Introduction
The Empire of Arinthia has thrived for many centuries since the glorious conquests of Kaiser Bismarck during its first years. But a new threat from the western isles has placed the entire continent under fear. The Thassalocracy of Min continues to move closer toward their goal of dominating trade, and their leader, the Dao of Min, has issued a direct warning that resistance will be met with due punishment. A united coalition stands against the new threat, and up until now, the balance of power has been preserved. But it is only a matter of time before hostilities break out on a larger scale, and the ensuing chaos will affect the empire at every level.
The Kaiserin, Augusta of Arinthia, has sent forth her spymaster to summon the most talented warriors, Adepts, and scholars from across the land to her court.
How to Play
Between updates, players post actions signalling what their character plans to do. During an update, actions are rolled for, with their results determined by a 2d6 roll. I used a 2d6 because the probability distribution is more normalized, with huge overshoots and dramatic failures being the exception rather than the norm (it's fun having a chaotic game, but it sucks when you roll 3 1's in a row, or destroy the entire countryside with a string of 6's).
The main point, however, is that this allows me to justify an alternative method of action bonuses intended to smooth out the curve and allow for skilled characters to fail while unskilled characters can still roll 6's.
Your character's traits and skills primarily affect the roll by giving one of two effects--
extra positive dice and
extra negative dice. When an action is rolled, you roll each extra die, and your dice are divided into two sets:
Positive Set = (your first d6 + all extra positive dice)
Negative Set = (your second d6 + all extra negative dice)
The highest die from your positive set and the lowest die from your negative set are picked to be the final results for your action roll. The results are gained from adding the two numbers:
[2] The action is doomed to fail horribly
[3] The action will fail with some adverse effects
[4] The action will completely fail
[5] The action will mostly fail
[6] The action is mostly unsuccessful
[7] The action is moderately successful, bringing you closer to your goal but leaving much to be desired
[8] The action is decently successful
[9] The action is mostly successful
[10] The action succeeds fully
[11] The action is far too successful and may have some negative effects
[12] The action will overshoot completely
In comparison to a regular RtD, the results map neatly over by intervals of 2:
[2] = traditional 1
[4] = traditional 2
[6] = traditional 3
[8] = traditional 4
[10] = traditional 5
[12] = traditional 6
This method leads to some interesting probability distributions, in my opinion. With no bonuses, you get the usual distribution for 2d6, which is a triangle. But with an extra positive die, your distribution shifts toward the higher end, and with an extra negative die, your distribution shifts toward the lower end. If your positive and negative die count are both greater than 0 but equal to each other, then the curve gets sharper. Here's a chart made from 10000 trials for each:
I also have a quick java program I use to calculate the rolls, which you can
test here.
import java.util.Scanner;
class DiceTable {
public static void main(String[] args) {
// INPUT FORMAT: [extra positive dice] [extra negative dice]
// Example: 4 3
Scanner s = new Scanner(System.in);
while (s.hasNext()) {
int ex_pos = s.nextInt();
int ex_neg = s.nextInt();
int d1 = roll();
int d2 = roll();
for (int i = 0; i < ex_pos; i++) {
d1 = Math.max(d1, roll());
}
for (int i = 0; i < ex_neg; i++) {
d1 = Math.min(d1, roll());
}
System.out.println(d1 + d2);
}
s.close();
}
static int roll() {
return (int) Math.ceil(Math.random()*6);
}
}
The World (as known by the civilizations of the planet Helix)
The planet Helix is a pale dot against the sea of stars, orbiting two blazing disks of light known as Char and Ash. Helix is populated by several civilizations, many of which have never associated with one another, but for the beginning we shall focus on the Empire of Arinthia its satellites, in the year 531, over five centuries since the birth of the empire and thus order and justice across its lands.
To begin, we must first note that Helix orbits Char and Ash with a period of exactly four hundred days, and each day is twenty-five hours, of sixty minutes each, with sixty seconds in a minute. This shall be the basis of our timescale. The year is divided into ten months of forty days each.
