My Fantasy RPG World, Feedback and Ideas appreciated

[Scalenex]

So my main RPG campaign is preparing to explore the ruins of a lost Moriaclar city. The Moriaclar were great horse riders but their army was supplemented by monstrous heavy cavalry shock troops. I'm thinking one of their favorite monsters were megalania.

Here is the wikipedia entry on real world megalania.

Here is my article on Scarterran megalania.

There are many good megalania pictures on DeviantArt, I'm going to see if one of the artists will give me permission to use theirs (starting with the guy who made the picture above).

I'll doubt I'll be able to find a picture, but my thought is that during the Third Age, the surviving megalania went underground and rapidly evolved/devolved into a new type of Scarnoctan monster.

I like the idea that they are a little bit smaller, but they can climb walls like giant geckos. Imagine komodo dragons ambushing you from the ceiling...

 

[Scalenex]

Holy Zotz Batman! We have more bat-men stuff!

My artist contact is going on vacation for 9 days, so I probably won't be able to get the finished product until afterwards, but she was able to give me some advanced black and white sketches that just need to be colored.

She showed me previous some previous sketches which were quite nice, but I said "could you please show more teeth, especially on the camazotz", so that's what she did.

Anyway, so excited was I, that I just had to write some new camazotz articles.

The ajawnok is title for the head camazotz in Uskala answerable only to King Drosst and wielding a lot of power of humans and bats alike. Ajaw is based on the Mayan word for leader and nok is sort of a dross that vaguely sounds like night. I created the title, Ajaw of Kalla Kʼin Un for the leader of the Barony of Bats, which a kalazotz colony. But the camazotz and kalazotz have basically the same language, so most of their leaders are called ajaws.

The first ajawnok was named Ixchel and her family line became House Ixchel. While only one Ixchel at a time can serve as ajawnok at a time, House Ixchel hold most of the lesser leadership titles and have access to the best training and equipment among Uskalan camazotz, effectively making them a noble house that never gets invited to formal banquets.

I guess this is gratuitous world building because right now my RPG campaigns and WIP fiction pieces are not going anywhere near Uskala anytime soon, but Uskala is an option for an institutional villain for any future RPG campaign where the players want to go with a Chaotic Good Robin Hood on steroids story. It would be an epic campaign to start out with tussling with low level Uskalan soldiers and ultimately end fighting King Drosst himself, but to do this story right it would need to be the focus of whole campaign. Dozens of sessions all focused on Uskala and most of my players prefer smaller story arcs that are done in 1 to 4 sessions and the one player that does like continuing story sessions, I'm running a solo game for set against the backdrop of the Fumayan/Swynfaredia war.

I guess my newest player character is an Uskalan character but his character has no intention of going back there.

He is running a redemption character arc trying to redeem his crimes committed as a low level informant for one of Uskala's secret police units (in this case a human one, not a camazotz one). Hypothetically, his former employers would like to kill him for deserting but they cannot really put a price on his head because they don't know where he is and all tengku look alike. So Neffrey the tengku is not going to have to deal with any Uskalan bounty hunters, but his life is complicated enough already since he is a puppet for a Faerie Lord and also was literally a branded a thief by the Paladins of Dragon Springs.

 

[Scalenex]

For the last month or so, I have been writing newer articles for Scarterra with more of a mind for aesthetics and presentation.

I am systematically trying to add some visual pizzazz to many of my older articles. It's tall order to modify every article, but I am being systematic about it.

It would be a waste of time to add beautiful art to EVERYTHING, but I'm going to focus on cultural and religious articles as this is the meat and potatoes of what makes Scarterra special.

Speaking of meat and potatoes, I got about two dozen food related articles. Now almost all of the articles under my Table of Content Food Section got a little facelift with a picture or two, either from an AI art program or from searching creative commons photos. I encourage you all to take a look and if you guys have any constructive criticism, let me know. Otherwise left to my own devices I will continue doing this until someone tells me to stop.

It's nothing too fancy, but I think breaking up big blocks of texts into smaller pieces helped as did adding minor visuals. Some of the visuals get reused for instance, this hungry guy was added to both my article on goats and my article on hay.

The only food articles that haven't had any art added are brodesopp, dragon grass, and bonecracker eggs because these are not real world food items with a small Scarterran twist, these are wholly fabricated from my mind.

