Building Arrylon

[tolen1]

An old man, leading a heavily laden donkey wanders out into the middle of a field. He takes a look around, sees he's close enough to other plots to get help when he needs it, but far enough out, he won't interfere with their work.

 

"Yep," he says, "This oughta do it."

 

He stakes his claim on the empty plot with a sign that says "Arrylon", and has an arrow...

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Good morning!

I hope everyone who has the day off as a holiday is getting to enjoy it, and those who don't get the day off, well I hope you're having a good day too.

 

Last week, I finished my first read-through of Volumes 1 and 2. I think I got most of it, and as I read additional books, I refer back when I don't quite understand something. At this point, its pen and paper time. Time to start doing homework and cement the lessons. And with the whole goal of this to be to create a setting for my players to enjoy, we're going to start here.

This first post is to lay out my goals and expectations, as well as limitations. Later posts will be more nuts and bolts where I'm sure questions will arise.

I started this here in Fantasy land because that's the base I'm going to use. I expect a few sci fi elements, but not enough to (at least, initially) take up any real estate over there.

 

So what do I want to build?

Shortest version is this: Treasure Planet with magic.

I love the idea of sailing between the stars, and I have played a lot of Spelljammer from DnD. But...that's DnD. And Spelljammer has a lot of weirdness I don't like.

So here is a(n incomplete) list of elements I intend to use:
Sailing ships

Space Travel

Pirates

Multiple forms of Magic

Alien races

 

My sailing ships will be powered similar to what is shown on screen in Treasure Planet: The sails are deployed, they catch the solar wind, this powers thrusters to move the ship at speed. You still need a crew to manage the sails for best effect. Also: Cannons. Spelljammer tries to keep everyone restricted to deck mounted siege weapons, but everyone I know loves a good pirate story with full broadsides of cannons. As far as how this works, I've got a few ideas I've been developing over a few recent campaigns involving special crystals that help convert solar energy into thrust. I also like the idea of ships having a sort of AI in the form of a spirit bound to the vessel.

 

Players should be free to pursue whatever path they want. Fortunately, Hero does exactly this (I am so tired of Classes/Levels). Multiple playable races will be an option, so I need to create templates for the most common (my wife wants a DnD style kobold, so we'll have to come up with something as a compromise). I want automatons (clockwork androids) to be available. I intend to reserve my version of elves as bad guys, which I will explain later as I develop the background and story more.

 

I aim to have guns. The kinds of guns pirates typically use, so not much more advanced than muskets. But, with the semi-magical way ships work, I'm sure some clever gunsmiths will find a way to combine guns and magic.

 

Adventures I aim to present include urban style events (pirate cities and trading posts, and the like), plus the occasional tomb raiding (I have a treasure map...), as well as the possibility of massive fleet battles between empires. All in their proper time, of course.

 

Spellcasters are a necessity, but mainly because my players expect to be able to do so. But I want multiple choices because an evoker and an enchanter should not be the same. Again, Hero seems best able to do that, even though it does mean more work for me.

 

Limitations: Lack of experience, mostly.

I have not yet read every book in the set, though I am working on it. (Nor do I plan on buying EVERY book). This means that if I don't yet understand how to do something, it might be because there are rules in a book I don't yet have (I know, you only need the core. But if someone has already tackled X problem in book Y...).

Getting everything to feel properly fantastic as opposed to reflavoring superpowers. That's mainly presentation, I think.

 

Ok, that's all for now. I am open to advice and suggestions, and I will be back later on to add more details. But now...laundry awaits.

[Steve]

For guns, you might consider something more magical sounding like the radium guns used in Barsoom. Perhaps blasters that use magical crystals. If you give guns a low capacity (1-2 shots) and take a phase or two to reload, then they have value as an alpha strike but blades will still be the weapon of choice. You could end up with a character with a bandolier of several pre-loaded guns, but that seems like decent flavor.

 

Most players in D&D don’t seem to use more than a few of all the available spells, so I would suggest getting input from your players as to what spells they actually want and then just making those. Add spells as needed. The 6th edition grimoire gives a pretty good variety that can be tailored.
 

Buy Star Hero and  Fantasy Hero for additional world building help and race design. If you like martial arts, then the Hero System Martial Arts books is great.

 

Urban Fantasy Hero is good for more modern feeling settings and archetype building, but it’s probably more optional for your needs.

 

You might also browse the 5th edition and older materials for setting ideas, and they are inexpensive.

