Not really Shattered World related, but since this blog also serves to hold my rants on game design, I might as well put it here.
Trap design in every other version of DnD.
Ug the kobold:"OK, here's a hidden trip wire, and it triggers this crossbow and then deflates this bladder, so that it blows through a horn, letting us know someone is coming."
Zug the kobold:"Looks good."
Trap design in 4e: (You may need to make a free account to read this article)
Ug the kobold:"OK, here's a hidden trip wire, and it triggers this crossbow and then deflates this bladder, so that it blows through a horn, letting us know someone is coming."
Zug the kobold:"No, that will never do. The thief will spot it and disarm it."
Ug:"Well, yeah, but he might miss it. Besides, it will warn us against goblins or even wild animals coming down the tunnel. We have enemies besides PCs."
Zug:"No, no, that's not the point! What does the FIGHTER do?"
Ug:"Kill our women and children, usually. Thus, the traps."
Zug:"No. First, you need some arcane runes for the mage to read and disable. They'll set off the fireball if he doesn't."
Ug:"We have a fireball?"
Zug:"Then, I think, we'll have the runes cast 'animate dead' on some skeletons, so the cleric can turn them.
Ug:"We have someone who can can cast that?"
Zug:"Of course, the skeletons will be trying to stop the thief from disarming the crossbow, so the fighter will have to protect him from them! Perfect! The whole party is involved!"
Ug:"You want this done by WHEN?"
Zug: "Just make sure there's something like this every 50 feet down this tunnel. But make them all different, we don't want people getting bored."
Ug:"Look, are we defending our lair or setting up a theme park ride for adventurers?"
Zug:"Theme park. Duh. Didn't you get the memo?"
Monday, January 7, 2008
Tuesday, January 1, 2008
Pining Away
Another random piece of geography for people to correct my errors on. :) As someone who is from New Jersey, it's always one of the my favorite places to destroy.
The Blighted Woods
South-Central New Jersey was always a small patch of wilderness in the midst of suburban sprawl. The area was worthless for development, and ultimately attained value as a nature preserve. In 2020, it remained so, with the only commercial use being collection of rare or exotic plants to test for useful sequences of DNA. On Arith, the same region was similarly empty of settlement, and was a place where bandits, outlaws, and other such types fled to hide from encroaching justice. Autumn Druids were known to practice dark rituals there, and the places where failed towns lay in ruin were regarded as unhallowed sites prone to undead or worse.
In 2020 (or 0PC), a nuclear missile targeted at New York City veered sharply off course, landing squarely in the center of the Pine Barrens. A worldhole was created there, and the region transformed. Today (2040/20PC), the area is a twisted and warped place, a realm which is, according to some, trapped halfway between the material plane and the shadow plane. It is a dark and forboding zone, monster haunted and evil. As with much of the rest of the Eastern Seaboard, the region is now an archipelago, part of the so-called Shattered Coast, but the waters surrounding the islands are shallow and choked with black, acidic seaweed, causing some to call the region the Sargasso of Shadows. Shipwrecks exist in many places just below the surface, providing additional hazards to navigation, and in many cases, they are filled with the zombies or shadows of their drowned crews.
It is never daylight. At high noon, the Blighted Woods are still cloaked in misty twilight, and most of the time, the place is just black. Light, even magical light, is swallowed by the gloom; it is impossible for those without darkvision to see more than thirty feet ahead. The place is filled with constant noise -- trees swaying and creaking without wind to move them, the chittering of strange insects, the mournful cries of alien birds. Where the ground is not swamp or mire, it is covered in a foot-thick layer of dead leaves, fallen branches, and the like; this undergrowth constantly shifts and moves as the things which dwell beneath it seek prey.
The worldhole region, occupying about a one mile radius from the blast point, is different. Here, all is barren; dead, leafless trees form black shapes against an eternally grey sky. Nothing solid seems to live here, but shadowbeasts of all description flit from here to there, winking in and out of reality. Dire cold is constant, and fires flicker and die unless they are magically sustained.
There are no normal communities or holdfasts in the Blighted Woods. Nor do any normal, mortal, creatures live there for long, unless they are very powerful and very strange. One local power is Nergiaphen Of The Black Scar, a being rumored to be a druidic lich, who has taken over a twisted grove near to the worldhole and is practicing bleak arts. A few creatures who were dwelling in the woods when the blast struck have been transformed; a gang of bandits known as Martin's Marauders has been transformed into dread shadows, and they are known to ride and raid on moonless nights.
The place is also home to a Chancery of the Seelie Court, one of the largest on the Shattered Coast.
Many of the shadow beasts created in the Blighted Woods have roamed outwards, becoming a persistent threat to travelers and outlying farms.
The Blighted Woods
South-Central New Jersey was always a small patch of wilderness in the midst of suburban sprawl. The area was worthless for development, and ultimately attained value as a nature preserve. In 2020, it remained so, with the only commercial use being collection of rare or exotic plants to test for useful sequences of DNA. On Arith, the same region was similarly empty of settlement, and was a place where bandits, outlaws, and other such types fled to hide from encroaching justice. Autumn Druids were known to practice dark rituals there, and the places where failed towns lay in ruin were regarded as unhallowed sites prone to undead or worse.
In 2020 (or 0PC), a nuclear missile targeted at New York City veered sharply off course, landing squarely in the center of the Pine Barrens. A worldhole was created there, and the region transformed. Today (2040/20PC), the area is a twisted and warped place, a realm which is, according to some, trapped halfway between the material plane and the shadow plane. It is a dark and forboding zone, monster haunted and evil. As with much of the rest of the Eastern Seaboard, the region is now an archipelago, part of the so-called Shattered Coast, but the waters surrounding the islands are shallow and choked with black, acidic seaweed, causing some to call the region the Sargasso of Shadows. Shipwrecks exist in many places just below the surface, providing additional hazards to navigation, and in many cases, they are filled with the zombies or shadows of their drowned crews.
It is never daylight. At high noon, the Blighted Woods are still cloaked in misty twilight, and most of the time, the place is just black. Light, even magical light, is swallowed by the gloom; it is impossible for those without darkvision to see more than thirty feet ahead. The place is filled with constant noise -- trees swaying and creaking without wind to move them, the chittering of strange insects, the mournful cries of alien birds. Where the ground is not swamp or mire, it is covered in a foot-thick layer of dead leaves, fallen branches, and the like; this undergrowth constantly shifts and moves as the things which dwell beneath it seek prey.
The worldhole region, occupying about a one mile radius from the blast point, is different. Here, all is barren; dead, leafless trees form black shapes against an eternally grey sky. Nothing solid seems to live here, but shadowbeasts of all description flit from here to there, winking in and out of reality. Dire cold is constant, and fires flicker and die unless they are magically sustained.
