You are a Hero, a wandering adventurer of great power. You have four
Personal Stats, Martial, Vigor, Cunning, and Charm which display your personal might, and two stats,
Wealth and Renown which display the legacy you'll leave behind, your "final score" if you will.
The Stats:Martial: Your physical prowess; skill at arms, strength, and dexterity.Vigor: Your overall resilience; resisting poison, wounds, and possession.Cunning: Your mental prowess; cleverness, education, and sharpness of wit.Charm: Your charisma; inspiring, convincing, and intimidating others.Wealth: The treasure you've accumulated over the course of your adventures, it can be spent to acquire followers, equipment, and favors, or hoarded to improve your financial standing.Renown: The notoriety, good or ill, you've acquired throughout your adventures, it waxes and wanes, eventually fading away, unless you've been immortalized in legend.As Heroic as you are, you are mortal, and over time, old age will begin to claim you. At first, it is a mere number, a marker of how far you've come, but eventually your stats will decline, eventually culminating in death when you're Vigor reaches a negative number.
On your adventures, assuming you survive you're bound to come across items beyond the mundane and far superior to any other. These items and oftimes blessings are called
Boons, and bolster your
Personal Stats so long as they are equipped.
Boons come in many forms, are incredibly rare, and almost always require an adventure or great sacrifice to obtain.
Over time, you will gather friends and hirelings,
Companions and
Followers respectively, and they will accompany you on your adventures.
Companions have their own
Personal Stats and will follow you to hell and back,
Followers come in large numbers, don't have
Personal Stats, are usually only loyal as long as they're paid, and will generally refuse to accompany you on particularly dangerous quests without some form of extra compensation.
The world is by and large in its
Early Iron Age, and at least at first, can be considered equivalent to a Dwarf Fortress's world's
Age of Myth. Fearsome monsters prey on civilized men, marauding barbarians ravage the edges of civilization, and countless ruins from a time before time beckon intrepid treasure seekers. It is an
Age of Adventure, and as a determined Hero, the world is yours to take.
What is your Name? No Titles, not yet, those will come later.Which of the four Personal Stats do you want to receive a bonus in?I would like to give special thanks to Haspen, for creating and pioneering the SPAM genre, and to Robert E. Howard, for fueling the furnace of my inspiration.