 

 

[Ninja-Bear]

@tolen1, a quick build as I mentioned before is to use the flintlock pistols in the equipment guide and the reload rate is really the recharge rate.  I’d start with the suggested 175 pt Heroic points.

[Ninja-Bear]

Also @tolen1, may I suggest that the sample spells that are listed in 6e try them out? Not so much has you have to use that system as contingent a feel for how spells can work.  I’ve seen many a time (and I’ve done it) what looks good on paper doesn’t work well during game play. At least then you have a baseline to start with.

 

I convert stock goblin from Fantasy Hero to Kobold. If you want, I’ll rustle it up as a bases for your own kobold.

Edited September 3 by Ninja-Bear

[tolen1]

7 hours ago, Steve said:

For guns, you might consider something more magical sounding like the radium guns used in Barsoom. Perhaps blasters that use magical crystals. If you give guns a low capacity (1-2 shots) and take a phase or two to reload, then they have value as an alpha strike but blades will still be the weapon of choice. You could end up with a character with a bandolier of several pre-loaded guns, but that seems like decent flavor.

 

Most players in D&D don’t seem to use more than a few of all the available spells, so I would suggest getting input from your players as to what spells they actually want and then just making those. Add spells as needed. The 6th edition grimoire gives a pretty good variety that can be tailored.
 

Buy Star Hero and  Fantasy Hero for additional world building help and race design. If you like martial arts, then the Hero System Martial Arts books is great.

 

Urban Fantasy Hero is good for more modern feeling settings and archetype building, but it’s probably more optional for your needs.

 

You might also browse the 5th edition and older materials for setting ideas, and they are inexpensive.

 

 

At this point in the process, all I know for sure is that there will -be- guns. How they'll function is up in the air, but then, so is all of the rest of it. Since crystals will figure so heavily into the space flight, it makes sense to come up with more items powered in the same way. I do know I have been working on mines to get the crystals, but also I think they'll need an Alchemical/magical treatment to get them ready for use. (Some details based on a previous campaign.

 

Re: Small numbers of spells. I have noticed that as well, and the general trend in DnD has been to give fewer and fewer with each iteration. I love the idea of a wizard having just the right spell in his collection somewhere, but you are right, most of the time, he isn't using as many. I have a copy of Fantasy Hero now, waiting for my 'to read' pile to get a little smaller. Star Hero is due today. The Grimoire, maybe next week. I aim to go through them all.

 

1 hour ago, Ninja-Bear said:

Also @tolen1, may I suggest that the sample spells that are listed in 6e try them out? Not so much has you have to use that system as contingent a feel for how spells can work.  I’ve seen many a time (and I’ve done it) what looks good on paper doesn’t work well during game play. At least then you have a baseline to start with.

 

I convert stock goblin from Fantasy Hero to Kobold. If you want, I’ll rustle it up as a bases for your own kobold.

I need to see what she intends for the kobold before I commit to any one path. However, I would certainly enjoy a look at what you have done.
Also, as mentioned above, my copy of the Grimoire is in route, so that's likely to be my most major source until I get the hang of all this.

[Steve]

Something I forgot to mention in my earlier post is Hero Designer. It is a big timesaver on building anything in Hero. You can also find quite a lot of prebuilt stuff for it too.

 

Since it is locally run on your PC, you have total control of it too, unlike the shenanigans currently happening with another game system in the news lately.

 

Hero Combat Manager can also be very helpful, particularly in running large group combats.

[tolen1]

I'll have to look into those. Certainly the designer program. The combat manager...well, I no longer have a laptop to take with me to games anymore (we spilled tea into it, and it was never the same...)

[tolen1]

Ok, I meant to write more yesterday, but...didn't. So a little background before I start to provide any real setting material.

 

Arrylon is the name of a fantasy world a friend of mine and I created back in college, some 25+ years ago. It resembled Forgotten Realms in many ways, but with history and countries we made up so as not to be beholden to anyone else's stories. In addition, we wrote a game system to go with it, but our playtest was just beginning when DnD 3E came out, and that was so very similar to what we had come up with, we just switched.

 

As for my part, I wrote pretty much everything outside of the main, highly populated areas. I created the frontiers, the other continents, and many different races. I was the one who was pushing for a sort of industrial revolution, while he was drafting this epic story about the Caladynian Empire, the courtly intrigue, and so on. In the years since, I can't help but drop in aspects of this setting into everything I write. Even when I make the conscious decision to do so, it always creeps back in. And this time, I'm moving the setting into space. Each continent will become it's own world, and each world will create its own style of ships.

