Weirdlet

Often, the mixes I make for my roleplaying characters form organically as I play them- forcing the process tends to end badly.  But for some of them, I hear a little bit and I want to hear more- even if I don't know what those songs will be yet.


( Let me tell you about my character... )


The only song I've got going right now is Snake Handlin' Man, off Seven is the Number by Dave Carter and Tracy Grammer.

Stayed up late watching a history program with Dad, about various truly ancient civilizations that show that there's been a lot of history going on for a lot longer than just 5,000 years, and how things just get wiped out, both by time and in sudden disasters.

As an example of the sort of things that could happen, they mentioned in passing the big meteor impact in the wilds of Russia in 1910.  Dad said it took about ten years for folks to actually get up there and check it out, because of how isolated it was- and there were trees that had been knocked down for miles around the impact site.  A huge impact that could devastate a place- but nobody noticed because it was so far away.

So what if that sort of thing went largely unnoticed by the rest of the world, until whatever had been driven away from the impact showed up?  Could be a tribe of people heretofore unknown, or something like the Others in the Song of Ice and Fire books- a long unknown danger returning.  Or a combo of both, and adventurers get sent out to investigate, and eventually find whatever's driving all this trouble towards their homes.  Maybe it's not a meteor strike, but something else went wrong- or the meteor was symptomatic of some other big-bad or unintended consequences, depending on the cosmology you'd go with.

Situation for game-setting, aside from Most Dangerous Game in a dragon's hidden valley-

( A girl in the local village has taken very strange... )

Must hammer this into an adventure for gamers.

So it's the middle of the night and I'm rewatching Gankutsuou on my recently reconnected dvd player, and the thought hits me- I really want to make a D&D campaign inspired by the Count of Monte Cristo.  I've loved the (admittedly few) adaptations, mentions of and sideflings to it I've seen, and it finally occurred to me how I could perhaps draw inspiration off of it without railroading players down a predetermined path.

The premise- all your characters are of noble or otherwise important families in a large and prosperous country.  Each family would have some secret it was hiding, perhaps a level of which the character would know, and a deeper level of which they might discover in the course of the game as various dangers begin to unfold, family missions begin to take on certain themes to protect interests or ignorance, etc. 

All these secrets, of course, lead back to the main big-bad, who's been manipulating things to get his vengeance from behind the scenes, and may or may not be publicly very friendly with the PCs.

While this goes on in the background, I want there to be plenty of swashbuckling, urban adventure going on in the forefront.  Nights at the opera with daring highwaymen and saving people who fall from balconies, receiving invitations from various important nobles as the young players navigate their way through high society of a fantasy kingdom.

So- I need a setting, most likely homebrew but with heavy borrowings from things because I'm equal parts rebellious and lazy; a big bad who's screwing with people from behind the scenes (and perhaps hiring the PCs at some point to go to the island of lost treasure, just because I figure our Island of Monte Cristo-equivalent is going to be a cool location that should be seen and used); and a bunch of people in high places who could have done him wrong.

Edit- hnn.  Perhaps I could use this to make use of that one campaign setting I kept thinking off back in the day, with the empire and the creepy fae and the orcs and such.  And the halflings who were some strange fusion of Japan and Ancient Greece, who might have slaves, including orcs, on barges, which is where that orcish equivalent of Ching Xi could come from, whose descendants are all urbane and cutthroat and interesting in owning large portions of the coast and hanging on to that turf and market.  Is a thought.

The thing about the WALL-E/HB II crossover idea is that I need to figure out what it is in that world that people would want to play.  Is it supposed to be leaders directing troop movements?  Is it characters as colonists on the ground making the initial discoveries and experiencing the initial rejections, characters as galactic citizens either exploring or being sent to find what went wrong?  Is it playing fey knights out to defend home and hearth against the humans who first overtook the world and then abandoned it, only to return once more just as things were starting to return to normal?

That's the kind of thing I need to think of before I can really develop the setting more.  D&D has adventuring parties.  Shadowrun has teams looking to steal corporate secrets.  Most settings have a default niche that the player characters tend to fall into, and I've yet to figure that out for here.  Space marines, colonists, magical fey tribes, elf-kings' armies?  Are they explorers or assassin teams?  What kind of missions or adventures are there to be had, aside from all-out war?

Just some more game thoughts.

