My Fantasy RPG World, Feedback and Ideas appreciated

Closely related to biomes and ecology is race though it's a topic that one should handle with kid gloves.

Nationality exists independent of race. For instance I have three very different elf nations but as of now, to a human they all look alike.

In the Lord of the Rings movies, everyone in the world looked caucasian. I was going to say that is norm for pre-political correctness fantasy but I can come up with too many counter examples.

Plan A: When the Nine created humanity, the created four "batches" of humans, one for each major landmass and released them. Each batch of humans resembles a different real world race. This would give each continent's humans a default race but this throws me a curveball for elves, dwarves, gnomes and the like.

If humans were made in several batches, the elves were probably made in similar batches too. This would give the elven nations their own physiolgoical racial traits but maybe a bit muted. The three modern elven nations absorbed refugees from all over so they would likely have mixed racial traits being the norm. Dwarves would all look alike because they were made in one batch. I'm not sure about the umpteen others.

Plan B: Like in the real world, people near the equator have more melanin than people near poles. Under this system, local demi-humans would usually resemble local humans in their racial traits.

Plan C: DIfferent races of humans are mixed pretty much everywhere. Much like the casting of a modern Hollywood movie. This is easier for casting but makes no sense. Under this system, demi-humans would be similarly mixed, probably, but not necessary.

Plan D: Everyone looks pretty much the same. Human and demi-human.

Plan E: There are regional differences in people's skin tone and hair, but it's not based on latitude. It's based on something else. Maybe elemental forces, maybe magic, maybe terrain type. Under this system, local demi-humans would usually resemble local humans in their racial traits.Under this system, demi-humans would usually resemble humans in their racial traits.


So far I've developed many nations and cultures but I have yet to cover how these nations and cultures look.

 

Hmm, in that case, people near the poles would have darker skin because they need to be able to absorb sunlight more efficiently to make up for the cold ambient temperature. People at the equator would be lightered skinned. Weird, but backed by science.

This was a response to humans and demi-humans looking pretty much the same. Kobolds, goblins, and orcs are not demi-humans. Demi-humans covers things that are mostly human. Half-humans, gnomes, elves, dwarves. Orcs might be considered demi-humans.

That's splitting hairs, but tha's what I mean by the word demi-human. Orcs, kobolds, and goblins are under the category "monstrous humanoids." Demi-humans and monstrous humans collectively are "humanoid" when lumped together.

Yes, but the downsides are A) I need to come up with a logical system for what determines where an elemental font of power is going to be and B) I need to make very detailed maps to figure out who looks like what .



And now magical economies....

I tweaked my magical item costs down to a scale where rich people can afford them. It uses a moderately complicated chart, but rather than go through that I can summarize what the end results looks like.

A knight can buy a magical healing potion for roughly the cost of replacing his weapons, shield and horse tackle. For reference, three healing potions will bring someone on death's door to full health. One healing potion will remove moderate wounds. Buying three healing potions is roughly on par with buying a second war horse.

A knight that has a good year for his land's crops and doesn't have to replace any of his basic gear (or his horse), and who doesn't spend more than the minimum to feed and clothe his family can afford to pay a wizard to enchant his sword or armor such that it's slightly, but noticeably better than a nonmagical version of the item. Very few knights would do this, unless they had a very wealthy liege lord or they knew they would be going on a very dangerous campaign the next year.

A count could comission such a magical item every year without much fuss. He could buy his son a magical sword with greatly increased accuracy or damage potential if he was thrifty with the rest of his yearly expenses.

If a duke was especially thrifty and had a good year, he could comission a wizard to make a sword with greatly increased damage and accuracy.

If a king was especially thrifty and had a good year, he could commission a wizard to make a sword with greatly increased damage and accuracy that also can be wreathed with flame at the wielder's command.


I'm guessing that magical weapons would stay in circulation longer. If a noble dies with a magic sword in hand, his allies or enemies are probably going to recover the sword. If a noble dies while wearing magic armor, the armor is probably damaged beyond repair. Also, armor would be harder to bequeath to your next of kin because armor has to be fitted and swords generally do not.

That being said. if I was a rich noble going into battle and I could afford comissioning a magic weapon or magic armor, I would pick the armor every time. I like me living more than I like my enemies dying.


Anywho, a nifty magical item with a mildly useful power is going typically be 500-1000 gold pieces, meaning a knight can afford it if he really wants it. While a magical item of legendary power is going to run in the neighborhood 30,000 gold pieces (or 600 pounds of gold), roughly half as expensive as building a medium sized castle with all the bells and whistles. A king can afford that if he really wants it. Well King Henryk can't afford this because his kingdom is broke. The queen of Swynfaredia could afford to commission a legendary magical item if she really wanted another one.

I guess that's also assuming the buyers in question are friends with a wizard or spell-casting cleric who is willing to sell them a magical item at cost. In most cases, in addition to the gold, the wizard will probably ask a royal or knightly favor even if they are on good terms.

In a lot of cases a king will set aside a plot of land and bequeath it to a coven of wizards collectively making the wizard council on par with a duke or count. The wizards collect income from their land and in lieu of paying taxes or levvying armies for the king, they perform magical services periodically when asked.

I believe this system of pricing makes sense.

And now Neshik can make decent scratch by brewing and selling potions, but not so decent that the PCs will decide to retire from adventuring. Problem solved.

 

Okay, let's revisit elemental based races. Here's what I came up with while eating a nice dinner.

So I got four “races” now. Earthy, fiery, watery, airy each with it’s of set of common traits. Genetics in Scarterras is going to be somewhat Lamarckian. Lamarckism was discredited in the real world, but in a world with magic, Lamarckianism makes sense.

A child can expect going to get 45% of her elemental traits from mother’s traits, 45% of her elemental traits from her father’s traits and 10% of her elemental traits from her parent’s lifestyle. More than 10% if the parents were near a font of magical energy.

Because mating is not random, people usually hook up with people like themselves. Becase people usually live in the same area and maintain the same professions as their parents, environmental factors usually reinforce their parent's elemental traits rather than deviate from them. All that said, it is certainly possible to be mixed race.

Airy people tend to live near the poles. They frequently live nomadic lifestyles.

Fiery people tend to leave near the equator. They frequently build and craft things for a living.

Watery people tend to live near the coast. They frequently are sailors or fishermen.

Earthy people tend to live far inland. They are frequently farmers. Thus, earthy people are the most numerous.

Fonts of magical energy or unusual land features such as volcanoes or waterfalls can create small localized populations of people that display elemental traits that are not congruent with their general location or lifestyle.


Common Hair traits
Fire: Red, yellow, or orange. Frequently frizzy or cowlicky. Children and adolescents often have highlights or accents of shocking colors like purple or blue but this usually disappears by adulthood. Adults will sometimes dye their hair with exotic highlights to look young. Because they tend to live in warm places, short hair is often the norm.