 

In brief, that gives me the following worlds:
Amara: This is the setting of the Caladynian Empire. There is a lot of detail I don't remember because this was mostly my friends writing back in the day. It also have several smaller countries within, all of who are (or were) ruled by the Caladyns as of the time of the original setting. This world is human populated. It is the birthplace of humans, and so on.

 

Audun: This was a frontier setting, which allowed for RP that didn't require all of the high royalty. If you wanted a wilderness game, instead of a Game of Thrones game (btw, GoT wasn't nearly as popular back then...), you played in this area. This was a continent linked by a narrow causeway to Amara. It was also where the Elves first invaded.

 

The Causeway: This area was nominally under control of the Caladyns. It was barely wide enough for a caravan to easily cross via the only road on it, but about halfway across was a fortress that protected Amara from invaders from that direction. The fortress was a repurposed structure left behind by the giants of ages past.

 

Nithallian: This was the forested Island home of the elves. These elves were governed parliament-style, and had 13 great houses who sent representatives to make policy. One house was stricken from the rolls because their Leader, Lord Tiberion insisted on taking the Elven "We are better than everyone else, and deserve to rule everyone else" to great extremes, and tried to conquer all of the different lands. They failed, and the history of that war was fun to write. But, as a result of that invasion, everyone remembers Elves as self-righteous B******s. And even though its been some time since that all went down, they haven't changed much. Mostly what keeps them from trying is the fact that it takes a majority vote to mobilize a large enough force to make the attempt, and the twelve remaining houses have never gotten to that point.

 

Irenier: This is where the dwarves came from. It's your typical underground clannish kind of dwarf. But they can produce massive numbers of troops, and were instrumental in repelling the Elven invasion. It is also a region that Caladyn was never able to conquer themselves. If you need a mercenary, find an Irenier Dwarf.

 

Bresdelen: These are also dwarves. But these dwarves broke away form the stolid old traditions of clan and mining and warfare, and created a colony far to the south. These dwarves are a lot more liberal and capitalistic. If you want a merchant, find a Bresdelen Dwarf.

 

Durenor: An active volcanic island inhabited by inventor gnomes. They burrowed and dug, and vented, and eventually managed to control the volcano. They now use it's heat and power to forge a wide variety of metals. They invent things. Whether those things work correctly or even make sense. Their island to the north of Amara was the original intended staging point for the elven invasion. But the gnomes were able to hold off all of the ships full of troops. They built a tank. It still exists in Latchbuilder's Hall so future generations of inventors can learn from it as they move on in their inventing careers.

 

I also created the Murovai, A savannah-like region of cat people, matriarchal, who allow themselves to engage in bloodlust, and become larger, more fearsome when it sets in. It makes them hard to defeat in battle. But they have a sort of detente with the nearby Fan Chi Empire, where I planned on dropping in the requisite psuedo-asian setting most fantasy games seem to acquire at some point. These two areas were far less well developed. Speaking of less developed, we had a psuedo Scotland far off across the sea where we planned on setting more traditional folklorish type adventures, and there was a colony of Caladynians there.

 

Turning each of those countries into worlds is easy enough. Arranging them on a map, somewhat less satisfying, but I'll figure it out. So there you have it, a look at the sort of scale I'm working with. More to come, feel free to comment!

[Steve]

For your space travel, I recommend something akin to how Traveller does it, which gives a strong Age of Sail feel to that interstellar setting. Distance between stars should take some time to traverse, and if you have the only means of interstellar communication be the ships themselves, then ship commanders need to be more self-reliant. Your frontier zones are a bit away from the home worlds. Perhaps there are regions that allow some shortcuts to travel times, and those would be hotly contested.

[tolen1]

That is an excellent suggestion.

But what about a tweak to it? Magical communications over large distances is possible, but only between two mages (for example). Further, the maximum distance is large enough to be useful during an invasion, but not so good as to be galaxy wide. Arbitrarily, I'm thinking about 1 AU in distance. This would let a fleet of ships in orbit to coordinate their actions, but it would still take a long time to get messages or changed orders back and forth from home. (Edit: the process would involve sending a message via Mage A to Mage B, Mage B sending it to Mage C, and so on...)

 

Nithallion (Elves) would absolutely take advantage of this, even going so far as to place a series of 'repeater' bases along the invasion route to enable rapid (but not instantaneous) communication with home. And of course, those would be hotly contested places for battles, as they are discovered and attacked to sever that line of communication. It would also imply the supply route needed, as any supply ship would want to be close to their means of calling for help.