After the big blowup, I started considering some of my own small dissatisfactions with the Crystalmarch game.  See- my character is a half-orc rogue with bard levels and a level in Shadowdancer- she dances her way through things.  If you've been reading my journal you know I've got a different view of orcs than a lot of people- they aren't automatically filthy disgusting vilely ugly half-beasts to me- I like to think you can be the rough-and-tumble boys of the setting, and not conform to human or elfin beauty standards, without being completely worthless.  Velke takes more after an archetype commonly found in humans, but she draws on both sides of her heritage.

Thing is, she's multiclassed and has a particular niche- we all have them in Crystalmarch, and given how many players and characters there are, it's hard to shine at more than one, particular thing that you can do and do well to the exclusion of all others.  Velke sneaks and sneak-attacks- she's impossible to see until you've got a length of steel through your vitals, most of the time.  But she also dances through life, over the rooftops and through ballrooms and in tavern corners.  Any real-life dancer will tell you it's not for the faint of heart, and any (non-purely-hack'n'slash) D&D player will tell you that a bard's music is something that, in its time and place, can be incredibly powerful.

Unfortunately, we're not often in situations where that part of my character can be displayed.  Those times we're in social situations, our psion, Serai (who's basically a delicate foreign-princess type who can squeeze your brain out your ears) always handles it.

Always.

She's also the major workhorse in battles, too- she damages things we can't, consistently does more damage, takes less, and is basically what's been letting us drive through our terrifyingly powerful enemies so easily.  It's the old standby of 'after 10th level, why play anything but wizard?' only in this case, she's also more versatile and well-fueled than our friendly necromancer Dante.

As for my Velke- well, she can hide, sneak-attack and pull off amazing feats of swashbuckling skill.  Against sneak-attackable opponents.  Or deal with traps and mechanisms.  Unfortunately, the social situation always veers toward the noblewoman with established credentials, and my attempts at inserting myself in that diplomatic/information gathering role never panned out.  That was a long time ago when I last tried it, and at fifteenth level, we're kind of set in our ways, I guess.  It just seemed to me that Velke has the potential to be an orcish Mata Hari, and we either never encounter or never get to play the situations that way.

I can see where the stumbling blocks came from- after all, she's a beautiful and talented halforc, but she's still a halforc, and kind of a gypsy/thief/pirate archetype as well.  I'd like to say we play it that Serai handles the highborn situations and Velke handles the lowdown tavern ones, but Serai can disguise herself at will.  She's acknowledged to be the one to handle all social situations that could occur, and since her player's usually the one that suggests scouting for information (another stumbling block is that I as a player don't always pick up on the idea of what to do right away- I'm very used to being led rather than charging forward on my own will, and that's not helpful) she always does it.  It's impossible to get away from her.

Wow.  I still think that Serai's cool and all, but I guess I'm a little more sick of her than I thought. 

We're all playing cool characters, but it's been a long time since anyone really got to play in the spotlight as more than just pitiful damage-dealers.  There's big important stuff going on in the world of the game that we need to take down, but really- I want some social down-time.  Social down-time where we've actually got a bit of RPing to do, not just "what are you doing these next six months?"  "Making scrolls."  "Making zombies."  "Captaining the ship."  "Practicing dancing.  Lemme know if there's something I could be doing that would make sense in-character as well as be in any way useful.  Since if I go off dancing for coins in taverns instead of just sticking with the group, I'm vulnerable to attacks by random encounters and I'll probably lose money."

Yeah.  I want to get a chance to play my halforc in Mata Hari mode, even if I'm a little clumsy at rping it.  It's what I meant as a part of her character, but I haven't had the chance to make that shine in a long time.

No, not really.  Although that does make me think of hobbit-controlled mecha, a la Brain of Pinky and the Brain and his giant robot-suit.

No, what I'm talking of is halflings in Alucia.  Humans are the baseline, the empire and moderately civilized kingdoms, although they do have a few barbarian remnants remaining.  Orcs are the barbarians who have been absorbed into civilization while still retaining their own homeland.  Elves have no culture of their own, but live off of what they picked up or made up centuries ago.  Dwarves are hardy, insular miners who mostly keep to themselves.

