationist could stop by the visit every week or every other week to go to the communal cesspits and service them much like we have an industry now that empties Port-O-potties.

Here's what Purification has for the description now.

● Detect poisons, curses, disease, or undead. Undead can resist detection with Willpower if they have that trait. This level of power can also prevent but not cure infection. Range is 25 yard radius per success rolled.

●● Purify contaminants from food and drink, clean an area, slow the progress of serious poison, cure minor poisons like alcohol. Remove hexes causing temporary die penalties. Subjects can be magically vaccinated to get -1 difficulty break on Stamina rolls to resist disease and poison for one hour per success. Range is touch.

●●● Cure all but the most serious diseases. Cure non-magical poisons. Cure magically afflicted blindness and deafness. Remove long term penalizing magical hexes. Purge enchantment spells and mind control. Range is touch.

●●●● Cure extremely serious diseases such as cancer or lycanthropy as well as magically potent poisons. Nullify major enchantments such as petrification. Dispel ongoing spells. Range is touch for cures and line of sight for dispelling magic.

●●●●● Suppress or even completely overcome supernatural Flaws. Temporarily suppress abilities of permanent magical items. In most cases effects are suppressed for one day per success. Immunize subjects against mind control for one hour per success. Immunized subjects get a -3 difficulty break on saving throws versus transmutation and poison effects as well.

I could easily rewrite Purification ● or ●● to deodorize and/or dry out and process poop.


So going back to non-poop topics, is that the kind of stuff you wanted in a glossary? Anything obvious missing?

 

A while back, the very first I made on World Anvil article that a stranger liked was "Slavery in Kahdisteria."

Now here is a similar article.


Go to Scarterra Homepage
Slavery in Swynfaredia
In Swynfaredia, slavery of humans, half-humans, dragons, half-dragons, elves, gnomes, dwarves, kobolds, and any individual with sorcery has been illegal since the day Swynfaredia became a nation.

Technically, Swynfaredian law allows for the ownership for the enslavement of any race not on the list above, but in practice goblin slavery is the only form of slavery that is condoned in Swynfaredia.

By the previous monarch's royal decree, every duke or duchess has autonomy to decide on whether goblin slavery is legal in their own lands or not.

About two thirds of the lands in Swynfaredia allow slavery, but only about half of these lands actually practice owning goblin slaves. The remaining lands have made goblin slavery illegal outright.

There was a lot of arguments on if goblin slaves were moved into a land that outlawed goblin slavery if the goblins were freed or not. Queen Gwendolyn ap Numaness settled this was a new royal decree. Slave owners may move goblin slaves across lands that have illegalized goblin slavery, but they cannot put them to work in these lands unless they were carrying loads when they entered in which case they can carry these loads through the lands in question.

History
Before Swynfaredia was founded, the founded dragons hashed out a lot of details of the nation they wanted to create.

There was unanimous agreement that human and dragon slavery would be illegal. The rest took some discussion and there are written records of the founding dragons political discussions on this topic collecting dust in a Swynfaredian library somewhere.

Eventually they hashed out more anti-slavery laws. The founding constitution of Swyfnaredia outlaws the slavery of humans, elves, half-humans of all kinds, half-dragons of all kinds, dwarves, gnomes, kobolds, and any sorcerers.

For the most part Swynfaredia had zero interest in slavery for the first three hundred or so years of their existence.

Then one day they were fighting off some goblin raiders and a bunch of goblins surrendered. These goblins were then put to work and goblin slavery evolved into an institution.

There were a handful of attempts to enslave giants and other large monsters but for the most part, only goblin slavery was common and lasted generation after generation.

Fremiss the Vibrant and his many descendants argued that serfdom was almost as bad as slavery.

The lands ruled by House Fremiss were among the first lands in West Colassia to outlaw hereditary serfdom. Gradually, the nobles of other houses eventually adopted the practice of outlawing serfdom.

By the start of the Second Swynfaredian Civil War 90% of Swynfaredian lands had outlawed serfdom. During the treaty that ended the civil war, a decree banning all serfdom nation-wide was slipped into the final peace treaty (even though the subject of serfdom had nothing to do with the civil war).

Execution
Swynfaredian nobles have human peasants to handle farming and crafting jobs.

Goblins slaves can and are used for any menial labor but the vast majority of them are put to work in mines. If they aren't working in mines, they are probably working as carriers of various loads, especially chamber pots and dung carts.

Components And Tools
Swynfaredian dragon bloods rely on the traditional tools of chains, whips, and spears to keep their slaves in line, but they usually appoint non-sorcerer overseers to handle the goblins directly rather than dirty themselves associating themselves with goblins directly.

Swynfaredians rarely use magic to keep their goblins in line, but they frequently use the threat of magic to keep their goblins in line.

A few very fastidious slave owners keep a log with the names of every goblin slave with a few of their hairs, so magical diviners can use magical scrying pools to find runaway slaves. This is almost impossible for a goblin to counter, but fortunately for freedom minded goblins, very few slave owners go to this level of trouble.


