Four Realms: (To) The Best of Our Abilities

Posted on July 8, 2011 by Confanity

What abilities should define a character?  On one end of the spectrum are extremely simplified systems like the Mind-Body-Soul (cf.) of Big Eyes, Small Mouth or Echo Bazaar’s “Watchful,” “Shadowy,” “Dangerous” and “Persuasive.”  On the other, there are the thirteen attributes of Dwarf Fortress or White Wolf’s three-by-three system.  Clearly, there are tradeoffs at work here: fewer abilities make for a simpler system, easier to learn and easier to keep track of.  But that same simplicity also reduces the versatility of the system: imagine trying to make flags for all the nations in the world using only two colors.  I guess I’ll just throw out a handful at first and see if anything is lacking or redundant; looking at what’s on the market, it seems like six to nine is a good range to aim for.

I’m a little tempted to use the theory of multiple intelligences, henceforth referred to as 7I, as a basis, but it’s not entirely suitable for what I want to make.  “Musical intelligence,” for example, has a rather limited set of applications, while there’s nothing to model more purely physical qualities such as strength or endurance.  I will refer to the 7I, but not rely on them exclusively.  Anyway, here are a number of ideas I’m considering, in no particular order.

Willpower.  I want this to be one of the abilities.  It’s a very useful ability in life, as demonstrated by “the Marshmallow Experiment.”  Perhaps the most difficult part of having Willpower (so to speak) will be to restrict my own use of it; modeling its real-world importance is fine, but I’d like to avoid having any one number be the most important number in the game.

Strength.  Physical power.  Self-explanatory.

Health.  This gives me pause.  Do I use Health for nothing more than physical wellbeing, and have “Stamina” or the like as a separate ability?  To me, though, physical endurance is partially a matter of strength – of the slow-twitch muscles and circulatory system – and partially a matter of willpower.  For the time being, I’ll have Health as a measure of the body’s ability to withstand any potentially harmful event or condition: fatigue, injury, disease, poison, etc.

Intelligence.  The ability to process data quickly and accurately.  Harking back to the 7I, this would be a combination of the spatial, linguistic, and logical-mathematical intelligences.  Some games also use “Intelligence” to model memory, and I don’t think it would hurt to leave that as an option for individual gaming groups to use, but I won’t hard-code it into the system – player notes and memory can serve as well, and that can be part of the game of the game, so to speak.

But one thing that occurs to me is that a lot of what people think of as “intelligence” is actually a matter of skills.  Abilities should model innate talent, and not (for example) large vocabularies or even the patience and experience necessary for rigorous analysis and computation.  To emphasize that point, I want to rename this stat.  The first likely-sounding name that comes to mind is “Wit,” so that’s what it will be.

Sensibility.  As long as we’re referring to the 7I, this would encompass the musical intelligence I maligned earlier, as well as visual and other aesthetic sensibilities.  “Taste,” if you will, but also including the intrapersonal, naturalistic, and existential intelligences.  (Yes, I realize I’m referring to numbers eight and nine out of a list of seven.)  Unlike Wit (née Intelligence), this ability refers to data processing that remains subliminal and can only be expressed in intuitive terms.  “Sensibility” is a bit long, though… with apologies to Jane Austen, I’m shortening the label to “Sense.”

Kinesthetic.  Yeah, this is the bodily-kinesthetic intelligence, but let’s call it by the more familiar term “Agility.”  I suspect that “Dexterity,” as popularized by D&D, is more accurate… but why not use a term that can be applied to left-handers?  I also like “Deftness,” but it sounds like “deafness.”  Bah.  Agility models an awareness of the position of one’s body in space and what it’s doing, and competence in its use.

I was considering also adding a “Speed” ability, but on reflection I feel that application of speed is a combination of one’s wits and sense, fast-twitch muscle strength and kinesthetic intelligence.  So, no “Speed” for now.

Potency.  Ha ha, no.  I plan to include a magic system for fantasy gaming, and here I find myself facing a stylistic choice: do I want magical aptitude to be something innate?  Do characters born under the right star-sign, or with the right kind of midichlorians, or whatever, have an edge over everyone else in the arcane arts?  Or do I want it to be a matter of knowing the right secrets, importuning the right spirits, putting in the most hours of study?  Both options have roots in classic literature, both have advantages.

Incidentally, even if I keep this one, the name may well change.  Is the term “Potency” nifty or childish?  Chaosium’s Call of Cthulhu used “Power,” contracted to “POW” for a dash of vaguely-silly awesomeness, but I have the feeling that there’s some more esoteric term that I could use, and win extra points in style and distinctiveness.  I’ll leave it as is for now.

Charisma.  Yes, it’s been used, but the term is an accurate portrayal of what I’m thinking of.  I spent a long time debating whether to include a social ability.  After all, a lot of social competence falls under Sense, reflecting a subconscious awareness of the people around oneself and their moods.  And lot of social skill is just that – the skills of self-expression and manipulation and so on.  On the other hand, I do think that there’s a more innate combination of self-confidence, extroversion, considerateness and openness that makes some people more socially ept than others.  So for now, Charisma is in… covering “interpersonal,” the final intelligence of the 7I model.  Hah.

Stats I definitely don’t want to use: Luck; it’s a little too meta for my taste when the system itself depends on random number generation.  Psionic Strength; if this goes in, it’ll fall under Potency.  Appearance; I just don’t want to give it that much weight.  Let it be an aspect of Charisma.

One more thought, in keeping with the renaming motif I established above: it occurred to me that the term “ability” literally means something one is able to do, and is thus applicable to skills as well as inherent traits.  So (in part because I referred several times to this article during the writing of this post) I’m switching the term to “Attribute.”

Roundup: That leaves us with seven or eight attributes, depending on the genre: Agility, Charisma, Health, Potency (optional), Sense, Strength, Willpower and Wit.  Next I want to talk about attribute generation options… or secondary attributes to be derived from the “primary” set above… or both.

Posted in Nonfiction, Rules | Tagged , , , , , , | 2 Comments

Four Realms: Mechanics Outline

Posted on July 1, 2011 by Confanity

Alright, we have a mission statement for Four Realms, but that and ten dollars will barely buy you a coffee.  How about a skeleton for the system.

One element that is both a strength and a critical weakness of D&D and many other gaming systems is “character classes.”  On the one hand, it can be convenient to have a handful of archetypal roles to fill; it allows quick character creation and an easy guide for behavior during play.

