My Fantasy RPG World, Feedback and Ideas appreciated

Scarterrans fight pretty much like how pre-gunpowder real world Earth humans fought. I've watched too many HEMA videos to do otherwise though admittedly magic changes things a little bit. I believe the main effect of magic on medieval warfare, at least the magic system I created would be to emphasize heroes. If you got an army and a few spell casters, your best bet is to pick out your elite cadre of warriors and magic them up even stronger. Then send them out to take out the magic users and elite warriors of the enemy because one elite warrior buffed with magic can fight an almost endless number of ordinary soldiers.

Scaraquans are a work in a progress. The big thing is they would fight mostly on three dimensional planes. On theory this would open the field for modern air tactics and they could swim in cool formations and whatnot.

The issue is that Scaraquans have almost zero access to ranged weapons. That limits formations usefulness because at the end of the day, you have to swim into melee range.

I believe if a Scaraquan fighter is faster than another Scaraquan fighter, his best tactic is to swim at the opponent at an unexpected angle strike as hard as he can, then swim away. Rinse and repeat.

The slower opponent is going to try to predict which way the faster opponent is going to attack and see if he can get his foe to swim into a spear point and/or engage a grapple.

If one side has numbers, they are going to try hit and run attacks from different angles at different intervals so the target never gets a moment to rest. Or if they are going with a grappling strategy one fighter acts as a "chaser" driving his opponent towards an allied fighter who is the "net" effectively forcing someone into a position where they can be grappled.

Martial arts is a topic worthy a very well thought out lengthy and meandering response, and I do not have time for such a reply but I will do so later.

This is an area where the Rule of Cool fights the Rule of Realism. For the most part exotic sci-fi and fantasy weapons are crazy and require magic or sci-fi physics to justify.

Lightsabers only work if you are a space wizard. Batleths are kind of silly. Though I did hear a fan justification. Klingon's are ferocious and often lack discipline but a disciplined Klingon is extremely formidable. Klingons would probably view hiding behind a shield as cowardly, a batleth forces a Klingon to fight defensively and apply discipline rather than fight animalistic instincts would tell them to do.

I'm sure not what the designers though. The costume department just wanted something that looked cool.

In the real world, fighting with a trident is not practical but it looks cool. That's why most real world fights with tridents were in the gladiatorial arena. Nuchaku are also a kind of gimmicky weapon. Very difficult to use and almost as dangerous to the wielder as they are to his enemies. Most fantasy weapons are in the same boat.

I think radically different physiology could justify radically different weapons. For instance, kalazotz could drop flechettes while flying above their opponents. As Shad pointed out, medieval blacksmiths could have made WWI style flechettes that are weighted so the pointy end is always pointing down when dropped, they just had no reason to.

I think Scaraquans are different enough from humans that they would have some radically different weapons. I don't know enough about marine biology or underwater physics to be 100% sure but my best guess is one type of exotic Scaraquan weaponry that could work would be weaponized prosthetics.

So Astalakians have big lobster claws. Maybe putting metal caps on the edges of the claws to make their existing natural weapons harder and sharper. Kind of like a human wearing brass knuckles.

Maybe Merfolk could wear outward pointing blades and swim real close to their opponents cutting them. Maybe elbow blades.

A limitation to any weapon for Scaraquans is that any weapon in their hands sticking out would cause drag in the water reducing their speed and maneuverability. If the weapons mimic the creatures existing fins and limbs, the reduced mobility would be minimal and the Scaraquan would be able to compensate for it easily.

In the real world prosthetic weapons are not that popular because the attacker has to get very close to the enemy and potentially expose themselves to greater harm. I think that since Scaraquans are required to get very close anyway, this would be less of a limitations, though I still think spears would be the best underwater weapon, though a fighter would be likely to have to let go of a spear if it gets stuck in the target, in which case they could use their worn prosthetics as a backup weapon.

I can imagine an elite merfolk warrior might carry two or three spears and have a few squires or assistants following her around to hand her new spears if she runs out.

 

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So my basic rules system is based on White Wolf's publishing D&D10 and my spell list is derived loosely from D&D 3.5/Pathfinder.

My game system would still technically be in beta, so I'm still testing it out.

The arcane of Invocation is almost entirely ranged attacks, and almost all other arcane magic has zero long range attacks.

Necromancy has a little bit of long range attacks. One attack saps strength and a high level effect inflicts raw damage that is hard to heal.

Aranil the elf is played by a real world person who really likes playing fighter/wizards that occasionally fireball things. I've thrown in enemy invokers twice, but most of my playtesting is from Aranil.

The way I have Invocation set, up the character rolls Stamina + Invocation to generate a magical boom and then rolls Dexterity + Archery or Dexterity + Athletics to aim the magical boom. Aranil wants to be an archer too, so he put a lot of points into Archery so he can aim both his arrows and his magial fire more accurately.

So hypothetically if Aranil rolls four successes, he can put all four successes into damage and REALLY burn one target hard, he put three successes into damage and one success into a wider boom and do a moderate amount of damage to two or three targets or he could put two successes into damage and two successes into a wider boom to hit four or five enemies with a lesser amount of damage.

Playtesting has shown that it is much more efficient to blast one enemy into cinders at a time.

Anyway, the players spent a lot of treasure to craft a magical bow for Aranil. Now that he has a magical bow, Aranil's arrows are pretty much just as effective as his magic invocations and it doesn't sap his mana pool to shoot arrows.

Maybe magic bows is the way to go, but they are not cheap. For the cost of equipping one skilled archer with a basic magic bow, you could get a knight a top of the line war horse and top of the line armor.

One thing I noticed that if I throw an NPC invoker into the mix, the players will nearly always prioritize killing the invoker first. It makes sense. Because invokers are flashy boom boom people they are easy to spot too.

Assuming you have two armies fighting each other, lets say they have 500 regular soldiers and two invokers on each side. It's impossible to have someone throw down fireballs from secrecy so invokers would be priority targets for everyone and easy to spot.

If a warlord wants invokers in his army, he better work hard to ensure their loyalty.

I'm not sure if military commanders would "Kill the invoker first" or "Kill the healer first." The PCs have a potent invoker and a potent healer. And usually the enemies try to prioritize one or both of them, which gives Svetlana the half-orc free rein to slice opponents with her might battle axe. It's an efficient team.

In meta terms, training an invoker takes roughly the same time and money to teach a knight. A warlord would probably rather have invokers than have knights because a knight can be substitute by a small squad of lesser soldiers but an invoker cannot be substituted as easily. But if I was a lord deciding where to send my son for training, I would probably rather send him to a knight's training because knights are less likely to die young.

Assuming I can explain or handwave away the physics issues of energy attacks underwater, an invoker would be very mighty in Scaraqua but they would be very high priority targets for the enemy and likely be swarmed by enemies.

Remember, a swimming invoker needs to defend himself in three dimensions. If I was an undersea warlord expecting invokers, I'd probably have some stealthy warriors deployed at random sea weed patches to wait in reserve, so they can surge in to sneak attack any invokers that come near.

I had pondered sea creatures fighting in battle, but I hadn't considered acid spitters and the like. I mostly thought about sharks, giant squids, and frankenstein monsters composed of several different sea creatures cobbled together in a disgusting mass of teeth, claws, and tentacles

Giant crabs are good though they would lack in mobility. I'm sure I can and will come up with more exotic war critters eventually. I mostly thought of giant crabs as pack animals to tow barges and cargo, but combat is good too.

Though I guess even if they were slow, they would still be good in battle. Assuming Scaraquans on both sides are engaged in hit-and-run tactics it would be good to run towards a giant crab monster if said crab monster was on your side. It's like a mobile fortress more than a tank.

Talking to sea creatures is actually pretty easily. At least with divine magic. Animal ● allows basic communication with any animal. Animal ●●● allows for the caster to command animals.

One dot powers are pretty easy to acquire, three dot, less so hardly but they are hardly rare.

I assumed Scarterrans would talk to land animals and Scaraquans would talk to sea creatures.

In Scaraqua, followers of Mubete (Sea Korus) and Bellusk (Sea Maylar) have special aptitude for the sphere of Animal magic, but any divine caster can learn the magic.

