Steve Long

Picked it up already.
 
After all, I've been waiting quite some time for any sort of support for my favorite company-produced fantasy setting.    
 

Part Six:
 
TECHNICAL power is the power of specialized knowledge and skills. Scientists and inventors possess technical power because their discoveries and inventions change what people can do and what they know. The priests of Egypt held technical power because of their monopoly on writing, the calendar and geometry. Nowadays, lawyers wield technical power because the law is so complicated that only a specialist can understand it. Any group based on technical power can claim authority on the grounds that only its members possess some skill that society needs to function, whether the skill is writing, law, engineering or alchemy: "Leave it to us, we know what to do."
 
What does your society treat as specialized skills and knowledge? Who has power through their possession of such skills? How do they use it?
 
Case Study: The Realm may appear somewhat weak in the field of technical power (though the sorcerers of the Heptagram qualify as possessors of specialized knowledge, and so do the artisans who increase the Dynasty’s panoply of artifacts). Keep in mind, though, that the complex bureaucracy of the Thousand Scales is a form of technical power. Prudent Realm-folk should not ask how much that power is meant to assure competent administration and how much it screens the people who really run things.
 
Case Study: In Creation, shamanism is not always coupled with piety. Small gods and elementals have power; the shaman develops special skills to chivvy the spirits into using their power for the benefit of the tribe (or at least not to use their power to its detriment). While shamans might learn thaumaturgy for this purpose, just the diplomatic skill to bribe, browbeat, wheedle or otherwise persuade a spirit is a form of technical power.
 
Case Study: The astrologers of Varangia decide everyone’s occupation, as well as the times to initiate war and peace and just about everything else. Their divinations are real, if not infallible. This assurance that everyone and everything is in the right place, doing the right thing at the right time, makes Varangia an example of a government that is explicitly based on technical power.
 
AFTERWORD
 
Keep in mind that every social force can affect the other four, and institutions often combine more than one social force. In the Scarlet Empire, for instance, the military occupation of the satrapies brings in the tribute that enriches the Great Houses and opens the way for Immaculate missionaries. The Lap’s enormous food surplus, an economic resource, is used tactically to reward and punish societies through half the South. Or, the Varangians guide their lives through astrology because of an ideology that elevates stasis as a social goal, and ordains astrology as a way to achieve it.
 
Conversely, activities and institutions that seem similar might operate within a context of different social forces. For instance, look at religion in Creation: The Immaculate Order is explicitly ideological; but shamanism is often an exercise of technical power. A god who extorts worship by threatening mortals uses military power, whereas a god who promises boons in return for worship enters into an economic relationship. Spirits can even become legitimate heads of state, as the Syndics of Whitewall have done — albeit by promising safety and prosperity as well as honest and competent government.
 
As an exercise, you might look at a country’s description in the CoTD books and see how each social force operates within it. If you want to use a country as the core setting for a campaign, the Pentangle of All-Encompassing Power can suggest areas to develop your own material.
 
Dean Shomshak
I'll post some further addemda tomorrow, but I'm sicj of getting posts merged and having to edit them apart again.

Pinnacle Entertainment Group has just made available for just $2 an audiobook of a superhero short story I wrote for them some years ago, entitled "The Third War." Here are the basics:
 
https://soundbooththeater.com/shop/audiobooks/the-third-war/   "Crusader is the most isolated man in Star City. He spent the years prior to the v’sori invasion racking up an impressive body count of supervillains and street criminals. For his efforts, he was hunted by the cops, targeted by the underworld, and reviled by the public as a ruthless vigilante. Since the invasion, he’s shifted his focus to shooting aliens; but he still takes any opportunity to kill the villains and crooks he comes across. Superheroes and cops consider him a villain, the villains all want him dead, and the v’sori would gladly torture him to death if they could get their hands on him. But that doesn’t stop him from carrying out his own private war for Justice.   Then Crusader learns the v’sori have built a weapon that could kill every super villain on Earth, destroying the resistance in one fell swoop. Forced by circumstance to work with one of his most hated foes — the indestructible strongman, Invictus — can he adapt his moral perspective and learn to work with criminals he knows he should kill? Or will he let humanity remain under the alien yoke so he can see Justice done?"   Please check it out, pick up a copy, and give your ears a treat!

