Druid Calling

After being stricken with a strange sniffly illness, and lost in the wilderness for several days, I have returned to share with you the secrets of the ancient Druids!

Let us bravely venture forth into this uncharted territory, and I shall guide you path afterwards:

As you can see, the Druid offers many new options for your character, but I'll tame my wild excitement, and focus on a few aspects that I think are exceptionally nifty and keen.

Druid Domains

The four Druid Domains, which are easily expanded upon, are what makes a standard Fighter or Rogue into a Ranger, for all intents and purposes.

Domains grant the required Survival Skills, and perks, you expect real ranger folk to have, from the classic forest guardian, to the spelunking subterranean warden, and the swamp walker, or those who traverse the frigid mountaintops, we cover  the basics here to make a wide variety of druid characters.

Druid Familiars

What Druid doesn't have a loyal animal companion, such as an astute owl, a canny wolf, or a brutish but fiercely protective bear, or perhaps you want all of those... well, be our guest.

Familiars are the first instance where we leverage the Sylvan Beast stat blocks found at the end of the Druid Talents section, but they also serve the Shapeshift and Summoning spells (see below).

Harsh Terrain

This spell allows the Druid to alter the battlefield by controlling the environment, but this dweomer of fey magic only affects those the caster chooses. We loved the idea of the Druid calling upon the environment itself to hinder their foes, don't mess with mother nature!

Also, I learned the word word "dweomer" from an eldritch Gygaxian tome, just FYI.

Rampant Growth

When I think of Druids, I picture them making stuff grow dammit!

This spell fits the bill, allowing the Druid to increase a creature's Size, Hit Points, and Damage. This spell is especially effective in allowing the Druid to enlarge the wild beasts they summon, but it works just as effectively on friends, even Pecklyn (halflings).

Shapeshifting & Summoning

Shapeshifting and Summoning is the heart of the Druid, in our minds anyway.

Each of these talents allows the Druid to build up points, via spending Iron, which allows them to summon or shapeshift into a greater and wider variety of beasts, based on the points they accumulate.

The stat blocks for the beasts are kept fairly generic and simple, so as not to bog down the player with complex stat blocks, and we will likely add more variety after the full play test, but this gives you a good idea of how we want these particular Druid magics to work.

Dual Callings

We now have Three Callings to crossover, the Fighter, Warlock, and Druid.

As mentioned above, the Fighter Druid (Ranger) has a cornucopia of combinations you can make using these two callings, so here's a few rough examples:

Wilder Beast: Combine the Brawling and Berserker Fighter Talents, with the Druid's Feral Embrace, and maybe add a touch of Fey Healing, and you get your archetypal Canadian Berserker, so to speak :)

Wolf Pack: Your Fighter can be the leader of a small wolf pack, perhaps two or three wolves that they summon, or maybe they are familiars, waiting for your Fighter's Battle Cry!

Winged Scout: Here's an idea, why not turn into a Hawk, fly over the bandit camp, then once you've sussed out their formation, drop down and shapeshift back into a fully geared fighter... fun stuff!

Well, that's just a few Fighter Druid combos, but what about Druid Warlock (Grimwolf)?

We have a few treats for you here as well.

Vile Beasts: Why summon a normal bear, when a Druid Warlock can summon an Undead Bear, or a ghostly Owl, or perhaps a Demonic Wolf. After a slight rules tweak (that I'd meant to build in earlier), the Warlock can now add an Occult Creature Type to the beasts they summon, and shapeshift into.

Thrall Growth: If your Warlock likes summoning a Vile Thrall to horrify their foes, why not use a touch of the Druid's Rampant Growth for make them even bigger and more terrifying... yesssssss vile thrall!

We really liked the idea of a Druid Warlock being attuned to the "death & decay" portion of the life cycle, making them a darker, more aberrant, guardian of the wilderlands.

Those are just a few combinations that we came up with while writing play testing the rules, and we hope it sparks your imaginations as well, but what we'd really love to see the combination YOU come up with.

So, feel free to drop your ideas in the comment section below, or post them on my Twitter or Instagram, which you can find by searching Richard Whitters.

Go have some fun!

Richard

Callings, Kits, & Classes

One aspect of the game that I've mentioned several times are "Callings," and how they function differently than traditional Classes.

Callings, in fact, allow you to build Classes, so I thought I'd walk through that process before releasing the Druid Calling, so you can see the combinations and customization possible, using just two Callings.

Before I get started, I'll define a few terms:

• Calling: A collections of Talents organized around a theme (Cleric, Druid, Fighter, etc.)
• Kits: A collection of Talents from One or More Callings
• Class: A collection of Talents filling out Level 1 to 10 (30 Iron worth of Talents)
  

To clarify a bit further, up until 10th Level, characters advance in the following ways:

• Iron Points: Characters gain 3 Iron points per Level
• Hit Points: Characters gain 1 Hit Die (+CON) of Hit Points per Level
• Attributes: Characters gain +1 to One Attribute per Level 
• Save Target: Save target number reduces by 1 every Two Levels (see character sheet)
  

After 10th Level, characters continue to gain 3 Iron per Level, but stop gaining Hit Points, Attribute bonuses, and Save reductions. This keeps the game from buckling under the weight of stacking bonuses, hit point bloat, impossible to fail saves, etc.

