The Campaign Builder's Guild

IGBAR SESSION LAST NIGHT.
The New Legion cleaned up the mess in the mountain road created by the failed ambuscade of Vrotch the Vexed.  They threw bodies off the left (west) side of the road, cleaned the blood and body parts, and though it was only in the middle of the afternoon (3:30 pm), they found the hidden divot up the hill where the Firehazers had hidden.  Then, due to some blood loss and need to rest and recover, the group rested.

At the later part of the morning, before the slightest glimpse of Red Gerin existed that day, Winnowill and Trey were on watch.  Trey had no idea, but Winnowill's forest trained senses picked up a wierd wind comeing from the top of the hill, and so they woke up the rest of the group.  Ringo, the Grey March Human bowman, say a huge, winged shadow...that luckily left the group alone.[note=sauroid] Actually, Llum, It's Scylla[/note]

The group left the next morn, following the ancient brick-lined road around and through the hills.  After 5 hours of travel through the winding hill road, they rounded a bend, and saw a valley in front of them, about 200' wide.  To the east, another large, steep cliff face cut off that side of the valley, where two huge statues, ancient and strange, sit astride a dark cave.
And on the other side of the valley, a log building.  the groups sees hobgoblins and a gnoll walking around in front of the cave entrance.
More later

Spell Name Root Nose
Major Sphere Animist
Spell Source
Initiative 11
Range 15'+3' plev
Duration inst
Save none
Save effect none
Spell Success 15
Area of effect diameter
Counter
Spirit cost 3
Earth cost 0
Water cost 0
Fire cost 0
Air cost 0
Life cost 0
Death cost 0
Law cost 0
Chaos cost 0
Restorative cost 0
Necromantic cost 0
Mentalist cost 0
Artificer cost 0
Animist cost 1
Total cost 4
Description
This cantrip gives the caster the temporary olfactory ability and subconsious animal
knowledge of roots and growing things to properly discern what plants in the range
are edible and not poisonous.
This spell requires a cleaned linen cloth (not dirty, a dirty one gives a -10% spell
success) for the casterto bury their face in for 10 seconds, before emerging to smell
the air in the area.
This spell is very useful in thw wilds and for those who gather and forage.
It loses all use in an area of strong odor, especially smoke.

A couple of the new spells.  GuildSchool is up to over 630 setting-speciic spells now.

Spell Name Placid Water

Major Sphere Water
Spell Source
Initiative 10
Range 50'
Duration 5 min
Save none
Save effect
Spell Success 4
Area of effect 35'+4' pleve circle diamete
Counter

Spirit cost 18
Earth cost 0
Water cost 12
Fire cost 0
Air cost 0
Life cost 0
Death cost 0
Law cost 1
Chaos cost 0
Restorative cost 0
Necromantic cost 0
Mentalist cost 0
Artificer cost 0
Animist cost 0
Total cost 31

 

Description
This spell allows a caster to reduce the swells and waves in the area of effect, even in
a storm or in the ocean. The reduction is 60%+1% plev, so that if the swells are 10',
they are reduced to 3'' in the area of the spell in the case of a 10th level caster , and if
these are waves, they reduce as if thet have hit a wall.


Spell Name Moment of Grace

Major Sphere Ment
Spell Source
Initiative 4
Range touch
Duration 10 sec+2 sec plev
Save will-10/will+10
Save effect neg
Spell Success -5
Area of effect target
Counter law

Spirit cost 15
Earth cost 0
Water cost 0
Fire cost 0
Air cost 0
Life cost 0
Death cost 0
Law cost 0
Chaos cost 2
Restorative cost 0
Necromantic cost 0
Mentalist cost 8
Artificer cost 0
Animist cost 0
Total cost 25

Description
This powerful illusion was created to protect those in combat. The caster must clap
their hands after the words to effect the spell.
This spell creates a second of invisibility and an illusionary double that shows up for 4
seconds. After the first pulse, the spell has an initiative of 3+d6, regardless of other
player actions. Anyone attacking the target during the pulse segment or the double
segment (the 4 seconds of the pulse) must make a will cc to keep track of where the
target is and which one is real.  Each pulse creates another moment of invisibility, and 4 more seconds of a double.