We're currently trying just such an experiment with Champions International, and if that works well for us the possibility of creating more Fantasy settings, or expanding on TA and the others we have, is a definite possibility. Like many of y'all, I love creating worlds. (Which reminds me, at some point I need to get back to working on my Worldbuilding Guidebook, based on the methods and tips I often teach in seminars at gaming cons.)

Howdy, Herophiles! My latest book (in PDF form) is now available: The Celtic Bestiary, a collection of monsters and creatures from Celtic myth, legend, and folklore, is now available at the Hero Games Online Store for a mere $12.99! It features 67 monsters, and is just the right thing if you're in a campaign set in Tuala Morn, have a Celtic-influenced setting in your own campaign world, or would just like to have some cool, unusual monsters to throw at your heroes. Please check it out and pick up a copy today!
 
https://www.herogames.com/index.html/store-items/new-for-the-hero-system-the-celtic-bestiary-r399/

Howdy, Herophiles! My latest book (in PDF form) is now available: The Celtic Bestiary, a collection of monsters and creatures from Celtic myth, legend, and folklore, is now available at the Hero Games Online Store for a mere $12.99! It features 67 monsters, and is just the right thing if you're in a campaign set in Tuala Morn, have a Celtic-influenced setting in your own campaign world, or would just like to have some cool, unusual monsters to throw at your heroes. Please check it out and pick up a copy today!
 
https://www.herogames.com/index.html/store-items/new-for-the-hero-system-the-celtic-bestiary-r399/

If someone wanted an epic threat more nuanced than Kal-Turak as the basis for a campaign in this setting, IMHO the Hargeshite Empire of Vashkor would be the leading candidate. From its description I categorize it as something of a cross between the Arab Caliphate and the Soviet Union. The largest empire in the world, with the biggest standing army, Vashkor is united by its devotion to the Hargeshite creed, under an absolute ruler who is considered semi-divine, called the Hierakte. Vashkor has had peaceful eras, but is dedicated to the spread of Hargeshism by any means, and the Hierakte at TA's default start date appears particularly ambitious and aggressive. Half the world of Ambrethel is within reach of Vashkor's armies should it move to war.
 
The Empire's populace is kept tightly controlled, and the Hierakte treats other Hargeshite nations as Vashkor's satellites, expecting them to follow his dictates without question. The last such realm to proclaim its independence, Khepras, suffered invasion from Vashkor's army, the annihilation of its capital city and slaughter of all its populace, including most of its ruling nobility. Khepras is now a land of lawless chaos.
 
Vashkor's past also includes a frightening precedent, when all the realm's priests and wizards were gathered to craft the magical equivalent of a nuclear first strike against their enemies. This left behind a barren, near-lifeless desert called the Hargeshite Devastation, rivaling the Great Arabian Desert in area. (I know this sounds familiar to fans of the world of Greyhawk.)

That's a very reasonable analysis, Nolgroth, and very useful from a GMing perspective, as it can be stretched to cover whatever circumstance the GM needs for a particular story.
 
The Valdorian Age is a different and intriguing situation. Faith really is needed by the religious then, because the gods are no longer active in the world. Legends record that they once intervened in mortal affairs, but for millennia they have not answered the prayers of their worshipers, nor do they grant magic to their priests. Magic in general has become far weaker and rarer; sorcerers have to bargain with or coerce supernatural entities into providing services to them, which is difficult and perilous. The failing of magic is called, "The World's Death Rattle."
 
The Valdorians still worship a pantheon of gods (none of them under the same names as Turakian gods, although there are similarities), but attribute the gods' absence to disgust and punishment over the murder of their great folk hero, Valdor. What no one understands is that magic on Earth is in one of its periodic waning phases, and isn't strong enough to keep the gods "awake," so they've entered a sort of stasis. When magic rises again during the Atlantean Age, some of these gods "wake up," others are newly born, while some forgotten gods may have died from lack of worship.
 
