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Just some thoughts about a hypothetical setting background for 3.5/PF

>Era 1: The Sorcerer-Kings
Before the art of prepared magic was discovered, the few who could cast spontaneously were a force above all others. They alone could bring magic to bear in a pitched battle, and they alone could function outside of a laboratory. While wizards had the advantage of greater flexibility, requiring fifteen minutes to cast a single spell left them as second-class magicians, relegated to support roles in the empires created by the Sorcerer-Kings.

>Era 2: The Scrollworks Era
The discovery of scroll-scribing brought about a fundamental change in magical dynamics. With the ability to carry spells at the ready, the more numerous wizards were able to overpower their sorcerous overlords, and cast them down. However, this was a lessening. The act of scribing a scroll required an individual to place a sliver of his life within the paper, and that life was consumed on use. Worse, scrolls could take days to prepare, meaning the new wizards had to be scrupulous with their magic, lest they find themselves powerless. Thus, the wonders of the sorcerous era slowly died, the wizards unwilling or unable to provide the daily maintenance and spellworks they required.
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>Era 3: The time of the Ink Mages
The revolution of the ink mages was attributed to a single wizard, who carved the text of a single scroll into her own flesh, in order to escape a barren and stony prison. Finding that the fragment of his life embedded in the spell returned to her, she came to develop a new form of magic - scrollworks painted onto her own body with ink and blood. Under her guidance, wizards grew more powerful, as they could cast freely and without fear. Despite this, the system was imperfect - to write the sigils required incredible dexterity, and anything more than the lightest of silks risked damaging the works, rendering them useless. Additionally, great swathes of potential canvas were rendered unusable, simply by the inability of the human body to reach them. While some wizards modified themselves, turning their bones elastic in the quest for more power, others looked for a better way.

In this era, Druids also came to power their spells with a similar method. However, many of them chose to instead place a fragment of their soul within an animal companion. By linking themselves thusly, they could cast spells written on their companion, allowing themselves the privilege of armor. Clerics, meanwhile, would imbue a fragment of themselves into a holy icon, allowing themselves to channel powers associated with their god through it. While their more general magics still required inkworks, the abilities most resonant with their deity could be performed nearly at will.
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>The Modern Era
The modern form of spellcasting developed not from Ink Magic, but from a review of pre-scrollworks magics. The ritual magic of that era, long considered inefficient, found an advantage in the discovery of incomplete casting - By casting a spell, but leaving its final stanza unspoken, wizards could leave it humming within their soul, needing but a short phrase to lash out and be completed. This method restricted wizards in how many spells they could prepare - a soul could only bear so much resonance before beginning to fray - but its advantages were sufficient to see widespread use.

To this day, prepared spellcasting dominates wizarding communities worldwide, with ink mages forming only a few, isolated communities, and the masters of scrollworks nearly extinct.
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Mechanically speaking, Ink Mages would be an alternate version of Wizards. Their spells would still base their save DCs off of intelligence, but their spells per day would depend on Dexterity, as the key factor to determining how many they could cast would be how many they could fit on their skin.

They'd get slightly more default spells per day (one more per spell level), but would need to make a reflex save every time they took damage, or lose one randomly chosen spell (as the glyphs and sigils became damaged and unusable) Furthermore, they'd double the arcane spell failure chance of all armor they wore.
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>>25381032
Honestly, when I started reading I expected a steaming pile of shit but this is actually pretty good. I love how it actually makes sense of the vancian magic system because I always hated that with a passion, but in this context it makes a fuckton more sense.

nice job op. Also, I am SO stealing this for my next game
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I love it.
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So, what exactly happens to a wizard if he tries to stick more spells in his soul than he has room for?
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>>25381509
I´d imagine that it basically spills over, making other spells moot - basically like if a wizards soul was a cup, spells would be water. If more water is poured into that cup than there is room for, water spills over - but unlike a balloon for instance, nothing goes boom.

Another way of describing it is that its basically just resonance so its a matter of how many echos the wizard can make out in a room that is his soul. Better wizards = sharper "hearing" = more spells. Too many echos = nothing really happens other than the fact that the wizard cant really hear them all and thus cant use them at all.
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>>25381509

Bad stuff...

