My Fantasy RPG World, Feedback and Ideas appreciated

Lets see if I can entice @Warden back here with some heraldry.

I have thus far not used online heraldry creation because they are not exactly what I want, but perfection is the enemy of the good. For instance the program I have focuses on a left image and a right image. I suppose in a perfect world I want Fumaya's icon to be a white eagle carrying a bundle of rye, but a bundle of wheat on the left and a white eagle on the right is satisfactory.

I loosely picked colors based on this heraldry guide, but I also go by my own flawed subjective sense of aesthetics.

Fumaya's National Heraldry

I have been running Fumaya as my primary setting for a long time, but no heraldry. Fumaya is loosely based on Poland and Poland's coat of arms has a crowned eagle on it.

Fumaya is also a pro-Hallisan worshiping nation. Less so now than when they are founded but eagles are very much viewed as a Hallisan symbol. Eagle. I like the idea of a white eagle for a softer look than some darker real world eagles like the Ancient Roman eagle. I pondered blue and white or green and white, and realized I could do blue, white, and green.



Zimoz's Ducal Heraldry

House Zimoz was famed by the legendary warrior Zimoz the Archer. The Duchy is not exactly blessed with lots of resources but they do control a grove of Silverwood trees which provides them wealth and status. And Silverwood trees are associated with the Nine and especially Korus and Zimoz the Archer was pretty pious with Korus worship. Also, Zimoz's famous magic bow was crafted out of Silverwood.

I didn't want this have the blue/green/white color scheme of Fumaya as a whole but I wanted it to be similar, so I went with blue, yellow, and white.

It's not exactly how I picture a Silverwood looks like, but close enough for now.



House Linijka is the king's family house.

I figure it would be green and blue like the national colors. I figured I wanted to make their symbol a griffin cause it sort of has royal connotations. The crown is fairly obvious.

This is the crest for the Linijka family (which includes a lot more than just the king).


Only the royal family themselves get this variation


This variation is the County of North Lake. Years ago, the king of Fumaya gave a portion of his personal demense to his younger brother in recognition for his valorous deeds, and that line of Linijkas have held the land every since. The County of North Lake is essentially a cluster of fishing villages with a little bit of attached farmland, ergo, a fish.




The House of Wiern are sort of frienemies of the PC Kormatin. House Wiern was founded by an invoker and the duchy of Wiern is a veritable bread basket of fertile land. The top symbol is the closet thing I could find to something that screams invoker.






I figure Swynfaredian heraldry is complicated, but I found an acceptable substitute because mediocre heraldry is better than no heraldry.


In a perfect world I would have the money and clout I could pay artists to make detailed crests for all the Swynfaredian houses, but I'm not made of money.

I actually did commission an artist from Deviant art to draw some examples of what typical Scarterrans look like. My artist is working on them now, I answered a gazillion questions about pose, clothes, hair, etc, but she has a full time job and commission is her side gig. I could see the pictures tomorrow, or I could see them in October.

I cannot afford to have professionals or semiprofessionals illustrate everything I want...yet...

I'll use this as my place holder for Swynfaredia's general flag until I find or make something better.



Use your imagination, the in world banner doesn't have four identical dragons, but it has representations of Fremis the Vibrant (red, lionesque, with prominent horns), Numaness the Mystic (sparkly and purple with a crownlike frill), Kovenoth the Builder (grey and broad faced), and Goirsonad the Wise (multicolored snake-like with chin frill like a sage's beard)

I could use this template for the House banners.



You got the national coat of arms on top, and the house colors below. House Numaness the ruling house would use the same yellow and purple colors and their founding dragon was mostly purple.

House Fremiss' standard might look like this.



Of course house Fremiss split into three houses, so they would have three similar crests. Maybe they change the green background, maybe Fremiss the Vibrant is in different poses.

Anyway, that's enough heraldry making for one day. I still have three major Fumayan houses to do and a bunch more Swynfaredian houses.

 

This website.

 

The northern most province of Fumaya is the County of Polnoc. The first Count of Polnoc was a brave and mighty warriors well known for his size and strength nicknamed Polnoc the Bear. So when he got offer a noble's land's and titles, he took this mighty sigil.



Unfortunately, generations later, the Polnoc family has lost their bad-assery. The current Count is nicknamed "Polnoc the Cub" even though he is an old man.

But anyway, lets move from West Colassia to East Colassia.

East Colassia is loosely based on Africa. Therefore I figure most of the nations of the Colassian Confederacy should have heraldry based on iconic African animals.

Magicland is ruled by an elite class of wizards and academics. I figure blue and yellow heraldry colors vaguely back up scholarly wisdom. So do black and white, but I like the aesthetics of the configuration below better than I liked the black elephant/white book. I'm not sure I like the castle on the elephants back but it's the only elephant Worldspinner has.



I guess there is a primitive elephant, but I don't think it's as good of a fit.



The polar opposites of the proud erudite Magicland in the Colassian Confederacy are the Marshlanders. They are uneducated simple folk and they are proud of it. I wanted to give them a crocodile, ideally a crocodile in water. I didn't like any of the crocodile pics Worldspinner had so I sketched one myself with Microsoft Paint. It's quick and crude, but I figure "quick and crude" is a pretty good descriptor for the Marshlanders.



The Marshlanders prefer to make sneak attacks, so probably only trot out their heraldry at formal meetings with rest of the Confederacy though they like to scrawl crude crocodiles or lead wooden crocodiles at the sites where they slay their enemies.

Meraland is ruled by an unusually militant faction of hardcore Mera worshipers. Regardless of what heraldry conventions say, blue is the primary color of Mera.

I figured I'd go with a water bird. The African blue crane is not always blue.





I like the idea of blue cranes being a symbol of Mera, at least in East Colassia.

Probably going to use this one


Or this one.




I like them both equally.

Anyway, lets talk about an iconic African animal that is not commonly thought of as a mighty heraldic symbol.



That's a very optimistic view of giraffes. There are some negative aspects of them. They are not especially mighty or frightening.

The Confederate nation of Midlandia is often viewed as hardworking, honest people but a little weak. It also helps that the open woodlands and grasslands where giraffes thrive is a pretty good descriptor for what the terrain looks like.

Whether or not giraffes symbolize the Midlanders themselves, giraffes are a wild animal ubiquitous in their lives. And I think the traditional associations with green and yellow are a good fit with Midlanders.



That's probably enough heraldry musing for one day.

 

I created this with a vague notion that "purple is associated with royalty" but I forgot about how expensive purple dye used to be.

I am torn. On one hand, I like the color purple and would rather not limit myself when figuring out color schemes. On the other hand, I really like coming up with fantasy economics. I am not the sort of Game Master that says, "Okay you find 20,000 gold pieces." Chances are the PCs are going to find 5,000 gold pieces plus 15,000 gold pieces worth of assorted trade goods, which could include purple dyes.

Spoiler: Tangent on Emerande the Vampire's treasure

The side bar of my article on Emerande the vampire includes the loot Kormatin found in lair. Finding buyers for the various trade goods was a mini-story in itself and I actually made some of the artwork a major plot driver. One of the pieces of art was a lost heirloom of the Red Shaft Clan of dwarves. Kormatin gave the heirloom to King Henryk and King Henryk gave it to the patriarch of the Red Shaft clan free of charge as a matter of honor. Now the Red Shaft Clan is honor bound to help Fumaya in their time of woe.

For Fumaya, only the royal family has purple in their colors (but Fumaya has a lot of blue which I don't think was exactly cheap or we wouldn't have "royal blue" being a thing.

