The Free Kingdoms

[Bjorn]

The past fifty years have been increasingly lawless ones for the Free Kingdoms.  Denied by terms of their surrender to the Empire Under Heaven to keep any standing troops, they can only beg for the Imperial hobgoblin armies to help them against the brigands and the Aberrations that now swarm forth from the Waste.  But the creation of the Waste and the fall of Maggydd in the Wasting War have left the only path to the Empire the treacherous pass through Gwynoc's Cairn, and increasingly the Emperor Under Heaven has instructed his armies to hold fast within their forts. 

Into this gap come the brokers.  Men of ambition and connection, the Empire Under Heaven lets the brokers act as middlemen between authorized bands of mercenaries and those who need men-at-arms.  Warriors join these Free Companies for many reasons.  Many only for the elusive promise of money, others because their home is closed to them, and some, perhaps, because they dream of a time when the name of the Free Kingdoms will be more than a joke in poor taste....

Setting details can be found here. 

I'm looking for players (3-4) for a small D&D 3.5 campaign based in the above setting.  The game would start at 4th level, stats by 4d6-drop-one or point buy, your choice.  PCs will be members of a small Free Company, and you're encouraged to come up with a shared background/company name/whatever.  Don't worry too much about party composition; your broker will take care of you.

The game would be forum-based, with occasional IRC sessions if appropriate.  The game will be core rules only (PHB, DMB, MM) unless specifically cleared by me (as those are the only books I have).  The only house rule I am proposing at the moment (beyond setting changes) is that cross-class skills no longer cost 2 skill points per rank (though the cap remains as is).

Now, my attempt to promptly talk people out of joining!  I have no experience DMing (or even playing) anything past AD&D 2nd Ed.  I will try to keep to at least a one-a-day posting schedule, but the nature of my jobs means there will be a number of weeks and weekends when I will not be available (known in advance).  I am making the setting up as I go along, and players will probably need to point out insanities and inconsistencies on a regular basis.

[Anastasia]

Ooooh, I remember you talking about this in #soulibrary. I might be interested depending on a couple of things. How often would you peg the IRC sessions at and at what times/days? Secondly, what flavor are you aiming for with the Free Kingdoms and the Empire Under Heaven. The former sounds like typical fantasy flare, but the latter has a distinct Eastern taste to it.

EDIT - I can hook you up with more books if you like. Keeping it to core only is a good idea for a new GM, since this cuts down on a lot of the cheese. Just sayin', in case you want to expand your horizons.

[Dracos]

We obey our new hobgoblin overlords.

We also demand a space at the table.  :)

IRC sessions being rare is a favorable condition, as outside of weekends I don't know how often our timezones match nicely.  =)

EDIT:  I favor point buy, but hey, randomness is fun too.  And agreed with Dune on his edit.  Core doesn't instantly keep everything cool but it does  keep a much smaller amount of rubbish to pay attention to.

[Bjorn]

Ooooh, I remember you talking about this in #soulibrary. I might be interested depending on a couple of things. How often would you peg the IRC sessions at and at what times/days?

Hopefully, we'll never have an IRC session.  My goal is to do it entirely forum-based, but I know from experience that some scenes can completely stall a forum-based game.  I'm going to do my best to avoid that scenario, but I also want to leave open the possibility of short IRC sessions to get us over such humps.

If we need an IRC session, we'll schedule it at that time and for when it's convenient for all the players.

Secondly, what flavor are you aiming for with the Free Kingdoms and the Empire Under Heaven. The former sounds like typical fantasy flare, but the latter has a distinct Eastern taste to it.

The Empire is based an expansionist version of Imperial China, as you guessed -- one where promotion examination didn't devolve to "how well do you know Confucious" and "loyalty to the Emperor" is synonymous with "expand the borders."  The Free Kingdoms is a mess of middle-age European imitations, which makes it pretty typical fantasy.  The Free Kingdoms themselves (the mostly human nations of Brindia, Jovia, and Maredia) are loosely based on the early Renaissance city-states of Italy.  The halflings are a mixed Arabic/Jewish archetype, with Arabic look, dress, garb, etc but borrowing the Jewish nation-within-a-nation role.  Dwarves are the same but dying and sad and sing a lot so I put 'em somewhere where it rains a lot and called them Welsh.  The gnomes are medieval Scandanavian in inspiration.  Elves are a combination of Gaelic druids, your standard wood elves, and Larry Niven's puppeteers.

