You have been defeated. Lying in the dirt, bleeding out, your feelings of hate for your enemies coalesce into a black puddle. Out of the darkness, a being arises. Clad in shadows flowing like silk, a great being with two curling horns and four burning eyes. It stretches out a clawed hand big enough to cover a man’s torso. A deep rumbling begins, felt within your bones rather than heard. DO YOU WISH TO MAKE A CONTRACT?
Settings
Background information for game settings
Wizards, Staffs, and Towers
Everyone knows that wizards uses staffs. It makes them more powerful, or so the story goes. The wide variety of staffs used probably seem to be pure fashion or just meaningless appearance to some, but those steeped in the forces of magic know well that the specific form a staff takes serves a greater function. Despite the jesting of bards, staves are not just the wizards overcompensating for something,
Everyone knows that wizards build towers. It makes them more powerful, or so the story goes. The strange design and location of these towers probably seem like madness to most, but those learned in the arcane arts know well that both of these factors are highly important. The towers are not just places for the anti-social magicians wishing to hide themelves (or the occasional kidnapped princess) away from people.
Few people think about the similarities of the wizard’s staff to their tower. Indeed, it is often the case that they seem to be of the same material, and share common features. It’s not because of the wizard’s need to match his things (that’s a Fashion Wizard, don’t confuse them), but because of the Law of Sympathy. It’s easier to link things together with magic if they are similar. And this linking together is the key to the mystery.
It’s quite simple really. Towers are gather up magical energy from the lands, through their design and placement over power veins in the earth. They then transmit the energy to the staff (or staves) that are linked to it. And then, the wizard(s) can throw that power around, however they want to. This is why stealing a wizard’s staff is a good strategy to defeat him (and also to make him really pissed). Though if you want a more permanent (though not the most permanent) solution to the wizard, you should really take care of the tower itself.
On another note: while it’s true that there are wizards living in their towers, this is of secondary importance, and more of something of a convenience. Why build another house when you’ve already got this pretty tower, filled to the brim with magical radiation? It makes it quick to recalibrate the staff to the tower if the connection is broken, which is sometimes useful after a hard week spent adventuring. Though, as noted, these towers have a tendency to be located in rather strange places…
Acolyte of the Secrets [Class]
Here’s the class that actually sparked the entire setting idea for Empire of Gold. It has changed a bit since then, but the premise is still the same. They are the core caster class, a replacement for the archetypical wizard in a dress. They are instead creepy wizards tainted by the magic they wield. That’s a stereotype too, but a bit more interesting than “I’m an artillery piece for 15 minutes each day”.
Empire of Gold – Basics + Dragons
Empire of Gold is the slightly extravagant temporary (or permanent, who knows) name for the fantasy setting I mentioned here. At the moment I think I’ll make a somewhat OSR-y system to follow along with it, and possibly templates for pure retroclones if one doesn’t want a new system. Today I think I’ll write some about how I want the system itself to shape up, as well as another country… With dragons!
A New RPG System… Again!
I don’t know if I’ve made this clear, but I create a ton of different systems and variants of systems for tabletop roleplaying games. Most of them stay at a conceptual stage, but many come to functional point (although not one that I could publish). And here’s another one. It’s based on an attempt at another fantasy world, and hopefully slightly less weighed down by stereotypes and such. Here’s just a short rundown on the basic premise so that I can post interesting things like classes, rules, and setting information.
Codex of Beasts – Classifications
Another short post. Tonight’s session 4 of Darkest Nights… Hopefully. I’ll do the recap later this week. Before that, however, here’s something about how one would classify demons. Although some demons can slip between the ranks of demons, this should be a decent base for describing the power of a demon.
Codex of Beasts – Demons II
Well, well. Today there will be two more demons for Darkest Nights. These are a little more powerful, or at least resourceful, than the last ones. But first…
What differentiates a demon from a ghost? Not much actually. They are composed of the same thing and behave in similar ways. The key thing, however, are that demons have given up their humanity (or in some cases had none to begin with). They are so to say beyond redemption. It’s not necessarily that they cannot feel, but they are incapable of positive emotions. They are bound for suffering until their soul is destroyed and taken by another.