Most of Mubete's priests and priestesses are not very warlike the but the Sameru of Bellusk are a warlike group. Their main stipulation is imposed by their code. It is acceptable to use magic to get sharks to fight along with the caster, but it is frowned upon to send sharks to fight for the caster, especially if they are being used as frontline shock troops.

I guess Mubete's code is similar. Do not command a beast to do something you are not willing to do do yourself. The other priesthoods have fewer limitations on animal magic, but less aptitude for the magic.

I hadn't thought of speed. Speed would be even more important in the sea than on land. This would make war sharks and the like more potent than war dogs.

The hard part I guess would be getting animals to attack in a coordinated magic. Even with magic, coordination dicey. Commands are limited to things like "Destroy them!" not along the lines "Alpha and bravo squad, hit the left flank, Gamma hit the center!"

I saw an interesting video long ago talking about Mixed Martial Arts tournaments or MMA have really discredited a lot of ancient martial arts styles.

A lot of the most famous martials arts, the ones that were developed by Eastern monks saw very little use in war.

In a fight, someone trained in ancient martial arts will nearly always be able to trounced an untrained fighter, but MMA have shown that ancient monk developed arts are not very practical against trained fighters. Kung Fu, Tae Kwan Do and the like tend to perform poorly in MMA events.

Sometimes they spent centuries developing new techniques BUT if you only fight people with your same style you just learn more exotic ways to counter it. There is an element of cult conditions. I don't remember which martial art where supposedly the masters can knock someone down with a light touch, but it's been shown to only work on people trained in that art, people who have the drank the Kool Aid so to speak.

Krav Maga, developed by the Israeli army is famous for being brutal and efficient. I don't think the US military has a fancy name like Krav Maga, but they aim something similar.

It was pointed out that we can't test Krav Maga in MMA because Krav Maga is designed for literal life and death struggles teaches fighters to gouge eyes, bust windpipes and otherwise do permanent damage.

In the past authoritarian regimes that have not placed value on human life have tested combat techniques on prisoners. I'm pretty sure regimes are doing this right now, but even if you are okay with slaughtering innocents, practicing killing techniques on helpless people is not the same as practicing killing techniques on people trying to kill you back.

I had the thought that maybe a setting with magical healing available, you could test out brutal techniques without inflict permanent damage.

In Scarterra/Scaraqua, Healing ●●●●● will repair any physical injury short of death. People with five dot powers are rare, but they do exist.

If you had two or more very loyal fighters at your command that are not afraid of pain, and a master healer waiting in the wings, Scarterrans could test out very brutal efficient martial arts.

As long no one's neck is snapped, anything can be healed. I suppose you could accidentally lose a trained warrior once in a while but it was not unheard for fighters to die in fights not intended to be to the death.

But I guess small groups could develop brutal fighting techniques and teach others. So I'm betting Scarterra and Scaraqua could have nasty unarmed fighters.

D&D from 3rd edition onward, has had monks as a class. Monks train so as to fight unarmed as effective as most warriors fight with weapons. They also fight with "monk weapons" (such as nunchaku among others). Real world monks that developed martial arts did not develop very effective martial arts but fantasy leans on the Rule of Cool, not realism.

My friend and I agreed, that to have a fighting monk like this, you need a population with three.

1) The population needs to defend themselves
2) The population does not have access to conventional weapons.
3) The population has lots of time on it's hands to develop these techniques.

D&D 3rd edition requires monks to be Lawful. My friend, for his D&D world, created a group of monk that were required to be Chaotic.

A slave population taught themselves unarmed combat techniques to resist their masters. That makes a lot of sense. I liked the idea, but I don't think it fits with anyone in Scarterra.

I cannot picture any group in Scarterra having a monks train advanced unarmed combat techniques in a secluded monastery.

But I do think, Scarterran militaries would invest time and effort in developing advanced unarmed combat techniques to supplement their weapon fighting.

I did create a bunch of optional Merits that let Scarterrans fight unarmed with greater effectiveness against armed opponents. None of the players wanted to take it.

My friends play a lot of RPGs and we watch a lot of kung fu movies, but we don't often play kung fu characters in RPGs. I tried to reconcile why, then I recalled the circumstances of our movie watches. We don't pay a lot of close attention to what we watch.

Most of our social gathering before Covid were food based. We rarely, occasionally, nearly always eat too much.

If hypothetically our food comas are so severe that no one wants to play a game, we watch a kung fu movie.


Martials arts could involve weapons too I guess. For instance Umera is loosely based on Classical China and Feudal Japan through a fantasy lens (so of course, a lot of their warriors have katanas) and West Colassia is more likely medieval Europe.

I'm sure if a Nishi samurai and a Kantoca knight got in a sword fight, they would fight in a different styles, but at the end of the day, does it really matter?

Melee combat uses opposed Dexterity + Melee rolls. Hypothetically, a samurai with Dexterity ●●●● and Melee ●●●● is going to enter a sword fight with 8 dice at difficulty 6, and a knight with Dexterity ●●●● and Melee ●●●● is going to enter a sword fight with 8 dice at difficulty 6.

I'm sure within Scarterra there are kinds of martial arts styles with colorful names.

"I see you are a student of the air and water slashing dragon technique!" but at the end of the day your character is still rolling eight dice at difficulty 6. If the players do not want to get into the nuts and bolts of this, I don't see the point of developing fighting styles.

Scarterran fighting techniques are probably named after magical creatures and the four classic elements because these things are culturally omnipresent.

I only have a cursory understanding of HEMA fighting techniques, but I don't know much about know much about flowery fantasy techniques (like all the techniques people talk about in kung fu movies).

If you have any ideas, I am open to suggestions.

 

Talking of monks studying martial arts at a monastery makes me think of monasteries.

After watching Shadiversity's video on inns and how medieval monasteries often were charged with providing hospitality to travelers, I was thinking of having a similar tradition in Scarterra.

My friend, Eron12, who is Kormatin's player and is my main confidante on developing Scarterra brought up that a typical fantasy world (with lots of wars and monsters) would not likely have many monasteries because their religions probably not value contemplation much.

I hadn't thought of that. Eron12 is a lot more versed in real world historical religious practices than I. I knew that Islamic monasteries pioneered a lot of modern math and kept translations of Ancient Greek and Roman myths.

I know that Christian monasteries picked up this stuff after the Crusades and kept the lore alive during the Dark Ages. A lot of scientific breakthroughs around the world came from monasteries. Gregor Mendel, the father of modern genetics was actually a 19th century monk because he had a head for numbers and records, a job growing peas, and a lot of time on his hand.

I know that in every religion that had them, lay people would visit monasteries to ask the inhabitants for advice.

There is a bunch of useful services that monasteries provided to their societies but at the end of the day, my friend's statement that essentially "societies valued religious contemplation" stands.

I created my mechanics system that a theurgist or favored soul can exercise his/her magic via formal theology and ritual or informal mediation and personal enlightenment. The end magical result is the same either way. But maybe it's not logical.

But I guess it would be tough to have peaceful monks or nuns quietly contemplating the gods.

Zarthus, Hallisan, Phidas, and Greymoria would love to slaughter their enemies if they tried to set up monasteries. Maylar's followers would love to slaughter anyone trying this. Korus and Nami have a few hard core followers that would not be opposed to busting some monks' heads.

Even if a small portion of a monastery was made up of theurgists and elite fighting monks, they would be vulnerable. Even if they didn't have religious enemies, indifferent secular bandits might want to rob them. In the real world, Vikings sacked a lot of monasteries.

But lets assume for a moment, there is someway a Scarterran monastery or nunnery could avoid being pillaged.

Maylar's testers would never condone such a place.

Zarthus' Lanterns value self sufficient communities and the arts. Real world monasteries were usually self sufficient micro-communities and they created art. This is a natural fit.

Nami's Rovers would rarely have the discipline for monastic life, but they would not mind peaceful monasteries where they can welcome travelers and brew alcoholic beverages, two things real world monks sometimes did but it wasn't core to their mission.

A monastery run by Greymoria's Children would involve a lot of people quietly studying the arcane arts. This is a gateway to power, so it's hard to imagine a group doing something like this independent of all political power structures. Also, Greymoria is generally an unpopular goddess, so the locals might not tolerate a coven of Children amassing magic power uncontested.

