My Fantasy RPG World, Feedback and Ideas appreciated

I never saw American Horror Story. Would Cathy Bates talk about combs for over ten minutes straight? Because that is what Beslyfle is doing.


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Mera combs

As told by Beslyfle the gnome, matron of Fumaya's Tenders.Before Turoch's corpse was done cooling, Maylar ripped out his heart and fashioned it into a spear.

Shortly after, the rest of the Nine followed suit and fashioned one of Turoch's body parts into their own Divine Trophies.Mera, gentle soul that she is, wasn't exactly eager to play with the body of a dead primordial god, but eventually she opted to craft Turoch's liver into a comb. Mera's divine comb can remove poison and disease from anything.

My uncle was a butcher and I apprenticed to him a few years as child, so I'm not afraid to get my hands dirty with a dead hog or cow. I can cook up a plate of liver and onions fit for a king, but I have no idea how a mortal could make liver into a comb. But I guess Turoch did not have an ordinary liver and Mera is no mere mortal.

That's neither here nor there, none of the Divine Trophies origins make much sense but at least ordinary livers actually process ordinary toxins, so it makes sense in a way. When it comes to the Nine, things only have to make sense in a symbolic way for them to act, they are not as constrained by the laws of the natural world the way we mere mortals are.

It is telling to Mera's wisdom and compassion that Mera is only one of two of the Nine who chose to not make a weapon or piece or armor, (What? Nami made the other non-martial item, don't you know anything?).Given that Mera's comb is a symbol of her power, it is not surprising that that Mera's faithful take their combs seriously.

Walchese priests and priestesses commonly wear ornate combs in their hair as part of their formal vestments. Their parishioners normally only use similar combs during especially important events such as weddings, funerals and name day rituals.

Terrawans use decorative combs a lot more often with a great many of our parishioners keeping a comb in their hair all day, every day as a sign of devotion. Our priests and priestesses often wear a comb in their hair for day-to-day work, not just when presiding over worship ceremonies.

I hear that in Umera, they use a lot of specific combs. There are blue combs worn for fasting and penance, and there are orange combs that pregnant women wear in their hair to invite Mera's blessings on their unborn child, and dead bodies are often buried with black combs.

Walchese combs tend to be very ornate, intricately carved and inlaid with precious materials or completely made of valuable materials. While Terrawan combs are lovingly crafted, but they are usually made from simple materials.

My comb? Yes, it is made of Silverwood and that is a rarified material. I am a Terrawan, not Walchese. So I am speaking generalities, not absolutes. Some Walchese use ceremonial combs made of simple materials. My comb is an indicator of my rank. Among the Walchese, lower ranking priestesses often have even more expensive and orante combs than mine, while the top ranking clergy might have Silverwood combs with gold plated handles inlaid with pearls.

Does my comb have magic healing powers? No, but also yes. I have magic healing powers and I can channel them through my comb, but the magic doesn't come from the comb, it comes from our Benevolent Mother above and my faith in her.Like any theurgist of Mera, I can channel my lady's divine power through any of her holy symbols. I can channel magic through my ring or necklace just as well, both of which present my Lady's symbols prominently. I can swap holy symbols with any other Tender and still be able to cast magic. If I was stripped of my regalia, I could make a new holy symbol out of a discarded piece of firewood and it would still work, such is Mera's power. But I digress.

Some Mera combs do have magic power in and of themselves. The Tenders don't have as many theurgists capable of crafting magic items as other priesthoods, but we do have some. Instead of crafting healing wands like rest of the Nonagon commonly does, a Tender is more likely to infuse a comb with Healing or Purification magic. Since a lot of Tenders have our own healing magic, we don't need these magic combs, but we can give them to adventurers and warriors who we trust to fight for Mera's ideals.

Like most conventional wands and staffs, these combs are typically good for ten or twenty uses before they have to be reenchanted. Some crafters prefer ornate expensive magic combs because rarified materials are easier to enchant than ordinary materials, but innocuous combs made of ordinary materials are less conspicuous and some adventurers like their magic items to be secret weapons, both to surprise their enemies and to discourage thieves.

Not every comb in Scarterra is dedicated to Mera, but a lot are, even those that are used for casual grooming. There are no iron clad rules for what constitutes a Mera comb and what doesn't, at least not among the Terrawans. The Walchese like to consecrate their combs in a short ceremony. Most Mera combs involve her icon of a hearth fire enclosed by water and many are blue.

I once met a traveling Mondarian Tender. Mondert Tender's have developed their own rituals and traditions separate from the Terrawans and Walchese. They have an absolutely heartwarming custom of wedding combs. Before a wedding, the bride's family will craft a comb for the groom and the groom's family will craft a comb for the bride.

Wealthy family's often have their best craftsmen make combs out of rarified materials, but most of these combs are crafted by young children, complete with adorable childish imperfections. After the wedding, these combs go into the family wash room and are used like any other comb.

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Elves And Mera Combs
Mera combs are extremely ubiquitous throughout Scarterra even among cultures that don't hold Mera in a prominent role, but this seems to be a Third Age tradition, commonly seen among humans, dwarves, gnomes.

Even kalazotz have Mera combs. Though the batfolk's "combs" are more like a horse's grooming brush than our hair combs, and their symbol for Mera is different than ours. Their symbol is folded wings over a large drop of water rather than a large drop of water enclosing a hearth fire. The kalazotz customs are strange, but the Benevolent Mother adopted them fully so that is good enough for me.

Every race that venerates Mera and has enough hair to run a comb through.

Elves not so much. Grey elves sometimes keep Mera combs, but this seems to be a tradition they picked up from their human vassals somewhat reluctantly. Dark elves generally hold Mera in disdain, so of course they are not going to consecrate their combs. Wood elves hold Mera in high regard but they are not very materialistic and don't much stock in symbolic trinkets. They prefer to honor Mera and the rest of the Nine with songs rather than icons and I have no problem with this.

When relic seekers unearth Second Age ruins, there are a lot of combs which is hardly surprising since both elf men and elf women like to keep their silky shiny hair long. The surviving artwork from the Second Age shows this was always the case. What is surprising is that very few of these combs are Mera combs.

We're not sure why this is. Historical records indicate that Second Age elves did hold Mera in high regard, but they didn't seem to use ceremonial combs in her worship. The ancient Mera combs that relic hunters did find all seemed to be enchanted combs with their magic spent.

I guess an elf once explained to me that since Mera is the goddess of households and families that their veneration of Her should be private and in the home, rather in the community at large. I cannot agree with this interpretation of the Benevolent Mother's divine will because she wants us to treat our communities like family, but it's pretty pointless to argue with an elf.

 

Here is what I have so far for my tavern entry challenge. I have about 36 hours to make major changes. Then I got about a week to make "minor changes and edits"

I'm trying to eke out a tavern map right now, but this is more time consuming than I thought, so I might have to go map-less. Perhaps I should focus on my skill set of writing. I'm just shy of 1200 words, and the max for this contest is 2500, but I know more is not always better.

