OOC

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Wow. How did you manage to transfer over the threads of the old game?

I just renamed the game. :D

Mind=Blown

Confirmed: Falconloft is a world level hacker.

If you're going with the split lands, I'd say probably no more than ten counties (cells) in the Crown Lands. Also, when you select your lands, the original map pic is HERE. You can zoom in on it to see the individual cells easier.

Then, when you select what land you want, drop a screenshot like this in your house thread.

Nice, I need to count out 57 cells. Such is the price for my hubris.

Btw, what are the ocean cells for?

They're just generated by the mapping program, there's no importance to them.

Let me know if the history I made is acceptable.

Yes, it is.

What level of fantasy/magic/technology are we going for in Scymira? Just curious before adding more details to my house history.

That's a good question, and one that I hadn't answered previously. My initial feeling is probably low/mid magic, nothing world-breaking, and not everyone uses magic every day. What do you guys think, though?

That's fine with me.

Sounds good. And technology-wise regular medieval fantasy, right?

Right.

I like the mix of approaches to Houses, and I like how there's been some interplay history-wise. I would encourage more of that, as it'll give me more things to grab onto when it comes time for the events.

I haven’t been able to keep up with the others’ writing so far... but I may try to tie up with other houses as we’ll if I can at some point

Sorry, I already wrote out my house's history but I haven't had a chance to post it yet. I will as soon as I can and then I can try to make some connections as well. I haven't been able to read up on everything people wrote but I'll try to do that

Will there be NPC houses as well? If so, can you give us a few details about them so we can tie them into our history too?

Yeah, kind of curious what kind of NPC houses there are.

The more I read, the more I find this awesome !

Not sure everyone saw this for counting their land.

House Revelos lists members of it as king and queen. So does that mean that they are currently ruling over the whole country that we're all in?

Oh no, I am saying that Revelos is a small kingdom of its own. Though I can change this if the GM says so.

Ah, I thought we were all noble houses under one king, like in GoT/ASOIAF
I would be fine with the current king coming from one of our houses. The description says that the king changes frequently so his rule wouldn't even have to last the entire game. And I don't think my house would really be interested in ruling everything anyway

oh, so it's like a federal thingy with kings going about their places?
I though houses meant people with influence in the royal court as well (probably too eurocentric...).

It's just a name anyway, so you can still have the usual King of kings style ruler

If there room for one more, how's this...

The Kraken society. A merchant kingdom born from a pirate kingdom. Most lands would be on Stormwrack Island with maybe a few on the coasts of other region working as trading outposts. They make their wealth by trading, mercenaries and transport.

Sounds like the natural competition to house maa talia to me ;)

"Curse the Kraken and the inky stain they place on our kingdom!"

Considering my House is very reclusive for most of its history, there probably aren't many opportunities to link it to others but there are some points where connections could be made.

I have my Windfall event, so my last one, described as one member of my house marrying into a fading house and taking over lands and riches in the Crown Lands that way. That one could work instead as maybe marrying into a lesser branch of a PC house.

I also have a Glory Event that I described as helping another house strike down a peasant uprising but I could change that up to assist one of you with something else instead, depending on your events.

I also have a Victory event that I could modify to include any of your houses, either as allies or as the one I defeated if it fits into your history.

If something like that works for any of you, let me know and we can work out the details

Maybe you were in a similar war as me and married up a nice half bear half woman?
We’ve very distant though

Just going to move this discussion here from saevikas's thread so no one misses it. Check out that thread for the details.

@bowlofspinach: I thought it had been established that it was low or mid level magic. I thought minor local weather control would fall in that category, but I can see how our perceptions of low/mid/high are likely different. Can you give some examples of what you consider low or mid magic? Is it the fact it's a drug/potion that makes it weird to you? You'd prefer magic to be more like superpowers where only one person can have a particular magic power?

I'm not attached to any particular level of magic, my history was missing any magic until now, so I'm happy to change. But I agree, we should all get on the same page before creating too much more.

I think it's mainly the fact that it's a drug that makes it weird for me. It makes the magic pretty much into science, which is very high magic to me.
If there are some druids who can influence the local weather, that's one thing but if people can mass-produce a drug that can give anyone that power, that's a very different thing.

I'm open to any level of magic but I think if we are going with more high-magic stuff, I would create a different house to fit that better.