There are no normal communities or holdfasts in the Blighted Woods. Nor do any normal, mortal, creatures live there for long, unless they are very powerful and very strange. One local power is Nergiaphen Of The Black Scar, a being rumored to be a druidic lich, who has taken over a twisted grove near to the worldhole and is practicing bleak arts. A few creatures who were dwelling in the woods when the blast struck have been transformed; a gang of bandits known as Martin's Marauders has been transformed into dread shadows, and they are known to ride and raid on moonless nights.
The place is also home to a Chancery of the Seelie Court, one of the largest on the Shattered Coast.
Many of the shadow beasts created in the Blighted Woods have roamed outwards, becoming a persistent threat to travelers and outlying farms.
Saturday, December 29, 2007
Dwarfing Expectations
Sheesh, got to update this more often...
In any event, continuing the theme of major PC races, we turn to the dwarves, who are not to be looked down on. Hah! Sorry. I'll be good.
In any event, while there was a strong temptation to re-use the dwarf culture and gods I created for my last D&D game, I decided not to. The old dwarves were deeply family oriented, with everything being based on clan, relationships, and so on...these dwarves are not. Most don't even know who their parents are. The hyper-militarism gives a lot of good, easy, hooks to hang characterization on, as well as providing any players with a baseline for characterization based on how closely their character clings to the dwarven 'ideal'. As for the similarity to the hobgoblins...that might be simply convergent evolution of cultures, or...it might not. There's some backstory I'm still deciding upon on.
I also like the idea that there are lost settlements, deep underground, cut off from all other communities but capable of being self-sustaining in that wonderfully illogical and forced D&D way. ("There's...uh...mushrooms. And, uhm, meatbeasts that eat the mushrooms. And, erm, there's this fungus which doesn't need light but which gives off oxygen just like green plants and...") (Yeah, and a race which lives in dark caverns is inky-black-skinned, not albino skinned. Bah! My Drow are pure ivory! But that's another thread...)
Anyway...dwarves. Or dwarfs. Whatever.
Dwarves
History
The dwarves are the youngest members of the races who call themselves the Free Peoples, though they claim their history is older than any but the elves. They first entered the annals of history 5,000 years ago, when human miners of the Second Jarialian Empire tunneled into the Kragaz Mountains (these occupy roughly the same area on Arith that the Alps occupy on Earth). The miners, driven by a desperate need for mithral and elemental ore, had tunneled deeper than ever before in history, and found themselves suddenly confronting a dwarven work gang tunnelling upwards.
These initial meetings were tense. The dwarves had little idea there was a 'surface world'; to them, the world was simply caverns and tunnels going endlessly upwards. It took some convincing that the surface was not simple a very big cavern. Likewise, the dwarves had known nothing but war in the entirety of their history; all the other races they knew of were violent, cruel, and brutal. The ideas of 'alliance' and 'trade' were likewise foreign, and initial contacts tended towards violence, if only because the dwarves had been taught that an open hand is always a prelude to treachery. It was a century from the first contact before the first true treaties between man and dwarf came to be forged.
Dwarves are, by nature, as solid and unmoving as the stone in which they live. Their culture has changed little in those past years, although they have gone from a hunted and hated race to a powerful and numerous one, and have spread across the surface of Arith. Forged by the necessity of brute survival, all dwarf culture was modeled on military lines; there is no concept of 'civilian' or 'non-combatant', and with a few individual exceptions, it remains so to this day. All dwarves have a rank; even a newborn is given a position in a regiment, and has caregivers assigned to him. Family means little to the dwarves; one's squad, regiment, or division defines one's social circle.
Dwarves in the Allied Kingdoms area where heavily concentrated in the southlands of Sorvan, or Western Canada/the Northwest. Settlements were found throughout the Alliance, however -- wherever there was mining to be done. So called 'Dwarf Highways' -- tunnels of stone hundreds of miles long, filled with rest stops and supply rooms -- linked the distant cities. The dwarves, paranoid despite centuries of friendship and alliance with humans, never allowed non-dwarves access to these places, except for the rare few who were exceptionally trusted and who had sworn oaths to never reveal their secrets.
A typical dwarf city is like an iceberg -- 90% of it is underground. Each city is surrounded by a ring of border forts and outposts, and often includes a large surface area (mostly worked by non-dwarfs hired for the job) dedicated to agriculture and cattle -- while the dwarves had mastered feeding large populaces on the bounty of the caves, they enjoyed and appreciated 'surface foods', especially since they could assign other races to harvesting them, freeing themselves up for more directly martial pursuits.
The largest dwarf city in the Americas was Kuz Kar Don, located in the mountains surrounding Flat Head Lake (Hog Nar Zul, as the dwarves called it). Dozens of other cities and outposts were located in nearby regions. Large cities were also found in the Rockies and the Appalachians. In every major human city, there was often a 'dwarf town', where those who grew tired of the mountain life -- or who were exiled from it -- would go. As a consequence, humans tended to think of dwarves as surly drunks who were best left alone, as those dwarves most likely to live among humans were those who could least abide the strictures, order, and conformity of mountain life. Human city dwellers were often astounded when they met "proper" dwarves.
Society
As noted, dwarves have a very militaristic culture. While they are not generally conquerors, it has been the case that there have been more than a few "wars of pre-emptive defense". The dwarven mindset is that they are surrounded on all sides by enemies, and any buildup near to their cities represents an encroaching threat. Dwarf settlements are often surrounded by a 'neutral zone' of caves and tunnels which is constantly patrolled, with many traps designed to close off a passage long enough to send word to the city and get a full division of doughty warriors out there to rout the 'invader', who might just be a lost kobold looking for food.
There is little which the dwarves do which does not have some tie to their worldview. Weapons and armor tend to have little extraneous decoration. Jewelery is given as rewards for courage or service -- where a human will have a chest full of medals, a dwarf will have fingers laden with heavy rings. What art there is tends to be statues and reliefs depicting great heroes and great battles. Music is marching cadence or battle tales; children's songs teach weapon usage and the nature of foes. Many scholars have noted the similarity between dwarf and hobgoblin cultures, with the chief difference being the aggressiveness of the latter as compared to the former.
A dwarf will always use his rank before his name. A spouse or child may call a dwarf by their given name without rank; for anyone else to do so is usually a grave insult. The 'outcast' dwarves of the human cities often retain whatever rank they last held and introduce themselves by it; a dwarf who does not give some rank when talking to strangers is a very odd dwarf indeed, and might be insane or dangerous. (Or the product of a multi-generational outcast family...)