Uh, off the top of my head, he has to make a difficult (I'm not sure how difficult, but legitimately hard to make) check or save. If he fails, he casts a random spell instead. If he succeeds a bit, he gets his spell, but it interacts with another, randomly chosen spell in a weird way, at the DMs discretion (you cast knock, but it gets some fireball mixed in. The door is open, but also melted). This use up both spells. And a really great success would allow you to do just what you wanted.

In any case, you'd take a point of temporary con or cha damage (I'm not sure which) for each spell over the normal limit.
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>>25381032
Hey OP, Ill put your idea on my public /tg/ dropbox on https://www.dropbox.com/sh/mnkrrl6q8ixonm2/Ni_z2UmcGo

Just a heads up. Also, awesome work
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>>25381613
I disagree. If the idea is that a spell resonates in the soul, having it humming in the soul means you can keep the focus instead of letting it slip away as another random set of words so having more spells memorized than you can cope with should make the remaining spells into "not-spells" and leave you more or less scot free.

Then again, it depends on how you read it because you could also read it as actual resonnance which means that with too much resonnance, you would basically shatter like glass - but then again, you would have to impose a bunch of new rules and also potentially give wizards a way to have even more spells if the disadvantages arent harsh enough while too harsh disadvantages would make it moot anyway.
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>>25381689

Yay! I'm a helper!
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>>25381032
This is eerily reminiscent of the magic system I use in my homebrew system. Substitute scrollworks and ink magic with songs and dance, and they overlap perfectly. Yours is a lot more worked out though, and I'll be certain to steal it for use somewhere in the near future.
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>>25381887

It just seemed like a natural extension to me. It actually started off as a "how could I make Wizards more MAD?" thought, which led to the idea of people using themselves as scrolls. From there, everything just fell into place - of course Sorcerers predate wizards! Wizards need institutions and spellbooks, while sorcerers just need themselves. But that means scrolls predate wizardry, since sorcerer's can make scrolls too. And if you were used to scrolls and had no paper, wouldn't you try writing on yourself once you got desperate enough?

I also like that it explains all the ancient ruins lying around, even though I didn't think of that at all when I was writing: Some parts of them stopped working when the sorcerer-kings were overthrown, so people moved out to places that didn't require constant magic to be livable. Some parts are still working and there's magical loot inside, though, since the wizards would have made stuff for the long-term, not the short-term.
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Seems pretty cool.

What about a splinter sect of scrollworkers that gets around the whole "uses a bit of your life" thing by using someone else's life?
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>>25382824

What if the players learned that trick, though? Could be kinda OP in an evil game.

Would there ever have been a wandworks era, or at least a group that invested heavily in wands instead of scrolls?
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>>25382970

Well, it wouldn't be as powerful, thanks to the limits on what spells go in wands, but it could certainly be a cool civilization. I'd imagine that the wand-makers and users would be kept seperate, with the users being whoever could get UMD up to a reasonable level. Could make for a fun, but weird set of enemies - teams of rogues with wands of silent image, or a battalion of warriors attended by adepts with wands of CLW. Plus, you'd get all kinds of social friction between the proto-wizards who produce the power, and the common folk who use it.
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>>25381147
I have to disagree, It makes more sense that Their extra spell slot would be tied to a single spell, The system of ink mages sounds much akin to tattooing the spell onto you
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>>25383781

The way I envisioned them in my head, they wrote the spell on them, and it burned away when they cast it, the same way writing on a scroll burns away when cast.

Tattoos would result in fixing that spell to their spell list, something that only the most fanatical mages would do - after all, flexibiilty is a wizard's bigges asset!
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>>25383953

Makes sense, but magic tattoos are cool, too.

Maybe permanently tattooing yourself fixes it in your spell list, but lets you cast it at +1 CL, or reduces the cost of metamagic or something?
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>>25382824
A wizard carrying around armies of slaves who are, essentially, suicide bombers...
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>>25385421

So, your standard adventuring party?
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>>25385953

Shh, don't say that! They haven't caught on yet!
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So... What's the point of this, anyways? Are you running a game set in a previous era or something?
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>>25389738

Well, I hadn't until after I wrote it up. Now that I have, though, I think a game set in the era of the Sorcerer-Kings could be cool, if the players were down. Elite fighters with just a few dirty tricks, going up against immortal god-kings and their hordes of demon-slaves.