However, awakened older gods may have "evolved" in ways suiting how their current worshipers believe them to be. As one example, the chief god of Atlantis is named Tikarion, but is very similar to his Turakian analogue Kilbern, and may be a new aspect of the older god. (I'm not surprised that Steve Long, a lawyer, made the supreme deity in two of his settings a god of law and justice.)   For another, the Atlantean war god is named Ares, but is more of a noble warrior than the Greek war god of the same name will be, and is also the judge of the dead and keeper of the Underworld.

I strongly agree regarding the Spearlord. There are a number of mysteries surrounding him that make for intriguing possibilities to explore. (I have my own ideas, of course.) But one of the biggest for me, which also applies to Kal-Turak, is why they're allowed to spread their evil so far? Kilbern leads the "good" Blue Gods, but is also king over all the gods of the High Faith, including the evil Scarlet Gods. It's implied at several points that even Mordak, the chief Scarlet God, fears Kilbern's wrath. The Blue Gods have acted directly against great evil in Ambrethel in the past, such as cursing the Dark Elves to dwell in darkness beneath the earth, and sinking the island of Khem. So why do they suffer the depredations of the Lord of the Graven Spear and his even more evil son? The situation must be more complex than the surface details.
 
(I will send you all the positive energy I can spare, Nolgroth, to try to speed your recovery.)

Got up to the Lord of the Graven Spear and the end of the First Epoch. I really like the inverted King Arthur trope here, where the Spearlord conquers much of the known world with the aid of a magic spear. SO much more detail could have gone into this. Hell, you could really make an entire chapter about this period of time and the time after where kingdoms are rising and falling all over the place, for that matter. In fact, the period of time just after the death of the Spearlord seems way more interesting to me than the default campaign assumption of eventually fighting Kal-Turak. Luckily (and also somewhat frustratingly) a lot of the details surrounding the Spearlord are vague and GM dependent. This character has the potential to be one of the most interesting villains around. Hate to say it, but much more interesting than the titular villain, Kal-Turak.
 
If I were to write the Spearlord's story, I would actually give him a name and make him a little less directly evil. Heck, in some parts of the world, he might have become a bit of a folk hero. He was, after all, a somewhat permissive leader that might well have brought stability to some nations/regions that had not experienced it before. But that's me projecting my own tastes into the setting. Let me finish the book as written before I get into all of that.
 
My reading is slowed down considerably by a head/chest cold. Every time I cracked open the book to start reading, I would suddenly jolt awake with a couple of minutes having passed by. Was hoping to get the history lesson done today.

I for one would love to see more of your fantasy setting material. All of those ideas sound good - especially your take on sword and sorcery, and low fantasy.
 
It doesn't have to be a doorstopper like Turakian Age. Perhaps an ongoing series of short PDFs which could eventually be collected into a book? 

I also appreciate how Steve chose to work in the issue of faith, which would seem to be irrelevant in a world where the gods manifest their presence and power directly every day, so there can be no question of their existence. In TA the gods derive their sustenance and strength from worship, but faith -- the belief in that which cannot be proven -- adds savor to what would otherwise be a nourishing but "tasteless" meal. Hence the gods don't answer all their worshipers' questions, and permit or even encourage different interpretations of their nature, without weighing in on which is valid. Faced with related but differing theologies, all of which are apparently validated by the favor of the gods, a worshiper has no alternative but to choose on faith which one they hold to be true.

:: thinking about rules debates on the Hero boards... ::
 

It's been mentioned before, but the presentation of religion is one of the best things I've seen so far in TA. For instance, the gods of the High Faith are bog-standard High Fantasy, but connecting them into three distinct but related pantheons is quite good -- especially the myth that Mordak was necessary to create the world, which and had to be placated into doing his part, which suggests he could be more than a theological cipher of motiveless Evil.
 
Adding saints (the Esailes, Essailes and Demonhanded) to the theology also pushes it beyond the Generic Fantasy Warehouse. The priestly hierarchy is well presented. So's the theological schism of the Hargeshites: Most Fantasy religions don't have sects and schisms. But the best thing, IMO, is making the High Faith a multi-cultural, even multi-species religion. Yes, elves aqnd orcs worship the same gods! (Just different names.) It's an excellent rebuke to the D&D-ism of every race having its own pantheon... though the pantheons all look very much the same. OTOH, there are other faiths too, from the dire deities of Thun to the quirky gods of Vornakkia. TA takes religion seriously as a force in mortal society and motivation.
 