I also quickly two penned related articles, the pub is in the Port City of Foroden Port which is in the colony of Foroden Forest.

The short version is the Foroden Forest is where the Elven Empire gets most of their best timber from and Foroden Port is where their main shipyards are. But it's not just a shipyard, it's also a trading nexus. Side note, the Elven Empire guards this land very fiercely because they are a maritime trade empire with one source of ship-worthy timber.

I doubt I'm going to win the tavern challenge, there are some more exotic ones out there, but I hope to get some more exposure to Scarterra.

The article link on my World Anvil is here. But I copied and pasted the material below.


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The Drunken Bat Inn and Brewery

The Drunken Bat claims to be the most famous tavern in all of Scarterra. Located in the Elven Empire's last major West Colassian port, Foroden. Though the port city is technically run by elves, most of the denizens are human.

They might be right. They regularly see travelers from Swynfaredia, Stahlheim, Kantoc, Apseldia, Nishi, Azuma, and the Elven Empire and those are just the everyday visitors.

The most obvious thing that sets the Drunken Bat apart are the drunken bats not that they are drunk on the job...usually. The bar is run by kalazotz, more colloquially called the "bat folk". Bat folk don't commonly mingle with humans, distrusting them since the Massacre of the Grey Forest kalazotz decades ago, most kalazotz keep to themselves or associate with dwarves with whom many have an ancient alliance.

The bartenders usually will give free drinks to visitors who give him interesting mementos from faraway lands, so the walls are filled with curios from every corner of Scarterra. Flags and banners are especially common, but outlandish clothes, weapons, parts of ships and stranger things are included.

The prices are a bit higher than elsewhere but the premium allows for unprecedented variety as beer, wine and spirits are imported from every corner of Scarterra.
Purpose / Function
Originally created so kalazotz and dwarven traders could enjoy a taste of home in a busy port dominated by elves and humans. A lot of humans and a few elves came by out of curiosity and they gradually became the main clientele of the establishment.

The owners of the inn gradually expanded the drink and food menu to create a truly cosmopolitan drinking and dining establishment to enjoy food and drinks (especially drinks) from all around Scarterra.
Alterations
The building was created by humans for humans before it was bought by Clan Balché.

Initially, they modified the rafters of the ceiling to give a few places for kalazotz to hang, but they are not used much since most of their clientele is not fond of hanging from the ceiling drinking from bladders. Also, few people want to stand under kalazotz who are eating and drinking even though they usually don't drop things.

Most of the ceiling rafters have been repurposed for hanging decorations rather than letting kalazotz tavern goers figuratively and literally hang there.

Thus most of the tavern is conventionally furnished. Now most of the kalazotz visitors eat on tables on the floor on gnome-sized furniture (and gnomes are more than welcome to join them).
Architecture
The inn is three interconnected two story buildings with an overhanging second floor.The central building is the main tavern area, the west annex houses their distillery and storage space while the east annex houses their guest rooms.

The kalazotz staff prefer to sleep in the dark cellar underneath the distillery. The non-kalazotz staff have homes elsewhere in the port city.
History
Originally, the drunken bat was a tavern/inn set up to cater to dwarves and kalazotz doing business with the Elven Empire.Among other things, it was near impossible for kalazotz to get their favorite spirits such as fermented rabbit's blood or grub whiskey.Being near a major trading port and having a very experimental owner, the tavern invested a lot of money in buying exotic drink from around Scarterra.The tavern had a rotating drink menu including things such as wood elven spring wine, Umeran sake, East Colassian honey mead, Mondarian rum, and other exotic drinks.

Originally the tavern bought exotic drinks for a lark, but as their reputation grew, the tavern found itself awash in new customers asking for exotic drinks.

As the inn expanded, they increased their menu of foods as well, importing a lot of exotic spices, meat, ad produce as well as exotic drinks.
Tourism
If you want to taste the food and drink of a place thousands of miles away, this is place to go. This is mainly for tourists tasting food from exotic foreign lands. If a distant traveler comes to the inn expecting a taste of home, they will probably be disappointed. "Lousy bats didn't get the spices right!"

Most of the exotic faire is not about authenticity but about novelty. Clan Balché is fond of wild experiments combining food, drink, and spices from disparate locations.You want a gin and tonic with wood elves made gin in tonic water from Mera's Lake accented with spices imported from the Colassian Confederacy?

That's one of the less exotic mixed drinks they can make.

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Darkness And Light
"We kalazotz can see in the dark perfectly, and we do find darkness comforting. Contrary to what some humans believe, we are not blinded or harmed by bright light nor do we fear the light. Our very name, "kalazotz" means "bats of light" though our light is more of a spiritual light than a visible light, so we still often remain in darkness.

Our dwarf friends often prefer dim light. When my great grandmother ran the tavern, most of our customers were dwarves or bats, so they kept the bar dim. But as time wore on, more of our customers were humans and other folk who like big bright fires and lanterns, so we opted to light up the pub, the corners are dimly lit so dwarves and bats can still feel at home. Also a few humans with questionable pasts also prefer the dim light.
-Akza, matron and owner of the Drunken Bat Inn and Brewery

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Type
Inn
Parent Location
Foroden Port
Owner
Akza
Related Ethnicities

• dwarf influenced kalazotz

Owning Organization
Clan Balché
Characters in Location

• Akza

Anyway, I'm open to any suggestions or edits from yuse guys.

 

I added two testimonials.

If heaven is real, I imagine it is very similar to The Drunken Bat.

-Norabruck Grumblespine, dwarven Rover on the Wind

"I never tried kalazotz beverages before. I'm glad I have the experience of having tried to rabbit blood wine and brodesopp vodka mixed, but I don't ever want to try it again.

Fortunately, I could drink something different every night and it would make take me months to go through their menu, but I'm only here on shore leave for a few days, so I need to drink extra fast. The menu will probably change the next time our ship in port."

-Alexy, Poseidonus satyr and part time bar patron


I might try to put a testimonial from an elven sailor or soldier giving them a back handed compliment, possibly working in "better than a human bar anyway" somewhere but I'm not sure how to phrase it.

 

Warlocks

Let us talk about Warlocks in Scarterra (and Scaraqua too I suppose).


A warlock is a male, and a witch is female but they are essentially the same thing. They are mortals who gain power by making a pact with an otherworldly entity. I plan to use "warlocks" as a gender neutral term here on out because “witch” has alternate definitions.


Before I started running my new RPG system, I didn’t wanted to start playing until I was “finished” but my friends knew me well and knew that I would never be “finished” so we might as well build the plane as we fly it.


One of the things I had “unfinished” was warlock pacts but to my surprise, all of my RPG playing friends told me they were not even remotely interested in playing a warlock. Odd, because if someone else is Game Master, I often consider warlocks first, ever since warlock became an option at least. Before that I tended to play illusionists or paladins.


I find warlocks interesting characters because they are unlike the vast majority of other PC characters in D&D. Usually, a player character is an exceptional person with exceptional training. A warlock is a normal person who was filled up with the mystical power of a god or demigod. In a cosmic sense, the warlock was never supposed to have power.