Halflings are the traders, the sailors.  Alucia is oddly landlocked, barring its large lakes and rivers- tribal orcs control the west coast, north is all mountains, the western land bridge has mostly sunk, the east coast is taken up by Svartlund's old, dark forest that forms an effective barrier to mankind.  The southern coast is either uninhabited swamp or controlled by the Running Tribes.  That leaves the Floating City, cradled within the high Cliffs of Baenin, which is where merchants from the Halfling Isles have established a city of ships, with an actual island *somewhere* in there.  Life, business and cultivation take place on the ships, from the tiny fishing vessels and rowboats that sleep one or two to the floating mansion-barges that circle the huge bay.  The Floating City is truly a place where all the cultures of Alucia blend together- halflings bring their trade goods, Alucians grain merchants full of desire for silks and spices, Akyosians with cactus juice and dragon parts, Daanlanders with cheese and tulips, Svartlunders with potatoes and timber,  Eirish and Rogahnish horses and hogs, elvish entertainers, dwarven mineral merchants, orcish laborers and mercenaries.  All come with full pockets- very few leave with them.  The halflings have a great many things for sale- plenty of which cannot be gotten anywhere else but through them.  Add in bribes, 'protection' from thieves, and rental of boat-space, and you've got a tidy little racket that any number of people would love to get in on.

Not sure whether to flavor them Venetian, Japanese or otherwise.  I do know that sometimes the more rowing-inclined orcs from round about the lower southwestern coast and the swampland will sometimes have a lucrative bit of piracy going on with the halfling shipments, but there isn't a great deal of repercussion from the Empire on this front.

Edit-  Ooh.  I think I can blend this a bit...  I've been flipping worriedly between Japanese, Venetian and that 4th Edition kinda-Cajun flavor, and I think I can blend it a bit.  The Halfling Isles are vaguely Japanese in artistic detail, very orderly and delicate, but more egalitarian in government- I'm getting images of something like shoji screens, but in stained glass.  I'm thinking kind of a Japanese/Ancient Greek fusion, with some of the general weirdness that comes from being a D&D world.  A strong sense of order and delicacy, with a large emphasis on hospitality- guests are treated very well.  Halflings tend to behave at home, but loosen up when they get out and about.  The more hobbity ones stay home and fish and plant, while the more adventurous take ships out and sail for the horizons and the mainlands- for there are more mainlands out there, beyond the reach of Alucia.  I'm sure some have invaded/settled that huge tract of swampland down at the southwest corner, but they have to fight/make peace with the orcs there, as well.

Yes, yes, this is hardly the place.  But it's my blogspace, therefore no one is going to read it but me, and I need *some*place to put these things that isn't going to get lost in the shuffle of multiple word documents.

I realized what I could really do to get that feel of 'weird ancestry' for sorcerers- bloodlines.  Not just bloodline or heritage feats, mind, which are honestly sorely lacking- but the Unearthed Arcana thingies.  I just found this neat little D&D wiki that lets people put up both regular Open Game License stuff and homebrew work- the homebrew's a little variable, but this is *useful*.

Would it be required for a sorcerer or other character to take a bloodline?  Hardly.  But it's an option and it's something that, in the background of Alucia, pops up a lot.  Not in every village, every generation, but it happens often enough that frequently, people will know the signs, if not always what to do about it- and not everyone gets in enough practice/living/PC levels to enhance their genetic inheritance to dramatic levels.

I think the people who live along the edge of the Northern mountains in Alucia tend to share a common plight, despite their being in different countries along the length of the border- dragons.  In my world, dragons are pretty dumb until and unless they reach a great age, at which point they are capable of breeding with each other.  Such great wyrms are legendary, verging on the mythical- nobody's been that far into the mountains and come back to tell tales.  But along the way to reaching that point, dragons may be beasts but they are highly magical beasts, and borrowing evidence from the mass of templates, bloodlines, and classes related to having their genes- dragons are also slutty.  They'll nail anything that moves, and possibly anything that doesn't.  The mountain-folk are where a lot of dragon-blooded sorcerers come from, and there will definitely be instances of having to deal with carnivorous, scaly sheep and fire-snorting bulls.  This is part of why Alucia had such a good base to start from when it first started organizing and sending out soldiers into the world- they drew strongly from the local peoples who were blase about having to defend their lands with pitchfork and scythe, and wrestle abnormally tough and magical animals into domesticity.  Farmers from the mountains are tough. 

