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Systems & Settings => Rolemaster => Topic started by: Thot on September 10, 2016, 11:32:53 PM
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My upcoming fantasy campaign features am atheist world empire. The High Elves found a simple version of the scientific method in their bronze age, and applied it to everything, including gods and magic, to find out that those didn't exist at all. A thousand years later, they're at Rennaissance level technology and rule the world.
Some background: About two hundred years ago, the High Elves were attacked for their blasphemy, fought back, got sick of all the superstition of the other peoples and subjugated them, forbidding all gods and claims of magic for the con jobs that they were, not neglecting to actually prove time and again that the gods were just fairy tales and magic just tricks or coincidence, because they did not act in the ways believers claimed they would. Ridicule was, of course, also used to make sure everybody gets the new party line. The political system is still a relatively simple feudal aristocracy, though, with the subjugated kingdoms having a loyal viceroy out of the local nobility, and the emperor doubles as the de-facto-king of the original high elven kingdom. There are two other elven vice-kingdoms, one orcish one (these orcs are of the short-lived rapid-breeder type), one with various human cultures (from Central Europe to Iran, with an African principiality thrown in), a China-inspired lizardpeople kingdom, a Japan-inspired dragonmen island, and the high elven colonies in the West with their Aztec/Native American/Indio-inspired cobra-head humanoid snake people. Dwarves are a minority from the original elven kingdoms without their own nobility. Today, after two hundred years, only the eldest elves and Dragonmen even remember the names of the old gods. Medical technology is relatively simple, of course, with no anorganic medicine. While medical care is widespread and affordable for everyone due to Imperial law, vaccinations and antibiotics are unknown, and there are various mean diseases, so only a third of children gets past the age of six. Elves and Dragonmen age slower than others, with 600 years being an theoretical maximum age that few reach due to disease, very occasional famines and, in earlier times before the Unification, wars. The other species have shorter lives of various length.
Over the past 200 years, migration across the world empire has spawned minorities of each people in each other vice-kingdom. The world has become a lot more cosmopolitic. Species cannot mix (that simply doesn't work biologically), so there are no half-breeds, but most people regularily interact with people from other species. Not everybody likes that, of course.
And then, at the start of my campaign, magic and gods actually come into the world. Not the old gods, who are mostly forgotten now and (I have decided) never actually existed anyway, but new ones, who actually do exist.
The System is GURPS, but the Magic is RoleMaster's magic system, with its threefold Channeling/Essence/Mentalism system. Basically all spell lists are allowed (though some magical items are impossible, especially anything that affects the amount of spells one can cast), but there's an Advantage requirement for access to various types of spells of the three magic realms, and you need to spend points for getting your Magic Points. Pretty expensive, so adaption in most cases should be slow, with a few exceptions for dramatic reasons (of which the players, who are encouraged to save a few points at the start, may well be some). However, once having access to the spells and the required amount of Magic Points, actually casting even high-level spells isn't all that hard.
What I would ask you, dear reader, to do is give me an idea how people, players and various NPC's of all types alike, will, in your opinion, react to the clear evidence of actual magic and gods in a world that has been sure for centuries that such things do not exist, and how the magic of Spell Law will affect the balance of the world. I hope this will help me anticipate at least some of the things that will come up in the campaign, and have answers ready when the need for them comes up.
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Some background: About two hundred years ago, the High Elves were attacked for their blasphemy, fought back, got sick of all the superstition of the other peoples and subjugated them, forbidding all gods and claims of magic for the con jobs that they were, not neglecting to actually prove time and again that the gods were just fairy tales and magic just tricks or coincidence, because they did not act in the ways believers claimed they would. Ridicule was, of course, also used to make sure everybody gets the new party line. The political system is still a relatively simple feudal aristocracy, though, with the subjugated kingdoms having a loyal viceroy out of the local nobility, and the emperor doubles as the de-facto-king of the original high elven kingdom. There are two other elven vice-kingdoms, one orcish one (these orcs are of the short-lived rapid-breeder type), one with various human cultures (from Central Europe to Iran, with an African principiality thrown in), a China-inspired lizardpeople kingdom, a Japan-inspired dragonmen island, and the high elven colonies in the West with their Aztec/Native American/Indio-inspired cobra-head humanoid snake people. Dwarves are a minority from the original elven kingdoms without their own nobility. Today, after two hundred years, only the eldest elves and Dragonmen even remember the names of the old gods. Medical technology is relatively simple, of course, with no anorganic medicine. While medical care is widespread and affordable for everyone due to Imperial law, vaccinations and antibiotics are unknown, and there are various mean diseases, so only a third of children gets past the age of six. Elves and Dragonmen age slower than others, with 600 years being an theoretical maximum age that few reach due to disease, very occasional famines and, in earlier times before the Unification, wars. The other species have shorter lives of various length.