5th edition D&D made warlocks very customizable. There are six basic types based on who the patron is and each type is customizable within its patron subtype. You can see the 5th edition power summary on the six pact types via this link (EDIT link was broken, now it's not). if you are curious but my world/game system's warlocks are only using this for very broad guidelines.

Anyway the six pacts of D&D 5th edition are the Pact of the Arch Fey, Pact of the Fiend, Pact of the Great Old One, Pact of the Undying, Pact of the Celestials, Pact of the Hex Blade.

The pact of the Arch Fey, Fiend, and Great Old One are the original pacts and the other three were added to the game fairly recently. Here is a short video with blatantly risqué humor comparing the three main pact types. It is hilarious in my opinion but I'm not sure how informative it is.

While a player making a warlock PC can decide what type of patron he has, most characters in a fantasy world don’t get to shop among multiple patrons. If they are lucky they might meet a representative from a single cosmic power during their lives and if they are really lucky, they might be allowed to say “no” and walk away alive. Sometimes warlock pacts are hereditary passing down to children and grandchildren.

I am a stickler for things to make sense, things to make sense in-universe and they need to make sense for meta reasons. But for meta reasons, my reason for including various types of warlocks is the same “Scalenex thinks warlocks are cool.” I have a less snarky meta reasons. “Warlocks are X-factors, providing an excuse for powerful characters to exist who are not tied to any government, temple, or guild.” Perfect if I need to create a one-off villain of the weak or if I want an ongoing chaotic villain akin to the Joker.

In-universe there are lots of reasons why a mortal might want to form an otherworldly pact. The seven deadly sins, greed, lust, envy, pride and the like can push someone to seek a pact. Desperation or obsession could make someone do it. Heck, a mortal can be put in a situation where the options are literally form a pact with this scary thing or die! Even the D&D SRD has 20 scenarios for how someone can become a warlock. If you look on D&D websites, there are hundreds of potential scenarios you can use to justify a person becoming a warlock.

In my world, I figure that are there are about 100 million Scarterrans and 50 million Scaraquans. I only need about one or two thousand of them to be witches or warlocks.

It's easy to come up with reasons why a few mortals might want to be warlocks, but that is the easy part. For me, since I tend to start with the gods and work my way down, the more difficult question to me is why would a powerful other worldly entity bother investing power in an insignificant mortal.


So far I have four types of warlocks in Scarterra and like everything else in my RPG system, they are pretty customizable

A player that wanted to play a warlock could suggest to me “I want XYZ power and I want it to have cost my character ABC pact worked out with QRS patron" and I’d probably be fine with it. I would set the mechanical dice limits for whatever the player described.


So far I have four basic warlock types, listed in order of most common to least common. I figured there would Greymoria/Taedi pacts, Fae Pacts, Void Pacts, and Nami Pacts. I figure Void Pacts are so drastically different from the other three that I should cover them in their own post.


Greymoria Pacts

Greymoria and her Scaraquan alter ego Taedi want to spread arcane magic and most importantly spread worship, love, and fear of her.


Greymoria/Taedi might not be a popular goddess, but she is still one of the nine deities of Scarterra, so a lot of people still pray to her. Because Greymoria/Taedi is a spiteful goddess and the magic goddess of revenge, some mortals pray to her to bestow them with the magical power to get revenge on their enemies.

Greymoria/Taedi hears some/most/all of her prayers including the pleas of spiteful little brats praying to her to give them the power to smite their bullies and perceived tormentors. Being a spiteful brat herself, Greymoria might see some of these people as useful pawns. If suitably impressed, she might actually send a spirit minion to offer one of these mortals a mystic pact. I often call these specific spirits "Faustian spirits" because their sole job is to negotiate Faustian pacts. I’m not sure whether I want to give her 4, 9, 12, or 100 Faustian spirits but either way they rank among Greymoria's most trusted and powerful minions. They have their own unique names and appearances and have different tactics for recruiting warlocks.


If Greymoria/Taedi reallylikes the cut of their jib, the mortal could be offered a pact immediately. If Greymoria/Taedi is uncertain, she can arrange for her supplicant to be tested for worthiness. There are a bunch of secret rituals that can summon a Faustian spirit. As a test, she can feed a potential warlock bread crumbs to “discover” one of these rituals. The more uncertain Greymoria or Taedi is, the harder the warlock has to work to find a ritual.


Some of these rituals are as simple as standing at a particular crossroads at midnight while others are both ritually complicated and involve gruesome sacrifice. Whether simple or complex, violent or benign, by enacting one of these summoning rituals in the first place the mortal is already signaling to Greymoria and her agent “I’m willing to play by your rules.”


What Greymoria offers is magic power. Essentially a warlock can use all the magic that a wizard can use, but does not require years and years of boring training. Greymoria or Taedi is using a portion of her own power to make up for the lack of training, and in return Greymoria expects a return on her investment. Does she take the mortal’s soul? Yes, eventually, but she is still one of the Nine and can collect souls pretty easily without making them warlocks first.


A Warlock could owe her patron one quest or service and be done with it, or Greymoria/Taedi (through her Faustian spirit intermediaries) can make demands of the warlock for their entire life. If hypothetically, a potential warlock already hates all the same people that Greymoria hates, the Faustian spirit is not likely to make many demands on the warlock and can safely assume that said warlock will act on Greymoria’s behalf of his/her own volition. These minions are often more powerful and useful because they apply creative out of the box solutions and they don’t require micromanaging.


Every year, tens of thousands of mortals pray for mystic power and only a few hundred of these prayers get answered. That means Greymoria and Taedi can be picky and only except witches or warlocks that offer Greymoria lots of service or only accepts warlocks that already are formidable before gaining mystic power, or only accept warlocks that have hearts full of hate or only accept warlocks that have access to the halls of power. You get the idea. They have to be useful or unique in some way.

Greymoria may be the metaphysical embodiment of the concept of a spiteful witch, but Greymoria is usually honest about what she wants. Greymoria’s Faustian spirits may demand a potential warlock do difficult and heinous things to earn their power but they are not likely to lie about it or even sugar coat it. Greymoria wants her pacts to be followed to the letter. A rogue warlock is a liability she does not want to deal with it, so she doesn’t want to recruit warlocks who are lukewarm about their pacts and try to back out of them halfway through. That’s not to say Greymoria never produces rogue warlocks by accident, but it’s something her minions are punished severely for if they accidentally create a rogue warlock.

Also, not every warlock has to eat babies. Greymoria may be evil but that doesn't mean everything she does is always overtly evil.

Taedi, Greymoria’s Scaraquan alter ego, is very similar to Greymoria in most respects. The main difference is that Greymoria is usually very blunt while Taedi is usually very subtle and loves to play 4D Chess. That means Greymoria’s Scarterran pacts may be horrifying but they are straightforward and easy to understand while Taedi’s Scaraquan pacts probably have a lot of fine print in them.