Fey bloodlines belong more to Svartlunders, although anyone with elfin ancestry can pop up with traits that belong more to their mysterious progenitors- the elves that humans meet are outcasts from Underhill, cast out without names, powers or memories, not even true immortality.  But if the legends are to be believed- and the people who live in Svartlund believe in it religiously, because it's been what keeps them indoors at night and with horseshoes on doors- then genuine fae are frightfully powerful, even as they are rare and tricksy.  With the elves and half-elves having had several centuries to wander where they whist, these can pop up in random villagers.

Demonic or devilish bloodlines are rarer and more disturbing, and tend to come more from Akyos, which is slightly Egyptian, slightly fantasy-Arabian/1001 Nights, and all falling apart.  Once the height of civilization, the nobles have lost power over the last few centuries, and the thieves' gangs and guilds have taken over.  A long, long time ago, it used to be the norm to make pacts with demonic or devilish forces in order to gain power, as demons and devils are just as immediately potent and often more willing to talk face to face than some gods.  It's not necessarily a matter of good vs evil or Divine God against Unholy Devil- just different tribes of other-planar beings, each with their own shtick.  Fiendish blood used to be a sign of nobility, even royalty- but those bloodlines have faded, for the most part, and the old rituals to join a house to a particular fiendish lord are hard to come by and even harder to pull off.  But sometimes, just sometimes, someone can find a way to attract the attention of a being from the harsh, terrifying underworlds and otherplanes, and offer up something to make a bargain...

Celestial bloodlines are a little more rare, but not impossible.  For the most part, the only people purported to have a divine lineage (At least celestially divine- plenty of small kingdoms that have been absorbed into the empire used to say their kings and heroes were god-bred, though these might turn out to be exaggerations or association of local monsters or devils as minor deities) are the Emperors and their immediate family.  That does not preclude other unions of divines and mortals, but celestials are often not so hot to spread their influence into the mortal realm as other, more earthly or expansionist beings.

....

A friend of mine has run his own homebrew world for a few years now, loosely based but strongly founded in things like A Song of Ice and Fire, and in it, sorcerers are absolutely forbidden, it's a dissecting offense to be one.  Of course Erika (friend of mine, got me into D&D in the first place) and I had to play them- we made up a couple of brothers passing as wizards, and it was great fun. 

I wanted to keep some of that flavor of 'sorcery is weird, innate but called unnatural', without it being a complete forbidden thing.  Local villagers might get very creeped out, but the Empire of Alucia is founded on the principal of taking anything that works and making it work for them- there's a movement to collect potential sorcerers and teach them in an academy headed by a noted and highly-ranked sorceress herself, wherein there can be specialized and individual attention given to each student, as well as a greater knowledge of how to deal with manifestation safely.  That's another part of the flavor I wanted to include- sorcery is innate to the person casting magic, but not necessarily natural to their human-based anatomy.  Accommodating the changes required to do such things is a bit of a rough ride, and not necessarily without consequences.  Although there are no mechanical enforcements aside from player-policed min-maxing and the one ability in the sorcerer variant I'm thieving that lets you take ability damage for metamagic, sorcerers have a reputation as being a little crazy.  Some people put it down to the sickness of manifesting, especially with the old wives' tale that the worse the sickness, the more potential for power.

The official Search and offer of scholarship has been going on for many years, but it's still a relatively new thing in the sense of tradition- sometimes people are unwilling to send their children off to a school that isn't as structured as an arcane academy or university, such as those that produce wizards.  Then there are those who are unhappy with the reputation of the schoolmistress, the Lady Atia of Green Mountain, who is a notorious woman and subject to many rumors.

'Allo, all.  I figure I'll use this space to set up the start of a guide for the campaign setting I've been making up half-bakedly for the last few years.  Somewhat of a collection of different things that either bugged me or just seemed like good ideas at the time, I'm hoping to one day be able to share this world with a group of players, once I've cut my teeth DMing and there's an actual slot open with my friends.

Hear you now, of the Empire of Alucia.  Alucia, light of the civilized world, brings together the far-flung reaches of a continent to serve, trade, debate, represent their peoples to the senate and to pay tribute to the Emperor, both political and religious.  His knights defend order, his messengers travel the kingdoms, his blessing is upon the land and its peoples.

But obviously nothing's perfect, or else you wouldn't be here, would you?
 