The overall region as a whole is based, again, on Renaissance Europe.  Trade is the centre of everything, and cultural and scientific/magic development is synonymous with nobility.  You have a broad diversity of independent political entities (with each city being more or less independent of each other), all too busy squabbling and eyeing each other distrustfully over minor issues to unite and deal with the larger one.

If you're thinking about it in terms of names: in Maredia names would be more germanic, Spanish in Jovia, and Italian in Brindia.  Family names are starting to come into common usage, with all nobles and rich merchant families using them, and the peasantry beginning to acquire the habit now that the Princes can no longer enforce the name laws.  Family names created since the Wasting War progressively tend to be in Common (i.e, Smith, Greenfield, Baker, Hightower, etc.)  Halfling names are Persian in feel, and they use a matrilineal family name that always begins with "ab" (i.e, if Isa was the son of Maher ab'Hikamy (father) and Shahi ab'Azeri (mother), he would be Isa ab'Azeri).  Dwarves use Welsh names and (previously) would have then indicated the portion of Maggydd in which they lived; now they are all "of Trymfyrd."  Gnomes use Scandanavian names with the usual patronymic system, or an epithet.  Elven names are Gaelic, and they use only one.  Elves that end up outside the Deepwood are considered insane and are essentially rejecting elvish culture, and so they fairly often change their names in unpredictable ways.

All this is in flexible, of course.  If you want a Russian character, for example, let me know and we'll figure out good backstory. 

Just to make this clear, though: characters are to be from the Free Kingdoms only.  No hobgoblin or goblin characters.  Families from Imperial client races who've fled and found refuge in the Free Kingdoms are probably acceptable, though the only guaranteed "okay" is for kobolds (mostly for the humour value, let's be frank).  Characters from Uskila or the Turin Empire are also no-go.

EDIT - I can hook you up with more books if you like. Keeping it to core only is a good idea for a new GM, since this cuts down on a lot of the cheese. Just sayin', in case you want to expand your horizons.

I definitely would prefer to stick to core, but I'm open to considering other stuff.  Half the fun would be in finding a place for in the setting, and I like that sort of stuff.  If someone does want a non-core character, then I might take you up on the offer.  People should keep in mind, though, that non-core stuff doesn't just have to be approved by me, but all the other players as well.  You guys are much more likely to smell cheese than me.

[Bjorn]

I favor point buy, but hey, randomness is fun too.

Sorry, I meant "your choice" on a personal level.  If people go 4d6, then I trust them to be honest, and if they honestly roll something really out of whack with what you'd get off point buy, then I trust 'em to roll again.  And if I don't trust them, then they're not going to be in the game. ;)

[Ebiris]

Normally I'd be a bit leery of a forum based D&D game working, but the Dungeon Crawling thing in the Terminus Pool seems to be doing alright, so maybe it can work, after all.

Put me down as interested.

[Anastasia]

Hopefully, we'll never have an IRC session.  My goal is to do it entirely forum-based, but I know from experience that some scenes can completely stall a forum-based game.  I'm going to do my best to avoid that scenario, but I also want to leave open the possibility of short IRC sessions to get us over such humps.

If we need an IRC session, we'll schedule it at that time and for when it's convenient for all the players.

Okay. Uh, not much more to say here.

Setting stuff

I admit, I have slight hesitations about the whole Imperial China invading Europe thing. Still, I like the rest of what you did enough to more than offset that.  I'm interested in a Brindian character offhand, maybe a cleric. Speaking of, can you elaborate on religions more at some point? You have some on the wiki, but it feels incomplete.

If the Church of St Turin is as catholic inspired as I think, playing an Italian Cleric should be fun. >_>

I definitely would prefer to stick to core, but I'm open to considering other stuff.  Half the fun would be in finding a place for in the setting, and I like that sort of stuff.  If someone does want a non-core character, then I might take you up on the offer.  People should keep in mind, though, that non-core stuff doesn't just have to be approved by me, but all the other players as well.  You guys are much more likely to smell cheese than me.

Cool. As for me? If I play a cleric I'm thinking straight cleric at first, maybe a PrC if something catches my eye. Yeah, Clerics are strong enough as is, so I'm not looking to make them any more smash.

[Dracos]

Well, let's see.  Using hatbot since he seems to be 4d6 drop one.  I can reroll if you want.  Seems just slightly above average, with nothing great but everything good.  I find 'what's fair' varies, so I'll just toss this up and if I need to reroll I'll reroll.  Point Buy varies a bit, so if you want that to be an option, I suggest offering what you're referring to for it ^^.