Earth: Brown, black, sandy blond, sometimes vaguely metallic. Usually straight and neat. They tend to favor simple utilitarian hair styles. Beards are common and shaving body hair is uncommon.

Water: Various shades of blue, sometimes green or black. Usually wavy and shiny. Water people tend take pride in their beautiful hair and men and women alike usually wear their hair long. Facial and body hair is fairly sparse and most watery people shave.

Air: White, grey, silvery (like the moon), golden blond (like the sun), Often curly like fluffy clouds. I haven't come up with any cultural hair styles tendencies though I guess they live in cold places so would be more likely to favor thicker hair for warmth.


Common Skin Tones
Fire: Bronze or in extreme cases orange.
Earth: Various shades of brown or grey. In extreme cases very dark shades of brown or grey.
Water: Light blue with a hint of green. In extreme cases, slightly silvery.
Air: Caucasion pale. In extreme cases, literally white or semi-translucent.


Stereotypical Body Type
Fire: Medium build, medium height
Earth: Short and stocky
Water: Lithe and curvy
Air: Long and lanky


Common Eye Colors
Fire: Grey is especially common. Red, yellow, purple, and black are known.
Earth: Brown is especially common. Black, green and various metallic shades are known.
Water: Green is especially common. Blue, grey, and brown are known.
Air: Blue is especially common. Silver, gold, grey, and purple are known.


Stereotypical Noses
Fire: Especially round
Earth: Large bridges
Water: Small and pointy
Air: Large nostrils


The Ravages of Age
Fire: Unlike everyone else, hair and skin get darker instead of paler. This is nicknamed “cindering.” Baldness is very rare (though that doesn’t stop fire people from shaving their heads). "Ashy" is a derogatory term for elderly fiery people.

Earth: Discoloration and body settling is much less pronounced than the other three. Wrinkles become very pronounced compared to the other three. The word “craggy” gets thrown around a lot.

Water: Wrinkles and skin damage occurs much slower than the other three. Unfortunately, watery people tend to lose their figures much faster than the other three as their bodies settle into less flattering shapes. They are said to “flow down hill.”

Air: Hair loss is faster than the other three. Discoloration is more pronounced than the other three. Elderly air people tend to become gaunt much faster than the other three. They are said to “fade away.”


Negative Cultural Stereotypes
Fire: Hot tempered and hot headed
Earth: Stoic and boring
Water: Manipulative and indirect
Air: Flighty and Unpredictable

Positive Cultural Stereotypes
Fire: Brave
Earth: Hard Working
Water: Empathetic
Air: Creative

Humans are all over the map with a modest tendency towards earthy traits because most of their societies are very agrarian.

Dwarves are very strongly biased towards earth traits with a dash of fire. Stahlheim dwarves are slightly more fiery than Mecklorn dwarves. Generations of living a life at sea has caused Mondarian dwarves to pick up a streak of watery traits which is extinguishing their fire so to speak.

Due to their lifestyles, gnomes are fairly earthy. Due to their birthright as children of Mera, gnomes are fairly watery too but this is fading slowly over the generations because few gnomes take maritime professions.

Wood Elves are going to be mostly some mix of airy and earthy traits. Dark Elves are going to mostly some mix of earthy and watery traits. Imperial elves are going to be some mix of fiery and watery traits. All elves tend to have more muted elemental traits than other races.

Orcs are going to be predominantly earthy and/or airy. Goblins are predominantly earthy but they pick up all sorts of secondary traits from the other three.

Dragons and other races whos' genesis predates the First Unmaking (when elementals flooded the world) barely ever manifest noticeable elemental traits.

I don't need to go into every single race but you get the idea.



Anyway, not only is this fairly creative and fairly intuitive to understand, but this system of races should also be politically correct (probably). Which is good because I was told on another forum that my deities were all sorts of not politically correct.

 

Everyone should find their personal political correctness meter and excise it like an enflamed appendix.

Spoiler: The un-PC stuff, I probably shouldn't have brought it up.

Males out numbered females 5 to 4. How dare your Scalenex!

This was actual intentional (thought I thought about making Korus non-binary). Ancient Greek mythology had six gods and six goddesses on the Olympic council. When Hestia gave up her seat to Dionysus and changed the balance from seven to seven, this steered the entire world towards patriarchy. Most medieval societies are patriarchal, so my nations tend to copy this, but even then as a milenial I made my societies less patriarchal than the rea world, especially elves who are usually egalitarian in my world. Because of SCIENCE! Elves have less sexual dimorphism, so I figure they would be more egalitarian. That's how the animal kingdom works anyway.


The romantic interests between the deities were all heteronormative. How dare you Scalenex! In real life I'm all about supporting the rainbow, but I figured htis would not be the case in a medieval world full of hungry dragons and other monsters. In the real world, we have plenty of humans, so relationships based on love are more important than relationships based on reproduction. In a medieval fantasy world, monsters, war and disease are going to kill a large percentage of the population. They need lots of children for replacements.


All the extreme alignments were male and the females were all neutral and thus more reactive. How dare you Scalenex. I didn't see the males as being more extreme. Mera is more Good than any of the other deities. Greymoria is more Evil than any of the others deities. Nami is more Chaotic. Khemra is more Lawful. The males are all split in two direction. "You mean men are more complex and women are simple!" I
Can't win.


I even went as far to say that Mera represented positive femininity and Greymoria represented negative femninity. The mythic archetype of the good woman is "the kind mother" and the mythic archtype of an evil woman is "the manipulative witch."

Hallisan and Zarthus represented postiive masculinity (hard working, protective, and creative) and Maylar and Phidas represented negative masculinity (domineering status oriented bullies). I got a lot of grief for each positive trait I associated with the masculine (you saying women can't be X, Y, or Z!) or negative traits associated with the femine (you saying men can't be X, Y or Z!).

Now I avoid using the phrase "mythic archtypes of the genders" outloud in rereference to Scarterras even though I think it's a useful lens to look through real world mythos.


No one gave me credit for flipping gender expectations on godly rolls. I have male moon deity and a female sun deity. I have a female sea deity who is a female prometheon fire bringer. The party deity is female. The earth deities are male. These are not common pairings. No credit.

To cover something not in a spoiler tag. I'm talking about Fumaya. It's very inland so the people are going to be earthy. It's fairly far north so the people are going to have airy traits.

Skin tone is going to be caucasion with a noticeably grey or brown tint that varies from person to person. The hilly terrain and nearby mountain ranges mean that Fumayans lean slightly more towards grey than brown.

The mix of earth and air traits (long and lanky versus short and stocky) means that most Fumayans have average builds. Large nostrils and large nose bridges mean they have pretty big noses in general.

Hair varies a lot with curly and straight haired influences. Earthy hair is pretty dark and airy hair is pretty light. Hair is all over the place. Default to light brown or sandy blond wavy hair being the plurality.

Eye colors are all over the place, but blue and brown are both pretty common.

Personality wise, they are viewd as being very earthy. The predominant stereotype is that Fumayans are good and simple people, salt of the earth types.