Thanks bowlofspinach, that's helpful input! I was definitely trying to think of ways to make it more realistic/explainable (science-y) to reduce the level of magic, but that would have obviously had the opposite effect for you (I'm a scientist, so the more science-y something is, the less magical for me). So I'll try to be more mysterious. Also, definitely NOT thinking of it as a manufactured drug. I think it's more like the salt/gem/gold industry in the middle ages, not like big pharma. And the experience I'm imagining is more like Ayahuasca. Very druid/shaman like experience, except a bath instead of tea. Maybe we should refer to it as a concoction/potion instead of a drug to make it more medieval fantasy.

So here's some changes based on feedback (including saevikas's recent post back in the thread):
1) Not everyone is capable of using the etherite in this way. It is a very practiced skill.
2) It requires a master/guide, like a shaman/druid, who guides the ritual/ceremony/experience.
3) It takes a lot of time (multiple days of soaking in the concoction).
4) Effects are relatively contained to one element of the weather and local.
5) Call it a concoction/tincture/tonic instead of drug.
6) There will definitely be side effects that limit use, but those can be explored in game as interesting surprises as we play maybe?

Let me know what you think?

Although I'll disagree with drugs being high magic, since historically, drugs were used in magic, I think these limitations are fair. As for the concoction's name, how about calling the dissolved form of etherite, ether. Although it's not really ether in the philosophical sense, in that it's mostly pretty salt water unless mixed with the correct recipe.

I also would state that only higher ups in House Fugue and, as of recently, House Maa-talia would know about these properties and the process to induce them, although others may suspect, such as the house we destroyed together.

I personally like it much better with those limitations since they turn the whole thing from being a drug that gives people magic, which I'm not a fan of, into just a focus that certain people can use to perform rituals while for almost everyone, it's just a drug.

Still, we should decide more on what the setting actually looks like before finalizing details. What level of magic exists? Do we all serve under one king or are some of us part of a bigger kingdom and others make up their own kingdom? Are there parallel demon dimensions that we have access to?
Basically, are we playing GoT, LotR, D&D or something inbetween? xD
Right now, I feel like all of us are just making up our own stuff and we don't really know if it will all fit together into one setting in the end

For me is more about believability and power. Low magic would be something rare and bordering reality, mostly like a conspiracy theory or legend that could or not be true. Simple tricks and illusions that’s are difficult to explain and deny. Medium is a bit more proven, people study it but is restrictive in power and accessibility, while high is widespread practice of world bending magics.

True that we talked about low magic setting and I still thought about a race of beastmen lycanthropes :)

Magic
Okay, so here's the deal with magic. I said mid to low because I'm assuming that you're going to be incorporating some sort of magic in your various militaries. But someone might NOT, and there's going to be a chance that your magicy military might get routed by someone's mundane military, so you're going to have to explain that.

Going into a bit more detail, think about it as maybe somewhere between LotR (powerful ritual magic) and old-style D&D (low-powered but immediate effects). (I'm not all that familiar with GoT so I don't know where that fits.) I don't want to constrain it TOO much because I think everyone will have their own flavor for it, but keep in mind, that your magic is definitely NOT going to be world-bending. If you guys would rather, I will put together a list of guidelines that magic needs to stay inside of.

I hadn't considered multiple dimensions, but give me your best pitch for one or a set that you'd like included and I'll think on it.

The Kingdom
You're all under the kingdom of Scymira. It's a nation about the size of Mexico, maybe a bit smaller. It's power structure is very medieval though, and if you can amass enough power, you can seize the reins of Scymira. Not very many people want to do that, though, because it takes you from caring for the well-being of yourself personally to having to put the kingdom first, and the kingdom has historically needed to be strong to protect itself. A bunch of warring smaller states would most likely prove a much juicier target for brigands and invaders.

I'd like that personally but if nobody else really cares, then I'm fine with not having defined rules

Let me come up with something then. I'll have it in the doc later today if I can.

I think this is not the original idea, but it could also be interesting to consider that some people/houses believe there are multiple dimensions and actively research it, but actually it is not real. Kind of play with the "magic" perception

I also think a few guidelines would be nice.

Updated the doc with basic magic guidelines. Once I got typing it turned out to be not quite os low magic as I originally intended, but it's still low/mid, I think. The important things to remember are these:

1) The stronger the magic effect, the higher the cost. If you can't figure out if a cost is equal or not, Post it anyway, I'll fill in the blanks. (You probably don't want me to do this.)