That sounds eerily similar to my world of Onaviu...
rmfr
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Interesting. Did you also have a "magic gets introduced into the world" moment? If so, what were the things that were most interesting about the events and the reactions of the players? What spell repercussions on a previously nonmagical world did you not expect?
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No. Magic was taken away. A terrible disease went pandemic, evil "elves" (but they are NOT elves) came to rescue with cure. Overthrew the Nargthrin (renamed Avari and Varyan, the good guys). Now the Hatharnd just tighten the grip, keeping the survivors between the hammer and anvil. They have been ruling long enough that the true history has been through a complete Tabula Rasa. Only four, of the original twelve peoples, survived The Demik and The Havran War. The only history now remembered is what has been taught in the Krechars by the Hatharnd.
The Hatharnd can sense those capable of using magic and have them systematically executed in a special ceremony that also saps the lifetime of that person's power, absorbing into themselves, making the Hatharnd more powerful psionically.
This has been happening for over 2000 years.
rmfr
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Real (or at least good) scientists would accept and seek to understand magic, if clear evidence of magic were presented to them. Many technologies appear as magic to those who don't understand them, but science should accept all empirical, testable evidence. I expect that good scientists who were presented with incontrovertible evidence of magic would treat it like technology: they would begin to create technologies that mixed what we would call magic with what we would call science.
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A stated premise is that the gods in fact did not exist. So, there would have been something to disprove. I'm not sure how, looking at the real world there is not a whole lot of material evidence for gods but that hasn't made much difference. But cultures can displace each other for other reasons, if the atheistic high elves are busily conquering other cultures "where is your god now?", that is likely to at least marginalize those religions.
You might "disprove" magic if it is restricted to a small number of practitioners and they aren't willing to come forward. You might discourage practitioners from coming forward if they are lumped in with the god followers who you are actively suppressing. This is more about discrediting magical thinking among the main populace than actual proof.
I agree that science should accept empirical evidence, but if magic is unreliable and subtle, the evidence for it isn't very good, and if the evidence for it isn't very good, you look like a crackpot for studying it.
If that changes rapidly, I would expect some people to pursue magic as a type of science. It's not really "magic", it's self-induced brainwave resonance or excitation of the luminiferous ether. You try to escape the crackpot label by relabeling your topic, categorizing it, using accepted methods, drawing parallels to accepted sciences and philosophies. Others will push back against this, although the more obvious and reproducible the magic, the less that will happen.
You probably also have some crackpots, who had crazy baseless theories but now have magic and will be utterly convinced this is proof that they were right the whole time.
You probably have cults of magic and superstitious practices that were never 100% stamped out, because it's hard to eradicate those things, some of which have magic now and are convinced it proves everything they did is correct. They will probably have persecution complexes because they were actually being persecuted. They have secret rites because they had to do everything in secret, secret practices get ritualized, and now they think those rites were necessary.
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I don't disagree with you JDale, I would just point out that the science we have today emerged out of a mixture of philosophy and pseudo-science; the line between science and superstition is not always easy to see, and was even less easy to see in the sort of renaissance society the OP seems to be describing. Isaac Newton for example practiced alchemy and sought the Philosopher's Stone that would turn lead into gold, even as he was inventing calculus and proposing universal laws of gravity and motion. He calculated that the world would come to an end in the year 2060 by interpreting scripture (his notes on the matter have survived: http://www.standard.co.uk/news/the-world-will-end-in-2060-according-to-newton-7254673.html ).