Players Guide

 
Maps-

( Early Version )
( Later Version )

Introduction

 

Well- I’ll have a better introduction at some point when I actually know who would be doing what and what direction we’d be going in.  Basically, you’re in a world where the last major organizations and kingdoms had a huge collapse during which humans were introduced to orcs and mortal elves, and during which anarchy reigned.  Out of the ashes comes the first Emperor, Lucien, who establishes the kingdom and then the Empire of Alucia, by legendary accounts a gift from the many divinities, intent on bringing some measure of order back to the world.

 

Six hundred years later, the continent on which our intrepid heroes find themselves is full of several different types of people, overlaid in many parts with the Empire’s gloss but still retaining plenty of dark fringes and hidden corners away from the law and the light.  Call it a mix of early to mid Rome, medieval times as if Rome had been in existence instead of just a title granted to German kings for pleasing the Pope, basic D&D fantasy and a little bit of old fairytales, creeping in on the edges of the night. 

 

Or at least, that’s what I’m going for.  One of the original things I’d been thinking of was the Five Hundred Kingdoms of Mercedes Lackey’s latest series, wherein there’s a land called the 500 Kingdoms, a ton of little patchwork lands flavored from Russia to France to Germany to China and Japan and Arabia and even classical Greece, that all have the Tradition strong at work, a force that pushes people down fairytale paths but which can be guided or redirected by clever Godmothers- that’s not so prevalent anymore, but it was where I started out at.  I figured another name for Alucia might be the Patchwork Empire or the 300 Kingdoms, but I figured it would be a good idea to have at least a couple large patches of land named and organized.  I’m also trying to both insert my ideas, make them workable, and not crib too much off of Rob, Terry, or Betsy.  Am also worried I’ve set out far too ambitiously, as seen by the large blank of Imperial territory on the second map.

  Stats

 Roll 4d6 and drop the lowest, best of three.  Re-roll ones.

 Starting Level:

 We’ll be starting at __ level. (To be decided)

 House Rules-

 Mostly standard 3.5 D&D rules, with some exceptions.

            • Use either Dex or Strength as your basic melee bonus, whichever best fits your ethos (this means pick one or the other at first level, and stick with it as your main thing.  Write it down on your sheet.  In ink.).

            • Show me and talk to me about things from other sources.  I’m flexible.  Be prepared to lend me the book to scavenge from.

            • There have been some alterations to race and classes- see below.

            • Same dying rules as for Crystalmarch- disabled at 0 to negative Con modifier, dead at negative Con score.

            • Drop alignment.  See me if this causes problems.

             (I am wondering if I should perhaps drop the alignment system for this- it’s more dependant on who’s being the most obnoxious or dangerous at the moment, rather than who’s truly eee-ville or shiningly holy-good.  Doesn’t prevent a hero from being heroic or an enemy from being opposed to their goals, but it does fit with my little view on how things work in this world.  There are people who do horrible things with good reason and people who do good things with bad reasons, and there are vast planes of beings who are vicious or nurturing, but neither of them deserve complete destruction or veneration.  I’m not looking to make a crapsack world like Fire&Ice or a totally nice place like Care-Bear Land, just allow things to exist as they do without overly arbitrary limits.  Good and Evil are most frequently defined as Good For You and Bad For You.  It is said that angels and devils are two sides of the same coin- you know where you stand with them.  Elves and the fairfolk are the edge- you can’t predict what will happen with them.  They’re scary.)

            (The more I think about this, the more appealing it is.)

 

Available Races:

 Human, orc, great-orc, elf, half-elf*, half-orc*, (dwarf, halfling?)

 (I’m also wondering about possibly dwarves and halflings- dwarves having just recently emerged from the mountains in the last fifty years or so, are not a vast part of the citizenry yet.  They’re mostly interested in staying in their mountains, trading for supplies and selling artifacts and minerals.  Some of them are interested in the mountains that are in orcish hands, and not all of them are willing to wait until the Emperor says it’s okay, especially in those places along the Akyosian borders.  There’s some bad blood there that’s going to get worse unless someone puts the kabash on it now, and even then, it’s likely to keep on.  Halflings are from the Halfling Isles, sending trade to the island city of ____, sheltered in the Cliffs of Baenin.  I’m not sure what their shtick is- the automatic assumption is to make them Japanese, but I’m not sure I could pull that off, and I think it’s been done.  Still- it’s worth considering.)