Korus' Stewards might support a monastic lifestyle. They like keeping to themselves and living in harmony with nature. The Stewards are split into a druidic and clerical factions. The Stewards of the Gift would probably run a monastery like a real world monastery with lots of farmland and the druidic Stewards would probably prefer to wander the wilderness rather than camp out in a single monastic spot. The Stewards might be the best fit for a monastery in Scarterra because they have the fewest enemies. Very few factions are going to pillage a Steward holy site just for the giggles.

Mera's Tenders of course love harmony and peace and I could imagine a monastery or nunnery (or more likely a coed monanunnerstery) that also provides a lot of free health care to visitors. The problem is, both the Testers and the Children would be drooling at the thought of pillaging such a place.

A monastery run by Phidas' Masks would probably be run like a money making business, which might twist the real world concept of a monastery on it's head though real world monasteries did wield economics, that was never technically their main goal.

A monastery run by Khemra's Keepers would be very academic. Khemra is the goddess of history and literacy. I imagine any Scarterran monastic order would have a fair share of academics but for Khemra the preservation of knowledge would probably be their prime objective.

I'm not sure if the militant Guardians of Hallisan would support a monastic order or not, but in the real world there were a lot of militant factions of Christians and Muslims that were linked to more contemplative groups within these religions so it's hardly impossible. The Guardians are big on hard work and craftsmanship so a Hallisan monastery would probably be a prodigious creator of metal work goods.

But I need to discuss this with Eron12 in person. Hopefully we will be able to meet this Monday but that is iffy.

 

And now for something different!

I figured out about the first century of Fumayan history.

As I work my way through the Fumayan royal family tree, I have determined that King Ziven, founding father of Fumaya died at the ripe old age of 78. I haven't figured out Fumaya's exact founding date because much of Ziven was spent bribing, threatening, or cajoling the local lords of Fumaya to accept his rule. The founding is 1520...ish. He died in 1548.

I decided to give King Ziven the nickname, Ziven the Warrior.

His son Teos got the crown in 1548 and died leading his troops in battle in 1549. He died at the age of 21 with no heirs. For obvious reasons, I decided he gained the moniker King Teos the Unlucky.

His younger brother Domingo got the throne from him. Domingo was never expected to inherit the throne, so his parents didn't worry too about the politics of his marriage and let him marry Zylinna of House Zimoz, a noblewoman of high standing that he liked. They were both the same age. They got married mere months before Domingo and Zylinna unexpected became king and queen.

The d10s I rolled to gage their relationship told me that Zylinna and Domingo got along well.

The d10s I rolled to gage their relationship told me that Zylinna and Domingo got along well. They had nine children.

I didn't notice till later because I set the death dates before I figure who marries whom, by Zylinna and Domingo both died in the same year at the age of 42. While a lot of Scarterrans with stressful jobs might to succumb to illness at age 42, it seems likely if the king and queen died in the same year, that they were assassinated in some single horrific event. Or one lover died and the other died from grief. Or I could change their date of death so they didn't die the same year. Nothing is set in stone for character history. I can edit whatever I want, whenever I want.

I need to figure out how and why they died.

Semi-related note, their eldest son, Ziven the Second inherited the throne at the age of 25 and held onto the throne for 47 more years dying in 1622. This probably makes him the longest serving monarch in Fumaya's history.

The luck dice told me that those 47 were years of peace and prosperity. I decided this earns him the nickname Ziven the Wise.

I got about 200 more years of dead nobles to figure out.

My campaign is set in the year 1837. King Henryk is the current king serving roughly two years inheriting the throne at age 23. I haven't even named Henryk's father, the late king yet.

I have three facts I have established for Henryk's father. The first is that Henryk's father was selfish, lazy, and lecherous. One of the reasons Fumaya has so many problems is because the late king wasted so much money and credibility on general debauchery.

The second fact is that Henryk was the only legitimate heir of the late king though the late king did sire a fair number of bastards.

The third fact is that the late king's widow is still alive, though I haven't figured out what she is doing now, though I decided she did not get along well with her husband and was not okay with his infidelity. Presumably I suppose she is an advisor in her son's court, which means she probably met the PCs when King Henryk hosted a banquet in their honor. It's probably because of the influence of his mother that King Henryk actually is a good man unlike his father.

Since in the early 1600s Fumaya had a great king and in the early 1800s Fumaya had a lousy king, I need to figure out if this was a gradual decline or if this was a fluke.

I've been reading/listening to videos on Roman history. Marcus Aurelianus was one of Rome's most beloved and celebrated emperors Rome had ever known. His Commodus was an asshole.

The movie Gladiator is not historically accurate, but they were right that Marcus Aurelianus was a good man and his son was a monster. The difference is Commodus did get along well General Maximus. Maximus served Marcus and Commodus and Commodus wasn't about to betray a loyal general.

 

I've been hemming and hawing about upgrading to the Grand Master level on World Anvil for some time, and I just did it.

I'm going to play with the various new special features, but is there is a special feature for you, my beloved fans.

Scarterra and Westhammer should now be ad-free for visitors.

Someone who has visited my World Anvil worlds before please verify this to me.

 

I discussed the inclusion or exclusion of pandas from my world with Scolenex.

I don't want Mary Sue characters. Mary Sue characters are great at everything without any real struggle. Pandas are great at everything without any real struggle.

It's been done before, but I like the idea of a barbarian battle axe wielder having been a simple wood cutter before the obligatory horrible experience that starts him on a hero's journey. So I'd probably want to make Rygor a human.

One thing about a Sword and Sorcery prequel that I like is that it would be set at least 2800 years before my baseline year. Except for Meckelorn, none of my nations are 2800 years old. The ancestors of the wood elves, dark elves, and grey elves would be running around during this era but their governments go through at least one major revolution between this ancient era and the feudal era. No one and no thing in this era would have plot armor because he or she must survive because her direct descendant has a future story about it because in the Feudal Era, no one is sure who their ancestors in the Little Unmaking were.

That means I can avoid pitfall of most prequels. There are very few things I would be forced to not allow in a prequel era.

I even like the idea of extinct tribes of elves that either 1) Are wiped out eventually 2) Interbreed with humans till the point where their pointy ears go away or 3) they are forced to join the wood elves, dark elves, or grey elves to avoid 1 and 2.

I could throw in other dwarf groups that eventually disappear.

I mentioned an ancient ethnicity of humans called the Fakhari. Historians and storytellers cannot agree on whether the Fakhari were saints or monsters or something in between, but what was not argued against was that the Fakhari were mighty because their magic was strongest (I probably need to figure out why their magic was strongest).

The Fakhari would probably be a major player in such an ancient era. They would probably have some noble ideals but routinely do increasingly harsh thing for the greater good, but I would want to routinely throw in some noble minded Fakhari character trying to stem the moral decay of their celebrated empire.

While I like the idea of a human barbarian hero, I might throw in Delas the gnome somewhere. The Order of Delas is an organization for the promotion of gnomish welfare in the feudal era of Scarterra. They named themselves after Delas. The legends don't agree on the fine details of who Delas was, but they agree hew as badass.

Essentially, if a powerful person discriminates against gnomes, the Order of Delas applies economic pressure to make them reconsider this. If a powerful person starts killing or enslaving gnomes, the Order of Delas sends out assassins as well as rabble rousers to provide information and money to the powerful person's existing enemies.

In this more brutal era, gnomes were repeatedly treated poorly because they are small and weak.

Whichever human (or panda) barbarian is the star of my Sword and Sorcery world, they would probably cross paths with a gnome named Delas as a recurring guest star.

I like the idea that Delas was a pseudonym that gnome adventurers used when either acting as heroes or avengers using their normal names when not in the field, so "Delas" was everywhere and nowhere.

 

I have taken a break from obsessively churning out World Anvil articles or filling out family trees, but Scarterra is never far from my thoughts.


I haven’t posted on this for a while, so I will post an open question and ask for you guys to share your thoughts on this topic. The topic being divine wisdom.

All About Oracles

Scarterra and Scaraqua have oracles in them. Oracles rare, but they are common enough that there is a term to describe them “oracles.”