The Crush
The Crush caused terrible earthquakes and rifts. Mountains lifted and sank; fissures opened beneath cities, and juts of solid stone materialized in what were once hollowed caves. The great highways collapsed. Most of those who were traveling along them were killed; many were trapped, finding themselves stuck between impassable blockages. A few, fortunate enough to be in an intact rest area, were able to survive and set up some form of sustenance if there was a water source nearby. Many found themselves waiting in vain for a rescue which never came, or were exterminated as other underdwellers, emboldened by the disasters which struck the surface world, moved upwards to see what they could see, and kill who they could kill.
Kuz Kar Don collapsed in on itself, killing tens of thousands, as well as slaying General Mag Har Jal, commander of the Alliance dwarves. Other large cities suffered a similar fate. The only major settlement to survive even partially intact was Joz Nan Don-ek, located in what on Earth was the Black Hills of South Dakota, and, today, the cracked and damaged features of two great dwarven heroes peer out from the mountain alongside those of American presidents. Relations with the Sioux, who have reclaimed much of the surrounding land, remain difficult at best.
A fair number of dwarves have been forced out of the underground, or have had to take over tunnels and mines which were not carved by them. This most problematic in the coal-rich areas of Pennsylvania, where there has been constant strife between dwarves looking to settle and Earthborn humans looking to mine coal, which is now a much more accessible power source than oil. In some places, there have been peaceful settlements; in other places, there is out-and-out war, often with strange periods of alliance when mutual foes such as goblins or orcs attack.
In any event, continuing the theme of major PC races, we turn to the dwarves, who are not to be looked down on. Hah! Sorry. I'll be good.
In any event, while there was a strong temptation to re-use the dwarf culture and gods I created for my last D&D game, I decided not to. The old dwarves were deeply family oriented, with everything being based on clan, relationships, and so on...these dwarves are not. Most don't even know who their parents are. The hyper-militarism gives a lot of good, easy, hooks to hang characterization on, as well as providing any players with a baseline for characterization based on how closely their character clings to the dwarven 'ideal'. As for the similarity to the hobgoblins...that might be simply convergent evolution of cultures, or...it might not. There's some backstory I'm still deciding upon on.
I also like the idea that there are lost settlements, deep underground, cut off from all other communities but capable of being self-sustaining in that wonderfully illogical and forced D&D way. ("There's...uh...mushrooms. And, uhm, meatbeasts that eat the mushrooms. And, erm, there's this fungus which doesn't need light but which gives off oxygen just like green plants and...") (Yeah, and a race which lives in dark caverns is inky-black-skinned, not albino skinned. Bah! My Drow are pure ivory! But that's another thread...)
Anyway...dwarves. Or dwarfs. Whatever.
Dwarves
History
The dwarves are the youngest members of the races who call themselves the Free Peoples, though they claim their history is older than any but the elves. They first entered the annals of history 5,000 years ago, when human miners of the Second Jarialian Empire tunneled into the Kragaz Mountains (these occupy roughly the same area on Arith that the Alps occupy on Earth). The miners, driven by a desperate need for mithral and elemental ore, had tunneled deeper than ever before in history, and found themselves suddenly confronting a dwarven work gang tunnelling upwards.
These initial meetings were tense. The dwarves had little idea there was a 'surface world'; to them, the world was simply caverns and tunnels going endlessly upwards. It took some convincing that the surface was not simple a very big cavern. Likewise, the dwarves had known nothing but war in the entirety of their history; all the other races they knew of were violent, cruel, and brutal. The ideas of 'alliance' and 'trade' were likewise foreign, and initial contacts tended towards violence, if only because the dwarves had been taught that an open hand is always a prelude to treachery. It was a century from the first contact before the first true treaties between man and dwarf came to be forged.
Dwarves are, by nature, as solid and unmoving as the stone in which they live. Their culture has changed little in those past years, although they have gone from a hunted and hated race to a powerful and numerous one, and have spread across the surface of Arith. Forged by the necessity of brute survival, all dwarf culture was modeled on military lines; there is no concept of 'civilian' or 'non-combatant', and with a few individual exceptions, it remains so to this day. All dwarves have a rank; even a newborn is given a position in a regiment, and has caregivers assigned to him. Family means little to the dwarves; one's squad, regiment, or division defines one's social circle.
Dwarves in the Allied Kingdoms area where heavily concentrated in the southlands of Sorvan, or Western Canada/the Northwest. Settlements were found throughout the Alliance, however -- wherever there was mining to be done. So called 'Dwarf Highways' -- tunnels of stone hundreds of miles long, filled with rest stops and supply rooms -- linked the distant cities. The dwarves, paranoid despite centuries of friendship and alliance with humans, never allowed non-dwarves access to these places, except for the rare few who were exceptionally trusted and who had sworn oaths to never reveal their secrets.
A typical dwarf city is like an iceberg -- 90% of it is underground. Each city is surrounded by a ring of border forts and outposts, and often includes a large surface area (mostly worked by non-dwarfs hired for the job) dedicated to agriculture and cattle -- while the dwarves had mastered feeding large populaces on the bounty of the caves, they enjoyed and appreciated 'surface foods', especially since they could assign other races to harvesting them, freeing themselves up for more directly martial pursuits.
The largest dwarf city in the Americas was Kuz Kar Don, located in the mountains surrounding Flat Head Lake (Hog Nar Zul, as the dwarves called it). Dozens of other cities and outposts were located in nearby regions. Large cities were also found in the Rockies and the Appalachians. In every major human city, there was often a 'dwarf town', where those who grew tired of the mountain life -- or who were exiled from it -- would go. As a consequence, humans tended to think of dwarves as surly drunks who were best left alone, as those dwarves most likely to live among humans were those who could least abide the strictures, order, and conformity of mountain life. Human city dwellers were often astounded when they met "proper" dwarves.
Society
As noted, dwarves have a very militaristic culture. While they are not generally conquerors, it has been the case that there have been more than a few "wars of pre-emptive defense". The dwarven mindset is that they are surrounded on all sides by enemies, and any buildup near to their cities represents an encroaching threat. Dwarf settlements are often surrounded by a 'neutral zone' of caves and tunnels which is constantly patrolled, with many traps designed to close off a passage long enough to send word to the city and get a full division of doughty warriors out there to rout the 'invader', who might just be a lost kobold looking for food.
There is little which the dwarves do which does not have some tie to their worldview. Weapons and armor tend to have little extraneous decoration. Jewelery is given as rewards for courage or service -- where a human will have a chest full of medals, a dwarf will have fingers laden with heavy rings. What art there is tends to be statues and reliefs depicting great heroes and great battles. Music is marching cadence or battle tales; children's songs teach weapon usage and the nature of foes. Many scholars have noted the similarity between dwarf and hobgoblin cultures, with the chief difference being the aggressiveness of the latter as compared to the former.