             Humans-

            One extra feat at first level, 4 extra skill points at first level and 1 extra at every level thereafter.  Humans are, at least nominally and for the most part really, the dominant race and culture in Alucia.  They occupy territory from the enlightened and refined heart of the empire nestled into the base of the northern mountains, to the moldering desert kingdom of Akyos, where the collapse of the noble bloodlines’ power has led to magical tutors and scholars fleeing for the better-funded universities of Alucia, leaving the rest at the mercy of the thieves’ gangs. 

To the Northeast is Svartlund, a cool region of rich farmland and dark woods, divided into many small baronies.  People from there have a reputation of being dour and sober, though with good reason- with the Black Woods encroaching from the east, the cold mountains full of dragons to the north, and the savage Running Tribes always looking to gnaw away the southern tip of their lands, they take a diligent and stubborn approach to bulling through the next task.

The Running Tribes themselves are fast-moving raiders over the extent of the coastal plains, so named for their famed (if inaccurate) disdain for riding, in favor of being as fleet of foot as horses themselves.  While it is noted that youths are encouraged to toughen themselves and avoid dependence upon their mounts, nevertheless, they are fearsome mounted combatants.  There have been efforts to include them in the empire, or at least get them to agree to stop raiding, but unfortunately, their leadership has proven too fractious and prone to switching (or being thrown over) as soon as the ink’s dry on the treaties.

Alucia itself is a bustling metropolis surrounded on three sides by fertile farmland, backed by high mountains, divided by a powerful river with a direct route to the jaunty trading grounds of the Floating City, the only connection with the Halfling Isles.  The many public works in the city and countryside help lead trade in and out, along well-built roads.  The continent’s great libraries and universities are there, as well as vast temples and markets that buzz with the collection of all that the world has to offer.  The council of representatives from different nations meets in the great Imperial palace grounds, there discussing matters of great import and hammering out law that is intended for the betterment of all.  Or so say the Alucians.

Rogahn and Eiran directly borders the Roaming Lands.  There is bad blood between them and the orcs, and they continue to needle each other across the border to this day, although there has been some cultural exchange (although, as usual, no one will budge on admitting who had the bagpipes first).

Tian-Og- a kingdom close to the warm marshes.  They still have the nature-worshippers that Rogahn pushed out in favor of the sun-god Luc.
            Daanlan- a very civil kingdom, very picturesque.  Farms, monasteries, good-natured jousts, and a lot of cheese.  Somewhat holier-than-thou to everyone, including the Imperials and the Akyosians.

 (I still need to make up lands for humans, some different places that can both be partially fit under the Empire’s hold, and still make trouble with those parts that are still outside their control.  That big stretch of things to the east, between Alucia Proper and Svartlund- that’s too empty, I need stuff to go there, aside from just that stretch of land that belongs to the Running Tribes.  For that matter, I still need to figure out the scale of the damn map and the world.  And find some better names for places and cultures.)

             Orcs-

+2 Strength, +2 Wisdom, -2 to Intelligence and Charisma, Darkvision 60 ft., Scent ability. 

“You humans fail to understand even the most basic things- respect between warriors, honor between hunter and prey, love for you goddess- all you know is survival!”  Translation from the Orcish, Kergash son-of-Irg.

Your average orc is a rough sort, and though craft and guile are valued, booklearning and manners (or what those soft flat-toothed sorts call manners) often fall by the wayside- but while they can lack tact, they are rarely fools.  Compact and tough, they are often considered coarse and ill-favored by human standards, even bestial- but say that to an orc-man’s face and he’ll either laugh at you or punch you, and you’d better hope his shield-sister didn’t hear you ‘cause she’ll do worse.

In the bounds of the Empire, you find a lot of orcs in the legions, where they have a long history of serving with honor and sheer bloody-mindedness, as well as populating the laboring classes.  While they are considered Imperial citizens, though, not all of the Empire’s component kingdoms have a large population or a great love of them.  This may have to do with some people remembering a time when orcs were the screaming invaders from the West, or the fact that a large swathe of land was granted them for their mercenary services when they turned to the fledgling empire for leadership when their own was destroyed. 