Also, this baseline will be adjustable, so we'll be providing options for different modes of play, but we needed a baseline format to begin with.

OK, that's out of the way, so let's look at Callings, Kits, and Classes!

Fighter & Warlock Callings

First, I'll post these callings once again, so you can easily reference them as we do the walk through:

Fighter Kits

So, looking at the Fighter, here are some basic 1st Level Kits:

• BERSERKER:
• Berserk Rage (2 Iron)
• Weapon Proficiency (1 Iron)
  

• BRAWLER:
• Brawling (1 Iron)
• Pummeling (1 Iron) (Brawling Sub-talent)
  
• Weapon Proficiency (1 Iron)
  

• DELVER:
• Blind Fight x2 (2 Iron)
• Weapon Proficiency (1 Iron)
  

• HEAVY HITTER:
• Heavy Hitter (2 Iron)
• Weapon Proficiency (1 Iron)
  

• SCOURGE:
• Scourge (2 Iron)
• Weapon Proficiency (1 Iron)
  

• SHARPEYE:
• Sharpeye (2 Iron)
• Weapon Proficiency (1 Iron)
  

• SLAYER:
• Slayer, Undead (1 Iron)
• Soldier's Grit (1 Iron)
• Weapon Proficiency (1 Iron)
  

• WARLORD:
• Battle Cry (2 Iron)
• Weapon Proficiency (1 Iron)

These are some pretty basic builds, and all are required to take a Weapon Proficiency. 

As you can see, you can be a raging berserker, a rowdy brawler, be a subterranean delver who knows how to fight in the dark, a big intimidating heavy hitter, a scourge with flails and whips, master of the longbow, slayer of undead, or a warlord who leads the party into glorious battle.

Very simple so far, and there are still many options besides the samples, but it gives you an idea of how much personality and life you can bring to a character, even at first level.

That said, there's nothing too complicated at 1st Level, which helps newer players, and gives all players a bit of time to get used to the cadence of their character's talents, but what if you take another Calling next level? What other kinds of combinations can you make?

Grimjack Kits, Dual Calling (Fighter/Warlock)

We covered the Dual Callings and titles before, but here's a refresher anyway:

There are 15 Dual Callings in total, and combining the Fighter and Warlock Callings only gives us one combination, the Grimjack, but the Grimjack is not just One Combination, it combines a collection of Talents from both callings, granting many different combinations.

For example, let's build on top of the Fighter Kits I showed above:

• DEATH RAGER (Undead Berserker):
  
• Fighter Talents (Berserker):
• Berserk Rage (2 Iron)
• Weapon Proficiency (1 Iron)
• Warlock Talents:
• Embrace, Death (2 Iron)
• Warlock Occult, Undead (1 Iron)
  

•  BLOOD REAPER (Vampric Brawler):
  
• Fighter Talents (Brawler):
• Brawling (1 Iron)
• Pummeling (1 Iron)
• Weapon Proficiency (1 Iron)
• Warlock Talents:
• Exsanguinate x2 (2 Iron)
• Warlock Occult, Choose (1 Iron)
  

• SHADOW DELVER (Dark Cloaked Delver):
  
• Fighter Talents (Delver):
• Blind Fight x2 (2 Iron)
• Weapon Proficiency (1 Iron)
• Warlock Talents:
• Cloak of Umbra (2 Iron)
• Warlock Occult, Choose (1 Iron)
  

• HARBINGER (Heavy Hitting Abomination):
  
• Fighter Talents (Heavy Hitter):
• Heavy Hitter (2 Iron)
• Weapon Proficiency (1 Iron)
• Warlock Talents:
• Embrace, Eldritch (2 Iron)
• Warlock Occult, Eldritch (1 Iron)
  

• DEMON SCOURGE
• Fighter Talents (Scourge):
• Scourge (2 Iron)
• Weapon Proficiency (1 Iron)
• Warlock Talents:
• Embrace, Demonic (2 Iron)
• Warlock Occult, Demons (1 Iron)
  

• NIGHT HUNTER (Sharpeye Wytch)
  
• Fighter Talents (Sharpeye):
• Sharpeye (2 Iron)
• Weapon Proficiency (1 Iron)
• Warlock Talents:
• Wytchbolt (1Iron)
• Infestation (1Iron)
• Warlock Occult, Choose (1 Iron)
  

• DEAD SLAYER (Slayer of Undead)
  