What really distinguishes science from superstition is not the subject but the method. If the method produces empirical, verifiable results-- and if magic is real, it would-- then you pretty much have science. So I was just saying that if magic really is real, then I would expect it to turn into science eventually.
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And I agree, but the OP's intent is that things have shifted further away from magic, so I was trying to propose social reasons why that might happen. Social pressure does affect science -- but not forever, evidence eventually wins out.
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All very interesting and helpful comments! Thanks guys, keep them coming. :)
But there seems to be a misunderstanding: Prior to the day the game starts, there is no magic at all in the world. None. No practictioners, no spirits, no gods. Just cold, hard physics that don't allow for such things. That's all really just fantasy and stupid superstition.
And then that changes - and the High Elves, after having established firmly and repeatedly, in fact after having built their empire around the fact, that there is no such thing as magic and that there are no gods (and they were right about both!), suddenly have to confront a changed universe where both magic and gods come into existence.
Oh, and the magic that does come into the world is the whole RoleMaster arsenal - Channeling, Essence, Mentalism, the three dual magic types, and archaic magic.
A world where two out of three kids die before the age of seven, where on in ten births ends deadly for the mother, where most major wounds, despite the best efforts for medical care, lead to some permanent damage... suddenly gets healers, even resurrection. A world that is largely at our world's 1450's technology (though no accessible suphur, so no gunpowder) suddenlly gets flame walls and lightning spells and invisibility and flight spells and teleportation...
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A world where two out of three kids die before the age of seven, where on in ten births ends deadly for the mother, where most major wounds, despite the best efforts for medical care, lead to some permanent damage... suddenly gets healers, even resurrection.
Holy smokes! That's a harsh world. I wonder how level 1 PC's are going to fare. LOL
This is a really interesting concept and gaming world to play in. I hope you keep us up to date as you play out some sessions and let us know how it develops. This is really similar to the game world we run in my group and how we handle some of the magics and I'm genuinely interested in following your group's adventures.
Off the top, I would say the High Elves will have the hardest time and will most likely openly try to squash the magic users and those who believe in it (either through science or brute force). This could easily lead to a bloody civil rift within the elf race and then openly with other races as the brute force method would be counter to the enlightened approach of trying to disprove through science. Could some of the elves actually go into a terrible despair and maybe develop into a Drow-like race? (I don't know if you have Drow elves in your game world.) The entire High Elf belief system was just shown to be incorrect overnight.
Over the past 200 years, migration across the world empire has spawned minorities of each people in each other vice-kingdom. The world has become a lot more cosmopolitic. Species cannot mix (that simply doesn't work biologically), so there are no half-breeds, but most people regularily interact with people from other species. Not everybody likes that, of course.
Converse to this inward self-destructive response, the High Elves could consolidate against the world of believers and magic users. The already exists no mixed races due to biology, and not all inter-species interactions are even accepted universally, so you have the groundwork for segregation and discrimination already in place. Now you'll be adding to those segregated groups, magic-believers/users. That could be the "new common enemy" that rallies the High Elves together against this new discovery.
I'm afraid I see nothing but civil war and strife for the peoples of this new world. Rock on! ;D
But there seems to be a misunderstanding: Prior to the day the game starts, there is no magic at all in the world. None. No practictioners, no spirits, no gods. Just cold, hard physics that don't allow for such things. That's all really just fantasy and stupid superstition.
Just for my own clarity; the day you sit down to start the game, your level 1 PC's will be the 1st magic users the world encounters? Or they are coming into a world that is still dealing with the discovery of magic and gods? (Maybe 1-6 months after the realization of magic.)
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I would have a period of time from 50 to 500 years where only Arch-magic is the form of magic in the world. This will be the wild magic with consequences before it is refined with study and disciple to the 3 separate magics of the normal RM settings. This would develop the Chaotic and Witch Hunter classes with the others as important characters. You could have the magic using PC's be the creators or founders of the other classes with research and discovery of the base spell lists. This could be fun to run and the PC's would have ownership of the discoveries.
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[...]Holy smokes! That's a harsh world.
That is what we all stem from in this world... the rennaissance in our own world wasn't a good place to live by today's standards, and the earlier times even less so. Even without wars.