On the other, there are so many archetypes, and so many variations possible on the theme of each one, that the system runs into trouble as soon as someone comes along who thinks it would be interesting to play something other than a standard version of one of the provided archetypes.  Do you refuse to allow it, thus losing their interest over a relatively trivial issue?  Or do you provide a wealth of possible classes and/or customization options, resulting in system sprawl and losing any benefit of having imposed defined archetypes?

So no character classes for Four Realms, then.  No “levels,” either; they can be a handy mechanic, but only by sacrificing a lot of verisimilitude and flexibility.  Why would learning how to swordfight make you better at knitting, juggling, and price-haggling all at the same time?  Each character should be defined mechanically by nothing other than their innate abilities and their acquired skills.

On that note, I’m not against a system of “advantages” (e.g. ambidexterity) and “disadvantages” (nearsightedness).  However, first – that kind of system would be one of the “optional layers of rules” I mentioned last time, and second – it’s a system ripe for abuse if you’re not careful.  I’d have to find ways to put limits on it, for example tying each (dis-)advantage to a specific set of possible trade-offs.  We’ll see.

I dislike the term “core mechanic,” but the “d20” system of recent D&D iterations does have the benefit of simplicity.  One part that strikes me as odd about depending on a single d20, though, is how entirely random it is.  A staggering failure or overwhelming success is just as likely as a run-of-the-mill result.  Fortunately, there’s a solution to that: roll more dice.

If you roll more than one die, you get a bell curve of results.  The more dice you roll at a time, the higher the center of the curve is and the more quickly the outskirts attenuate.  I like the span of a d20, so (for the time being; it may change) let’s say 4R will use 2d10.  Most check results are going to be average-ish.  This means there’s a relative emphasis on ability over luck; the trick then is to keep static modifiers, such as situational bonuses, in check so that they don’t become overwhelmingly large and take out any uncertainty or excitement.

One other thing: the vast majority of checks, as I see it, are going to be skill checks.  If you want to perform a (non-automatic) action, you roll 2d10 and add your skill level and any other relevant modifiers.  But what if there’s an action that depends on nothing but strength, such as shoving a heavy object out of the way?

It would be easy to use the same 2d10 mechanic, with lower target numbers, but for some reason I like the idea of needing to roll low: if you have a Strength rating of 12, you roll a die and 12 or lower succeeds.  It seems to me, though, that a bell curve would work against you here.  Players with characters of below-average rating could get discouraged and stop trying.  So I’ll leave that as a straight d20 roll.

So there you have it.

  1. Each character has Abilities and Skills that define everything about what they do and how (and how well) they do it on a mechanical level.
  2. Abilities are checked by rolling a d20; a result equal to or lower than the ability rating is a success, and higher is a failure.
  3. Skills are checked by rolling 2d10 and comparing the result to an opposing roll or a target difficulty.

Next time: what Abilities should the system track?  And here we’ll really see me trying to balance between versatility and simplicity.

Posted in Nonfiction, Rules | Tagged , , , , , , , | 2 Comments

RPG system-building: Statement of Intent

Posted on June 26, 2011 by Confanity

In my very first post on this blog, I mentioned that I was – like many people in the hobby – working on my own gaming system.  And like many creative projects by many people who have yet to be paid for their creativity, it has stalled.  So here I am, going over it from the ground up in an attempt to see how much I can actually create when I’m putting it out in public.  This first post is about the abstract aspect and broad goals, a statement of intent, if you will.  Posts to follow will deal with the mechanical nitty-gritty.

Constructive comments and criticisms are very welcome, of course; most things will show up first on the page because they sounded about right at the time.  Number crunching and research for real-world comparisons can come later, and I’ll probably need all the help with that I can get, given my level of experience in the field.

I suspect that I’ll be drawing influences not just from a spur-of-the-moment “that feels about right” intuition, but also from a number of published gaming systems that I’ve played in and/or read the rulebooks for over the years.  These may include, but are not necessarily limited to:

  • Chaosium’s Call of Cthulhu, a percentile-based system.
  • Dungeons and Dragons – almost all of it, from the “original” and its various modern clones to AD&D, 3.0, Pathfinder, and perhaps even 4.0.
  • The Lord of the Rings RPG, based on 2d6 and including a number of interesting features.
  • Rifts, because it would be hard to produce that much rough without accidentally including a diamond or two.
  • The “SAGA System,” as used in the Marvel Super Heroes Adventure Game and Dragonlance: Fifth Age; these are card-based games that could theoretically be played with a normal deck of playing cards.  I plan to go with a dice-based system because I like dice, so I’m not sure how much of an influence this could be, but still.
  • The White Wolf “World of Darkness” gaming system.  I’m only really familiar with the particulars of Mage and Changeling, but in the broad scope they’re all the same.

For comparisons I’ll probably be referring to D&D most often.  It has the most users and the most name recognition among non-users, and I’ve played it the most myself.

So, what are my starting goals with the system?

  1. I want it to involve rolling the standard Platonic Solid random number generators, preferably a variety to keep things interesting.
  2. I want it to have a relatively simple substratum of rules, upon which layers or modules of other rules can be added in accordance with elements used in the campaign.
  3. My primary intended setting for use is a fantasy world of my own devising, but the system itself should be easily enough adaptable to a range of other settings.

Finally, there’s the question of what to name it.  For most of its history, the system I wanted to write was called “Twilight,” – the original name was “Tenebrae,” because I liked the sound, but later changed on account of how it made no sense – but given the associations of that word these days, it seems a change is called for.

This may change again later, of course, but if you look again at the first post in this blog, you’ll see that my fantasy setting has four distinct “realms” or worlds.  So the provisional name for the project is “Four Realms.”  Thoughts?

Posted in Meta, Nonfiction, Rules, World-Building | Tagged , , , , , , | 1 Comment

The Last Labor of the Titans

Posted on May 5, 2011 by Confanity

The Last Labor of the Titans
(A creation legend of the Slakiv Empire, from Hloen’s Tales of Our Mothers)

Listen to what I say, you young and old, for I tell of how our world was made and what its fate may be. Attend, you strange and intimate; I speak of what we are and why. Follow closely to my words’ wanderings, for they follow all paths.

At the dawn of what we know as time, the archons of Twilight and Dream met and decreed that they would wage war at the end of time, the final and most terrible war ever. They signed a covenant with ink mixed from their blood and breath, which set out the terms of the war and of their relations until the end of time should be declared. After this they set together to create a battleground, so the worlds they knew and loved would not be scarred beyond eternity.