Despite Scarterra having roughly twice the mortal population of Scaraquan, Taedi has considerably more fervent worshipers than Greymoria has, so she should be considerably more powerful. Unfortunately Taedi’s love of complex machinations is as much as a weakness as a strength. Sometimes Taedi (and by extension Taedi’s various minions) make their schemes too complex and this causes her machinations to fail. In any event, it is a near certainty that a Taedi sponsored warlock is going to be a pawn in greater events beyond his or her comprehension.



This is all backstory and fluff. Within in the context of my RPG system, a warlock, wizard, and sorcerer all have access to the same magic. You as a player spend freebie points or experience points to buy dots of arcane and roll the same dice pools to use the same effects.

To the characters in Scarterra, the cosmetic effects of the spell look and sound different but the end result is the same. Invokers roll Stamina + Invocation to blast their enemies and this is the same whether they are a warlock, wizard, or sorcerer. Just a reminder that is what the dot system is for. Someone with Stamina ●●● and Invocation ●● is going to five dice to make things go boom. Someone with Stamina Stamina ●●● and Invocation ●●●● is going to have seven dice to make things go boom. Effectively dots = dice.

Greymoria/Taedi based faustian pacts occasionally come with physical alterations in addition to magical alterations but these alterations are usually pretty subtle. In rare instances, a Greymoria warlock may have his/her main casting attributes artificially (Stamina for Invokers for instance) boosted. More often than not, Greymoria warlocks receive magical dots and nothing else. Mundane dots, the warlock has to develop the old fashioned way: practice, exercise, and training.



Fae Pacts


Greymoria/Taedi is juggling thousands of warlock pacts at any one time, but she is a goddess. Fae Lords and Ladies are powerful but they are not gods. The most powerful Faerie nobles can maybe maintain a dozen pacts at best if they really work at it. Lesser fae can only maintain one or two pacts, and a great many Fae cannot make pacts at all. There are also a great many fae that can empower warlocks but choose not to. But there are hundreds of Faerie lords and ladies and there are hundreds of thousands of fae commoners, so that is a lot of potential warlocks regardless.

There are probably more Fae warlocks than Greymoria warlocks, maybe more fae warlocks than all other warlocks combined. Sometimes to the definition of a warlock gets blurry. A peasant family could periodically leave out a saucer of cream at night for a brownie and in return the brownie keeps the house clean. This is technically a faerie pact of sorts, but no one would call the people in this family warlocks. Faeries and mortals make reciprocal agreements like this all the time, but if neither party is physically or spiritually altered by the pact, there are no warlocks or no patrons.

The Fair Folk are very much infused arcane magic Fae warlock pacts can bestow mystical arcane power similar to Greymoria pacts, but Fae warlock pacts are not limited in this way.

Some warlocks with fae pacts have fairly subtle pacts that are not as blatantly obvious as being bestowed with mystic power. A Fae pact could bestow youth, beauty, musical talent, combative prowess, and other relative mundane things. Two mortals both with Performance ●●●●● are going to be equally talented even if one got that way from a Fae pact and the other got that way from years of practice and hard work. Though it’s likely that the two musicians have very different attitudes and personalities. In fact, anyone who has a five dot ability of any kind is probably going to make people openly wonder (usually in jest) if a person made a pact to get so good at their chosen skill. As rare as five dot abilities are, the vast majority of them got that way without making a pact to get it.

Greymoria warlock pacts are almost always made in exchange for service. Fae pacts might demand service or they might not. Fae pacts can bestow almost anything to a mortal, but they can also take anything from a mortal. For instance, you might have a handsome mortal give up his beauty in exchange for great strength in battle. I can easily picture a Scarterran Fae making a deal like Ursula and Ariel in The Little Mermaid where a mermaid gives up her voice for a chance to be human.

I created a bunch of weird RPG Flaws , many with warlock pacts in mind. For instance, a Fae Patron could want to taste mortal food and perhaps take away a warlock’s sense of taste and require him to eat twice as much so he can taste the mortal food.

In the real world, a lot of stories of the Fair Folk involve faerie having sex with mortals both in positive and uplifting ways and in horrifying ways. Also there are a lot of legends about Fair Folk stealing human babies and leaving Faerie babies in their place. Or Fair Folk like Rumpelstiltskin requiring a first born child as payment for services way. Either way, I’m leaving it vague for Scarterra/Scaraqua, but the Fair Folk do want/need some degree of blood mixing between the mortal plane and Fae Home.

I am leaving it deliberately vague whether Fair Folk can take human souls. The Fair Folk themselves aren't in a hurry to answer yes or no on this definitely because it raises their fear and mystique.

A mortal who is a fae empowered warlock could find himself entangled in Fae Court politics for his entire life, or after his initial payment for the pact is collected, he might never see one of the Fair Folk again. No two Fair Folk are alike, and the Fair Folk are pretty mercurial so they might be a different person on Tuesday than they are on Thursday.

I generally want to keep the Fair Folk mysterious and alien. Each pact bestows something different and each one requires something different. Some Fair Folk are straight shooters with their warlocks, others fill their pacts with a lot of hidden fine print.


Nami Pacts


So eons ago, Greymoria spoke to the rest of the Nine was like “I want to create some warlocks and none of you can create warlocks”.

Khemra and Mera meekly tried to suggest that there shouldn’t be any warlocks at all, but they couldn’t really stop her. Most of the rest of the Nine didn’t care. After all, if Greymoria wants to invest her own power in creating warlocks, why should they intervene? For the Nine, it’s far less costly to imbue a mortal with divine magic than it is to imbue a mortal with arcane magic, so they don’t have much incentive to do so. Even Greymoria, the goddess of arcane magic, cannot channel arcane magic as easily as divine magic.

But Nami doesn’t like being told what she can or cannot do.

Just to thumb her nose at Greymoria, Nami empowers warlocks. Greymoria is the goddess of magic and Nami is not. To use a metaphor, think of Greymoria has a university educated engineer and Nami as a hobbyist who occasionally tinkers in her garage (not to insult garage tinkerers, some great inventions were made that way). It generally takes much more effort for Nami to empower a single warlock than it does for Greymoria, and Nami is only mildly interested in empowering warlocks. Whereas Greymoria sponsors hundreds of warlocks every year, Nami typically empowers one or two each year.

There is an unproven proven that while Greymoria empowers warlocks through Faustian spirits acting as middlemen, Nami herself personally empowers her warlocks. Again, this is not proven, but Nami is said to wander the mortal plane in innocuous disguises while the rest of the Nine never seem act on the mortal plane directly.

Unlike Greymoria, Nami does not imbue her warlocks with a specific agenda in mind, but Nami still wants a return on her investment, sort of.

Essentially, she wants entertainment. Nami uses her powers of prophesy to find unassuming people with a potentially strong destiny, imbues them with mystic power, then lets them live their lives as they see fit. Then Nami pulls out the popcorn and watches the warlock’s life like a soap opera. Her warlocks might live out happy lives or tragic lives, but they never ever live out boring lives.