Earthy people tend to retain their mass as they age and airy people tend to shrink as they get older. On the whole, Fumayans tend to be strong and spry in their old age, but they are not especially good looking in their old age being pale and craggy. Fumayans are probably not considered a very good looking people in general.

 

You'd think that, but the Order of the Stick forums have been taken over by very senstive people. I can understand not talking about contemporary real world religion in the context of religion in fictional settings. That's understanable, but I had posts scrubbed for drawing parallels to Greek and Norse mytholgy because that is technically real world religion and there a couple hundred people that still claim to keep the old religions.

The Order of Stick forums are full of creative mature people but the moderators there are very cautious and very strict to anything even remotely related to religion. That's part of the reason I moved my world building thread here.

Now if I want to build a nation and come up with interesting noble houses and nobles to fill them with, those forums are a great resource but religion, even fake religions. Nope.

I did get attract a hostile non-moderator when I tried to talk about mythic gender archtypes.

Too much to ask.

I agree.

I disagree. JK Rowling had a fluff trainwreck that attracted the attention of SJWs. SJWs were a symptom not the cause. Don't get me wrong, I really liked the Harry Potter books. JK Rowling is a brilliant storyteller when it comes to character arcs and immersive narratives, but she is a terrible fluff writer, especially with continuity and math. She also struggles a bit with "Show don't tell" and she should never be allowed to write a screen play again which has hampered the Fantastic Beasts series.

Sirius Black to Molly Weasley "You're too young to remember what it was like then..."

I immediately rememember, Mrs. Weasley is ten years older than Sirius. Why couldn't Rowling remember that. Very bad with math when it comes to character ages.

On some level I think Rowling is lonely and wants attention. That's why she feeds epilogue stuff in small tweets and what not rather than writing epilogue stories. She just happened to notice that if she says something political she gets more attention and more re-tweets.

Actually there were ten. One of the Ten sided with Tuorch against the Nine (though s/he pretended to side with the Nine then betrayed them). The oddball lost to history is called the Traitor. Most mortals assume the Tenth deity was female and there was a 5 v. 5 balance but the Nine and their agents refuse to divulge the Traitor's name or even whether the Traitor was male or female.

It is believed that the Traitor would be ressurected if mortals ever learned her true name.

Speaking of names, I based the name Turoch after the Terrasque because both Turoch and the Terrasque try to eat everything in sight.

And now for something completely different...Do you guys want to read a lengthy musing about me trying to figure out how to realistically represent the effects of medieval armor abastracted into ten sided dice?

Too bad.

Weapons and Armor: Realism, Simplicity of Gaming and the Rule of Cool.





Shad is a big proponent of gambeson armor being surprisingly good and being at least as protective as leather armor if not more so. For my game system, I just lumped gambeson and leather armor. I made the stats the same and the cost the same. Players can select which one they'd rather envision their character wearing.

I was thinking, what if I did this for all armor...taking a page out of Warhammer fantasy and use very broad categories. Rather than figure out a chain shirt compares to brigadine armor I can just lump armor into three categories. Light armor, medium armor, and heavy armor. If you really think orcs should wear brigadine armor or merfolk should wear armor out of interlocking sclaes, it doesn't really matter. The Rule of Cool says armor can look however you want and the Rule of Simplicity states at the end of the day, all armor fits into one of those categories.

Or maybe I want four categories, light, medium, heavy, and plate. I know plate armor is the best pre-gunpowder era armor but I'm having trouble drawing the line for real world armor distinction between medium and heavy.

Armor___Soak Value
Light_____3
Medium___4
Heavy_____5
Plate _____6

Or this.

Armor___Soak Value
Light_____3
Medium___5
Heavy_____6

Note that statistically a one die jump in soak value is significant.


To cover the issue of certain weapons being better against certain. Swords and most other edge weapons is pretty good at slicing through gambeson or unarmored targets but is not very effective at cutting through plate.

Blunt weapons and weapons that put a lot of force into a small area (military picks, warhammers, etc) are very good at piercing heavy armor.

I think I have a good system that balances realism and efficiency. Each weapon has two damage classes S damage and H damage. S damage applies to light armor and unarmored targets and most monsters. H damage refers to metal armored targets and monsters with rock like hides.

Bladed weapons have higher damage against S targets. Blunt weapons have higher damage against H targets. Piercing weapons tend to have equal H and S damage. Heavier weapons inflict more damage but have an accuracy penalty.

Fighting defensively with a weapon like an axe is not easy, hence they are top heavy. Top heavy weapons have a slight penalty on defense. Duelist weapons (ie rapiers) give the wielder a small bonus when fighting one opponent. The narrow point of a rapier is hard to parry, but rapiers are bad for fending off crowds.

Weapons with a long pole or a chain have the trait +1 die to trip attacks which is pretty self explanatory. Weapons with a hook or chain have +1 to disarm attacks. Bet you can't guess what the shield breaker weapon quality does? This applies mainly to warhammers. Parry weapons have a parrying bonus. Like the parrying dagger for instance.

I cannot for the life of me think of a real world weapon besides a rapier tha would qualify for the duelist trait, but a magial weapon of any sort can have the duelist trait if it was enchanted to fight duels. Likewise magic can let any weapon be a shield breaker or give bonus to disarm attacks.

I have a few other traits. Brittle weapons apply to many improvised weapons. On a botched roll, brittle weapons break.



I think I have a pretty good handle on the various weapons and their pros and cons. I am fairly satisfied that my armor ratings are fairly realistic in their protective value.

The sticky wicket for game design that I'm not sure what to do with is armor penalties.

Most point based systems I've played, White Wolf's d10 system or West End's d6 system give fairly heavy Dexterity penalties for wearing armor and leave it at that.

I've dabbled in amateur HEMA (with foam weapons) and I've watched hours of video where HEMA enthusiasts use far more authentic weapons and armor. The main drawback to wearing armor is not that constricts movement. Armor impedes movement a little bit, but the main issues is that people wearing armor tend to tire out much faster than people who are not armored, especially because human sweat only works as a coolant if it's exposed to air.

In fact, if you fight or do other strenuous activity while unarmored, you can still get pretty tired. Realistically my game system should have some system incorporating fatigue, but the Rule of Simplicity says keeping track of character fatigue is a pain in the butt. The Rule of Cool states that characters getting fatigued is not very heroic.


I will point out that in all the games I played with a points based system, players (and myself) nearly always limit themselves to armor that carries no Dexterity penalty even if the character in question had a veyr high Dexterity. In Star Wars, Mandalorian Armor was the holy grail of armor because it provided great protection and no penalty.

In my current game, the players are of like mind. The players are all self-limiting themselves to armor with no dice penalties at all which in this case is gambeson or leather. They are not opposed to me switching out Dexterity penalties for a system based on fatigue, but they said this was not change the armor they are wearing. Gambeson and leather have a negligible fatigue penalty.