If I get more fluent at using AI programs, I hope to one day create pictures of these things. Until then, I'm going to start by adding art to the articles it is easy to add art too and then work my way to the harder stuff.

Also, a new thing I'm doing is when an article has both a fluff section and an RPG mechanics sections, I will put this picture in or near the RPG section.

Also going to try to make a few more maps, but that is slow work, at least to get maps that I am not ashamed to show my friends.

 

[Scalenex]

Three guys walk into a bar, Scarterran Edition

So three ethnic guys walk into a bar, the first two behave more or less reasonably and the third embarrasses himself and his people.


These jokes are getting rarer as ethnic stereotypes are less fashionable than they used to be, but I'm going to make jokes about fictional people I invented ergo, no non-fictional people should be offended.


I got the idea because right now Kormatin’s player is planning an elaborate heist/con job and he has a very motley group of allies, that he has jokingly called Kormatin’s Seven.



Four humans from three different nationalities, a tengku, a gnome, and a satyr. Also, a wizard and a sorcerer and theurgists from four different deities, deities which normally don’t get along.


Anyway because I am distracted by shiny objects, I had to make a Scarterran versions of a priest, minister, and a rabbi walk into a bar.


Lawful Theurgists


A Hallisan, a Keeper and a Mask enter a bar together and are each served a cup of ale. Each of them finds a fly in their ale.


The Guardian says “My honor is insulted! I demand a new ale at once!”


The Keeper says “This inconvenient but the Compact states I must tolerate this fly and try to drink around it.”


The Mask says, “Oi! Fly, you didn’t pay for that ale, I paid for the ale, spit it out! SPIT IT OUT!”



Chaotic Theurgists


A Lantern, a Rover, and a Tester enter a bar together and are each served a cup of ale. Each of them finds a fly in their ale.


The Lantern shrugs, pragmatically plucks out the fly and drinks his ale. "Waste not, want not."


The Rover says “Fly, I’m not going to impede on your right to some ale, I’ll just drink around you.”


The Tester “You dare challenge me weakling fly! The weak shall fall before the strong.” He then plucks the fly out and eats it.



Neutral Theurgists


A Steward, Child and Tender enter a bar together and are each served a cup of ale. Each of them finds a fly in their ale.


The Steward says “The fly is part of nature, why would this bother me?” She drinks the ale and swallows the fly without flinching.


The Child says “I demand a new ale free of charge! Or I will curse your family line for three generations!” She then proceeded to remove the fly and move it to her pocket to feed her pet spider later. Then she drank both ales.


The Tender put aside her ale and wept. “The poor creature drowned! Why is the world so cruel! WHY!”

 

[Scalenex]

The heist succeeded in that Kormatin's Seven got a lot of treasure and got away.

The main target, Lord Rhydian was the wet work handler/spy master of House Gorisonad put a bounty on Kormatin's head and those of most of his companions.

The basic plan was to have friends act as bounty hunters and turn them in with unlocked manacles so they could break loose while the bounty hunters attacked, kill Rhydian and his minions, grab the bounty money and anything that wasn't nailed down than run away, presumably with House Gorisonad in toe and really mad, likely increasing the bounty.

Lord Rhydian's dungeon complex was guarded mostly by paroled criminals that Rhydian allowed a pardon if they worked for him (this is a really common practice in Scarterra).

The battle was at a deadlock. Kormatin figured he would probably win as things were going, but he was concerned one or more of his team would be killed, so he shouted "150 gold each if you help kill the dragon blood! (referring to Lord Rhydian)" and Kormatin got a very good charisma roll to sell his proclamation.

So most of Rhydian's guards (who were scum to begin with and thus easily motivated by a large amount of gold) switched sides leaving only Rhydian's loyal knights. Rhydian's ogre minion who was the dungeon warden and chief torturer wasn't sure whose side to take but it once it was clear Rhydian was losing, he sneaked away and headed to Rhydian's storage area to do some freelance looting. It still took the ogre out of the fight and the ogre hit the hardest making him the most likely to kill someone. Anyway, Rhydian was a badass but turning on a 7 on 8 fight into a 11 on 3 fight was a big change.

Originally, Kormatin's player assumed this would be loud and obvious and really cheese off House Gorisonad, but now every living witness to his actions is effectively bought off by Kormatin and ran off in the chaos. So Kormatin's Seven got the treasure (minus the money they paid to the turncoats) but they got the treasure relatively quietly.