* Drac-GM reads over books
<Drac-GM> hum, is hatbot, 4d6 drop 1?
<Drac-GM> !rollchar
<Hatbot>  [4d6=4, 4, 2, 6] -> 14
<Hatbot>  [4d6=3, 6, 3, 1] -> 12
<Hatbot>  [4d6=5, 2, 6, 3] -> 14
<Hatbot>  [4d6=6, 3, 5, 2] -> 14
<Hatbot>  [4d6=6, 4, 4, 6] -> 16
<Hatbot>  [4d6=5, 2, 6, 5] -> 16
<Hatbot> Drac-GM: 16, 16, 14, 14, 14, 12
<Ebiris> Nice.

Also, hesitation, but if you're encouraging suggestions, I'll suggest the Skill Trick section of Complete Scoundrel (for sending on request) but mainly because I've never used skill tricks in any game and they interest me as a way of varying things up. :P  I still think sticking straight core is probably the best move.

What kind of starting resources might we be  looking at?  Standard level 4 (5400 gp, pg 135 DMG for ease) or something else?  and equally how do you tend to feel about treasure/level advancement?

What's kobold stats? :P  I'm either thinking of halfling, kobold, or human roguey. :P  Probably an arabic halfling with a smart mouth and a deep pain for a lost homeland.  Or something. 

We're settingwise career mercenaries?  Also any regional things we should try and story in (e.g. is there a place we're kind of around or are we a roaming mercenary band from the getgo)

[Merc]

I'm interested, but it depends on what you're expecting out of posting rate.

I'm pretty happy with a rate like the dungeon crawl, which is generally at least 1-2 posts a day (with some exceptions lately due to Ana and I both coming down with sickness), with the occassional flurry of posts when all of us happen to be on and in the mood.

If that's good enough, then sign me up.

[Bjorn]

admit, I have slight hesitations about the whole Imperial China invading Europe thing.

How so?  The Empire Under Heaven is only loosely Chinese.  Mostly I'm stealing the idea of a bureaucratic-with-examinations government and the idea of parallel earthly and celestial governments.  The trappings are likely to be much more Roman than otherwise.  Also, it's probably worth pointing out that both the hobgoblins and the Empire are Lawful Neutral in this setting.  The Empire isn't evil (though it does have a certain tendency towards inflexibility and systemic racism that some might find offensive), it simply has a divine mandate to bring law and government to the entire world.

Just to be clear, this setting is not intended to be political allegory of any sort.  It started off as a combination of "races always fill the same roles, boring" and "wouldn't there be more storytelling potential in a situation where the PCs are automatically underdogs?" and went from there.  I'm stealing real-world culture to save effort. ;)

Still, I like the rest of what you did enough to more than offset that.  I'm interested in a Brindian character offhand, maybe a cleric. Speaking of, can you elaborate on religions more at some point? You have some on the wiki, but it feels incomplete.

If the Church of St Turin is as catholic inspired as I think, playing an Italian Cleric should be fun. >_>

The Church is very Catholic in feel, with a byzantine array of prayers, rituals, and so on and so forth.  One fundamental difference is that the Turinists never worship the Creator directly, but only ever the saints.  While the religion as a whole is named for St. Turin, he is just first among equals, rather than having any special divine status. He's actually not even one of the most frequently worshipped saints -- his order devotes their time to maintaining the lists of saints and determining the validity of new claims to sainthood. This means the Church has much more diversity than the Catholic Church, being more a collection of 2700 different religions with a shared history, culture, and fundamental principle, rather than a true single Church.  Politically, this is why the Church of St. Turin isn't a very powerful force in the Free Kingdoms.  In game terms, it gives the players leeway to make up their own saint with his own religion, rituals, etc.  The various orders can cover a lot of territory.  I don't have much detail on saints and their orders made up at this point, and have been just filling in the details as I need them.  I'd actually prefer it if you made up your own saint and order to suit yourself, but if you want me to sit down and make up example saints and orders I can put this on my "sooner rather than later" list.