Helix has a satellite itself, called Orthos. Its rich crimson and white surface features, deep canyons, and noticeable atmosphere have led some to conclude that it is a planet not unlike Helix, although without seas it is thought to be far less habitable.
The theory that Helix orbits the Twin Suns and not the other way around was first formulated by Avictus Magnus in the year 431 since the foundation of the Empire. He cited the observed rotation of Helix, as determined from a Coriolanus deflection measured during his famous experiment at Avinthras Tower. His experiment showed that Helix rotates at its current speed, and that this was different from the observed synodic day of 25 hours. The time of the year was found from on the difference between the synodic and sidereal days, and the correspondence of this value with the seasonal cycle amounted to the first physical evidence of the motion of Helix around the Twin Suns. The documents published by Sir Eisenheart of Wallace in 446 confirmed one of Magnus' predictions--that the seasons would be reversed on the side opposite the equator.
Char is a blazing orange sphere, providing the majority of Helix's light. Ash, on the other hand, is a luminous blue disk with a glowing core at its center. A large tail of glowing matter is visible trailing from Char and falling onto the disk, so Ash is often represented as a thief in pagan pantheons.
Every eigtht months, Ash undergoes an outburst known as an Ashstorm that lasts a few hours (2-6) at a time. The Ashstorms are extremely luminous events, and cause most life on Helix to go into hiding. Plants have a teal coating that builds up during the summer months and flakes off during the Ashstorm. Humans, however, must take refuge.
Terrain Map
Political Map
A map of the Empire and its geopolitical divisions
The provinces of Arinthia are as follows:
- Arinthia, the Royal Province is the seat of the current Kaiserin and was the homeland of the first Kaiser, Bismarck.
- Hanov, Wilhelm, Vin, and Helmholtz make up the West Ostlands, and are each a feudal duchy with strong familial ties to the ruling family.
- The East Ostlands are a confederacy of Ost-cultured counties and republics that fall under the same administrative division.
- Hollenburg is a duchy known as a Adept competitor of Arinthia during the glorious conquests. Their ruling family was replaced with one more loyal.
- Evas and Bor are lands Adeptly ruled by pagan Borian kings, brought into the Order shortly before the rise of Arinthia.
- Upper and Lower Ranj are inhabited by the denizens of Ranj proper. Their skin is tinted a sharp orange, owing to a crop grown on the lower Ranj plains.
- Zinsky is a principality ruled by prince Alexios of Vaykor. It is the only province where a majority of the population follows the Vaykor heresy.
- Skal is a culturally distinct region east of the Ostlands, populated by rural villages and heretic centers of reformation.
- Anti is a small kingdom descended from Atlas nomads. The Aran dynasty has seen constant struggles along the borders with Karin and Vila.
- Karin is a small state ruled by Count Georgi. The small state has been plagued by instability, but it is defended by the best warriors of the land.
- Vila is a land under nominal control of Count Georgi. The Dragon Order, a band led by the pretender count Vlad, controls Vila de facto.
- Ontford and its vassal state Mann are ruled by King Edward of Essent. They resisted Arinthia for several decades before conceding in the year 41.
- Tarca is a former colony of Ontford turned independent republic, freed by a rebellious counter-culture which garnered support from the peasantry.
- Yohan is a small county originally populated by Ontic farmers. Intermixing with Dwarven travelers has given birth to a distinct, ash-skinned race.
- Baguey is a small and rebellious duchy that was only released from vassalage to Ontford following the Arinthian conquest of its former liege.
- Cremonia and Savant are rich trade republics that control commerce across the Great River. They are fierce rivals of the desert-dwelling Agonians.
The Empire
The Empire of Arinthia is a federal monarchy founded in the year zero by Kaiser Bismarck. Its mainland is divided into several vassal states and administrative regions, although the crown only excercises nominal control over its outer regions. Its core regions are the Ostlands, populated by humans of the Ost culture. The other major nationality within the empire is the Ontic culture, which makes up a large part of eastern Arinthia. Ontford excercises a lot of power over surrounding states, kept in check only by strict supervision by the crown's chancellors.
