STILL Not Dead (Terrors & Tactics Updade)

They're big animals - I'm not surprised.

***

Interesting idea: I'm concerned over balance issues with allowing players access to temporary extra specializations, even basic ones, over the course of the campaign, but when I step back and look at it, magic items already confer mechanical benefits. Heck, the Energy Admixture benefit could be seen as redundant with the Elemental magic property, for example.

i also worry about people taking the divination, accuracy, armor, and defensive specializations as basic items over more interesting properties, but the same could be said for the specializations themselves. The advanced versions are interesting, but the basics (save divination) probably see plenty of poaching.

Now, I do like the overall idea of it, especially since you created more options yet used less space. It could probably use some fine-tuning to figure out any redundancies and trim them (the Resistance properties could instead give the basic Energy Resistance specialization).

***
I'm looking forward to the new art. I haven't seen the goblins, myrmidons, fetches, or shadow-bloodline humans yet, and the wolfen I saw the last time was using older materials (I could be misremembering). And yeah, the adorable golem girl knocked it out of the park: she's like Mass Effect's Tali with a face, or Aya from the short-lived CG Green Lantern series.

My thinking on the magic items is, if they don't allow you to do something you couldn't without them, why bother having them at all? My original concept for magic items is that each of the "Item Limit" slots should be about equal to a utility or specialization or attack power if you slotted them with a major item and that trying to obtain said items would be an objective of play beyond just gaining levels and pursuing whatever goals you give your PCs.

The availability of magic items based on the "Permanent Item Limits" is already baked into the math (along with the presumption that most PCs will be using at least fine quality gear by about level 3-4 and have nearly all legendary gear by level 10-ish) and, if they they can afford multiple different potential items they're still only going to be able to use X number at a time and that's a LOT of money tied up in items that won't be available all the time that could instead be spent to improve the items you DO always carry with you.

Note too that the item limits are "On your person." If you're level 4 and have three worn/wielded magic items you'll need someplace secure enough to store that third item because you can only carry two at once and just putting it in your backpack isn't going to cut it... the magical fields still interact and cancel each other out.

With all that in mind I actually do have guidelines for how many magic items you should be handing out. The gist of that is that minor items are essentially just "wealth"... you'll get most any you need by buying them or finding them, but there's no particular need to limit them; they're filler until you can find a major item to fill any open slot.

As for major items, the recommendation is that you should hand out about 1 major item per level for a party of four. These could come all at once (say five items found in a cache akin to Bilbo and the dwarves finding the elven swords in The Hobbit as the only major items encountered in an entire tier) or parceled out a bit at a time.

- During Tier One (1-5) these will be lesser versions (i.e. ones with two minor or one major property) per level for a party of four.

- During Tier Two (6-10) they should either be Legendary quality items with one major or two minor properties) or Fine quality with a major and minor property or three minor properties).

- During Tier Three (11-15) they should be legendary items with a major and minor property or three minor properties. Continue to hand out items of this level periodically if the campaign continues at level 15.

- Artifacts should either show up about once per PC per campaign and should have a "moving on" event after they've accomplished something significant with the item -or- if doing a round robin approach (see below) have just one of the more moderate artifacts go to the Player Four in the example and they should get to keep it for the rest of the campaign.

The net result of this pattern is that PCs should always have slightly fewer major items than they actually have magic item slots for... and if they decide to make a goal out of getting those extra slots filled that's actually what they're supposed to do. Hunting down the crafting ritual and components needed to create an item they desire is perfect GM fodder that's easy to come up with adventures for because you'll already know what the PCs are after and can tailor the adventures to keep the party's magic item inventory where you'd like it.

So that's actually the underlying math assumptions; PCs will fill every available slot with a minor item as soon as it opens up and will start filling their earlier slots with major items at the GMs discretion (with a recommended rate of one major item per four levels).

If you go purely round-robin with availability the distribution will look something like this;

Player One: 1, 5, 9, 13 (two lesser, one moderate, one greater; earliest access to a major item)
Player Two: 2, 6, 10, 14 (one lesser, two moderate, one greater; earliest access a moderate major item, but latest access to a greater major item).
Player Three: 3, 7, 11, 15 (one lesser, one moderate, two greater; earliest access to greater major item and gets two of them, but late access to items in general).
Player Four: 4, 8, 12 (one lesser, one moderate, one greater and pretty late access to all three... this is the PC who should be given the moderate artifact if you're only handing out one).

More realistically though you're going to switch it up a bit (ex. the person who gets a major item late in the first round, gets it early in the second and in the middle for the third and fourth) and some of the gaps filled in by artifacts showing up and moving on.

Another option is to throw in a "Group Asset" (ex. the Sky Sails item for a ship they all use) as the 5th item in a tier so that everyone gets one lesser, one intermediate and one greater major item and the group as a whole gets one of each tier as well. This option works well with the item cache approach where the PCs get a collection of major items at about the same time and then another major item for the group at another point during the tier so the rewards come twice in the tier and everyone feels like its a benefit each time it happens.

So you already had the groundwork laid for this kind of switch, and the pieces just clicked. Funny how that happens when you've done it right. Given the level of craftsmanship you've put into this game, I should have known.

Well, to be fair it wasn't groundwork for a switch per se; it was just groundwork for magic items in general that I had to have built in because they were always part of the game.

Remember too that I had originally planned my own "edition treadmill" with new options in each book. That would have included new magic items as well, which meant I had to have a baseline amount of "oomph" established to keep there from being power creep (similarly, one of the reasons for going to flat math for attacks/defenses was to lay the groundwork for an easy mass combat system... and keep the math sane).

That treadmill plan may have died, but all the groundwork I laid for it is still there and as long as what I added kept to that groundwork the system is built to take it.

The fact of the matter is that most of the new additions were what I'd call "lateral improvements" (i.e. more options, but not more power. Just like the classes were mostly balanced around the use of minor actions so multiclassing gave you additional options to spend your minor action on, but because you still only got one minor action per turn you weren't going to be more powerful on any given turn than any other PC.

Adding the ability to use a different attack power is a similar lateral improvement. You're not going to be doing any more damage or have any greater effect than using an ability you already have (i.e. the basic effect is generally damage + a minor condition, spend 1 or more focus to make it a moderate or major condition).

Lateral improvement is the primary form of advancement I've been employing outside of the level-based increases. Its why specialization bonuses don't stack and why I decided on using the accurate property instead of building some weapons with a +3 proficiency bonus and some with a +2... so that you couldn't somehow stack the accurate property onto a weapon with the +3 proficiency bonus. Its why better quality armors increase its bonus to defense by gaining a shield bonus (which only stacks with a shield up to a maximum of +2).

All of that is designed to keep the hit/defense and damage numbers in a rather tight range. CharOp can squeeze about 10% extra performance at a specific task out of a PC vs. one who just follows the basic guidelines and then chooses what sounds cool to them (and that degree of CharOp focus usually costs them elsewhere... getting a 5 in your attack stat means the rest of your stats are either 3, 1, 0, 0, -1 or 2, 2, 0, 0, -1 vs. a balanced build that has a 4, 3, 2, 1, 1, -1).

But that's about it. The guy who goes STR 5, then takes an accurate weapon and the accuracy specialization and the accurate offense stance will, at level 15, have a +12 to their attack. The STR 4 guy who just uses an accurate weapon will have a +9 to their attack at the same level without trying, will have better defenses and skill checks overall and can inflict actual conditions on their opponents with their attacks that make them easier to hit, make them have a harder time hitting, keep them from escaping, set them up for flanking or any number of other things... along with likely more interesting utilities and specializations.

When even Tier Three monsters have armor scores of only 18-19 and you get to roll twice if the target is flat-footed, is that extra +3 to hit really worth all that it costs? Probably not.

Its pretty similar to what I've heard about with 5e. While its very important to get your attack stat up to an 18 for the +4 bonus, the opportunity cost of going to 20 for the +5 is generally not worth it compared to the utility of the feat you'd have to give up to get it.

Part of me was worried about the increased options combining in new and unexpected ways, but it looks like it was unfounded; by using a different ability, you're giving up what you'd normally use in that moment of choice.

In both 4e and 5e going for the 20 is usually counterproductive. Your hypothetical STR5 guy is really sacrificing tactical flexibility with his choices, squeezing out that last point at the cost of extra effects from his attacks or specializations.

Yeah, I’ve been pretty ruthless in making sure the action economy is held to. Main Actions are for attacks, minor actions are role actions (which is why companion NPCs are built to do slightly less damage than a Slayer’s minor action. By commanding them with your minor action you’re effectively switching to the Slayer role that turn).

So long as anything as good as an attack costs a main action (and any moderate conditions require 1 focus and major conditions require 2 focus) and minor actions can only pull off role-related or outright non-combat tasks then all any option, magic item or otherwise, will just increase your flexibility, but not make you outright stronger.

That said, more flexibility can be quite useful. If there’s no one who needs healing or you don’t need AoE’s that round, using a Slayer-like minor action will help bring enemies down faster. Likewise, having a healing action available (either “burn a surge” or “lesser healing when bloodied”) can really help the group stay on its feet if they suffer bad luck (ex. the opponents landing two crits in a row and dropping the Enabler... which happened in one playtest).

But if you’re healing that turn you’re not dealing Slayer damage or keeping the enemies taunted or throwing out control. If you’re dealing Slayer damage you’re not buffing your allies or removing conditions or topping off their soak points.