D&D and a lot of video games limit the armor that rogues and wizards and other character classes can wear as part of balancing the character classes. They also generally don't have a problem with fighters and other tank characters wearing plate armor all day long, day after day, which is something that wasn't done much in real life. Sometime's it's justified saying armor interferes with magical energies or something but usually the in-setting justification is pretty weak.

After much pondering I have decided not to give any spell-casters a penalty for wearing armor.


Then there is the issue that wearing bulky armor is inconvenient. I've seen people climb rock climbing walls or doing cartwheels in plate armor but it's still easier to do these things without wearing armor. A part of me wants to impose a small Dexterity penalty and fatigue rolls, but it's hard to come up with a small penalty. D10 points based system are nice and streamlined but even one point penalties are pretty severe.


Then there is the issue with helmets. Helmets realistically limit one's vision and would penalize perception rolls if not attack rolls. This of course lead to characters saying "screw the character" which will also lead to characters saying "I aim for the head."

I don't like "I aim for the head." Called shots to do more damage just slows things down. I prefer to assume that combatants always aim for the most damaging spot. If you roll damage and you roll well it means you hit a vulnerable spot. if you roll damage and don't roll well it means you did not hit a damaging spot.

 

You are awesome. But you have limits. You will never be a panda. I had to come to accept this limitation myself. No matter how many things I index or how much fluff I create, I will never know the joy of being a panda.

Specifically the legend is that to ressurect the traitor a hundred people have to say the Traitor's True Name a hundred times in unison. As rituals go, that's not difficult to do, but the Traitor's name is unknown.That's not a bad idea. I had the base concept swirling around my head but I didn't have a name like the Temple of the Unknown Goddess.

I hadn't thought about "the balance". I had thought that since each of the Nine maintains one nineth of the world's natural bounty it is believed that if the Nine become Ten that the world's natural bounty will increase making the world at least 11% nicer.

Other heretics are nihilists who believe that bringing the Traitor back can bring back Turoch.

Other heretics are mercanaries. The Nine typically bestow benefits on their favored mortals, millions of them. Imagine if a full goddess bestowing on her blessings on a mere hundred people. They'd be as powerful as kings and queens...or dragons.

This is what I came up with fatigue.

Fatigue Check
Casual riding 4 hours
Unhurried travel on foot 3 hours
Hard riding 3 hours
Marching 2 hours
Forced marching (jogging long distance) 1 hour
Swimming 20 minutes
Running 10 minutes

Light work (copying manuscripts, cooking) 3 hours
Medium toil (chopping wood, pulling weeds) 2 hours
Heavy toil (hauling large stones, military drills) 1 hour
Fighting 10 minutes

At the first time increment, a character rolls their Stamina (which is typically one to five dice) at difficulty 3. If they keep doing whatever it is that is tiring them, the second consecutive roll is difficulty 4. The Third consecutive roll is difficulty 5 and so on and so forth. Resting resets the difficulty back to 3.

A character that fails a roll gets a one die penalty on all rolls until she rests. A character that fails two rolls gets a two-dice penalty, three rolls a three-dice penalty. Four failed rolls? Character collapses and takes two dice of bashing damage that cannot be soaked. The Stamina roll itself is never penalized.

Characters can spend a temporary willpower point to retroactively pass a failed fatigue check roll. (Willpower points can be used to improve almost anything a character does).

If Characters are wearing armor, the difficulty of the Stamina rolls goes up.
Light armor +1
Medium armor +2
Heavy armor +3
Plate armor +4

Additional Modifiers
Heavy load +1
Hot day +1
Wet +1
Underfed +1
Dehydrated +1
Sick +1 or +2
Injured +1 or +2
Dwarf -1 (they get bonuses on most Stamina rolls)


I'm going to run this by my players next session, which will hopefully be next Saturday. At this point they moved from traveling across the wilderness to playing noir detective in a medieval city so fatigue checks are less important, at least short term.

After trying this out, I might create a magic effect or two that negates fatigue, but it will probably be fairly advanced magic, especially if it can apply to large groups. Or anti-fatigue magic could work like a drug with an accompanying post-high crash. After sixteen hours of forced marching with no sign of fatigue at all, the spell wears off and the character immediately collapses to the ground with no roll allowed.

 

My thoughts as well. Here's my thought for fatigue checks from work or from travel. 99% of the time I don't need to roll the fatigue check. If a PC or NPC gets a one-die or two-dice penalty from fatigue, it's not a big deal because they are just going to get a good night's sleep and erase the penalties. Fatigue checks outside of combat don't matter unless circumstances are highly unusual.

If the characters aboslutely must warn an ally of an incoming disaster by traveling through the night, then fatigue checks are necessary.

I only need to make people check for fatigue on an "ordinary" day if the characters are about to be subject to be ambushed on the road. Goblins and human brigands alike love to ambush travelers just before nightfall when their targets are tired and a lot less alert. Both human intelligent monsters and animal intelligence predators generally prefer to hunt at dusk when their prey is going to be tired and a lot less alert.

Humans (and most other humanoids) have a Stamina between 1 and 5. In theory, humans can have a Stamina of 0, but people of this level of Stamina are probably not long for this world without modern medicine or in this case, around the clock access to magical healing.

Large monsters can have Stamina ratings higher than 5.

Stamina
● Your life is a series of minor (and major) miseries. You heal slowly and fall ill often.
●● You are average health and regularly put in a good day’s work.
●●● You seldom succumb to illness. You can regularly put in a good day’s work then stay up late drinking at the taverns without missing a beat the next day.
●●●● Whether engaging in a long march with no food or water or sneering in the face of your torturers, you keep going in the face of your challenges.
●●●●● Minstrels and storytellers spin yarns about your godlike endurance.

All the other attributes are scaled similarly (Strength, Dexterity, Manipulation, Appearance, Charisma, Intelligence, Wits, Perception). Stamina is unique among the attributes in that Stamina is usually rolled by itself. Stamina is also used by itself to resist damage, poison, or disease. Most other attributes are paired with abilities (which also scales 1 to 5).

Examples
Hit someone with a sword: Dexterity + Melee.
Convince a guard you have a perfectly valid reason to be here at night: Maniplation + Subterfuge
Make a good impression with the king during a state dinner: Charsima + Etiquette
Browbeat pickpocket into betraying his fence: Strength + Intimidation
Is he lying to me?: Perception + Empathy
I need to find a place to hide, right now: Wits + Stealth
Who has the most to gain if the duke is poisoned?: Intelligence + Politics

 

Spoiler: My Dark Elves are Different ;) the nation of Kahdisteria

Kahdisteria

Spoiler: History

The Time Before: The modern dark elves claim to be the heirs of Disteria. They call themselves kahdisterian elves, which in Elven translates to “New Disteria.”

At the height of the Second Age, there were around a hundred separate principalities, at least twenty of which had populations of over a million elves. The largest, most powerful, and richest of these nations was Disteria.