Their name for our world, Showahon, means “place apart,” and it is from this root that we draw Shankhar and Shoun, which is its name in Xyam that they speak to the east. And it truly is a place apart—outside of all other worlds, but connected to each, or to many. It is a reality different from all others, and its laws are not like those of any other world, so that its secrets are even now still being uncovered. The building of Showahon was given to the titans, the greatest artificers of all. It was they who drilled The Fountains of Creation, through which the elements flow.

First, the titans created a shell known as Cosmos to hold the world and define its limits. Outside of this there is something like, but not exactly, a place, the paths of which lead to other worlds. No mortal has walked these paths to tell of it, but this is what is said. Within the spheres of Cosmos were placed the sun, moon and stars, to light the world and mark its time with their slow turning. Then, working for a hundred years, they built a great pillar of adamant in the very center, around which spun a vast disk upon which the war could be fought. Its surface shone with fire, and water flowed through its veins. However, this was displeasing to the archons, and they rejected it. So the titans unbuilt it and labored for ten thousand years, building a maze of inestimable size. This labyrinth twisted in on itself and splayed out in all directions; walking for a lifetime could fail to bring you back to your beginning, or take you to the same place always and always. Its halls and stairs, tunnels and chutes, whistled with wind and grumbled with stone. A battle there would be sung about after all other songs had died, so great was the field. Still the archons were unsatisfied, so much that they destroyed it themselves.

The titans set about then on their final and most awesome labor. For a thousand thousand years they worked, drawing power from all worlds to weave something that belonged to all and yet to no other but itself. They mixed fire and earth to make a simple round mass, and around that built a sphere of stone and soil. The surface of this they judged too plain, and so gouged out pits and crevices, basins and nooks, and in other places they piled up mounds, hills, mountains. The outer surface of this sphere and the inner surface of the sky-shell they bathed in water, so that this inner world has oceans and rivers, while the sky above shimmers with the currents that run through it, and glows blue in the sun even as does a lake.

Still this did not seem enough to the titans, who wished to outdo all their previous works. They set the lights of the sky to move and change, the ball in the middle to spin, and threaded it all through with lines of power. Some of these sprang from itself, and others, from the myriad other worlds, so that it would continually grow and change by their influence. Nor yet were they satisfied, these master craftsmen. They seeded the oceans with living things, from plants no larger than a mote of dust to the great Kraken and other behemoths of the deep. Other living things they grew from the earth, lichens and molds, herbs and trees of all sorts. Then they made other things to move across the land, tending the plants, eating and fertilizing them, and they made things to fly through the air or burrow under the ground. We do not know by what blueprints they made so much life, or how much the living things have changed on their own since that first creation. But the host of titans walked the land and sea and were pleased and proud with their own craft. They delighted in the world, its ever-changing faces and seasons, and the uncountable spirits that had wandered from other worlds and found a home in this one. They settled here to live, those titans, and continued to shape it in the manner of an old gardener who is always shaping his little patch of earth, just so, long after his children’s children have grown to work the land themselves.

The archons came then, and looked over Showahon, and were satisfied. For here was a ground where a battle of infinite variety and surprise could be waged for an aeon and still hold mysteries for the warriors to delight in finding. It was not the first creation of a world, nor the last, nor perhaps the best, but it was very good. They asked the titans what payment would be accepted for such a masterwork.

The titans deliberated among themselves, and came to realize that they loved this world too much to leave it. Not one of them, from the elders and leaders of their tribe to the youngest child, could look at a hill without remembering a week spent sitting there to plan a forest or river; could not look into a valley without remembering how they had dug out its contours and buried there a stone in which lived a spirit that had not found a home within the memory of gods. They wanted nothing more but to love the world, and tend it, and be part of it forever, and they said this to the archons.

The archons granted their wish. The titans had given themselves wholly to this task, and could not be separated from it. Yet the world did not belong to the titans; it belonged to itself, and to the archons for its final use. So they told the titans that they could no longer wander the worlds, nor grow, but only fade away as their own creation absorbed them ever more completely.

And so it was that while others came to the titans for their services, they refused each request, until they were visited no more. Once they had made artifacts beyond what we can ever know simply for pleasure; now their energy was spent on placing a single vein of silver ore within a mountain, or delicately shifting an island to change the pattern of the winds, or changing the color of one star in the sky. As their mastery lessened and they invested more of their being into the world, they had fewer and fewer children, until they had none at all and their race began to die.

It is not known what happened to their bodies. Some say that the titans are buried, in the land’s skin or at its hot heart; others that they melted or changed to vapor; all agree that the titans were finally unified with the world by their love for it. It is said that they are all around us, their flesh having made the final touches of their work. And so it went until the very last titan, Kor, laid himself down and died.

It is said that the archons, before they departed for their long sleep to await the coming of the end, visited Kor as he lay in state and found to their surprise that creatures were already investigating the body. These were not carrion-beasts or birds; these were wondering what Kor was and why he was there. The creatures were intelligent, but unlike any other being of any world. They had their own rules, sprung from this earth and water, air and fire, moved in strange ways by dust of the cosmos above. Thus the archons discovered mankind, the only force that mixes the essence of Faerie and Dreaming and thus can rule and be ruled by either, or both, or none.

That is my telling. We do not know who we are; no being of any world can understand us fully. For we partake of everything, must choose nothing, and we alone of all that moves on the inner sphere of Showahon can say where we will go and when.

Posted in Setting, Short Fiction, World-Building | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

The Boy Who Would Kill the Wind

Posted on April 13, 2011 by Confanity

Time to start adding things again!  Here’s some short fiction.  Incidentally, I wrote this when I was in college, and later had it illustrated by the talented Ryan Armand.  In a further incident of unknown consequence, that image is this site’s header, so I thought it would make an appropriate first fiction post.  But what are we waiting for?

The Boy Who Would Kill the Wind

Once upon a time, there was a boy who lived with his mother in a small house in the woods.  His father had been a great warrior, with a magic sword, but now he was dead and his sword hung on the wall.  The boy and his mother raised chickens and a garden, and gathered firewood to sell in the town nearby.  The boy saved promising pieces of wood and played at sword-fighting, sometimes with the other boys from the town but more often alone.

One day he came into the house and took his father’s sword down from where it hung on the wall.  His mother asked him why and he answered, “I wish to avenge my father’s death.”

“But your father fell from the roof,” she said, “as you know full well.”

“It is high time the roof answered for its sins,” he replied.  “Too long it has looked down on us.”

“But if you slay the roof, what will protect us from the rain?”

