Alternate Rules Ideas for Kharlonia, Land of Angels and Americans

[LoA]

So Kharlonia is a campaign setting I've been working on forever. It's always been around in one way or another. These are the basic concepts behind the world that I'm working out right now.


Epic Ages resulting in several races:

There were three great ages in the land of Kharlonia in the world of Iskar

Age #1 The Age of Dragons

Once upon a time Dragons ruled the world and had worked mighty magics. However their civliization fell apart after a magical cataclysm. Dragons never really recovered, although there is on far off land that houses the last of the Dragon Age. In their wake they left the Dragon-blooded Races.

Age #2 The Age of Gods

After the Dragons collapsed it would be millennia before the next age would come about, and the humans appeared in the world of Iskar (as far as archaeology goes this is the first account of humans appearing anywhere). Gods began to appear and interact wtih the world directly. Both Good and Evil gods began to send celestials and fiends to Iskar, but after Eons of warfare, both celestials and fiends were removed from the planet. However Aasimars remained. Goblinoids also appeared during this time, and it's widely accepted that they are the results of De

Age #3 The Age of Empires

All across the world nations began to build and fall. Kharlonia had three civilizations. Aasimar, Dragon-blooded, and Human. However the Human Civilization fell apart, and contention rose between the three nations.

The Current age is one of instability and chaos

Darkness lies all across the world. Great beings vying for great empires, Gods vying for control, and monsters running amok in the chaos

kharlonia has three  civilizations:

The Aasimar civilization lies in the north, and is a beacon of rightoesness and holy order.

The Dragon-blooded civilization lies in the south, and is a caste system where dragonborn lie on top, and the Kobolds are on the bottom.

The Human civilization lies in the west. Once a great empire, is now a squabbling bunch of nations each trying to rebuild the Empire of their ancestors, but no one able to reach resolutions.

There are many nations across the oceans, but for right now I'm focusing on Kharlonia (although I'm working on using Occult Adventures to build a Sarlona from Eberron-esque state were nightmare monsters control the nation and are working on world conquest).

God Bless the RNA

Humans appeared several thousand years ago, and no one on Iskar knew where they come from... Tell the Americans showed. Yep Humans of Kharlonia and Iskar are from Earth. No one knows how it worked back then, and no one can seem to figure out how it works now. But what is known, is that the city of Noonville is here to stay.
The setting is set about 5 or so years after the Americans show up, and now there is a small republican nation set up. Most American Technology has retrogressed back to the steam era in a lot of ways, and basically formed something of an Egalitarian Fronteirsman culture.

[Xeviat]

Sounds like a good start. What system were you planning on using? What alternate rules were you looking at?

[LoA]

Sounds like a good start. What system were you planning on using? What alternate rules were you looking at?

Thanks. So first of all the first alternate rules i'm looking at are to differentiate the Americans from the rest of the humans in Kharlonia.

For instance:

Weapon Proficiency:
When a class says that they are proficient with simple and martial weapons, Americans treat one handed and two handed fire arms as simple weapons, and military grade weapons (Hard to come by) as martial weapons.
But they treat swords and medieval weaponry as exotic weaponry, until special feats are attained.

Same concept in reverse for Kharlonian natives.
ETC. etc.

Different forms of magic.

How much magic should i include into this setting before it becomes overkill? You already have Arcane magic and divine magic.

[Xeviat]

As much magic as you really want. If you don't want to have the setting feel too magical, then just leave it at Arcane and Divine; the moment you add in more magic types, the more magical things will feel.

Now, I wouldn't differentiate too much by "this is simple for X, martial for Y", unless you're accepting that it is a straight power boost to certain characters and not to others; for instance, most simple weapon users are spellcasters and don't really use their weapons, but a few do. If military grade firearms are so rare, then getting to treat them as martial weapons won't really come up very often.

What system are you planning on using?

[LoA]

As much magic as you really want. If you don't want to have the setting feel too magical, then just leave it at Arcane and Divine; the moment you add in more magic types, the more magical things will feel.

Now, I wouldn't differentiate too much by "this is simple for X, martial for Y", unless you're accepting that it is a straight power boost to certain characters and not to others; for instance, most simple weapon users are spellcasters and don't really use their weapons, but a few do. If military grade firearms are so rare, then getting to treat them as martial weapons won't really come up very often.