In the lands outside the empire’s borders, orcs default to wandering tribes, but there are camp-like settlements and even villages that can be found in both their granted lands and those countries where they are welcome.  There are cities that are primarily orcish in nature, usually built around large forts or keeps along the western borderlands, meant to keep both sides apart- but the Roaming Lands, as they are called, are mostly undeveloped in a deliberate attempt to hold to tradition.  

            Ethnicity among orcs is along clan lines, while society is along tribal lines.  Your clan is what kind of orc you are; your tribe is the band you live and travel with, and your family is your mother and siblings- fathers come and go.  One tribe is most often of one clan, but may have adopted or captured members of others (above a certain rank or number of battles survived, a warrior may take (or be taken) as war-mates from amongst captured fighters, keeping them captive for a certain number of years before allowing them to return to their original tribe).  Each tribe will have a priestess to the Allmother, and a shaman to the totemic god that the clan is named for, such as Boar or Snake or Raven.  Some groups are more aggressive and isolated than others, squabbling over territory and driving off or destroying competitors, but such reckless behavior carries the risk of being ganged up on by smaller tribes, as well as being vulnerable to forest beasts and monsters.   

City-dwellers intermingle more freely, while still tracing their lineage and taking pride in it.  Some of the stauncher traditionalists, however, have taken to calling ‘civilized’ orcs members of the “Dog”-clan, something changed from the wild to the purposes of men.  Some think the name accurate and take it as funny, and some take it as a deadly insult.

             I had a list of possible orc-clans one could be from, and was picking out bonus-feats for each, but I'm beginning to think I'm possibly overcomplicating things, especially things that should be the players' to decide.  I do know that the Extraordinary ability Ferocity, stolen from the description of the monster entry for boars, fits with the Boar clan and orcs in general, and given the vast amounts that dwarves get, I suppose it's not unfair to give most of the races a *small* boost.  Still- there are several different orc clans, including Boar (heavy, battle-crazy and with longish tusks), Snake (skinny, flexible, good archers), Wolf (general good hunters), Stag (fleet-footed), Horse (good runners)...  And then there's the Squirrel clan (goblin stats).  We don't talk about the Squirrel clan.  That last battle turned'em funny- now they live in the Bad-Woods, where the dark and aberrant nasties come from, and they're all nuttier than fruitcakes.

 

( Longer Blather )

           
            Great Orcs-  +2 Strength, +2 Constitution, -4 Intelligence, -2  Charisma.  Darkvision 60 ft., Scent ability.  (Basically, these are the Uruk-hai- taller than most humans, built like body-builders, tall skulls and more even features than craggy standard-orcish ones, more brownish tones than green.  They started out mage-bred, and while they are organic beings, they're a little more- orderly in their construction, and there's some speculation that there were humans in their genepool.)

Divided into the Bear, Bull and Jaguar clans, great-orcs are regarded as the really orthodox orcs.  They don’t like humans, and they mostly retreat into unspoiled areas to live in feral tribes, trading with other clans but not outsiders (as they regard humans and especially elves).  This doesn’t preclude them from wandering into civilization entirely, but does often set the tone for their encounters with others.  There have been unkind but not entirely unfounded comparisons of great-orcs with some of the larger apes- shy, living in family groups well away from the glare of civilization, speaking little and using unsophisticated tools- and prone to showing anyone who messes with them just how dangerous five hundred pounds of muscle and teeth are when provoked.

The Bear clan occupies mountainous, wooded areas above the snowline, preferring a colder clime than their smaller cousins.  The Bull clan, however, is generally found on the plains, chasing (usually) wild herds for food, and often killing their prey bare-handed to show strength and bravado- a contingent of Bull and Horse clan orcs have made their way to the land of the Running Tribes, and have established themselves as nomads there.  The Jaguar clan is rarer, hailing from the hotter forests in the lands they originally came from, but can still be found in small numbers near Akyos.

            (I was thinking, if I did that bonus-feat thing for the different clans, Bear would get Hibernation, the ability to recover lots of hitpoints by extended resting.  Actually, to account for their misbegotten origins as the Evil Overlord's improvements on his natural orcish soldiers, I was thinking both Hibernation and Ferocity would be useful, showing how they're made to be tough, unnaturally durable soldiers)           

            Elves-

            +2 Dexterity, -2 Constitution.  Immunity to sleep effects, +2 against enchantment spells or effects.  Low-light Vision, +2 to Listen, Search and Spot, Search check on being within 5 feet of a secret door.  Rare beings in the world of men and sunlight, elves have the grace to get themselves out of trouble, but are oddly frail for this rough world.  Their uncanny senses are said to mark them as slightly off, just a little bit away from the here and now. 