Theoretically a divine spell caster can buy the one dot Divination power, then buy the two dot Divination power, then the three dot Divination power, then the four dot Divination, then become an oracle after having five dots of Divinations. These oracles will be referred to as adventurer oracles.

A rare few people are born oracles. 90+% of the time, people who are born oracles are otherwise unremarkable individuals except for their oracular ability (most of them are not adventurers, nobles, wizards, theurgists, warlords etc). These oracles will be referred to as one-trick ponies.

Actually it doesn't really matter what we call them, an oracle is an oracle.

Either way, all nine of my Nine have a few oracles. There are also a very rare number of oracles that can speak with all the Nine. In Scarterra, Korus, Khemra, and Nami (the Neutral deities) have disproportionately more oracles than the other six because their theurgists have a specialization in Divination magic and Oracle power is the fifth level of Divination.

In Scaraqua, Divination is much more common so oracles would be a lot more common. Dalgari (Sea Zarthus), Heekma (Sea Khemra), Taedi (Sea Greymoria), and Mangcha (Sea Hallisan), Mubete (Sea Korus) all have a special aptitude for divination.

Oracles can ask one of the Nine a direct question and get an answer in reply. Technically, the god or goddess is probably not going to speak to the mortal directly, they are probably going to have a spirit minion relay the answer.

There is also the other issue. The Nine can also send a spirit messenger to tell mortals something, even if no one asked the question. This is how the Nine initially spread things like basic agriculture and basic metalworking principles. They can even say more specific things “This tree is sacred! Chop it down and you’ll regret it.”

For the rest of this thread, I’m going to talk about “oracles” but most of the time I mean “oracles and messenger spirits” because they can both fill the same societal niche.

Let’s talk about some in universe limitations on oracles and some metaplot limitations on universe. Here are my base assumptions. These base assumptions are not written in stone. I can change them.


Basic Assumptions, In Universe things that limit oracles.

The Nine are really old and really knowledgeable, but they not omniscient. They are not all knowing and they are not all seeing. All nine of the Nine can simply not know something or they can misinterpret something. The answer can be “I don’t know” or the answer could “Something wrong.”

If one of the Nine is asked about a future event, the best he or she can do is make an educated guess. Thus predicting the future is a lot harder than solving an ancient mystery.

The Nine are not morally flawless beings. Even with the limited framework of the classic nine D&D alignments, Maylar is Chaotic Evil, but he is not flawlessly Chaotic Evil.

The Nine can choose to keep a secret if they wish. The answer an oracle could receive is “None of your business.” or “I’ll tell it to you when you are ready.”

The Nine can choose to lie, either telling an outright falsehood or lie by omission.

It is common in fantasy and science fiction, especially science fiction, that all knowing beings are so alien and remote that they have trouble communicating with mere mortals. They might have the knowledge, but they don’t know how to put it into words the mortal understand. I could use this as a limiting factor, but based on everything I’ve written before now, this seems like a sloppy fit for Scarterra.

They could be vague or just be a smartass. I can picture that Nami would have more oracles than most of the rest of the Nine and she might answer questions in an unhelpful smartass way.

“Who will win tomorrow’s battle?”
“The army that is stronger, smarter, or luckier will win.”

“Where can I find the merfolk Queen?”
“In her throne room.”


Information Warfare

If one of the Nine sends a spirit messenger or answers an oracle, the other eight of the Nine will hear the message.

This one takes some examples. Let’s pretend for a second that Mera is the only one of the Nine that knows where the fabled Treasure Hoard of the Last Fakhari King is.

Let’s say a Tender Oracle asks Mera “Where can I find a literal ton of gold to donate to 100 orphanages and hospitals?”

Mera wants the gold to go to the orphans and tells the oracle where the last Fakhari Kings treasure barge sank into the sea, but now all the other deities overheard the message (or had spirit spies overhear the message). At which point the other eight deities can now send spirit messengers to tell their followers where the treasure trove is.

Along similar lines, if Hallisan wants to tell one of his followers the secret Achille’s Heel of an enemy aligned with Maylar, Maylar will probably retaliate by spilling the beans on the secret weaknesses of more than a few Hallisan affiliated warriors.

This general tendency isn’t just for warriors. Prince’s looking for a political edge with secrets from the gods are probably going to get stonewalled by oracles because the Nine don’t want things to escalate to the point where every ruler and warlord is getting a constant stream of information from above.

But on the other hand, if Mera sends one or more spirit messengers telling mortals “If you take water from a suspect source and boil it before drinking it, you will probably not get sick.”

This probably annoys Greymoria and Maylar, but there is not much they can do about this in retaliation. Sure Greymoria is opposed to everything Mera does and Maylar wants to spread disease, but if they start a smear campaign saying “Don’t boil your water, it will make you more ill”, as soon as people test the competing divine proclamations, Mera’s message would be confirmed and word of mouth would spread. The knowledge will spread and all Greymoria and Maylar can do is to create a disease spewing monster in retaliation (but they were probably going to create a disease spewing monster anyway).

Story Reasons, Out of Universe things to limit oracles

It is really popular in fiction (going back thousands of years in fact) for prophecies to come true in ways that are unexpected. This is really hard to do in an RPG because you have to make a prediction by what you think the characters will do, but if you are a writing a short story or novel, this works because the characters only think, speak, or act in the way you write them.

In an RPG, if I have a whole detective story built around solving a murder, then having a mouthpiece of the gods “The butler did it!” is going to kill a potential story. If a story arc can be derailed by one simple answer then the players should not not receive that divine wisdom.

But if the nugget of divine wisdom will spur the characters to undertake an exciting quest, then I guess the players (or readers for a novel) should get it.


In my opinion, it is impossible to make a complex and intriguing fantasy or sci-fi world with zero contradictions or inconsistencies. That said, I prefer to keep inconsistences to a minimum. If an oracle answers a type of question easily on Monday (because answering the question will advance the story) then refuses the same type of question a year later (because answering the question will derail the story), I need an in-universe justification for it.


Finally, I have the general notion that if something is politically controversial in the real world, then the Nine are going to stay silent about it because I’m a coward.


I actually thought, “What would the Nine’s stance on LGBT issues?” They would probably have nine different answers, but I don’t want to get into it. Even if I logically figured out, based on their individual goals and philosophies, “Maylar would take the stance X, Y, and Z, Mera would take the stance A, B, and C etc” it could easily be misconstrued as my opinion or endorsement. I consider myself Lawful Good, but that does not mean that Hallisan’s views are my views. That doesn’t mean every view Maylar has is wrong in my eyes.

So on any potentially controversial topic, the Nine’s mortal followers are going to guess what their god or goddess wants and none of my priestly groups or their followers are unified block, so they are not going to agree, even with their colleagues. Mera’s Tenders with have different opinions on all sorts of things.

One major divide between the Tarrawan Tenders and the Walchese Tenders is families. The Terrawans believe that priests and priestesses of Mera should be encouraged to marry and have lots of children because Mera is the goddess of families. The Walchese believe that priests and priestesses of Mera should be celibate, so they can focus in the wider family that is all Mera worshipers everywhere.

Neither are right or wrong. Because the Tenders are usually non-confrontational peaceniks, when Terrawans and Walchese meet they usually agree to disagree on the clergy getting married thing. Even then it’s not so clear cut. There are Terrawans that are celibate and Walchese that are married. Sometimes Tenders even have children outside of marriage.

In general, I have the notion that the three Lawful deities’s followers usually support arranged marriages and focus on marriages that strengthen societal bonds whereas the three Chaotic deities followers tend to support romantic notions of following your heart (though for Maylar’s followers, “follow your heart” is often horrifying.)

The neutral deities fall in between. Mera’s followers generally want marriages that strengthen society and work with the desires of the people involved. Korus’s generally don’t care either way because the next generation will happen with or without marriage ceremonies and formal bonds. Greymoria’s followers generally don’t care about marriage or child rearing, because they believe Greymoria doesn’t care.

On some level I don’t want to go too deep into this because marriage itself can be a controversial topic.

No oracle or messenger spirit spelled out how marriages should occur, that's something mortals have had to figure out themselves.


World building topics

Let’s forget epic heroes and dastardly villains for a second. Let us look at everyone else.