What system are you planning on using?

Pathfinder mostly. Some 3.5 (Ideas stolen from Eberron), E6.

[Steerpike]

So are the Aasimar a homogenous species with roughly the "same level" of heavenly heritage, or are there like angelic lords whose celestial blood is a sign of nobility, with the common riff-raff having less and less or no celestial blood at all?

[LoA]

So are the Aasimar a homogenous species with roughly the "same level" of heavenly heritage, or are there like angelic lords whose celestial blood is a sign of nobility, with the common riff-raff having less and less or no celestial blood at all?

Yeah this thread is mostly just me spitballing ideas out that I like. But yeah there's a definite snobbery to most Aasimars. I still go by the Eberronian tradition of all is not as it seems, hence why I leave so many things vague (I haven't come up with an answer for some of these mysteries yet). Both Aasimars and the Dragon-blooded keep a healthy distance from each other most of the time. Why? Because both have a superiority complex.

Both the Dragons (and most of their Gods) and the current Gods are vying to regain the power they once had from their Ages of supremacy. It's best to think of the Dragon-blooded (Kobolds, Dragonborn, etc), and the Aasimars as the personifications of the magical ages they came from. The lesser forms of the source of all Arcane magic, and Divine magic respectively.

I'm doing this for two reasons.

How would the introduction of scientific technology effect magic?

How would Freedom of Conscience effect a world where Gods literally are at war with each other?

[Steerpike]

Ok, I'm just trying to sort of grasp the shape of the world you're describing. I get that the Aasimar and Dragon-blooded are both meant to be scions of this mythic past. What I'm trying to get at is whether they're partially human as well, here, and to what degree - like, a question of biology. "Aasimar" in D&D are usually humans with partial celestial heritage, humans who've interbred with celestials. I'm getting the sense that's not the case here, and that Aasimar are like a proper species and not a kind of human-celestial hybrid. You're imaging them as embodiments of divine magic, right? No human blood at all.

Partly I'm trying to get a sense of how the setting feels. Like, say I go to the Aasimar empire, one of the three empires in the current age. Is it utopia, like heaven on earth? Is it more like a grim medieval place dominated by an oppressive church? Are there humans everywhere in towns and cities, or are Aasimar doing everything - even the demeaning stuff like tilling the fields, emptying the cesspits, tanning leather, etc.? I can't imagine all this stuff is done by magic, given the whole technology vs. magic aspect of the setting.

[LoA]

Ok, I'm just trying to sort of grasp the shape of the world you're describing. I get that the Aasimar and Dragon-blooded are both meant to be scions of this mythic past. What I'm trying to get at is whether they're partially human as well, here, and to what degree - like, a question of biology. "Aasimar" in D&D are usually humans with partial celestial heritage, humans who've interbred with celestials. I'm getting the sense that's not the case here, and that Aasimar are like a proper species and not a kind of human-celestial hybrid. You're imaging them as embodiments of divine magic, right? No human blood at all.

Partly I'm trying to get a sense of how the setting feels. Like, say I go to the Aasimar empire, one of the three empires in the current age. Is it utopia, like heaven on earth? Is it more like a grim medieval place dominated by an oppressive church? Are there humans everywhere in towns and cities, or are Aasimar doing everything - even the demeaning stuff like tilling the fields, emptying the cesspits, tanning leather, etc.? I can't imagine all this stuff is done by magic, given the whole technology vs. magic aspect of the setting.

Yeah, the first post is a mess, I apologize. To answer in order:

1. Aasimar are the descendants of humans and celestials who have sort of evolved into their own race.. What kinds of celestial beings? I don't know yet, still working that out. A human and an Aasimar can have a child just fine though, so the Aasimar are mostly human. A baby born to a Human and true celestial well wind up as a Half-celestial. If that Half Celestial has a baby with a human it will end up as an Aasimar.

2. The northern Empire is sort of a heaven on earth? It's a nice place to live in. Humans and Aasimars live together, and even intermarry sometimes assuming that proper standards are met. However it's not free. It's not quite as bad as the Roman Empire? However you worship the way we say you should or you leave. And if you're worshiping an evil we will kill you. They recognize the right for the Draconic to worship their gods, however all humans should worship our God's and that's that.