A dwarf will always use his rank before his name. A spouse or child may call a dwarf by their given name without rank; for anyone else to do so is usually a grave insult. The 'outcast' dwarves of the human cities often retain whatever rank they last held and introduce themselves by it; a dwarf who does not give some rank when talking to strangers is a very odd dwarf indeed, and might be insane or dangerous. (Or the product of a multi-generational outcast family...)
The Crush
The Crush caused terrible earthquakes and rifts. Mountains lifted and sank; fissures opened beneath cities, and juts of solid stone materialized in what were once hollowed caves. The great highways collapsed. Most of those who were traveling along them were killed; many were trapped, finding themselves stuck between impassable blockages. A few, fortunate enough to be in an intact rest area, were able to survive and set up some form of sustenance if there was a water source nearby. Many found themselves waiting in vain for a rescue which never came, or were exterminated as other underdwellers, emboldened by the disasters which struck the surface world, moved upwards to see what they could see, and kill who they could kill.
Kuz Kar Don collapsed in on itself, killing tens of thousands, as well as slaying General Mag Har Jal, commander of the Alliance dwarves. Other large cities suffered a similar fate. The only major settlement to survive even partially intact was Joz Nan Don-ek, located in what on Earth was the Black Hills of South Dakota, and, today, the cracked and damaged features of two great dwarven heroes peer out from the mountain alongside those of American presidents. Relations with the Sioux, who have reclaimed much of the surrounding land, remain difficult at best.
A fair number of dwarves have been forced out of the underground, or have had to take over tunnels and mines which were not carved by them. This most problematic in the coal-rich areas of Pennsylvania, where there has been constant strife between dwarves looking to settle and Earthborn humans looking to mine coal, which is now a much more accessible power source than oil. In some places, there have been peaceful settlements; in other places, there is out-and-out war, often with strange periods of alliance when mutual foes such as goblins or orcs attack.
Saturday, December 22, 2007
Gnobody Gnomes The Trouble I've Seen...
On to another race, one which gets little love in the world of D&D, the gnomes. In part, this writeup was due to the self-confessed inability of the 4e design team to find a role for gnomes which wasn't either "short dwarves" or "short elves". It took me all of five minutes to come up with a basic concept which brought together the 1e/early 2e incarnation of gnomes as forest and hill dwelling trickster/crafters and the 3e/MMORPG incarnation of gnomes as technologically adept, and make them very clearly their own culture and not either Dwarf Lite or Elf Lite. This ain't rocket science, people.
(Again, I'm not claiming Great Originality here, nor is that what I'm aiming for. Given the stats of gnomes and their most common gaming interpretations, all I'm going for is something which works and provides enough background that I can guess what J. Random Gnome might do in a given situation or give a PC who wishes to play a gnome a skeleton on which they can build their character. True originality -- as opposed to just filing down the serial numbers and applying a quick coat of paint -- isn't really a virtue in RPG worldbuilding; the more alien and incomprehensible the world is, the more work it is to play in or, FSM forbid, run. There's a reason that any one of 10,000 Tolkien rip offs sell more copies than, say, "Skyrealms of Jorune". Criticizing my work for unoriginality is like criticizing an elephant for not having wings.)
Of course, since no one in my current campaign plays a gnome, none of this will be useful for a while. So it goes. But an idea crawled into my brain, and it won't rest until I let it crawl out.
(As a side note, it's interesting to see how the worldbuilding process works, at least for me, and if no one ever reads this blog, it's still a good record, for my own use, of the creative process. Skallidane exists only because a player wanted to run a Warforged; I yoinked the island itself from, of course, Swift's Laputa, and my own extremely inchoate concept of a gameworld inspired by console RPGs; I have had an idea for a flying island of steampunk ultratech burbling in the back of my mind for a few years now. So from the chaoplasm of vague ideas solidified the concept, in rough form; with the Warforged backstory, the end of Skallidane was fixed; that, in turn, gave me a hook for the gnomes, whose history helped add in details about the place. We now have a decent image of what a Skallidane street scene might look like, or at least I do; if I even do Arith itself as a setting, I have something to draw on. I steal from myself as much as, or more than, I steal from others, and fragments of barely-begun worlds often make their way into later creations.)
Gnomes
History
Very long ago, thousands of years in Arith's past, the gnomes dwelled primarily in the hilled grasslands and temperate forests. They were skilled toolmakers and hard workers, but lacked the warlike industry of the dwarves, the arcane might of the elves, or swift cunning of the wild halflings. They were closest in character to the village halflings, in fact, and the two peoples often lived in peace in close proximity. Their most fierce wars were against the goblins, who dwelt in the caves nearest the surface world and often boiled up to overrun the woods for a time.
Then came the technomages of Skallidane. Seeing a race of people with mechanical skill but easily conquered (or so they thought), they steered their island across each major gnome homeland, raiding the villages for slaves. In time, the race was practically extinguished on the surface of Arith; only on Skallidane itself did they exist in any numbers.
For centuries, they lived and toiled, learning the secrets of their masters, and plotting their revenge. Gnomes were not front line combatants by nature, but they were cunning and crafty. Subtle flaws -- so subtle, it would take a generation to notice even the smallest -- were added to the machines. Changes were made in way in which incarnum was harvested and implanted in the Warforged. Decade after decade, generation after generation, revolution was brewing.
Even now, almost all scholars attribute the fall of Skallidane to the Warforged. The gnomes were seen as victims finally liberated from their cruel masters, and keeping this illusion going is something the gnomes are quite happy with.
Since then, their homelands have been long since destroyed or settled by others. The gnomes who fled Skallidane spread across Arith, seeking community among other races. They were clever, peaceful, and hard-working. They never sought active power or demanded more than to be allowed to live in peace, and they did all they could to fit in, not make waves, and otherwise be as unobtrusive as possible. Small in stature and in numbers, they realized they could survive best under the shelter of others. Each gnomish community adapted itself to its environment, to cause the least possible friction with their hosts. Cities and villages with gnomish enclaves prospered, as the gnomes added little strain to public services and contributed much wealth to the city, as craftsmen, workers, or spellcasters. They also brought with them some of the lesser arts of Skallidane, and became known in some areas as the makers of wondrous toys and devices, none useful in daily life or warfare, but fun little fripperies to amuse and entertain.
All of this is true, and the gnomish heart is rarely filled with malice or spite. However, they are neither harmless nor helpless. Wrong a gnome, and disaster will befall you in a thousand little ways. In their most secure communities, often in sub-sub-basements no one knows are there, lie many secrets, for it is not merely the lesser arts of technomancy which the gnomes preserved and kept secret. They learned a harsh lesson, once, about being as harmless as they seemed, and they will never allow themselves to be used or enslaved again.
