Ah'rem: where things are subtle

[Wensleydale]

Updated.

And have you made sure that the power level of the summoned creatures takes into account both the lower access to attack magic and magic items in this setting, and the lack of alignment?

With your changes, yes.

And... AC bonus? Wha'?

[SilvercatMoonpaw]

AC bonus? Wha'?

The column that as AC at the top, what is that?

And do I do the tables on Word and then just copy/paste them here?

[Wensleydale]

... Good question. I have absolutely no idea. (probably something left over from the copied/pasted code from Luminous' thread.)

[Wensleydale]

There, that's better.

And no, you can do one of two things. Either do the table code, or make the tables on word and upload them by use of the upload function at the bottom of the posty-thing.

[SilvercatMoonpaw]

What does the table code look like?  Like, what do I write in?

[Wensleydale]

[tr][th]Level[/th][th]BAB[/th][th]Fort[/th][th]Ref[/th][th]Will[/th][th]Special [/th][th]Spellcasting[/th][/tr]
[tr][th]1[/th][td]+0[/td][td]+0[/td][td]+2[/td][td]+2[/td][td]Summon I[/td][td]+1 Level of Existing Spellcasting Class[/td][/tr]
[tr][th]2[/th][td]+1[/td][td]+0[/td][td]+3[/td][td]+3[/td][td]Augment Summoning [/td][td]+1 Level of Existing Spellcasting Class[/td][/tr]
[tr][th]3[/th][td]+1[/td][td]+1[/td][td]+3[/td][td]+3[/td][td]Summon II, Extended Summoning[/td][td]+1 Level of Existing Spellcasting Class[/td][/tr]
[tr][th]4[/th][td]+2[/td][td]+1[/td][td]+4[/td][td]+4[/td][td]Planar Summoning I[/td][td]+1 Level of Existing Spellcasting Class[/td][/tr]
[tr][th]5[/th][td]+2[/td][td]+1[/td][td]+4[/td][td]+4[/td][td]Summon III[/td][td]+1 Level of Existing Spellcasting Class[/td][/tr]
[tr][th]6[/th][td]+3[/td][td]+2[/td][td]+5[/td][td]+5[/td][td]Planar Summoning II[/td][td]+1 Level of Existing Spellcasting Class[/td][/tr]
[tr][th]7[/th][td]+3[/td][td]+2[/td][td]+5[/td][td]+5[/td][td]Summon IV[/td][td]+1 Level of Existing Spellcasting Class[/td][/tr]
[tr][th]8[/th][td]+4[/td][td]+2[/td][td]+6[/td][td]+6[/td][td]Planar Summoning III[/td][td]+1 Level of Existing Spellcasting Class[/td][/tr]
[tr][th]9[/th][td]+4[/td][td]+3[/td][td]+6[/td][td]+6[/td][td]Summon V[/td][td]+1 Level of Existing Spellcasting Class[/td][/tr]
[tr][th]10[/th][td]+5[/td][td]+3[/td][td]+7[/td][td]+7[/td][td]Planar Summoning IV[/td][td]+1 Level of Existing Spellcasting Class[/td][/tr]

That was the table code for the summoner, without the overall wrapping. It's basically [table = whatever] and then [th] [/th] for the top line and side lines (makes it blue) and [td][/td] for lower lines. On the end and beginning of each row you put [tr] [/tr]. And that's it. Except for the /table at the end (in [], obviously).

[Epic Meepo]

Kicka** Barmaid [I am not joking](brawler/streetfighter)

So like above moving of a body or object influences the flow of the world's magical power. Everything does this any time it moves or changes. Mages just know how to tangle the flows into a temporaryu knot. Then the verbal component it all about releasing the knot so that the power flows outwards.[/quote]
I was thinking of doing something similar just the other day. The whole flow of magic thing has a nice feng-shui sort of appeal to it.

[SilvercatMoonpaw]

A steampunk setting with no soot! I can't believe no one's thought of this before.

I seriously hope you aren't being sarcastic, becuase sometimes have a very hard time detecting sarcasm.  I added the sootless quality because the image of a grimy atmosphere just does not appeal to me, even if it is part of the original image.  I also can't figure out how to include nature spirits and whatnot in a world slowly becomming polluted without turning it into a clichéd "technology vs. nature" thing.  I was going to have it be bound elementals (ala Eberron), but since I don't have magic that high it just didn't make sense.  Also if I can have something be a physical resource it can be fought over, which is always good for creating tension.

And this is magic we're talking about.  Sootless coal makes more sense than the spell mage hand.

I don't really consider it "steampunk", because what most steampunk settings do is jump right into robotics and stuff, while I really just wanted good transportation and manufacturing.

I was thinking of doing something similar just the other day. The whole flow of magic thing has a nice feng-shui sort of appeal to it.

The mechanic actually grew out of trying to figure out why somatic and verbal components might need to exist.  It's a combination of ley-lines and just the idea that everything you do, no matter how small, has an effect on the world.