2) Magic is NOT an auto-win button. If you have an army of mages, they can still be taken down by infantry if conditions are right.

Are the types of magic described in the doc "examples", or are those types the extent of magic in Scymira and we need to fit any magic into those 3 types (fae, sorcery, or shadow)?

I kind of like CESN's idea that the people looking into alternate dimensions are incorrect. It's like misguided cultists trying to summon a demon that doesn't exist, but are dangerous anyways due to their willingness to forgo their humanity to try.

As it is right now, I think the guidelines are implying high magic, since use of magic is widespread. My view on high magic is more about how prevalent magic use is. If a significant number of people use magic regularly, then I think it's high magic. If magic use is not prevalent, or usually not useful enough to be bothered with, then I consider it low magic.

Where would our ether bath concept, or the druids, fit in with the current magic setting?

Also, which house is the current ruler of Scymira, if any?

lol, I was rereading your rulebook, only to realize that only the first event is named to determine how your house came into existence...

For each event, you'll roll as you would for a normal event, detailed on page 4. Note them down in order. Your first event will also determine how your House came into existence. Some examples are listed below.

If I'm right, that means we only need to narrate the results of each event?
Much easier to synchronize event with other houses !

I like the different versions of magic. They all seem to be limited in scope by their own rules and costs. This is a very good point, though. How prevalent is magic use in the setting?
At least Fae magic seems to be rare as it needs to be obtained by each mage individually in a dangerous process. What about the others?
Does every house have a few dozen mages or at least one available on average? Are there mages in every town that people can pay for their services? Or are there maybe two or three of each type in the whole kingdom, making them probably important servants of the king directly?
That's what really matters to determine what magic level the campaign has, I think.

I'm not a fan of the different planes and especially interplanetary travel but I can accept those. I'd prefer that we limit it to just those planes though instead of also introducing parallel universes (like the old game world) into the mix.

The details in the doc are more on how magic works than it's prevalence. In every case, magic is hard. It takes years to learn, and sometimes, even to learn, you have to pay a cost. So no, there's not a hundred mages running around in every town looking for work. More importantly, magic is known about, but since many could go years without seeing it, it's not entirely trusted. The nobility probably trusts it more than the common folk, but even they are careful. Runic magic is probably the most accepted, sorcery the least.

As a side note: No one in their right mind would travel to the planes, aside from the Fae. That being said, some who are out of their mind have probably tried, with varying results.

A further side-note: The planes are probably a misnomer, but I couldn't come up with a good word for them. Help me out here if you want. The planes are all RIGHT HERE in the physical world, you just can't sense them. But the fae are dancing around you invisibly, making fun of your coat. The shadows are clinging to everything, and in the darkest places, you might even see them, but your brain will tell you your eyes are playing tricks. The fire element is all around us, but it only springs to life when we strike a match.

that is a familiar concept yet difficult to name. Overlays? Layers? Spaces? something more mathematical... surfaces (of manifold)?

can't think of any other name at the moment

Yeah, that was my problem. I'mma leave it as is but just note, planes isn't quite what we're looking at.

What about the parallel universe stuff?

I'm looking at that still. More to come on that.

these guys at house Revelos are just junkies on etherite and they are messing up with Xyrhoir's sorceries too much so they're basically having visions of this "distorted reality"?

Dimensions?

I see that in DnD, they call the Feywilds and Shadowfell to be Echoes, or Parallel Planes.

And yeah, I can accept that My House is very bored and decided to experiment with getting high or something with magic.

Echoes is nice.

I like Echoes too.

Btw, if we're looking at it from a purely mechanical standpoint, is there a reason to take a city for a cost of 25 instead of 2 villages at a cost of 20? That'll give the same amount of military dice, but the villages will always be the better pick for a cost of 10 per die instead the city's 12.5 per die.

You're probably right there. For now though, I'm not going to change it. I'll handle that through an event early on. THat way everyone's affected equally at the same time, and it doesn't have to change plans for now.

btw, I didn't touch on it at all, but is everyone planning on going human, or do we have any other potential races in the mix?

Never actually thought it was an option. But since we are on the subject, do monsters exist ? Trolls, dragons, orcs, etc...

Shifters, lycanthropes and beastman (🤔 are orcs werepigs??)

If no one's plans depend on other races, I'd just as soon have this bit of the world be human-only. At least at first. Someone I thought asked me about that, but now that I'm thinking about it i can't actually find it.