Which is absolutely true.

            Elves as mortals know them are exiles from Underhill, cast out with little memory of what they were, and much reduced in glory from their immortal brethren.  An elf either appears in a grove near where fae are known to dwell, barred from returning- or he is born to parents who arrived in this manner, growing up never knowing the legacy that many imagine might be his.  Some are even found as youngsters in the empty cradles of human children- changelings, traded or rejected for some unknown reason.  Such a being may yearn for the legendary Underhill and the immortality promised there, or may throw himself headlong into the several centuries he can expect of everyday hustle and bustle that makes up mortal living, wandering the roads or staying in the small enclaves of his fellows scattered throughout the kingdoms.  After centuries of appearing and with their long life-spans, even given their few numbers a small, but viable, population has built up.  Beautiful and not well-understood, even by themselves, there is a human fascination with elves that some are confused by and some take advantage of, becoming entertainers, scholars, even politicians. 

            Half-Elves-

            Immunity to sleep effects, +2 against enchantment spells or effects.  Low-Light Vision, +1 to Listen, Search and Spot.  These guys need something, for sure.  Especially given the boosts other races are getting, or already have (lookin' at you, dwarves...)  But as is- bleh.
            A natural outgrowth of elfin curiosity and human fascination with otherworldly beauty, half-elves are often considered just as exotic as their full-blooded parents, without the frailty that causes so many to stay so close to home.  Frequently, they are used as emissaries by the elfin enclaves, and far from being rare hybrids, they're starting to outnumber their pure-elf counterparts, much to the elders' consternation.

             Half-Orcs-

            Half-orcs aren’t precisely a specific player race- plain ol’ orcs are everywhere.  Interbreeding just tends to happen when the beer’s flowing, but the strength of orcish features plows it under again in short order.  In cities it’s a more common sight to see orcs who’ve clearly got human blood, but who remain recognizably orcish; simply a little taller and less densely built, skin more grey than green, occasionally with different hair or eye-color than average.  Their mixed heritage can be represented by the 1^st level-only feat Human Blood, which grants +4 skillpoints at 1st and +1 per level thereafter, and signals one as human for all effects related to race.  Alternately, they may trade their +2 to Strength for removing the -2 penalty to either Intelligence or Charisma.

             Dwarves- +2 to Con, -2 to Charisma, -2 to Dex.  Land speed 20 ft, but without penalty for medium or heavy load.  Darkvision 60 ft.  Stonecunning and all its bonuses.  Familiarity with dwarven waraxe (no 'urgosh'.  I hereby ban any two-headed weapon that isn't a quarterstaff).  Stability: +4 on checks against bull rush or tripping when standing.  +2 bonus against poisons.  +2 on saves against spells and spell-like effects.  +1 bonus on attack-rolls against orcs and goblinoids).  +2 bonus on  Appraise and +2 on Craft checks that relate to metal and stone.  (Wow, that's a lotta stuff.  Even with that extra negative I gave to Dex.  Suddenly I really don't feel guilty about giving orcs and such a few things to even things out.  Must think on this.)

            A relative newcomer on the scene of Alucien politics and trade, the dwarfish mountain-kingdoms tend to keep their secrets and their silence, floating down their trade-goods from the mouths of rivers and marching back up in stoic standoffishness.  For the most part they present a united and highly sober front- it is said that a dwarf-man and a Svartlund-man can have an entire conversation in ‘harumphs’.  Recently, though, a dissident group has apparently broken off from the fellowship of underground sovereignties and moved to establish itself across the Lake of Stars from the last known dwarven trading post, at the point where the foothills of the orcish mountains meet the corner of the lake and the edge of the Bad-wood and the Akyosian desert.  Some people are getting edgy about their intentions, but so far it looks as though all they are doing is settling in on some unoccupied territory, technically outside the Empire’s borders, and trading up a storm.  Emissaries from King Olmrei, leader of this odd expedition, are showing up in the nearby major courts and making polite and highly opulent overtures, such as invitations to the king’s upcoming wedding. 

--Have run up against the post limit- to be continued...