All House Gorisonad knows is that two anonymous bounty hunters seemed to have caught Kormatin and his two sidekicks to turn into Lord Rhydian. Six hours later, Lord Rhydian and his two loyal knights are dead. All the guards are missing and the place has been ransacked and the three other prisoners in the dungeon complex are also missing.

And while taking thousands of gold pieces from a hated enemy was a lot of fun. Lord Rhydian was a spy master so Kormatin and company have a large pile of his letters and notes. So they have potential story hooks for more intrigue based stories. Ideally every story arc concluded needs hooks for future story arcs.

 

[Scalenex]

I am too big of a fan of LMFAO's music for some inexplicable reason.

When I walk in the dark
All eyes can’t see
I'm with the Scarnoctis crew

It’s sonar for me

We like the bats

We like Mayans

I commissioned for that

Everybody I’m trying

zotz zotz zotz zotz zotz

zotz zotz zotz zotz zotz

zotz zotz zotz zotz zotz

Everybody

Here are the four pictures I commissioned, shown together for scale. A camazotz and kalazotz side by side in the air and on ground. Obviously the camazotz are the bigger ones.

I also have the same four pictures as individuals and with white, grey, or the above black backgrounds.

I'm going to give the zotz articles some revisions and figure out how best to use my beautiful illustrations within their articles.

Anyway, now I can say definitively what kalazotz and camazotz look like.

I guess as my biggest fan of Mayan bats, I will flag @Warden

 

[Scalenex]

I have revised my main kalazotz article.

I have revised my dwarf influenced kalazotz article and Codenya kalazotz article.

I have debuted a new article. So you want to play a kalazotz? to put all the RPG mechanics in one easy place for if and when I finally get a kalazotz PC. I put a lot of thought and effort into this one. I believe spears are the best weapon to use while airborne so I give kalazotz (and camazotz) a bonus die when using a spear. Though if @Warden or anyone else wants to try to behead someone with a sword while flying, they can try it. A kalazotz can perform a "dive bomb maneuver: to add many bonus dice of damage to a single attack roll. You might be able to one-shot an enemy to death if you are lucky and a one shot death blow could be a decapitation if you are using a slashing weapon. That said, I think it would be easier and just as lethal to run someone through with a spear.

I don't know if this interests anyone, but I have create a full "So you want to play a _____" series with guidelines on how to make effective characters using the d10 game system.

So far, I have Warrior, Divine Caster, Mage, and Expert as basic character archetypes and I have dwarf, satyr, and kalazotz for racial based character guidelines. It just happens to be the case that the kalazotz article is much longer than the others because I need to cover extensive flying rules.

If anyone has any constructive criticisms of these kalazotz articles, let me know. I am also planning to create new ethnic varieties of kalazotz (and eventually camazotz). Including fleshing out the cultural practices and norms of West Colassian kalazotz that have not closely allied to dwarves or elves.

Originally my plan was to make both Zotz limited to West Colassia, but given Zotz articles seem to be crowd favorites, I'll use them more. I definitely want to add in some Penarchian variants of camazotz and kalazotz because my (eventual) next RPG campaign will be set in Penarchia and I would really like to see a kalazotz PC.

Note that Penarchia is loosely based on the Indian subcontinent in the real world and real-world India has a fair number of native bats. Still, it is difficult to put "Indian bat legends" in an internet search engine because I keep getting Native American bat legends. What little I can find seems to suggest that Indians, or at least Hindu Indians do not typically give bats negative and scary implications Westerners and Native Americans often did. I found a few limited references to bats as messengers from the gods. I can certainly work that angle with the Nine and the local kalazotz. Maybe they produce a disproportionally high number of oracles.

Penarchia is a dark and chaotic place so Penarchia will need some variant of Camazotz too even though I couldn't find many big scary evil bats in Indian folklore.

 

[Scalenex]

Updated my base camazotz article.

Updated Uskalan camazotz article.

Updated Zocatec (the shared language of kalazotz and camazotz)

I didn't really change the Drunken Bat Pub article other than adding some pictures.

 

[Scalenex]

The talented Diana Rafoth who illustrated my human elemental ethnicity and my zotz is booked for the next two months.