A briefly toyed around with a character concept for a warlock character for me to play as a PC in a 3.5 D&D game. To pay for his power, the warlock had to give his patron “a lifetime of deception.” He wasn’t sure what that meant, but afterwards found himself like Jim Carrey in the movie Liar Liar. I figured such a character might be fun at first, but would eventually become annoying. But I can totally see Nami sponsoring a warlock of that mold.

As of yet, I’m not sure whether Nami’s Scaraquan alter ego, Kontona, bothers to empower warlocks. If she does, I would not want to meet a Kontona warlock. Nami is an all-around light hearted trickster and Kontona has a stronger sadistic streak so her warlocks would probably be violent psychopaths.

Nami warlocks are mechanically identical to Greymoria warlocks. Nami warlocks get arcane magical ability but for their mundane traits, they are mostly, if not entirely on their own.


Anyway, before I move on to Void warlocks I want to see if you guys have any commentary, critiques, or ideas on what I have so far. I suppose I am even open to knew variations of warlock pacts if anyone has any brainwaves on that, but I think four is enough, though since I am taking the kitchen sink approach to world building there is always room for one more.

 

In the the 1990s, back when I played games more than I ran them, a friend ran a couple Dark Sun setting D&D 2nd edition games.

We were ages 13 to 15 so we misapplied a lot of things, but we had fun even though we may have missed the mark on what Dark Sun intended. Among other things, we put too much stock into the "Find Water" skill and always let it work assuming the roll was successful (which is usually was because every character took that proficiency so at any given time, at least one of us would succeed on the roll). The world's greatest fisherman can't find pull fish out of an empty pool. Likewise the best water finder can't find water in a place without water.

I had almost forgotten might brief sojourn into Athas, the world of the Dark Sun RPG campaigns and novel series.

I recently stumbled onto this video giving a comprehensive overview of Athas. It's two hours and forty minutes. I don't know if anyone is interested, but after watching it, I remembered a lot of lore of Athas that I had forgotten or never learned in the first place.

Upon reflection, I realized that Dark Sun's Athas setting has had more influence on Scarterra than any other fantasy work apart from Tolkien's Middle Earth. Aspects of Athas inspired aspects of Scarterra. Far more than I realized initially.

Scarterra has nice worlds that are marred by catastrophes and then stitched together, allowed to heal, and then mangled by another catastrophe.

In a way, Middle Earth is the inspiration for the Terra and Athas is inspiration for the Scar.

Athas was devastated by a series of devastating events and until Scarterra, there were no meaningful attempts to stitch it back together.

Scarterra, at least to me, is define by the Nine. Athas either has no gods, or all the gods or dead, or all the gods were cut off from Athas, or the gods chose to leave Athas.

The rat bastard sorcerer kings have instead set themselves as gods.

On Athas, arcane magic comes from the life force of the planet. Usually this means magic is drawn from plants. Sometimes this means magic is drawn from animals and in rare epic cases this means magic is drawn from the sun itself.

It's possible to very carefully take magic so as not to cause permanent damage to plant life but if a mage is sloppy, or lazy, or greedy they can draw enough magic to permanently kill the plant life and blight the soil so nothing can grow again for a millennia.

It was pointed out on another D&D Youtube channel, "arcane magic has a cost, but other people have to pay the cost. That's why everyone hates sorcerers."

The Sorcerer Kings (unisex "kings", there were a few queens in the mix) knew this. They harnessed magic to try to become immortal and the cost of the global ecosystem blighting Athas into a desert where water, arable soil, and metal are all extremely scarce resources. The surviving plant and animal grew stronger and evolved in fantastic ways to survive this extremely inhospitable wasteland.

Essentially the Sorcerer Kings were willing to ruin the world so they can live forever and be princes of the new Hellscape.

Then they started fighting each other and established a fragile détente as each Sorcerer King became the demigod tyrant ruler of one of the tiny remaining pockets of arable land. They achieved immortality at a cost of blighting the world, but they still had pockets of resistance so they defiled a world a bit more to eliminate most of these pockets, so not only is the world an inhospitable wasteland, but almost all bastions of civilians are built on the backs of countless slaves and ruled by corrupt nobles in brutal police states.

But even though this is a world where "Sauron" won, there is a still a little bit of hope making even the small aspects of goodness that much more heroic.

 

I have made character bios for all eight Demon Lords. Mostly roughly ~350 words but here the @pendrake approved short descriptions with hyperlinks to the detailed articles.

The Harbinger: The Harbinger was the first Demon Lord to arrive, the strongest and most direct Demon Lord.

The Corruptor: The Corruptor tried to recruit mortal agents en masse and is more or less the founder of the Infernalism as modern Scarterrans understand it.

The Defiler: The Defiler attempted to poison the soil and water so that no life could ever flourish again and also attempted to sever the connections between the various planes.

The Vandal: Not merely content to take mortals' lives, the Vandal opted to topple every building, burn every book, and otherwise destroy any and all cultural relics its army encountered.

The Extinguisher: The Extinguisher attempted to blot out the sun, killing all plant life and killing mortals at once via starvation.

The Annihilator: The Annihilator focused primarily on the attacking the smaller less populous mortal races attempting to utterly eradicate them one at a time.

The Successor: The Successor was the only Demon Lord to regularly take mortal prisoners, housing populations in massive prisons as an exploitable resource.

The Ravager: The Ravager was the last and most tenacious of the Demon Lords.


As of now, they are defined by their actions, not their appearance. I imagine they all look different but they fit under the broad description "kaiju-sized Lovecraftian horror with lots of tentacles."

I am working on a piece (with a university professor narrator) covering what Scarterrans know of the Second Unmaking but it is getting rather long, so I'm pondering ways to break it up into more manageable chunks.

 

Looking Ahead

I recently suffered a personal loss, but I am getting a large chunk of inheritance.

Most of the money is going to practical things, but I'm going to spend a bit of money on fanciful dreams. I want to invest it in Scarterra.

There are a lot of good digital artists on the Internet that work for relatively cheap. I want to pay a professional artist to illustrate aspects of Scarterra. If anyone has any recommendations on whom I should commission, let me know via private message.

My problem with me being a slow ass writer but a prodigious world builder is partially because I think I need an artificial deadline. I can usually write something for the short story contest.

After I deal with the funeral issues and get a bunch of mundane details sorted, I plan to set myself some artificial writing deadlines. I'm thinking 1500 words a week. By this I mean 1500 words of a character driven story. I can and often do write 1500 words of setting material per day. But fantasy setting material without a story is not of much use.

If after a couple weeks I crush my artificial deadlines too easily, I will set harsher deadlines. If it turns out I struggle but still make progress, I will set softer deadlines.

If I burn out entirely, I will stop telling all my friends and family about the wonderful novel that I swear I'm going to write and move on to something else with my life. Though I'll keep Scarterra going to run RPG campaigns in.

As long as I am making real progress, I plan to reward myself with the luxury of seeing illustrators bring aspects of Scarterra to life.