Of the four ruling houses of Swynfaredia, the house that has usually held the crown was House Numaness which was founded by Numaness the Mystic, a dragon who was purple.

I could very easily make purple dye more plentiful in Scarterra than historical Earth. I can make up a new plant or something. Or I could say that alchemists can change things to purple. Alchemists dyes would be moderately more expensive than non-alchemists dyes but it wouldn't be outrageously expensive.

Or a thought I had was purple dye made from sea shells like historical Earth made purple dye expensive and rare but only recently alchemists discovered how to make cheaper purple dye. So now purple dye is more accessible but it is still traditionally associated with the rich and powerful.

Or as a friend pointed out. Purple paint is more common and less expensive than purple dye.

It is also an interesting thought that Swynfaredia has a localized source of purple dye. Again, I didn't go much farther than "a purple dragon's house colors would include purple".

I will ponder these things.

That's a work in progress.

Swynfaredia is just shy of 900 years old. They are one of the oldest nations on Scarterra. They probably changed their heraldry standards more than once. They probably solidified their current system, described here after their Second Civil War.

Fumaya is about 350 years old, they had less time to cement specific heraldry rules.

Outside of Fumaya and Swynfaredia, lets look at the world as a whole.

My current setting year is 1837 of the Feudal Era, soon to be 1838 at the way my RPG campaign is going. Year 1 was the year Vladimir the Conqueror died. Vladimir tried and failed to take over the world, but he did end up spreading his brand of feudalism. He might have been the grandfather of modern heraldry, he might not. It's possible the current standard motiffs in heraldry have nothing to do with Vladimir. I have yet to decide.

At some point I need to figure out what the coat of arms of Vladimir's short-lived empire looked like. He also had a lot of vampire and human vassals who would have also had distinct heraldry of their own. Vladimir may have been a power hungry monster but he was very image conscious and he sincerely believed he creating a better world. He didn't want to look like a power hungry monster.

His heraldry certainly would not have not have been a scary fanged black bat on a red field or a blood red skull or anything that connotates terrifying undead. He probably had a vassal or three that did have terrifying dark heraldry to play the role of "bad cop" to Vladimir's "good cop" persona.

Vladimir's sales pitch was "Join me and share in my prosperity or oppose me and die horribly."

Before Vladimir pushed feudalism on roughly 3/4 of the world (he never made it to Penarchia and his excursion into East Colassia was short lived), Third Age Scarterra was mostly divided into hundreds of little nations led by petty warlords. Penarchia is still dominated by quarrelling warlords. East Colassia is some kind of hybrid between quarreling warlords and feudalism.

Before year 1 of the Feudal Era, Scarterra's Third Age is what I would call "The Red Era." The Red Era can further be subdivided into the Era of the Little Unmaking when feuding warlords had to frequently deal with Void monsters knocking over their proverbial sand castles, the Era of the Fakhari when independent warlords had to frequently deal with the Fakhari knocking over their proverbial sand castles, the Era of Warlords when independent warlords only had to deal with other warlords knocking over their proverbial sand castles, and the Era of Vampires when the independent warlords had to deal with Vladimir the Conqueror attempt to kick over everyone's sand castle.

Hypothetically if I wanted to tell Sword and Sorcerery stories, my Conan-esque heroes would probably fight warlords, Void Demons, Fakhari and vampires. Why stick to just one type of bad guy?

I suppose feudal governments would require or at least benefit from some standard heraldry traditions. "I'm distinct and proud of my family and land but I still serve a lord." Heraldry needs to show your personal faction and your national faction in some recognizable way. Independent warlords don't need to worry about following a recognizable heraldry formula.

I guess warlords can have ANY heraldry or standard they want because who is going to tell them no? I imagine their heraldry was fairly varied because most warlords would prefer not to have their standards look like the neighboring warlord. Though who knows, "The blue chimera is my standard! I claimed it first!" is a petty but perfectly believable reason for why two warlords might fight.


I don't know what heraldry was like in the Second Age when elves ruled the world. I decided a while ago to make all the national symbols of Third Age elf nations raptor birds.


Wood Elves of Codenya


The grey elves of the Elven Empire.

I have yet to make a banner for the dark elves of Kahdistera. At the moment, in my RPG campaign and my WIP novel, the dark elves are too far away to matter.

Still I am pondering some short stories set in East Colassia, so it might behoove me to figure out what the national symbol of the dark elves is. I'm leaning towards a raven but I haven't found a good raven on any of the free-to-use heraldry creator programs. The dark elves view the goddess of Greymoria as their primary patron and ravens are sacred to Greymoria because ravens are both associated with magic and darkness.

The Sea Elves probably will NOT have a bird on their banner. They are the redheaded step children of the elf community, but again they are very far away from the main settings of my stories and while there are somewhere between one and two million each of gray elves, dark elves, and wood elves. The sea elves number between 10,000 and 100,000 souls.

The grey elves are roughly 40% of their own nation with about 5% gnomes and 50% humans and half-elves and 5% other.

The dark elves are also about 40% of their own nation, with about 5% allied humanoids and Greymoria friendly monsters and 55% slaves of various races.

The wood elves are the only elf nation that is a majority of elves but only barely. They have a lot of druss elves, satyrs, kalazotz, forest gnomes, plus a few TBD races.

And as of now, the sea elves are going to be allied with various Scaraquans, but their nation itself is still going to be 99% elves.

The sea elves national colors are either going to be a facsimile of their closest Scaraquan allies (as soon as I flesh out who they are) or a dolphin or whale. Because dolphins and whales love the sea but they still breath air.

But anyway, the grey elves, dark elves, wood elves, and sea elves are elves living in a humans' world. Their current heraldry probably has relatively little to do with the heraldry of their ancient ancestors even if they claim otherwise.

What about the First and Second Age when humans didn't even exist?

I had a lot of fun pondering First Age heraldry. While modern dragons are usually naked, First Age dragons often wore armor or jewelry but they didn't wear clothing in the sense that we lowly humans understand.

They didn't have a lot of reason to wave flags and banners. Whatever dragons use to display their national pride and allegience shouldn't be highly flammable. Some dragons might have carried shields but not many.

Perhaps the ancient dragons used simple illusion magic to project their heraldic imagery. If most of their heraldry was displayed via magic spells, thousands of years later, most of their heraldic symbols are probably lost forever.

The way I see heraldic symbols have three purposes, not necessarily in this order. 1) allow warring sides to know who their friends and foes are 2) mark your faction's territory and 3) glorify and honor your faction.

Most real world heraldry involves some kind of mighty animal, either a real one or a mythic beast. Dragons believe they are the apex of all creation. That means they probably aren't going to want to take a bear, lion, griffin, shark, manticore or any other beast or monster as a symbol because dragons are better.

I believe most draconic heraldic would fall under two broad category. One is a portrait of the king or queen dragon that a dragon swears fealty to. Dragons have such keen eye sight that two sides with very similar looking portraits could always know who is on which side even if both sides are serving a dragon monarch that is green and has a snake-like body. One has orange eyes and straight horns and the other has yellow eyes and straight horns. duh!

This might be a little confusing for their thurekel. Giants and other races that serve dragons but don't have their intellect or eagle-like vision. But the dragons probably give them very crude colors. I'm thinking of high school gym class. Our uniforms were reversible red on one side and white on the inverse. If we needed to arbitrarily set up two teams, we played reds versus whites. I don't see the ancient dragons as caring much how fancy their non-draconic minions look like.

