This is a sequel to the long-running Mercenaries game, previously played on the Bay12 Forum. Users will be required to install version 1.3 Build 91 of
(the latest at the time of this writing).
Sessions will be held Thursday nights at 7:00 PM (19:00) Eastern Daylight Time, and will last between three and five hours. In order to keep things going smoothly, I will be imposing a 1-minute timer for combat rounds (unless the player is taking his turn and is simply taking a bit of time to do it, the rule is mostly to keep people from planning endlessly or simply not paying attention.) If this time limit is exceeded, I will chose an action from a list of simple "default actions" provided by the player.
Splatbooks:
Core material (which I am defining as PHB I and II, MM I-IV, and the Compendiums) is allowed with the following caveats:
There are 5 "base races" in the campaign. Human, Elf, Orc, Dwarf, and Kobold.
All existing intelligent races are classified as a subspecies of these five, either through interbreeding or magical manipulation. Gnomes are crossbreeds between elves and dwarves, halflings are crosses between dwarves and gnomes, dragons are a subspecies of Kobold, and goblins are a subspecies of Orc. Further, there are some changes to the core races:
Dwarves are extinct, and thus are not allowed as characters.
Elves are true omnivores, omnisexual, and extremely combative.
Humans and Orcs come from one of a few distinct cultures: There are three (well, technically four, but the fourth is a loose coalition of city states with no unified culture, mostly aping one of the Empires to one degree or another) nations, all Empires are fragments of a single Empire that broke up in a succession war (each of the three claimants took a Grand Duchy and called it an Empire) about 8000 years ago. The Aprilian Empire is heavily elven-influenced, with very general tolerance of cannibalism, and rather inclusive sexual mores. Beyond that, they're largely Roman, with a dash of ancient Israel for good measure. Even the commoners are generally polygamous, and the society as a whole is hyper-individualist (to the point where murder is only a crime if the victim was unarmed or under the age of 14). While slavery is outlawed, the concept of "judicial slavery" exists, where a person may be sentenced to enslavement instead of a prison sentence (in this case, limited to the term of their sentence) or execution. In the former case, strict laws regulate treatment, as their enslavement is more of a lease than a possession. In the latter, no such laws exist, although social convention does keep the relative handful of owners in check. They are technologically advanced, and their magic is both widespread and highly developed.
The Markavian Empire, which controls the major mineral wealth of the continent, is much more ordered. Polygamy is extremely rare outside of the nobility, magic requires a licence, which comes with strict usage limits (casting without a license or outside of the limits of your license is a capital crime), and public possession of weapons beyond a sword, bow or knife requires a mercenary's or soldier's license. Recently, (as in somewhere in the last six months), the Empire has ceased to issue mercenary licenses, and no longer employs them, though existing licenses remain valid outside of the capital, and it is still legal to hire them for private reasons. (For various arcane reasons, it's illegal to kill a rival directly but legal to employ mercenaries to kill him and his family, raze his estates, and salt the earth so nothing will ever grow there again.) Slavery is outright illegal here, though there is a strong black market for slaves, which are generally horribly treated. The source of these is unknown, and most slaves are foreign peasants. They are the least advanced both technologically and magically, although they do have an edge in metalworking and mining.
The final Empire, Cinnabar, is aesthetically a mixture of Elizabethan England and Spain of the same era. The nation exists in a state of barely organized anarchy, with the Emperor a puppet of scheming nobles, the laws indifferently enforced, and vice beyond measure being made available by the vast trade network. Despite (or perhaps because of) this, they are immensely wealthy. Their large, well disciplined navy guards a global trade network, and anything can be bought in their markets, if you're bold enough to seek it. They are also quite advanced in many ways, largely due to their access to bits of lore from various islanders that they can put together in new ways. However, they are often quite slow to implement changes. It is believed that they were the originators of gunpowder and cannon, but the Aprilian fleet was entirely cannon armed 20 years before the Royal Cinnabar Navy managed the same feat. They are above-average in magic, and lead (admittedly almost by default) in the black arts of Demonology and Necromancy.
In addition, there are also a variety of tribal groups.
For other racial choices, as long as you can explain it being somehow related to an elf, I'll probably allow it.
I am not using the standard pantheon, so if you want to play a cleric, get with me and I'll help you find a god that is suitable.
For Paladins, the standard code of conduct rules do not apply. Get with me if you want to play one, and I'll explain more.
In addition, most knowledge of spells has been lost, along with most technology. This is true even of divine casters. I thus reserve the right to veto any spell selection on the grounds "that spell was lost". These spells are not banned, but they will have to be rediscovered or recreated IC. All 0th level and 1st level spells from the PHB are still around.
Other Splatbooks are on a "check with me" basis, with the following exceptions:
Book of Exalted Deeds is BANNED
Book of Vile Darkness is BANNED
Tome of Battle is BANNED
The Encyclopedia Arcane series from Mongoose Publishing is ALLOWED.
The Ultimate Equipment Guide I and II from the same is ALLOWED.
We will be starting at level 1, with the stat array 17, 16, 15, 14, 12, 10.
Backstory
One hundred and fifty years ago, there was a war, the final battle between the goddess Miranda, otherwise known as E'za (Kinbetrayer) the Destroyer, and the descendants of the army that overthrew her so long ago. In an apocalypic clash, roughly 90% of the population of the world was destroyed, either directly in the fighting or from terrible dark magics launched from Cinnabar (which in the last weeks before the battle had been taken over by Miranda's puppets) at the other nations. The capital city of the Holy Aprilian Empire, the mighty fortress city of Kri'stak, was lost, and nobody knows where, if anywhere, it went. Most of Cinnabar was destroyed in the backlash from these spells. This bloodbath was what was needed to summon Miranda back to this world, and she was stopped only because the party managed to strike her at the only time she was vulnerable. The war was won, but the cost was high. The nations still exist, and the culture is much the same, but they are mere shadows of their former glory, barely able to hold against a renewed goblin threat.
You are recruits for a new, pan-Imperial unit, the Red Guard, that has been formed to walk the earth, setting right that which is wrong, and to stand vigilant against the threat the goblins pose to all.
This recruitment thread will be cross-posted to the Giant In The Playground forum by Gnoman, who is me.