Wood elf and grey elf historians say the Disterians were ruthless bullies ruled by unstable inbred tyrants. Dark elf historians speak of Disteria was a beacon of justice, art, culture that shone as a beacon to guide the lesser nations despite the lesser nations’ intense jealousy of their greatness. Either way, Disteria had a lot of enemies.

The Time of Exile: The very first demon lord to enter the material plane targeted Disteria first. At first the other nations had no idea of the true scope of the Void Demon threat. Initially, the other nations were to sit back and watch and what the Disterian bastards die. By the time the other nations realized that the Void Demons were everyone’s enemy, it was too late to help Disteria. Their royal family was dead and the survivors were little more than a band of sad refugees.

As powerful as they were, the Nine couldn’t project their power everywhere at once, so they had to pick and choose which mortals they would save and which mortals they would leave to fend for themselves. The Nine generally preferred to save their most fervent worshippers. Greymoria had very few fervent worshippers.

By chance, the largest group of Disterian refugees fell under the leadership of a charismatic priest of Greymoria. This group seemed as close to Greymoria was going to get to fervent worshippers. Greymoria sent a spirt messenger and gave them the hard sell. “Pledge yourselves to Greymoria and Greymoria will make sure you survive.” They agreed and most of them did survive. Greymoria sent guardian spirits to protect them and empowered a number of their young as favored souls or sorcerers to be conduits of her magic.

They stayed on the move for the entirety of the Second Unmaking at least briefly setting foot on every major landmass. They even picked up and absorbed and converted many smaller groups of refugees from other elven nations. The refugees had to fight against Void Demons regularly but whenever they had a choice, they chose running or hiding in lieu of fighting.


The Time of the Founding: When the Third Age dawned, the Disterian refugees eventually settled onto the fertile lands on the northern coast of East Colassia. It was fairly far north, but prevailing wind and ocean currents brought up a lot of warm air from down south that then got trapped by a mountain range to the land’s west. This made the climate was fairly temperate and good for growing crops while the warm waters of the coastline made the area rich in seafood. A messenger spirit from Greymoria confirmed what the refugees already believed. This was a fine place to found Kahdisteria.

While the elves only had a fraction of the technology and lore of their ancestors at their peak, they still had better weapons, tools, and armor than the emerging humans tribes. The Kahdisterians didn’t have huge strength of numbers, but they had a lot of spell-casters among them. They were able to utterly dominate the primitive humans known as the Cheyans that hunted and fished east of the mountains.

The Kahdisterians had a manpower shortage, and the Cheyans seemed ideally suited to performing the elves grunt labor. The Kahdisterians decided they needed more slaves. They expanded outward and enslaved every humanoid they could find. The dark elves would enslave anyone they could catch but ended up with mostly goblins and humans.

Initially it was a taboo for elves to mix their blood with humans but half-humans were considered too useful to dispense with. The Dark elves set up tiers of slavery, with goblins doing the dirtiest and most dangerous work, half-elves providing skilled labor, and humans in the middle.

The Golden Age: For centuries the dark elves seemed unstoppable. They utterly dominated East Collassia and they controlled large swaths of territory to the south including many islands and parts of northern Penarchia.

The human kingdoms nearest to the dark elves fought each other as much as they fought the dark elves. For every square mile of territory the Kahdisterians claimed, there were ten square miles of territory that was not under elven control, but the dark elves could kidnap or steal from these lands with virtual impunity.

The Great Decline: The Kahdisterians expanded too far in their raids. The most disastrous campaign in Kahdisterian history was when a large army sailed to West Colassia to kidnap new slaves and also steal the pathetic humans’ treasure and food stores. They won a string of victories, but these were costly victories. Then they reached the lands of the Wood Elves. At this point, the wood elves and the dark elves only were aware of each other as vague rumors.

The arrogant commander didn’t understand why the backwards wood elves didn’t want to join themselves with the all-mighty Kahdisteria. The wood elves raised an army and decisively defeated the dark elf expeditionary force. As the retreating army limped on their way home, they were attacked by a second army. The human nations the elves initially raided regrouped and made a temporary alliance with each to pounce on the dark elves like an angry dragon. Out of an army of nearly a hundred thousand men, only a few hundred made it back to Kahdisteria alive.

The Raykar (Supreme Leader) was blamed for this disastrous defeat and had to fend off a number of assassination and coup attempts, eventually he was defeated in a challenge. The dark elves never attempted to raid to raid West Collassia again. But the next few Raykars were eager to show strength so they turned their attention to the south and east. By this point the human nations were not primitive chieftains but well organized feudal lords so they could put up a real fight. The dark elves expansion slowed considerably as the humans made them pay for every inch of land taken in blood.

The dark elves eastern expansion caused the dark elves to clash with the grey elves who were trying to expand west. There were no large scale battles with tens of thousands of men. Instead there hundreds of small skirmishes between Kahdisteria and the Elven Empire. Neither side had a clear advantage over the other and both nations lost blood, ships, and prestige fighting the other until they reluctantly signed a peace treaty.

While the elves were warring with other elves, the humans didn’t sit on the sidelines and watch. They were eager to sucker punch the dark elves while their attention was drawn elsewhere. Within less than a century, the Dark Elves were forced to abandon their colonies in Penarchia. Then a problem appeared right on their doorstep. The independent nations and tribes of East Colassia signed the Treaty of the Colassian Confederation. The numerous small kingdoms agreed to stop warring with each other and to open up trade. More importantly they agreed on a military alliance. A dark elf raid against one nation of the Confederacy was an attack on all of them.

Having withdrawn from their far flung colonies, the Raykar rallied his armies and vowed to crush the Colassian Confederacy in its infancy. The Confederacy and Kahdisteria battled for decades. Losses were heavy on both sides, but the dark elves were losing a war of attrition. In addition to external armies, the Confederacy sponsored adventuring parties to incite slave revolts and provide shelter to runaway slaves. This effectively made the dark elves have to fight a two front war.

This action was backed by the Order of Delas, an organization for the welfare of gnomes. Gnomes are puny but they are very good at dirty fighting and guerilla warfare. Gnomes are also good diplomats so they were able to convince goblins, humans, and half-elves to put aside their differences to resist their masters together.

After decades of war, the Kahdisterians were back to hiding behind their mountain range. Apart from a few sad tiny island strongholds, all their overseas holdings were lost. The Confederacy grew over confident, and attempted a full invasion of Kahdisteria intent on killing all the dark elf nobles and liberating every single slave…even the smelly goblins. Unfortunately the army couldn’t agree on a supreme commander. Their invasion force had numbers and passion but they also had five separate generals that were not very good at coordinating efforts. The dark elves handed the Confederacy a decisive defeat, but the fact that the dark elves had to fight on Kahdisterian soil for the first time made them eat some humble pie.

Fighting wound down. The dark elves signed the Treaty of Delas. They agreed to free all gnome slaves and to never enslave gnomes again. In exchange the gnomes would cease providing aid in slave revolts for non-gnomes. For this reason, members of the Colassian Confederacy have a low opinion of gnomes to this day, viewing them as cowardly sell-outs. Not long after this, Kahdisterria signed a cease fire with the Colassian Confederacy.