Another thought is that dragons could simply write the name of their king or queen (in giant letters and beautiful calligraphy). Or more simply, dragon heraldry could be the initials of your ruler or faction. This probably gradually became more popular than portraits especially as dynasties became a thing. You serve the dynasty, not the individual dragon. Also draconic glyphs are easier for non-dragons to understand, even if they are illiterate to the Draconic language, Draconic letters are distinct enough that they serve as recognizable symbols if nothing else.

The First Unmaking of course made all the dragon factions and heraldry obsolete but some might have clung to the old symbols out of nostalgia. Thousands of years dragons may cling to ancient symbols they forgot the meaning of because a lot of modern dragons are illiterate or at least illiterate of the ancient Draconic system of writing.

Maybe in the Second Age, ancient elves used portraits or glyphs of letters in their heraldry. Maybe not.

I see elves as being close enough to humans that they would independently come to the conclusion that using mighty beasts and monsters as the core one's heraldry is a good idea.

In the Second Age, elves and dragons were far more likely to view each other as dire enemies than humans and dragons in the Third Age, so the ancient elves probably did not use dragons on their heraldry very often.

The ancient elves generally valued literacy more than modern and especially ancient humans. I can see a lot of mighty heraldic beasts and standard symbols being framed by runes and writing in the Second Age.

During the Second Unmaking, most of the Second Age heraldry was lost. Most of the old nations and tribes were destroyed and dispersed and when you are traveling in a band of half-starving refugees, heraldry makes you more obvious which is generally the opposite of what you want to do.

A few remnants of the Second heraldry might have been preserved. The grey elves of the modern Elven Empire claim descent from the ancient kingdom of Lunatus. There might be some similarities between their current heraldry and the ancient heraldry of the Lunatans. The Lunatans were big on crescent moon imagery. Maybe their old national banner had a falcon flying over or through a crescent moon.

The dark elves of Kahdisteria claim to be descendants of the ancient nation of Disterria. There ight be some similarities between their current heraldry and the ancient Disterrians' heraldry. I have no idea what the Disterrian heraldry looked like. Since the Kahdisterrians remade themselves in Greymoria's image, their heraldry might have nothing at all to do with Disterria.

The wood elves do not speak of a mighty nation of their Second Age ancestors. The wood elves claim to essentially be elven mutts. Their ancestors were the scattered survivors of eleven or twelve separate defunct Second Age nations. The dark elves and grey elves are also elven mutts, but they don't admit it, and they are not completely blowing smoke. The dark elves are about 50% Disterrian blood, 50% miscellaneous and likewise if Scarterra had it's own version of Ancestry.com, about 50% of the grey elves heritage would be Lunatan and about 50% miscellaneous.

The sea elves are such a tiny and reclusive group, they might be ethnically "pure" with all their ancestors coming from a single location, for whatever that is worth.

Anyway, I have five dwarf nations now, one extinct.

Old Meckelorn no longer exists but three out of four of my dwarf subcultures are their direct descendants.

Old Meckelorn



New Meckelorn



Stahlheim



and Mondert



I used a pretty obvious motiff, hammer and anvil. New Meckelorn shows an anvil that was broken and remade. Stahlheim has gold colors to flaunt their wealth, and Mondert has an improvised anvil out of volcanic rock to show them adapting to their new home.

I only created one clan symbol so far, for the Red Shaft Clan.



The legend goes, back when they were simply "the Shoemaker Clan" their clan leader was fighting a challenge with an orc chieftain and the orc sundered the dwarf's axe. While the orc paused to gloat about disarming his foe, the dwarf stabbed the orc in the eye with the broken shaft of his axe.

I plan to make clan symbols. I noticed something. I didn't do this consciously, but human and elf heraldry I've used is mostly animals or plants, occasionally with weapons and tools, but I have never used an animal with dwarf heraldry. I'm going to make that the norm for Meckelorn, Stahlheim, and Mondert. Their heraldry usually features weapons and tools, not creatures. The few times their heraldry has a creature on it, the creature is going to be pictured with a weapon or tool.

I have yet to decide what heraldry the Penarchian dwarves use. It definitely won't be a hammer and anvil motif, but I haven't thought much beyond this because I have only barely begun developing the Penarchian dwarves as culture.

The Penarchian dwarves are not culturally connected to the other dwarf cultures in any recognizable way. Until recently the Penarchian dwarves weren't even aware of the other dwarves and visa versa. The Penarchian dwarves don't think of themselves as "Penarchian dwarves", for thousands of years they thought they were the last dwarves on Scarterra so they just call themselves "dwarves".

Penarchian dwarves are ass holes. Penarchia is divided into dozens of tiny independent human chiefdoms that are constantly skirmishing. The Penarchian dwarves live primarily underground (even more underground than the other dwarves) and they generally only surface to sell weapons and armor to human warlords, often selling arms to both sides in a war.

The Penarchian dwarves generally stay out of the humans way, but they will not hesitate to slay any human who enters their underground realms without permission. They probably have a trading posts towns with well marked entrances where humans are allowed to come and visit, as long as they have money or trade goods. Of course the Penarchian dwarves spend a lot of time skirmishing with other subterranean races.

The Penarchian dwarves are selfish and greedy but they have an honor code. They don't steal and they don't cheat their customers. They sell high quality goods at high prices. If you cannot afford their prices, you don't deserve their good.

There is an exception to this. If a Penarchian dwarf feels insulted by a human, they dwarf will probably not slay the human but he will sell weapons at a discount to that human's enemies.

Sometimes they will offer discounts to the underdog side of a war just to keep the war going, but unfortunately Penarchian humans have figured this out. There is a proverb.

"If dwarves are suddenly being very generous to you, it may be time to broker peace, the dwarves probably know something you don't."

 

I'm no longer going to post updates on EVERYTHING I've been doing for Scarterra.

Lately I've been running my RPG every week, at least for solo adventures for Kormatin. Kormatin's player has been hatching a long term plot to overthrow two Swynfaredian puppet states in the Borderlands. Phase one was to find a bunch of treasure, Phase two was to bribe and/or persuade Swynfaredian-hating Border Barons to loan him troops, Phase three was to recruit men and leaders from Fumaya, and right now we are in the middle of Phase 4, the actual campaign. There was also an unrelated interlude where he took down an ogre led crime ring.

On and off I'm working on developing Scarterran magical traditions, heraldry, Fair Folk, and new non-humanoid creatures.

I have recently on to a Youtube channel with great information on Robert E. Howard and the fascinating fantasy universe he created over his tragically short writing career.

Robert E. Howard lived an interesting life and it is easy to see how a history and poetry loving fitness enthusiast amateur boxer who grew up around a wide variety of not always reputable people had the mental landscape to create the world of Conan the Barbarian, then called Conan the Cimmerian. Also he regularly corresponded with HP Lovecraft and they bounced ideas off of each other.

He wrote a lot of stories across a wide variety of historical eras (20,000 BC, 10,000 BC, 1600s, 1700s and his contemporary 1930s), but they all were in the same universe based on Howard's conception of Atlantis and the fallout from the fall of Atlantis.

My life experiences are more boring but I studied a fair bit about philosophy, theology, politics, accounting, and economics so it makes sense that I like to world build functioning economies and governments, and I develop detailed religious and mystic factions.

Unfortunately my local libraries don't have much of Howard's work so I have to turn to online shopping, probably Amazon (ick), if I want to read more of his work.

We'll see what kind of inspiration for Scarterra I can pull from Howard's world and the authors that built on his foundation. There is a lot of great stuff but Howard's world of Hyberborea is much darker than Scarterra because Howard has a different overall worldview than I do.