Worship of the Faceless Lady isn't an organized religion.  The Faceless Lady encourages the study of the world, self, and all forms of knowledge as a path to enlightenment.  Some people focus on the self, some others work on mastering a single path or craft, still others seek to learn as much about the world as possible.  The "holy text" is just a single story: an halfling tribesmen of antiquity looked up at the stars and said, "I wonder what they are?"  The Faceless Lady appeared in a vision and promised protection and occasional guidance so long as the halfling continued to seek answers.  Of course, the commentaries on the story, recordings of other visitations, and detailed analysis of the Faceless Lady's words and their implications can now fill an entire library.  The only explicit commandment the Faceless Lady has ever delivered is to pursue understanding.  It's generally held that the purpose of this pursuit is to lead to self-improvement, but there are several major schisms over the final goal of this process: either complete knowledge and understanding of all creation (the Full Way), an abolition of the need for conscious thought (the Empty Way), transcendence (the Starlit Way), or that there is no end to the process at all (the Neverending Way).  Then there are scores of theories on the paths to any of these goals, which do not necessarily line up with the differences between goals themselves.  The monks, for example, practice a regimen of physical self-discipline in pursuit of the Starlit or Empty Way, while wizards might be working towards any of the Ways but the Empty Way.  Clerics of the Faceless Lady (the sharadhin) might be working towards any of the Ways, but they believe that study of the Faceless Lady is a vital component of the task.  A long-accepted tenet is that one of the key tools of understanding the Faceless Lady is understanding how ordinary mortals relate to the Faceless Lady and her Commandment, and so sharadhin act as counsellors and arbiters in their community.  This is an unofficial role, arising from the respect people give them for their choice of path and their wisdom, and there are no professional sharadhin.

Until the fall of Maggydd, dwarven religion was building, maintaining, protecting, and governing their home, and clerics basically filled the role of municipal government (zoning, construction, planning, etc) -- or, more correctly, the dwarves who filled that role became clerics.  For clerics of Trymfyrd this is still true, but clerics of Maggydd are faced with the much more pressing challenge of reclaiming their home.  Dwarves aren't religious in the sense that most other races understand it.  They're just very passionate about their homes.

The Emperor Over Earth and the Celestial Court is just that -- another level of government over the Empire Under Heaven.  The hobgoblins don't seem to worship the Celestial Court, per se: they're just carrying out the Court's orders. There aren't many clerics of the Celestial Court, and it's just another bureaucratic post.  This isn't really an issue for anyone in the Free Kingdoms.

Is this the sort of information you were looking for?  If you have questions, just let me know and I'll flesh things out more.

Also, hesitation, but if you're encouraging suggestions, I'll suggest the Skill Trick section of Complete Scoundrel (for sending on request) but mainly because I've never used skill tricks in any game and they interest me as a way of varying things up. :P  I still think sticking straight core is probably the best move.

I'm willing to look at it, but if no one else has experience with them I'm hesitant to include them.  On the other hand, if it's a mechanic that improves non-combat skills, I'm for it.  (I really need to look at Burning Wheel.)

What kind of starting resources might we be  looking at?  Standard level 4 (5400 gp, pg 135 DMG for ease) or something else?  and equally how do you tend to feel about treasure/level advancement?

Standard level 4 is good, I think.  I don't have strong opinions about treasure/level advancement at the moment, other than "it should suit the story being told."  If you guys end up being too strong, I'll bump the difficulty of the game up.  If you're not strong enough for the story we're running, then I'll bump you up.  Again, I don't have any experience with 3.5 directly, so you're going to have to bear with me while I feel this out.

What's kobold stats? :P  I'm either thinking of halfling, kobold, or human roguey. :P  Probably an arabic halfling with a smart mouth and a deep pain for a lost homeland.  Or something. 

I think I was just going to go with the basic MM kobold, but I'll look it over this evening. 

We're settingwise career mercenaries?  Also any regional things we should try and story in (e.g. is there a place we're kind of around or are we a roaming mercenary band from the getgo)

I'm flexible here.  For my starting plan, all I need is that all the PCs be in Brindisi and members of the same Free Company.  Ideally, at least one of you would have been in the Free Company for some time, while others can (if they want) be more recent hires.  If you all want to be recent hires, then I can create NPCs for the head of the Company and possibly some veterans, but I imagine we'd all be happier if I can avoid this.

Your stats look fine to me, by the way.

I'm interested, but it depends on what you're expecting out of posting rate.

Dungeon crawl rates.  1-2 per day, more in the (unlikely) chance we're all around at the same time and interested in a posting rush.

At this point, I've got expressions of interest from Drac, Ana, Eb, Merc, and Brian, which is pretty much all I'm willing to take on for players.  If anyone else is interested, feel free to post in case someone else drops out, but waiting list only now.