This is a really interesting concept and gaming world to play in. I hope you keep us up to date as you play out some sessions and let us know how it develops. This is really similar to the game world we run in my group and how we handle some of the magics and I'm genuinely interested in following your group's adventures.
Well, in that case, watch this thread. I'll be glad to report.
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I'm afraid I see nothing but civil war and strife for the peoples of this new world. Rock on! ;D
Yeah, well, that's the plan, at least... conflict and story potential everywhere. I have, of course, left out many details here, with conflict potentials on top of what has been mentioned. If any interested reader understands German, they might want to check out the campaign website: http://heinscher.de/hochelbenreich/
(http://heinscher.de/hochelbenreich/)
[...] Just for my own clarity; the day you sit down to start the game, your level 1 PC's will be the 1st magic users the world encounters? Or they are coming into a world that is still dealing with the discovery of magic and gods? (Maybe 1-6 months after the realization of magic.)
I am using RoleMaster magic, but the actual game system will be GURPS - so there are no levels and no classes, and people will start as quite competent people who also have potential. Learning magic can be done by anyone, but the cost (in terms of GURPS's version of XP) is quite high. I encourage players to hold back a few points if they want to learn magic quickly, and doubtlessly some NPC's will have done so, too (which represents curiosity and maybe talent for the matter), and there will be opportunities from the start to see high-level spells in action, and to find appropriate sources of information for learning the stuff.
I plan to allow and offer access to any spell lists from any RM edition, as I own quite a bit from both - unless there is a good reason to choose one over the other?
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To add to the last answer: The players will witness the events that signify the coming of magic at the table, and will be caught in the political turmoils from the start. All of them have a common important poltical figure as a contact, who will have them investigate certain things...
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I have a question about your world and the big changes that are coming. You say magic and gods - real gods - are soon to return to your world. So far the discussion has been all about the magic. What about the gods?
These gods are real, right? Is it a single pantheon of gods? Multiple, competing pantheons? Good? Evil? Amoral? Will they be doing anything other than providing the source of Channeling magic?
Because the return of magic is enough to upend empires and irrevocably change whole cultures, but if the gods are willing to show up and throw down "Old Testament" style that's a whole other thing!
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I have a question about your world and the big changes that are coming. You say magic and gods - real gods - are soon to return to your world.
No, not "return". They never were there before. They did not exist. Not a thousand years ago, not a million years ago, not a billion years ago.
So far the discussion has been all about the magic. What about the gods?
These gods are real, right? Is it a single pantheon of gods? Multiple, competing pantheons? Good? Evil? Amoral? Will they be doing anything other than providing the source of Channeling magic?
Because the return of magic is enough to upend empires and irrevocably change whole cultures, but if the gods are willing to show up and throw down "Old Testament" style that's a whole other thing!
Well, I cannot reveal too much about that yet, because some players might be reading and we don't want to give them any spoilers, but stay tuned. ^^
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What is a god? (I don't expect an answer to this.) It's a lot easier to prove there is magic than to prove that there are gods. I think many people will accept that magic is real more easily than they will accept gods. After all, the limits of magic are not really known, so anything a "god" can do could just be a powerful magic user. Supposing these new so-called gods are establishing cults (it's only a religion once it becomes legitimate), and have followers using channeling, that's not proof of divinity or worthiness to be worshipped, it just shows that they are deceived or self-deceived about the nature of their magic.
That kind of attitude is even more likely for people who are taking a scientific-rational approach to magic, categorizing and studying it, renaming it ("magic" is an anti-rational explanation of what must be a perfectly explainable set of new physical laws), fitting it into the same type of classifications and analysis as any other physical phenomena.
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Well, I cannot reveal too much about that yet, because some players might be reading and we don't want to give them any spoilers, but stay tuned. ^^
Thanks for the reply! All very interesting. I will be curious to see how it turns out. All in all, a great idea for a campaign.
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We're going to have our first session later today, due to time constraints and sickness with only 3 out of 5 players, though. The player characters so far are:
- A soutwestern silver elven baroness from the americanesque colonies in Korannia. She is one of those who think slavery should never have been abolished. She is on a multiweek visit to her granddaughter's marriage to (gasp! the scandal!) a black elf. She is 250 years old, extremely rich, and prefers fencing weapons. No points left to learn magic quickly, as all the nobility and wealth were expensive. Skill-wise, she is a merchant/land administrator and a fencer with rapier and main-gauche dagger. She has a long-standing business contact with the viceroy of the black elven vicekingdom - her cotton is just better than from elsewhere, and the viceking regularly buys it en gros and has been doing so since long before he rose to his current position.