“Mother, I cannot leave my father’s death unavenged for convenience’s sake.  But don’t be troubled; I can build a new one before the next rain.”

His mother relented, and the boy went outside and stood at the top of a ladder to address the roof.  When it saw that he had a magic sword, it begged for its life.  “Have I not served your family all these years without fail?” it said.  “And besides, it is wrong to punish the whole for the fault of a part.  Your father fell because he was standing on the loose shingle that you see, here in the front.”

At this the boy menaced the offending shingle, but it too pleaded with him to spare it.  It said, “I meant no harm.  Your father stood on me for some time without falling.  He would not have died if a gust of wind had not taken him off-balance.”

Immediately, the boy climbed down from the ladder, for he knew better than to fight the wind while balanced up in the air.  After some thought, he went through the forest to a hill and strode up it, and there at the top he stood with the sword in his hands, waiting for the wind.

Boy with Sword and Wind. Also, leaves and grass and stuff, blowing.

 

After a time, the wind came and swirled around him, and asked what he was doing.  He told it, “We must fight, because you have killed my father and I would avenge him.”

“That seems foolish.  How can you fight that which you cannot see?” asked the wind.

Listening to its voice, the boy felt confident that he could find the wind even on a dark night.  “I must do the best I can.  This is my father’s magic sword, which can even cut you if it must.”

The wind was a little frightened to hear this news and the boy’s unwavering tone, so it tried a different argument.  “If you do kill me, then who will turn the windmills on the plains below?  Who will carry the birds in the sky?  And who will carry the clouds to bring you rain?”

“There are other winds,” he reminded it.  “And besides, I am sworn to avenge my father.”

The wind saw that frightening the boy off with bluster was useless.  “You are picking the wrong fight anyway,” it said.  “I was merely flying along and doing my work as I do every day; it was the earth that pulled him down and struck him.”

“Then I must slay the earth itself!” said the boy, and would have done so had it not protested.

“Mercy!” it cried.  “I can see that you will not stop even for the sake of all the living things that walk my surface, but in any case I am too soft to have killed your father from such a short fall.  The blow was struck by the stones that make a path to your door.”

Finally the boy felt that he had discovered the real killer, and ran back to the house in a rage.  In the meantime the earth felt bad for betraying the stones, who were its children.  It warned the stones, but neither earth nor stones could think of anything more to say to the boy that would stay his hand.  Soon he arrived, and set himself for a blow that would shatter the first of the stones, when a bird flew up and said “Stop!” in a commanding tone.

“Why?”  The boy lowered his sword.

The bird alit on the stone in front of him.  “I have been living in this forest for many years.  I saw what has happened today, and I saw what happened when your father died.  You have not yet found your father’s killer.”

By this time the boy was tired, but he still had enough fire in him to make good his vengeance.  He begged to know who was responsible.  The bird said, “Your father built the roof of your house, and affixed one of the tiles wrong.  When he went up to repair the chimney, he stood on the loose tile and so was unprepared when the wind blew.  When he fell, the stones were there only because your father had placed them to mark his front path.  So you see, your father is responsible for his own death.”

“Then must I kill my father to avenge him?”

“Your father is already dead.  He avenged himself even as he died,” said the bird.

Finally satisfied, the boy went inside the house and ate dinner with his mother, who was much relieved to hear his tale.  Later on, the boy journeyed to the baron’s castle and made a gift of the sword to the lord there.  In return, he and his mother were granted enough land and money to move into town and open a business there.  So they all did live happily ever after, especially the earth and all the living things on it, most of whom did not know how close they had come to destruction.

Posted in Short Fiction | Tagged , , , | 1 Comment

Setting: A Cultural Miscellany for Fair Vickelt

Posted on March 5, 2011 by Confanity

Languages

The large part of the Archipelago’s business is conducted in a pidgin tongue called Pata Ila.  Every island speaks a different dialect, but in general any one speaker can understand any other.  Pata Ila shares a number of points in common with each of its neighbors on the islands, although knowing one doesn’t allow one to freely speak or comprehend any of others.  In addition to Pata Ila, Archipelago natives may speak the Bronze Tongue of the Bronze Men communities; the Rune-Sailors’ Vandik; the Galotos shared by the Scantii and Hartii; Low Haemish and High Haemish brought in by Slakiv invaders, traders, and Order scholars; Ghazhi, immigrated from the bustling economic powerhouse of Tnadep, the Waplands, and the Theocracy on the mainland; the Mudhoppers’ and Ghoul-eaters’ Ulougu; and here and there a handful of orcish Gyamt, because while orcs themselves are seldom seen in the islands, a number of pirate groups have adopted the tongue as a private code.

Seasons, Holidays, and Time

Like much of the known world, the main part of Archipelago culture has inherited the Slakiv calendar.  Days are grouped into fives for counting; five fives make a “month,” with the span between the end of the fourteenth month and the beginning of the new year being observed as a sort of mini-month, in which many workers are allowed to come in late or leave early, and preparations are made for the New Year festivities.

It should be noted that this is the secular calendar; there is a far more complex religious one based on observing the cycles of various elemental nodes, used to coordinate worship and holy observances.  The one time each year both calendars match up is at the summer solstice, when the New Year is celebrated.

Each year is divided into five seasons of unequal length: starting around the solstice is the Hot Season, with unrelenting sunlight ameliorated by cooling sea-winds.  After this comes the Flight Season, presaged by the appearance of great flocks of migratory birds, bringing cooler weather and culminating in the winter Storm Season.  The Growing Season is marked by the resurgence of new plant and animal life and the departure of the birds back to the south whence they came, and the year is rounded out by the Rainy Season, a time of gentle but near-continuous rains and fogs that make sailing dangerous.

Major holidays include the New Year, a time of sky-worship when the old year, living in the sun, is said to reach the peak of its strength and birth the new year from one of the stars.  The old year then retires to live out the span of its remaining life in the moon, occasionally punishing the fiery young year with an eclipse.  Storytellers and acting troupes will often recount various tales of the sky-people during the New Year festivities.

When the appearance of the migratory birds in the sky marks the beginning of Flight, all the houses with household gods follow a tradition called the Ascent into Dream.  Celebrants meet in public places and share small cakes; one or two of these contain cooked (and thus, painfully spicy) Raptor Root.  The unfortunates who bite into this nasty surprise have to stand watch.  Everyone else drinks alcohol spiked with fresh-pressed (and thus, pleasantly soporific and hallucinogenic) Raptor Root, and are led by the Interpreters of Dreams in a meditative ritual until they pass out and spend a few hours communing with their family totems in Dream.