Swynfaredian Abolitionists (side bar)
The majority of Dragon Bloods do not want goblins slaves themselves, viewing them as more trouble than they are worth, but they do not bat an eye if other Dragon Bloods want to own goblin slaves.There are actually more abolitionists among Swynfaredia's nobility than there are slave owners, but the abolitionists are not a unified bloc.

With their numbers they should have been able to sway the other nobles to their side, but the abolitionists spend more time arguing with each other than they do lambasting slave owners or trying to sway fence sitters to their side.

The main sticking point is that they don't agree on what to do with the goblins after slavery is abolished.

About half want to send the goblins into the wilderness afterwards and about half want to exterminate the goblins outright. A tiny minority want to give goblins citizenship rights, an opinion almost exclusively held by the patriarch of House Fremiss C and his inner circle. Even most of his own house opposes this. His rationale is that goblins have a disproportionately high number of sorcerer births, and if the loyalty of a group of goblins could be won, it would be handy for the Swynfaredian Armed Forces to have goblin stealth troops as an auxiliary force.

Goblin slaves rarely manage to escape on their own. When they do, they almost immediately start trying to murder humans feeding the views of the slave owners who feel justified in what they are doing or the abolitionists that want to "free" the slaves from their lives of bondage in a very final manner.

Very few Swynfaredians care what the lower class humans think about human goblins. Some human peasants find comfort in the fact that there is a class beneath them. Some peasants fear that if goblin slavery were abolished, more human peasants would get assigned to filthy and dangerous jobs.

Most commoners would hate to see free goblins given equal social status to them.

Commoners that are spiritually close to Zarthus , Nami , and Mera may be opposed to goblin slavery on moral grounds.Any commoner that has a lost a family member to a goblin attack or had something stolen by a goblin, tend to endorse them "Kill them all!" solution.

 

Here is my generic article on slaves, serfs, and peasants in case the nomenclature is confusing.



Go to Scarterra Homepage
Bottom Rung of Society: Peasants, serfs, and slaves
Slaves
Slaves are so low they aren’t a part of the feudal system. They are considered property. They only have the rights and privileges their masters allow, and these “rights” can be taken away at any time. Some nations have slavery and some do not. Slave status is usually hereditary passing to their children.

If the slaves are of the same race as the rulers, most slaves are criminals, prisoners of war or the descendants there of. Other times slaves are a race deemed to be inferior to the rulers.

Some human nations have goblins slaves. Kahdisteria has a layered hierarchy of slaves with goblins on the bottom, humans in the middle tier and half-humans above the others bust still subordinate to their elven masters.
Serfs
The day-to-day life of a slave and a serf are pretty similar but a slave is owned by another person and a serf is legally tied to the land. Serfs cannot leave the land they work on and they are not normally paid, but they have some rights that slaves do not, at least in theory.

A feudal lord or lady cannot legally kill, rape, or beat his/her serfs without just cause. A feudal lord is legally obligated to see to the welfare of his serfs including the serfs’ post-mortem well being. In other words it is legal to reanimate a slave as a zombie, but not a serf. Serfs can usually choose whom they marry.

A serf can be drafted as a conscript man-at-arms of his lords army, but this is not particularly common outside of very dire situations.
Peasants
Peasants are one step above serfs. In theory, a peasant can legally leave the land they work on though most do not have the economic means to do so and survive long.

A peasant has more legal rights than a serf. For instance if a noble kills a peasant without just cause, the noble is usually punished severely whereas the penalty for killing a serf without just cause is practically a slap on the wrist. Nobles have less leeway to inflict punishments on peasants for misbehavior. Peasants technically receive all the produce of their labor and then are subject to a tax as opposed to a serf turning over all the produce of their labor and are then the noble gives them allowance of food back to them.

A peasant can be drafted as a man-at-arms of his lord’s army. This is slightly more common than serfs being pressed to fight, but most nobles prefer to rely on their knights and other full-time soldiers over their peasants.

Besides moral reasons, a great many nobles support having free peasants over serfs because they generally have more patriotism and are more willing and able to take up arms to defend their homeland and lord.

In areas bordering the wilderness where assorted things go bump in the night, a large portion of the peasantry is usually trained as reservist soldiers.

 

Here's another very early article I made vaguely related, and recently cleaned up of some minor typos. Thurekal is an entirely made up word. Much like "mahrlect." I also notice that I tend to switch back forth between Thurakel and Thurekal a lot. I fixed that (I think).


Go to Scarterra Homepage
thurekal
Thurekal serve dragons. "Thurakel" is a word in the Draconic language that doesn't translate very well into Common. Scholars debate on whether the word best translates as "dragon slave" "dragon servant" or "dragon vassal." More often than that, the distinction depends on the dragon and how much respect and compassion they decide their thurekal are due.

During the First Unmaking , many races were considered thurekal races. This includes but is by no means limited to beholders, giants, and chimera.After the First Unmaking, most thurekal either died or they abandoned their dragon masters forever. Some entire thurekal bloodlines were wiped out entirely. Most simply began new lives as independent creatures.