• Fighter Talents (Slayer):
• Slayer, Undead (1 Iron)
• Soldier's Grit (1 Iron)
• Weapon Proficiency (1 Iron)
• Warlock Talents:
• Deadcant (1Iron)
• Wytchbolt (1Iron)
• Warlock Occult, Undead (1 Iron)
  

• DREADLORD (Battle Warlock)
• Fighter Talents (Warlord):
• Battle Cry (2 Iron)
• Weapon Proficiency (1 Iron)
• Warlock Talents:
• Harrow (1 Iron)
• Wraith Form (1 Iron)
• Warlock Occult, Choose (1 Iron)

Here's a brief overview of each:

• Death Rager: A berserker who becomes undead while enraged
• Blood Reaper: A brawler that leeches the blood bashed from enemies
• Shadow Delver: A subterranean explorer who can take shadowy form 
• Harbinger: A heavy weapon brute who can become a foul aberration
• Demon Scourge: A master of whip and flail who takes demonic form
• Night Hunter: A keen eyed archer who dabbles in dark wytchcraft
• Dead Slayer: A hunter of undead who also speaks with corpses
  
• Dreadlord: A harrowing warlord who dominates the battlefield
  

As you can see, there are a lot of wild combinations. I purposefully chose the Fighter and Warlock Callings because the Fighter is fairly straightforward, but the Warlock gives a supernatural twist.

Keep in mind that not all Dual Callings produce combinations this dark. A Fighter Cleric is a Paladin, a Fighter Druid is a Ranger, etc, but even within those options, there are dozens of fun combos.

I wanted to use the Fighter Warlock combination to highlight just how far character customization, and flavor, can be taken in Two Levels. We've found the combinations fun, and near unlimited.

Again, these are just a few examples of Grimjack (Fighter/Warlock) combinations, there are many more, and 14 other Dual Callings, as well as the option of a Third Calling.

There are more combinations than I can count, but let's go into one more layer of depth, and build our own full Class, from 1st to 10th Level.

Harbinger Class

Shown below is just a rough build I pulled together just now. I'm sure I could do some fine tuning, but it gives you an idea of the variety a character can accumulate over 10 Levels.

• HARBINGER CLASS
  
• Level 1: Fighter Talents
• Heavy Hitter (2 Iron)
• Weapon Proficiency (1 Iron)
• Level 2: Warlock Talents
• Embrace, Eldritch (2 Iron)
• Warlock Occult, Eldritch (1 Iron)
• Level 3: Fighter Talents
• Weapon Proficiency x2 (2 Iron)
• Blind Fighting (1 Iron)
  
• Level 4: Warlock Talents
• Embrace, Eldritch (2 Iron)
• Wraith Form (1 Iron) 
• Level 5: Fighter Talents
• Deathblow (3 Iron)
• Level 6: Warlock Talents
• Cloak of Umbra (2 Iron)
• Wytchbolt (1 Iron) 
• Level 7: Fighter Talents
• Deathblow (3 Iron)
• Level 8: Warlock Talents
• Afflicting Ichor (3Iron)
• Level 9: Fighter Talents
• Weapon Proficiency x2 (2 Iron)
• Blind Fighting (1 Iron)
• Level 10: Warlock Talents
• Miasma of Misery (3 Iron)

Though we do have variety, many Talents are meant to Stack, such as Weapon Proficiency, which you take multiple times to increase your proficiency with a specific weapon.

In the end, your 10th Level Harbinger has these Talents noted:

• Fighter Talents
• Heavy Hitter (2 Iron)
  
• Weapon Proficiency +5 (5 Iron)
• Blind Fighting x2 (2 Iron)
• Deathblow x2 (6 Iron)
  

• Warlock Talents
  
• Embrace, Eldritch x2 (4 Iron)
• Warlock Occult, Eldritch (1 Iron)
• Wraith Form (1 Iron)
  
• Cloak of Umbra (2 Iron)
• Wytchbolt (1 Iron)
• Afflicting Ichor (3 Iron)
  
• Miasma of Misery (3 Iron)

 So, at 10th Level we'll have 11 Talents to put to use, which I would call a mid-level of complexity, in terms of how many Talents a character can have.

You can go much simpler, and just keep stacking onto a few Talents, or you can broaden your set of Talents, to give a character more versatility.

That is up to you, your character progression is totally in your hands!

Dial In Complexity

Now, that is a lot of options, and a lot to take in, but YOU CHOOSE the complexity.

Despite all of the options above, it is also completely viable to player a very simple Fighter, all the way from 1st to 10th Level, with very few "widgets" to worry about, such as this:

• Classic Fighter Talents
  
• Weapon Proficiency +5 (5 Iron)
• Deathblow x4 (15 Iron)
• Snapback x3 (9 Iron)
• Soldier's Grit x1 (1 Iron)
  

That's it, 10 Levels (30 Iron) worth of Fighter Talents, which gives them:

• Mastery of One Weapon (+5 to Attack, or swap +5 for 2 Attacks per Round)
  
• Four Deathblows (Add 1d6 to a Successful Melee Attack, Four Times per Day)
• Three Snapbacks (Recover 1d6 Hit Points, Three Times per Day)
• One Soldier's Grit (Boon to One Saving Throw, when in dire circumstances!)
  