Mid Flight brings the Foundation Five, a fiveday that begins with the Fast of the Flood (commemorating the destruction of Old Vickelt) and ends with the Feast of Foundation (marking the anniversary of Fair Vickelt’s creation).  The intervening three days are a busy time for druids, offering thanks to the gods of the land and placating the spirits of the sea.  Low Vickelt, it should be noted, only observes the fast and a single day of druidic activity after.

Storm sees the Senken school’s Festival of Strength, which has grown for the general population into a time of athletic games and physical challenges, and shrunk for Senken’s descendant schools into a time of heightened frequency for their duels and brawls, after which they spend the remainder of Storm recovering from their wounds.

The winter solstice, meanwhile, is marked by the Sunless Immolation.  Bonfires are lit, coffee and sweets are served, rhythmic music is played, and many people, especially the young, take part in endurance dances until the new day begins, and is promptly slept mostly away.

After the end of the winter storms, the Goden Goden and Beggars’ Guild lieutenants organize the Rag Festival.  Professional entertainers take time off, allowing beggars and the down-on-their-luck to put on various performances.  It is customary to tip a decent performer, feed a good one, and outright sponsor an outstanding one, offering them a daily allowance or meal ticket at your household for the coming year.  In the past people seen as being too stingy might be mocked, harassed, pranked, and all but outright attacked, but this was put to an end by the current Goden Goden, Brown, after a series of increasingly harsh reprisals by private bodyguards and the Magistrate.

Finally, the mini-month leading up to the New Year is also home to Wee Boss’ Market, after the spring crops have been taken in and just before the summer crops are planted.  A fairgrounds is set up some distance outside of town, and anyone who offers something to the gods is admitted, whether they be from the town, a pirate or bandit camp, or even one of the island’s more hostile tribes or from the mainland.  Each stall offers some kind of goods for sale and some kind of game of chance, such as a coin-toss to pay double-or-nothing on a cheap item.  The Market sees a strict truce; weapons are temporarily surrendered to the Magistrate acolytes manning the gate in return for sweetmeats, and it is said that anyone breaking the truce will be cursed by all the gods of the island.

Within the span of a day, time is not much noted.  Sunrise, sunset, and noon are observed, of course, and morning and afternoon may be colloquially divided into “early” and “late,” but common folk make no finer-grained distinctions than these.  For those few individuals who desire more precise divisions of time, sundials and sandglasses are the tools of choice.  The Order sage and the Collectors’ museum are both known to house enchanted sundials that tell the time (to within about five minutes) regardless of the weather, or the hour of the day or night.

Money

Most of the Archipelago runs on barter and trade.  Merchants will be able to tell you the value of a cow in pearls, or of a handful of spice in terms of eggs.  In cases where immediate payment can’t be made, regular trading partners may keep a tab, to be cleared at some point in the future.  Some islanders never see a coin in their lives.

Others do, and they see a wide variety.  The official currency of the Diarchy is “two-face ivory.”  The throne claims exclusive right to all whale-ivory found in the Archipelago, and maintains mints where artisans carefully carve it into oblong discs.  On one side of these is the Lawgiver’s likeness, with the royal motto and various symbols, and on the other, the Insularch’s face and benediction.  These are relatively rare, though, and valuable enough that they are traded more as treasure objects than coinage.

Also in common use are golden and silver Slakiv Imperial coins, silver talents from the Theocracy, and native-copper chits that Pasti produces at a steady rate.  Their value is constant enough that they can be used as coinage based on their weight, although they tend to be quickly taken out of circulation and used in various metal crafts.

Posted in Setting, World-Building | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | 2 Comments

Setting: Groups of Interest on Kyper

Posted on February 26, 2011 by Confanity

In town

Fair Vickelt and Low Vickelt are rife with guilds: organizations that act in part as unions (protecting their members, providing training, advancing capital, guaranteeing quality, and setting prices) and in part as protection rackets (doing their best to put out of business anyone who tries to practice a trade without paying guild dues).  There are also a number of influential groups or even families with monopolies on certain corners of the market.  Most of these, such as the Rush-Weavers’ Guild, have a seat in the Consortium, but are relatively mundane.  The following are those most likely to be of especial interest to a common adventurer.

House Antsi monopolizes the cultivation and processing of Raptor Root, a tuber which depending on how it is prepared can be a powerful spice or a mild hallucinogen.  The family patriarch has retired and runs a tavern that serves its own home-brewed potato alcohol, called Hawksmead; the family’s affairs are run by twin sisters in their early thirties, Dona and Duma.  They are commonly suspected to also control one of the town’s criminal organizations, but no attempt to make the connection has ever been successful enough for the Magistrate to move against them.  They have been known to hire mercenaries as extra guards for their fields, especially during harvest times in early summer and late fall.

The Beggars’ Guild is an actual organization of beggars, led (and represented in the Consortium!) by a man whom they call the Goden Goden, but whom everyone else calls the Beggar King.  Every year the Goden Goden organizes the Rag Festival, when the city’s beggars put on plays and other performances in the hopes of securing rich patrons who will sponsor them in the coming year.  Many beggars, of course, also have their hands in pick-pocketing, larceny, smuggling, and information-peddling.

The Collectors are a club of moderately wealthy individuals whose collective hobby is the stocking and maintenance of their own private museum and library of curiosities.  If you find something you can’t explain, the Collectors would be delighted to get their hands on it to study and identify.  Their pursuits remain low-key, semi-secret and purely academic (aside from the occasional elaborate hoax or prank) in order to avoid the Order’s wrath.  But adventurers can count on them to have leads to potential treasure hauls, and to buy up artifacts that couldn’t be sold on the open market.

The Crystal Blade Academy charges a solid price, but provides proportionally excellent training in the spear and blade.  Outsiders with especial skill may be hired on for a term as guest instructors; those who show promise in their teaching ability and moral fiber are even, on rare occasion, given long-term positions in the school.  The Heartforges are largely retired from public life, but they have at times been convinced to sponsor adventurers with an interest in the way of the paladin or with a sufficiently noble cause.

Lampsonius’ Library is a private library run by the town’s most famed eccentric sage.  “Old Lamps” is around 60 but hale and cheerful, a highly-skilled scribe with an extensive library.  He speaks at least half a dozen languages well enough to converse in, is said to be able to research almost any subject, and makes the best peach brandycake you’ll ever eat.  He isn’t interested in artifacts but competes fiercely with the Collectors over any interesting written text.  His prices for research, or copies from his collection, are exorbitant, but the prices he’ll pay for new knowledge are just as high.