But anyway, it's got some good stuff. Howard actually published his fantasy world BEFORE Tolkien published Middle Earth. Not to disparage Tolkien. Tolkien is still the GOAT of modern fantasy but Robert E. Howard's contributions were very important and it represents new territory for me.

 

Anyway, Kormatin is about to help overthrow two Border Baronies controlled by the puppet state of Uwcharedia. Victory is almost assured (but holding the land they took is going to be much harder than taking it).

I haven't figured out the heraldry for Uwcharedia yet. Before that Barony was known as Uwcharedia it was named for it's tryant ruler but before that it was known as the Blue Peaks Barony because from a distance the nearby mountains look pretty and blue.

I could not find a good mountain icon with the program I'm using but did realize I could do this.



Anyway the new about to be installed Baron is from House Wiern which has this banner (as shown before).


So I'm going with this for the new Blue Peaks Barony



I've been waffling for a long time on what to do for the House Nerozik Heraldry. Before they were House Nerozik I joked that they were House Hufflepuff because they were not very important to the plot, at not initially.


Because I don't have any better ideas, I'm going to stick with the Hufflepuff badger. Liberal use of the color red because Nerozik has and had strong martial traditional and some blues because most Fumayan heraldry uses blue.



Anyway, the future new Baron of the Wooly Slopes province is from House Nerozik, and I'm going with a ram icon because Wooly Slopes has two things, lots of steep slopes and lots of sheep.

 

The Deorac family does not control much land but they used to be the ruling noble family of the defunct nation of Talama which was conquered by Swynfaredia. The survivors became a minor noble family in Fumaya.

Despite not having much political powers they are important in my RPG campaign because the Deoracs hate Swynfaredia and Swynfaredia is the main institutional villain of this campaign, so Kormatin gets a lot of support from the Deoracs.

Anyway I've long waffled on what their heraldry is. I didn't want to go with lions because I feared that was too cliche. Talama is loosely based on Russia culturally and Russia is big on bears but bears are already used for Polnoc, so I am semi-arbitrarily going with wolves and falcons.


Presumably in the old days, the animals were purple and wearing crowns.

The Duchy of Palbuc is Fumaya's Toe. Palbuc has a lot of forests and they have also have picked up a lot of wood elf influence. That's why I'm going with a raptor bird. The house founder was a favored soul of Hallisan, and battle axe was one of Hallisan's symbols, so that's why I'm going with a battle axe (though axes does go against the wood elf motiff, the wood elf cultural ties mostly came after the founder died). Green is sort of pro-elf nad pro-Fumaya and red is a martial color.





I guess I use red and green a lot, but there are only eight colors in the world of heraldry, so some repetition is inevitable.

And that just leaves one major Fumayan house (though I have the minor houses and other nations to cover of course), House Zimoz, the house that controls Fumaya's lower ankle.

At some point WAAAAAY back in this thread, someone suggested a red owl supposedly warning the house founder of danger. I'm going to run with that. I'm going with crossed swords because the house founder was an agile somewhat sneaky warrior.

 

Scarterra is moving forward on several fronts.

Spoiler: Art Update

My commissioned art is coming along, slower than I initially anticipated, but we are finally on the home stretch. Some of the delay is my fault because I was slow to answering some of the artist's inquiries for details. She also got Covid which knocked her out for two weeks. Here is her deviant art page.

But anyway, I got preliminary uncolored sketches. They are awesome, so I wrote her an electronic check and should get the final pictures in a couple weeks. I mentioned several times that Scarterra has elemental ethnicity with fiery, watery, earthy, or airy traits. Most Scarterra are mixed, but I asked I asked to do a full portrait of a young man and young woman archetypal for the four elemental ethnicities.

Preliminaries.

Spoiler: Water Folk

Spoiler: Fire folk

Spoiler: Earth Folk

Spoiler: Air Folk

Assuming her finished product is on par with the portraits on her Deviant Art page, I plan to commission her to make more Scarterran art.

Next in line, I'll see if I can get pictures for the Scalenex-original creatures such as camazotz, kalazotz and tengku. Though if she is not comfortable making non-humanoids, I will will shop around for other fantasy artists on Deviant Art.

Spoiler: Kormatin's RPG campaign transitions to a new chapter

I just closed a major story arc in the RPG campaign I'm running. Winter is coming. Winter in Scarterra that is a lot less scary than winter in Westeros, but travel is more difficult for friend and foe alike. In late autumn, Kormatin whacked a hornet's nest but they aren't going to be able to realistically retaliate for four in-game months.


While I'm trying to plot out the next story arc (which is going to involve large scale war), I'm working on my first detailed map for Fumaya, but it's slow going as I'm a victim of my own perfectionism here. Hopefully if I get over my learning curve with Wonderdraft, I can make future detailed maps at a faster rate.


Real world medieval warfare was more about a series of small skirmishes than it was about large scale battles and that's good because my RPG system is ideally suited for skirmish level fights and definitely struggles with large scale battles. But I do want to make sure most of the skirmishes we actually play out, out have real narrative stakes.


And Kormatin and his party are good fighters, but they are also trained in espionage and counter espionage, so I am going stick with mostly espionage plots.

Spoiler: Fine tuning my home brew system

Anyway I ran out of campaign material so the campaign is on pause. While the main campaign is on break, we are playtesting my RPG system with non-canon fights as his characters take on a variety of random monsters. Since it's non-canon, it doesn't matter if one or more of them are eaten by a dragon.


Last session Kormatin and company fought some various subtypes of trolls.


We are making little rules adjustments such as "larger trolls should regenerate wounds faster than smaller trolls because otherwise they are too easy." It also fits with the playstyle as giant trolls are usually solo acts, regular trolls tend to hunt in pairs and pygmy trolls hunt in packs.


Anyway, I added a 1, 2, 3 progression trolls. Pygmy trolls heal one wound level a turn, regular trolls two, and giant trolls three. It seems well balanced for satisfying combat challenges.


The combat dynamics are a lot different when 3-4 heroes are fighting one giant monster as opposed to 3-4 heroes fighting 2-3 villains and 3-5 mooks or 1 villain and 6-12 mooks which is what we've done 90% of my RPG fights have looked like thus far.


We are also going to try to playtest tweaks to the basic combat system to A) try to make combat faster and B) try to make positioning matter more though I admit Goal A and Goal B are somewhat contradictory.


But D&D10 is a work in progress and we are building the plane as we fly it.

Spoiler: Fighting writer's block

I figure I should cut my teeth on some short stories before I tackle writing a novel.


I have a loose outline for a couple short stories involving the East Colassia War. That was when the various nations and tribes of the Colassian Confederacy joined forces to stop the dark elves from indiscriminately kidnapping and enslaving them.


It occurs to me that since kalazotz articles are consistently among the most popular articles on my Scarterran wiki, I should try to come up with kalazotz centered short stories but that hasn't gotten past the brain storming phase so far.

Spoiler: More gratuitous world building

I tend to write at least one random article on some random Scarterra topic per week.


The last couple months I've been primarily focusing on editing my previous articles for grammar and spelling and accidental omissions and rewriting some sections to be narrated by Scarterran characters rather than a third person omniscient narrator.


Behold, the Index of Scarterran quotes!


I'm trying to focus on writing stuff more conducive to my ongoing RPG campaign a potential second RPG campaign, and some fiction writing.


But once in a while I get a random idea I want to expand on. When I get such a thought, most of the time I make a brief note on what the core idea is and added it to my Worldember because World Anvil has a big December binge writing contest.


I am tackling a bigger world building subproject. That is figuring how wizardry and arcane magic in general works in Scarterra so I'll probably post musing on that soon assuming someone is vaguely interested in it.