I want this article on Scarterran elemental ethnicity illustrated.

I think the guidelines I set forth on elemental ethnicity would look cool and fit a fantasy setting. Exotic looking, but not so weird they would hurt someone's suspension of disbelief but if I actually saw this with my own eyes, it might look silly and prompt me to revise elemental ethnicity.

This should be a writing aid because it will help me describe what characters look like, something that is not my strong suit as a writer.

So I'm seeking an artist who is very good at drawing people. I want four multigenerational families with elderly people, middle aged people, young adults, and children, an even mix of males and female.

One for earth, one for fire, one for water, and one for air.

I don't need a full family portrait but a few pictures of hybrid people might be useful as well if I can afford it. One or two earth/water people, fire/earth people etc.

The novel I'm working on is set in the Border Baronies Region. While the Border Baronies attracts riffraff from every corner of Scarterra, most of the locals are water/earth mixes.

Assuming I stick to my schedule, I plan to hire more illustrations. We'll see where the muses take me, but I'd of course like to see illustrations of the Nine and illustrations of my home brew creatures.

Scarterran gnomes and dwarves aren't that different from D&D gnomes and dwarves but Void Demons, kalazotz, faceless, tengku, and the like have no true visual equals in other fantasy settings.

Anyway, I figure as long as I can keep up a reasonable writing place, I can reward myself with professional art.

This is my plan going forward.

 

I just finished editing my detailed version of the Second Unmaking. I'm not going to copy it directly here because it will lose some of the formatting.

Admittedly it might too detailed. It's 14000 words but I broke it into subcategories to try make it more digestible. I created a human narrator to try to make it feel more real.

I not only spent a lot of time writing this, but I spent much more time coming up with the story elements that went into this.

It's a big ask, but if you any of you take to time to read it and give me constructive feedback, I'd appreciate it.

I know it's long but this piece is a combination of many many other things (with many hyperlinks) but the Second Unmaking is the most important part of my setting's backstory. A lot of things people deal with in my settings "present" are in some ways left over fall out from the Second Unmaking.

I could lead up up to a massive Demon attack in the Third Age as Scarterra's version of the Avenger's End Game but I probably won't. The Void demons once tried to destroy the world, and now they probably cannot destroy the world but they can certainly devastate small pieces of the world.

I really like the narrative idea of a Bigger Bad or an evil so powerful that even evil fears it. Scarterra has no shortage of evil people, evil monsters, and evil deities, but the Void is different.

Most of my villains want something reasonable, food, status, love, security, wealth, etc but they are using unreasonable means to obtain it. The Void wants to destroy everything including and perhaps especially itself.

Void demons have no sense or mercy or decency. They cannot be bribed, negotiated with, or bullied. They simply want to obliterate souls. A force of nature, or more accurately a force of un-nature.

Anyway this is the setting, but I'm not sure how to implement this in stories and RPGs. When I ran White Wolf games, I much have done something right because people kept coming back to play my games, but I feel like I never did great with my nihilistic über-villains, my best stories tended to involve ordinary villains.

Right now, for RPGs or story writing I want minions of the Void to be rare encounters but I want readers and players to be on the edge of their seat when the Void makes an appearance. "Now things are really serious."


And no, I'm not planning to give the First Unmaking this deep of a dive. It's actually story wise far less important and the lasting fallout from the First Unmaking is far less sinister, often taking the form of exotic landmarks like volcanos and floating islands,

 

True enough. I guess those who read this thread more than a casual browse are not the masses, but are some combination beta reader/trusted advisor/true fans.

Your words are wise. I will implement this piecemeal. I guess I can start by putting a lot of the details and speculation about Vaxidor in Vaxidor's article, since she does have her own rather short article.

Before I perform literary surgery on my article on the Second Unmaking, I plan to circle back around to warlock pacts. Specifically Void warlock pacts.

I already have a rough idea of what form their powers would take.

The four broad categories of Void warlock powers are telepathy, telekinesis, body alteration, and life aura manipulation because these are the powers that Void Demons have.

But there would be a lot of variation beyond the obvious. For instance, telekinesis could be used on an already moving object to make an flying arrow or thrown knife move faster and therefore hit harder.

A telepath that reads specifics portion of an opponents mind might be very good at dodging attacks. Also, a Void warlock would have psychic invisibility which is different from physical invisibility. Physical invisibility (which is a common thing mages do in my world) means that your eyes cannot see the person but you might know they are there. Psychic invisibility is that your mind does not acknowledge the person is there.

Psychic invisibility is probably more powerful because it harder to counter. You cannot throw sawdust on the floor and look for footprints if your mind cannot even conceive there is an invisible person in the room, but psychic invisibility is less effective against groups because the psychic has to invade everyone's mind at once. Whereas, a physically invisible person moving through a group is less likely to attract attention if they make a noise or bump into someone.

While brainstorming powers is fun, the real question is what kind of people become Void warlocks since normal people, even amoral or shortsighted normal people who might otherwise jump at a different warlock pact, would probably be hesitant to side with people trying to literally destroy the universe.

My general thought is that over time, Void Demons get sneakier and more selective about offering pacts.

I will eventually need to cover how Infernalism evolved from the Second Unmaking into the Little Unmaking into the Red Era into the Feudal Era. The latter era is more important because that's where my WIP novel and current RPG campaign is set, but I might expand into Red Era stories because Scolenex's sale's pitch for Rygor the Barbarian was tempting.

I keep thinking of an African proverb "A child who is not embraced by the village will burn it down to feel its warmth."

Maybe I'm off base here, but I'm thinking that this would be the most common origin for most modern Infernal warlocks in Scarterra.

I like this better than being evil just for the lulz, but maybe a few Infernal warlocks fall into that camp. There probably should be different broad origin stories. During the Second Unmaking, nearly all Infernalists were mortals who were cornered and said "Spare me, I'll do whatever you want!" and the Void Demons reluctantly said "okay, I guess I won't eat you today."

But these spineless cowards are probably not as effective agents as Infernalists with other backstories.

 

I have removed three paragraphs thus far. And I have relocated to this new article.


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Legendary Divine Talismans

The Legendary Divine Talismans are a broad class of magical items referring to unique items crafted by one of the Nine themselves.

These items are bestowed on worthy heroes and heroines after the would-be item wielder accomplishes a series of trials or quests on behalf of a god or goddess.

A disproportionately high number of wielders of Legendary Divine Talismans are theurgists or clergy but this is not required. Theoretically any mortal that wins the favor of one of the Nine may receive one regardless of his or background.

Note that Mera's idea of what constitutes a "worthy hero" is very different from Maylar's idea of what constitutes a "worthy hero." But the basic idea is the same. Legendary Divine Talismans are bestowed to reward their best followers and to arm them with weapons and tools to accomplish further great deeds in the name of their god or goddess.

When the hero or heroine dies (or less commonly retires), the Legendary Divine Talisman disappears, presumably to reappear in the Aetherial Realm. There it will wait until the god or goddess find a new mortal worthy of such a great power.