The Modern Age: Kahdisteria never signed a peace treaty but their cease fire has held for over two centuries. The Kahdisterians took the seas and occasionally staged raids on distant human nations but these were costly endeavors at best. Kahdisteria has millions of humans and goblins and hundreds of thousands of half-humans. By decree of the Raykar, Kahdisteria was better off just forcing their existing slaves to breed rather than warring on other nations.

In theory, the army was forbidden from engaging in slave raids on foreign lands. Unofficially, freelance adventuring parties, and even a few military commanders regularly stage small scale slaving raids around the world to earn some quick gold. Many of these raids are against the Colassian Confederacy. This is clearly in violation of the cease fire but the Confederate Council has thus far stopped short of declaring the cease fire broken and war reinstated.

Unofficially, Confederate leaders quietly encourage their soldiers and freelance adventurers to kill any dark elf they can find, even if they aren’t engaging in a slaving raids. A few rulers even offer a bounty for dark elf heads. This is also clearly in violation of the cease fire but the Raykar has thus far stopped short of declaring the cease fire broken and war reinstated.

The current Raykar has an extremely controversial plan to improve the fortunes of Kahdisteria: commerce and peaceful diplomacy. Their largest southern port city was declared open to visitors and renamed it the City of Light in an attempt to prove that the nickname dark elf no longer applies. They are not giving up their slaves but they are giving up slave raiding (mostly).

Other nations are reluctant to trade with Kahdisterians and generally only the boldest entrepreneurs dare risk it but trade is slowly growing. Within the City of Light, public punishment of disobedient slaves is forbidden and any dark elf that is caught harming or even cheating a visitor is severelypunished.

In addition to the fragile peace with the Colassian Confederacy that could theoretically shatter any moment, the dark elves are in a tenuous position with the Elven Empire. They two nations are officially at peace, but the grey elves are very concerned that if traders every buy into the propaganda from the City of Light, the Elven Empire’s mercantile might will be seriously threatened. The Elven Empire is trying to quietly undermine the dark elves’ rebranding efforts and the two nations are fighting a subtle cold war.

Spoiler: Geography

Geography: Kahdisteria is kind of like the modern nation Chile or Argentina. It’s long and narrow with mountains one side and the ocean on the other. The mountains are rugged but they are far from impassable. West of the mountains is a desert. Beyond the desert is a region of grassland that is not especially good for farming but it is well suited for grazing livestock. Beyond this are the fertile coastal lands where the nation states of the Colassian Confederacy have their base of power.

In theory the mountains are the sovereign territory of Kahdisteria but in practice most of it is empty wilderness. The dark elves have some productive mines in the mountains but they have to guard these mines fiercely. Among other creatures, the mountains are home to dragons, kobolds, beholders, giants, and small bands of runaway slaves. The desert has its fair share of monsters too including either gnolls or desert dwelling orcs, haven’t decided which yet.

In the ecotone where the desert meets the grassland live the nomadic humans known as the Mereshnari. The Mereshnari are herders and hunters who hold no farmlands, but they are full members of the Colassian Confederacy. If the dark elves (or rogue monsters) try to sneak across the desert, the Mereshnari will destroy them, or if the threat is too big, they will call for reinforcements from their more civilized allies. In exchange for this advanced protection, the civilized nations of the Confederacy supply the Mereshnari with weapons, armor tools, salt, spices and other things they cannot easily make or acquire themselves.

Spoiler: Demographics

Demographics: 28% Elves, 27% Human, 8% Half-Elves, 30% Goblin, 7% other.

Note on the birds and bees of half-elves. Human genes are very persistent. No elf has any human blood in his or her veins. If a half-elf and an elf reproduce, the result is always a half-elf even if 99% of the child's chromosomes are from elven ancestors. If a half-elf and a human have a child the result is always a human even if the human has .

Spoiler: Economy

Economy: Kahdisteria gets their food from a mix of farming and fishing. They have adequate timberland. The mountains are rich in mineral resources and are the most productive mines in the world not operated by dwarves. All of their industry is based heavily on slave labor.

Kahdisteria’s main export is cash crops. Because of their mass slavery of humans offends nearly every nation on the Scarterra, Kahdisteria has historically done little in the way of peaceful trade. Only in recent years have they even begun to try. The Raykar has set the ambitious goal to elevate the City of Light into the most prosperous port in all of Scarterra. Their main trading partner is the nation of Uskala. Uskala is run by a vampire and slavery of humans is legal in Uskala although it’s not very common. Since gnomes have zero risk of being forced into slavery, a great many of the merchants who are daring enough to trade with the dark elves are gnomes. Kenku are also frequent visitors. There is no treaty or decree banning the enslavement of kenku, but kenku slaves are considered more trouble than they are worth.

Spoiler: Governmental System

Top of the Government, the Raykar: Given that Kahdisteria recognizes Greymoria as their primary deity, the only acceptable ruler is a powerful arcane caster, in theory the Raykar is the most powerful spell-caster in the entire nation.

Once per year, Kahdisteria has what is known as Challenge Day. In theory, any dark elf with arcane ability is theoretically free to challenge the sitting Raykar on Challenge Day. In practice, elves of common birth have a very hard time making their challenges heard.

By tradition the challenger not only tells the assembled about his desire to be Raykar, but he (or less commonly she) is expected to state how he disagrees with the current Raykar’s policies and explain what he would do instead.

It’s rare but not unheard of for multiple challengers to challenge the Raykar at once. When this happens, preliminary magical duels will winnow the field until one challenger remains. Then that challenger will get to issue his formal challenge to the Raykar.

The actual ritual combat takes place six months after Challenge Day. In many instances the Raykar tries to assassinate his/her would be challenger ahead of time. This is deliberate. If an elf cannot avoid assassins for six months then he has no business being Raykar.

Conversely, A Raykar whose challengers all seem to die mysterious deaths is likely to appear weak and cowardly which will only attract more dangerous challengers or lead to the Raykar drinking from a poisoned cup. Wise Raykars need to strike a careful balance on deciding who to fight and who to quietly eliminate. Most Raykar make it their business to know the capabilities and personalities of all their most powerful subjects for this very reason.

Assuming the challenger survives the next six months. The ritual duel commences and continues until one combatant is knocked unconscious, paralyzed by a spell, surrenders, or is killed. Whether they are alive or not, the loser of the challenge is then mystically branded. The Raykar’s scepter of office also doubles as a magical brand. People marked by the brand are forbidden from every challenging the Raykar again.

The brand/scepter is rumored to be crafted by Greymoria herself. There is no known way to remove the mark of the brand and many have tried. One failed challenger opted to become a lich solely to lose the brand. After becoming a living skeleton and shedding his branded flesh, the mark of the brand magically reappeared on his skull.