The Magistrate does not offer jobs or any particular services to those outside the faith of the Third of Law.  But if you fight against lawbreakers or those who would disturb the peace of Low and Fair Vickelt, the Magistrate’s acolytes can be counted on for backup.  If you break the law, of course, the Magistrate is not your friend, although you can expect relatively humane treatment if they catch you.

The Order of Magi… is complex.  It is one part public service organization, maintaining a sage and several hedge-wizards in Fair and Low Vickelt.  It is one part research organization, ready and willing to study local magical traditions in search of new knowledge to incorporate into its body of lore, even maintaining a liaison with the less-hostile Bronze Men tribe.  It is one part enforcement organization, using its own resources and hired mercenaries to ruthlessly wipe out magical practices that threaten the public peace and wellbeing.  And it is one part meta-church, offering training to priests and druids of all stripes, existing in slightly-uneasy tandem with the Archipelago’s native druidic hierarchy.

Pasti Enterprises controls the town copper mine.  Its scion Guy Pasti is one of the town’s few truly idle rich.  He is rich, charming, handsome, rich, and rich.  It’s said that he sleeps most of the day so that he can spend his evenings going to parties – if there’s no party in town worth going to in a given tenday, he throws one himself – and so that he can spend his nights dallying with women.  The Pasti family is always interested in hiring trustworthy guards for its shipping and processing, but the mine itself is left unguarded at night, protected by the widespread belief that those caught in its depths after sunset are likely to be eaten by a grue.

The Ratcatchers’ Guild is an excellent source of income for down-on-their-luck mercenaries.  Instead of a regular fee it simply asks a 10% tithe of all profits, and the guild house keeps a perpetual cauldron of ‘stone soup’ warm for those who would otherwise go without dinner.  The Guild’s portfolio includes not only the killing of rats and other vermin, but also the training and sale of dogs, cats, and hawks for pest control, and even (for a couple of their highly-specialized members) control of supernatural menaces.  Jobs are first-come, first-served, and are signaled by the infested house hanging out a knotted rag.  One knot means insects or similar tiny vermin; two knots means rats; three knots means something worse.

The Seaharvest Guild is, technically, a union of sailors and fishermen.  In reality its leader, Master Ordus, was part of Archipelago’s fraternity of self-styled pirate kings.  Ordus made the wise PR move of only preying on Imperial shipping not bound for Kyper, though, and has since retired to Fair Vickelt to live in comfort.  Meanwhile his fleet of pirates joined the population of Low Vickelt and continues to earn him money with their labor.  If you’re interested in a ship to hire, pearls, or craggy hairworm chitin, or a job in shipping or as a marine, Ordus is your man.  Don’t get on his bad side if you ever want to see the sea again.

The Senken schools are the descendants of a school of physical magic that predates the Order’s presence on the island.  Each year in midwinter the Senken school hosted the Festival of Strength, a time of athletic competitions and of free self-defense training for the common folk.  Now the school has split into Ocean Senken, emphasizing flowing movements and lightness of foot, and Mountain Senken, favoring bursts of strength and direct, focused motion.  Each school is consumed by the quest to prove its superiority over the other; the fighting is worst during the Festival of Strength, when private dueling threatens to explode into widespread street brawling.  Each school provides relatively decent combat training, devotees are expected to duel members of the opposing school if an opportunity presents itself.

The Wergild Mercenary Guild charges a membership fee, but members receive top picks for a lot of good jobs.  Businesses will hire extra guards or bouncers at times, as will merchants or explorers when who want to travel.  Occasionally, a mercenary army will even be raised to combat monsters, bandits or a similar external threat.  Those unafraid of a little labor can find work here in construction and hauling as well.  And best of all, if you die while on the job, your next of kin get a cash payment to keep them out of the poorhouse for a while!

Out of town

The island of Kyper is miles across and mountainous.  Its preeminent community is Fair Vickelt, with Low Vickelt in second place, but scattered across Kyper one can find dozens of tiny settlements, from lone hermits to bands of one or two hundred people who turn from farmers and hunters to bandits and pirates when the need arises.  There are also eight communities of a few thousand individuals each that never fully assimilated into the dominant Archipelago culture.  They have names for themselves; the following is how they are known in the Vickelts.

The Bronze Men are remnant communities of the Archipelago’s oldest known inhabitants, so called because they continue using bronze tools even now that iron-working and steel have been imported from the mainland.  The Bronze Men on Kyper are divided into two main factions.  One of these is relatively open, welcoming trade and hosting an Order hedge-wizard.  The other is hostile to outsiders, isolationist and mistrustful, raiding when times are tough and vanishing into the ravines and caves when attacked in force.

The Rune-Sailors are a quiet, seafaring tribe whose religious practices revolve around the manipulation of “sacred words.”  Although a relatively peaceful group, they occasionally clash with Ordus’ fleet over fishing territory, and will attack anything Castoff or Slakiv on sight.

The Castoff tribes, the Hartii and Scantii, came to the island after the Bronze Men and Rune-Sailors and ruled it for a long time before breaking down into civil war.  They have since been driven off of Kyper proper and now bicker and battle among themselves on a smaller island off of its northern coast.  They are inveterate pirates, but only against targets they think they can defeat with impunity.

The Mudhoppers live in a marshy area on the far side of the island from the Vickelts.  Peaceable and open to trade, but they depend for everything – their livings and protection – on the swamp.  Trade with them can be very lucrative, but you have to go to them and make your way past all the others first.

The Ghoul-eaters live in the island’s center.  Little is known of them other than that their magical traditions revolve around necromantic practices, they engage in trading or raiding only seldom, and they show zero tolerance to the Order and its agents.

The Redskins are the remnants of a Slakiv garrison… or rather, its women and children.  The garrison was cut off from aid during the expulsion of Slakiv forces from the islands, and then assaulted by a combined force of local tribes, warlords, and pirates.  The Slakiv men were massacred, every last one, but the women and children were taken as prizes and slaves, and their red skin and gray eyes still mark the community to this day, even as their practices were assimilated into the broader Archipelago culture.

Posted in Setting, World-Building | Tagged , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

A Meta-Mechanic

Posted on February 22, 2011 by Confanity

The Slakiv investigation into the Sons of Du Van Ku continues apace.  But that doesn’t stop the approaching series of adventures in Fair Vickelt; rather, it hastens their approach.