Arinthia has numerous satellite states which pledge fealty to the Empire in exchange for its protection against the Thassalocracy of Min. The Dao Min has been consolidating power in the western regions for the past century, and has proven to be a major threat to the Empire's legitimacy. The human Marches of Zeon and Berlina, the snakeman Republic of Agon, and the elvish Kingdoms of Dor, Gala, and Wallace make up the Empire's sphere of influence, while the Kingdom of Vaykor and its vassal, the Exarchate of Zara, remain bitter rivals.
Despite the situation, the Arinthian satellites maintain trade relations with the Vaykor. It is only Arinthia and its provinces which bear strong sentiment against trading with the heretics.
The Kingdom of Vaykor is a state formed centuries before Kaiser Bismark took the throne and declared the Empire of Arinthia. They ruled the northern forests and fringes of the continent, as well as part of Arinthia's current territory. They lost their southern lands, however, to Arinthia during the glorious conquests, and economic troubles have caused them to withdraw most of their navy, leaving the seas open to Min incursion.
In the south, Egon Company engages in the colonization of the Isles of Greed. Egon Company was founded before the formation of the empire by a cosmopolitan expedition of humans, elves, and dwarves from the pagan kingdom of Hiki. With the combined wealth of the Isles plus Hiki's strong support from the southern Dwarven fortresses has kept Egon Company and Hiki safe from outside incursion.
In the west, the Thassalocracy of Min consolidates its gains and grows ever stronger. Ruled by the fearsome Dao Min, a talented warrior-king, the armies of Min sail across the Western Seas to conquer and rule over isolated states. This has caused a coalition to form against them, spearheaded by Arinthia and its nearby states.
The Order
The dominant religion of Arinthia and its satellites is The Order. It is a monotheistic, organized body with the chief bishop's seat in Arinthia's capital city, Tyron. The Vaykor heresy, among other differences in doctrine and organization, regards the bishop seats of Vaykor, Berlina, and Arinthia as all having equal importance. While Berlina has been sympathetic to the heresy, it has found little support among the nobility in Arinthia. The three elvish kingdoms do not care for either as they have their own Elvish Rite, recognized by both Arinthian and Vaykor Rites, which focuses on maintaining order among the elves, who tend to be rebellious and difficult to keep from splintering off into radical groups.
The God of the Order has no specific name by which he is referred to. Its philosophy is largely based off the work of the ancient pagan philosopher Aristolius, who surmised that the world was set in order by some first mover, and regarded the first mover as the one true God over all the pagan idols. He was also the first to reconcile the mystery of Thoughtform with the existence of an ordered world, noticing certain mindpatterns among those who mastered the art.
The Order devotes entire states' treasuries worth of gold in the study of the arcane and its many mysteries.
Magic
Magic is known as Thoughtform on the east continent. It is a force unlike the other natural forces of the world, such as gravity and rigidos, to quote Aristolius. Thoughtform affects primarily living organisms, especially those that can think, and has reduced effect on inanimate objects. Wearing excessive armor or clothing tends to dull the magical ability of Thoughtform users, known as thoughtformers or simply Adepts, and provides protection against Thoughtform for those who fight against it. Thus, the hamlets and cities of the mountains, who wear thick coats to protect themselves from the cold, tend to lack affinity with the art of Thoughform, while the travelers and tribesmen of the Great Desert and beyond who wear thin clothing are more vulnerable.
The defining aspect of Thoughtform is that memories and ideas are brought into reality through it. Ordinary thoughts are not lucid or complete enough to actualize, and so to bring new thoughts into being, one must use memories. Doing this causes the user to forget that memory, which places limitations on how much a person is able to use Thoughtform without becoming a dribbling idiot.
There are three known schools of Thoughtform, originating among different geographical regions, but the most prevalent by far is Ignithas.
Ignithas
The art of Ignithas is the art of conjuration--manipulating mental substances to produce physical effects such as jets of fire, gusts of air, spikes of ice, and automatons of steel. Conjuring objects embodies the Adepts's memories, and thus removes them from his mind. A mage practicing Ignithas routinely spends time meditating and experimenting to obtain a stock of memories to use when needed. A mage can recover his memories after conjuring them, but must stay in close proximity to them. The most sustainable forms of Ignithas involve the art of Terraforming, that is, reconstructing an environment from one's memories into the real world. This creates a self-referencing loop, allowing the mage to utilize the same memory over and over again, limited only by his mental speed and the clarity of his memories.