In the Third Age, some dragons still seek out thurekal. Most modern thurekal are recruited into the role rather than born into their role. A few mortals have such a high opinion of dragons that they actually go out looking for dragons to serve. This is dangerous as some dragons would rather have dinner than a servant.

The human nation of Swynfaredia loves to borrow draconic concepts. Some nobles call their non-sorcery wielding vassals and courtiers "Thurekal" though this term is usually only thrown around in very formal settings.

 

It hasn't happened in a while, but I was just metaphorically kissed by a muse. But to extend this metaphor. I am in an abusive relationship with my muse. She psychological torments me, but gives me just enough random gestures of kindness to keep me emotionally co-dependent.

Brain: "Wake up!"

Me: "No, I need to get a good night's sleep. I need to clean my apartment and finish up my family member's taxes."

Brain: "I said WAKE UP! You need to to start a new World Anvil right now."

Me: But I have adult things to do tomorrow. Taxes and spring cleaning.

Brain: Really, Scalenex? Weren't you planning on doing taxes and spring cleaning on Sunday? How did that work out for you? Don't you ever try to pull the "responsible adult" card on me! When have you ever prioritized your adult responsibilities over fantasy?

Me: Fair enough. I do like writing about Scarterra.

Brain: Indeed.

Me: "I guess I can do that. I'm running an RPG session with my friend Monday so I can add some details to it. Or I can develop a character for A Cobbler's Journey. Or I can work on a glossary as was specifically requested. Or I could cover undersea clines as a thank you to Pendrake for his contribution.

Brain: Nope, you need to develop the human ethnicities of East Colassia.

Me: But East Colassia has nothing to do with my RPG campaign or novel, and none of my online fans have expressed any special interest in East Colassia.

Brain: SHUT UP AND WRITE!


I would have posted an article here on this thread, but I keep thinking "I need to add this and this and this," so in a day or three I will post some very detailed stuff about East Colassian human ethnic groups. Way more detailed than the entries I made about the West Colassian human ethnic groups which tend to be around 100 words.

In West Colassia, most ethnic groups have an ethnostate. Kantoca have the nation of Kantoc. Uskalans have the nation of Uskala, Fumayans have the nation Fumaya. Among the ethnicities of dwarves and elves, they are even more tied to their nations. Dark Elves are almost all in Kahdisteria. Grey Elves are almost all in the Elven Empire, and Wood Elves are almost all in Codenya.

Because I have thousands of words describing the various aspects of Fumaya, Uskala, and Kantoc I don't need to go deep into their respective ethnicities because the ethnicity and the nation are almost synonymous.

In East Colassia, the Colassian Confederacy is a hodgepodge of different nations and cultures. Even within the various member states of the Colassian Confederacy, very few of the nations are ethnically homogenous.

I really am proud of the elemental ethnicity I thought of long ago, and it's interesting to come up with different ways to combine them.

I am not quite done yet, but the most complete article so far are the Baleans which are the plurality flavor of human in East Colassia. Baleans are essentially water-fire people which I figured would be a very flamboyant artistic people.

I mentioned the Mereshnari before but I am developing them more as an ethnic group. Mereshnari are a tribal unit, but Meresh is an ethnic group that includes the Mereshnari but has enclaves within various nature. They are a mix of earth, air, and fire

I did not intend to do this, but when I had mostly finished my rough draft about the Baleans, I realized that they are very different culturally from the Mereshnari in terms of values. I figured just from geographic proximity to each other, long standing trade agreements, and a common enemy to boot that a Meresh-Balean hybrid culture was going to emerge in some regions almost by default.

Now I'm less sure. Meresh are stoic pragmatic traditionalists and Baleans are passionate artistic bon vivants. Meresh-Baleans would have an almost equal proportion of earth, fire, water, and air aspects to their culture and physiology. Maybe the only culture in all of Scarterra to boast that. I'm not sure what an elementally balanced human would look and act like.

Dogs and horses are easier to cross breed artificially. I did decide that an elementally balanced dog is going to have the sharpest senses of any dog. Because they are so attune to the balance of nature, if you want to breed a dog that barks like crazy in presence of the supernatural, that's the dog you want (though they might bark at nothing more than the average dog).

Anyway the swamp dwelling Fakharbalé are an interesting lot. A mix of earth, fire, and water traits that is culturally very distinct from the rest of the continent.

I'm not sure what I'm going to call them, but the sparsely populated northwestern corner of the continent is going to have airy, watery, earthy local ethnicity. The Baleans are promiscuous so there is going to be some half-Baleans half whatever here.

The southeastern corner is going to have a local earthy and fiery ethnicity. Plus some more half-Balean variants of this.

The Chay are a nearly extinct group of earthy humans. They used to be an earthy-watery mix but centuries of exile away from the coast has changed their genetic makeup. They are mountain dwelling remnants of the original humans that dwelled in the lands the dark elves took over centuries ago.