First off, let’s look at the oracle. Is the oracle allowed to lie or is the oracle forced to repeat his or her divine patron’s word verbatim? Maybe both. An oracle cannot lie if the deity wants to speak through him, but the oracle can pretend something she is saying is words from on high. This kind of influences how much autonomy an oracle has. Is the oracle a thinking, feeling person who can impact event by her volition or is she an object that exists to share the words of others and nothing more? Does the oracle feel like she has a gift or a curse? Both?

Knowledge is power. Land is power. Gold is power. Magic is power. Armies and weapons are power. While I’m sure I have more ground to cover, I’ve already covered in some detail how those in power in Scarterra try to regulate land, gold, magic, and weapons.

It’s pretty common in fiction for an evil tyrant to attempt to imprison or enslave an oracle to monopolize their wisdom. Even a non-evil ruler would probably like to regulate who can talk to an oracle and who cannot. I’m guessing that unless it was considered bad luck or unholy to harm an oracle, then most oracles, especially one trick pony oracles, would end up as prisoners or “honored guests” of the politically powerful.”

In a world with real oracles, would that make hucksters and fake oracles more common or less common than in the real world? I honestly don't know.

Would there be very harsh punishments for fake oracles being caught? If the answer is yes, would it be possible to frame a real oracle as being a fake oracle?


It is common in fiction that oracles live in remote exotic places. Sometimes this might be a metaphysical requirement. Before a petitioner can talk to an oracle they have to climb a mountain, fight a monster, answer a series of riddles or go on a mini-quest. “To obtain knowledge, you must earn knowledge.” Sometimes this can enhance a story and sometimes it’s a needless distraction. “Oh another side quest.”

I do like the idea that a petitioners asks a question and the oracle says "Go on this quest and then I will answer your question." and the petitioner finds the answer to his question in the course of undertaking his quest. Storytelling gold.

Of course, quests would be scaled. An epic quest for Bill the farmer would be a boring week for Steve the elite knight.

Let’s assume for a second, an oracle is not a prisoner and can go wherever she wants. An oracle might want to spread knowledge and get pleasure out of doing this. In which case the oracle would probably set up shop somewhere public. “Give me a small donation (so I can eat) and I will try to answer your question.” It’s possible that an oracle finds answering questions annoying and they try to hide and avoid people altogether. The middle ground is for the oracle to go somewhere remote behind a questing obstacle with the attitude “Well, if you can succeed on the quest to get to me, I guess you earned the right to talk to me.”


So the 99% of the masses who are not heroes or villains concerned with epic quests. Let’s pretend for a second that ordinary people have regular access to the oracles. I think oracles are likely to hear the same sorts of questions over and over again. They may or may not find this tedious or they might just accept this. After all, in the real world 90% of the things private investigators deal with is infidelity and most don’t quit their jobs out of boredom. As my friend said, “Why would an oracle care about repetitive questions as long as she is getting paid.”

The Nine (or their spirit messengers) might also get annoyed by petty questions, or maybe they accept petty questions as a fact of life.

I imagine half the questions oracles would get would be related to love and courtship.


“Who is the baby’s daddy?”
“Is John/Jane cheating on me?”
“How does John/Jane really feel about me?”
“Should I marry my daughter to John or look for someone else?

The Nine could probably answer flat questions about “Who is the daddy?” and is “Is so and so cheating?” pretty easily. Unless for some reason the spirit messenger to the oracle lies. Maybe a Mera spirit wants to say “You’re the daddy” because it doesn’t want to break a family up. Maybe a Phidas spirit doesn’t want to destabilize a royal family and announce that the Phidas friendly crown prince is actually an illegitimate bastard.


Asking a god or goddess “What should I do about my relationship with _____” Is probably folly. The Nine’s interpersonal relationships are not great. Even if their relationships were healthy, the differences between the Nine and their spirit minions are so different from mortals that what we consider normal mortal relationships would be alien to them. Imagine a fully sapient butterfly trying to explain to a human what it was like to be a caterpillar in a chrysalis.


Then there are going to be questions about one’s livelihood.

“Should I follow my dreams of being a musician or keep apprenticing in my uncle’s blacksmith forge?”

“Should I plant barley or rye next spring?”

“What should I invest my money in to make lots of money?”

I suppose an oracle of Korus could be able to tell a farmer what crop he should plant to get the biggest and an oracle of Phidas could be able to tell a farmer which cash crop is likely to be in demand next season, but that might be an overkill.

A regular low ranking priest or priestess of Korus (or any lay person with a green thumb) with no magic powers should be able to visit a farm, look at the soil, local weather patterns, availability of water and sun and be able to figure out where and when to plant various crops with a high degree of accuracy just from their Hearth Wisdom skill.

A regular low ranking priest or priestess of Phidas (or any canny merchant) with no magic powers should be able to tell you what items are likely to be in demand.

Much like asking a god or goddess for romantic advice is likely not to end well, asking a deity for life advice is probably folly. How is Khemra supposed to know if you’ll be happier as a blacksmith or a minstrel?


Finally, I think a lot of commoners would ask the medieval equivalent of this.



This could make things complicated if the item was stolen and not simply lost. Which I will transition away from peasants and back to princes.


Scarterra, like much of the feudal era of Earth, justice was in the hands of the local lord. Knights, barons, counts, dukes, and kings were often judge and jury. Sometimes, there were full time judges but they were nearly always direct appointees of the local lords and the local lords can usually override their own appointees.

Corruption and cronyism of course influenced judgments but not every prince was a scammer who cared nothing for truth or justice. If there is a crime committed, even evil princes want to figure out accurately who is actual guilty or innocent.

So should oracles be willing and able to provide evidence in crimes?

Logically, I think it’s something the oracles and messenger spirits would be willing and able to do, but for storytelling purposes, it can easily derail stories, as in all sorts of fiction, it is often the case that no one is 100% sure if the results of court rulings were just and accurate or not.


Anyway, I am asking my online buddies to share any and all interesting thoughts on how to handle oracles and spirit messengers.

 

Related Topic. Holy books and writings.


I don’t want to get into real world religions and which ones are right. I’m going to borrow my Catholic friend’s distinction between scripture and holy texts. In Scarterra, scripture would be stuff written down from oracles or messenger spirits while holy texts would be religious treatsies written by respected priests and priestesses.

He suggested I answer the five “Ws” for religious stories. The five Ws of course are Who, What, When, Where, and Why?

In the English language alone, there are hundreds of different translations of the Bible. Some are more popular than others. I still don’t understand why the King James version became so prevalent, but I’ll let that pass for now.

During the Divine Rebellion, the Nine reluctantly put aside their differences to unite to overthrow their tyrannical creator Turoch then began administering Scarterra. I got over 1000 words of details on the nuts and bolts of this. A bunch of godly stuff happened after the Divine Rebellion, so that would need to be in the holy books too.

In Scarterra, Hallisan, Khemra, Phidas, Mera, Korus, and Greymoria, Zarthus, Nami, and Maylar probably all have their own versions for how things really happened. They probably had spirit messengers or oracles relay their personal version of “the truth.” They probably agree on the basic events but of course they will put themselves in a more favorable light and their rivals in a less favorable light.

That means there are probably nine scriptures or gospels floating around. Then of course some well meaning theologians might have tried reading all nine accounts and reading between the lines to write a definitive story on what really happens only including the things that there seemed to be a consensus on among the Nine. Then another theologian probably told him his interpretation was way wrong and she wrote the real definitive story.

But wait it gets more complicated than that. In the Third Age, a lot of human’s religious texts were written by human hands either via human oracles or spirit messengers sent to humans but some of their texts are translations of ancient elven texts. There are probably nine scriptures floating around in an ancient dialect of Elven and with slightly different translations.

Human and elven accounts agree on the basics but they probably have a pro-human or pro-elven slant. Also, dark elves, wood elves, and grey elves probably have slightly different versions of scriptures, to say nothing of the umpteen human nations I have.

The dragons probably have their own versions of things too, though not many of their texts likely survived the First and Second Unmaking though a few could be floating around. Or at least copies of the ancient draconic texts could be floating around. Then of course you could have an ancient draconic text translated into Elven and then translated into Common, until another scholar says “That translation is wrong, here is the real version of what the ancient dragons believed.”