It should be noted that those who ply their trade in the Archipelago will not only be measured in terms of their personal statistics, but as a group: the party as a whole will have its stats tracked in several metrics.

Honor is how straight the party plays.  This is not how good they are, per se, nor how well they follow Fair Vickelt’s labyrinthine laws.  Rather, it is a measure of their reputation for keeping their word, for how much trickery they employ, for whether they honor their debts, avenge wrongs done to them and their allies, and the like.  Almost all potential employers and allies, and even enemies, respond well to a good Honor score.

Brains is how much cleverness and finesse the party brings to the table.  Crazy hijinks and kick-in-the-door tactics in the course of a mission detract from the party’s Brains score; evidence of planning, demonstrating a broad and deep knowledge base, or resistance to being duped will add to it.  A high Brains score will close some job opportunities (nobody wants a mook who questions orders) and open others.

Shininess is whether the party is perceived as a force for good or not.  In a culture rife with corruption, violence and hired blades, a reputation for Shininess doesn’t require one to donate one’s life savings to the poor or help poor old ladies for free; the baseline is more akin to ‘saving the guy’s life first and not asking for payment until after,’ ‘minimizing civilian casualties,’ and ‘not ripping people off.’  Shininess may overlap with Honor, or may conflict with it, as in choosing mercy over vengeance.  Some groups will not hire or befriend the party unless it has a certain minimum Shininess; others will treat it as an enemy if this score gets too high.  Of course, vice-versa is also true.

Results is the bottom line.  Does the party accomplish what they set out to do?  Did they avoid collateral damage in the pursuit of their objective?  Do they consistently generate customer satisfaction, or consistently slay monsters and win treasure, etc.?  Obviously, the higher the party’s Results score, the more demand there will be for their services, and the higher fees they can charge… and, if they make an enemy, the more likely that enemy is to consider them a threat and use deadly force.

The above are global stats – the party, collectively, has one Honor score that they all share as long as they associate with each other, representing how honorable they are viewed as being by the populace at large.  One could even think of the sum of the points in these four scores as an ur-meta-stat, Fame.  In less nebulous terms, though, the party will also have a Rep score from the point of view of each entity in the area.

Rep (short, obviously, for “reputation”) is the measure of how that specific group or individual views the party.  If for some reason the party acquits itself with Honor, Brains and Results – but in an incredibly secretive way, or simply so far away from civilization that nobody knows other than one employer, ally, enemy, etc. – then this will be reflected in their Rep for that entity only.  Similarly, an act taken on one group’s behalf against another, no matter the broader effects on their other meta-stats, would raise their Rep with the employer and lower their Rep with the injured party.  A negative Rep with a group can mean anything from social snubbing to assassination attempts and open attacks on the street.  When the campaign starts, all Rep scores will be zero (or N/A, if you will) for all groups until they interact with the party somehow.

Note that it is possible to get negative points, or have a negative score, in any of these stats.  A party that consistently lies, cheats, and steals will quickly accumulate negative Honor and Shininess, even as their reputations for Results (and probably Brains) increase.  Not just that, but both negative and positive points will be tracked for each stat, perhaps even at the same time.  Saving a man’s life but only after his house is destroyed in the attempt will gain both negative and positive Results points.  Sacrificing a few innocent lives for the greater good will gain both negative and positive Shininess.  Most interactions with third parties will depend mainly on the net score, but smart NPCs will take both sides of the equation into account when interacting with the party.

Next up: Aside from passing mentions in previous posts, who are the power players in Low and Fair Vickelt?  Further insights into Archipelago culture and society to follow.

Posted in Meta, Rules, World-Building | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | 2 Comments

Mini (“Doom”) campaign

Posted on February 16, 2011 by Confanity

A few years ago, a death cult was found operating in Slakiv lands.  The self-styled “Sons of Du Van Ku” simply set up a secret lair and start scouring the countryside for likely-looking victims to kidnap and murder or drug and brainwash.  It took nearly a decade of investigation and cost hundreds of lives (counting innocents, soldiers, mercenary adventurers and cultists) before the group was eradicated (Mostly.  Probably.) from Imperial lands, but now the source has been traced to what seems to be the original hidden temple on a mountaintop in the neighboring land of Clevaria.

Unfortunately, Clevaria is extremely hostile to the Empire.  They accept no ambassadors, and anyone speaking Haemish there is chased out of town or lynched, sight unseen.  The sorcerer-kings of Clevaria regularly try to stamp out the cult, but it always springs up anew.  Despite this shared problem, the stubborn bastards have no interest whatsoever in cooperating with the Slakiv Throne, even when it would be of mutual benefit.

That’s where you come in.  Due to your linguistic and cultural training you can pass through Clevarian territory unscathed, and you can handle yourselves in a pinch.  Your mission – because of course you will choose to accept it! – is to infiltrate the temple’s suspected location and bring back all the information you can about the cult, so that next time it reanimates, it will be easier to find and stop it.

According to reports, it was not too long ago that the sorcerer-kings cracked down on the cult and wiped out all traces of it that they could find, so expectations are high that, with basic caution in case of traps or possible brigands or monsters squatting on the site, you should be able to walk in, gather a respectable amount of information, and walk out without a hitch.  Any treasure you gather is bonus pay unless it needs to be turned over to the Order or your commanding officer to aid the investigation.

The PCs in this adventure are a tightly-knit band of elite troops.  You were raised together, trained together, fought bandits and monsters together.  Character creation should be a group process, with lots of feedback and no secrets.  The first session will start with finishing up characters (if necessary, as necessary) and play will begin with the party approaching the foot of the forbidden mountain at whose top the temple is said to lie.

Posted in Miscellaneous, Setting, World-Building | Tagged , , , , | Leave a comment

Location: Fair-Vickelt-after-the-Flood

Posted on February 12, 2011 by Confanity

History and overview

The island of Kyper lies in the northern reaches of the Diarchal Archipelago.  Even less hospitable than its neighbors, for centuries its largest sign of civilization was the thrice-rebuilt city of Vickelt, a sea-town with decent natural protections against foe and weather and rich waters to live off of.

Four generations ago, Vickelt was decimated by a tsunami.  Some of the survivors rebuilt, of course, and live even now within the protection of their town’s partially-collapsed walls.  Most moved about half a day’s travel uphill.  They followed the Tall River, only stopping when they came within sight of the series of cascades and waterfalls that give the stream its name.  There they founded a new city, which they called Fair-Vickelt-after-the-Flood.  Now, the two communities are commonly called Low Vickelt and Fair Vickelt.