You'd have to limit or modify the classes, of course, since prepared casters would be right out. Still, I like the idea of a team fighting their way through a city of mud and marble, where running water is considered a gift from the gods, to strike down a tyrant with bronze blades and iron will.
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In a world of wonder, knights in shining armor fight dragons, seeking to rescue captive princesses. Elves and dwarves march against each other, steel gleaming in their hands. Cabals of wizards meet in twisted towers, risking their lives to plumb the depths of reality. And holy men cry out the true name of their god, and watch as fire rains down from the heavens.

This is not that world. It is before it. There are no princesses or knights here. The children of the Sorcerers who rule the lands are tyrants, great or petty, and seize their mates as they see fit. The wanderers in the waste are sun-scarred survivors, struggling against monsters for one more day of food, water or life. And the dragons are ancient things that dwell in the mountains. They dare not brave the towers of the sorcerous cities, but all beyond is theirs for the taking.

There are no marching armies of elves or dwarves, meeting each other in honorable combat. The elves are fearful and hateful, lurking in the depths of the forest. They have named it anathema to forge metal, and exile those who would so much as take sword in hand. The dwarven theocracy lurks beneath the mountains, and has sealed its gates against all who would enter. To both, the sight out a human is unknown to all but the outcastes – and they in turn are feared as beasts or monsters, strange outcastes made in mockery of mankind.
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>>25391096

The first wizard has yet to take staff in hand and cast fire down from the mountaintops. Magic – true magic, conjured with but a word and a will – is the sole property of the Sorcerer Kings, and they guard it jealously. In dusty rooms and temple halls alike, those who must learn their magic work slowly and laboriously, spending minutes or hours tracing glyphs and sigils in powdered stone before working the forces of creation. They do this all in service to their masters, for even the cruelest of kings recognizes the use in his inferiors.

This is the time before the legends. An age of bronze and tears, where might is the law of the land and tyrants rule by fear. It is the age before the ruins, for the monuments of the ancient kings - “Look upon my works, ye mighty, and despair!” yet stand gleaming under a harsh and untempered sun. A man might kill another for a pound of salt, and a city might march to war for a single oasis. It is an age that cries out for heroes.

Will you answer the cry?
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>>25391115

The World

Oh, that mankind has not again seen the glory of the nations lost to sand, snow, and the passing of the hourglass!

I tell you of Iberia, to the north – the land of the divine marriage! An emerald, gleaming green in the tundra of the north, its warm fields providing shelter to its slaves, while the ice beyond brought death to its enemies! Iberia, ruled by the Divine Marriage! A king of men, chosen by bloodsport and riddles, and the queen of ghosts, immortal, eternal, warming the people within her iron fist! Iberia, where the sun set not in the summer, and the long night was lit only by the will of the queen, ghost-fires blazing atop her pale monolith! Iberia, that was lost in ages past, its queen toppled, the kings drawn and quartered, and the people who dared to rebel swallowed by the snows.
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>>25391151

I tell you of Ipotzli, to the west! The kingdom of the Feathered Prince, the half-human whose palace was carved into a now-lost moon, floating over the city, providing proof of his divine immanence, and a warning to the traitors who would see him cast down! Ipotzli, where the children marched gleefully up the pyramids to tear out their own hearts, offering them to the calender-engines that turned the very stars in the sky! Ipotzli, that is no more than a crater, lost in the trackless jungle. The stars have been freed from the tyranny of the calender, and the moon has taken its vengeance on those who sought to hold it in check.
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>>25391170

I tell you of Natal, the first kingdom, that dwelled in the south! Of how their shamans turned on the very beasts of the field and ate their strength! Of the oldest city, its walls of spiked wood, its palaces of mud and straw painted with colour stolen from the sky and the sea, and its slave-pens overflowing with men made like beasts, and beasts made like men! How the eldest of the shamans seduced a queen of the gods, and stole the secret of eternal life from her pendulous breasts. Of Natal, ruined by its own pity, when a single shaman felt compassion for the beasts whose strength he had stolen, and returned them their power. Nothing remains of Natal but trampled mud, where beasts still come to crush the graves of those who enslaved them.
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I tell you of the sister cities on the Jomon Islands in the furthest east, each hating and needing the other. The cities ruled by two sisters, each mother and bride to the other, each of whom sought to define herself as her twin's opposite. The cities of Jomon, one for the land and one for the sea, one for light and one for darkness, one for the mirthful and one for the somber! Eternally at war, eternally at peace, each pulling themselves to greatness over the body of the other! The cities of Jomon, their people slain to the last child, when the hatred of the queens outweighed their love, and as one, they drove their spears into the other's chest.
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>>25391274