Of course the modern dragons have their own interpretations of what the ancient dragons believed. Modern dragons mostly follow oral traditions but I'm sure lots of ancient scrolls and tablets are sitting in many dragon hoards along with the traditional piles of gold and silver coins.

Gnomes, dwarves, and other humanoids sometimes use the same base texts as humans and elves, and they sometimes have their own complicating things further.

Originally I toyed with the idea of having a language of the gods called Terran that only dusty academics know. It was the original language that all spirits spoke before the Nine gave spirits the ability to speak all languages. But ultimately I decided to nix Terran as a language. Draconic fits the bill for a dry ancient language for academics.


So all things considered, even though everyone in Scarterra has the same basic religion, there could easily be hundreds of versions of the holy scriptures. As my friend who took a lot of college electives in theology points out, there would probably be periods of time where different versions of the scripture explode and periods of time where different versions are winnowed only to explode again.


But a lot of core facts are in agreement. Almost every account of the Divine Rebellion states that Maylar struck the death blow against Turoch. What the variation is whether he did a cowardly sucker punch, a brilliant sneak attack, a desperate last strike, or a bold frontal assault.


Scaraqua is different. They have a completely different story for how the universe was created that doesn't involve Turoch at all.

They would have fewer versions of the scriptures floating around. Among other things, fewer Scaraquans can read and write and there are fewer things to write on.

The Daughters of the Sea: Mubete, Taedi, and Enosha (Korus, Greymoria, and Mera) are the largest and most organized priesthoods whereas the Sons of the Sky: Heekma and Dalgari (Khemra and Zarthus) have very small priesthoods that don’t have a lot of political power. The Sons of the Sea Floor: Mangcha and Resona (Hallisan and Phidas) have fairly small but highly literate priesthoods.


But of course the Merfolk, Karakhai, Astalakians, and Ojiongo would all have their own slant on the basic religious stories they hold in common. And it’s not like these four races are unified blocks. There are many tribes and nations of Merfolk, many tribes of Karakhai, many nations of Astalakians, and many tribes and nations of Ojiongo each with their own set of cultural norms and values.

Scaraqua in general would rely more on oral tradition and less on written work. Also, they have twice as many oracles per capita so they might have less reason to write things down because a oracle is not that hard to find to get the current take on the ancient past.

 

I agree, but Scarterra's magic is less potent than Winds of Death and Burning Head.

Stuff exists in Scarterra that would make armies not want to march packed liked sardines, but not a lot of it.

Dragons are iffy. I know I want to have dragons in my world, but I'm not sure how big and powerful I want dragons to be.

Anywhere between this


and this


My original plan (which is still on my World Anvil), are roughly as big as a large dog as hatchling and roughly as heavy as a bull elephant at the peak of their growth (though a great wyrm dragon weighs the same as a bull elephant, they are much longer and thinner).

I'm thinking of cutting this in half. Hatchling dragons are roughly 20 pounds and great wyrms are roughly the mass of male orcas.

Maybe I may make them smaller still. They fly, breath fire, cast a modest amount of spells and are as (eventually) intelligent as genius level humans. They don't have to be that big to be scary.

In any event, if the dragons of Scarterra united they could enslave the human race assuming the dragons had good PR.

The humans outnumber the dragons at least 1000 to 1. But hypothetically lets say it takes fifty professional soldiers to take down a dragon and in the process ten of those fifty soldiers will. How many soldiers are going to volunteer for a task that will see one in five of them die?

The good PR is needed because if humanity thinks the dragons will just eat them anyway, they will fight to death, and the dragons cannot survive that.

But anyway, some dragons like humans and wouldn't want to destroy or dominate them. Some dragons fear humans and wouldn't want to risk trying to destroy or dominate them. A lot of dragons are indifferent to humans. Among the dragons that fantasize about dragons ruling the world again, they cannot agree on which dragon should be on the top of hierarchy.

Remember in the Pirates of the Caribbean franchise where "a pirate's vote" is where every one voting votes for himself/herself. In Scarterra, "a dragon's vote" is where everyone voting votes for himself/herself.

My giants are about 12 to 15 tall and weigh between 800 and 1200 pounds. In ancient times, dragons served dragons. Historians differ on whether they were respected vassals or lowly slaves. Now the vast majority of modern giants are independent roaming around in giant small groups or small giant groups, whichever is more oxymoronic.

Since the dragons had dozens of different nations and hundreds of different nobles, it probably ran the full gamut.

Even if giants are bigger and stronger than dragons, dragons could still dominate them because Scarterran giants have nothing going for them apart from their size. Scarterran dragons are faster, fly, breathe fire, have innate magic, are more intelligent, and have better technology.

I'm going to paraphrase a Bible verse that rattles around my head a lot and bothers me more than the idea of Noah putting a breeding pair of every animal on Earth in a large boat (because I view that as metaphorical, not literal).

Judges Chapter 15, verse 16. Samson kills 1000 soldiers with the jawbone of a donkey.

Remember the movie Deadpool? Early on the movie makes a big deal that he has a shortage of bullets and he has to kill a bunch of bad guys being ultra conservative with ammo, but everyone he was fighting had a firearm, so he could have picked up one or more of their guns.

I wondered why Samson didn't pick up a sword, axe, or spear from one of the first few guys he struck with a donkey jaw.

But something bothers me even more. Before Samson killed 1000 men, he must have killed 900 men right? Did the last 100 men try to surrender or run away? Maybe Samson killed the last 100 men as they begged for quarter.

Maybe the last 200 or 300 tried to surrender or run away.

Maybe they were originally 10,000 men and the Bible verse did not mention the 9000 men who gave up without a fight.

So in my world, conscript soldiers, hastily trained militia and lowly street thugs have 3-4 dice combat pools. Professional soldiers have 5-6 dice combat pools, elite soldiers have 7-8 dice combat pools, and legendary hero have 9-10 dice combat pools. Playtesting has shown that superior equipment matters as least as much as raw skill.

Hypothetically if I give a legendary hero a magical weapon and magical armor, he can basically kill one or two ordinary soldiers every minute and mathematically speaking if he is attacked by an ordinary soldier 50-60 times, the hero will die.

There are about 100-200 professional soldiers for every legendary heroes. 50 professional soldiers is more than enough men to kill a legendary hero if the soldiers are willing to fight to their last breath.

But if ten soldiers die and the hero is barely scratched, will the other forty keep fighting?

If you give the hero a couple healing potions, it is even harder to kill him because it's almost impossible for an ordinary soldier to kill or incapacitate someone so well armored with a single lucky strike, you have wound seven or eight times in all likelihood.

Lucky strikes in D&D10 require the attacker gets a statistically unlikely high damage roll simultaneously with the defender getting a statistically unlikely low soak roll.

The hero, assuming he has a good strength score and a magical weapon with a -2 modifier, he is probably going to hit 80% of the time, kill 45% of his hits, and seriously wound 45% of his hits. He's probably making two attacks a round (which is my game setting a round is 30-60 seconds) so that's on average killing one enemy and incapacitating one enemy every 30-60 seconds.

Even if the elite soldier doesn't have magical weapons and armor, two or three buff spells can simulate the simulate the same effect.

Yes, you can cast magical buff spells on ordinary soldiers, but mathematically speaking, a -2 difficulty bonus means a lot more if you are throwing 9 dice than if you are throwing around 5 dice.

A dragon would be similar. 50 archers could probably take down a full grown dragon but would the remaining 35 archers keep fighting a moderately wounded after five of their comrades are piles of ash and ten of their comrades are screaming and writhing in pain on the ground as their clothes have melted into their skin.

But the dragon is a tangent, but the same principle. Ordinary men can take down a dragon and ordinary men can take down a legendary fighter with magical augments if and only if the men are either freakishly lucky or fanatically brave.


I'm not sure if mobility tactics would help a band of 50 soldiers bring down a super elite human or a dragon, but It's probably not likely to happen.

The game system I use works great for 3-10 people fighting 3-10 people, but is cumbersome for larger groups.

