Barwickian

Less traditional works for me. While I don't want to vary too much from the C&S model in the book, something of a change of emphasis is required. C&S magic (or magick if you prefer) is still quite high fantasy. Looking at works like Picatrix and the the Sworn Book of Honorious, many of the charms and rituals focus on commanding or dominating others, or on glamours/illusions. There aren't really any combat spells, or charms you can cast quickly within combat. C&S has the command and illusion spells needed, but some of the flashier spells, including the combat ones, should be flagged to the GM as potentially genre-breaking. With Col's Essence rules (which originated as an attempt to show you could capture the C&S atmosphere with greatly simplified rules), the field is much more open as there are only a few sample spells in the core rules, which are 10 pages long and free. Still, the emphasis will be as above. That's a bit vague, I know. It's a section where I know what I want to achieve but haven't done the legwork yet.

Yes, and I'd be very happy for any assistance - a number of people here know Hero far better than I. One of the things I'd like to do is establish working patterns for sorcery and miracles/prayers for the medieval fantasy theme: distinguishing low magic (which tends to emphasise talismans and raw power words) and high magic (which is a more systemic, intellectual system such as the astral image magic of the grimoire Picatrix and its Arabic original). Buit the priority is on getting the setting finished, maps done and in all in the publisher's hands before I start thinking of extras.

Those interested in a medieval England campaign set during the reigns of Kings Richard and John might be interested to know I'm working on a setting book for Chivalry & Sorcery entitled Sherwood. As well as C&S rules it will have an inbuilt system based on Colin Speirs' rules-light Essence Core and stats for HârnMaster. We've no plans to include Hero stats in the book, but as an old Hero fan I'd like to do a free PDF appendix with Hero stats (note that 'like' is not the same as 'definitely will'). Either way, setting information will far outweigh rules information. You can see much of the raw research for the project on my World Anvil site, Fabula Mundi. The baseline setting is built as far as possible on detailed historical and archaeological research. The setting covers everywhere from York and Skipton to the north and Lichfield and Grantham in the south, including the whole of Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire, and parts of Lincolnshire (including Lincoln), Staffordshire and Leicestershire. The area is chosen such that the published map will print on A0 paper (c. 33 inches by 48 inches) at a scale of 2 miles to the inch. The setting is being written with three primary modes in mind: Historical - the baseline for the setting. As much historical and archaeological detail as I can squeeze in and make interesting. I'm knowingly allowing only three anachronisms, which I'll explain below. Medieval Fantasy - the historical setting with the prodigies and wonders written about by chroniclers of the day: devils, revenants, sorcerers (low and high magic), saints' miracles, werewolves, and things 'neither of heaven nor of hell' (the fey, but of the medieval variety not the early modern variety). Romance - modern ideas overlaid on the historical setting, such as the modern versions of Robin Hood, Saxon rebels versus Norman masters, powers of light and darkness, pagan survivals and so on. Think Ivanhoe, any Robin Hood film or book, and Graham Staplehurst's Robin Hood (ICE), or the Robin of Sherwood TV show that inspired it. Within that there's guidance for several themes: the nobles campaign, the urban/merchant campaign, the outlaw campaign, the agent campaign (PCs working as troubleshooters for the crown, church or a great noble), and a little guidance on specialised campaigns (the monastic and the village life campaigns). Known anachronisms: The Trip to Jerusalem pub in Nottingham claims to date from 1189 and to have been a meeting place for crusaders heading out on Richard's Crusade. The first recorded pub on the site was in the 17th century, when it was known as The Pilgrim. Nottingham's two other pubs that claim to be medieval, The Bell and the Salutation. are in buildings dendro-dated to the 1440s. The Salutation claims to date from 1240, but its first recorded mention is in 1414, when it was known as The Archangel Gabriel Salutes the Virgin Mary. And that is a pub name I definitely want in the setting. Since I'll be including the Sal, it seems churlish to exclude the Trip and the Bell. The attached map is a reduced-scale work in progress. It's built in QGIS. I haven't included the villages in this version as they clutter too much at this resolution. I've a lot more information than I can put on to the printed map, so things like feudal holdings, parish boundaries, rural deaneries and peculiars and so on, will likely be done as individual maps in relevant chapters. I plan to release the map alongside the book as a layered PDF, allowing people to turn the various details on and off.