- A black elven commoner of about 100 years of age who is a ranger of sorts to the Black Elven viceking. Currently he is in charge of the capital's city park, but he has also proven to be extremely competent when dealing with bandits of various sorts. Classic archer and sword fighter in light armor. A few points left to spend them on learning magic quickly later on.
- An about 300 years old dragonman scholar from the japan-inspired vicekingdom. The character isn't preapred yet (we'll be doing that before the session), but that's the concept. His connection to the viceroy hasn't been established yet. The player will likely hold back a few points for learning magic quickly.
- A 25 year old human jester and entertainer at the viceroy's court who is also a competent fighter and buddy of the palace guard's captain. Has proven to the viceroy that he is quite capable of handling criminals if the need arises. (Player will be absent today, as he is ill.)
- A black elf of roughly 100 years of age and noble descent, but with no fortune. He earns a living from, uh, getting rid of politically or economically inconvenient individuals, and sometimes from aquiring vital information. The viceroy has employed him more than once to solve certain problems for him. (Player will be absent today as he has to earn some money in the real world... in a legal and morally unambigious way!)
We'll start at the fourth day of the sixth month of the year 998 since the foundation of the High Elven Kingdom, about 200 years after the unification of the world under the Emperor's rule, in the black elven vicekingdom's capital of Erinar.
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Cool and interesting mix of characters. I will be following this to see how things turn out.
Thanks for the info.
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Our first session just ended.
It all started with the player characters - by chance - all observing a con man who tried to convince people for money that he could create rabbits out of hats. They easily spotted how he did it, called the guards, and then went on to do their business.
Later that day, just after sundown, several fireballs were heard and seen in the sky. This was highly unusual, but the scholars everywhere were quick to point out that meteors have been seen before, and are no cause of concern. About half an hour later, though, white dust started to rain down from the sky - dust that was incredibly fine and seemed to vanish over time! A few hours later, it was gone, and the night continued undisturbed.
However, the next day (5.6.998), weird things started to happen all across the town... a strange naked elven man with wild hair appeared in the city's park and tried to convince people that nature rewards the strong, and that the weak should serve the strong. The ranger met that man and denied his assurances that the strong should rule over the weak - in fact he said the strong should protect the weak, which made the strange man walk away in disgust.
The dragonman physician of noble descent walked through the city and encountered an elven woman who repaired an elaborate, broken wooden toy with her bare hands (my interpretation of the level 1 alchemist spell "work wood"). He talked to that woman, and she agreed to teach him this if he paid the obscene amount of 1800 silber pennies (average characters have 2500 silver pennies as their starting equipment value).
The baroness rode through town later that day and discovered a crowd around a man who promised to heal people if they were willing to swear allegiance to the "godly family of the silver light" and follow their rules of love, friendship and cooperation. The desparate did, and were actually healed, even from the most serious injuries and illnesses. The baroness decided to have some scholars investigate this, and brought them to her host's city house, where the scholars could find no explanation for the wonders that poor elf performed. So the host proposed to show this to the viceroy, and this was presented to the court as an evening pasttime... but it turned out that the preacher actually could heal... the viceroy was puzzled, but decided that healing the most seriously sick people in town could hardly do harm, and sent the preacher to a hospital.
The next morning, though, he appointed a commitee, headed by the silver elven baroness, to investigate this whole mess further, so that they might find out what the hell is going on. And they investigated. They found: The weird man with the wild hair had started to attract followers in the park, while the preacher at the city hospital actually helped a lot of people, but also made them swear allegiance to his godly family. It became clear that the man in the park was a follower of a rivalling pantheon, the "godly horde".
There was a bald elf who wanted the viceroy warned about an "evil master of will" he had seen in a vision and who would try to get near to e viceroy to take control of the vicekingdom - the baroness decided to hire him to teach her about his magic, which was different from the woman that trained the doctor. As payment, however, he merely demanded a self-made daisy chain from flowrs she had plucked herself. (She tried to cheat him with one made by a servant. He saw through it.)