But even in real medieval warfare, the vast majority of fights were skirmishes between small groups of people fighting on the fringes of large military encampments trying to disrupt the supply lines of the other side or defend their own supply lines.

 

I kind of have something like this. I'm mathematically inclined and I like to quantify things. And since I'm (in theory) running an RPG and not just telling stories quantifying stats is useful.

I kind of made the dragon character creation complicated. At first I thought that this wasn't a bug, it's a feature because if it takes an hour to stat out a dragon character than I won't use a dragon encounter casually.

Now I wondering if I should simply things.

About a once a year, I end up revising my dragon mechanics, but the basics is the same based on the twelve age categories of dragons in D&D sourcebooks, though I shortened it eight age categories: Wyrmling, Juvenile, Adolescent, Young Adult, Adult, Wyrm, Great Wyrm, Wise Wyrm.

Wise Wyrms are something D&D does not have. In D&D dragons don't really age in a bad way. They get stronger and stronger until they just die of old age within a very short period of time.

Wise Wyrms are the smartest dragons out there, but they start suffering physical deterioration. Their minds are sharp as ever, but a Wise Wyrm is only about as physically capable as an Adult Dragon.

If the Wise Wyrm made enemies during her youth, she can easily find her old foes (or her old foes' offspring) hunting her down for revenge and/or to steal her treasure.

Thus a great many Wise Wyrms undergo the Ritual of the Last Flight rather than allow themselves to be murdered or simply because they hate to watch their own bodies fail them.

The "Base Stats" are the minimum stats for a dragon of that age. Any dragon I make has a bunch of freebie points that they can spend to increase their traits or buy magical abilities.

Every free willed creature on my planet has a Willpower score ranging from 1 to 10. Among humans and most humanoids, they have nine attributes which range from 1-5: Dexterity, Stamina, Strength, Appearance, Charisma, Manipulation, Intelligence, Perception, Wits

For a human, 1 is mildly handicapped, 2 is normal, 3 is good, 4 is great, and 5 is amazing. Of course, dragons of sufficient age can have attributes greater than five.

Normally Willpower rates from 1-10 for all mortals. I've waffled back and forth whether especially dragons can have Willpower scores above 10. Right now I'm leaning towards no.

A dragon can raise one of his/her traits up to three dots above their minimum, but they don't have enough freebie points to max out a few traits. The math scales, so it's cheaper to raise three separate attributes by one point than it is to raise one attribute by three points.

But anyway, this allows me to customize dragons. It could create a bulky and massive dragon that's slow or an agile dragon that doesn't hit as hard, or one that is physically weak (by dragon standards) that is a super genius that quietly enacts schemes from the shadows.

Wyrmling Dragon Character Base Stats
Willpower 3
Dexterity 2, Strength 2, Stamina 3, Appearance 0, Charisma 1, Manipulation 1, Intelligence 1, Perception 2, Wits 2, Arcane NA

Wyrmlings are basically dragon babies, though a Wyrmling can fly and hunt less than a a few hours after hatching. Wyrmlings are fairly vulnerable. Some dragon parents carefully guard and nurture their wyrmlings, others choose to let them fend for themselves and figure the weak ones will die and the strong ones will survive. There are variations in between too. Some parents might leave their wyrmlings to their own devices for a couple weeks to observe them, then collect them and bring them back to the nest later.

Juvenile Dragon Character Base Stats Willpower 5
Dexterity 2, Strength 4, Stamina 4, Appearance 1, Charisma 1, Manipulation 1, Intelligence 1, Perception 3, Wits 3, Arcane 0

Adolescent Dragon Character Base Stats
Willpower 6
Dexterity 2, Strength 5, Stamina 5, Appearance 2, Charisma 2, Manipulation 2, Intelligence 2, Perception 3, Wits 3, Arcane 1

Usually this is when even doting dragon parents kick their children out though they may remain in contact for some time visiting each other periodically.

Young Adult Dragon Base Stats
Willpower 7
Dexterity 2, Strength 7, Stamina 6, Appearance 3, Charisma 3, Manipulation 3, Intelligence 3, Perception 4, Wits 4, Arcane 3

At this point, most dragons choose to separate from their parents entirely and seek out to make a name for themselves in some foreign land.

This is usually when dragons start looking for mates.

Adult Dragon Base Stats
Willpower 8
Dexterity 2, Strength 9, Stamina 7, Appearance 4, Charisma 4, Manipulation 4, Intelligence 4, Perception 5, Wits 5, Arcane 5

And so on and so forth.

Dexterity is a trait that always ranges from 2-5 for dragons. It's also the most expensive trait for a dragon to raise. It's hard to be nimble when you are that big. Also, just from playtesting, Dexterity is by far the most useful attribute for fighting. It doesn't matter how strong your attacks are if you miss entirely.

Strength determines how hard the dragon hits things. I've been waffling on this on and off, but the damage of a dragon's breath weapon is currently tied to his/her breath weapon making Strength the second most important attribute for dragons.

Stamina is a close third. Stamina determines how well a dragon can be a tank and withstand hits. I have considered making a breath weapon's damage based on Stamina instead of Strength.

Perception is how well a character knows things, Intelligence covers recall and reasoning ability, and Wits covers a character's ability to think quickly and act under pressure.

For a humanoid, Appearance represents attractiveness and the ability to make first impressions. For a dragon, Appearance represents attractiveness to other dragons, and the ability to cow humanoids with their awe inspiring presence.

If a Scarterran dragon is acting aggressively, opponents need to pass a Willpower roll to stand their ground against a dragon. The difficulty of the Willpower rolls is the Dragon's Appearance trait+3 (or +1 or +2, this is something I haven't made up my mind about).

Charisma represents a character's ability to inspire genuine loyalty and affection and Manipulation represents a character's ability to convince people to do what she wants, even if they don't like her.

Arcane is a stat just for dragons. A human spell caster just rolls an attribute + ability to cast spells but most spells require a separate attribute + ability. That's easy enough to keep track of if a human caster has ten spells or less, but many dragons have dozens of spells and I didn't want to keep track of 40 different attribute + ability combinations so all dragons use Arcane as their dice pool just for simplicity.

So Wyrmling dragons never have magical ability (always 0). Juvenile dragons only have magical ability if they are true prodigies (0-3). Adolescent dragons have really weak magical ability unless they spent a huge portion of their free time practicing magic or were child prodigies (1-4).

Even if a dragon spent most of his long life neglecting his magical studies, a Wise Wyrm is going to be magically potent.


In the real world, phrenology is a quack science. But just like Lamarkean genetics has been disproven in the real world, but actually exists in Scarterra. Phrenology is real in Scarterra, at least for dragons. A dragon can ballpark another's dragon's base attributes just by looking at her.

High Strength dragons tend to be bulkier and more lion-like. High Dexterity dragons tend to be lankier and more snake-like. High Stamina dragons have tighter and thicker scales. High Arcane dragons tend to have shinier scales.

Dragons (and very rare humanoids who study dragons for a living) can estimate a dragon's mental and social aptitudes by looking at their facial features, horn placement, and skull shape.

Dragons that are vain tend to develop colorations that stand out vividly. Dragons that are more reclusive will gradually develop a coloration that blends in with the environments they inhabit (so sea dragons would be blue and artic dragons white). A rare few dragons have a chameleon power to let them blend in anywhere.

I figure long necks would mostly be an asset for dragons because they bite and breathe on foes easier, but I guess it does sake them more vulnerable to attacks.

My general thought is that most dragons with longer necks have a high Dexterity and a low Stamina. Most dragons with shorter necks have high Stamina and low Dexterity.

I suppose it's possible for a dragon to have a high Stamina and a high Dexterity. I'm not yet sure what would look like. They probably have long very thick necks. Maybe they have thick scaly frills protecting their necks.

That is essentially what I'm going for. Most of this theory. I haven't had the guts to throw a dragon against the PCs yet, even a young dragon.

The biggest sticking point, is that I want dragons to be able to breath fire (or ice or lightning, etc). I want dragon breath weapons to be powerful, but not unbeatable.

I've been pondering three things.

1) Dragon breath weapons can be used almost limitless number, but dragon's breath actually cause far less damage than a dragon's claws and teeth. It's used mainly for crowd control against large numbers of weak opponents.