As far as monsters go... Yes, there are monsters. They're rather rare, but if they're not continually culled, they could be a problem. Also, orcs are an actual virus. That's why they keep coming back so strong after you kill all but a few.

For those who understand, sounds more like orks than orcs.... 😈

It's really the only thing that makes sense. You can't have a orc invasion every generation unless they're just spawning instead of breeding.

I was thinking of my house being all humans but according to legends having elf blood but I thought that was pretty lame if there's potentially an actual elf house running around... if the world is all-human, I could pick that idea back up

Yeah, we'll go with all human for now. Basically Middle-Earth post books. Original (runic) magic is weaker than it used to be, other races have mostly vanished, etc. That being said, I do have PLANS, but unless I introduce something, just assume that's how it is.

So... these are humans right?

Shifters I'm not certain of. Are there were-people. Sure. Especially up north and out west. beastmen? Slightly more sightings than bigfoot, no one in their right mind chases them. but all humanesque.

Hello everyone! Glad to be part of the game. After looking through the threads it looks like @deadpool_qc has already started one of my house ideas. So I'm going to be starting a Fairly nomadic clan in the North Coast.

I'll be putting House Bodaway into its own thread today. any tips or tricks for getting my house off the ground would be appreciated.

Cheers!

Welcome to the Game JoHoover!

Also, welcome to TheVagrant too, who I hadn't had the chance to say hello to yet.

@JoHoover, as a fellow North Coaster, I'm sure we'll have some shared history. I'm going to try to summarize my established history today by editing the first post in my House thread (Maa-Talia). At the moment a lot of the detail is scattered around various threads. I still have a lot of historical events that I haven't detailed yet, so if you see anything that you think your house might be apart of let me know. I'm sure our houses will have interacted a lot over the years!

Just to let everyone know, the setup is the fiddly bit, making sure everyone's on the map, doesn't overlap, etc. But we're on the homestretch now and almost ready to begin.

Sorry for lack of my discussion.
I will say that barbarian orcs, from the icy north have frequent attack attempts of my nation. (Also, I want to know if I can say they also have shaman individuals that can brew poisons/curses/diseases(?))

Also, if we are doing one House as being the ruling House of the country, then I propose myself as a candidate.

Do we have orcs in the setting? I thought we said all-human.
I'm fine with the current king being from your house. Like I said, Sharva has no desire to rule over the whole country.

Scymira is all human. However, I did say there were monsters. It's a fantasy setting; fantasy without monsters would be weird. Orcs could, I suppose, be one type of monster. Barbarian orc is probably redundant though, or even superfluous, as even the most barbaric of tribes are more organized than even two orcs would be.

As far as shamans go, as long as it follows the magic set out in the doc, and is rare, it is probably fine.

That's a lot of npc houses...

I was having trouble keeping track of all the PC houses ... Now I'm doomed 😂

Can we link some of our history to the NPC houses?

Chal, feel free to do so.

Sorry guys I haven't filled in any of my house plot points. I was laid off yesterday and they took my computer away without letting me download any of my personal files and I lost everything I had written as background for my house. Fortunately I have already written it once so I should be able to recreate it more quickly. I will have everything done by tomorrow afternoon.

Sorry to hold up the game.

Sorry to hear that, hope you're doing alright.

@saevikas, its not my first time being laid off so that part isn't too bad. I'm just more frustrated whit my lose of writing.

No worries, Jo. Let me know when you're caught up.

Sorry to hear that Jo, for both being laid off and to have to rewrite. It must have been super annoying to discover they had deleted it all.

Where should we make any Event rolls? In the game thread or in our House thread?

You can do it in your house thread, just link the post in your RP post. That way, things stay clear IC.

Submitted House Sol as character for posting

got it

I also submitted House Bodaway as a character.

done

Also, guys, I don't mind if you post in your House thread for ease of reference, but I do need you to post in the IC thread so I have everything in one place.

I also submitted my house as a character.

got it

I'm at home this week (until I find a safe sitter for my son) so I won't be around much. My apologies.

Thanks for letting us know. Gives me time to figure out what my house is doing this season.

No apologies needed ! Everybody understands family first !

Its totally understandable. Trying to post while taking care of kids is damn near impossible.

I want to say I'm sorry to everybody for my recent inactivity... I've currently got a lot happenning in my life, both at home and at work. I do not want to retire from any games but I'll understand if you want to replace my character... For now I'll try to post as often as I can but if any Dm wants/needs to play my character to advance the story, you have my full benediction... I hope I can get back to normal as soon as I can...