* * * * *

I’ve been typing up the first round of material about the Toria Tribes, but am stuck away from my PC due to family events (our birthdays seem to take all weekend) as I type this so I figure I’ll drop another bit of world fluff; the calander.

First, the cycle of the week. To keep things relatable the week is seven days and the names of the days come from antiquity and so are recognized throughout the world.

The first day of the week is Truceday, the traditional day of rest (even armies traditionally do not fight on Truceday). It is followed by the four elemental days; Windsday, Earthsday, Fireday and Waterday. The closing days of the week are devoted to the two primary celestial bodies; Sunday and Moonday (note that for the elves treat Moonday the way every other species treats Truceday).

While I spent some time working on just a bit of mythology for them, the actual reason for the names being what they are is familiarity. If you start with the one common day name it’s pretty obvious;

Sunday = Sunday
Moonday = Monday
Truceday = Tuesday
Windsday = Wednesday
Earthsday = Thursday
Fireday = Friday
Waterday = Saturday

Thursday and Saturday were the hardest ones. At one point I considered Turfday for Thursday, but settled on “Earth’s” since it -rths is reasonably close to -rs and Turf was putting more emphasis on a rhyme than on a coherent naming scheme. Similarly, Water vs. Satur keeps the same syllable count and -ter vs. -tur is phonetically identical.

Once I had the names I just had to shift the start of the week to one that made sense and it’s reasonably disguised, but still close enough to familiar that it doesn’t feel alien or random to talk about “The meeting is next Windsday.”

* * * * *

The year is 364 days long which corresponds to precisely thirteen lunar months, but unlike the elves whose calander aligns precisely with the moon (indeed, Moondays always line up with the full and new moons), the Praetorian Empire divided the calendar into 12 months; one for each of the Imperial Gods.

The extra four weeks instead become the fifth week of the four months which align with the equinoxes and solstices. So you have a 35 day month at the start of each season then two 28 day months. The longer months belong to Caelos (spring storms), Verax (summer sun), Arvia (harvest time) and Venetrix (winter).

The cycle of months and their closest Earth equivalents are;

Caelos - March (spring equinox)
Peritus - April
Castia - May
———
Verax - June (summer solstice)
Bellos - July
Fornus - August
———
Arvia - September (autumn equinox)
Viatus - October
Cassia - November
———
Venetrix - December (winter solstice)
Somnia - January
Medella - February

In terms of symbolism; Spring has two male gods and one female goddesses and is associated with Air. Summer is all male gods and is associated with Fire. Autumn is two female goddesses and one male god and is associated with Earth. Winter is all female goddesses and is associated with Water (though ironically the god of the sea is associated with spring due to his association with winds for sailing).

By contrast to the rigid systems of the elves and Imperial Church/Praetorian Empire, The Old Faith (and First Empire) tracked only weeks (i.e. First Week of Spring, Fifth Week of Autumn, etc.) and seasons using the sun and moon rather than giving specific names to the months.

* * * * *

For counting the years there are a couple of counts used.

- The Old Faith counts years from the forming of The Covenant. Their current count is Covenant Year (CY) 6204.

- The Praetorian Empire started their official calander with its founding. Their current count is Imperial Year (IY) 975.

- Many other people’s who only arose recently count their years from the Cataclysm. The count of years for them is 198 PC (Post Cataclym). Though they use the names of the gods instead of a numerical count, the Elven count of years aligns with this and, as a result of its long time as a protectorate, the Free Cities use this count while Riverhold and Ironhold still use the Praetorian Count.

* * * * *

So there you have the calanders used by the peoples of the setting.

Okay, I should have the Toria Tribe info up later today, but in the meantime here's that new artwork I mentioned (along with the older pieces in the sequence);

https://drive.google.com/open?id=1ZivjypghEX1m85nDaUmEfuIvdeAuIyJF

Here's what's inside. Bold indicates a new or revised piece;

1) Dryad, Unicorn and Stone Giant
2) Fire Giant, Phoenix and Azari
3) Frost Dragon, Sylph and Storm Giant
4) Storm Dragon, Sea Sprite and Undine
5) Minotaur, Ravenkin, Kobold
6) Goblin (winged), Crocodin and Centaur
7) Wolfen and Myrmidon
8 ) Dwarves - Matara Jadeaxe and Ezra Ironfist
9) Sir Jekrit Goldblade and Prince Krenik (mostly just trying to make these two pieces look more dwarfy and some of the artifice more obvious).
10) Danai Kar-Taxu (high elf archon) and House Guard (common elf) (glowing wings and new, extremely intricate golden armor better reflects elven arrogance)
11) Vanida Sin-Canthir (high elf changeling) and Aryina Nerthes (low elf)
12) Common elves of the dancer and merchant castes (same figures, but clothing now better matches the general elven style)
13) Fetches - Velox and Custos Trebaxus
14) Fetch - Savis Valena in her Nightmare Form
15) Gnomes - Twinkle Toes and Short Stuff
16) Gnome - Fang Rider and his mount/companion, Fang
17) Golems - BG-58 and ARA-92
18) Golems - General Labor and Concealed Guardian (showing the extreme ends of design, one clearly mechanical the other with a seamless marble enameled skin to allow it to stand guard while looking like a statue of the goddess Castia, The Battle Maiden).
19) Golem - CR-111 "Forge"
20) Kalla Blackthorne (Elven Bloodline) and Jon Steele (Full Human)
21) Humans - Shadow Bloodline, Dwarven Bloodline and another Full Human (for comparison).
22) Rayla A'Toria (Avatar Bloodline) and Jack Knave (Full Human) (as mentioned elsewhere; Kalla and Callahan sounded too close to each other, also Jack Knave is literally just two different words for "man", making it even more clearly an alias).
23) Erin'yi (Ember Malfean) and Kraken (Brine Malfean)
24) Bar'los (Husk Malfean) and Nybri'ka (Slush Malfean)
25) Sal'dyn (Dust Malfean) and Auri'jin (Miasma Malfean)
26) Mara'kal (Rust Malfean) and Prince Ther'rin (Vermin Malfean)
27) Officer Carrack (Troll) and a Troglodyte (the similarity in armor between Carrack and Jon Steele is deliberate as both are members of the Blackspire Guard in some capacity)
28) Larianna Bladedancer (Spiker) and Sister Jadia (Half-Orc) (the former ended up a lot more "punk" than I'd originally intended, but I think it works)
29) Mutants - an Ogre and an Orc
30) Goblins - Feral Slave and Bloodspear Raider
31) Dreadnought Golem (note the two figures by its foot for scale - also the shoulder guns are actually firing at the ground, the scale perspective is just so extreme is looks like they're firing up).

* * * * *

More art will be coming; freezing cold days and a good soundtrack to listen to are good for that; but next up is the actual long delayed by other things entry on the Toria Tribes and why the Malfean refugees from Blackspire couldn't stop their exodus there.

In order, the new guys:

The Crocodin is rather badass, emphasizing the crocodile traits instead of just going with the generic lizardman that other games see. The Centaur and goblin were unexpected: I was expecting full-on beast heads, like a horse head for the centaur and a bat head for the goblin, but I think it works. The goblin reminds me of the Ferengi (I don't watch Star Trek, but I know what those guys are). About the only odd bit is the color change from their face to the top of their head, unless that's meant to be fur or hair.

The myrmidon is properly freaky, as any human-sized ant would be. The dwarves are definitely stockier, dwarfier, and Ezra's prosthetic works. Jekrit's eye thing still looks like it goes over his eyes rather than replacing them, and Matara still looks like she's wearing armor, but I imagine that the business of dwarf prosthetics trends towards making the replacement parts look good and seamless with the body rather than something clunky like the labor golem shown below.

Speaking of the golems, you weren't kidding about the two extremes. The laborer and concealed guardian don't even look like they're from the same setting, which just goes to show how varied the effort put into the various golems was. You mentioned that BeeGee was a dapper fellow - I think that you could better show that with a more butler-like posture: rigid spine, feet together, arms folded behind his back. Right now he looks more tough than dapper, especially with the clenched fists.

The elven costuming is on point, perfectly communicating the caste system through implication. Danai's wings could probably stand to be larger - right now they look like they wouldn't be able to support his weight.

The Fetches and the Shadow bloodline humans look like they could use each other for shaving mirrors - I had to strain to see the normal human eyes on the shadow-bloodline human. Savis Valena's nightmare form, on the other hand, is perfect. I can only assume that each fetch's nightmare form is unique to them. Of course, I know squat about the fetches - for all I know, the other guys' human-like appearances are merely disguise forms, and the nightmare form is the true form.

Carrack is definitely ugly, with his arms being much more gnarled and misshapen than the orcs' arms. The poor troglodyte lives up to his name - that is one ugly bastard. Jadia, on the other hand, well, you weren't kidding when you had her take the pleasing form mutation.

Finally, the capstone to this file, the dreadnought golem. Holy God, that thing is awesome. It just conveys sheer menace. It's a perfect mechanical kaiju, and the little people running away at its feet show just how big - and how terrifying - those things were. Nice touch on the people used for comparison, by the way. Just having them stand there would have been a boring cliche, undermining the threat the dreadnought golem posed. Having them in action pose was a stroke of genius.

Thanks for the feedback. I'll get some specific replies in a bit later (and some of the points are good ones, like BeeGee's posture), but right now, I FINALLY got this done and want to get it posted;

After only a month’s worth of divergences, we’re finally getting entering the lands of the Toria Tribes.