The double will show up left, back left, behind, back right, or right of where the
target really is.(20% of each)
Those attacking from a distance have the -10% roll, those engaged in combat have
the +10%.


Those who miss the cc lose track of where the caster really is, and attack the double,
but this is only dring the 4 second of the double's existence.
Please note that the target can continue doing anything else they are doing. And
note well that this has no effect on area of effect spells.

The zen of interconnectedness.

The Celtrician Bestiary
Celtrician Spells
Celtrician Index

Somehow, I can work on these for hours, building up the web of how the world works...

Quote from: LordVreeg The zen of interconnectedness.

The Celtrician Bestiary
Celtrician Spells
Celtrician Index

Somehow, I can work on these for hours, building up the web of how the world works...

The setting is a better and more real place for it, too.

I was wondering -- What is the state of family and / or nepotism in Celtricia? Do individuals usually try to help their family members rise in their guild with them, or are more qualified people and the good of the guild always priority?

Quote from: Ninja D!

Quote from: LordVreeg The zen of interconnectedness.

The Celtrician Bestiary
Celtrician Spells
Celtrician Index

Somehow, I can work on these for hours, building up the web of how the world works...

The setting is a better and more real place for it, too.

I was wondering -- What is the state of family and / or nepotism in Celtricia? Do individuals usually try to help their family members rise in their guild with them, or are more qualified people and the good of the guild always priority?

No, often the two are very interconnected.  
whole family groups will often belong to a guild or grouping, or at least support the members that do.  
Sometimes, the wealthier families will pour resources and investment into a merchant guild ( see the Istar of Igbar as an example).  In that, I would say that nepotism is very large.
I would say that the guilds represent a newer and additional voice in the makeup of the celtrician conversation.

[ic] The Beginning of the Waking Dream.

 The Age of Legends is the First Age in Celtricia.  Shadowy, ancient, steeped in magic and half-remembered fragments, it marks the thousands of years from the Founding of the Music and the Song of Creation to the resolution of the Accords of Presence.  There are no living beings that remember these times that dwell upon the Waking Dream.

Once Anthraxus the Decayed was thrown down and the vaults of the Cairnhold were torn open, the last of the Celestial Planars removed themselves from the Douh'is (or Douwis) were they had lived and taught, and left Celtricia for the homes they had made on the planar stations.


Once the Accords became formalized, the Celestial Planars could only work through their agents, and the Age of Heroes began.   In terms of the common calender, the Age of Legends ended  in -5994 RON.

Omwo~ born during this time could live up to a millenia, and were closer to the Planar power sources than today's Omwo~, who consider themselves a shadow of their former people.  These earlier, less tainted Omwo~ flocked around the Douh'is of the Planars, learned form the directly, and were stunned by their leavetaking.  Some say they changed after this, that the Planars left the Omwo~ behind in frustration.  Today's Omwo~ generally live 200-300 years, though some a bit longer.

 

Another grim facet of the Age of Legends was Anthraxus' use of Necromancy, his interruption and perversion of the Migration of the Soul, and his first Night of the Undead[/ic]


[ic]The Age of Heroes is the second major epoch in the history of the Waking Dream.  It folllowed the mythic and disputed 'Age of Legends', and gained it's name from the emergence of mortal agents as the prime movers.  It also marks an era of written records become more common, especially towards the end, whereas most old written records dealing with the Age of Legends were actually written in the Age of Heroes, sometimes by Omwo~ eye witnesses, but more often they are examples of scholars putting down the words of an oral tradition.  