 As you can see, each player can define their own complexity, it's all in your hands.

Other Iron Spends

We've shown you two Callings worth of Talents so far, roughly 36 Talents, each with sub-talents to add more depth to each individual talent, but there are several other ways characters can gain Talents:

Artifacts: Some items have magical properties that can be unlocked by spending Iron points, such as a sword like Excalibur, which may have many different Divine Powers to unlock

Grimoires: Obviously books of spells contain, you guessed it, additional spells! You can spend Iron points to unlock these rare lost magic enchantments

Mentors: Sword masters, hermit mages, cunning master thieves, they all have unique tricks and spells to teach you, but they often require you to do a task, or ask payment in some other way

Wytchmarks: Magical tattoos which characters can acquire, granting them a variety of abilities and protections, if they invest Iron points to activate the enchantments

I'm sure there are other things we'll come up with as well, but those are the four we have planned for the play test so far, which should expand character customization even further.

Well, I like some of the Grimjack Kits, so I'm going to do some sketches of them now, which I'll add to this post later on tonight.

Until then, take care all... and throw me feedback down below, or on my Twitter or Instagram

Richard

 

 

 

Ruttigers Rules Primer

We've been releasing bits and bobs over the past few days, to give you a decent idea of how the system works, and why we think it's fun. I hope we've sparked some interest, and if so...

Well strap in, because I'm going to do a big ol' overview of the rules, to give you an even better idea of how things work, and it's gonna be a long one!

We'll start with the Character Sheet again, because I see it as our game's interface:

Good to see that lovable lunk Brog again huh?

If you are an astute follower of our blog, you'll notice our three Defenses have been replaced by one Save target number. We did this for a few reasons, which came out during our play tests.

The main reason was simplicity. We tried having a Defense act like a Armor Class, then you could roll under the Defense to Save, which sounded simple, but in play it was a bit confusing. So, we decided to do something that happens a LOT in game design, we went for the simpler and clearer option.

We also changed our two Action Types from, Action & Move, to Major & Minor. This was done just to help with writing the rules more clearly. It's awkward to state "use a Move Action, and then an... Action Action... I guess?"

So, with simplicity in mind again, we went with Major Action, and Minor Action, which we can shorten to Major and Minor in rules text.

Anyway, that was what we tweaked, but the vast majority of the system is exactly the same, so let's start from the top and walk through the core mechanics:

Actions per Turn

We tried a few different iterations of the "action economy," but so far this one works best:

Characters get One Major Action, and One Minor Action per turn:

• Major Action: One Attack roll, One Major Talent, or trade your Major for a Minor Action
• Minor Action: One Movement, One Minor Talent, or One Maneuver Attempt
  

I'll go into the ideas behind the Maneuvers in a later blog post, but for now, you can likely glean how they work by reading the Actions per Turn sidebar on the left hand side of the character sheet.

Boons & Banes

I wanted to cover these up front, because they are simple mechanics, but we use them is several places:

• Boon: Roll Two Die, Keep the Highest Result
• Bane: Roll Two Die, Keep the Lowest Result

This mechanic may be applied to attack rolls, damage rolls, casting rolls, skill checks, saving throws, they get used in many different places, since they are very simple and easy to apply.

Attributes

We're using the well know six Attributes, used by many systems, and here's a brief overview:

Now, our rules document is well underway, and this section lacks a bit of context that we cover earlier in that document, so I'll go over some of the basics:

Callings: Ruttigers has six Callings (Cleric, Druid, Fighter, Mage, Rogue, Warlock), and what makes them different from typical Classes, is that they are "buckets" of options you can choose from, allowing you to build and develop a character as they grow in experience. I'll cover Callings in more detail down below, but the big difference between a Calling and a Class is, you can Build your Own Classes using combinations of Talents from a Calling, or by mixing Talents from several Callings.

We're really excited to see what Classes people build using Callings, and cross Callings. We've played with stuff like, the Berserk Necromancer, which mixes Talents from the Fighter and Warlock Callings, but there are so many combos, we'll leave to your own creativity.

Attributes: The six attributes range between 3 and 18, with some adjustments on top from Ancestries, that we'll cover in another blog post very soon. The two big things to note here are:

• First, your Attribute Scores (3-18) serve as now Defenses of a sort, and some Spells are Cast versus an Attribute Score. Such as Wytchbolt (see the Warlock Calling below), which you utilizes an Occult Casting roll (D20+Occult Casting modifier) versus the target's Dexterity Attribute. So, keep in mind that Attribute Scores are also de-facto Defenses in some cases.
  