Aganis
The Aganis originated in the river valleys of the Agonians, snakemen and snakewomen with an unusual grasp of Thoughtform. Aganis is the art of metamorphosis, and changing what is real into what is not. Unlike the memory-based feats of the Ignithas school, the Aganis school focuses on mixing the real world with imagination. A practitioner of Aganis forms ideas in his head and forces them on beings outside, bypassing the requirement of concreteness normally required by Thoughtform. Aganis Adepts primarily act on living things, but particularly skilled users of weapons, who treat their weapon as an extension of their body, can morph inanimate objects as well. Adepts in the art of Aganis spend their time writing tomes to record their fantastical ideas, in order to remember them when needed after actualizing them. They typically require some physical medium to change.
Aganis is the most beginner-friendly thoughtform on Helix, able to do whatever the mind can imagine. The disadvantages, however, are threefold:
1) Aganis requires creativity, not only wisdom. Each spell must be fully present in the user's mind.
2) Aganis wipes out ideas. Unlike memories, which are gained from experience, Aganis thoughts typically require the formulation of an idea on the spot. This means that Aganis users have a lot of downtime as they recreate lost ideas.
3) Aganis is not as lucid as memory-based schools. Unlike Nereithas or Ignithas, Aganis spells are not as well-defined by their content, and so they are difficult to focus and control. Aganis works best on living animals, then plants, and worst on inanimate objects, primarily based on how different the targeted objects are from the user's kind.
Nereithas
The third and last school of Thoughtform is Nereithas, the art of taking what is not real and bringing it to life. The minds of mortals cannot fully comprehend the reality of the universe, however, and so unlike the other two schools, Nereithas Adepts cannot simply think of what they want and bring it to being. Instead, they rely on dreams, the gateway into the subconscious, by which Adepts can delve into truths that are otherwise incomprehensible to a purely rational mind. The art of Nereithas is therefore the art of dreamweaving, of making dreams come true, and was introduced to the east continent by a strange group of Min exiles. It has not caught on due to its unreliability, but it maintains a spot in encyclopedic archives across the continent.
Effects of Thoughtform
Because Thoughtform drops off in effectiveness against inanimate objects, it is rarely used to supplant ordinary machining processes, agriculture, or warfare, but rather assumes a supporting role. Thoughtform is used to create new, lucrative species of crops and domestic animals, to increase physical capabilities and dexterity in war, to neutralize enemy forces, to increase one's craftsmanship, and to perform many other tasks. Skilled Adepts are only a small percentage of population, and so their work is highly valued. Although most humans have at least a limited affinity for Thoughtform, other races such as elves, dwarves and orcs do not have the same affinity and in fact bear a resistance to Thoughtform. The opposite goes for snakemen, whose affinity for Thoughtform is almost universal. Snakemen, as well as skilled Adepts, are especially vulnerable to damage spells and magical harm, which is only compounded by the fact that Adepts rarely wear armor when using Thoughtform in combat. The best counter to an Adept is almost always another Adept.
Additionally, there is another way of casting spells: Spell tomes. These are books designed to . To write one, its pages must be formed from wood pulp mixed with either pixie dust or sprite powder. Faerie dust can be used as a substitute, but it requires much greater proportions. One pixie is typically equivalent to one spell tome, while one cluster of sprites typically allows one to make ten tomes. It takes about ten faeries to craft a tome, in comparison.
Spell tomes can have anything written in them, from memories explained in detail to fanciful plans and interpretations. When a spell tome is used, all of its pages are erased, and the spell is cast. Whatever was written in the book's pages is brought to reality, summoned either as an effect or an object at the desired location.
All Adepts can use any of the magical schools, and all humans can do it to some extent. Specializations like Zikal's or Archae's traits give school-specific benefits.