* * * * *

As I’ve mentioned previously, while a good percentage of the survivors were people in the Holds; a few lucky souls survived because they were able to take shelter in a basement, cave or other structure and thus were shielded from the Cataclysm wave (though many who hoped to survive were instead crushed when the structure they were in collapsed).

The aftermath was a nightmare. Generally speaking, 99% of the population had been either incinerated, frozen solid, blown apart, dissolved, turned inside out or just crushed by structures experiencing a similar onslaught.

Half of the survivors still got enough exposure to be warped into mutants , though half of those were so warped they were either sterile or died of complications from their mutations and a quarter’s minds were so warped by their mutations they might as well be animals.

Further, 90% of those who survived the initial wave would be dead within the year due to starvation, disease (how do you even begin to bury that many dead?) and violence (both from fellow survivors and the attacks of mutated beasts and undead horrors) as civilization utterly collapsed.

Population centers like the city of Old Praetoria went from a thriving population of five million people to just 5000 survivors (20% of those mutants) scattered in pockets across an area of more than 250 square miles of ruins.

Those who did survive did so because they found some advantage; a defensible location, significant food stores, a stash of weapons; even just a park with exposed ground they could try to grow crops in. But there was another advantage for many of the survivors on Old Praetoria region that aided in their survivors; the mass intervention of Avatars.

For thousands of years since the end of the Demon Empire, Avatars had existed in the wildest and most inaccessible places in the world. Yes, a small percentage of those would interact with humanity to a degree, but their innate fear after the cowardice displayed during the reign of the Demon Emperor kept them from making any steps to involve themselves in the larger world on more than an individual basis.

Then the Cataclysm changed everything.

Like malfeans, the avatars were immune to the chaotic energies of the Cataclysm (this has led some to speculate that whatever caused the Cataclysm may have been somehow related to the primal spirits or their demonic kin), but they saw the chaos wrought upon the world and upon Man and some of them realized that THIS might be the moment they had been waiting for; the chance to earn their redemption by saving mankind and leading it out of the Cataclysm.

So the avatars came to the survivors in Old Praetoria (and elsewhere) and while they were rejected in many places, among the survivors in the ruins of Old Praetoria along the banks of the Hydra River, they found many groups eager for their aid.

It was the Avatars who re-introduced the Old Faith to the A’Torians (‘Praetorians’ in what became the tongue of the Toria Tribes through 200 years of linguistic drift); ironically using many of the same arguments of the people having been abandoned by their gods that was once used to turn people from the Old Faith after the Beastman Rebellion and the presence of a few sylphs, dryads or one of the giants or a band of sprites was often more than enough to provide a group a real edge in terms of survival (and not always through combat; a sylph might be able to control the weather to bring much needed rains or end a cold snap that was threatening crops while a dryad might grow them directly and a fire giant could work metal far more easily than all but the most skilled blacksmiths).

In time the aid and protection offered by the avatars became friendships and, for many of the humanoid avatars, family. Humans with avatar blood in their vein became common among the A’Torians.

Because it was individual avatars who often approached individual families of survivors, these groupings often broke off into their own elemental-themed clans (often picking elemental themed names for their clans even though they referred to themselves as the A’Toria as a whole) as their numbers and need for resources grew. Land was plentiful so there was little need for conflict when you could just relocate. Thus, by the time of the Malfean exodus from Blackspire the Toria Tribes had spread along nearly the entire length of the Hydra River’s many tributaries (and yet still had a population density of less than 5 per square mile; many of those gathered into tribal villages of 100-200 people such that one might travel for days without encountering another human soul unless you knew where the villages were situated).

That said, even with plentiful land, some land was better than others and when both wanted it, things often came to blows. Toria inter-tribal warfare was more about intimidation and convincing the other side the land they both wanted wasn’t worth the cost rather than genocide, but it sowed enough mistrust that tribal warriors soon started creating elaborate clan specific tattoos to make themselves easily identifiable to their fellow clansmen (and make infiltration harder).

One clan found a way to ritually apply the tattoos in such a way that anyone with even a drop of their avatar ancestor’s blood in their veins could make the ink glow faintly when they used a primal ability or simply focused on them enough and this quickly spread to all the other clans such that gaining the markings of one’s clan became an important coming-of-age ritual for the A’Torians.

* * * * *

So with all that open space and similarly worshipping the Great Spirit, why weren’t the Malfean exiles able to find peace there?

Well, in a sense, they did. They ultimately settled in the furthest northern reaches of what could remotely be argued to be Toria Tribe territory. But that’s not the whole story and the reason ultimately comes down the simple fact that the avatars don’t particularly like malfeans.

While they might join forces every few hundred years to beat down a would be Neo-Demon Empire, avatars and malfeans have always done so for very different reasons. The avatars hoped for their shot at redemption and a return to the primal paradise they once enjoyed. The malfeans hoped to forestall a new wave of persecutions against them by being clearly on the side opposed to whatever Cambion had given birth to the latest abomination.

But it was still the Malfeans’ ancestors who got the avatars kicked out of their primal paradise (in the logic that they never would have had to be proven cowards if the demons had never rebelled in the first place).

Worse, because their souls are human, the Malfeans actually get to journey to that same primal paradise when they die. This is meaningful because the general belief of the Old Faith is that, unless you reject the Great Spirit entirely and consign yourself to the Shadow World, your soul begins a process of purgation; burning away all your sins until your soul is once again perfect and able to enter the realm of the Great Spirit entirely. This means any malfean who doesn’t outright reject the Great Spirit is assured of eventually achieving paradise while the avatars are stuck in an endless cycle of reincarnation until a chance that might never come earns them a place back in paradise (though technically, they already rejected the Great Spirit once by refusing to fight the demons).

Then, as the final nail, there’s The Promise. Not only do the malfeans get the ‘easy’ path to paradise, but, if the Malfean scripture is to be believed, the Great Spirit itself sent a message to the Malfean people that He would send them a savior to end their persecution and the scar of the demonic taint upon them.

While primal magic does not come to Malfeans as naturally as it does to Avatars, the fact that those who embrace it despite the difficulty get special primal spirit patrons (which the malfeans claim is proof of The Promise) further seems to cement in the avatars’ heads that the Great Spirit might be playing favorites.

That breeds a LOT of resentment and that has filtered into the avatar’s version of the Old Faith (which rejects The Promise as a legitimate tenant). A version that happens to line up with the general sentiment against the malfeans whose ancestors once acted as taskmasters for the demons and who betrayed the First Heroes and almost kept them from being able to banish the demons to the abyss for all eternity.

Essentially, the Malfeans were in the same boat as the Pilgrims who left England for America; both they and the Church of England were ostensibly Christian, but because their beliefs differed on a few points, the Pilgrims had to leave because they were the clear minority.

This isn’t to say that all of the Toria Tribes were unsympathetic to the Malfean’s plight, but enough were that when it came to a vote amongst the tribes of whether to allow them to settle in Toria lands, the vote was split (and thus failed)

So having only about 150 members among the refugees vs. upwards of 10,000 members of the Toria Tribes, the Malfeans decided to continue up the Hydra River to the northern reaches of Toria territory. They decided to head towards the source of the Flamehead River (so named because it was the branch of the river whose waters were fed by volcanic hot springs instead of the snow melt of the other heads of the Hydra) to a place named The Ember Falls.

More on THAT next time (well, barring questions and art comments obviously).

So when they called it the Cataclysm with a capital C, they weren't playing. Jesus, the scope of devastation didn't hit home for me until you started rattling off the statistics. .075 percent survival, if my math is right. .075 percent. Everybody else dead, and they didn't get a quick, clean death either.

The avatars morally really are a mixed bag. They want redemption, but they want it because they want to escape the cycle of reincarnation, not because of the inherent nature of the redemption (though there are no doubt avatars who do redeem themselves). They dislike the malfeans because of the same sins of the father nonsense that everybody else has been dumping on the malfeans for ages, all because the malfeans' demonic ancestors created a situation where the avatars' first incarnations choked and proved themselves cowards. Really, it demonstrates why life can be tough: to test people, to separate the cowards and monsters from the heroes. After all, how strong is somebody's moral character if it hasn't been tested? And that's on top of the envy of the malfeans having human souls and The Promise. I've got to say, for all that they started as nature spirits, psychologically they're as human as anybody else.

As for the Old Faith, here I was thinking that it was some monolithic thing.

Warning: Massive Post Incoming

* * * * *

The Old Faith is about as monolithic as modern day Christianity or Judaism. There’s a broad agreement on some general principles (ex. the Great Spirit as benevolent creator of the cosmos; the Primal Spirits being the Great Spirit’s emissaries in the Mortal World), but there’s also major points of contention on other issues.

To really understand why this is the case we should probably do what I did with the Astral religions and look at the Old Faith’s origins (as understood by the Old Faith, the Astral Faith interprets things differently).

The first and most important thing to remember about the Old Faith is that it is OLD. The Imperial Church has existed for about 1000 years (and it has precursors from before the Praetorian Empire dating back another 1000 years before that). Bestianism has been around for about 4500 years. The Demon Empire (and with it demon worship) began about 6000 years ago (and ended about 5000... my math was wrong in the post about calanders... I screwed up the founding of the Demon Empire with its end... the Covenant date should be 5204, not 6204).

The Old Faith has all of them beat by tens if not hundreds of millennia.

Before there was ever even the glimmer of a Demon Empire, mankind lived as hunter-gatherers, interacted with the Primal Spirits (which included ones who would one day become both demon and avatar) and through that interaction knew of and worshipped the Great Spirit (what the Astral Faiths call The Source or, occasionally The Well of Souls).