 

I like spiders. Snakes freak me out. I once read that most people are scared of snakes or spiders, not both. Maybe it was full of crap. They were talking about Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets and how it made intuitive sense that giant snakes and giant spiders would be enemies. But anyway I have been pondering Scarterran spiders a lot this Halloween season. And for the Halloween "Spooktober" World Anvil event I think I will flesh out Scarnoctis a bit more.

I appreciate that they keep the insect population under control. Unless they crawl on my bed, I generally don't squish them. I remember when I was a university student, there was an underground tunnel for students and stadium goers to walk between two parts of campus without crossing a very busy road. The tunnel had a mahrlect large number of spiders and I always found them and their webs fascinating, not that I'd want one as a pet.

If I encountered a giant spider or an Australian spider, I might be less tolerant.

There is a D&D monster called Aranea. They are a relatively low level dungeon monster. They are moderately strong, have minor spell casting ability and fairly potent poison. They are shapeshifters with the forms of a giant spider, humanoid (usually human, sometimes an elf), and a hybrid form like a spider centaur.

D&D sourcebooks never gave much background for Aranea. When third parties develop them further. This is the most detailed write up I could find.

I noticed when unofficial writers take a stab at expanding aranea, they usually explicitly or implicitly say that all or most aranea are female and their human forms happen to be really sexy women.



Long ago, I wrote an article on Scarterran Aranea here.

Note that in a D&D setting Aranea powers are not that impressive in the grand scheme of things, but in Scarterra where you don't have levels and epic monsters are rare, the Aranea are a very powerful race.

I toned down the sexiness, but I suppose Aranea that happen to be attractive are not above using seduction to lure prey to their doom.

I took the same power concept of D&D and expanded on the nuts and bolts of their society, habitat, reproduction, and whatnot. Since Greymoria is the goddess of darkness, magic, and monsters and Aranea happen to be magically capable monsters that favor dwelling in dark places, I rewrote their fluff to make them one of Greymoria's pet creations.

But I'm not sure if I want to leave Aranea in Scarterra as is, they are fairly different from D&D Aranea but I don't know if they are different enough from a legal or artistic integrity point of view and I'm not 100% I like them as a concept anyway.

But here is a new spider monster. Rather than an adaptation of some other fantasy writer, this is a Scalenex original that I'm also using as part of my World Anvil "Spooktober" submission


Go to Scarterra Homepage
dragon spiders

Dragon spiders were a race of sapient spiders created by the goddess Greymoria druing the First Age to hunt and kill dragons. One of many creatures she created to punish dragons who failed to worship her properly.

Dragon spiders have prodigious size and strength and poison strong enough to impair dragons. They also have innate talent for sorcery which grows as they age.

Their webbing is what is truly exceptional. They can weave two types of spiderweb with about magical properties. The first is like regular spider web only much bigger, and also fire proof, the better to keep stuck dragons from burning their way out. The webbing is cut and abrasion resistant but not enough to prevent a dragon from chewing or cutting its way free eventually.

Essentially if a dragon is caught in the webbing, it's a race to see what will happen first, the dragon chews its way out or the dragon spider poisons the dragon into unconsciousness.

The second type of webbing is very thin and sticky and easily breakable, but the dragon spider can weave illusions into the webbing to make it invisible or to take on the appearance of any false image the spider wishes to project. They use the illusory webbing to both hide and bait their entrapment webbing.
Additional Information
Uses, Products & Exploitation
In the Second Age there was an attempt to monetize a dragon spider's webbing as ultra strong near uncuttable fireproof rope.

Historical records are unclear on whether the spider or spiders involved were willing partners or captured slaves. Unfortunately, while their webbing is very durable and fireproof, it is not immune to ravages of time. None of the industrial spider silk rope created for elvenkind survived into the Third Age and none of the surviving dragon spiders seem willing to sell or barter their webbing for rope with lesser mortals now.
Civilization And Culture
Major Language Groups And Dialects
Dragon spiders mother tongue is Grauen, but almost all the current members of the species have learned a wide variety of languages. Despite their anatomy that can speak and pronounce almost any mortal language more or less correctly.
History
dragons spiders are one of many creatures she created to punish dragons who failed to worship her properly.

While dragon spiders' webbing is fireproof, the dragon spiders themselves are not. Despite their great strength, dragon spiders cannot fly and they will lose most one-on-one fights with all but the youngest dragons if they cannot constrict the dragons with webbing.

Initially, the dragon spiders were able to trap and kill several dragons but relatively quickly dragonkind as a whole grew wise to the methods of the dragon spiders and got better at avoiding their webs. Generally dragon spiders only caught those who were young, foolish, unlucky, and/or previously injured. The dragons turned the tables on their would-be hunters and organized spider hunting parties drove the dragon spiders figuratively and literally underground.

With dragons actively hunting them, the dragon spiders were scattered to the far corners of Scarterra and Scarnoctis. Isolated on the run, they were not able to develop much in the way of a society or civilization of their own.

Like many of Greymoria's cannon fodder races, the dragon spiders began questioning why they should indiscriminately attack dragons. They stopped actively hunting dragons but this didn't mend race relations between the dragons and spiders. The dragon spiders just focused on survival and generally only attack dragons that violated their territory or otherwise threatened them.

The dragon spiders were brought to the brink of extinction after the First Unmaking but their population rebound in the Second Age. A few of them went back to their roots trapping and eating mortals who forsook Greymoria, in this case eating elves, goblins, and the like.

They were generally more successful at fighting elves than dragons, but eventually the elves wised up to their methods and organized hunting parties managed to once again turn the hunters into the hunted though this fighting was not especially common as the Second elves generally avoided traveling to Scarnoctis with the end result of the dragon spiders being driven further underground.

The Second Unmaking once again brought the dragon spider race to the brink of extinction.

Exposed to the magical energies permeating Scarnoctis for millennia and driven half-mad by being at war with nearly every other mortal race, in the aftermath of the Second Unmaking, the surviving dragons spiders have devolved into creatures barely recognizable as the elegant hunters they once were.

In the current era of the Third Age, most of the dragon spiders are unique entities sitting at the center of literal and figurative webs underground directing minions in mad schemes. While their sanity is eroded, their magical power has increased allowing them to infuse their webbing with all sorts of enchantments.


So I'm not 100% whether I want dragon spiders as outlined above to be extinct or not or whether there are original recipe dragon spiders scuttling around somewhere.

But I do the like the idea of a small number of dragon spiders mutated by magical energies and possibly unholy magics to keep the grim reaper at bay each dwelling in a secluded secret lair somewhere.

I figure somewhere between 2 and 20 dragon spiders have mutated sufficiently that they are now true monsters. In my vernacular a "true monster" is a unique one of kind of creature rather than a member of species. Though a fair number of them might be progenitors of some sort able to spawn hordes of lesser spider creatures to act as their minion. Maybe one of these broods will by an astonishing coincidence be extremely similar to aranea.

In Western folklore, not counting Charlotte's Web, most spiders in fantasy and sci-fi are terrifying predators. Sometimes seductive black widow allegories, sometimes subtle stalkers, and other times unsubtle chasing monsters.

African folklore has a fascinating treasure trove of mythical spiders. Anansi the Trickster is interesting because Anansi has so many interesting. Sometimes Anasi is a pure evil, sometimes he is a champion of good and there are many interpretations that put in him between.

Sometimes Ananasi is very wise and sometimes he is a fool. Again there is everything in between.

Anyway, if I have a bunch of nigh immortal giant spiders all with different magical powers, different forms, and different flavors of madness I can use them as a justification for a wide variety of spider based monsters.