They also found out that all those who could work magic seemed to not know anything before the previous night.
On the evening of the 6th day of the 6th month of the year 998, they reported back to the viceroy, who hadn't received any news from the other vicekingdoms yet, but was alarmed by this recent abundance of unexplainable phenomena. He ordered them to carry out further investigations.
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I love a game with lots of politics and intrigue. Looks like this will have plenty!
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Very cool opening session. The politics and intrigue seem to work very well together. I love the opening introductions of the characters and the groundwork you've laid out.
Thank you for taking the time to detail the first session. It looks to be a really fun campaign.
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We have had two more sessions, but won't play now until the 3rd of October. To summarize the events very briefly: The two nobles started to learn more magic (the dragonman can now cast the open illusion list), but an evil mentalist overtook the vicekingdom by mentally enslaving the viceroy and had himself named the new chancellor.
When the players tried to stop the chancellor with a not-so-well-thought-out plot and failed, they were tried before the court, where the chancellor questioned them about their foolish attempt to enter the viceroy's chambers undetected, and then the viceroy decided (or rather, the new chancellor decided and let the viceking talk for him) that the characters had good intentions, but were misguided, and were merely expelled from the palace with no further punishment. As the other characters were now without income or a home, the rich baroness took them all into her service.
They spent a week in Erinar until the baroness's granddaughter married, where the baroness once again tried to lobby for an overthrow of the new chancellor, but without much of a plan for it, so it failed.
Meanwhile, reports came in from several other places, both cities within the black elven vicekingdom and other vicekingdoms, that a few "wonderworkers" or spellcasters popped up here and there, all basically out of nowhere, all doing their mysterious bunsinesses. Reportedly, the orcish viceroy in Rukur has worked with a cult of the Godly Horde quite successfully...
The baroness's ship is supposed to arrive the next day, and she is considering a journey to the Imperial capital, but there are concerns that this might prevent both her and the dragonman from continuing their magical studies.
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We've had two additional sessions in the meantime. The events are a bit convoluted to report, so I'll limit myself to what they found out about magic in the meantime:
- Some roof tiles and other porous stones (but only maybe one in a thousand or so) contain magical essence for use with artifact research.
- The political upheavals that stem from the reintroduction of religion and the establishment of magic are starting to show everywhere. Due to some political turmoil that the players were very involved in, the former chanceloress to the viceroy is now regent of the vicekingdom, and happens to have accepted the "protection" of the Godly Horde, completey with some basic Channeling training...
- Apparently, at least one event took place that made dead bodies reanimated into some contagious form of undead which cannot really be killed other than by burning them. (Players are in the process of fighting that major contagion with the help of the authorities.)
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Interesting...
It's a tricky situation when a nefarious someone has Mentalism magic and most people don't even accept that there is such a thing! This new chancellor sounds like trouble.
They are lucky they were only punished with exile. Then again, I guess execution or imprisonment isn't a fun way to start a campaign. I imagine that the chancellor is keeping a close eye on them from now on.
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Interesting...
It's a tricky situation when a nefarious someone has Mentalism magic and most people don't even accept that there is such a thing! This new chancellor sounds like trouble.
They are lucky they were only punished with exile. Then again, I guess execution or imprisonment isn't a fun way to start a campaign. I imagine that the chancellor is keeping a close eye on them from now on.
My reasoning was that the viceroy really liked the PC's (that was a premise of the campaign), and forcing him to sentence them to death would have been much harder and less credible than simply throwing them out of the palace. After all, they were either commoners or from very far away, so what political danger could they possibly be?
He rightly deemed the former chanceloress a lot more dangerous, as she had connections in the land. That chanceloress, however, also contacted the player characters and had them shown a secret entrance into the palace that the mentalist was unaware of, and they killed him. He did escape (or rather, his head did after having been separated from the body...) and will of course make a future appearance once he has recovered. ;)
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Or to summarize the last two sessions more from a character perspective:
The group was contacted by an aide of the former chanceloress who wanted to "solve the new chancellor problem". They agreed to help, and where immediately led to a secret entrance to a tunnel beneath the river that ended in the lowest level of the palace. They were told to wait for an hour, and then try to kill the mentalist chancellor - the aide frankly and openly told them that they were not supposed to succeed, but to mostly be the distraction for he actual assasination plot.