But this was all at the level of bands, clans and the occasional tribe. Individual practices were heavily influenced by the Primal Spirits who were a groups’ intermediaries. As each Spirit was tied to a specific element it’s understanding of the Great Spirit was filtered through the properties of that element (ex. a wind spirit would relate to the Great Spirit as that first breath of fresh air after diving deep underwater and suggest that the burning of fragrant incense would be a way to thank the Great Spirit for the Breath of Life).

While incomplete, this understanding was more than sufficient for what the world was at the time; a temporary home for humans to grow to know themselves, others and their relationship with The Great Spirit before entering into the eternal presence of the Great Spirit as His beloved children at death alongside the Primal Spirits.

But then a third of Primal Spirits rebelled; thinking they knew better how to run the world. They manifested physically in the world and demanded, under pain of endless torture (since death would only free the soul to go to the Great Spirit), that they be worshipped instead of the distant great spirit.

Their leader, Lightbringer, understood that each human soul was a font of primal power, the gift of life from the Great Spirit itself and by directing that power at themselves they could steal a portion of the Great Spirit’s strength for their own (this did not diminish the Great Spirit in any way... subtracting one or a billion from infinity still leaves infinity... but it did make them significantly stronger than a typical Primal Spirit).

I’ve pretty well discussed the horrors that the Demon Empire became, so the next key point in regards to the Old Faith comes with the founding of The Covenant; the pact between the humans who had not bowed to the worship of the demons and the Primal Spirits loyal to the Great Spirit.

The ability of those humans who bound themselves to The Covenant to reliably and directly call upon the Primal Spirits for aid was also the first time that humanity first experienced more than a single aspect of the relationship to the Great Spirit. What had once seemed like a single pane of glass was revealed to be but a single facet of an infinitely complex gem whose facets took in and reflected light in infinite combinations.

This was the beginning of the Old Faith as an actual organized religion. Even as they fought alongside the original avatars (i.e. the Primal Spirits brave enough to embody themselves and fight alongside the humans to defeat the demons) the more scholarly among humanity began to study and debate the myriad ways of understanding the Great Spirit and Man’s relationship with Him.

As the world began to settle into some sense of normalcy with the rise of the First Empire of Man, the tribal shamans gave way to an organized priesthood that was as much a philosophical society as it was a religious hierarchy. It was not enough to simply offer sacrifices and praise to the Great Spirit, but also to contemplate all the facets of the Great Spirit that were manifest in His Creation.

* * * * *

This understanding of the Old Faith was also the basis from which the Malfeans understood The Promise. To the malfeans it is far more than just some future salvation. The Promise is a lens through which their whole existence is given context. It acknowledges that their ancestors had committed great sins, that the malfean people have suffered great persecution for those sins, but also that this persecution for the sins of ones ancestors is unjust.

It tells them that the Great Spirit will make things right at the proper time, but until then the path through the persecution is to endure it instead of lashing out in violence and to value who and what you have rather than be envious of all that you do not.

It is also a reminder that all those who remain faithful to the Great Spirit despite this are all playing a role, however small, in fulfilling The Promise.

The Promise and adherence to the Old Faith is the very foundation of Malfean culture and why they’ve remained true to it despite millennia of persecution (indeed, abandoning the Old Faith in hopes of finding acceptance by others never ended the persecutions and only succeeded in divorcing oneself from the few who did accept you... the malfeans tell a variation of the Prodigal Son story as both a warning against abandoning the Faith and as a reminder that is never too late to be reconciled).

* * * * *

But while things seemed well enough on the surface, after a thousand years under the reign of the demons, both the world and Man was fundamentally broken. The breaks were not as obvious as horns, tails and glowing eyes and, unlike the malfeans who were confronted almost daily with the failings of their immediate ancestors, these breaks also went largely unconfronted.

Originally a perfect reflection of The Source, the shattered world now scattered the Source’s spiritual light like a mirror ball across the dome of The Great Barrier; creating motes of spiritual energy that eventually coalesced into the Astral Gods and their realms.

Meanwhile Men, many of whose ancestors bowed in worship of the demons, took after the demons in many ways; first in their desire for vengeance against those who had once been their overseers (even if they too were as often as not just slightly better treated slaves themselves) and second in a desire for the finer things they had once slaved to provide their demon overlords.

It was this desire that would be their undoing as they too wanted these things without the effort of earning it through their own labor. Instead they created the beastmen to do the labor for them... and history naturally repeated itself.

The irony that they had become the very thing they persecuted the malfeans for being was largely lost upon the Men of the First Empire.

They had been turning away from the Old Faith for generations before the Rebellion arose and for all but the few who were faithful, the priesthood no longer worked Primal magic because it had come to be seen as unreliable. They missed that the fault was that their oaths of fealty to The Covenant were hollow. Instead they blamed the fickleness of the Primal Spirits and turned to the paths of arcane magic for spells (the title Sorcerer-Priest had become common for the religious who employed arcane magic in the two centuries before the Beastmen’s rebellion).

So when the Beastmen and the Astral gods who backed them tore down the First Empire and razed the Temple Complex of the Hierophant to the ground, Men didn’t blame themselves. The blamed the Spirits for abandoning them and cast their lot in with the victors, worshipping the gods whose natures and commandments aligned with the desires of Men instead of demanding of them to be more.

Of the Old Faith only three groups remained;

The Avatars - whose faith was based on personal interactions with specific Primal Spirits, much like man’s interactions before the Demon Empire and whose primal magic came not from patrons, but their own spiritual nature... one might call their version the Pre-Covanental Old Faith.

The Remnant - those few Men who had never abandoned the Old Faith as it was meant to be lived. Most were led by prophets away from the First Empire and lived in small communities at its borders, but their positions were generally unpopular after the Empire’s collapse and so their practice of the Old Faith was largely limited to what became specific ethnic groups each with specific interpretations of the Old Faith based on the teachings of their founding prophet. Lacking the cohesive force of outright persecution that the Malfeans endured many of these groups dwindled over time as younger members seeking acceptance from larger society adopted one of the Astral faiths.

The Malfeans - bound together by The Promise and shared persecutions, the malfeans are among the most faithful to the original interpretations of The Covenant. Because they believe The Promise requires them to remain authentically faithful, they have devoted considerable energy to creating and transmitting an accurate oral history and encourage contemplation and teaching of all the Old Faith’s tenants (contests where storytellers attempt to best weave the tenants of the Faith into the narrative are a well recognized pass time for a people who rarely have more than their own creativity for entertainment).

* * * * *

Thus, the Toria Tribes are a mix of the Avatar’s pre-Covanent relationships with the Primal Spirits with some Remnant-based understanding of the Covenant while the Malfeans are the Malfeans.

Probably the closest real world analogy would be a group of Catholics wanting to settle in Colonial-era Puritan New England. Everyone is ostensibly Christian, but that shared-Christianity is not necessarily recognized by both sides.

* * * * *

Going in somewhat reverse order, yes, the Avatars are a mixed bag and generally fall under the “to fail is human” rubric.

The fact of the matter is that any Avatar who actually figured out the real point of redemption also isn’t still stuck in the cycle of reincarnation. So the population of avatars is rather self-selected towards missing the point (and therefore being human) and part of missing the point is obviously blaming the wrong person or thing for your problems.

And, slight side-bar, I have to say, as a 4E fan, I feel quite sympathetic towards the Malfeans. There are precious few places on the Internet where you can discuss 4E without having the thread derailed by someone claiming 4E isn’t a real role-playing game and that you’re engaging in badwrongfun that is destroying the hobby.

* * * * *

Next up, that is indeed the reason I (and those in-universe) call it The (Capital-C) Cataclysm.

Even the Demon War looks like a schoolyard brawl in comparison. The Primal Spirits effectively lost two-thirds of their number (one-third to the Abyss, one-third exiled to the world) and the Men lost maybe a third of their numbers.

Even the numbers who perished at the whims of the demons during their thousand year reign prior were comparatively minor. With no more than about 5 million people at any given time during that era (in line with the hunter-gatherer populations prior to the Neolithic revolution) it means there were probably no more than 200 million or so people born during the entire Demon Empire and the demons probably couldn’t maintain a stable slave population if they killed off more than 10% of each generation so less than 1% (about 20,000 of 5,000,000) in any given year (or 20,000,000 over the entire millennia).

The pre-Cataclysm population was on the order of ten billion people (which is one of the reasons I can justify downright ‘mecha’-like golems... the tech level was pure magitech bordering on “Togas and Crystals” territory).

Estimated survivors worldwide; 7.5 million. Estimated deaths; 9.99 BILLION.

Estimated survivors in a country the size of the United States; less than 250,000. Deaths; c. 319.8 Million.

My mid-sized city has a metro population of 400,000. Estimated survivors; about 300. Deaths; 399,700.

And that’s just in this reality. The Cataclysm ripped through the Astral realms and tore open rifts between the realms. The elves in Old Praetoria were just one batch of sixty thousand; millions more were scattered across the globe along with millions more simply obliterated.

In short, the world ENDED. By rights the survivors should still be back at the level of stone age hunter-gatherers (after 200 years even with modest population growth the global numbers are still below anything seen on the actual Earth since the Neolithic period).

That the Free Cities has reached 30,000 people with a city of 15,000 and achieved a stable schizo-medieval/steampunk tech level in just two centuries is a bonafide miracle.

But even with a hundred of those miracles it will still be half a millennium or more before the world could again reach its pre-Cataclysm heights of population and magic/technology.