[Wensleydale]

Have you done any wild-magic classes yet except the Witch?

[Matt Larkin (author)]

Nice to see your ideas fleshed out into a full setting.  The name kind of feels Arabian to me.  Is that intentional?

[Epic Meepo]

I seriously hope you aren't being sarcastic.../quote]
I'm not.

[SilvercatMoonpaw]

@Golem 011: The trickster is also a wild magic class.  Wild magic applies to any class that has more of a natural world connection and/or that isn't actually taught so much as figures out magic on their own.  This does not mean that one cannot learn how to be a Professional Mage on their own (I think the confusion comes from using the words taught and self-taught), but what they learn and how the use it are at the basic level the same as other Profesional Mages (so Spellcraft uses Int because you can remember or deduce the formula for the spell).  Wild magic means that the basics are your own design, that you arrived at the conclusion through your own thinking.  Thus the use of Sense for wild magic Spellcraft, because you have to actually feel the magic.  I like this approach because it sets up some concepts of Ah'rem: there is more than one way to do things, and different ways offer different results each of which may be equally good.  Also I like the dicotomy between an acamdemia-bound wizard and a world-wise witch.

@Phoenix Knight: No, the name is not intentially Arabic-sounding.  I came up with it through a simple process: I named the god Ah-ha because I had a god name that began with "ah" on the mind and it sounded cool (yes, I know with it being the god of puzzles that does make it a pun, that was not intended), then I decided to name the world after the god and "rem" just added itself for no descernable reason.

@Epic Meepo: So you weren't being sarcasticâ,¬Â¦Ã¢,¬Â¦Ã¢,¬Â¦ :blink: â,¬Â¦Ã¢,¬Â¦Ã¢,¬Â¦I bet someone thought it up before me.  I have to say that it's not an aspect of coal power that I thought about until a couple of images came up in my head:
1) London skyline with lots of ash-belching chimnys.
2) A very old picture of Chicago where I think you can literraly see the soot raining down (I think in the same TV program they mentioned something about things being covered with soot).
Once that happened my logic fired up and informed me that the reason images of cities that we think of from this time are probably so dingy is because there was a light coating of soot on everything.  The classic example of Darwinian evolution is the moths in England that over generations grew black to hide against the soot-covered bark.  Think of what sort of new health problems this stuff must have brought on.  Maybe if the people back then had known how bad pollution could be for them they might have done some things differently.  At the very least if I was going to have various creatures who were in tune with nature someone would notice the effect and cause a stir.  I figure I don't want to deal with pollution issues in addition to everything else, and that you don't really notice it so much when it is there, so toss it out.

[Epic Meepo]

So you weren't being sarcasticâ,¬Â¦Ã¢,¬Â¦Ã¢,¬Â¦ :blink: â,¬Â¦Ã¢,¬Â¦Ã¢,¬Â¦I bet someone thought it up before me.  I have to say that it's not an aspect of coal power that I thought about until a couple of images came up in my head...

In all the steampunk settings I've seen, the imagery of omnipresent smokestacks on huge factories is always a popular one. And most of them prefer to present pure technology as a development different from magic instead of actually devising a way for the two fields to play off one another. Its actually refreshing to hear about a magic-powered train instead of a non-magical train "that is going to one day outperform magical transportation" or what-not.

[SilvercatMoonpaw]

So you weren't being sarcasticâ,¬Â¦Ã¢,¬Â¦Ã¢,¬Â¦ :blink: â,¬Â¦Ã¢,¬Â¦Ã¢,¬Â¦I bet someone thought it up before me.  I have to say that it's not an aspect of coal power that I thought about until a couple of images came up in my head...

One of the things I realize when thinking about a setting is that you can't see everything.  Smokestacks might be important for a graphic novel or movie, but when I'm just describing things from a street-level perspective it's not going to matter.  I'm still not sure whether the magical coal burns oxygen and gives off CO2 (you can see why I like to forget these issues), probably its magical nature means it only gives off pure fire/heat energy.  It might be a little weird that the trains and ships don't have smokestacks, but as I said before that's probably not too important at the personal level.

As for the magic/technology thing, I'm assuming you know that Eberron has stuff like that?  Actually, maybe that's just pure magic.  Technology combined with magic is easy enough for me to understand because the flavor always (except for Eberron) suggests that most people don't have access to magic and so I'll bet that they try to invent a way to do something without magic.  In Ah'rem, where the magic doesn't provide the kind of power of other settings, people have had to invent to get anywhere.  Yet at the same time the lack of raw magical power means that people are quite willing to work with magic, they even learn it themselves.  This is another facet (and there are many of these, sometimes contradictory) of my concept of Ah'rem: "use all the parts of the buffalo".  Basically "don't waste an option".  People who outright fear/avoid/decry magic or technology are seen as ignorant by the educated, who know that both are just tools and like all tools everything depends on the skill and intelligence of the weilder.