• Second, you get +1 to One Attribute for each Level a character gains, up to 10th Level. This seems like a big bonus at first, but you'll need it, some spells are nasty! Also, we like how a character can evolve over time using this method, so we want to give it a good play test.

Modifiers: Each Attribute gives you a base Modifier between -5 to +5, as seen of the charts above, that is applied to Skill Checks, and Saving Throws. I'll explain below, but we think it's pretty straightforward:

• Skill Checks: Roll a D20+Modifier versus a Difficulty defined by the Game Master. You can roll a Skill Check for just about anything from juggling (DEX), to bashing doors (STR), pretty easy
  

• Saving Throws: Roll a D20+Modifier versus your Save number, Saves start at 15, and decrease by 1 every Two Levels, as you can see on the character sheet above, on the tail end of Attributes

Attack & Casting Modifiers: Next in line for each attribute are the Attack & Casting Modifiers, which are also D20 rolls, and I'll give you some details below:

• Martial Attack: Roll D20+Martial Attack versus Armor Class, this applies to heavier weapon use, such as longswords, longbows, polearms, etc, so it is Strength based
  

• Rouge Attack: Roll D20+Rogue Attack versus Armor Class,  this applies to lighter weapon use, such as daggers, shortbows, shortspears, etc, so it is Dexterity based 
  

• Casting Rolls: Roll D20+Casting Modifier versus an Attribute, this applies to four Spell Casting types, Arcane (Mage), Divine (Cleric), Occult (Warlock), Sylvan (Druid)

As noted in the Attributes page above, some spells are Cast vs. Attribute, other require the Target to Save, and some just work, like magic, so to speak.

Now, not all characters will be spell casters, and most won't use all of the spell casting types, but there will be scrolls and items of various types that any character may attempt a spell casting roll to use.

You'll also notice that we say Attack & Casting, but we don't mention Damage Modifiers, that's because we have what we think is a fun mechanic called Overrun Damage to deal with that:

• Overrun Damage: If your D20 Attack Roll plus Modifier exceeds 20, add the excess to Damage
  

We've all made an attack roll, added a modifier, and came up with a result like 13, 17, or even 23. Well our Overrun Damage comes into play in the latter instance (23), since the Total Attack Roll Result is Over 20, you add the extra 3 Points to Damage. We tried this out in the play testing, and it was pretty fun.

Overrun Damage also cuts down on general damage output in the game, which means creatures can have less Hit Points, which is less math, less "bag of HP" creatures, and more fun we think.

Other Features: Each Attribute also has one other feature tagged on the end, let's take a look:

• Deadlift: Defines how much weight a character can lift while flat footed
  

• Hit Points: Defines a character's modifier to Hit Die rolls, used for Hit Points and Recovery
  

• Base AC: Defines a character's base Unarmored Armor Class
  

• View Range: Defines the Maximum Range (in Feet) for spells that require View, the first number is the max range with Clear View, the second is max range for Obscured View (darkness, fog, etc.)
  

• Lore & Languages: Defines the number of Lore and Languages a character knows, which we have a nice selection of (knowing a Lore gives you a Boon to Lore Check rolls related to that Lore)
  

• Contact Roll: When characters enter new village, town, or city, they all make aD20 Contact Roll, and apply this modifier, to determine if they have any Friends or Foes in the settlement. We added this in to bring some random NPCs into the story, it can be used at the Game Master's discretion.

Well, that covers Attributes, at a high level at least, so let's look at the Fighter & Warlock Callings next.

Fighter & Warlock Callings

Many of you have probably seen the original Fighter and Warlock Callings that I posted over the past few days, and they are pretty much the same, besides a few minor tweaks. We'll take another look, then I'll give you a few footnotes down below:

 

 

So, these remain pretty much the same as they were, but I'll do a complete overview of how Callings work for characters below, so we can cover the fundamentals:

 

Callings: As mentioned before, Callings are collections of Talents, which includes abilities, feats, and spells, that a character can gain as the advance in Level. The six core Callings are:

• Cleric: Acolytes of a deity, defenders, rebukers, healers, and avatars of their god's wrath
  
• Druid: Users of Fey magics, shapeshifters, summoners, kindred to the flora and fauna
  
• Fighter: Old soldiers, mercenaries, tough warriors, and heavy weapon combat veterans
  
• Mage: Arcane scholars with a wide variety of spells, versatile and intelligent wizards
  
• Rogue: Grifters, thieves, assassins, spies, who typically prefer more deft light weapons
  
• Warlock: Students of occult magics, demonology, necromancy, spirits, and the eldritch

There are also titles you gain for each if the 15 Dual Callings:

 

Each Calling has a variety of Talents, and we'll likely add more Talents based on the play tests feedback, but characters can gain access to up to Three Callings spending their Iron Points.