* * * * *
And now back to art. Thank you again for the feedback. The dwarves do indeed put some effort into making their artifice as cosmetically appealing as possible so it IS a challenge to portray something like “frame reinforcement” or “darkvision” without it looking like something they’re wearing. I’m giving Matara and Kedrik another pass regardless.

I’m glad you approve of the new elf visuals. I’ll play around with Danai’s wings a bit (I picked up a new model that might fold a bit better just before I posted the pics and will give that a try), but it is worth remembering that Archon wings are essentially “hard light” that sprouts from their backs when needed. As such, the degree to which the wings provide actual lift vs. metaphysically providing the ability to fly despite the actual aerodynamics is a bit nebulous. Thinking of them more like angel wings than the wings of a bird is more what they’re actually like.

I’m currently reworking the Shadow bloodline human. Their eyes are supposed to be more like the elf-bloodline in that it’s just the iris that is the odd color rather than the whole eye. I also think I need to step up the color a bit as their skin tone is supposed to be more muted rather than outright grayscale.

You are also correct that the nightmare forms are unique to each individual. They’re actually a variation of the Shift Form ability so one might sprout black chitonous armor and four extra spike-covered arms, another might become a giant black-furred wolf. The only commonality is that the form is something out of nightmares (so I guess one could theoretically take the form of a clown) and it maintains the complete absence of color that Fetch skin, hair and eyes has.

You’re absolutely right on BeeGee’s stance. I’m doing a new render of that. I’m also thinking the absolutely mechanical golem might be a shade overboard and that something a bit more “tin man” with rivets (a bit like Ezra’s new arm) would be a better version of the “low cosmetic” golem.

The goblins’ face is indeed meant to be different tones of fur that are common for bats. The more human-like (but still not human) faces for it and the Centaur come down them just not looking right with a full-on animal head (I tried for something with more equine features without going full horse on the centaur... while the goblins looked too much like weird animals with full bat heads instead of slave soldiers when placed next to their orc masters... plus they were some of the technologically advanced of the beastmen before the orcs got ahold of them so setting them at a bit more “human” seemed to fit the lore.

* * * * *

Lastly, you mentioned not having the slightest idea about Fetches. I’m recompiling the PDF at the moment (I can’t export both the fonts and the bookmarks using a single exporter so I have to manually add the bookmarks which is a pain because all the art I means I have to adjust every bookmark after it), but as soon as I have I’ll get you a link to the actual PDF. You’ve been awesome about providing useful feedback so getting to see how it all fits together will be as useful for me as I hope it will be enjoyable for you.

The overall religious flavor of your setting really reminds me of a pre-Christianity setting, with the Imperial Church representing the Olympians blended with standard D&D gods and the Old Faith blending Shintoism (and its emphasis on nature spirits, kami in Shinto's case) with Judaism (especially on the Malfean's end).

I still want to see the arcanists who worship the Creator but don't give a damn about the primal spirits.

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Man, every time you elaborate on the statistics of the Cataclysm, the picture gets grimmer and grimmer. Like the Black Spire, I'm assuming that you're leaving that mystery for the GMs to resolve if they so choose.

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With Matara and Kedrik, it could just be me. Given Kedrik's artifice, there's not much you could do to make it look like a replacement unless you go full Batou from Ghost in the Shell. Matara's artifices are so extensive that unless she was trying to look like a crude cyborg, it's gonna look like armor.

For Danai, you're right about the lift generation and the supernatural nature of the wings. I was thinking that they might look better if they were bigger, but I'm curious to see your new model.

A clown-form fetch. Yeah, a pre-technicolor Pennywise definitely falls under Nightmare Form. If you're looking for other ways to differentiate the Fetches from the Shadowborn humans, perhaps elfin ears might work, given that elves and fetches have similar astral origins. I think the D&D shadar-kai were related to elves at one point before 4e spun them off into D&D's cenobites.

The pure labor golem redesign sounds like it would work better, going off of Ezra's arm. As for the goblin and the centaur, I understand - you can't make them too bestial without creating dissonance in peoples' minds.

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I'm looking forward to the new PDF. It's always a treat. And you're welcome with the feedback. I'm just sad that I'm the only one here who's commenting on it.

Sorry for the delay. I've been flat on back (or huddled in a ball more accurately) with a severe case of the flu (temp hovering around 103 for a good chunk of it).

* * * * *

A pre-Christian world (where the Malfeans are literally waiting for a Christ-figure) is precisely what I was aiming for, so awesome. I'd definitely say the Judaism was more intended than the Shintoism (if not for the notion that I'm playing with people's expectations, they'd probably be better labeled as 'elemental themed angels') because I felt an interesting aspect would be for the more primal/nature-themed religion to be solidly monotheistic vs. the pagan divine/astral religions.

Arcanists who acknowledge the Great Spirit as an entity are still likely to call it "The Source" (or "The Source of All" if they're feeling particularly flowery) and are essentially deists.

One thing worth noting though is that, like Christian angels, the actual Primal Spirits (vs. the avatars and demons) don't give a thought to being personally recognized, their mission is to get mortals to acknowledge and return the love of the Great Spirit for them. The Covenant isn't "offer sacrifices to these individual spirits and they'll help you out" it's "be true to The Great Spirit and His Spirits will come at your call."

As a result there is absolutely NOTHING about the Old Faith that is opposed the Arcanist view of the Great Spirit you described. Indeed, Arcane/SCIENCE!!! and Primal have walked hand-in-hand since the days of the war against the demons.

* * * * *

My intention with the Cataclysm was to create a "Points of Light" style world that could logically support all the actual ruins and still not have any continent spanning nation states. That essentially meant there had to be a mass extinction event of some kind and I decided to throw a few more kitchen sink elements onto its shoulders as a source for where some of the monsters and weirdness comes from in addition to just the source of destruction.

One reason for this is that I wanted my setting to be a place where a GM could make their own map of a region with a few realms and say it exists on the same world as Old Praetoria because I am going to have a content license and letting people create their own chunks of the world is a great way to get good adventures (which is what the system needs to be sustainable).

There is no grand conspiracy of deeper world lore if you squint at the details hard enough behind the Cataclysm. That's not its purpose. Its purpose was to literally divide humanity into small pockets of survivors surrounded by a wilderness of monster-filled ruins.

The Cataclysm can be whatever the individual GM needs it to be. If I were to ever tell a story about it, I'd give it the worst, most gut-punching meaning possible.

I'd make it a deliberate act. I'd set it on one person's shoulders. Someone who deliberately chose to to unleash the Cataclysm knowing exactly what would happen.

The twist to make it even more horrible? They would have chosen it because the alternative was even worse.

I'm talking something like total metaphysical annihilation as the alternative; 100% annihilation of not just bodies, but their eternal souls as well. The Cataclysm was the "Good Ending" because the souls persisted (all but the most wicked making it into one afterlife or another) and it, at least, allowed a new beginning.

So now you have one person you can lay all the world's troubles on; all the death and devastation and loss; and they're also the only reason you and everyone you've ever known and loved is even alive and why your ancestors wait for you in whatever afterlife you'll eventually reach.

THAT is NOT the official version of the Cataclysm, but its what I'd absolutely use in a home game if anyone wanted to explore it because how a character responds to something that "messy" is what separates a role-playing game from a game of Risk or Monopoly.

Others might prefer something less nuanced or want an evil conspiracy that survives to this day. Go for it. I only provide the building blocks. Its your world.

* * * * *

I've got the PDF all but compiled, but before I finish there's one thing I wanted to throw out while it can get some specific focus.

It began an optional rule for that section of the GM Guide (because I wanted the ability to tune the game the way 5e's proposed "modules" were supposed to).

The thing is? I think I like it BETTER than the base rule in the game. So here it is;

Skill Points
Terrors & Tactics uses a binary skill system. You are either proficient in a skill or you are not and get a bonus to those skills that scales up every few levels. This is done to keep character building quick and easy while still allowing options. You can instead increase the level of detail involved in the skill system by using skill points.

Instead of discreet skill proficiencies, PCs instead gain 8+level skill points while companions and creatures which typically get two proficient skills instead get 6 + 0.5/level skill points. Each point placed in a skill grants a +1 proficiency bonus with the skill (these stack with themselves). You may spend up to 4/6/7 (by tier) ranks on a skill. You may only spend points skills from your background list, but you get to pick one skill to add to your list (and some archetypes add skills to your list).

Benefits that grant a skill proficiency instead grant 1 skill point in a skill of choice, add that skill to your background list (if its not already) and grant you 0.5/level extra skill points. Add any fractional points from multiple extra proficiencies (or being a companion) together to determine how many a character gets at each level.

You are considered Proficient with the skill if you have two or more ranks in it.

In addition, you can rearrange 3+ ½ level skill points if you choose to retrain your skills.

* * * * *

The reason I think I like it better is that it makes skill improvement more incremental instead of just +1 bumps to all skills at 4, 7, 10 and 13.

Weapon/implement proficiency gets a damage boost every time you gain a level; you can see the slight difference between a level two proficiency and a level three proficiency. You're almost through the first tier (level 4) before your skill proficiency bonus bumps up by one point.

+1 point to put in the skill of your choice (subject to max ranks per tier) doesn't feel any more complex than 4E's adding half level to everything and feels a bit more organic and natural in terms of progression and provides a small choice for the player to make about their character (what do they choose to advance this time?).

* * * * *

The main reason for NOT doing it is precisely what the rule states... assigning the initial 9 points (8+1) is more complex than just picking out three skills and having them improve every X level.