Okay, here's some setting flavor:
Ahâ,¬,,¢rem (Ah-haâ,¬,,¢s Puzzle):
The world itself is nothing spectacular: standard Earth-like place, with the same locations of general climate bands and length of seasons.  The main continent is a tri-lobal affair located mostly in the southern hemisphere and shaped a bit like a mutant shamrock, with the south-west lobe in the temperate to tundra zones, the eastern going from large tracks of taiga/boreal to tropical swamps and breaking apart into tropical ocean islands, and the third extending from the desert connection point in the sub-tropical to nearly the temperate zone of the northern hemisphere.  Another continent exists at the northern pole and extends down into a mountainous lump of taiga to temperate forest 1/3rd the way around from the big continent.  Just south of the equator on that side of the world a great swarm of islands gives way to the northern face of a strung-out, lake-logged continent that curls at one end to resemble a snarling, leaping beast.  In addition there are several large islands scattered throughout the oceans.

Elvasin (The Elvesâ,¬,,¢ Footsteps): [Elvasin is the large continent with the three lobes.  The names of the three lobes are: Demesne (south-west), Lung-tao (east), and Kilimanjaro (north).  The central connecting land is most commonly referred to as Sorroco.]
In Time of Warriors the elves of Artal (Yellow(/Sun)cliffs), now known as Lung-tao, built a great civilization with their knowledge of the landâ,¬,,¢s nature, particularly their ability to tame the animals of the wild to their service.  Their skill at farming and their bond with animals brought them the food to feed many, and the many in turn allowed those with knowledge to seek answers to the mysteries of the universe.  Coded magic, science, grand art, philosophy, all came about because there were people who no longer had to devote their time to working in the dirt.  They built roads for fast travel, aquaducts to carry water to the cities and sewers to take the waste away, and observatories to study the stars.  They invented compasses to tell them which direction was south, sextants to tell them how far north they were, and clocks to tell them what time it was.  All of this also brought war, for land and resources, which the elves became masters at, forging the civilization slowly into an Empire.
In the time of the Empire the court sent out ships to explore the world.  Ships that went west reported other continents; those that went east reported that there were hundreds of islands.  And all brought back samples of the resources they found there.  There were even people in these new lands that were different from the elves, people that knew the land and how to obtain these great things.  Some elven sages proposed setting up relations with the new people to trade for the items.  But the elven merchants, their money buying the friendship of the Emperor, saw a more direct method of acquisition, one they had learned from the game of business: gain the source and your profit was unlimited.
Of all the animals the elves had tamed, their greatest relationship was with the horses.  Those who knew best the horses had won the land that made the Empire, and now that same bond would win them the new lands.  Few creatures on foot could match the speed of the horses, and with lightening strikes the elves could take any settlement.  Their conquest of the steppe plains of their own region and the desert of Sorroco was swift, and even the jungles and swamps of Kilimanjaro and the mountains and dense forests of Demesne did not deter them for long.  Everywhere the elves established their firmest hold upon the region, and exported their civilization and strong government.  Some of the peoples, such as the humans, resisted the elves and where either killed or taken as slaves.  (Some attribute the delcine of humans to this influence, but it is clear that humans never had much of a hold upon the world.)  But some races adpated to the ways of the elves.  Elves further mingled with the conquered races, producing the half-elves: enoc (half-human), â,¬'(half-dwarf), and â,¬'(half-gnoll).  So not only can elvish influence be seen upon the physical structure of society and culture but also upon some of the faces of the people.

Sages are at a loss to explain exactly why the elves died out (Iâ,¬,,¢ve done this because it makes for something academics can debate in the background).  Race-specific diseases, a gradual decline in self-care, mass revolt, all have been proposed and rejected.  All that is known is that by about 13,00 years ago the elves were gone, leaving only the remains of the greatest empire the world has ever known.  


Demesne:
[Demesne is pseudo-Europian, but with an oriental origin.]

â,¬': [England-like]
â,¬': [Spanish-like]
â,¬': [Dwarf region that's doubtless end up being like Germany/Scandinavia]

Lung-tao:
[Chinese flavored.]

Kilimanjaro:
[Decidedly African, but at great kingdoms phase.]

Sorroco:
[Sorroco is Mexican flavored rather than Arabian.]


Talamarrakan: [Large northern continent.  Home to half-weres.]


â,¬': [Lake-logged continent.]


Creation (according to the guys on top):
Ah-ha grew bored with the worlds of others, worlds that were focused purely upon power.  Myths of heroes who travel to other worlds mention these domains of war and destruction, where mages scour the landscape with their useless battles and the people think nothing of it so long as magic can make anything they desire.

[Wensleydale]

Ah-ha grew board with the worlds of others, worlds that were focused purely upon power. Myths of heroes who travel to other worlds mention these domains of war and destruction, where mages scour the landscape with their useless battles and the people think nothing of it so long as magic can make anything they desire.

Don't you mean bored? :D

Anyway... anything else you'd like me to make? Monsters, classes...