Today
The Crush did as much to disrupt the gnomes as it did anyone else; all the more so, because the gnomes were mostly found in the larger cities of Arith. Since then, many gnome bands have become wanderers, often traveling alongside halfling caravans, but unlike the halflings, they seek places to live. Much more skilled with machinery than other Arithians, they are finding that they can be of value to Earthborn holdfasts who are struggling to maintain failing devices, and they have begun, very subtly, adding in the arts of Skallidane where they can. The Earthborn, for the most part, do not recognize this, and just think the Ornaments (slang term for gnomes) are skilled workers.
A small number of gnomes have decided that this is the perfect time to regain their lands; since the Shattered World is neither Earth nor Arith, but someplace truly new, they feel no one else has any true prior claim on their homes. Many have sought out ancestral dwelling places and seek to tame and reclaim them. A few have tried to recreate "true gnomish culture", as it was pre-Skallidane, going back to old styles of dress, naming, and even language. Most consider this a pointless self indulgence, probably inspired by reading a lot of Earth political tracts.
Mechanics
Gnomes are mostly as described in the PHB or SRD. Gnomes who strongly take after the culture they dwell in may take the following options:
(Again, I'm not claiming Great Originality here, nor is that what I'm aiming for. Given the stats of gnomes and their most common gaming interpretations, all I'm going for is something which works and provides enough background that I can guess what J. Random Gnome might do in a given situation or give a PC who wishes to play a gnome a skeleton on which they can build their character. True originality -- as opposed to just filing down the serial numbers and applying a quick coat of paint -- isn't really a virtue in RPG worldbuilding; the more alien and incomprehensible the world is, the more work it is to play in or, FSM forbid, run. There's a reason that any one of 10,000 Tolkien rip offs sell more copies than, say, "Skyrealms of Jorune". Criticizing my work for unoriginality is like criticizing an elephant for not having wings.)
Of course, since no one in my current campaign plays a gnome, none of this will be useful for a while. So it goes. But an idea crawled into my brain, and it won't rest until I let it crawl out.
(As a side note, it's interesting to see how the worldbuilding process works, at least for me, and if no one ever reads this blog, it's still a good record, for my own use, of the creative process. Skallidane exists only because a player wanted to run a Warforged; I yoinked the island itself from, of course, Swift's Laputa, and my own extremely inchoate concept of a gameworld inspired by console RPGs; I have had an idea for a flying island of steampunk ultratech burbling in the back of my mind for a few years now. So from the chaoplasm of vague ideas solidified the concept, in rough form; with the Warforged backstory, the end of Skallidane was fixed; that, in turn, gave me a hook for the gnomes, whose history helped add in details about the place. We now have a decent image of what a Skallidane street scene might look like, or at least I do; if I even do Arith itself as a setting, I have something to draw on. I steal from myself as much as, or more than, I steal from others, and fragments of barely-begun worlds often make their way into later creations.)
Gnomes
History
Very long ago, thousands of years in Arith's past, the gnomes dwelled primarily in the hilled grasslands and temperate forests. They were skilled toolmakers and hard workers, but lacked the warlike industry of the dwarves, the arcane might of the elves, or swift cunning of the wild halflings. They were closest in character to the village halflings, in fact, and the two peoples often lived in peace in close proximity. Their most fierce wars were against the goblins, who dwelt in the caves nearest the surface world and often boiled up to overrun the woods for a time.
Then came the technomages of Skallidane. Seeing a race of people with mechanical skill but easily conquered (or so they thought), they steered their island across each major gnome homeland, raiding the villages for slaves. In time, the race was practically extinguished on the surface of Arith; only on Skallidane itself did they exist in any numbers.
For centuries, they lived and toiled, learning the secrets of their masters, and plotting their revenge. Gnomes were not front line combatants by nature, but they were cunning and crafty. Subtle flaws -- so subtle, it would take a generation to notice even the smallest -- were added to the machines. Changes were made in way in which incarnum was harvested and implanted in the Warforged. Decade after decade, generation after generation, revolution was brewing.
Even now, almost all scholars attribute the fall of Skallidane to the Warforged. The gnomes were seen as victims finally liberated from their cruel masters, and keeping this illusion going is something the gnomes are quite happy with.
Since then, their homelands have been long since destroyed or settled by others. The gnomes who fled Skallidane spread across Arith, seeking community among other races. They were clever, peaceful, and hard-working. They never sought active power or demanded more than to be allowed to live in peace, and they did all they could to fit in, not make waves, and otherwise be as unobtrusive as possible. Small in stature and in numbers, they realized they could survive best under the shelter of others. Each gnomish community adapted itself to its environment, to cause the least possible friction with their hosts. Cities and villages with gnomish enclaves prospered, as the gnomes added little strain to public services and contributed much wealth to the city, as craftsmen, workers, or spellcasters. They also brought with them some of the lesser arts of Skallidane, and became known in some areas as the makers of wondrous toys and devices, none useful in daily life or warfare, but fun little fripperies to amuse and entertain.
All of this is true, and the gnomish heart is rarely filled with malice or spite. However, they are neither harmless nor helpless. Wrong a gnome, and disaster will befall you in a thousand little ways. In their most secure communities, often in sub-sub-basements no one knows are there, lie many secrets, for it is not merely the lesser arts of technomancy which the gnomes preserved and kept secret. They learned a harsh lesson, once, about being as harmless as they seemed, and they will never allow themselves to be used or enslaved again.
Today
The Crush did as much to disrupt the gnomes as it did anyone else; all the more so, because the gnomes were mostly found in the larger cities of Arith. Since then, many gnome bands have become wanderers, often traveling alongside halfling caravans, but unlike the halflings, they seek places to live. Much more skilled with machinery than other Arithians, they are finding that they can be of value to Earthborn holdfasts who are struggling to maintain failing devices, and they have begun, very subtly, adding in the arts of Skallidane where they can. The Earthborn, for the most part, do not recognize this, and just think the Ornaments (slang term for gnomes) are skilled workers.
A small number of gnomes have decided that this is the perfect time to regain their lands; since the Shattered World is neither Earth nor Arith, but someplace truly new, they feel no one else has any true prior claim on their homes. Many have sought out ancestral dwelling places and seek to tame and reclaim them. A few have tried to recreate "true gnomish culture", as it was pre-Skallidane, going back to old styles of dress, naming, and even language. Most consider this a pointless self indulgence, probably inspired by reading a lot of Earth political tracts.
