The blogosphere has been doing a bunch of these setting questions recently, I believe initially (re)starting with Vayra’s 10 Questions. I wanted to jump on this bandwagon and answer for one of my long running settings, which I am currently running twice monthly with long time friends and con pals.
Because I’m silly and facetious and sometimes like to both embrace and poke fun at fantasy spellings I always type the name of this setting out as ÆЯÞ, not that anyone in setting calls the world that. This is mostly medieval fantasy with a lot of your typical “fantasyland” assumptions – wizards, dwarves, fallen magical empires, etc. I’ll be answering in context of a small isle the current campaign is taking place on – Ringland or in silly fantasy conlang – Morydysg. I am also using my house system Primeval 2d6.
1. What class knows the most martial arts? Are they real martial arts like kung fu, or made up ones like krav maga?
There aren’t character classes, but for starting characters most of the nobility is going to be trained in some amount of fencing and maybe some grappling and archery. Especially so for knights and the like. If a character begins attached to an organization such as the undead-hunting Greycloaks or the Bronze Flame exorcists will be trained to fight their usual enemies, but its not exactly “the most.”
2. Can I start out having already made a deal with the devil or do I have to do that in game?
Absolutely. In addition to most characters who have leveraged into magic, demonic pacts is always a possible event in character creation. The exiles of heaven are legion and always looking to bargain.
3. Do you want me to write an 8-page backstory? Can I write an 8-page backstory, if I want to? If I write something down in it like I’m the timelost princess of the brass city and the daughter of the sun and I commanded legions in the Hell War but was betrayed by my father’s vizier but I don’t know that, or that I’m elf conan and cooler than everyone else, will that be true?
Please no on the eight pages. After character generation, which includes some life pathing, if you want to go back and fill in details I absolutely welcome that. If that turns out to be eight pages then I guess you do you, but I am not going to read that. Give me 2-5 bullet points please.
Also pretty much anything tonally out of the game (medieval society + typical fantasy land) or outside of general power assumptions (lowish fantasy, don’t want to commit to being “low” since players can be wizards and have like a gnome infestation or something, but generally around starting level OD&D power levels) will be “known” by your character but not true until proven at the table.
4. If I eat someone’s heart, will I gain their powers? What about their brain?
It depends on who they and you are. In many cases a parasitic demon will want to feast on the life blood of a victim and will provide magic as compensation, so you could get it that way. If your meal is inherently magic then you’ll definitely retain some of their lingering power, but it is unlikely you will be able to hold onto it for long. Eating the flesh of fey is in particular dangerous, being much closer to the primordial soup of chaos than humans, potentially wracking or unmaking you.
5. These classes are boring, can I be one from somewhere else? What about from a different system entirely?
Probably not? I kind of like boring – I’d rather be shown awesome stuff than told something is awesome, and I feel a lot of classes tell more than show. But I’m always up to conversing and making a compromise. Since I don’t have classes I think it would be easy for you to just tell me what you want and we roll with it.
6. If I make a sword, which one of us gets to name it?
On Ringland you’d be able to name it. But there are places in the world where guild structures are such that only masters are allowed to name the product of their craft. Its not (usually) enforced through judicious measures, but kind of like if you put on a blackbelt and walked into a martial arts gym without the experience – you’d be in for a rough time with the locals.
7. Am I allowed to kill the other player characters? What would I have to do to be allowed to? Do I win if I kill them all? Actually, how do I win in general?
Depends on the campaign but I often play with players having lots of characters all over the place, so its absolutely possible that there will be player character killing. One player even murdered one of his own characters with another recently for nefarious purposes.
8. What language stands in for ‘Common’? Or what are we all talking to each other in? Like the party, mostly, but also everyone else?
On Ringland its Gwevian, the language of the dominant culture on the island. There are large pockets of cultures on the island, old and new, who speak their own language and may not know this language. Its usually assumed player characters can speak with each other unless someone is playing something atypical.
9. How do I learn how to talk to rocks? No not once a day just, like, normally?
You’ll need to learn some form of spirit speech and get the environment right for each particular rock, based on the personality of the inhabiting spirit(s). The Church abhors this as they do not agree with the animistic interpretation that some folk of the isle have, and believe this is just a demon hiding out in a stone.
10. Which kinds of wizards get to serve kings and live in towers and shit and which ones are run out of town or stoned to death in the streets? Can I be both? At the same time?
Cozy wizards are those chartered by the Order of the Ebon Serpent and has proven their utility to the nobility. Also potentially if they are in a secret demon cult that the particular noble is in or wants to be in and they keep it hush-hush and giggle and wink at each other and cross their fingers while attending Church.
Unchartered wizards, those who track with demons, anyone who creates a clone of another or deals heavily in planar magics (as the Church professes that the world is “All There Is”), or generally wizards who have utilized magic in the harm of others will be burned alive. You can definitely be both at the same time. The notion of “chartering” is not universally accepted among the isle, and different cultures have different interpretations of what is accepted magic and what is damnable.