To make things short: The distraction killed the mentalist chancellor - and then beheaded him. The Viceroy was a bit confused by the events and still convinced that the mentalist chancellor had been a decent person and his friend, so the player characters figured that he must have been under the mentalist's spell even now, and the told the chanceloress once she arrived with her assassins. The players were also suspicious that the viceroy might suffer a sudden death, so they watched out for him a bit, and the chanceloress decided to just go with it. They then noticed that the head of the mentalist chancellor was simply gone, and the player characters concluded some kind of preservation magic in combination with a conditioned teleport spell was at work here.
Later that evening the former chancelloress declared hersel regent, as the viceroy was still in no condition to rule, as she decided. She was very thankful towards the player characters, and assured them that this would pay off for them.
Several loyalist noblement were trialed and executed (and their families exiled) the other day, and their newly freed-up lands and titles were given to her assassins - and to the player characters, whom she deemed useful and loyal. Now, suddenly, all the players were landed knights of the vicekingdom of Arbia (in the baroness' case, that was in addition to her major title in Korannia). All their lands were in the direct vicinity of the capital.
The players were a bit suspicious, though, and requested to see the viceroy a few days later (after they had inspected and settled into their new estates), and the viceroy's former physician (the dragonman of noble descent, now with his own land) concluded from what he saw that the viceroy was being drugged.
They asked their magic teachers for assistance - but those consistently try to stay out of trouble, and refused to help in any way. The player characters discussed a lot what to do next, and finally decided that for now, not doing anything was probably smartest.
Instead, they decided to follow a different trail - the Seer who was the baroness' mentalism teacher had had a vision about a porous kind of stone that swims and emits light, and tasked his pupil to get him some of those, from the Ahnstein mountains to the north. The players concluded that this must have to do with the roof tiles that are magical, and the dragonman's teacher agreed that getting their hands on such stones would be most useful. So they decided to travel north and find it, after both the dragonman and the baroness had learned the necessary magic to detect such stones (the "shining light" from the seer's vision was concluded to be metaphorical).
However, on their journey north, they heard of a quarantine that the lord of Kargar, a barony three days to the east, had declared over his land due to a mysterious plague, and they took the road eastward to investigate this (as a GM, I honestly have no idea why they did that, but the characters are a curious bunch of people). When they took their dinner at an inn, still two days away from the quarantine area, they heard a scratching at the window. The innkeeper went to investigate, and only a moment later the inn was full of... well, zombies, for lack of a better word. A furious and desparate battle ensued, which established that chopping the head off of these zombies would not stop them from moving or blindly attacking with simple means, and anyone who was killed by the zombies would rise as one only seconds after his own death, so they tried to escape. They lost all their servants that night, but managed to escape. Hastily, they returned to the capital, and informed the regent. The session ended when the armed forces of the vicekingdom were rallied to take care of this terrifying problem. As the players were now landed knights of the vicekingdom, they were of course also expected to bring a few armored men.
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[...] They then noticed that the head of the mentalist chancellor was simply gone, and the player characters concluded some kind of preservation magic in combination with a conditioned teleport spell was at work here.
[...]
While the self-preservation was no doubt in place, they haven't realized yet that the Role Master magic system doesn't know any way to tie a prepared spell to a condition (at least none that I know about). Once they do this, they will of course be able to conclude that a third party must have been involved in that disappearance.
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He did escape (or rather, his head did after having been separated from the body...) and will of course make a future appearance once he has recovered. ;)
I hope that was totally like that scene in the 1982 movie The Thing!
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We have had two sessions in the meantime. One where they travelled north to retrieve some magical pumice stones and encountered a few wird things on the way:
- They found out that the undead plague was caused by a guy eating a magically mutated herb that turned him into a contagious zombie - fortunately, good armor was sufficient to make one basically invulnerable to this kind of zombies).
- They encountered someone who claimed to know all the magic from all the realms and who insisted that the forest clearing where they found him was "his place".