Mechanics
Gnomes are mostly as described in the PHB or SRD. Gnomes who strongly take after the culture they dwell in may take the following options:
- Dwarf:+2 Profession (Mining) instead of Craft (Alchemy)
- Elf:May choose any type of magic (but only one) to get a +1 bonus to save DCs;Dodge bonus vs. giants drops to +3.
- Human:Gain +4 skill points at first level only; lose Weapon Familiarty and the ability to Speak With Mammals, only receive a +2 AC modifer against Giants.
- Halfling:Gain +1 racial bonus on climb, jump, and move silently; lose weapon familiarity and +2 Craft (Alchemy)
Friday, December 21, 2007
This Is Why I Need Editors...
Lizard sometimes uses placeholders when he has an idea, and intends to look up the Right Stuff later. Lizard should not post until doing so. :)
I should have said "Lake Michigan", with the intent being that most of Northern Michigan is now a sunken mess of broken islands surrounded by unearthly spars of rock, with lakes Michigan and Huron merging to form one inland sea.
I should have said "Lake Michigan", with the intent being that most of Northern Michigan is now a sunken mess of broken islands surrounded by unearthly spars of rock, with lakes Michigan and Huron merging to form one inland sea.
Thursday, December 20, 2007
Sparring
And now we get to random bits of geography. :) I often base my creation on whatever weird images crawl into my brain, and the image of a vast ocean filled with jutting obelisks of stone, battered by crashing waves, and home to countless monsters lurking in the violent froth, was too good to pass up. Sigmund Freud can have a field day; I don't care.
The Firefox spell checker doesn't recognize 'thaumaturgic'? What gives?
EDIT:Corrected a whole bunch of embarrassing geographical errors. I'm a writer, not a cartographer, damn it!
====================
Sparred Sea
Where two of the Great Lakes, Michigan and Huron, once stood, there now exists a vast and twisted inland sea, one which has swallowed most of northern Michigan and which is rendered almost impassable by great juts of land. This region, the creation of nuclear and thaumaturgic energies intermingling, is the Sparred Sea.
History
Shortly after the Crush, a sequence of events -- the details may never be fully known -- set off a nuclear exchange which destroyed many of the world's largest urban areas and unleashed the dreaded Worldholes. One powerful bomb was intended for Chicago, but narrowly missed, impacting a few miles offshore in Lake Michigan -- not, as erroneously reported by clearly drunk chroniclers, Superior. This area was already grossly unstable, and the bomb triggered a cataclysmic chain reaction. The lake buckled and boiled, and strange energies exploded outwards. The shores were scoured for miles around. The region lay shrouded in burning mist for weeks; when the fog finally receded, those who ventured back found that the lake had become filled with huge, jagged, outcroppings of rock, often hundreds of feet tall. Navigation became nigh-impossible, for the boat-ripping spars of rock which lined the bottom could appear anywhere -- and, indeed, seemed to shift position, as one week's "safe" route became next week's ticket to the bottom.
Worse still, while there was no active, visible, Worldhole in the lake, it showed all the effects of one. Hideous mutations emerged from the lake, all kind and manner of twisted abominations. Gargantuan monsters would emerge to swallow those few foolhardy enough to attempt a crossing, while the shores were filled with things of nightmare that emerged during the dark to lay waste to a lakeside camp or a struggling village, only to vanish back into the rocky depths with the coming of the sun.
Present Day
The best reason to venture near the Sparred Sea are the Chicago ruins. The city and its associated suburbs are half-drowned and mostly rubble, but they still contain considerable wealth, and there are always rumors of lost caches of material, be it gold, fine wine, or high-tech engine parts. The sunken eastern half of the city is a monster-infested maze, the spires of the skyscrapers mixing with the rocky outcroppings which give the Sparred Sea its name.
There is also the fact that the lakes remain a source of fresh water, and, if they could be tamed, a navigable route. On Arith, the same geographical region held a number of cities linked in a trade federation known as the Mantarian Alliance. The Codex Mantaros, the law guiding the city-states in their dealings with each other, became the basis for the Alliance Of Free Kingdoms. Many hope that the lake could once again provide a basis for a similar trading state.
Many creatures seeking isolation have made their homes among the spires. Wyverns are known to nest there, near the shorelines, allowing them to forage on land and retreat to relative safety. It is rumored that Duergar have tunneled into the rocks and built a small fortress. Brave and foolish raiders will use the shelter of the stones to hide bases, striking from them at shoreline communities. Creatures of elemental earth are also known to hide among the towers, and stonetouched animals and other monsters are common along the shore. If there are any great or ruling powers on the Sparred Sea, they have not yet made themselves known.
Far from the initial destruction point, there are communities which have set up, or simply remained, along the great lakes, though the corruption and chaos of the Sparred Sea touches on them, as well. Such communities report that the spars themselves seem to be spreading, with maps needing to be constantly updating as new juts of rock emerge seemingly overnight. Whether this phenomenon is natural or directed is unknown.
The magic of the region breeds strange and fierce weather; blistering heat waves and lethal blizzards. Travelers on the lake may face giant waterspouts or rogue waves a hundred feet in height.
The Firefox spell checker doesn't recognize 'thaumaturgic'? What gives?
EDIT:Corrected a whole bunch of embarrassing geographical errors. I'm a writer, not a cartographer, damn it!
====================
Sparred Sea
Where two of the Great Lakes, Michigan and Huron, once stood, there now exists a vast and twisted inland sea, one which has swallowed most of northern Michigan and which is rendered almost impassable by great juts of land. This region, the creation of nuclear and thaumaturgic energies intermingling, is the Sparred Sea.
History
Shortly after the Crush, a sequence of events -- the details may never be fully known -- set off a nuclear exchange which destroyed many of the world's largest urban areas and unleashed the dreaded Worldholes. One powerful bomb was intended for Chicago, but narrowly missed, impacting a few miles offshore in Lake Michigan -- not, as erroneously reported by clearly drunk chroniclers, Superior. This area was already grossly unstable, and the bomb triggered a cataclysmic chain reaction. The lake buckled and boiled, and strange energies exploded outwards. The shores were scoured for miles around. The region lay shrouded in burning mist for weeks; when the fog finally receded, those who ventured back found that the lake had become filled with huge, jagged, outcroppings of rock, often hundreds of feet tall. Navigation became nigh-impossible, for the boat-ripping spars of rock which lined the bottom could appear anywhere -- and, indeed, seemed to shift position, as one week's "safe" route became next week's ticket to the bottom.
Worse still, while there was no active, visible, Worldhole in the lake, it showed all the effects of one. Hideous mutations emerged from the lake, all kind and manner of twisted abominations. Gargantuan monsters would emerge to swallow those few foolhardy enough to attempt a crossing, while the shores were filled with things of nightmare that emerged during the dark to lay waste to a lakeside camp or a struggling village, only to vanish back into the rocky depths with the coming of the sun.