Iron Points: Characters get 3 Iron points per Level, which they can spend to acquire new Talents, and each Talent costs either 1 Iron, 2 Iron, or 3 Iron, depending on potency. This allows you to build your character in any direction you like, as you play through a campaign.

Talents Overview: As mentioned above, Talents are the various abilities, feats, and spells you can acquire for your character, and each has a Sub-talent which you can spend additional Iron Points on, in order to gain more depth in that particular talent.

Talent Types: There are four talent types, which define the Action required to use the talent:

• Ability: Requires No Action to use, but some may require a Check or Save to attempt
• Minor: Requires One Minor Action to use or cast
• Major: Requires One Major action to use or cast
• Ritual: Requires One Full Turn to cast
  

One note on our Talents. Many systems grant a characters Exponential Power as they gain Levels, but Ruttigers grants Incremental Power. What I mean by this is, characters in our system build their Talents bit by bit, each Level, they invest in their talents and improve gradually, they don't double their power from level to level. There are many reasons we went with this design style, but we'd like to know what you think, when we get into the full play test.

 

So is that all the rules? Nope, but that's just the meat and potatoes of the core rules.

We also have Creatures with Special Traits (much like Talents), Random Encounter Generators to give game masters some inspiration, a few fun Maps and Locations, some fun Magic Items, and items we call Pandora Artifacts, that should add a lot of fun to your game, and we'll be releasing previews of these, and more, as we put the full play test document together...

... but what we are really interested in, and what YOU can do with the system.

 

We wanted this system to give players, and game masters, the ability to customize characters, create their own classes, like orders of knights, or secret guilds. We want to see what creatures you build, what items you come up with. It's a game yes, but it's meant to be a hobby game, so it needs YOU, as Gary Gygax once stated in one of his forewords.

So, we're inviting you in on the last leg of creating this play test document. You can read along as we reveal more fun stuff, find all of my typos if you like (I'd appreciate it), and you can start thinking of fun stuff you might make with this hobby tool set.

That's the fun part for us, and we hope you come along for the ride.

Until tomorrow Ruttigers!

Richard

 

 

Every setting needs a home base, whether it be a small village, or a bustling city, the characters want a place to call home, I think anyway.

Our home base is Rhoringhad, it's no a massive metropolis, but it is certainly big enough to hold lots of interesting characters, locations, and dangers. I'll try and give you a brief tour, but watch your step, some of the locals are crafty folk.

 

It is said that, the great stone walls of the city where already there when the first refugee humans settled here, and they simply built of top of the megalithic ruins. Many elven sages confirm this notion, but elven scholars have been known to "edit" the facts, shall we say.

We'll start at the top, and work down shall we?

North Gate: A massive gateway over forty feet tall, and fifteen feet wide, of weathered stone unimaginably old. Two sardonic gate guards interrogate you as you enter the city. It's best to ignore them, if you perturb them they may have you removed.

Old Syn: The oldest part of the city, as the name implies, and it's looming old stone structures cast deep shadows that, some say, host the shadowy souls of anyone that has been murdered here. As a point of fact, many have been murdered in this area, because it is the nest of the Syn Assassin's Guild, led by the looming Mother Syn (who some say is part ogre), and her merciless son Kaliman, who is said to wear a shadowy cloak that houses the souls of six dead assassins, who are still at his command.

Lord's Keep: The abode of the Dead Prince, the ruler of Rhorin. He is rarely seen, and they say he has a ghastly pale visage, some even surmise that he is an undead of imperial blood who has ruled for centuries, but he lets very few inside his court so it's impossible to say for sure. The prince generally rules the city via four Quartermasters, each of whom regulate a portion of the city:

• Lord Greydrake: A Noble Knight of the White Lion Order, who oversees the Lord's Quarter in the vicinity of the keep, and sees to the defenses of the city
  
• Lord Blacklogan: A disgraced knight who was given sway over the Theive's Quarter, which includes Old Syn and the Blister Town areas, he rules with an iron fist, which is perhaps why he was assigned this harsh domain to manage
  
• Cardinal Arioch: The Holy Pontiff of the city, who oversees the Temple Ward, and Graveyard, who is to all accounts, a fine and pious fellow... most agree... most
  
• Master Merchant Dreldus: A clever and crafty sifey Merchant who worked his way out of the slums of Blister Town, to the point where he now prodly posesses a 12 Wagon caravan, 6 Sailing Vessels, and several small shops about the Market Quater in the heart of the city

Each Quartermaster is generally connected to an order, guild, or religious orthodoxy, and laws are decided upon by sessions of councils, with the exception of Blacklogan, who is simply a petty despot (not to be biased, but he's hanged several friends of mine from the city bell tower).

The Market Quarter: The heart of commerce in the city, broken into three main areas:

• High Market & North Docks: This is the main market area, full of blacksmiths, cobblers, tailors, folk selling wares from awning covered wagons, a bustling din of commerce. The North Docks is the source of most legitimate trade in the city.
  