African folklore has magical spiders weaving stories and illusions. I like this and gave dragon spiders the ability to weave illusions into their webs.

I also like the idea of weaving falsehoods and madness. I especially like the idea of cobwebs that seem harmless but plant paranoid hypnotic suggestions in the mind of people who walk through them.

Most of my spider broods are going to trend on the evil side, but I'd like to include one or two that are if not good, at least relatively benign.

 

In a week or two, I should get the finalized drafts of the paintings of Scarterran humans I commissioned. At this stage, all that is left are minor digital touchups.

The artist is willing and able to take on the challenge of illustrating kalazotz and camazotz. She usually makes humans and elves but she sent me a sample of her beast art. She certainly has the artistic chops to draw some decent Zotz if I can clearly describe them.

It is time to flag @Warden as my biggest cheer leader for kalazotz and camazotz and L-O's resident expert of real Meso-American lore, I want to get your opinion.

I left my physical descriptions vague. Kalazotz are roughly a meter tall with a meter wingspan. Camazotz are roughly twice as tall and have twice the wing span, give or take.

Beyond this, nothing is concrete. But an artist need solid guidelines to put pen and paintbrush to paper.

I'm curious if Warden (or any of my regular viewers) have any thoughts on what my Zotz should look like.

There are thousands of species of bat in the real world. There are hundreds of species of South American bat. It is hard to pick just one.

I also need to figure out where to draw the line on them being human-like and bat lie.

I think kalazotz and camazotz should be based on the same basic bat template. Kalazotz are just smaller and cuter. I think South American vampire bats have the flexibility to be scary or cute based on accents and details. I especially like the nose anyway.




Besides how human or bat-like to make the faces, I have to figure out how human or bat-like to make the bodies.

Should they wear clothes or be tastefully nude? I don't think most Zotz would need clothes but I don't want to them Not Safe For Work. I also am curious if Warden or anyone else has any subtle ideas to bring out the Meso American without being too extreme about it.

I am tempted to commission many Zotz pictures, such as separate flying, standing, and hanging poses.

Kalazotz have three cultural groups (pro-dwarf, pro-elf, and independent), not counting the dead pro-human group. I might come up with more later.

The Camazotz have two cultural group (pro-Uskala and independent). I might come up with more later.

I'm open to any and all suggestions on how to bring the Zotz to life visually.

 

I have created a character profile for the most hated dwarf Scarterra has ever seen. A complex villain the likes of Vladimir the Conqueror and Mordock the Destroyer.

Dyrik Mykrrún, I'm not yet sure what his "the _____" should be. I have a lot of options. When he was known as a hero he was Aluk the Orc Slayer and even when he started slaying hordes of dwarves he never stopped killing orcs that crossed his path.

His full article is here.

Dyrik Mykrrún is dead, or you know, "dead", given that he is a cannibal mutant necromancer, but he still has a cult following of skin changer mages.

In the solo RPG adventure I'm running, Kormatin will soon cross swords with one of his skin changer legacies.

 

Scarterra has it's first professional illustration. This is one my four ethnicities of Scarterran human look like. Air, Earth, Fire, and Water.

Course a lot of Scarterrans are mixed race. This gives a baseline though. When I physically describe characters on my website, I'll often say, "predominantly earthy with a splash of water" or a "roughly even mix of airy and watery traits."

As I said before, Scarterran "genetics" is 40% based on the mother, 40% the father, and 20% based on the geography around the parents lived during and shortly before the pregancies.

That means if a population stays in the same area over time, the population will gradually take on the ambient traits of the area.

Anyway my new artist friend is happy to take on making kalazotz and camazotz but she won't be able to start for a few weeks. That will give me time to figure out more details about them so I can give her more clear direction.

 

Anyway, not long ago I got my first commissioned Scarterran artwork.






I was inspired to write something kind of oddly specific: Tengku beauty standards.

In RPG terms, most attributes are a one to five dot scale, though zero is possible in some cases, but Appearance 0 basically means "monstrously deformed".

Appearance as it applies to humans

● Poor: You are ugly by the standards of your society and many others.

●● Average: You look inconspicuous which is sometimes a good thing.
●●● Good: You attract favorable attention almost everywhere you go.
●●●● Exceptional: You stand out in nearly every crowd, for good or ill.
●●●●● Outstanding: People routinely look at you with slack jawed awe.

Assume the four couples above are somewhere hovering between Appearance 3 and 4. That sort of is the standard of beauty for the four ethnicities. But how do you tell these guys apart?



Well for one, tengku have better eye sight than humans. They can notice small details humans miss, so they can spot more subtle differences among their own kind. Also, they have more practice and instincts being born as birds.

Sadly, I don't have tengku pictures yet, but I plan to do so someday.

What is considered attractive for tengku?

First off, what do tengku find attractive in other tengku?At the most basic, tengku find healthy appearances to be attractive or at least presentable. Full even feathers without any bald or thin spots is considered a sign of good health. Shiny feathers are considered a sign of good health. Dull, uneven and overly molting feathers are considered a sign of poor health. This applies to both sexes.

Tengku also value the "aura of raven's wisdom" or the "aura of the raptor's prowess". This means that the tengku looks wise and clever or the tengku looks strong and hearty. Frequently, tengku with above average mental attributes manifest the "aura of the raven's wisdom" and tengku with above average physical attributes manifest the "aura of the raptor's prowess." Both males and females are attracted to both auras and try to manifest both auras if they can. In other words, tengku want to look strong and smart even if they aren't.

It's possible that a tengku that is actually mediocre or worse in physical or mental prowess can have a positive aura misleading or a tengku that is very mentally or physically gifted has a weak misleading aura.

Tengku Appearance By The Dots
X: Monstrous: Other tengku find you repulsive to look at it.
● Poor: Your feathers are patchy, uneven and discolored and you are slightly derpy looking, or your feathers are okay, but you are really derpy looking.
●● Average: At a distance, even tengku having trouble telling you apart from other tengku.
●●● Good: You have a healthy glow or positive aura that attracts admirers from other birdfolk.
●●●● Exceptional: You manifest an aura of wisdom and an aura of power, you magnificent bird you.
●●●●● Outstanding: Your stunning visage of wisdom and power can make other tengku speechless...a rare thing among such a talkative race.

"All Tengku Look Alike!"
Tengku have very little sexual dimorphism, very muted elemental ethnicity traits, and don't vary a lot in height and weight. They all have corvid facial features and black feathers.

Tengku often have a special trait "All tengku look alike" that is Merit or a Flaw, or nothing at all depending on what your base Appearance is.

Appearance 0: 5 point Merit

Appearance 1: 2 point Merit

Appearance 2: nothing

Appearance 3: 2 point Flaw

Appearance 4: 4 point Flaw

Appearance 5: 6 point Flaw.

What this means, is regardless of your tengku character appearance to other tengku, humans, demihumans and the most non-tengku treat you as if you are appearance 2, because "all tengku look alike".

Now, what about tengku who don't have this trait?

A tengku with a low Appearance is so unhealthy or derpy looking that he or she stands out from other tengku, in a bad way. Humans and other non-tengku find it off putting and vaguely reminding them of vultures, even if they are not consciously aware of the condition vulturism, they have an instinctive fear of it. And sadly, more than a few tengku that don't contract vulturism have vaguely buzzard-like appearances.

A tengku with a high appearance that carries over to non-tengku carries himself or herself with confidence. Non-tengku sense this confidence and respect it.