Present Day
The best reason to venture near the Sparred Sea are the Chicago ruins. The city and its associated suburbs are half-drowned and mostly rubble, but they still contain considerable wealth, and there are always rumors of lost caches of material, be it gold, fine wine, or high-tech engine parts. The sunken eastern half of the city is a monster-infested maze, the spires of the skyscrapers mixing with the rocky outcroppings which give the Sparred Sea its name.
There is also the fact that the lakes remain a source of fresh water, and, if they could be tamed, a navigable route. On Arith, the same geographical region held a number of cities linked in a trade federation known as the Mantarian Alliance. The Codex Mantaros, the law guiding the city-states in their dealings with each other, became the basis for the Alliance Of Free Kingdoms. Many hope that the lake could once again provide a basis for a similar trading state.
Many creatures seeking isolation have made their homes among the spires. Wyverns are known to nest there, near the shorelines, allowing them to forage on land and retreat to relative safety. It is rumored that Duergar have tunneled into the rocks and built a small fortress. Brave and foolish raiders will use the shelter of the stones to hide bases, striking from them at shoreline communities. Creatures of elemental earth are also known to hide among the towers, and stonetouched animals and other monsters are common along the shore. If there are any great or ruling powers on the Sparred Sea, they have not yet made themselves known.
Far from the initial destruction point, there are communities which have set up, or simply remained, along the great lakes, though the corruption and chaos of the Sparred Sea touches on them, as well. Such communities report that the spars themselves seem to be spreading, with maps needing to be constantly updating as new juts of rock emerge seemingly overnight. Whether this phenomenon is natural or directed is unknown.
The magic of the region breeds strange and fierce weather; blistering heat waves and lethal blizzards. Travelers on the lake may face giant waterspouts or rogue waves a hundred feet in height.
Monday, December 17, 2007
The Vatican Rag
And so, I wade into that most dangerous of territory, playing with real-world religions in a game setting. In a world where you risk the death penalty for naming a teddy bear "Mohammed", one must tread with caution...
IAE, this all started because someone wanted to play a Jesuit. Easy answer -- a cleric is a cleric is a cleric, pick some domains and be done with it. Lizard answer -- work out what the Catholic Church has been up to since a)2008, and b)the Crush.
This job is only made the harder because 99% of what I know about Catholicism can be boiled down to:
a)They are ruled by some guy in a funny hat.
b)Jack Chick claims they invented Communism, Nazism, and Islam.
So I did extensive (read a few pages of Wikipedia) research, and came up with this. This isn't any kind of commentary on Catholicism per se; I consider all religions equally silly, with the exception of Scientology, which is especially silly. It's not Dantesque wish fulfillment in which I get to inflict on the Church whatever punishment I think it deserves. What it is, is an attempt to create a quasi-plausible "future history" and lay the seeds for potentially interesting stories, and do so in about 20 minutes of total work time.
Catholicism
Pre-Crush
Catholicism, steeped in ritual and clinging to a belief in literal demons, has survived the transition to the new world better than most other major religions, though the very hierarchies which once gave it strength have, in their absence, turned the faith into an ever-fragmenting set of splinter cults. No one ever anticipated the instaneous loss of so much of the higher leadership or the near-total breakdown of communication among those officials who remained.
The Pope in 2020 was Pope Paul VII, who was elected in 2018 and was, previously, Cardinal Ernesto Juan Gomez, a native of Brazil. He was chosen due to the still-rapid growth of Catholicism in South and Central America, and as a symbol of the Vatican trying to distance itself from corruption and nepotism, by choosing someone who was far outside the inner circles of power. In his two years in office, he earned a reputation as the most liberal and socially active Pope in history, and this probably contributed to the explosion of separatist factions which occurred after the Crush.
The Four Popes
Paul VII
Vatican City was shaken to rubble during the events of the Crush, and also found itself surrounded by armed legions of the Kolarian Imperiate, which was based in the same region on Arith. The resulting chaos killed many, though legend has it the Swiss Guard managed to get Paul VII to safety, and that he still lives and is the true Pope. Most dismiss this, as there has been no word from him other than easily-forged letters; those who claim he is still alive, in turn, dismiss the controversy as the creation of those looking for a split.
The Jesuits, for the most part, follow Paul VII, supporting the claim he is alive, but remains in deep hiding, as there are powerful forces who seek to kill him -- and if he dies, it will be a triumph for the forces of darkness.
However, he would know be a man of 72, making his continued survival difficult. According to rumors, the Cardinals surrounding Paul VII are preparing to elect a new Pope from among their number. According to other rumours, this is their excuse for 'revealing' a new Pope to the world.
Benedict XVII
Of those who do not accept the survival of Paul VII, the largest group, mostly in Europe where the United Church Of Christ has little old and ecumenicism is something Americans do, follow Pope Benedict XVII, who has been a prolific writer of letters and recorder (where the technology exists) of video messages. Benedict was the highest-ranking Cardinal to survive the fall of the Vatican, and assume the Popehood by decree, claiming elections could be held once the church has stabilized. He has an apprentice, Giuseppe Maritono, who will take over should Benedict fall. The 'new Vatican' has been established in a sheltered part of the alps, where armed guards keep yeti, winter wolves, and frost giants at bay. Benedict XVII is a staunch traditionalist, and while he has not explicitly said so, he has hinted the Crush was a sign from God that the Church had veered from the truth. He is sometimes referred to as the 'Pope Of Europe'.
Pope Patrick
In the former United States, while many surviving Catholic bishops and cardinals were sending the messages that would soon help form the United Church, others were contacting each other to reconstruct the Catholic Church in America until contact could be established with Rome (or what was left of it) and a final determination of the true Pope be made. This led to what has since been called the American Vatican Council, a loose alliance of priests which has formed a Constitution defining the 'temporary Church'. They have declared no Pope and have backed none of the other candidates, and are lead by Cardinal Patrick Brian Malloy, formerly of New York City (he was visiting family upstate when the Crush hit, saving his life). They are based in a large holdfast relatively close to Albany. The AVC is active in sending out missionaries, supporting charities in various Holdfasts, and issuing polite but firm encyclicals on the theological fallacies of the UCC. Despite his refusal to claim the title, Cardinal Malloy is often called 'Pope Patrick' or 'the American Pope'.