Each of the Nine has a small cache of legendary magical items that they give only to the worthiest heroes (though keep in mind that Maylar's idea of a "worthy hero" is very different from Mera's idea of a "worthy hero").

History

Significance

(sidebar)

Item type
Magical
Rarity
It is generally believed that each of the Nine has a couple dozen Legendary Divine Talismans to bestow on mortals they find worthy.

Normally, most of the items are held in reserve as it were and only a small portion of them are physically present in the material plane at any given time.

Some of these items are relatively well-known with the item being bestowed on a new mortal almost immediately upon one wielder's death while others only pop up once in a millennium, if even that often.

 

Here is an example of a Legendary Divine Talisman.


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Horns of the Lost Titans

The Horns of the Lost Titans are the best known Legendary Magical Talismans created by the god Korus. Korus bestows these Horns on exemplars of his ideals who he can trust to not to abuse the power given them.

There are several Horns of the Lost Titans, but each Horn is unique and tied to a specific animal. Known examples include but by no means are limited to the Horn of the Mastodon, the Horn of the Triceratops, and the Horn of the Sabretooth.

When blown, each horn conjures a living member of an extinct animal race. The beast will unquestionably obey the horn blower and the beast and summoner have an empathic link. The beast will act as a mount, sentry, guard, or beast of burden for the summoner, whatever he or she needs.

Typically the beast will remain in the material plane for several hours or until incapacitated or slain though the summoner can dismiss the beast at any time.

Smaller beasts tend to last longer than larger beast. The Horn of the Sabretooth typically summons a Sabretooth tiger for between four and twelve hours while the Horn of the Tyrannosaurus rarely lasts longer than an hour. The Horn blower can extend the duration of the summoning by fueling the horn with his or her own power of will.

The mightier the beast, the less often a horn can be used. The Horn of the Sabertooth can be used daily while the Horn of the Tyrannosaurus can be used weekly at best. If the beast in question was injured when the last summoning ended, it takes double or triple the usual "recharge time" usual before the Horn can be used again. If the beast was slain, it takes at least ten times the time before it can be used again.

Korus only bestows these Horns on mortals who earned his favor. If one of these Horns is stolen, the unrighteous horn blower will end up summoning beasts which will not obey his commands and attack him immediately.

Horns Of The Beast Kings
The Horns of the Lost Titans are crafted by Korus himself. Korus' Stewards have themselves crafted lesser copies known as the "Horns of the Beast Kings."

The Horns of the Beast Kings operate in mostly the same fashion except that they conjure contemporary animals instead of extinct animals. A Horn of the Lion will summon a lion, a Horn of the Elephant will summon an elephant, etc. Unlike the Horns of the Lost Titans, the Horns of the Beast Kings are replicable.

There are at least three or four copies of the "Horn of the Lion" circulating around Scarterra and there are half a hundred copies of the "Horn of the Horse" in circulation.

A few of these lesser horns are enchanted so as to only work for loyal followers of Korus, but most do not have such theft protection built in. They can be used utilized by anyone who picks them up.

Significance
Beyond the power these horns wield in and of themselves, simply possessing a Horn of the Lost Titans is a great badge of honor and status among the Stewards or any Korus-friendly community.

(sidebar)
Item type
Magical
Subtype / Model
Legendary Divine Talismans
Rarity
It is believed there are dozens of Horns of the Lost Titans, but each one is unique and there is only one Horn for any class of animal so there is only one of Horn of the Mastodon and only one Horn of the Triceratops.

 

Here's another one.


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Cloak of the Mighty Winds

"Nami's core followers are nicknamed Rovers on the Wind in a symbolic sense because most of us are well-traveled and Nami is the goddess of the winds (among other things).Once per generation or so, with Nami's blessing, one lucky person gets to be a Rover on the Wind literally because they receive the Cloak of the Mighty Winds.

The Cloak of the Mighty Winds is the most famous Legendary Divine Talisman crafted by Lady Nami.

The Cloak of the Mighty Winds allows it's wearer to fly. So if you have been around Scarterra as long as I have, you'll have seen that there is a lot of magic that enables flight but usually only for a few minutes at a time. The Cloaks of the Mighty Winds allows the wearer to fly continuously and as the name implies, the wearer can fly like the winds which means the wearer can outfly a dragon.

I cannot verify this, but it is said that it insulates the flyer in a cocoon of comfortable air, so unlike other means of flight, the flyer doesn't freeze or get bugs in their teeth.

When infused with the will power of the wearer, the Cloak of the Mighty Winds allows the wearer to fly a small group of people for a few hours.

If the wearer is a theurgist, it will augment his or her magic slightly. If the wearer does not wield divine magic, it will bestow the wearer with perfect weather sense.The bearer of the Cloak of the Mighty Winds will become famous because said person can easily fly over a hundred miles a day. That means whoever has the cloak can easily preach Nami's values in every corner of Scarterra. More often than not, the man or woman wearing the cloak is a gifted storyteller, so it's usually a cause for celebration to see the wearer of the Cloak drifting in.

Many Rovers have made lesser copies, typically called 'cloak of the winds', without the word 'mighty' and no capital letters. Typically these lesser cloaks only bestow flight for a few minutes a day (enough for a quick escape or to traverse one obstacle). Other lesser cloaks have charges like a wand does, so it can be used, 10, 20, or 50 times before it becomes nothing more than a pretty cloak.
-Norabruck Grumblespine dwarven Nami Circuit Priests

History
"The Cloak of the Mighty Winds has been in circulation since at least in the Second Age. For most of ancient and recent history, the Cloak of the Mighty Winds is bestowed on a man or woman of great charisma and the bearer of the Cloak, apart from preaching Nami's word also helps facilitate communication between distant Rover groups. At any given point the wearer of the Cloak is probably holding at least a a dozen letters.

The Cloak of the Mighty Winds provides no armor. I don't know it has been worn by dozens of people for hundreds of years and still intact. Witnesses usually describe the Cloak appearing in good condition but not appearing newly woven. The Cloak might be able to mend itself, or Nami spirits could periodically mend it.

Usually the wearer of the Cloak of Mighty Winds is expected to be apolitical, but during times of woe they might carry messages with a political or military bent.

During the Second Unmaking, the wearer(s) of the Cloak of the Mighty Winds could outfly a pack of Void demons, so they made great messengers."

-Norabruck Grumblespine dwarven Nami Circuit Priests

 

It's possible that the party may get the greater items too. I'm not opposed to a player character getting a Legendary Divine Talisman. Said character is not going to start with one, but they could earn it during play by doing great deeds.

It's not like playing an RPG in the Star Wars universe where you have to avoid stepping on the toes of Luke Skywalker and the other main characters, in Scarterra the PCs can be the main characters.

I guess for the campaign I'm running two of the PCs are mostly non-religious and two are devout Khemra worshipers. So perhaps I should think of Legendary Divine Talismans created by Khemra. I have the idea for a magic shield that blazes like the sun intimidating enemies and inspiring allies, but both my two Khemra PCs prefer to fight without shields.