• Low Market & South Docks: This is where livestock is bought and sold, a good place to buy a horse, cow, or sow, but it's also a place of contraband, with the South Dock often being referred to as "Smuggler's Dock," just about anything can be bought and sold here.
  
• Wytch Market: A place to buy potions, scrolls, and magic baubles of all sorts, much of which comes from the "Smuggler's Dock," spirited into the city in secret. Also take heed, there are many charlatans here, that wish to pawn off ineffective, defective, or even cursed, magical items.
  

Blister Town: Also known as the "Thieves Quarter," is not only filled with rapscallions and dastards, but also an abundance of the poor folk of the city. Many of the so called "thieves" are seen as heroes by the local denizens, since they defy the cruel edicts of Lord Blacklogan. The two main subdivisions of Blister Town (some just call it Blister), are Hobnail, and Rickety Downs.

The largest Thieves Guild in Blister Town is the Scythe Guild, whose sly grinned leader, Sloakum of the Ten Fingers (as each digit is want to fidget), are as close as old Blister gets to "law," since the Scythe adamantly refuse to take orders from Lord Blacklogan (who they call the "gutter hound").

• Hobnail: The steep and winding streets of Hobnail are the natural territory of all thieves, thugs, and ne'er do wells. Hobnail is the perfect place to fence stolen goods, or purchase them. They say that Cole Ruttiger himself (the first "Ruttiger"), was born and raised here... a fairly rough and wild raising, if tales are to be beloved.
  
• Rickety Downs: This cobbled together collection of wooden shacks built on old stone foundations has been a flooded mire for as long as most remember. Wood plank ways wind up and down, hanging over the murky water, and small skiffs ferry folk back and forth as well. Venturing into Rickety Downs is always risky, since it is a place of outcasts and murderers.
  

Temple Ward: Home of the Great Temple, as one might expect, and proselytizers, doomsayers, seers and augurs of all stripes, most of which are con artists and grifters, by all accounts.The Brotherhood of the Temple's main task is to "quell the dead." At times, those who have passed on simply refuse to remain as such, in which case, The Brotherhood restores their rest (by peaceful means... if at all possible).

South Gate: Here you'll find quipping guards, who throw jibes at you as you leave the city, and above this huge gate is a Giant Stone Head, which some say is actually the Head of a demised Stone Giant, and other say it is not actually dead, as they have see it's eyes open during the quarter moon. Those are just tales from old Longwalkers, and drunken King's Wardens though, who would believe such a thing.

Would you?

Richard

This dark and dreary evening is the perfect time to introduce, the Warlock Calling!

If you took a look at the Fighter Calling, the Warlock Calling is laid out in the same manner, but these heretical spell casters use magic, not crude weapons (ok, they like weapons as well, but magic too!)

Here's the lowdown on the Warlock Calling:

Warlocks study heretical Occult Lore in order to unlock dark powers, they are necromancers, spiritualists, demonologists, and students of eldritch lore that induces madness is some.

They can summon unholy thralls, cloak themselves in roiling shadow, hex and harrow opponents, infest foes with tiny biting gnats, draw awful ichor from their own veins, and even embrace undeath, as well as other blasphemous acts.

Sounds fun huh?

Well, at this point, we suggest you take another look at the Fighter Calling, and start to imagine Talent combinations between the two callings. If you wanna be a Grimjack (Fighter/Warlock), that is.

That's just the tip of the iceberg, we have four more Callings to go, and there are some really neat crossover Talents between them all.

As I've said before, we're just getting started!

Also, if you find any typos, they are just a product of me just being so damned excited to show you stuff, like a kid with a shiny new toy. So, if you find any typos, or you find any of the text confusing, hit me up on Twitter and we can chat, and I'll give you a thank you shout out for catching typos!

Richard

 The Ruttigers Cosmology is something we brainstormed for one night.

Now, you must take into account that me, and my friends Matt & Clark, had discussed various ideas for this over perhaps 35 years previous to that, so yeah.

Anyway, I was fascinated with the idea of a huge crumbling tower, floating in some nether space, that was slowly being chewed away at by an Eldritch Beast (entropy).

This idea lined up well with a lot of existing cosmologies. Norse Myth has the Ragnarok, Greek Myth has chained Titans that would destroy the work if released, and Cthulhu Mythos fit here as well, of course.

So, I put down this rough very quickly, and we jammed on a few ideas:

Here's s super brief breakdown:

The various realms (floating chunks of reality) are connected by Gates, which were once physical gateways, but since the tower began to crumble, they are now more, ultra-dimensional. 

The Eldritch Beast, as mentioned up top, is Entropy. It wants to consume and destroy all, so that it can return to its slumbering eternity in peace. Damn those pesky "living" things and their rock and roll music!