The Age of Heroes is generally assumed to have begun as the last of the Celestial Planars left the Waking Dream, due to the Accords of Presence, right after the legends describe the overthrowing of the Cairnhold.  This is placed at five thousand, nine hundred and ninety six years/cycles (-5996) before the beginning of Reckoning of Nebler calendar began.  The current time is year 895 in the Reckoning of Nebler.  The Age of Heroes is generally considered to have ended about fifteen hundred years before year zero, which means that it is generally considered to have lasted about 4500 years/cycles.

 

The beginning of the Age of Heroes also marks the coming of the other races into the Waking Dream.  Humans, called Pablar's Toys, were first sighted in recorded history about thirty years after the beginning of the Age.  Soon after this, the second generation of the Sauroids was born, and then within a Hundred years of that the Stunatu (the working folk) came into the Waking Dream.  The Age of Heroes is considered the age where the other major races developed and joined the dream.

 

Much of the following decades (indeed, centuries) involved the integration of the new races (and their small, but growing populations) into the already ancient civilizations of the Omwo~ peoples (Silverwood, the White Deeps, the Diurnal Deeps, etc).  in -5100 RON, the first of the Ogrillite peoples showed up, the new servants of Anthraxus, and a less than a hundred years later, Verkonen Vreeg founded the integrated Ambretton confederacy.

The Vicorian Confederacy started about -4200, and this was the first country to grow quickly and flower, entering into a full-scale renaissance within three hundred years/cycles.  While this was transpiring, The Bard Numansongs was born in the White City, the ancient Omwo~ citadel, and a little after -3760, the Temple complex of Winterlou was really coming into it's being, which would grow into the large city of Winterlou, the City State of Winter, and eventually Stenron, Capital of the Grey March.  The Age of Heroes is considered the Age where populations banded together, and the first Nation States really developed.  But it is important to understand that these Nation states were created, championed, and often destroyed by mortal heroes.


The Sauroid civilization was also a thing of the Age of Heroes.   In the Early part of this Age, the first clutches of Sauroid eggs hatched, and by -5100, the Sauroid population had grown to almost 300, in the northen settlement of Heret (Shells,  white Omwo~).  However, there was much fractiousness, and constant bickering made for a number of colonies elsewhere, including the Vernidalian Serpent Queen settlement on the Steel Isle.

But despite over four thousand years/cycles of growth and change, there is little contention that the theme of this large section of history is one of the mortal agents of the Planars.  This was their time.  And of these, none shine as brightly, in valor and villainy, in hopeless heroism and valiant despair, as the many-threaded tale of the Bard Himself and his fratricidal Brother, the arch-lich Arbor.  Many of the events that mark the Age of Heroes, the fall of Dragonhome Heret, the renaissance and destruction of Vicoria, the second Night of the Cairn, Vreeg's Damned Choice (still a heroic dirge sung by scholarly bards today), and many more are tied up in this epic tragedy.[/ic]




[ic]The Age of Statehood is a term that describes a time where countries and their ideologies became venerated and sacrificed for by men, instead of countries worshipping the ideals of a few individuals.  Most collegiumists agree that it started ~ fifteen hundred years before the founding of the Theocracy of Nebler (-1500 R.O.N.)  As this age has worn on and the population of  Celtricia has increased dramatically, 'God, Guild, and Country' have become the priorities.  


Racial conflicts and the priorities of a select few heroes have receded into the past.  While personalities and certain individuals may be focal points, the Age of Statehood describes the change from nations or cultural groups supporting a small group of people, to a time where the belief in a state or a government itself overrides other considerations.  Marchers and Argussians, Brightish and Orbian, these state-descriptive titles and the ones that have come and gone before them define the people who live in this time.  A time when the throne is more important than the person on it.

 
Some also call the founding of the Theocracy of Nebler (Reckoning of Nebler, R.O.N year 0) the beginning of the 'Common Age,' but this fourth division not consistently used.  The Term "Age of Culture" has been used to describe the last few centuries, but is not in widespread usage or agreement, either.[/ic]

Been working on this lately, here and there.