A tengku's "appearance" with non-tengku is often auditory, not visual. All tengku are excellent mimicks, but in most cases, the tengku looks or sounds just a little fake or rehearsed when mimicking someone or something.

A tengku with a high Appearance that translates to non-tengku can take on pleasing voices to mammalian listeners with more subtlety and grace, literally conveying what they want to hear. They are practiced at instinctively picking either a commanding or a disarming voice when meeting someone new, but without being too obvious about it so as to make a good first impression.

A tengku with a low Appearance that translates to non-tengku often squawks involuntarily while talking or accidentally takes on unwanted mildly unpleasant pitches.

Dice are also a thing. If dice are used for social interactions, Appearance + Whatever is used for first impressions or any social interaction that happens to be seduction, flirting, or courtship.

Charisma + Whatever or Manipulation + Whatever is used for all other social interactions. In this case "whatever" can be Empathy for emotional appeals, Expression for general persuasion, Subterfuge to trick someone, Performance to entertain someone, Etiquette to present yourself off as friendly and polite, Intimidation to bully or belittle someone, Investigation to pump people for information, or Leadership to coordinate subordinates.

It's vague when to use Charisma or when to use Manipulation, but the joy of being the game master is my word is law even if it contradicts my previous word. I usually use Charisma if you want something general and Manipulation if you want something specific. Example, Charisma + Leadership is rolled to inspire the men to fight bravely and enthusiastically. Manipulation + Leadership is rolled to make sure you coordinate the the three disparate subgroups of your army to time their attacks in sync with each other. Appearance + Leadership looks like the first 52 seconds of this.


EDIT: Anyway, I can modify the guidelines for kalazotz and other mortals that "all look alike" such as kobolds, goblins, and the like. Though mainly I'm thinking of kalazotz.

If a hypothetically player really wanted to play something weird and had a good backstory, I would allow it.

That said, in my view the "normal" list of player character races is: human, elf, dwarf, human/elf, human/orc, gnome, kalazotz, and tengku.

Tengku and kalazotz do not exist in other setting, but they are important enough in my Scarterra that they are considered "normal." Also according to the viewer metrics on my Scarterra site, they are popular.

 

There are Hawaiian legends of the Menehune, which are short magical little people, ie dwarves though they were typically between 6 inches and 2 feet tall, much smaller than Tolkienesque dwarves. Oddly enough, though the legends of the Menehune evolved completely independently from western dwarf stories, they were believed to be master crafters.



I decided to move away from the dwarves as allegorical Scotsmen thing. Tolkien himself based his dwarves on Norse legends of dwarves. I have opted to do likewise since I dived into Norse mythology a few years ago. I'm not sure if they sound like modern Scandinavians though.

Modern Scandinavians are much less terrifying than their Viking ancestors.

I already decided to have Hawaiian dwarves. Scarterra has Mondarian dwarves. Dwarves that long ago emigrated to a series of tropical volcanic islands and allied with a tribe of human islanders and the groups assimilated into each other.

Yodelling dwarves are an interesting idea I hadn't considered. That could apply to all my dwarf cultures.

So I got the Meckelorner dwarves are Scarterra's original dwarves. They are pretty close to dwarf stereotype fantasy fans think of.

The Stahlheimer dwarves are close cousins. They have been developing a separate culture from Meckelorn for about 800 years. They never lost contact with Meckelorn though relations aren't very warm.

Their nation is only a few hundred miles away from Meckelorn. The biggest difference is they spent centuries growing up in a much safer mountain range with more friendly trading humans and fewer hostile orcs and goblins. Peace has made them prosperous but it has dulled their martial edge a bit.

The Mondarian dwarves are my Hawaiian dwarves. They have been developing a separate culture from Meckelorn for about 2000 years when a bunch of dwarves went into voluntary exile. Until about 500 years ago, Meckelorn and Stahlheim assumed the exiled never survived their journey. It is rare for a Mondarian to meet a Meckelorner or Stahlheimer but relations tend to be friendly when they meet. They are just happy their long lost cousins are alive.

They are still craftsmen but they learned to boat and fish and spend more time above ground than their distant cousins.

The Penarchian dwarves are still a work in progress. They are about 4000 years removed from Meckelorn. The Penarchian dwarves usually believe they are the only dwarves in the world and assume, Meckelorn, if it existed at all, did not survive the Second Unmaking. The other three dwarf cultures don't even remember them and forgot that there was an ancient diaspora to the continent of Penarchia.

I'm not sure what real world Earth culture Penarchian dwarves resemble, if any. Penarchia's geography, flora and fauna are loosely based on the Indian subcontinent and southeast Asia though it's flipped cardinal direction. The northern portion is warm and tropical and mostly flat and the southern portion is cooler and more mountainous.

Penarchia has no empires or empire contenders. It's divided into about two dozen petty warlords warring on each other inconclusively for generations on end. The Penarchian dwarves are war profiteers. They sell weapons and armor to all the human warlords and they give the underdog warlords discounts so the wars drag on longer.

The Penarchian dwarves live primarily underground, shunning the surface more than other dwarves.

At some point I need to flesh out Penarchian dwarves more, including their Heraldry. I have future long term plans to develop Penarchia more but my short term plans are all on West Colassia.

For some reason, I have a homunculus in my head demanding I figure out what heraldry and insignia the Maiden Guard use. With few exceptions, nearly all dwarf girls in Meckelorn and more than half of the dwarf girls in Stahlheim are required to undertake basic military training as adolescence and periodically undergo drills as young adults, thus ensuring that the dwarf women will not be helpless damsels if threatened while the men are away.

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

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

Dwarves are considered adults at age 40. A dwarf girl that reaches this age and doesn't at least have ●● in Archery and Melee ● is an embarrassment to her family.

Man or woman, if a dwarf has Archery ●●●●, he or she is considered a "Master Marksmen". If a dwarf has Melee ●●●●, he or she is considered a "Master at Arms".

There is a joke that "Those who can, do. Those who can't, teach." Dwarves don't believe in this. They want their best people teaching the next generation. A dwarf woman who is a Master Marksmen or Master at Arms is going to be invited to be an officer in the Maiden Guard. A dwarf woman who happens to be a Master Marksmen and a Master at Arms is going to have hordes of people begging her to become an officer.

The Greovis (loosely based on Old Norse translations of "mentor") is the lowest rank of the Maiden Guard. Their main job is to act as drill sergeants to the young girls in training yelling at them to train harder. In an emergency, Greovis women lead small squads of reservists in battle. I figure Greovis would have second class and first class distinction. No formal designation but a second class is Greovis is recognized as a competent instructor. A first class Greovis is a seasoned veteran of actual combat.

A Greovis Skoraya (loosely based on Old Norse for "support") is an officer that has a useful skill beyond her combat prowess. A weapon smith, battlefield medic, quartermaster etc. The Maiden Guard prefers that their Skoraya to also be expert fighters but in a pinch, they will accept adequate fighters if their non-combat skill is especially vital though Greovis who are not Masters at Arms or Master Marksmen are rarely promoted further.

Sverovis, loosely based on Old Norse for "warrior" is the next highest. Battle prowess is respected, but to reach this rank, a dwarf warrior woman needs to be able to do more than be a drill sergeant, she needs to be a flexible leader and tactician capable of leading hundreds of women into battle. They have third class, second class, and first class designations as honorifics.

The rank of Matriarch is above Sverovis but Matriarchs rarely take the field as they usually of advanced age to the point where they don't have the physical vitality to stand and fight in the trenches though a legendary heroine could become an honorary matriarch at a young age.