Dean Shomshak

I also have to share my fondness for Steve's The Atlantean Age for Hero. It has a Classical/Mythic Greco-Roman style and flavor, rather than Medieval. It lacks most of the D&D-esque conventions, and all of its races. It's much less dense and more accessible than TA. And its range of power level is about as high as fantasy gets without turning into a superhero setting. (That might be a downside for some players, but as my favorite game genre is supers, for me it's a selling point.)

I would love to see your take on an Urban Fantasy setting, even if they are a dime a dozen 😁

I've browsed through TA off and on. The strongest part is certainly the sheer scope and detail. The weakest part, as others hve mentioned, is Kal-Turak himself. But I suspect that is an unavoidable consequence of including a world-menacing Dark Lord who is general enough to be useful to a wide range of gamers.
 
Mordak, God of Evil, has the same problem. He's a cipher. But to make him and Kal-Turak not be ciphers, you have to define what evil is and, by extension, what good is. This risks alienating some readers who don't agree with your philosophical tenets.
 
So you stick to the basics. When Kal-Turak wins, the world groans under his tyranny. Got it. Check. We don't define what he wants to rule the world for, unless it's sheer blind love of power and cruelty.
 
(That Kal-Turak is literally born to evil as the progeny of a demon is part of the avoidance of definition.)
 
I am not sure Steve could have, or even should have, done it any differently.
 
I would have liked to see a page on "Deciding What Kal-Turak Wants," for GMs who want more than his generic, motiveless "Evil." It could have replaced the completely awkward, out-of-place page about the Multiverse copypasted from Champions Universe.
 
Dean Shomshak

Okay, started to delve into the history of Ambrethel. What I really liked about this section is that it made me want to open up the sections on the first of the human kingdoms and regions. It did little to make me change my position about human versus drakine. I need to delve further, of course, in order to give the other species a fair shake. Right now, though, the other playable species/races are looking more and more like boxes that needed to be checked off in order to make an epic fantasy rpg setting. 
 
Getting back to the early history, my biggest compliment and complaint is that the text left me wanting more...and there was a lot of information that was not available. Sure, a lot of that can and should be filled in by the individual GM. I almost feel like I need to build a timeline of events to see how things play out over the larger area. Also, the creation myth section is so bland and vague that it could have been replaced with something more concise. The format of the TA book makes a bit of light research a must. Learning the lore of, say, the Sirrenic Empire is going to involve jumping through at least a couple of sections. Maybe the NPC and GM sections will even have more information. This scattering of information has also sort of dictated how I approach the consumption of information from the TA book. A chapter by chapter review is simply not going to satisfactorily educate me on the lore of the setting. This might have been one of the things that caused my initially lukewarm response way back in the day. Also a warning to anybody just jumping in on the setting. Homework is required.
 
So far, enjoying myself.

IMO the cliches are at least partly self-perpetuating. A great many gamers are used to and expect those races, so game publishers keep using them. But some settings do make an effort to give them some variety, including TA as I mentioned in a previous post. My favorite dwarf-variant appeared in a setting book called Atlantis: The Lost World from Bard Games, the publishers of Talislanta. The Dwarves of the southern hemisphere were dark-skinned, beardless, wore their hair in dreadlocks, lived above ground in "poured stone" structures, and rode into battle on giant ostriches shod with fighting steel spurs. They were known more for being peerless jewelers than as smiths.

Thanx for writing it.
 
My suggestion from the setting for potential elaboration would be the Shadow-Priests of Khem (TA p. 179 sidebar). The cult's schemes and operations can be fairly widespread, and as faithful servants of a malevolent god can be as petty or grand as desired. The brief outline of the history of Khem implies an interesting back story. We already have a representative of the Khemites in Alarch Denbrose (Nobles, Knights, And Necromancers), but very little detail for the rest of his order.
 