[ic]Arcana Campaign-This is a campaign in my main gaming world that is set in the former main University of the Collegium Arcana. The players are all students of this ancient and huge School of Magic, all in their second-to-last year of study. The campaign as written so far includes a number of internal mysteries, some personality issues, a few testing missions, and using the curriculum to flesh out some historical parts of the campaign. It is also placed in the largest city in Celtricia, fabled Stenron.
As with 95% of my games, this will use my skill-based Guildschool rules.
Probably not going to have a chance to do this live for a couple of years due to gaming backlog.[/ic]

JoMalley heard about it, and is already woring out some stuff.  PCs are going to start with 3500 exp, and I am building a new, collegium-based social ACQ chart. for it.  

Now we are working out the details.  I am only going to take 4-5 players for this one.  not like the drop-in SIG fest.  Jo has already secured a space.

Gotta say, that's a pretty cool premise for a game.

Quote from: Luminous CrayonGotta say, that's a pretty cool premise for a game.

Yeah, it keeps growing.
Jomalley termed it, "Hogwarts goes to Hell", and it is kind of apt.
All CA members from Cycle Quintus on recieve their traning wand (+2% to spell success), and their are a ton of subgroups, orders, fraternities, and honors to be won and earned.

Jo was alos talking about trying to take Basic Carnal, so one wonders what kind of prep school experience he is trying to achieve.

I'm going up to the house in Maine for a few days.
Not that the trip is news in itself.  I'll have a mini and my ipad.
More to say that I'll be working on a few things while I sit by the lake and watch MiniVreeg try to drown himself.

#1  The CA game is really working in my head right now.  On all sorts of levels.  There are many implications of magic and such that I have written on privately but not really fleshed out.  Stenron has almost a million and a half inhabitants, and the Collegium Arcana there is the single larest (and oldest), though the Mother Seat moved to the Mageocracy of Orbi a few centuries previous. By the normal odds, that means some 750,000 are void touched in Stenron, maybe more (for a few reasons).  Out of those, the main campus of the Collegium Arcana in The Volderol houses some 8700 students, 1900 advanced studies magi, and 2600 faculty and researching magi, for over 13k void-touched all working and learning at one time.
Stenron is ancient.  It was already an old town when it, as Winterloo, trader with the Ambretton City-States back before -3500 RON. It was already considered a major city back in -1260 when Goldust allied with it, and the notes from that time mention the 'College of the Arcanic' even in that time.  
So the quarters in Stenron are old, ancient, built over, layered upon, and with trsadiotions and alliances almsot as old and storied.
Much to do.  

#2 Steel ISle town is growing in my head in leaps and bounds, and tying all the historical ties from the Venolvian overthrow to the present needs more doing.  I have really kicked some of the older guild and Istar notes into high gear to better represent the feel of that small city, but I have more to do.

#3 is som Accis work, since I am running a few PbP accis games.  My beer & pretels game...  

Added

The Arcana Standard (term)

Collegiumist (term)

Construct (term)

Heavy SIlk (resource)

ResinBlack (resource and Service)

Sized armor (service)

Venolvian SteelSilk (resource)

to the Celtricia index.

Some new spells added to the wiki:
Increase or Decrease Storm
Pen's Eyeball
Pen's Eyeball, Extension
Sigil of Alacrity
Well of Life, Conduit
Pen's Vision
Healing Essence
Essence of Healing

More fun!!!

Also, some clarification and data added to the religions and Worship pages of Celtricia.  I think I need to break this down more soon.
Worship


Excerpt...
"As such, different churches will focus on the aspects of the deity they feel are the real ones, and it is the incomplete earthbound understanding of these beings that cause this. The Igbarian Church of Grazzt the Redeemer has a very different view of their deity, and a very different focus, than Onacon's Church of the Sword of Grazzt."