And I tell you of the kingdom here, at the centre of the world! Ruled over by the grand alchemist Jabir Ibn Hayyan, who replaced his own eyes with glass and his tongue with lead, that he might see treachery in the hearts of men and put them to death with words alone! Jabir Ibn Hayyan, who bound the demons of the sea in iron flasks, and forced them to water the gardens that grew lush above the sands! Jabir Ibn Hayyan, who carved his face into fallen stars and placed them at the edge of his land, that all who entered would know the visage of he who ruled them! Jabir Ibn Hayyan, murdered in his sleep by the treachery of his servants, who as one changed their hearts in an instant, and slit his throat before he could wake. The city he built is long-lost, its name scoured from the books of history, its temples to its glorious king filled with sand and the bones of those who prayed in vain for the return of their Lord.

Behold and mourn the world that was lost.
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>>25391306

Classes available in the setting:

Alchemist: The alchemist class is available in setting, although they are discouraged from taking the more obviously magical formulae (i.e. Beast Form) in favor of more subtle potions, such as Analyze Dweomer or Spell Resistance

Barbarian: Unchanged

Bard: Given that magic is the domain of the sorcerer kings, Bards may not be the best fit. However, they can be entirely appropriate, so long as they restrict themselves to more subtle spells, or acts that could be passed off as merely superhuman applications of human skill. Spells such as Charm Person or Cat's Grace are entirely acceptable, but hypnotic pattern would be right out.

Cavalier: The cavalier can exist in this setting, although they are more likely to be hit-and-run raiders than knights in shining armor.

Fighter: Unchanged

Inquisitor: Holy warriors such as the Inquisitor are perfectly fitting for the setting. However, they should take care to select more subtle spells.

Monk: Unchanged

Oracle: Oracles, like sorcerers, are more fitting as city rulers and antagonists than adventurers. However, so long as the DM is aware of the effects an oracle may have on a world without other casters, they may be allowed.

Paladin: Rather than knowing her entire spell list, a paladin gains one spell of a level they can cast at each level after acquiring spellcasting. She can cast any spell she knows spontaneously.

Ranger: Same as Paladin

Rogue: Unchanged

Sorcerer: Sorcerers exist in setting, but are generally mighty nation-rulers, not humble adventurers. Nonetheless, they can fit into a party, although they will tend to warp the narrative around themselves. The reigning sorcerer-kings do not appreciate competition.
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>>25391727

Equipment:

Weaponry available to players is far more likely to be made of bronze, rather than the typical iron or steel. The rules for bronze are available on page 53 of Ultimate Equipment. Iron and steel weapons are extraordinarily rare – they should be treated as masterwork by default. Magical weapons, when they exist, are often made from the body parts of magical beasts, using the natural properties of the victim to facilitate enchanting.

Armour is similarly unlikely to be made of steel, making heavy armours such as Full Plate unattainable barring magic. Furthermore, thanks to a lack of regular armies – fighting is generally done either by small groups of brutes chosen by the sorcerer-kings, or by masses of untrained peasants – seeing individuals travelling in armour is highly unusual, and will inevitable attract attention.

Mounts are available as usual, but the stirrup has yet to be invented. As such, rather than mounting warriors, city-states tend to field war chariots in combat. Some nations also field mounted infantry – small groups of individuals who ride to battle, but dismount for combat. Finally, in many nations, animals other than the horse are the standard mount. The people of Ipotzli ride Terror Birds on their slave raids, while the shamans of Natal have will-broken lions as their mounts of choice.
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>>25391919

Oh, c'mon, no opinions whatsoever on hypothetical bronze-age setting?
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>>25391989
It is preddy shit

2/10, see me after class
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>>25392050

M'kay teacher

How fix?
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Sounds like Dark Sun with less Dark Sun.
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>>25391989
Is magic going to remain a mysterious unknown or be defined as coming from the shattered corpse of a dead god or something?
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>>25392079
It just a bunch of retard farmers using bronze weapons.

boring as fuck
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>>25392088
Yeah, I wanted to go pre-civilization rather than post-apocalyptic.