Hey, because of the slowdown necessitated by my work, I've lost my place here. Won't take much to get started, but please send me a PM with any current hidden items that you've told me about in the past because I'm afraid I've forgotten.

I'm sorry guys but I'm going to have to bow out of this game. The limits on my time have made it almost impossible to keep up with everything that is happening here. I apologize for not being able to keep up.

I'll be leaving as well. I have not been able to enjoy this game and I feel I have given it a fair try.

I wish the best to everyone and see you all in other games.

I think I'll take this opportunity to leave as well. I love the concept and I had fun with the game in its beginning parts where we were dealing with events on a smaller scale, trying to do some political scheming, improving our standing, etc, but this whole civil war that has absorbed the entire game and taken the focus off of those things isn't really fun for me.

So enjoy the game everyone and those of you that I play with in other games, I'll see you in those!
Thanks for running this, Falcon, and sorry for dropping out on you again after I already tried to give the first version of this a chance but couldn't handle the backlog

No worries. I think this needs a very specific set of players, probably. This leaves us with three players. Do we want to continue? If not, I will totally not hold it against anyone. This was an experiment.

If the remaining players are willing, I'd be going for a few more rounds, maybe trying to bring it to an end, or maybe we'll have new players joining ?
I'll admit I really wanted to see how everybody would react to my last move....
Anyway, the Kraken Society is ready to go on !!

I'm fine either way. Are you interested in feedback on the system and the game?

I am open to feedback. In fact, I've gotten quite a bit, and have revised the rules some already, just didn't want to introduce them quite yet.

I am open to feedback. In fact, I've gotten quite a bit, and have revised the rules some already, just didn't want to introduce them quite yet.

I feel like I'd want to start again (or at least move the timeline forward significantly) if I were to introduce a lot of rules changes.

Cool. One thing was that resolution of actions took a while, and sometimes plot threads were forgotten. I think some form of player facing resolution would help with that, since it seems like a bit much for one person to keep track of.

Also clear limits for what can and can't be done in one season and what goes into the next. More than once, I was waiting for a season to finish so I could do something in the next and then others took more actions in the same season.
I feel like I wasn't playing efficiently because I wasn't aware of how much I could do.
And maybe new threads for new seasons could make things clearer...

I'm leaning towards stepping away from the game as well because I'm not sure it will capture the feel of a kingdom-wide political theatre with only 3 PCs and I think it'll be challenging to integrate new players into the existing game. I'd prefer to start over so everyone is on the same level in terms of world building and history etc. But in that case, I think I'd like to take a break, maybe try another game out for now and come back to this type of game in the future. I enjoyed many parts of the game, but I agree with saevikas and bowl, a bit more structure and resolution-mechanisms might be helpful. I might add a few comments and suggestions here once I've thought them through. But thanks so much for developing and running the game Falconloft and I look forward to playing with everyone in other games.

I don't know about everybody else, but is anyone curious about what actions the other houses were planning ?
The rebellion, the plague, the undead monster, the orc invasion ? If we're stopping I want to know what was going on ! Please don't leave me in the dark lol...
Anyway Falconloft, if you're going on with this one or starting anotherone, I'm in !

I appreciate the feedback, and will definitely work it in to whatever comes next. I think that three is probably a bit low too, so I will close this game, and we'll try again after I've had time to work on things. In the meantime, watch the discord for revisions and give me more feedback!

I'll leave this open for now until everyone's seen it, just post to let me know please.

I think this concept has great potential so I'm curious to see the next iteration of it when it happens.

Ditto, I'll definitely be following along on the discord and I'll chime in whenever I have input or think of more feedback from the current game.

Wait !! I need to know what surprises you had in store for us first lol

I'll tell you in discord!

I know its several months now, but I thought that this could have lasted a little longer.

We had a couple rough spots, but I'm considering popping it back up. I've got some easier rules I think, but time is the main issue right now.

I probably will be running this again, but I'm going to close this forum because it keeps confusing me. I'll leave it up til the new year just in case people want to copy anything from it.

Thanks for the heads up. I mined my posts for a couple I particularly enjoyed as inspiration in case House Maa-Talia ever shows up again in the future. It was nice to read through the story one last time ... oh the memories XD

Thanks again for running the game. It was fun while it lasted!

Cheers