Note this would also have the spill over effect that dragon would not be able to significantly harm another dragon with her breath weapon making it more akin to an admonishing slap than a true attack.

This opens the doors to a lot of fun ideas. Like dragons playing "tag" with their breath weapon or breathing on other dragons as an insulting gesture.

"I challenge you to a duel" (spits fire on rival).

2) Dragon's breath is equally potent to a dragon's claws and teeth (but with the added advantage of being long range and potentially hitting several enemies at once). But a dragon has to spend a temporary Willpower point every time to use their breath weapon. Since temporary Willpower is used for many things, and under normal circumstances recuperates at a rate of 1/day this means a dragon has to be relatively conservative with her breath weapon.

In this case, dragon's breath would be a dragon's rare and terrifying trump card.

3) Dragons have a daily limit to how how often they could use their breath weapon, recharged after they sleep. Like exercising a muscle, a dragon that pushes himself to the limits on his breath weapon gets stronger.

A dragon could use his breath weapon 1-5 times/day. 1/day would represent a perpetually sickly dragon, 2/day is a dragon that doesn't exercise much, 3 would be a typical dragon, 4 is a dragon that regularly likes to breath on his foes a lot, and 5 is a dragon that trains her breath weapon with near obsessive vigor.

Option 3 sort of splits the difference between options 1 and 2




Another breath weapon issue I keep running into a mental brick wall about is how accurate it is. Do I want a stream of fire, a cone of fire, or a glob of fire.

In other words, how easy is it for a dragon to hit multiple foes at once and how easy is it for a human warrior to dodge dragon breath?

Assuming a humanoid adventuring party wants to fight dragons, is their best course of action to train to be nimble and dodge, or should they find the best armor they can afford and try to tank a dragon's hits?

 

My friend had an elegant answer to my question if dragons should have a rare but powerful breath weapon or a readily accessible weak breath weapon, and his answer was elegant.



His idea was that maximum potency dragon's breath has a recharge time, but they can shoot lesser blasts in between if they choose to rush their next breath attack.

So I am single. If I was not single, I'm pretty sure this would happen every day.



I've been listening to testimonials about fun weddings and my favorite stories always involve different cultural takes on weddings.

There are a lot of weird wedding traditions out there.

Highlights of a friend describing an Indian wedding, the couple riding an elephant into the wedding venue (they had to use a horse to get married in the American midwest) and a kind of game where the brides maids steal the groomsmen shoes and ransom the shoes (for money that gets added to the honeymoon fun).

In the real world, wedding ceremonies (and the various events that occur before and after) often have very weird customs as they are often a mishmash of many cultures and traditions jumbled together.

The tradition of the bride having something blue is a co-opted pagan tradition. I've read it either invokes the sky's blessing or wards off the evil eye depending on whom you ask.

One of my favorite Star Trek DS9 episodes involved a detailed look at Klingon weddings which are actually kind of sweet (though Klingon bachelor parties are not half as fun as you would think).

Though I guess just like the Star Trek episode, a weird wedding tradition is more meaningful if you care about the characters involved.

But anyway, in a general sense, I was going to start with the Nine because almost everything I do in Scarterra starts with the Nine and I was pondering how different religious groups would set up wedding, but it occurred to me that most Scarterrans are polytheist and even most hard core worshippers of one of the Nine still occasionally offer prayers to the other eight. If ever there was a time to get everyone on board, a wedding would be it. I could imagine there might be a token nod to most or at least all of the Nine.

For instance a Mera-centric wedding might still have a ceremonial offering to Greymoria and Maylar so they don't sabotage the wedding out of spite.

And of course every race and nation would have it's own traditions and rich and poor people would have different traditions. I'll start jotting stuff down and let you guys know what I come up with, but I'm open to suggestions. Here are some random thoughts about gnome weddings.

Gnomes are very family and community oriented, so I can imagine there are is at least one ceremony where the inlaws and extended family get together in some symbolic way.

Maybe they have a tug of war contest. Maybe a pie baking contest followed by a pie eating contest. Maybe they work together to paint a (comically bad) mural in honor of the bride and groom.

There could be traditional songs where the bride and groom's family shout questions and answers at each other.

 

Here's a random thing going back to Scaraqua.

Scaraquan Monsters

Real sharks gills are such that if they are not moving forward they will literally suffocate.

Karakhai have more advanced gills but they have the spirit of a shark. Forward movement is life. They prefer to be moving, they are physically capable of standing still, but they don't like it.

They are not dumb or slaves to their urges. If there is an obvious reason to stay one in place, they will do so. They are not going to abandon a fortified position and take on a superior foe just because they don't like staying in one place.

The difference, if a Karakhai is bound or imprisoned, he will lose a health level every day until he is dead. Normal characters have five health levels and major characters (heroes and villains) have ten health levels. This means means a "normal" Karakhai will be dead in six days of imprisonment and a "important" Karkhai will be dead in eleven days.

Hypothetically, a sadistic Scaraquan could use magical healing to keep a Karakhai imprisoned indefinitely. Realistically this would drive a Karakhai to madness. Maybe they could eventually recover if rescued, maybe not, I guess it depends on how long they are imprisoned.

The Karakhai might starve to death, it'd be really hard to force feed a Karakhai without getting your hand bitten off, but maybe there is a way. An imprisoned Karakhai is probably going to flail about and snap at things. If you chummed the water you might be able to force feed a Karkhai.


Scaraqua is a fantasy world. Would a Karakhai driven to madness in this way turn into some kind of new creature? In a fantasy world, the answer is "probably."

I am just not sure what form it would take.

Would this be a living creature or would they end up as some kind of undead creature.


The second thing is I have an idea that I cannot get out of my head and that is making a fanasty monster based on the real world angler fish, I'm just not sure how to implement this. Just a reminder, this is an angler fish.



Okay, so my monstrous angler fish is going to be big enough to threaten a Scaraquan humanoid (Merfolk, Karkhai, Ojiongo, Astalakian).

A Scaraquan child might chase after a mysterious glowing light but an adult is not going to get caught by something that simple.

A Monster Angler fish needs to somehow have an illusion or enchantment effect that can lure a sapient creature into a dangerous situation. It needs to be so enticing that a Scaraquan would be tempted to go for it even though it might be a trick or it needs to be valuable that you want to grab it but not so valuable that the idea of finding it randomly floating in front of you is an obvious trick.

I'm not sure if I want to make it just a giant fish with a mouth full of sharp teeth or if I want to give the monster a more exotic attack. Either way the key point is that the monster has a "lure." The monster is not a slouch in combat, but the monster still has to rely on using it's lure to get the element of surprise.

If Angler Fish monsters are super rare, then stories about them wouldn't circulate, but if Angler Fish monsters are a standard monster that adventurers encounter, then Scaraquans would tell campfire stories about them (or whatever they use instead of campfires)



The lure needs to be really good if the Scaraquans are aware that Angler Fish monsters exist.

Another related thought. After pondering this, this kind of reminds of the Ancient Greek myth of the Sirens.

For a refresher, the Sirens had a beautiful song that could lure sailors to want to approach the singers so they heedlessly steer their ships into rocks and then drown (or occasionally the Sirens would claw them apart while the sailors are too mesmerized to fight back).

Usually the lure of the Siren's is implied to be based on sexual attraction, but Rick Riordan made a nonsexual version. Basically the sirens weave an illusion of the listener's perfect world or deepest yearning, whatever their idea of a perfect world or deepest yearning is.

The Angler Fish maybe could be able to create a lure for both Scarterrans and Scaraquans or I can create separate monsters, one based on Angler fish with a deep sea lure and one based on the Sirens with a shallow waters lure.

Then there is question of who created the Angler Fish monster.

Maybe Greymoria/Taedi created them because she is an evil witch who likes creating monsters for fun. Maybe Korus/Mubete created this monster to guard his/her sacred places. Maybe Maylar/Bellusk was experimenting with an aquatic apex predator not based on the shark archetype. Maybe the Void Demons wanted to create a minion that could catch mortals and eat their souls.

I don't have to limit myself. There could be various levels of Angler Fish monster. Maybe one monster variant wants to eat mortal flesh while another wants to rob people of their valuables and another wants to consume souls.