Other Technology
The Ashstorms provide a ready source of high energy power to societies on the east continent. Societies commonly manufacture giant lenses and towering scaffolds with which to focus the energy of the raging second sun and allow engineers to cut stone using high-energy beams. Many cities are thus built into hills or mountains, and quarry mining is made more efficient by complicated networks of focusing lenses and mirrors.
The most skilled of Adepts are able to harness the power of the light themselves and bypass the ineffectiveness of magic against nonliving objects. During an Ashstorm, Adepts have incredible power, and many duels of legend have taken place during these times. Ordinary humans cannot go out during an ashstorm unprotected, and typically take refuge indoors.
The Ashstorms also trigger great avalanches in the mountains, making these regions unsuitable for long-term settlement. When the Ashstorm cycle aligns with winter, entire cities in the mountains have to be evacuated.
Other Races
Helix is populated by cultures only recently undergoing a revolution in scientific understanding and machinery. Humans retain a code of chivalry, and their society is distinctly feudal with some industrial innovations. Armies fight using pike and shot, a perfect fusion of the ancient styles with modern technology.
The Elves of the southern swamps, however, have a more industrial society with centralized kingdoms and strong parliamentary systems. Their population is mostly working-class, working in factories to fuel the ongoing expansion into and colonization of the inner jungles. They routinely enter conflict with the Sylvans, twisted simulacrums of the elfin form composed of wood and natural materials. They emerge from the jungles and raze entire villages, posing a distinct obstacle to the growth of the elf kingdoms.
Elves and humans, having such distinct societies, tend to view each other in a negative light. However, they will cooperate diplomatically and hate each other far less than both the Sylvans and the Min conquerors of the west.
The Min are humans, but little is known about their mainland society. Their navy is superior to any eastern construction, and numerous Arinthian carracks and flagships have been sunk. They tend to rule over conquered populations rather than assimilate them, and as such their nation is very diverse, but also unstable.
Dwarves are a highly decentralized race that primarily inhabits the mountains of the east continent. They build fortresses into the mountain walls, and live off of underground cavern life and esoteric crops. They do control a small region of the mountains known as the Mountainhomes, the birthplace of the dwarves, but most dwarven fortresses only maintain limited contact.
Your Quest
Your characters will begin somewhere near the Imperial Province, chosen by you, although I plan to try and guide the players to the same point to kick off the main quest.
Following a short introductory sequence as a "tutorial" for your character, I plan to present the main quest to the players. Your characters are not explicitly
required to accept, but it depends on your character's motives and personality.
Sidequests will be possible, but it may lead to desynchronization or confusion. I plan to introduce a McGuffin so that your characters can talk to each other if you are split up.
Sign-ups
Your character's exact geographical origins are up to you. You are free to design major and minor cities/locations within associated regions, as necessary for your character.
While I made you read a text wall to sign up, I won't force you to write one. I'll prioritize characters with unique backstories over simple ones, but you don't need to write a novella to get into this RtD. Other than the aforementioned prioritization of unique backstories, it's first-come-first-serve.
In terms of archetypes, you will not have to be familiar with Thoughtform in order to acquire it early on in the game. Thoughtform will be an important part of the game world, so it would help to have at least one character in the party with an affinity for it. It's not necessary, however, at the beginning.
[b]Character Name: [/b]
(Self explanitory)
[b]Place of Origin: [/b]
(Replace this text with a geographical location and perhaps a city, if you so desire)
[b]Bio: [/b]
(Give a short background, what brought your character to the court of Kaiserin Augusta?)
[b]Specialties: [/b]
(Give your character some specialities here. For every two things your character excels at, your character must be poor at one. Each school of Thoughtform is independent of the others, so you cannot say only "Good at Thoughtform")
[b]Preferred Starting Situation:[/b]
(Tell me where you'd like to start near the imperial province. Are you out logging? Are you just chilling out in an inn? Are you in the middle of an assassination contract?)
Waitlist:wipeout1024
fillipk
Godspeed!
Author
Topic: Pastblasters - Adventures in Wizardry (Turn 55) (Read 90994 times)