Although I never got to expand the Shadow-Priests for my own games, I did outline a connection between them and the priesthood of Kaphtor from the later Atlantean Age. My concept was that Elion, the Khemite who founded the Shadow-Priests, discovered an enormous yubha crystal, an enchanted gemstone from Thûn, which had been carried north by magma currents and came to rest beneath Khem. It became the focus of the Shadow-Priests' worship and was charged with the dark power of their god Mordak. It survived the sinking of Khem, and provided an anchor for Mordak's essence, so that he "awoke" with the rise of magic during the Atlantean Age. Having evolved as "Mor'daki," the god raised the crystal, that would be known as the Noctis Shard, above its resting place, which had become the land of Kaphtor.
 
Obviously I would have adapted and modified elements of Kaphtoran society and magic to the Shadow-Priests.

You've convinced me. No colossus can replace that east-meets-west vibe.

It's worthwhile noting that the TA resources go much further than the TA setting book, Fantasy hero Battlegrounds and Nobles, Knights and Necromancers.
 
Fantasy Hero Grimoire and Fantasy Hero Grimoire II are specifically noted as being the grimoires for Turakian Age - in their spell descriptions (and even names) you'll find snippets of background lore on wizards and the occasional historical events. These were removed (and spells renamed) when the two volumes were combined for the 6th edition Grimoire. Personally, I rather like the fanciful names of the 5th edition grimoires.
 
Enchanted Items, by Jason Walters, also draws on TA for items' backgrounds. Monsters, Minions and Marauders provides stats for many of the species in the core setting book.
 
Some published elements of the setting go back further. The Ulronai Warrior-Mage and the College of Warrior-Magery were first detailed in Fantasy Hero Companion II (for 4th edition) back in 1992. Steve is listed as a contributor to that volume.
 
I must admit, I very much enjoy the Turakian Age. I've set campaigns in Aarn and the Westerlands, and in Mitharia. I've even set the classic Keep on the Borderlands (converted to Hero 6) in the borders between Kirkhovy and Vestria. Like others, I find it has a Greyhawk-ish flavour, though with more plot ideas secreted in its background.

While Aarn has the reputation for being the largest city in Ambrethel, for big-city adventure I find the Free City of Tavrosel, in Mhorecia, to hold more interesting potential. Tavrosel is described as "an enormous city, second in size only to Aarn." (The Turakian Age p. 85)  Its government is a semi-democracy with an elected ruling Triumvirate, so there's lots of potential for political intrigue. Tavrosel's excellent port position on the Sea of Mhorec linking most of Mhorecia, and proximity to the Great Pass between Mhorecia and Khoria, make it a major meeting place for the cultures of West and East, giving it a diverse, cosmopolitan populace. It also lies in an area of overlapping interest for several larger powers: Besruhan, Velkara, the Sirrenic Empire, and the Hargeshite Empire of Vashkhor. Tavrosel's diplomats spend much time and energy to deflect those states' acquisitive intentions.

One thing not included with the TA source book itself is the sort of detailed index one came to expect of all Fifth Edition Hero books. This one provides only a broad subject index. However, Steve Long created a separate, exhaustive combined index and glossary for the setting, the Encyclopaedia Turakiana, as a free downloadable PDF, available on the Hero Games website: https://www.herogames.com/files/file/206-encyclopaedia-turakiana/
 
That file was first hosted on a much earlier version of the Hero website, along with several other free downloads related to the Turakian Age. Among them was a summary/classification of the dominant Turakian Age gods; and a calendar for the Westerlands, a major region of the world of Ambrethel. You'll find links to those at the bottom of this archived webpage: https://web.archive.org/web/20060209130204/http://herogames.com/FreeStuff/freedocs.htm
 
Continuing the parade of freebies , if anyone would like to get an advance look at what Ambrethel, the Turakian Age world, looks like, you can download maps in various sizes, color and B&W, from the first couple of links on yet another archived webpage:  https://web.archive.org/web/20060209130319/http://herogames.com/FreeStuff/wallpapers.htm
 
However, the current website also hosts free collected scans of the detailed maps from inside the TA source book, which you can download from here: https://www.herogames.com/files/category/9-maps/

 

I found Dark Sun to be far more suited to Hero than to D&D.  Psionics, unarmored fighters, toxins, and magic were all better defined and balanced in Hero.  The only mechanically difficult part was the herbicidal nature of Preserver/Defiler magic, but we mostly just handwaved it since it had little effect on gameplay.
 
Never read Al-Qadim I'm afraid.