The Celestial Realms are where the classic divine, angelic beings come from. We can mix just about any "goodness and light" type of pantheon in here. Our Cleric Calling (Class) is designed to be flexible, so players can choose any mythological pantheon, or create their won if they like.

The Ambrosian Fountainhead is where characters go to try and gain immortality. It might not be real, the Eldritch Beast may have eaten that first, who knows. You'll have to try to get there to find out.

 Fallen Ysgarde is, essentially, home of the Norse Pantheon in it death throes. The Eldritch Beast is consuming it, and Ragnarok is in full swing. Ummmm, I'm not sure if you want to visit there, (ok, now you really want to visit there huh?)

The Libram Arcanum is a living library, curated my a large looming ancient librarian, who watches as books and scrolls come into existence, as history happens. Sages say that All Knowledge is stored here. It's a great place to do some research, especially on the ancient lore, but the librarian dislikes interlopers.

The Mortal Realms are just that. They are the realms of human kind, and other mortal folk. It is actually the heart of reality, the most real, and it is sheltered from the Eldritch Beast by the other realms outside. The beast will eat those outer realms first!

The Seelie and Unseelie Courts are the Fey Realms.

The Seelie Court is ruled by Ulfgrym, the immortal King of the High Elves (Sidhe). It's lands look almost like tended gardens, with hedge-ways, white stone cobbles, ivory pillars, etc. It is beautiful, but the Sidhe are very wary of visitors.

The Unseelie Court is a wild overgrown dark forest. Its ruler is The Horned God, Gwyn ap Nudd, the Master of the Wild Hunt. The Unseelie Court fey and downright cunning and hostile. They despise all mortal kin, and will misguide, dupe, and murder them, if their master allows.

The Citadel of Death is a grey featureless tower, filled with moaning spirits that wander aimlessly, too stripped of their life spark to try to escape. It is ruled by Skekhag, the Goddess of Death, whose ever present flute playing minions always trails behind her. You probably shouldn't go here, unless you need to try and retrieve someone from here, which is not advised.

(They say Sliv Salun, the patron god of thieves and grifters, stole one of the keys to the Gates of Death, but that's probably just a myth, I'm probably not Sliv Salum in disguise, nor is that fellow over there, and if one of us was, how would you know?)

The Dihmholme (nod to John Eric Holmes), is the mythic underworld, filled with winding tunnels, dilapidated ancient structures, and many nasty denizens. The Wytchlin are pallid stringy haired deep elves, exiled here by the Sidhe High Elves untold centuries ago. There are treasures to be had had, but most who visit this realm never return.

The Labrynthian Depths is a confusing, ever twisting and contorting maze. This is where creatures of Nightmare, and insidious Shades, reside. If your character dreams of a terrible creature, it actually exists, and this is where it resides with the other nightmares. Periodically, a few are bound to escape, just FYI.

The Abyssal Wastes, is Hell. Some areas are frigid cold, others are blistering hot, and tormented souls can be found in abundance. Dis, his High Corpulence, (i.e. The Devil), ruled on high from his throne of iron. He is chained here, but he does send Demons to various realms, when he has schemes for them to fulfill.

And that, is a rough overview.

We are going to add more floating "islands," so you would be world builders can design your own realms and such, but we wanted to provide a framework to kick off your imaginations.

We'd love for players to explore it, and add to it!

We hope you enjoy it!

Richard, Matt, & Clark

I was planning on just posting a character sheet teaser, but some folks had other questions, so I figured I may as well post our Fighter Calling.

A Calling is similar to a Class, but it offers a palette of options we call Talents, which might be called Feats and Spells in other systems,instead of a specified "Class Option Path.".

Characters get 3 Points per Level (we call it 3 Iron points), that they can spend on Talents.

Each Talent costs 1, 2, or 3 Iron.

Here's what the Fighter Calling looks like:

 

As you can see, there are many Talents for a character to choose from, and you can build up in most of them, going deeper into a Talent, instead of needing to require brand new Talents.

This means a character build can pretty much be as complex, or simple, as you like.

If you want to play a straightforward  Melee Fighter, you might just take Deathblow, and Snapback, a bunch of times, to get more deadly, and tougher. Keeping things simple.

If you want more complexity, you can broaden the range of Fighter Talents you choose, or you can buy into One or Two more Callings. Triptych Callings is the limit, but there are Six Calling to choose from.

When you have a Dual Calling, you get a cool Title of course:

Your character can also spend Iron points outside of their Callings. They can spend Iron to Learn new tricks from Mentors, Learn New Spells from Old Grimoires, Unlock Magic in Items, etc.

Our goal in all of this was to make it easy to customize a character, even the level of simplicity, or complexity, is in your hands, and we wanted it to be simple.

Creature Traits are treated in the same manner, allowing Game Masters to easily customize creatures and NPCs as well.

That's the high level breakdown of Talents... ask me a ton of questions!

Richard