>>25392098
Mysterious unknown. I'm of the opinion that ultimately, magic should be taking advantage of unknown natural laws, but no one in setting has any real way of finding that out.

>>25392104
So it's an issue of presentation, then? I mean, it's supposed to be the genre of Moses leading the hebrews out of Egypt, or Conan striking down the old king and ruling in his stead.
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>>25391989
ooh after the first age there should be some sort of cataclysm from all the super sorcerers eating it.

Something that tears up the world so it isn't so deserty anymore, and forces the other races out of their holes to deal with the humans more.
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>>25392233
All the other races could feel resentment or fear towards the humans for sundering the world.
Go all true fae minus the high magic with the elves maybe. Alien mannerisms with a morality scale on the other side of the moon from a human one.
As for dwarves I got nothing.
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>>25391989


I like it, and I like your presentation style. 7.63/10
>>25392153
Replace Moses and Egypt with Joshua conquering Canaan and you'll have sold me on it.
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>>25392233


Releasing all those water elementals Jabir has caged up sure could help.
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>>25392233
There certainly was a cataclysm - you'll notice that each of the kingdoms had its own cataclysm, ranging from "swallowed by sandstorms" to "got the fucking moon dropped on it". All the sorcerers had their own special "check out my magic" shit going on, and when they couldn't maintain it, things got bad.

I didn't actually intend for the world to be super deserty, just for the sorcerer kings to live in relatively inhospitable places, since those that lived in nice places had a hard time opressing the peasants enough to prevent rebellion. It could be said, though, that the lost moon hitting the planet changed its axis, altering climates worldwide.

>>25392302
Yeah, I wasn't sure what to do with other races, since there's a broad variety of human civilizations. The elves are intended to be alien, because my players tend to be kinda thick, so they're unlikely to notice that the elves only hate the ones who wear metal - they'd asume "eh, its just weird-elf hate - who gets them, anyways?" I had no idea what to do with dwarves at all (I only included them since this is the prehistory of a Generic Modern Fantasy setting), so I made them a repressive theocracy holed up in the mountains. Maybe imply that they hold the secret of iron, and are caught up in a long-term civil-war between two factions, one of which favors isolation and the other wants conquest?

>>25392302
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>>25391989
The basic ideas for the civilizations are cool. The system is paizo's babby first homebrew so it doesn't work. Same with the thread's concept.
I think it would work best with the idea tg had some days ago to use existing hominids rather than the usual fantasy races, and a more versatile system.
Actually i'd love to play ars magica with this setting and play a sorcerer king and his retinue per player in a political game of cutting troaths, arrangino marriages and fighting large scale battles against each other.
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>>25392425

Believe it or not, I actually have quite a few non-d20 homebrews in progress. The issue is that my gaming club tends to be about 75% d20, with the rest being the Warhammer RPGs, Call of Cthulhu, and the occasional rules-lite one-shot

Believe me, I'd prefer something else - I hate how combat for Fighters in PF is generally either "I full attack!" or "I have one trick, and I'm mostly useless if my enemy's immune." But if that's the system my players want, it's the system I'll use.
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>>25392384

The Dwarves could have a Prometheus figure - a dwarven outcast that taught humans the secret of metalworking, and was punished for it. Actually, basing them on something like the Minoans could work. Have their main empire capital destroyed by a cataclysm even before the sorcerer-kings rose to power, as a kind of atlantis myth before the human "atlantises"? A warning of tidings to come? Also explains their xenophobia.
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>>25392425

wasn't there a bronze age supplement for d20? I'm sure I've seen it discussed on /tg/.
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>>25392501
What about the hominids then?
Roving bands of half neanderthals on horseback getting out of the desert and raiding civilization.
Denisovian slaves breeding pits.
Floriensis Cannibals in the lush eastern isles.
Boskop and half boskop secret societyes.
Giganteus Ogres.
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>>25392531
Testament i believe.
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>>25392384
>>25392520
how about lying conniving Dwarves, can only trust them as far as you can throw them.
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>>25392520
Do this with boskop's.
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>>25392575

