Some random facts about the campaign world -
Since coming to this world 35 years ago, your people have discovered a number of interesting things. Here are a few of them.
Magic is strong here. In the old world magic was often found in the realm of coincidence and wishful thinking, here when you call lightning it comes, you can summon fire from nothing, and some people have flown like birds. Your people are still adapting to this arcane might, but the Druids have made the entire valley of the Aver Danu warm and fertile through their prayers and rituals, in stark contrast to the cold, arid steppes that surround it. Not everyone seems to have the gift for tapping into the magic of this place, but enough of the people do.
What do we eat? Most western/northern European ancient food crops are grown here, so various grains (Oats, Barley, Rye, Wheat) and pulses (green peas, fava beans and others), various fruit trees (apples, pears, plums, cherries, apricots and even oranges), root crops (turnips, carrots), other vegetables (onions, garlic, leeks, cabbages) along with a few Mediterranean ones (Grapes & Olives being foremost among them). The people brought herds of livestock, so cattle, sheep and goats, pigs, horses provide meat, milk and dairy products and leather. Flocks of chickens, ducks, geese and doves/pigeons provide eggs, meat and feathers. Fishing in the Aver Danu provides a wide variety of freshwater fish (some new species), and amphibians. Hunting brings in significant amounts of protein to the diet, as well as providing greater variety. Most meals are going to come out of a pot, a lot of stews and soups, with bread. Roasted animals lose the fat cooking off into the fire, which smells great, but cost resources, so are usually reserved for the wealthy and celebrations. The people brew beer and mead, they drink milk, and the water is pure enough that it's safe too usually. Various teas are made from herbs.
Other races of men live here. You are not the first men to come to this place, but all of the others are primitive savages that do not work metal, they live in caves or in temporary dwellings and follow the herds. (In real world terms these are Neanderthals and Denisovans, perhaps some as yet undiscovered sister species of modern humans. They can and do breed with modern humans creating hybrids, their low population densities make such children rare, but playable as a character “race”)
The people have identified two distinct species of demihumans, Dwarves, with whom the people have a generally guarded relationship, but do conduct trade with their outposts to the south of Dun Math; and the Sidhe (Elves) who are somewhat enigmatic, but seem to share some common foes with the Celts. The Sidhe are a magically potent species, all of them seem to be adept at its use. They are also skilled warriors. Their weakness is iron, they use wooden, stone or bronze weapons and tools mainly, with some of their highest status folk using a “silver-steel” for weapons and armor. They do not ride horses, or chariots. The Sidhe occasionally wander into human settlements, not so much for trade, and usually just as solitary individuals, but there is a high degree of sexual attraction between the species, which suggests a common heritage. The same cannot be said for humans and dwarves.
Then there are the humanoids, bestial savages that seemingly live for slaughter and plunder. There are scores of different types, and their groups range in size from small bands to tribes that can field hundreds of warriors. They are an endemic threat on the steppes, and the Sidhe hunt them there.
The Undead. The downside of a world with potent magic is that there are those that practice the foulest necromancies, and some of the dead rise to make war on the living.
Megafauna- A startling array of large, but otherwise mundane beasts roam the cold plains surrounding the Aver Danu. Think Mastodon, Mammoth or Woolly Rhinoceros, as well as Bison, Irish Deer, and Moose. More exotic things like the Short-Faced Bear, the Giant Beaver, or the Giant Ground Sloth exist too.
Magical Beasts- The cold steppes are also home to a variety of quasi-mundane animals, that have some magical features or mutations. Blink Dogs and Displacer Beasts fit this category; as do magical hybrids like Owlbears.
Mythological Creatures- Dragons, Giants, Basilisks, etc.; they are here too.