The losers of these challenges are deemed the Branded. The Branded actually receive some status on the back end. Even though they lost, they fought the greatest arcane master on earth and lived to tell about it. Some Branded choose self-exile and leave Kahdisteria forever, but most actually opt to become the Raykar’s Champion. Ironically, Branded Champions are often paradoxically very loyal servants of the Raykar.

Raykar’s and would-be Raykars worth their salt control networks of spies and will try to piece together the psychological profile of whoever they might be fighting in a challenge. If the victor of the challenge believes his opponent is not the sort of person to lose gracefully and accept being a Branded Champion, the victor will often “accidentally” kill their foe in the duel. Thus, most surviving losers actually choose to become Champions. This is also a good incentive not to assassinate a challenger before the duel occurs.

Sometimes a Raykar dies outside of a challenge. In this case a council of high priests and priestess of Greymoria take custodianship of the royal scepter and facilitate an open challenge. There are usually several volunteers whenever there is an open seat and it’s usually set up as elimination style tournament.


Raylisi, Rayhoki, and the priesthoods, the Middle Managers: Raylisi (singular Raylis) refers to leaders that are roughly equivalent to governors. Each Raylis administers a large portion of territory on behalf of the Raykar. The Rayhoki (singular Rayhokis) are advisors or lieutenants that provide critical services to Kahdisteria that transcend provincial bounderies. Master of coin, admiral of the fleet, captain of the guards. That sort of thing.

Raylisi are required to have arcane spell-casting talent, but they are not required to be bad-asses. Many of them are dabblers who can only manage a few cantrips, but are brilliant administrators or tactician. Rayhoki are not required to be spell-casters, but the majority are.

In theory, a Raykar is free to replace every single Raylisi and Rayhoki upon winning his challenge, and the Raykar can fire and replace a Raylis whenever he wants to for any reason or no reason at all. In reality, tradition dictates that a Raykar keep most of his predecessors appointments in place unless the two individuals have serious personality conflict. It’s considered a mark of weakness and poor political acumen for a Raykar to show high turnover with his lieutenants.

The Raykar is also advised by a counsel of priests and priestesses. Three clergy are high ranking Children of Greymoria; one is a Tester of Maylar, one is a Steward of Korus, and one is a Mask of Phidas. The Raykar is not allowed to fire any of them. If the Counsel of Priests votes on something and there is a deadlock, and for some reason tradition dictates the Raykar doesn’t get a say, a priest of Khemra is brought in to cast the tie-breaking vote. This happens about once a century.


The Rest of the Dark Elves: On paper, Kahdisteria has no aristocracy and all land belongs to the Raykar. In practice, the wealthy families are a check against the Raykar’s absolute power. Without the cooperation of the wealthy families, it is difficult for the Raykar to accomplish his goals.

The priesthood of Greymoria is very powerful politically. Nearly every Raylis and Rayhok has one of the Children as an advisor. If a high ranking Child of Greymoria makes a “suggestion” to those in power, the suggestion is probably followed. Maylar, Korus, and Phidas are called “the consorts of the Dark Mother” which is kind of true. The priesthood of Maylar, Korus, and Phidas have some real influence. Collectively the three priesthoods are as influential Greymoria’s Children. The priesthood of Zarthus, Khemra, and Nami all have an official state presence, but they are toothless. Hallisan worship is negligible and Mera worship is forbidden.

The next tier of society is small land owners. They have enough status to not be pushed around but they don’t have enough status to push around others. Below them are dark elves without land. Most of these dark elves are professional soldiers or very skilled craftsmen.


The Rabble: After covering the top level of society, it’s time to cover the bottom. As mentioned before the economy is based on slavery. Slave social standing is heavily stratified. Half-human slaves are held above human slaves who are held above goblin slaves. This is partially due to prejudice. The more similar a slave’s race is to being an Elf, the more valuable they are considered. There is also a strategic element. They encourage goblins, humans, and half-humans to resent each other, and it largely works. No slave revolt has managed to incorporate significant numbers from all three groups since the Age of Decline.


Free Men and Ex-Slaves: As the chosen nation of Greymoria, monsters and monstrous humanoids with Greymoria’s blessing are forbidden to be enslaved and are to be welcomed with open arms. Very few creatures choose to take the Kahdisterians up on this offer. The dark elves used to have an alliances with several tribes of kobolds, but the Colassian Confederacy killed most of them. Kahdisteria employs an elite cadre of Aranea bounty hunters and spies that are very good at tracking down runaway slaves.

Slaves have a tattoo on the back of their hands that mark them as slaves. Kahdisterians will on rare occasion, set humans or half-human slaves free. They will either get a new tattoo that marks them as a former slave or the slave tattoo is magically removed. Most freed slaves go to the City of Light and catch a ship away from Kahdisteria as soon as they can. Before the City of Light became an open port, most former slaves would join a priesthood or go to work for the Keyric family.

The Keyric family is the wealthiest family of abolitionists in Kahdisteria. The Keyric family employs former slaves and pays them for their labor. Not much though, the Keyric family is rich, but not that rich. The Keyric family also had contact with human smugglers who could get ex-slaves passage out of Kahdisteria. The Raykar turns a blind eye to this as long as the Keyrics only smuggle out non-slaves.

Runaway slaves have two options to escape. They can make their way to the City of Light and try to stow away aboard a foreign ship or they could head for the mountains and head for the Confederacy. Most runaways who head for the mountains end up freezing or starving to death but very few of them are caught. Most runaways that head for the City of Light are caught but those who aren’t caught quickly get to start new lives.

A few small tribes of goblins live in the mountains. They will happily accept any runaway goblin slaves into their ranks. If they are in a good mood, they will provide temporary shelter to runaway human slaves before sending them on their way west. If they are in a good mood, they will give runaway half-elf slaves a thirty second head start.

The Cheyan humans were not completely enslaves. A few fled to the mountains where they eke out a living against the monsters, elf patrols, and harsh elements. These small bands of badasses have kept their numbers up by adopting runaway human and half-elf slaves into their ranks. Goblins are on their own.

Naturally, runaway slaves who have an outside sponsor helping them escape, have a much higher success rate. Adventurers from the Confederacy sometimes engage in this practice as well as bolder members of the Keyric family.

Gender Relations and Social Status: In general, elves are more egalitarian than humans. Dark elves are not an exception. Inheritance is determined by birth order and does not discriminate between sons and daughters. The Raykar may be male or female. Though the overwhelming majority of challenges are men, female challengers have a better winning percentage. It’s joke that without testosterone, women don’t make challenges unless they are superbly confident in their chances.

Status is based on a meritocracy, as long as the merit is accompanied by magical skill. Kahdisterians don’t discriminate between wizards, sorcerers, warlocks, mystic clerics, or favored souls. Power is what’s important, not the source of the power.

There is one aspect where the dark elves are not egalitarian at all. That is producing half-Humans. It’s considered normal, even tacitly encouraged, for elf men to sire half-humans, but it is highly scandalous for an elf woman to bear a half-human child.