Is it any good?
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>>25392569

I don't see why the elves, dwarves etc couldn't just be the in-setting names for denisovians, neanderthals etc. Just have the GM describe them as such.
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>>25392620
Heh it tried to recreate the old testament so it had variant rules for egyptian wizards, rabbis, mesopotanian astrologes and sacred whores of ishtar. It was cool for what it wanted to do but i don't know how well it would work for what anon plans. The coolest part was the purity system to go with alignment: you had to do things to keep your piety points up, else divine curses/plagues of egypt.
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>>25392673

Which reminds me of another thing: what about gods and divine magic in OPs setting? Does it exist? How do the sorcerer-kings view clerics and paladins? Was there some kind of faction war between arcane and divine casters, or do they coexist?
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>>25392590
They only honor the written and signed contract, making daily Dwarven life quite a bureaucratic exercise.

This affinity naturally inclined the Dwarven race to to their own from of scroll magic (maybe more earth based or runic stuff like d&d standard Dwarven magics), once they gleaned the secret from the humans.

Not willing to put their own souls at risk they make extensive use of slivers of other peoples souls, secured through contracts as payment for dangerous or particularity valuable services. Thus is the soul the real currency in the Dwarven empire.
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>>25392636
Why calling them THAT tho if they have little of any in common with the fantasy races whose name they use?
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>>25392684
Imho the most thematic option is to drop the distinction and give the sorcerer kings domain and divine spells too being divine themselves.
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>>25392706

It does make sense for sorcerer-kings, especially the most powerful ones, to be worshipped as gods. Maybe the only gods you can worship in the setting are sorcerer-kings? Some would have "ascended" and left the realms of men, but many gods still walk the earth, making worship a more personal experience.
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>>25392683

I'd say that at the time, arcane and divine aren't really distinguished by the common folk. Since sorcerers and oracles, the main casters present, have such a limited number of spells known out of a huge potential spell list, even members of the same class could seem completely different to an observer.

Clerics aren't around yet (well, they are, but they're slow ritual casters like wizards, so they don't see use in combat). Paladins freak the sorcerer-kings right out, though, since their powers obviously comes from some common source seems to have a real hate-on for the whole "eternal sorcerer ruling the land with an iron fist" type (sorcerer-kings don't generally stay on the good side of the alignment pool, what with the whole mass-enslavement and tyranny thing).
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>>25392732

I wouldn't say that sorcerer-kings are the ONLY gods, but they're certainly the most obvious, and some of them have enough worshippers to acquire (or steal) a bit of real divine power. The Feathered Prince, lord of the calender-engines, has hundreds of blood sacrifices performed in his name per day - he would certainly have something deific going on.
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>>25392840
The coualts he's based on do have divine domains and sorcerer casting.
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>>25392824

Well, there can be different sorcerer-kings, with various approaches to ruling. I can see an Ishtar-like figure that rules through inspiring love and adoration. And a sorcerer-king "liberator" kind of guy who freed the people from a previous tyrannical sorcerer, trying not to become the evil he replaced. All kinds of sorcerer-kings could be written up, based on archetypal god figures or legendary heroes.
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>>25392706
I've Made a derp. I wanted to answer to >>25392683 instead i answered to >>25392684
Regarding dwarves i like it and still propose for them to be boskop Men.
Smarter and weaker than humans, more gnomes (that means smart originally) than dorf, they lack the versatility of innate magic but have mastered the ritual one. They make contracts with spirits and demons, they raise their obelisks to gather the earth's energies and make themselves long lived (desertifying Great swates of land in the process) and having been the first to invent written language they rule the runes of power.
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>>25393016
To represent the ritual caster-proto wizard/proto cleric
Take artificier, Remove Craft reserve and infusions, refluff item creation feats as appropriate.
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All from the Spellcasting history to the Bronze Age-esque beginnings are great!

I'm stealing them.
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This is how i sorcerer king
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>>25392824

This sets up for an Abrahamic vs idol-worshipper conflict, where nomadic tribes led by Paladins of some god fight the city-dwelling civilizations that worship sorcerer-kings.
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>>25381032
I didn't expect shit, was pleasantly surprised.
Very pleasantly surprised.
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Class is in session.
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This was archived, yes?
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>>25399345
almost everything on this board is (automatically) archived on archive foolz.
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>>25399345

And it's on suptg as well.
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>>25399556
That's what i wanted to hear!



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