The problem I'm having in shooting it down myself is that I don't think it's THAT meaningfully more complex relative to giving the player a choice about how the PC improves every level.

So I'm not sure if I want you to pull me back from the edge or egg me on, but some feedback would definitely help.

I'm gonna fall on the side of pulling you back from the edge: third edition did skill points, and characters who didn't max out certain skills every level fell behind those who did. From my understanding, it was complex, fiddly, and ultimately pointless. 4e did a lot of good by simplifying things to: did you train the skill, yes or no? With your current setup, you get some incremental improvement, and you get to keep things from getting too fiddly. It could work as an alternate set of rules, but I'd keep the simpler setup as the standard rule.

Thanks for the quick feedback. Optional is where it’s at currently and your feedback pulls me from “just waiting to pull the trigger” to “let’s work through the deeper thinking and see how it stands up before doing anything more with it.”

* * * * *

In that vein, my thinking was the low caps (4/6/7) being by tier (instead of going up every level) would mean you couldn’t throw all your eggs into one basket.

With 3e, the only way to keep up was to buy another rank in each skill you already had or you’d fall behind. It was de facto “trained/untrained” but with the ability to screw it up in way that was hard to recover from because the cap went up every level.

By contrast, with this option you could cap a skill’s ranks at level 1 (4 points out of 9) and then have to spend the rest of your level 1 points (5 more) and all the points gained at levels 2, 3, 4 and 5 on other skills entirely (all of which also cap at 4 points).

At level six the cap goes up, but you’ll be capped again by level 7 and need to put your points from level 8, 9 and 10 elsewhere. The cap goes up again at level 11, but you also cap the skill again with a single point so the points at level 12, 13, 14 and 15 must go elsewhere.

Throw in retraining allowing you to swap around 3+1/2 level points at a time and it’s really hard to screw up your skills for long. That number of points was arrived at because it means you can move around 4 points (the cap for any skill until level 6) by the first time you get to use retaining at level two, and that you’d be able to move around 6 points by level 6 (i.e. move around enough skill points to cap a skill with a single retraining use) and 8 points by level 11.

Side-bar: Before I put stat bumps in to replace the clunky “non-proficient proficiency bonus” the original skill proficiency bonus was 3+1/2 level (or +10 at level 14-15). Because I didn’t want a skill bump to line up with a stat bump I couldn’t use 3 + 1 at 3, 6, 9, 12 and 15 (because you’d get +2 to everything at level 6) to still get a net +10 and had to settle for a net +9 with a +1 at 4, 7, 10 and 13. The point is that if I made the max ranks 4/6/8 (by tier) it’d actually be closer to my original math that put a Tier 3 PC at two levels of mastery better than an unskilled person (i.e. able to get a “succeed by 10” result with the same die result as the unskilled person needs just to get a basic success).

* * * * *

That was also the thinking behind keeping the point gain to just a single rank per level. It means you’re not managing a heap of points like in 3e; 6+ per level for a wizard, 8-12 per level for a rogue. Even a human is only dealing with an extra point every other level.

The thinking was that picking a skill to improve by one at the same time you’re picking a new utility or specialization probably isn’t any harder for the typical player than updating all the skill values every three levels and creates a smoother rate of improvement in the character.

* * * * *

Another factor that bore relevance to my thinking is that skill difficulties aren’t as extreme as in 3e (or 4E) in my system. TN 25 is considered extremely difficult and the range between max proficiency and non-proficiency is relatively small (less than half the variance of the die itself). When a starting character can already get a basic success on all but the most difficult tasks if they just want it enough (i.e. spend a surge to get a 20 on the check) then the consequences of “falling behind” on a skill is just less efficient resource use (i.e. fewer checks where you can use take-10s or rolls with reasonable odds instead of burning surges to succeed).

Side-bar the second: I set the “counts as a proficient” at 2 ranks because it creates a pretty smooth stream of advancement from untrained (0 ranks) to apprentice (2 ranks) to journeyman (4 ranks, limit for tier one) to expert (6 ranks, limit for tier two) to master (8 ranks, limit for tier three).

Hmmm... you know, if nothing else, I think I might have solved another minor niggling issue... I’ve been looking for proper names for the tiers (since heroic/paragon/epic weren’t useable) and haven’t found anything that quite fits (ex. ‘adventurer’ shouldn’t be a tier... it’s what you do the whole time), but I REALLY like the name “Journeyman”.

Journeyman, Expert and Master tiers is certainly more evocative than Tier 1, Tier 2 and Tier 3.

* * * * *

All that said, you make a compelling point that, as-written, skills are dirt simple to use at character creation. It makes me want to look at some sort of hybrid option; like just pick the skills at creation (i.e. as set up now), then start adding a skill point per level once leveling comes into play or something along those lines.

Update: The names for the tiers are sticking around, but Skill Points are definitely going to be optional.

I took one look at updating the signature characters where everything was nice clean lists of selections and realized I'd have to throw specific ranks onto each of the skills and the cleanliness and ease of a new player just grabbing one and using those lists would be lost.

Not worth it.

That said I'm going to re-evaluate the levels you get the improved proficiency bonus. There's nothing that says they HAVE to be uniformly applied across all 15 levels, just my sense of uniform progression.

So, thanks for pulling me back from the cliff and getting me to stop and think a bit. It was enough of a break that I was finally able to talk myself out of it.

You're welcome, man. Your point about the signature characters and losing the orderliness of their list of selections was a point I hadn't even considered.

I would keep the progression uniform just for simplicity's sake. You've got a good thing going there, no sense introducing further complexities at this stage of the game.

The issue I’m having is a lot of complaints about skills not improving at all until level 4. That’s 80% of the way through Journeyman tier without a major component of your background improving at all.

My thinking is that I can put the one missing rank (because the skills were originally based on a +10 variance between unskilled noob and max level trained, but I didn’t use the +1 at 3, 6, 9, 12 and 15 I should have because the level 6 bump would also line up with when you got +1 to all your stats (which means +1 to hit, damage, defenses, focus and heroic surges and all your skills... and is the first time you get an expert specialization/full-mulitclass; it’s already a HUGE level).

From the feedback I’ve gotten level 3 would actually be the optimal time to get the first bump. Ironically, level two is too soon... getting a bump at your first level up means people expect it to happen more often. Waiting for the second level up makes the expectation that its not something you get every level.

So I’m moving the bumps from 4, 7, 10 and 13 and change them to 3, 7, 9, 12 and 14 (bringing the top end to where it’s needed to be since I dropped non-proficient proficiency bonuses).

Level 0, -1 and -2 PCs have their bonus drop to +2 so its technically 2 (apprentice) + 1 at 1, 3 (journeyman), 7, 9 (expert), 12 and 14 (master). So there is a pattern just not a every X levels pattern... kinda like 4E had a pattern to its tier progression (new tier stuff, utility, encounter, stat, daily, utility, encounter, stat, daily, capstone).

The update is all done, but for the upload (which will happen as soon as I get home tonight). I’ll pop a link to it in a PM before I head to bed.

PM sent... for some reason it wasn't showing up as sent, so I ended up spamming your box about four times, but it's there.

Fetches are awesome. Mechanically they look sound, using the old shadeling mechanics, and their fluff is neat as hell. Lorewise, if I’m a smart ruler (i.e. Lord Blackstone) and I hear about a clan of fetches in the area, my first reaction is gonna be to offer to share intel on undead in the area and offer logistical support of necessary. Obviously I'd have to be wary of rogue fetch clans, but otherwise a fetch clan in the area is like a tornado siren – you’re damned glad it’s there when the tornado’s rolling in.



I know you're already planning on this, but the document could use a pass-over to clean up language. Church Militant refers to Martial Adept, not Physical Adept, for example, and the spellcasting archetype still lists the shifter and protector as available classes.

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I noticed you switched back to rolled free strikes. What's the reasoning behind that? I know you went with automatic ones to speed things up.

I also noticed that Defensive Wards now requires a minor action to activate. I assume that it's because of balance issues in comparison to armor?

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With the new shift form mechanics, the werebeast avatar example could probably stand to be looked at again. I'd probably go with Beast Trait, Shifter (x2, hybrid and beast), Elemental Weakness, and possibly Elemental Movement. The fluff for the werebeast could also use clarification. When you call them beast-headed humanoids that turn into humans or beasts, ut leads me to think that they are D&D/WoD-style werebeasts with bipedal and quadrupedal beast modes, while the werewolf monster entry leads me to believe that they are purely bipeds.

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I was looking over the abjurer stats again, and I noticed that the armor upgrade it grants wouldn't work with potent runes and militant astral characters. The text of abjurer's defense states that armor training grants the next-highest level, which would be medium. This is redundant with potent runes and militant astral's armor-granting features, which give medium armor. I know the intent was to put these two in heavy armor, so my recommended fix would be to have potent runes and militant astral directly state that armor training also grants medium armor proficiency, to allow abjurer's defense to give these two guys heavy armor. It's a rules-as-written thing that I've been turning over in my head for a good minute.

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Matara and Jekrit look better. I didn’t think that you would actually go with the Batou idea for Jekrit, but it works. Also, Danai Lan’s wings look much more impressive. Finally, good call having the general labor golem use Forge’s old design. As for Forge, he looks much better; he’s evolved beyond being a standard crafting golem, and his manner of dress shows it.

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I'm liking the physical adept section. I thought it would be a separate background like the arcanist or barbarian, but this way works better.