Shrugs

Soon I'm going to upgrade my computers. If I can figure out how to do video conferencing in a couple months I'm going to try to see if I can run a virtual space Scarterra campaign.

Scheduling disparate people to meet once or twice a month semiregularly is very difficulty, even in virtual space but I want to give it a try.

And anyone who reads this thread and either owns 10+ ten sided dice or is willing to buy 10+ ten sided dice could join in, assuming we can get the schedule to work.



I'm thinking the second campaign would either take place in the Border Baronies or Penarchia during the Feudal Era. Both settings have a lot of small petty kingdoms feuding with each other so there is plenty of hooks for heroic-ish characters to get involved in things. Penarchia isn't well defined yet, but in this case I don't think would be a feature, not a bug.

Other than that the main difference is that a Penarchian campaign would have a lot of interludes on a sailing ship and a Borderlands campaign would have a lot of interludes of overland travel similar to a Peter Jackson movie.

Or if people wanted to go more sword and sorcery, we can set the calendar back 2000+ for Scarterra Red Era where the entire world was feuding petty kingdoms.

Anyway, if anyone is interested let me know via private message. Keep in mind I tend to move slowly at implementing new things like this, but I know if two or three people came up with interesting character concepts that would get my creative wheels turning and help me come up with stuff.

 

I turned my goldfish attention span from the gratuitous world building to potentially useful RPG campaign planning to the short story contest and now back to illustrations (and I'm thoroughly ignoring my spring cleaning tasks).

It really doesn't matter if I am breaking any rules if my Scarterra wiki remains unmonetized but I'd like to make it monetized some day, I need to make sure every piece is art is either made by me, posted with the artist's permission, or public domain.

I got some money to burn, so I'm looking on Deviant Art to see if I can hire an artist. It's harder than I thought. A lot of the artists say they aren't taking commissions or their prices are much higher than I'm willing to spend, or they only draw very specific things. It's very common for fantasy artists to focus on sexy women. Scarterra has some sexy women in it, but I also want pictures of ordinary women and various men.

I am currently negotiating with the artist who drew all these pictures.

As for an iota of progress on my novel. I have fleshed out Nilen's adventuring companions. They have names, backstories, strengths, and weaknesses.

I'm going with the five man band trope. And Nilen the cobbler is going to be the heart, sometimes called the chick, but men can be the heart of the group too, especially if they are gnomes.

For a very long time, I was and am hit by Writer’s Block on rounding out Nilen’s adventuring companions.

Contrasting The Hobbit with the Lord of the Rings. In The Hobbit, Bilbo’s adventuring companions were barely competent. This enabled Bilbo to save the party more than once. In Lord of the Rings, the non-Hobbit members of the Fellowship were extreme bad asses, in a lot of ways, the Hobbits were deadweight at least until they thought outside the box with Frodo and Sam allying with Smeagol and Merry and Pippen allying with the ents.

Besides Lord of the Rings, I’m partially turning to The Three Musketeers for inspiration. The titular three musketeers Athos, Porthos, and Aramis all have roughly the same profession and the same basic skill set but they have very different personalities and motivations.


So I’m thinking a five man adventuring team. Two pairs of humans plus a gnome. Both pairs of humans work for separate Border Barons. The two pairs don’t get along particularly well so one of the things Nilen does to help is to smooth out friction.

One pair of humans is going to have a criminal background (working names Barossa and Frasco), leaning towards Chaotic Good. The other pair is going to have poor but proud respectable backgrounds (working names Havro and Ziven), leaning towards Lawful Good. Havro and Frasco both think they should be in charge and butt heads a lot while Nilen smooth things over, until eventually they both grudgingly make Nilen the party leader.


I’m thinking Frasco and Barossa are best friends from troubled families who more or less grew up on the streets. They are probably either going to be from Monteballo where just about everyone is a criminal or they are part of the black market of Tollmore where legal fees force honest people to be criminals. Or somewhere else. Either way they got on the wrong side of their local Baron. They were told, “You can go on a quest for me and get a pardon for crimes and some money, or you can refuse and be punished for your crimes.”

So I’m thinking Barossa is a short but muscular guy. Barossa is a Spanish name meaning “muddy.” It might be a little clichéd but we’ll give him Short Guy Syndrome. He is insecure about his height and this led him to work out a lot to build up muscle and to hone his combat skills. I am going to make his weakness a short temper. He really hates being called a “shaved dwarf” but he does have the body type of a dwarf. In the terms of a five man band, he is the "Big Guy" or the "Strong Guy."

Frasco is a more cerebral man who has spent most of his childhood and young adult life restraining Barossa from doing stupid things. Frasco is a Spanish name meaning “free.” His weakness is going to be fierce independence and a stubborn need to be right. Frasco is no weakling but he is not stronger than Barossa, but he is more streetwise and clever, so he is the alpha of the pair. In terms of the Five Man Band Frasco is 50% Lancer/50% Leader.


I’m thinking Havro and Ziven are going to be retainers of the more honorable Border Barons, perhaps Red Streams or Freistadt or somewhere else. While they are being offered a reward, they are on this quest more for civic duty than anything else. I’m thinking Havro and Ziven are going to be brothers who are big into filial piety.


Havro is going to be the responsible and protective older brother. Havro is a Polish name meaning “God is my strength”. A Nine-fearing man of great honor. His weakness, cliché as it may be is that he is a little too hidebound. In terms of the Five Man Band Frasco is 50% Lancer/50% Leader.

Ziven is going to be the weird little brother. Ziven is a Polish name meaning “vigorous and alive” which is somewhat ironic as Ziven is more comfortable talking to dead people than living people. He’s going to be a socially awkward spirit loa. His weakness is going to be general shyness and a lack of confidence. In terms of the Five Man Band, Frasco he is the smart guy because once in a while he can use his Loa status to gain information and skills.

All four companions are going to be humans in their early to mid-twenties.

Now I need to add some details to my villain(s). What are the villains' strengths and weaknesses? Since the heroes are not exactly juggernauts of strength and brilliance, the villains cannot be too powerful, but I don't want them to be comically stupid either.

Originally I was planning to have one obvious villain that is constantly chasing the Addestone Key, then have a semi-secret twist villain pop up at the end after the obvious villain is killed. Now I'm questioning this.

Secret twist villains are kind of overplayed out in the 21st century. So now I'm thinking the secondary villain is not really a secret twist, but something the readers and the characters are at least suspicious of, if not completely aware of.

Either way the obvious villain is going to probably be a mad necromancer and the less obvious villain is probably going to be a scheming Border Baron.

This I must ponder during my many quiet moments throughout the days.

Once I get my villains sorted out, actual writing should become a lot easier as the story is going to essentially be cat and mouse chases with the weirdness of the Border Baronies region creating ever changing scenery and third party players.

At the moment my villains are not much more complex than "The villains believe the Adderstone Key will let them bind a powerful monster into their service to eat people they don't like."