Languages – A “Common” tongue for the Celts has developed, it's a simplified Celtic base, with loan words from the various Celtic tongues that made the trip over. It's useful for trade, and basic communications between the various tribes of Celts present, but it is a second language. The mother tongue spoken by each party member will be their own tribal dialect, which will have a degree of intelligibility with related tongues, falling into the groups I mentioned before, mainly Goidelic/Brythonic, which I am going to call “Gaelic and Gaulish”. Forget all the silly languages they gave all the demihumans in the party, while you have the capacity to learn these tongues, you haven't had the opportunity, having been raised among the Celts. Language isn't genetic (I am willing to entertain the argument that SOME native languages might be), it's learned. I am also introducing Fluency as a concept to AD&D, which has always held language as a binary. You either speak it, or you don't. Having studied a bunch of languages over the years, and attained some fluency with them, I hate the binary approach.
Other ancient human tongues from Europe/North Africa/West Asia may actually be present, I assume not everyone who made the trip was a Celt, it's possible an Egyptian trader came too, or a Greek soldier, or whatever. Of the hundreds of thousands of people here, not all of them will be culturally and racially homogeneous. In future generations they'll have been absorbed wholly into the Celtic cultural milieu, but this early on, it's possible someone had a Carthaginian dad.
Literacy- There exists evidence for a couple of distinct Celtic writing systems, the Ogham “Runes”, that may have been a secret druidic writing system, and a set of “Celtic Runes”, not unlike Germanic runic systems, which are seemingly based on the same sources as both the Latin and Greek alphabets, nevertheless, Celts tended to use Latin or Greek letters when they kept any written records at all, although sometimes in their own languages. Because it's more fun and game-ey, I am going to keep the secret druidic tongue, (and it's written version Ogham), and let people choose to become literate in “common”, which will use the Latin alphabet. Scholarly types may choose Latin or Greek as languages, or even more exotic ones like Punic, Hebrew or Egyptian.
This is an ancient Celts themed game, that will be moving towards a more AD&D standard in the world's future, but, rules wise, the world is in flux right now. Watch this space for changes. For today, I am removing weapon restrictions by class entirely, LotFP style, and armor restrictions too. The caveat being that I am introducing arcane spell failure for people wearing armor. I am thinking something along the lines of “No chance if unarmored and unencumbered, roll a check when casting if wearing any armor at all (on a d20), the number you need to meet or exceed being 10 + the level of the spell, + 1 for any shield, +1 for any helmet, +2 for light armor, +4 for medium armor, +6 for heavy armor” I will probably let you add your INT bonus to your die roll though. There could be other situational modifiers too.
Darts- I had removed them from the equipment list, because it's just another example of a thing Gary got wrong. They should be short javelins (or possibly plumbata), but everyone thinks they're bar darts. Fine, they can be bar darts. They're grandfathered in to the equipment list, at d3 damage and a rate of fire of 3/round. Useful as a last resort melee weapon for d3-1 damage.
Catching Your Breath – Any PC can take a full turn rest to recover 1d4-1HP immediately after any combat in which they took damage.
Bind Wounds – an action that can be taken by any character to stop the “bleeding out” of another character that is “Down and Dying”, it immediately restores them to 0 HP, regardless of how deeply negative they were.
Negative Hit Points – Standard rule is that everyone gets -10 HP, then dies. They also state that a character who has gone into negative HP can only rest for 1 week/negative point. I changed this to the dramatically less harsh -1 to hit for 1 day/negative hit point. I might make other checks have a similar penalty, but I also want adventurers to be able to adventure.
New rule for non-human characters – all new PCs created from this point on will be human, unless you want to roll for it, then, potentially, you can play a non-human species or hybrid. You get one roll, and have to select the desired species or hybrid before rolling.
Species % chance
----------------------------------
Elf 02%
½ Elf 05%
Dwarf 05%
½ Orc No
Halfling 02%
Gnome 04%
Caveman 07%
½ Caveman 10%
Gorilla Sapiens 01%
½ Ogre 03%
½ Giant 01%
Other Exotic 01%
Failure to get the desired species means you play as a human. First time players get a single one time species pick, because everyone else did. Anyone who picked Human as their first character still has a one-time pick.
No comments:
Post a Comment