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The shift form mechanics are a thing of beauty: simple, consolidated, with no redundancies or overlap issues like before. Having everything refer back to the same mechanics just makes everything fit like a well-crafted puzzle. It’s interesting how the Totem form had so much overlap with the hybrid form on a mechanical level.

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Stupid question: are the elemental spirit utilities like fire spirit's separate functions separate utilities, or do you get all of them when you select the utility?

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The draugyr are new and interesting: very Lovecraftian by way of Mike Mignola. I was expecting leviathans and gallu, but the former are probably abyssal dragon variants and the latter are probably in the full GM section. How did you decide on their name? I looked them up and saw the wikipedia entry mentioned later Scandinavian lore revolving around sea-draugr, but for the most part, draugr in that lore are undead, albeit more potent than the Skyrim interpretation.

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The dark powers section is also interesting. I remember the beta version of these rules a while back, but you've done a better job in fleshing out both their role in the setting and their mechanics. The shadow path letting you become a greater undead at level 6 is a great idea, one that ties into the sub-paths. The demonic power entry having additional methods tied to summoning, objects or outright possession in addition to the nature of your patron really makes it stand out. For standard D&D settings that don't bar demonic power from the PCs, this really reflects infernal or Lovecraftian warlocks.

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All in all, an awesome update.

Thank you for everything you catch. About $3k of the eventual kickstarter is going for a professional copy editor, but everything I can catch in the meantime is appreciated.

Now on to specific comments;

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Rolled Free Strikes became a thing because implementing them as an Optional Rule proved way too cumbersome (mostly owing to monster design often not having a clear choice for what to use) whereas I was able to summarize everything you'd need to covert from rolled to static Free Strikes in a couple of paragraphs.

Implementing them at all came due to requests that they were a little too one-note and, because they were a sure thing, they ended up eliminating certain tactics (because the automatic damage would drop the target to 0 Edge) instead of just making them very risky... particularly since the guardians/blockers did so much MORE damage than everyone else (a level 6 blocker dealt 20 automatic damage with its free strike... that's enough to wipe out a level 2 critter that had taken just about any other hit first).

I'm kinda okay with that concession to speed up play, but there was enough feedback about it (particularly once someone had taken some hits) that I decided it needed an option for free strikes being risk/reward instead of a static variable to consider, but the option was too finicky to implement (whereas switching from rolled to static wasn't).

Personally, as a happy medium I'd probably run a hybrid where you rolled to hit, but used static damage for my own games; but its a pretty easy dial to flip at this point.

Its basically the same reason the more realistic diagonals and non-square bursts are the default rules instead of the outright 4E versions; its always easier to strip complexity as an option than it is to add complexity as an option. Particularly with exception-based design.

One point worth noting is that I fully intend the Optional Rules to be employed as dials. They're as much a part of the "core rules" as the regular rules in that sense.

* * * * *

Defensive Wards taking a minor action and, more importantly, inflicting a -2 penalty to your initiative while active, was indeed to balance it with armor. Armor has weight and check penalties so the wards needed some type of trade-off to keep them from being objectively better than armor.

That trade-off became a choice; wander around with your wards down, have full initiative and need a minor action to bring them up -or- keep them up and suffer a penalty to initiative when combat rolls around.

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The reason werebeasts use "hidden features" instead of a second shifter selection for hybrid form is because Avatars are meant to be clearly inhuman without the "hidden features" option. In essence, its default IS a hybrid mode and it needs "Hidden features" to appear completely human (this also suppresses the beast traits it does have in its natural form until they're used).

The monster version lists itself as a "beast" for shape, so the default stats are quadrapedal. The shift form ability lets it become a humanoid that looks like a human until it uses its maul attack, at which point it takes on a wolf-man form until it spends a minor action to go back to looking like a human (or ends shift form to go back to full wolf shape).

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The intention was that uou get the next highest tier of armor if you took the armor training option, regardless of what level that might be when you select the class (path benefits precede class benefits). Potent rune and militant astral both grant medium armor so the next highest tier is heavy armor.

To clear it up, I re-worded it under the abjurer as "Armor Training grants you proficiency in the next highest armor type for your path."

* * * * *

Thanks for the praise on the artwork. I'm probably moving into artwork for the backgrounds next. Fortunately that just takes just one pic per background instead of multiple per species.

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Well, most of the Physical Adept utilities originally did belong to their own background; Monastic. But I decided it was silly to silo them there given that many traditions beyond warrior monks have similar traits and it finally gave the skilled classes a utility section of their own to line up with the Spellcasting paths each having one.

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Yeah, Totem-Form was always just "hybrid without the innate armor and weapons." Moving it to Physical Adept really opens it up for your "Totem Warrior" type of skilled heroes.

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There are no stupid questions. You get all three functions with one utility. This is meant to line up with the Cantrips utility that grants you three cantrips. The bullet points are mostly to keep the three actions each grants clear, but I can see where the confusion comes because the top level got written in normal action format.

I've adjusted the top line to "...creates one of the following effects each time you use this action;" so hopefully that will clarify it a bit.

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I hit on the Draugyr name as I was running through a big list of water themed monsters on Wikipedia because I needed a good name for the Brine demons. I think what hooked me was the description of the ones which had seaweed tendrils for heads because I immediately associated that with the tentacles of a Mind-flayer and so I expanded it general to seaweed or any sea-life... throw in that they're native to the "Outside" and demons in my setting in general have a lot in common with 4E Aberrations and the Outer Darkness is as much the Far Realms as it is the Abyss.

Leviathans are actually going to be a type of Demonspawn (basically animal versions of Malfeans)... basically a brine demon bred itself with a mosasaurus and leviathans are the result.

Several of what were originally pure demons in earlier drafts are being shifted into demonspawn (Medusa/Gorgons and Gargoyles are now both going to be types of Cambion) because The Great Barrier made them way too problematic to be in the world otherwise.

The Gallu as originally conceived stopped being practical when the Dust demons picked up Storm damage as their shtick so I'm currently trying to figure out where to put them into the mix; perhaps as the name for the rust demons; though my original conception for those were going to be essentially living chains that enslave and torture people... basically my version of the D&D Chain Devil. Slush, Husk and Vermin demons are also still on the table.

It could also fall under the heading of "Other" (I've got a few more Aberration type demons who don't fit cleanly into one of the corrupted elements but are definitely demonic) or maybe the Gallu is a type of Astral servitor. I'm still baking my noodle on that.

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Yeah, the dark powers evolved quite a bit and a big part of that was in how both the undead and demons evolved. As I lay out in my section on demons, they're kinda one note in their "I am evil and do evil for the sake of evil" motivations, which is why the dark powers option focuses much more on the hapless mortal of the equation than on a way to create an actual demon PC (though the Cambion option can get damned close, pardon the pun).

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So, I'll get the above changes and errata you noted filtered in and upload an update with them in the morning.

Feel free to mention anything else that crops up as you notice it.

What's really interesting about the werewolf is that given the mechanics you've set up, you can build it several different ways, like Legos. By the way, did you ever mention why you shifted werebeasts from beast-men over to avatars? I figured that it didn't make sense for the First Empire to make beast-men slaves that could become fully human, but I'm not sure.

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I'd stick with your original chain idea for the rust demon. It has its own identity separate from the gallu, which doesn't have a whole lot of info on it.

As for the slush and vermin demons, I've got a couple of ideas. For the slush demon, I'd go with the wendigo, the northern Native American cannibal spirit. The whole "cannibals turn into wendigo" bit could be a form of possession by the wendigo, the cannibalism being a ritual conducted by either the power-hungry or the desperate.

The vermin demon makes the think of the Worm That Walks trope, wherein a swarm of bugs or other small vermin coalesce into a vaguely humanoid form, all controlled by a hive mind.

Just out of curiosity, what are some of the other "Other" demon entries, the ones that don't fit into the corrupted elements?

There are several ways to build a werewolf... it could be something you’re born with (i.e. avatars) or it could be a gift (primal utility) or something you learn through magic (the shapeshifter arcanist utility).

The primary reason they got moved from beastmen to avatars was, first, the avatar concept finally got broad enough to support it (remember that it was originally just sprites, then giants and finally dragons got merged in); second, that as you said, it didn’t make sense for the biomancers to create beastmen who could change to be completely human; and third, enough people wanted their werewolf to be vulnerable to silver and there was no good reason for a mutant beastmen to have such a vulnerability.

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Wendigo (particularly with demonic possession as one of the main ways they manifest) is definitely a good suggestion for the slush demons. For the vermin demon I don’t want to limit them to single type of vermin, but one based on worms is certainly possible (though a body composed entirely of locusts is probably my default).

One of the “Other” demons is the Horrid Mass... a Lovecraftian horror of slime, eyeballs, limbs and maws that is able to detatch and respawn its Horrid Eyes (which fly and attack with sprays of acidic eye puss) and Horrid Claws (think eyeball covered hands that crawl around like spiders and stab with the talons on the end of each finger) and bore into the brains of their victims through their eye sockets to turn them into Eyeless Slaves.

There is also the Absorber. It starts a single humanoid form, but by grabbing a victim it can pull them into itself, adding their mass to its own. It can do this again and again until it’s whole body is a mass of its victims trapped inside the Absorbers skin where it tortures and slowly devours them (the more energy it expends the more quickly they are devoured... so saving those engulfed becomes even more of a race against time once battle is joined).