Both male and female elves are strongly discouraged from siring half-human children if they are sorcerers or warlocks. Sorcerers and warlocks frequently pass their magical aptitude to their offspring and slaves with magic power is something that gives slave masters nightmares.

Spoiler: Religious Practices

Religious Practices: Greymoria is the patron religion of Kahdisteria. There are almost more temples and more clergy for Greymoria than the other eight deities combines. Most dark elves go out of their way to make public displays of piety to her. Due to Greymoria’s influence, magic users are given more status in society. Most members of the ruling class have a Child of Greymoria whispering in their ear. Sometimes masters force their slaves to go through the motion of worshipping Greymoria, sometimes they do not. It’s very rare for the slave class to genuinely love Greymoria.

The Masks of Phidas are the next most powerful group. They are very influential in regulating Kahdisteria’s commerce and they are huge proponents of the new initiative to turn Kahdisteria into a mercantile power. The Testers of Maylar are almost as powerful. The Testers get to administer Challenge Day. Maylar worship is very popular among dark elves in the army, especially non-spell casters. A lot of the wealthiest slave owners are Maylar worshippers.

If you see dark elves and their slaves having a joint worship service, you are probably watching a worship service for Korus. All levels of society will at least pay lip service to the god who makes their crops grow. The Stewards of the Korus have the right to demand the emancipation of a slave if they believe said individual would make a decent recruit into their order. About half the local Stewards are elves and half are not elves.

Khemra and Nami worship is condoned but the powers that be watch the Keepers and Rovers like hawks. They value the stability the Keepers represent and they value the revelry and merriment that the Rovers represent, but they are held in suspicion. The four predominant priesthoods are concerned that the Keepers will try to muscle into their racket of advising those in power, so they seek to keep them down. The wealthy land owners are concerned that the Rovers will try to incite slave revolts so they seek to keep them down.

Hallisan worship is discouraged but not forbidden. A tiny number of soldiers in the army quietly worship Hallisan in lieu of Maylar. Most elven members of Kahdisteria’s abolition movement are Hallisan worshippers. A few slaves worship Hallisan but not many. Very few Hallisan worshippers are priests or spell-casters. You can count the number of Guardians in Kahdisteria on one hand.

Zarthus worship is complicated. Zarthus is very anti-slavery, but centuries ago, the Raykar decided to make Zarthus worship legal and no subsequent Rakar has overturned this decree. Once a year during Zarthus holy festival, the Raykar and various wealthy land owners will pick a few slaves to set free. Out of millions of slaves, Kahdisteria sets about a hundred slaves free every year. This didn’t change much. They already had a practice of setting a small number of slaves free, they just dedicate this to Zarthus now. The slave masters view this as a useful tool. “If you serve me well, I may set you free” is a great motivator. The state Lanterns of Zarthus get to oversee these emancipations. Also, the state Lanterns are charged with making sure all slaves are treated gently and fairly. This is purely symbolic as state Lanterns have no real power, but if a slave master decides to give her slaves a reward of some kind she’ll often have a Lantern present it.

Most true Lanterns view the state approved Lanterns as traitors and sell-outs. The state Lanterns argue that a hundred slaves freed a year is better than zero but this rarely appeases their kin. Kahdisteria has several secret Zarthus cults that stage guerilla resistance to protect runaway slaves and occasionally assassinate slave masters in order to sew fear among them. These mainstream Zarthus cults spend almost as much time attacking the state Lanterns as they do attacking the slave masters, and this is why no Raykar has opted to rescind their predecessor’s decision to incorporate a token Zarthus priesthood into the government.

Mera worship is forbidden and Mera happens to be the favorite goddess of most of Kahdisteria’s slave class. Mera worship is too wide spread for even the most brutal slave masters to stamp out entirely, but they will step in with harsh punishments if they get noisy about it or if a slaves shows even a whisper of divine magic.

Mera sponsors a few magically empowered priests and priestesses that are very good at working their magic without being seen. Many are pacifists but more than a few are not. Many secret Zarthus cults and secret Mera cults work closely together.

Spoiler: Challenges

Internal Divisions: Just because someone can challenge the Raykar on Challenge Day does not mean that someone will challenge the Raykar. Throughout history, on average the Raykar faces one challenge every five years. Since the Raykar has decided to push for Kahdisteria becoming a peaceful mercantile power, this has infuriated a conservative old guard. The Raykar has had to face on average, four challengers every five years and the challengers nearly always makes it crystal clear that the reason they are challenging the Reykar is because they disprove of this diplomatic effort.

The current Raykar is both mighty and cunning and has yet to be defeated by a challenger. It’s only a matter of time before one of his enemies opts to assassinate him rather than challenge him. The Raykar has many supporters as well as enemies. Many powerful nobles have made it clear that if a new Raykar dies a mysterious death, they will make sure the Raykar’s policies endure. If the challenge systems breaks down, Kahdisteria may opt to settle things with a civil war instead of an arcane duel.

There is also the question of the Elven Empire. Kahdisteria’s mercantile push means they are now in direct competition with their distant Elven cousins. Many powerful dark elves are champing at the bit to go to war with these heretical pompous insults to elven kind. A smaller minority wants to do the exact opposite. Ally with the Elven Empire and between the two of them bring the humans nations to their knees. Together they could rule the seas if not the land.

Then of course there is the issue of slavery. The abolitionist movement is very tiny among elves but it’s growing. Also, slaves are getting bolder in their escape attempts and humans, half-humans, and goblins are slowly getting better at cooperating across racial lines. Rather than staging raids on other nations for new slaves, the army is now largely occupied combing the Colassian Mountains and the City of Light for runaway slaves.


External Threats: The peace between the Colassian Confederacy and Kahdisteria is tenuously fragile. Between its members, the Confederacy has a larger army but their navy is quite small. It’s not feasible for the Confederacy to invade Kahdisteria by sea. That means they have to cross a desert and mountain range. The dark elves know this, so they have built a series of forts to guard the most traversable mountain passes.

If Kahdisteria and the Elven Empire went into a full war, a short war would probably favor the dark elves and a lengthy war of attrition would probably favor the grey elves. The dark elves have more spell-casters and more soldiers but the Elven Empire has more ships.

Apseldia, the half-elf nation is far too small to seriously threaten Kahdisteria militarily but they loathe Kahdisteria’s mass enslavement of half-elves. The Apseldian Senate has frequently considered sponsoring small resistance cells to liberate slave. So far this has always been voted down, but the idea refuses to die.

Hypothetically if Apselda, the Colassian Confederacy and the Elven Empire all joined forces, then Kahdisteria doesn’t stand a chance. Given how unpopular the dark elves are, if these three powers engaged in war with the dark elves simultaneously, a lot of other nations who would ordinarily never dream of poking a stick at Kahdisteria would opportunistically. The only foreign power that might ever consider supporting Kahdisteria is Uskala.

Upon reading what I wrote, it seems I created a group called the Confederacy that is staunchly anti-slavery. This was not intentional.