- They encountered someone who had magically altered a "dragon" (which in the game world usually means a four-legged, warm-blooded, otherwise lizard-like but perfectly normal animal) into an actual dragon.
With 22 magical stones they teleported back to the capital three weeks after they had left it, and learned that the new regent was about to arrive with 20 ships from the Empire's capital. The old regent had called nobles and their troops to the capital to "honor" the new regent. Among those was the Count of Umar, who owns a force of 100 "black armors" (this sounds much better in German), a crack elite force of fighters, of which the Count himself is reportedly one of the fiercest. That Count is suspected to be a not so loyal man, valueing the old kingdom of Arbia above the world empire of the high elves.The players suspect that he is there to support the old regent in killing the new regent, his High elven troops and any supporters, and then declaring Arbia an independent kingdom again.
Unfortunately, the Count also decided to challenge the freshly made noble orc NPC who had been with the players for quite some time and made a landed knight be the old regent in exchange for helping with the mentalist to a duel... a duel that the orc most likely would not win.
One player character was asked by him to be his secondant, and they negotiated the terms of the duel: The count insisted on a duel to the death, and all possessions of the looser would fall to the winner, while the orc originally just had a "till first blood, for honor" in mind. The secondant player and the other players held council about this and decided that magically buffing the orc up to take over the Count's possessions and army would probably be useful in case the old regent planned anything like they suspected.
The day before the duel, however, they also decided to rescue the old and drugged viceroy and his vicequeen via teleport. The dragonman teleported into the viceroy's chamber, teleported the two out wth him to his own small castle, and then teleported back... uh. No. He tried, by the roll failed spectacularily. All his magic points were gone. But he could still make to in time to the duel the next day, with his magic points regenerated, via horse (a tough half day's ride). But he also failed his riding skill roll, fell off the horse and broke an arm.
When he did not return to the other PC's after a few minutes as originally planned, they visited the dragonman's teacher, and paid her an immorally high sum to find him and bring him back, which she reluctantly did. As an essence caster, he could not heal himself, now lay healer ever having been seen in the capital and the Channeling healers all being decided that they only help those who decide to follow their gods, he was forced to attend the duel with one arm in a sling.
The duel itself did not go as planned: The Count apparently was buffing himself with magic, too! Their original plan had been to make their ally invisible and have him attack the count, Acclerated for two attacks per turn, but when he made his first attack, he of course became visible. A heavily armored sword-and-shield fight followed. Then the players decided to make their orc invisible again... which the small crowd that had come to watch the fight commented in expected ways, but both secondants did not intervene. Th next attack by the orc (who was played by a player for this fight) was an all-out attack determined into the Count's eye. He hit, rolled the highest possible damage, a critical that also did triple damage, and the count was dead.
The players wanted to celebrate, but a man from the count's crowd stepped forward and started to resurrect the count. The players protested, but where pointed at the fact that no one here believed that the orc could have made himself invisible on his own, so both sides were obviously entitled to magical support. The count was raised from the dead again, and after much deliberation the secondants decided that the fight would go on with magical support (the players figured that that mysterious cleric could not go one resurrecting the count forever).
That's when the session ended.
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Those are some very cool developments! You said the crowd commented in expected ways, does that mean crowd considered all that magic flying about as cheating?
What does this martial order of Black Armor dudes think about magic? The count is using it so he clearly has no problems, but are there any dissenters in the ranks who find magic aided combat dishonorable?
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Those are some very cool developments! You said the crowd commented in expected ways, does that mean crowd considered all that magic flying about as cheating?
They mostly booed, but more in a "this is bad style" kind of way. After all the terms negotiated by the secondants included "free choice of weapons, no equipment restrictions". And of course, they knew the count had his own cleric (of the Godly Horde, only recently having arrived in the city) with them.
What does this martial order of Black Armor dudes think about magic? The count is using it so he clearly has no problems, but are there any dissenters in the ranks who find magic aided combat dishonorable?
They are more like his personal guard, but with a reputation, so they'll probably follow his lead. Moreover, the only magic they seem to have on their side is Channeling magic, of which the most powerful application is of course spectacular healing. That's not something a trained warrior would dismiss.