The PDF edition of the new edition of Chivalry & Sorcery is now available on drivethruRPG. https://www.drivethrurpg.com/m/product/293870 There is a detailed review of the game here: https://www.savevsplayeragency.net/2019/12/23/review-chivalry-sorcery-5th-edition-pdf/

Several of Guy Gavriel Kay's books are set in a fantasy world without magic, drawing heavily on medieval history. A Song for Arbonne draws its inspiration from the troubadours of Languedoc and the Albigensian Crusade; Lions of Al Rassan from El Cid and the Reconquista. To some extent all historical fiction is fantasy, as it's a fictionakisation of particular events. Some invent fictitious locations - Ken Follett's Pillars of the Earth is notable; the town of Kingsbridge is fictional and loosely located somewhere in southern England. I pity the place - nearly every bad thing that happened anywhere in the 12th century Anarchy happened to Kingsbridge in that book.

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

I use Tasha's Ultimate Sheet, which exports to HTML, then print it to PDF. It's worth noting that Chrome doesn't recognise page breaks, which leads to messy PDFs. Instead, open the HTML file with Firefox and print to PDF from there. Each page is nicely preserved.

One magic system I've used for divine magic is to have effects powered only by an END Reserve that will only recharge while the character is performing religious acts, such as prayer. I did this specifically to emulate HarnMaster's ritual and piety point system, and to give divine magic a very different flavour to arcane magic. You coud vary is somewhat - recovering END only while on ground consecrated to the character's deity, for example (though one might then allow a specific temporary Consecrate ritual which costs no END but requires significant extra time so you can set up a temporary shrine where you stop to camp, but can't recharge your reserve in combat).

Re: attacking individuals. Under "attacking individuals" the rules note that the ban on attacking individuals is for ease of play. Most actions for prominent individuals are not attack options, but leadership. inspiration and intimidation. However, the rules note that if a prominent individual chooses to attack a unit, it is treated as a unit of one person (ie, the unit it is attacking can attack it back). Determinging damage from individual attacks - yes, the rules note that under most circumstances the Unit Modifer should not be less that 0, in order that a smaller unit may damage a larger one. However, it goes on to note that the GM may allow Unit Modifiers of less than 0 in order to keep smaller units from having too great an impact. In the case of an individual, no matter how prominent, attacking a large unit, that would seem appropriate. AOEs are mentioned in Megascale and Battle Scale in the Magic in Mass Combat section. It suggests the way to build a spell to affect an entire unit is to use Megascale. No mass combat system I'm aware of segues nicely between personal scale and unit scale. There's always some clunkiness and edge cases. Hero System mass combat offers several options - treating prominent individuals as one-person units, using noteworthy events for individuals, and having personal scale combat in a mass combat environment. None of these is without issues - but those issues are much easier to resolve if one remembers that the player characters are the protagonists: it's their story that matters.

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.

I must admit to a personal dislike of theeing and thouing as a faux medieval thing. Mostly because I come from a part of England that still uses thee and thou - and it is the familiar form of the second person singular. You use it with friends and family. As we say, tha thees them as thees thee (you use 'thee' with people who use 'thee' with you, in standard English). But because it's in the KJV, people think it's polite and quaint. There has been a lot of streamlining of rules over the years; our mantra with this edition is "rules elegance" - no unnecessary complexity - while increasing the medieval flavour.

I ran a game in Bahrain using the free 5th Edition Quickstart rules recently. Here are the player reactions.

Thank you, Doc. A little update on the Kickstarter campaign. We funded fully in less than 16 hours. The first stretch goal is unlocked, and we're eyeing the second. There's 27 days to go, and I'm hoping we unlock the final stretch goal in that time - that brings a war game back to C&S for the first time since the 2nd edition of 1983. Three war games in fact, since Ars Bellica includes an abstract pen-and-paper war game for quick battle resolution, a miniature skirmish game and an army-sized miniature war game. By the way - even if C&S isn't your thing, check out the campaign video. Just the thing for a bit of Fantasy Hero inspiration.

The kickstarter for a new edition of the legendary Chivalry & Sorcery is now live. https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/cns5/chivalry-and-sorcery-the-medieval-role-playing-game This edition builds and refines the rules presented on the 4th edition, published 19 years ago. Sections on medieval society are greatly expanded, taking advantage of two more decades of historical research. Judaism and Islam join Christianity in the core rules for the first time, with sections written by members of those faiths who have studied medieval beliefs and practices. Guidelines for creating fantasy religions and pantheons are included. Alongside fantastical magick, an optional system presents magick from the medieval worldview. Disclosure: I am involved in designing this edition.

Precious few heroes from colonial Africa. That Blixen farm in Africa? That used to be my wife's family's land, before colonisation.