[Ebiris]

I'm thinking of playing a Kobold Dread Necromancer (I know the class is non-core, but this is probably my last chance at playing a 3rd ed character before 4th ed comes out, and I like the look of the class). I mention it briefly in the 'Soulriders Wizard' post in the Roleplaying Codex, and I can hook you up with the book it comes from (it's easily found on rapidsearch, anyway).

The impression I get from the setting is that certain classes demand certain races, and since this is a sorcerer-a-like I'm not sure if it'd be allowed for anything except a Goblin, so I thought I'd throw this out at the outset.

[Bjorn]

I'm thinking of playing a Kobold Dread Necromancer (I know the class is non-core, but this is probably my last chance at playing a 3rd ed character before 4th ed comes out, and I like the look of the class). I mention it briefly in the 'Soulriders Wizard' post in the Roleplaying Codex, and I can hook you up with the book it comes from (it's easily found on rapidsearch, anyway).

The impression I get from the setting is that certain classes demand certain races, and since this is a sorcerer-a-like I'm not sure if it'd be allowed for anything except a Goblin, so I thought I'd throw this out at the outset.

I'll look at it.  Kobolds live near the Waste, which opens up the possibility of a trial-by-fire sorcerer developing.  No guarantees, but the concept is intriguing.

EDIT: The Dread Necromancer would make perfect sense for someone corrupted by exposure to the Waste.  You could easily go with, say, a kobold family who'd fled and found refuge in Fars Ia prior to the Wasting War, and didn't evacuate when Fars Ia was abandoned.  Having said that, I'm a little worry about imbalance.  Your description in Soulriders Wizard made it sound like a sorcerer with extra abilities and better hit dice, which seems a little unbalanced.  I'll read it over, but is there something obvious I'm missing?

[Ebiris]

The issue is that it gets more spells known, but from a very restricted list - it's a pure necromancer, that means you can't get any of the usual arcane staples like Fly, Teleport, or even Magic Missile.

I like it since it's super thematic, and the spells it does know are still sufficient to hold its own in most situations. I can link you with a rapidshare of the book when I get home from work in a few hours so you can look over it properly.

[Brian]

There may be one spot left.  I TAKES IT!

If I can.  o_O

As per tradition, of course.  :)

I'm curious to see this, though I'm not sure which character I would play just yet....

[Anastasia]

How so?  The Empire Under Heaven is only loosely Chinese.  Mostly I'm stealing the idea of a bureaucratic-with-examinations government and the idea of parallel earthly and celestial governments.  The trappings are likely to be much more Roman than otherwise.  Also, it's probably worth pointing out that both the hobgoblins and the Empire are Lawful Neutral in this setting.  The Empire isn't evil (though it does have a certain tendency towards inflexibility and systemic racism that some might find offensive), it simply has a divine mandate to bring law and government to the entire world.

Just to be clear, this setting is not intended to be political allegory of any sort.  It started off as a combination of "races always fill the same roles, boring" and "wouldn't there be more storytelling potential in a situation where the PCs are automatically underdogs?" and went from there.  I'm stealing real-world culture to save effort. ;)

Mmm, it's more of a personal thing. I've never been fond of China in antiquity. But this is a side comment that's turning into something bigger than I meant it, so I don't really want to pursue it.

The Church is very Catholic in feel, with a byzantine array of prayers, rituals, and so on and so forth.  One fundamental difference is that the Turinists never worship the Creator directly, but only ever the saints.  While the religion as a whole is named for St. Turin, he is just first among equals, rather than having any special divine status. He's actually not even one of the most frequently worshipped saints -- his order devotes their time to maintaining the lists of saints and determining the validity of new claims to sainthood. This means the Church has much more diversity than the Catholic Church, being more a collection of 2700 different religions with a shared history, culture, and fundamental principle, rather than a true single Church.  Politically, this is why the Church of St. Turin isn't a very powerful force in the Free Kingdoms.  In game terms, it gives the players leeway to make up their own saint with his own religion, rituals, etc.  The various orders can cover a lot of territory.  I don't have much detail on saints and their orders made up at this point, and have been just filling in the details as I need them.  I'd actually prefer it if you made up your own saint and order to suit yourself, but if you want me to sit down and make up example saints and orders I can put this on my "sooner rather than later" list.

I like that, and besides, the Catholics already worship sa-ack. Sorry, sorry. Bad joke. Anyway, I'll get to the point of this. I like it and I'll work something out with it easily enough. Does this freedom with saints include the ability to  make one with the domains I'd like to grab? Other than that, this was exactly what I was looking for, thanks.