 

This brings up travel times and speeds. For simplicity sake, let's assume that the distances are vast enough, and the speeds high enough (while under power) to put the two closest worlds - Amara and Audun - 30 days apart. Virtually every other world would be farther away. If a ship could make that trip in 30 days, then maybe the repeaters could make the trip in a week? So you could absolutely hear about an invasion coming and warn the target, but the invaders would have to still be sure of how much force to send because reinforcements will still be too far behind to swing any given battle. Each side would then be looking for capable spies to suss out defensive/offensive capabilities, and open another style of game play within the setting.

 

Edit: to avoid getting bogged down in maths and distances, let's simplify. For every 5 days a ship takes to travel, it takes a message 1 day to cover the same distance.

 

I forgot to mention in my earlier post: my late stage history back in the day had a surge in shapeshifters. In my mind, the beginning of the end for the Caladynian Empire was a changeling that seemed to have solid proof of bloodline and claim to the throne. Their use as spies should be obvious...

Edited Wednesday at 05:45 PM by tolen1

[Steve]

It takes light a little over eight minutes to travel an AU, so instant communication across this distance is not as big a deal as it would cause for interstellar communications. Drive speed and fuel capacity can also come into play. Smaller ships could act as couriers. Larger ships would be trade vessels or warships. Smugglers could use smaller ships, I suppose.

 

Perhaps something like Star Trek’s dilithium crystals enables interstellar travel, so that then become a resource to be acquired and fought over. Magic is the fuel that powers them, or is that power stored within them, so the crystals need to be replaced now and then?

 

In Traveller, due to the speed of travel, entire wars can be fought out by local forces before any communications from the home world even reaches the front lines.

 

A feudal arrangement gives a bit more flexibility to such an interstellar setup. The lord of a system or a planet has to be able to make decisions rather than wait for the distant king or emperor to do so.

[tolen1]

3 hours ago, Steve said:

It takes light a little over eight minutes to travel an AU, so instant communication

 

So in this setting we just accidentally figured out that the speed of magic is equal to the speed of light.

 

Yes, the crystals need replacement. Or at the very least, refurbishment. In Hero terms, I'm pretty sure they are an Endurance reserve with no REC. It takes a properly trained magic user to refresh the charge. Even then, eventually, it's just better to get a new one.

 

In regards to the issue of wars being fought without any communication making it home...that's a good point. My method (which I like) would accelerate a lot of things. So I'm going to be thinking harder on that one.

[tolen1]

I didn't get any work done on this yesterday. I keep that up, and I'll get in the habit, and this'll die again. I've lost count of how many times I've started writing this material up, only to slack off and then one day realize, it's been how long since I wrote anything?

 

I do know I'm quite ready to start nailing down the mechanical parts yet. So let's go over what I hope to create when it comes to races. (I have read the core rulebooks, and I do have Hero Fantasy, but haven't had time to get to it to read, so this is all prep work before we get to the nitty gritty.)

 

Elves.

In Arrylon, Elves are complicated. Firstly, they are somewhat religious, but claim to be non-religious. In their stories, they admit that Phaedra created Mithrallon and Nixus (gods of Light and Darkness, respectively). Phaedra created the Elves as the first (and only) people.  She gave her sons the ability to create as well. Mithrallon and Nixus competed for her affections. This led them to conflict. So they created soldiers. Mithrallon created humans because he was trying to make something similar to the people his mother made. Nixus created the gnomes, and made them clever.

 

When the Elves first encountered these 'second born', they were confused. These new people were taking up lands that were supposed to be theirs. When they sought Phaedra's advice, she refused to get involved. At least, until the wars became so devastating that she had to step in and try to stop her sons from fighting. She took all of the three peoples, set them on their own worlds separated by huge gulfs of space so they would not be able to interfere with each other. Part of the fallout of this was a fight in her chambers. Her sons went to convince her to choose their creation as the best and most favored. During the fight, the brothers struggled, and accidentally killed Phaedra.

 

Ok...so that's ancient history. Traditionally Elves have always believed the gods exist, but they feel that since Phaedra did not make them most favored, that she must have favored one of the other races, and this gave rise to their desire to subjugate all the others.