Fair Vickelt sits astride the Tall in an ancient lava scar turned flood plain where the rich soil supports intensive farming and the open land allows some advance warning against monsters and raiders.  There have always been plans to build a wall, of course, but perpetual bickering over the details has left everything but a pair of gatehouses on the river unbuilt.  The citizens of the town instead rely for protection on a rather chaotic, even mazelike collection of ditches (which double as a sewage system) and stone, earth or wooden stockades, palisades and fences, many of which now lie within the town proper due to its growth.

And it has grown, to a city of nearly 12,000 souls, with about five thousand more under its jurisdiction in Low Vickelt and the lands around.  A rich vein of copper has been opened in the nearby cliffs, several food- and cash-crops are raised in the flood plain’s soil, and a thriving community of guilds attracts craftsmen from the nearby islands.

Although it has survived and flourished overall, Fair Vickelt has had its share of problems.  The original close-knit refugee society has grown, large enough that it is vulnerable from within to factionalism and infighting, but still small enough to be vulnerable from without to monsters and bandits.  It is a city complex enough for criminal organizations to form, but not yet protected by a robust system of laws and enforcers and social contracts.

Government and major players

The Diarchy itself is represented in all reasonably-sized towns and cities in the Archipelago.  Fair Vickelt houses a Levy-Master and his aides, and the druid of the island Kyper’s own spirit answers directly to the Insularch.  But these two, despite their authority, don’t govern the city directly.

Fair Vickelt is ruled by the Guildmaster Consortium, a plutocratic oligarchy.  This loud and confusing council is filled with representatives from almost every mover and shaker in town: landowners, craftsman’s organizations and other actual guilds, the Order of Magi, various churches, noble and wealthy families, and even one of the Levy-Master’s personal secretaries.  Because the standard way of things is to do for yourself anything that needs doing, the council is mainly a venue for foisting off onto others the responsibilities that must be fulfilled but that your own interests aren’t particularly served by, or for harming your business rivals through the manipulation of tariffs and duties, or for getting elected Chair so that you can make your enemies shut up and sit down.

As a result, the Consortium’s chambers are one part social club, one part brawl, and one-tenth of a part actual governing body.

There are three organizations in the city of some military strength: the Wergild Mercenary Guild, the Crystal Blade Academy, and the Magistrate.

The Wergild Mercenary Guild is a union of sell-swords and similar rough workers.  They receive commissions for bodyguard work, judicial posses, anti-bandit military ventures, monster hunting, construction, hauling, and other physical labor.  Their worker base consists of any freelancer who cares to wander in and look at the notice boards, so quality can vary.  But workers with good results tend to get first pick of the jobs that come in, so employers here tend to get what they pay for, and everyone’s happy.  The guild stands out first, because it offers a “death bonus” to the next-of-kin of those who fall in the line of duty, and second, because it remains unrepresented in the Consortium.

The Crystal Blade is a military academy that stresses excellence of character as well as in the handling of spear, short sword, and bow.  Its founders are a married couple, Dale and Tawny Heartforge.  Dale left Fair Vickelt years ago as just Dale, and returned with skill, idealism, a last name, a beautiful and formidable wife, and the translucent sword that gave the school its name.  The school will take anyone with coin or the willingness to work off their debt, but will only officially sanction its graduates – and fewer than half of those who enroll have the strength of arms and spirit to make it through the training.  Crystal Blade graduates are among the most sought-after bodyguards within a hundred leagues.

The Magistrate is the priesthood of The Third Lord of Law, a god of Dream who favors strict (and, if necessary, violent) justice.  This is the largest organized church in town, and its (sometimes heavily armed) acolytes are the closest Fair Vickelt has to a police force.  Nobody cares to oppose them, in part because they operate with legal and divine sanction, in part because they do the dirty work that nobody else is willing to do in the case of certain crimes, and in part because, well, they’re organized and heavily armed.  The head priest is technically an inherited position, but blood relations who fail to show sufficient zeal for Justice tend to be disinherited and acolytes who do, adopted.  Any criminal in either Vickelt can tell you that the worst part about the Magistrate is not how harsh they are, but how incorruptible.

Every once in a while, the Magistrate grows sick and tired of trying to interpret and enforce the increasingly opaque and self-contradictory mass of rules the Consortium produces. It forces through a massive wave of simplifications and reforms, after which the process begins again.

The most widespread religious belief in this part of the archipelago is the prevalence of household gods.  About eight of ten households in Fair Vickelt have family gods, dwelling in figures or shrines or other objects.  To serve these people, a unique magical-tradition-cum-priesthood has grown, called the Interpreters of Dreams.  Although not serving a god of their own, these spiritually-sensitive individuals are trained in channeling the faint energies of a family god to benefit the members of its household.  In rare cases this can produce deadly results, but in general the religion is benign enough that the Order tolerates it as a harmless folk-practice.

Other details

Overall Alignment: Chaotic Lawful.

Major resources: crops (beef potato, raptor root, long-grain rice, tart oranges, sugarcane); seafood from Low Vickelt (shellfish, clawfish, tallfin, kelp, star-wrack); other sea products (pearls, mother-of-pearl, craggy hairworm chitin); mining (copper, gold, gems, obsidian); lumber (bamboo, spongewood).

Major industries: ship-making, jewelry, milling, martial training, money-laundering.

Major imports: hardwoods, iron and steel, foodstuffs, pottery, oil.

Economy: robust but plagued by inefficiency, corruption, and crime.

Religions: the Interpreters of Dreams, the Magistrate, the druids of Kyper (the island) and Belsaucus (the local sea-god), various minor druids, Matna (a god of Dream, the fierce mother and defender of the home, often pictured with a kitchen cleaver in hand), Wee Boss the Spry (a fickle but cheerful god of Dream with an interest in chance, travel, commerce, and cliff-doves).

Neighbors: none of note.  Perhaps half a dozen other communities on the island vary between raiding and trading, depending on their moods.  There is enough room to go around, in this region, that none of the nearby city-states have any particular conflict with the Vickelts.

Attitude toward adventurers: What with the bandits, the monsters, the crime, and the city’s high population of sell-swords and veterans, nothing an “adventurer” does is even particularly out of the ordinary.  People will keep a close eye on you if you walk around armed, though.  And even if you don’t, there are a fair number of people who can tell from your posture exactly how much time you spend with a weapon in hand and how well you use it.

Posted in Setting, World-Building | Tagged , , , , , , | 1 Comment