Novus I
Lastly, the Southwest is home to a movement, mostly imported from the remains of Mexico and parts south, of the 'New Catholic Church', one which claims to be the rightful heir to old while not being a direct continuance of it. Heavily influenced by the Central/South American style of Catholicism, and revering 'Saint Ernesto' (whom they believe died in the Crush), it is the most vigorously evangelical, reaching out to Arithian humans and non-humans alike. NCC priests often travel in small caravans, acting, in many ways, like old-style Revival preachers of the early 1900s in America. The head of this branch of Catholicism is Pope Novus I, or "The First New Pope". (Lizard is almost certainly mangling the Latin)
Game Mechanics
Followers of the Catholic faith may, if they choose, accept the following rule modifications:
Demomic Lore: The Catholic church has always believed in demons as real entities and has studied them more than any modern faith. While the exact details of their beliefs were inaccurate, much of what they had written about evil outsiders had a useful ring of truth. As a consequence, Catholic clerics gain a +4 Competence bonus to Knowledge(The Planes) checks, and a +2 bonus on all Charisma based skills when dealing with Outsiders. In addition, Dimensional Anchor, Banishment, and similair spells which either hold or dismiss outsiders are cast at +2 caster levels for all purposes.
Prayer: Because prayer and litany is such an important part of Catholic ceremony, the Silent Spell feat cannot be used.
IAE, this all started because someone wanted to play a Jesuit. Easy answer -- a cleric is a cleric is a cleric, pick some domains and be done with it. Lizard answer -- work out what the Catholic Church has been up to since a)2008, and b)the Crush.
This job is only made the harder because 99% of what I know about Catholicism can be boiled down to:
a)They are ruled by some guy in a funny hat.
b)Jack Chick claims they invented Communism, Nazism, and Islam.
So I did extensive (read a few pages of Wikipedia) research, and came up with this. This isn't any kind of commentary on Catholicism per se; I consider all religions equally silly, with the exception of Scientology, which is especially silly. It's not Dantesque wish fulfillment in which I get to inflict on the Church whatever punishment I think it deserves. What it is, is an attempt to create a quasi-plausible "future history" and lay the seeds for potentially interesting stories, and do so in about 20 minutes of total work time.
Catholicism
Pre-Crush
Catholicism, steeped in ritual and clinging to a belief in literal demons, has survived the transition to the new world better than most other major religions, though the very hierarchies which once gave it strength have, in their absence, turned the faith into an ever-fragmenting set of splinter cults. No one ever anticipated the instaneous loss of so much of the higher leadership or the near-total breakdown of communication among those officials who remained.
The Pope in 2020 was Pope Paul VII, who was elected in 2018 and was, previously, Cardinal Ernesto Juan Gomez, a native of Brazil. He was chosen due to the still-rapid growth of Catholicism in South and Central America, and as a symbol of the Vatican trying to distance itself from corruption and nepotism, by choosing someone who was far outside the inner circles of power. In his two years in office, he earned a reputation as the most liberal and socially active Pope in history, and this probably contributed to the explosion of separatist factions which occurred after the Crush.
The Four Popes
Paul VII
Vatican City was shaken to rubble during the events of the Crush, and also found itself surrounded by armed legions of the Kolarian Imperiate, which was based in the same region on Arith. The resulting chaos killed many, though legend has it the Swiss Guard managed to get Paul VII to safety, and that he still lives and is the true Pope. Most dismiss this, as there has been no word from him other than easily-forged letters; those who claim he is still alive, in turn, dismiss the controversy as the creation of those looking for a split.
The Jesuits, for the most part, follow Paul VII, supporting the claim he is alive, but remains in deep hiding, as there are powerful forces who seek to kill him -- and if he dies, it will be a triumph for the forces of darkness.
However, he would know be a man of 72, making his continued survival difficult. According to rumors, the Cardinals surrounding Paul VII are preparing to elect a new Pope from among their number. According to other rumours, this is their excuse for 'revealing' a new Pope to the world.
Benedict XVII
Of those who do not accept the survival of Paul VII, the largest group, mostly in Europe where the United Church Of Christ has little old and ecumenicism is something Americans do, follow Pope Benedict XVII, who has been a prolific writer of letters and recorder (where the technology exists) of video messages. Benedict was the highest-ranking Cardinal to survive the fall of the Vatican, and assume the Popehood by decree, claiming elections could be held once the church has stabilized. He has an apprentice, Giuseppe Maritono, who will take over should Benedict fall. The 'new Vatican' has been established in a sheltered part of the alps, where armed guards keep yeti, winter wolves, and frost giants at bay. Benedict XVII is a staunch traditionalist, and while he has not explicitly said so, he has hinted the Crush was a sign from God that the Church had veered from the truth. He is sometimes referred to as the 'Pope Of Europe'.
Pope Patrick
In the former United States, while many surviving Catholic bishops and cardinals were sending the messages that would soon help form the United Church, others were contacting each other to reconstruct the Catholic Church in America until contact could be established with Rome (or what was left of it) and a final determination of the true Pope be made. This led to what has since been called the American Vatican Council, a loose alliance of priests which has formed a Constitution defining the 'temporary Church'. They have declared no Pope and have backed none of the other candidates, and are lead by Cardinal Patrick Brian Malloy, formerly of New York City (he was visiting family upstate when the Crush hit, saving his life). They are based in a large holdfast relatively close to Albany. The AVC is active in sending out missionaries, supporting charities in various Holdfasts, and issuing polite but firm encyclicals on the theological fallacies of the UCC. Despite his refusal to claim the title, Cardinal Malloy is often called 'Pope Patrick' or 'the American Pope'.
Novus I
Lastly, the Southwest is home to a movement, mostly imported from the remains of Mexico and parts south, of the 'New Catholic Church', one which claims to be the rightful heir to old while not being a direct continuance of it. Heavily influenced by the Central/South American style of Catholicism, and revering 'Saint Ernesto' (whom they believe died in the Crush), it is the most vigorously evangelical, reaching out to Arithian humans and non-humans alike. NCC priests often travel in small caravans, acting, in many ways, like old-style Revival preachers of the early 1900s in America. The head of this branch of Catholicism is Pope Novus I, or "The First New Pope". (Lizard is almost certainly mangling the Latin)
Game Mechanics
Followers of the Catholic faith may, if they choose, accept the following rule modifications:
Demomic Lore: The Catholic church has always believed in demons as real entities and has studied them more than any modern faith. While the exact details of their beliefs were inaccurate, much of what they had written about evil outsiders had a useful ring of truth. As a consequence, Catholic clerics gain a +4 Competence bonus to Knowledge(The Planes) checks, and a +2 bonus on all Charisma based skills when dealing with Outsiders. In addition, Dimensional Anchor, Banishment, and similair spells which either hold or dismiss outsiders are cast at +2 caster levels for all purposes.
Prayer: Because prayer and litany is such an important part of Catholic ceremony, the Silent Spell feat cannot be used.
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