Finally there is Entropos, a literal floating mass of chaos and entropy that dissolves the laws of reality around it (you roll each round for what effect is in play; reversed gravity, healing itself by reversing time, causing the air to ignite, warping space (everyone in range pushed further or pulled closer as the distance between things is warped). Typically you’re damaged by various degrees of your own body being contorted and warped by its presence.

None of those fits particularly well into the typical elemental demonic schema, but there is literally nowhere else in Creation except “Outside” that they could possibly come from.

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So, back to the trek up the Hydra river by our Malfean exiles. Once they cleared the territory of the Toria Tribes they found themselves at the source of the Flamehead river; a volcanic fissure valley surrounded by perpetually snow covered mountains and, at the head of that valley, the Ember Falls.

It is worth noting that, despite the name, the Ember Falls is not technically a waterfall at all (i.e. it is not fed by a river), but a 1st magnitude (i.e. greater than 100ft^3 per second discharge) hot spring that emerges 200 feet up the far end of the fissure valley and plunges into the lake at the head of the Flamehead River below.

The 100 degree falls fills the entire valley with warm mists that keep it at a perpetual 70-75 degrees (colder near the mouth; where once you clear the fissure the surrounding air quickly drops below freezing; warmer near the head and falls proper) and also make the presence of occupants all but invisible from the air (from the air all you see is a wide gap in the snow covered mountains from which steam continually pours out the top and a river flows from the bottom).

It was a place largely avoided by the Toria because, as a natural confluence of fire, water, earth, air (steam and mists), ice (the surrounding mountains), plant and animal life, it was essentially holy ground teaming with Primal Spirits of all kinds and those same spirits generally did their best to discourage people from lingering long.

At least until the Malfean exiles arrived. Instead of the place of foreboding the Toria described, the Malfeans instead found the primal spirits welcoming and offering them a place of solace to heal until they could grow strong again (the offer was not a permanent place for Malfeans to always reside, but rather a place and time to heal... the generation that comes up without the scars Malcer inflicted would be expected to return to the world).

The Malfeans responded by building an altar to the Great Spirit where they would gather in daily prayers of thanksgiving (and storytelling) and built a community that relied entirely upon the Primal Spirits for its needs. Homes, clothing and any tools they required were created of living trees or stone by earth and plant spirits. Nutrient rich spring waters fed fields of maise, beans and squash and in turn abundant small game. Here the most traumatized of Malcer’s victims were able to lay down their burdens and heal in a place where the only real responsibility was to give thanks to the Great Spirit who provided this oasis.

As the youngest of the refugees; those too young to recall much of the misery under Malcer; began to come of age, the elders realized that, while those of their generation would be allowed to enjoy solace there until the end of their days, to be true to their promise to the Primal Spirits they would need to begin preparing the up and coming generations to face the world and create a support system for them beyond the refuge of The Emberfalls.

To that end they created the Ember Circle; a order of missionaries to spread the teachings of the Old Faith and hunt the demons and extremists like Malcer (think a primal version of the avenger). Also included in their mission was a charge to find those so damaged by the world that they needed a place to heal as much as the Malfeans once did and bring them to Emberfalls for the healing (both of mind and body) they need.

In this way they hoped to ease the younger generations into the world while still giving them a place to return home to... and also to share the spiritual healing they received with others who have been broken.

The Ember Falls is effectively a monastery and extended-care hospital and the Ashen Circle is its primal warrior monks who go on regular walkabouts to spread the word, fight monsters and heal the sick. Between the difficulty of the approach, the primal spirits, the Circle and just not having much of worldly value the Ember Falls has remained unmolested and is an ideal place for PCs who need to regroup and have nowhere else to go, but with the requirement that they cannot remain past the point they’ve healed/regained their center.

Their long term goal is establish retreats beyond the Emberfalls for malfeans to have shelter and a place to worship and heal.

In terms of leadership, Emberfalls is essentially a commune (which is a workable arrangement when the population level is small enough for everyone to know everyone else). The Primal Spirits provide all the food, clothing and shelter a member would ever need so the occupants can devote their full attention to their relationship with the Great Spirit as they heal. As such there’s little need for formal leadership to manage limited resources so leadership is more a matter of deference to those with knowledge or wisdom to share by those who wish to learn.

Things are a bit more formal among the Ashen Circle where leadership is based on the number of successful missions they have participated in (the idea being that those who went on successful missions have experience that will aid in the next mission). Missionaries are expected to defer to those with greater experience (and in turn those of great experience have generally learned the lesson of listening to those beneath them), but it’s generally a “first among equals” type of arrangement rather than an outright hierarchy.

I would also be tempted to create an abyssal werewolf, something like a demonic inversion of the primal utility version, to represent the modern cursed version.

With the vermin demon, the worm that walks trope is anything that's composed of smaller organisms. It could be locusts like you suggested (awesome idea, by the way), spiders, centipedes, rats, lizards, snakes, anything creepy-crawly.

Your "Other" category demons are friggin' horrific. The gallu seems tame in comparison.

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Anything above a certain population size, and the commune breaks down, though I don't see that model lasting too long without serious conflict.

I assume that Erin'ye is part of the Ashen Circle?

To be fair to the commune, it’s not supposed to last all that long. Honestly, while I see the short term utility of Emberfalls as a place of retreat and healing; as a game element it’s boring (which is good if you’re a trauma survivor dealing with massive PTSD). There’s no meaningful threat, nothing valuable worth attacking it for and yet those living there have everything they’d need.

If not for the “only those too damaged can stay, all others must return to the world” I’d probably have to remove it or otherwise completely rework the concept from the ground up (which is always a possibility).

The main problem is that the Free Cities population isn’t big enough to spin off a self-sustaining Malfean/Mutant colony and have Malcer’s mass sacrifice (which was the impetus for it).

I may as well break down the demographics. Overall the Free Cities has a population of about 30,000 (15,000 of that is Blackspire). That population is 50% human, 18% dwarf, 12% beastmen (kobolds 2%, no others more than 1%), 5% elf exiles, 5% malfeans, 5% mutants, 2% fetch, 2% golem, 1% avatars/gnomes combined.

That means there’s only about 3000 malfeans and mutants in the entire Free Cities and only about 1500 in Blackspire. To re-animate the dreadnought golem and be a significant enough massacre to warrant the aftermath would be on the order of multiple hundreds of sacrifices; say two-thirds of Blackspire’s “undesirable” population. That leaves just 500 Blackspire survivors (250 malfeans, 250 mutants) from which to draw the exiles from.

Even if ALL of those leave and half the mutants peel off for offers of refuge between Stonepoint and the Toria Tribes (since there’s not the bias against mutants from the avatars that there is for malfeans) you’re still looking at a population of just 375. Half going on their exodus means just 182 actually arrive at Emberfalls.

Emberfalls is basically a colony doomed by its demographics. There’s no more than two-dozen of any given type of malfean (4-6 probably already somewhat related families for each elemental type) and probably not more than a dozen of any specific type of mutant. Even without the Primal Spirits wanting the healthy to get back out into the world it’d end up dispersing in a couple generations without fresh blood to provide marriage prospects that aren’t your cousins.

That’s okay though because the setting book is a snapshot in time and recognition that Emberfalls is but a temporary respite and not a lasting solution to all the malfean’s woes makes it a better starting point for adventurers than some perfect place they’d have no desire to ever leave. The need to go out and make a place for yourself in the larger world because staying is essentially just waiting to die provides a common hook for a group of outcasts if a GM wants to start a campaign from there.

As I said though, the other alternative is to go back to the drawing board, move it closer to civilization, cut down on the Primal refuge angle and turn it more into a general “refuge” for outcasts of all kinds (including outlaws of every species) that is plagued by resource shortages and strife between different groups of outcasts. Basically the Blackspire refugees don’t find any true place to call home and end having to settle amongst a settlement of outlaws and brigands (a land-based Tortuga) because it’s the best they can find.

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Abyssal werewolf is certainly doable. Actually the “possessed” sub-path for demon spellcasting includes a shift form ability to simulate how the demon taking over its host warps its form while in control... basically the demon wolf takes over.

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Lovecraft is always a better bet for truly horrific stuff. Ancient myths were the result of essentially rational people trying to make sense of the universe. Lovecraft’s creations were his attempts to deal with his own mental illness. The monsters he envisioned weren’t a part of a system of cosmic order (the gallu punished the wicked and therefore were as much a source of cosmic justice as anything), but the all-consuming embodiments of suicidal depression.

Personally, when it comes to designing absolute horrors, I find that looking at what we fear losing the most and then embodying it is the best approach. The Absorber is literally the embodiment of losing yourself to a collective; drowning under the weight of an inhuman force that cares for you only as a cog in its machine.

Similarly, the Eyeless Slave is having everything that makes you you bored away and a husk walking around in your place.

Entropos is the embodiment of a world completely beyond your ability to control of influence.

The chain demons are also right out of the same vein... the human form wrapped in the chains is a victim trapped inside their own body as the demon commits horrors using it.

The ember demon who just wants to eat you, the miasma demon that wants to poison you or the dust demon who wants to tear down all your works seem positively tame by comparison.

Demons aren’t meant to be cool in my world... they are horrors that exist only to destroy people’s lives and sow misery and despair. Most of what would qualify as the “cool” demons (ex. Succubi) are Astral servitors (and as such can generally be built as PCs using elves with the Potent Spark trait... a Succubus would be a high elf changeling with the seductive aspect and is probably an Interdictor with enchantment based spells like Command and the psychomancy specialization) who at least embody something resembling a comprehensible human emotion (even if it is a dark one like rage or vengeance or lust).