 

Now, in the present, their religious leanings are more of an ancestor worship. To an Elf, bloodline is all that is important. Elves track their bloodlines in detail, and often compare themselves to great heroes of the past. Especially if those heroes showed a great willingness to try to bring others under their heel. On the other hand, after Tiberion dragged everyone into the greatest war ever fought, and the Elves losses were so great, they tend more towards a moderate position. They have no doubt they will one day win over, but it will take time. Which is fine, because with their near immortal life spans, they have all the time they need.  Conquering other races can mean different things depending on which of the 13 houses the elf aligns himself with: one house might consider occupation and administration enough, another might feel that elimination is the way to go. This tends to make parliament lively, and prevents major invasions simply through disagreement. If there were another Elf as charismatic as Tiberion was, he might get enough House support to try again. Until then, each house has its own goals, and this keeps things fractured.

 

I am summarising a lot of material here. I have a books worth of details about Elven culture.

 

If I were to think about making a racial template for Elves, I'd almost want to make each house a separate culture template. As a people, Elves are magical. Their power always came from the gods, even if they think all gods are bas****s. There is no single spell or power a given house is known for using, though maybe a way to differentiate the houses would be in the style of magic they tend to prefer. Otherwise, Elves are what most games make them. Tallish, thin, probably more arrogant. They do prefer forests, but some houses are built atop mountains, and others find their way through the deserts. I would say they are fairly dexterous and nimble as a whole. They have a widely practiced (among elves) sword art. They have been slow to adopt gunpowder, but that's mainly because they generally believe they don't need such crude weapons. They will absolutely learn to use them if they need to, and can be quite skilled with them. Outside of magic and combat, they have very logical minds, and the governmental machine runs very smoothly (at least the parts that agree work well, nothing irritates an elven bureaucrat like new rules they have to adapt to).

 

Thats enough rambling for now. More details coming soon (though the weekend is always busy for me).

[tolen1]

I hope everyone had a good weekend.

I'm going to talk a bit about humans in my campaign today. Mostly because I have far less to say about them than any of the other races, and partly because it shows the need for cultural templates.

 

The short version is that humans have always been the measure against which all other races are compared. As such, they don't have many racially specific special abilities. This makes it easier for new players to pick the concept of role-playing without having to learn a completely alien outlook on life.

It's also boring.

 

(Disclaimer: I have mentioned that the original form of this setting was a collab back in college. Most of the human territories and the Caladynian Empire was my partners work. In the years since then he has moved on, but has expressed delight that I am continuing to try to develop it.)

 

...and I really have no idea what to do about it. In Arrylon, in Amara, (and even in Audun), humans are primarily differentiated by their culture. Humans from Caladyn are, typically more cultured, better educated, and far more concerned with politics than anyone else. They have the benefit of a well-trained army to protect their interests, and can even join said army get the military training they need. These are the royals. there is a reason they are in control of Amara, and not someone else. Though as history wears on, the old power begins to wane and a new power begins to rise. However, most of human culture is going to be influenced by the fact that for the last two centuries Caladyn ruled the land. The Caladynian Empire (often referred to as the Amethyst Empire) stretched across the entire continent (in this new version, the world of Amara). Even if you weren't from Caladyn, or Caladynian stock, they still ran the country for you. And it has been a good life. Caladyn has brought a decent amount of propserity, and genuinely cared for the people more often than not.

 

The Caladynians aren't the only ones, though. The Empire includes more than a dozen different smaller countries. and each of those people are different from each other. In the North, there are a lot of logging and timber industries. Along the coasts are fishing and shipping. People in the desert regions tend to be taller and thinner, while in the North they are somewhat shorter and stronger. One country might be known as fishermen, while their neighbors are miners. The people on Audun are primarily pioneers, and so need a wide range of skills to keep themselves alive.

 

The only thing that humans have compared to anyone else is the ability to aapt to the conditions they find themselves in very quickly. When Tiberion's ships came across the region now know as "Tiberion's Leap", several walled cities fell quickly. Refugees fled into the nearby mountains, joined the dwarves, and began a resistance movement. countries farther from the action started making preparations for defense (if they had the ability) or to push their production up to aid the efforts elsewhere. Aside for that, and their skill at administrating large groups of disparate people, humans don't do any one thing better than anyone else.

 

A potential racial template for them would have to reflect that general spirit, while the cultural templates would be like the elven templates. The difference being of course, instead of a great house, each template represents a region.

 

I'm getting closer to setting down actual mechanical parts of this work. But I'm not quite there yet. I'm still reading some of the books, and I still have a few other major races I want to discuss, sort of get a 'whole picture' kind of view going before I dig out the wrenches and hammers and start building. But I am open to ideas. As always, feel free to comment, let me know if anything comes to mind, what you might do, or reccomend I avoid, and so on and on...