Matriarchs generally sit in dusty chambers planning grand strategies, reading supply reports, hobnobbing with clan elders and other male dwarf elites, soliciting donations of supplies, and occasionally offer advice and counsel. When the regular men's army needs to coordinate with the Maiden Guard, they do so through the Matriarchs and most military councils have a Matriarch sitting on in as an observer is not a full on participant.

The Matriarchs also decide which dwarf women get invited into their officer corps and when they get promoted.

There are two Grand Matriarchs, one for Stahlheim and one for Meckelorn. The Grand Matriarch is elected by all the other matriarchs and is the envoy between the Maiden Guard and the king and queen of their respective nations.

Perhaps @Warden the local heraldry expert might have some thoughts though I'm not sure how much crossover there is between military insignia and heraldry.

Any heraldry and insignia for the Maiden Guard would need to be "stackable" with other heraldry since membership in the Maiden Guard does not supersede their clan and national ties, it supplements their clan and national ties.

Normally, a dwarf who marries formally joins her husbands clans and formally (but not really) leaves her birth clan behind. Most dwarf women do most of their military long before they get married, so their Maiden Guard badges might likely reflect their birth clan.

Of course some officers in the Maiden Guard are actually maidens. Dwarf women have a lot of social pressure to marry, but a career officer in the Maiden Guard can be a forever spinster and have less dirty looks from her friends and family than otherwise.

 

A long time ago, wise Pendrake suggested I come up with a cool name for the nameless orcs harassing northern Fumaya demanding tribute from some villagers. I thought his first name "Dirty Crow tribe" was best.

Now the PCs are finally dealing with it. They plan to help the villagers deny tribute.

Last Saturday I ran my first four person RPG session over Discord, and it was glorious.

The orcs have about 150 elite soldiers (6 dice combat pools), about 4 or 5 PC class leaders and 3 or 4 scrappy diet PC class helpers with mediocre fighting skills but a little bit of magic. Their Achilles heel is their reindeer pack animals.

The humans have about 150 scrappy militia (4 dice combat pools) and 30 seasoned dwarf warriors (6 dice combat pools) the six PC class characters, 3 scrappy diet PC class helpers with mediocre fighting skills but a little bit of magic and the element of surprise. Their Achilles heel is their 400 or so noncombatant villagers.

They got about 8 weeks to prepare, so the basic plan is to booby trap the crap out of the area. Their nature expert guessed that there are two great places the orcs would set up a base camp and two adequate places. These places are trapped. The two most exposed villages are rigged with traps and fire. If they don't have to sacrifice the villages, that's good, but if they lose the villages, the villagers can squeeze into other villages temporarily. Discord was great so with the joy of a shared screen we built a map in real time via discussion. The trees are green arrows because we had to improvise.


Anyway the last session was all planning defense. At this point the orcs still think the villagers are planning to pay their tribute but they aren't blindly trusting of it, so the next session of it is going to be to try to hide their defense preparations from any orc scouts and then the session after that will be the big fight after all pretense is gone.

The PCs are looking for an opening to either assassinate the orc leaders or stampede their reindeer.

If it matters, the time in Scarterra is late fall.

Anyway, I created a bunch of setting details just for the fun of creating setting details. Once in a while I can mine this material for RPGs and stories. A while ago I detailed the five ruling clans of Meckelorn and it just so happens that the PCs are making alliances with the Redshaft Clan and one player who is intermittantly available is going to play a Redshaft clan ranger. The nice thing is that rangers roam around, so hypothetically if the player enters or leaves the group, Kregor the ranger can wander in or out accordingly.

The Redshaft clan is reeling from the recent loss when their clan elder and his entourage was ambushed by orcs leaving only a few shell shocked survivors saying "orcs did it." The Redshaft clan lost a lot of their treasured heirloom magical items in this attack.

The Redshaft clan sent 30 warriors to help northern Fumaya because they clan owes the king of Fumaya a favor and it's not hard to find 30 Redshaft dwarves who will drop what they are doing to kill some orcs. They hated orcs even before orcs humiliated their clan.

So I'm thinking, maybe the Dirty Crow orc tribe can provide hints about the much stronger, much more organized orc tribe, that even they fear. At the very least, they can name the clan that the Redshaft dwarves truly have their grudge with.

Not for an immediate adventure, but to open the door to future adventures with sinister foreshadows.

I'm thinking the name is "Clan/Tribe of the Three Boned Hand".

Perhaps long ago they cut off the hand of Dyrik Mykrrún, a villain who loved killing orcs and dwarves with equal measure, and the clan kept the hand as a trophy but are ignorant that the mummified hand contains is spirit and is corrupting the tribe but it's also augmenting the magical power of the orc leaders so they aren't fighting the corruption. Note, Dyrik wasn't handless for long, he grafted on a magical prosthetic skeleton arm that was arguably better than his previous arm.

Maybe at some point they lost a few fingers off the hand hence "three bones". Hypothetically finding one of the missing phalanges could let a hero create a mystic ritual to purify and de-power the mummified hand. Alternatively, one of the missing phalanges could be used by a villain to try to resurrect Dyrik Mykrrún or do something else evil.

Dyrik Mykrrún was a cannibal, a necromancer, a theif, a rapist, and a Frankenstein mad transmuter. I've been overusing mad transmuters and cannibals so I probably will make the Three Boned Hand orc tribe simply evil necromancers and thieves.

 

When you have a hammer every problem looks like a nail. Tis the Christmas season so let's talk about reindeer.



I more or less adlibbed the idea that some arctic orcs ride giant reindeer as steeds once I was reminded that ordinary reindeer are pretty small. The orcs don't have a lot of riding reindeer, it's mostly pack animals and food.

Anyway we were joking about trying to ride a regular reindeer and we realized Neshik the gnome is about the right size to ride a reindeer. So I thought, I must make Scaterran gnomish reindeer cavalry a thing!

Initially I was thinking or retconning a tribe of gnome barbarians in but my friend suggested reindeer cavalry as something civilized gnomes do so they can contribute more meaningfully to human and dwarf armies. Nothing says I cannot have both civilized and barbaric gnome reindeer riders in Scarterra.

Originally I had decided Scarterra does not have any barbarian gnomes. Given the physical disadvantages of gnomes, I didn't think they could hold their own with human and orc barbarians while fending with the difficulties of surviving in a harsh fantasy wilderness. But if they had nimble reindeer cavalry, they could plausibly survive and thrive.

If gnome are riding regular reindeer the coolness of this is somewhat undercut by orcs riding giant reindeer so I might retcon that the orcs were riding some kind of arctic horse breed instead souped up reindeer. Or since West Colassia is very big, I could say that the interior reindeer are very big and the reindeer on the west and east sides of the tundra are normal sized. Or I could make giant reindeer a rare birth anomaly like death goats which are not a separate species but a rare magical mutation among ordinary mountain goats.

So, gnome reindeer cavalry is going to to be a thing for sure. I just need to work out the details. Also, orcs regularly keeping reindeer as livestock is already a thing. What I'm not 100% sure on is if orcs occasionally ride reindeer or if they occasionally ride something else.

Scarterran orcs are native to arctic regions, and they have only recently begun migrating to new regions. So there are going to be dozens of different tundra dwelling orc tribes but only one or two seafaring orc tribes and only one or two desert orc tribes, etc. Developing details for these oddball orcs is on my to-do list for this December's World Anvil writing binge.

I've already covered their elemental ethnicity briefly. The garden variety tundra dwellers have light grey skin. Subterranean orcs have dark grey to black skin (I'm currently setting up a subterranean tribe to be ongoing villains), and seafaring orcs look like Warhammer-esque green orcs.