I routinely poke around Deviant Art, and I was pretty impressed by the satyr portraits of the Deviant Artist that goes by Nalebunny96

Anyway, I commissioned him to make a few satyrs for me with a more Scarterran lens. That means elf ears instead of goat ears plus elemental ethnic influences.

 

[Warden]

I am too big of a fan of LMFAO's music for some inexplicable reason.

When I walk in the dark
All eyes can’t see
I'm with the Scarnoctis crew

It’s sonar for me

We like the bats

We like Mayans

I commissioned for that

Everybody I’m trying

zotz zotz zotz zotz zotz

zotz zotz zotz zotz zotz

zotz zotz zotz zotz zotz

Everybody

Here are the four pictures I commissioned, shown together for scale. A camazotz and kalazotz side by side in the air and on ground. Obviously the camazotz are the bigger ones.

I also have the same four pictures as individuals and with white, grey, or the above black backgrounds.

I'm going to give the zotz articles some revisions and figure out how best to use my beautiful illustrations within their articles.

Anyway, now I can say definitively what kalazotz and camazotz look like.

I guess as my biggest fan of Mayan bats, I will flag @Warden

I have revised my main kalazotz article.

I have revised my dwarf influenced kalazotz article and Codenya kalazotz article.

I have debuted a new article. So you want to play a kalazotz? to put all the RPG mechanics in one easy place for if and when I finally get a kalazotz PC. I put a lot of thought and effort into this one. I believe spears are the best weapon to use while airborne so I give kalazotz (and camazotz) a bonus die when using a spear. Though if @Warden or anyone else wants to try to behead someone with a sword while flying, they can try it. A kalazotz can perform a "dive bomb maneuver: to add many bonus dice of damage to a single attack roll. You might be able to one-shot an enemy to death if you are lucky and a one shot death blow could be a decapitation if you are using a slashing weapon. That said, I think it would be easier and just as lethal to run someone through with a spear.

I don't know if this interests anyone, but I have create a full "So you want to play a _____" series with guidelines on how to make effective characters using the d10 game system.

So far, I have Warrior, Divine Caster, Mage, and Expert as basic character archetypes and I have dwarf, satyr, and kalazotz for racial based character guidelines. It just happens to be the case that the kalazotz article is much longer than the others because I need to cover extensive flying rules.

If anyone has any constructive criticisms of these kalazotz articles, let me know. I am also planning to create new ethnic varieties of kalazotz (and eventually camazotz). Including fleshing out the cultural practices and norms of West Colassian kalazotz that have not closely allied to dwarves or elves.

Originally my plan was to make both Zotz limited to West Colassia, but given Zotz articles seem to be crowd favorites, I'll use them more. I definitely want to add in some Penarchian variants of camazotz and kalazotz because my (eventual) next RPG campaign will be set in Penarchia and I would really like to see a kalazotz PC.

Note that Penarchia is loosely based on the Indian subcontinent in the real world and real-world India has a fair number of native bats. Still, it is difficult to put "Indian bat legends" in an internet search engine because I keep getting Native American bat legends. What little I can find seems to suggest that Indians, or at least Hindu Indians do not typically give bats negative and scary implications Westerners and Native Americans often did. I found a few limited references to bats as messengers from the gods. I can certainly work that angle with the Nine and the local kalazotz. Maybe they produce a disproportionally high number of oracles.

Penarchia is a dark and chaotic place so Penarchia will need some variant of Camazotz too even though I couldn't find many big scary evil bats in Indian folklore.

I love how they turned out! Really great work, and I appreciate the effort that went into the "so you want to play a kalazotz" article too.

 

[Scalenex]

I've seen some preliminary satyrs. Needless to say Scarterran satyrs will look awesome. Look to this thread in the near future to see awesome pictures.

RPG session planning, Overthrowing Border Baronies for Fun and Profit

I'm trying to hastily plan a good RPG story arc, but not too much planning because I want to respond to options.

The PCs are passing through the Borderlands. Some of the Borderlands I've put great detail in, and some I've put only minor detail in.

It is pointed out that Neshik the party leader is both noble and kind and is easily distracted by side quests.

They are about to pass through the Baron of Materino. Materino is named after it's ruler Mateo who took over in an armed insurrection decades ago, and rules with an iron fist.

The players and I came up with the vague plan, "If the PCs are passing through and get a sense for how bad things are, we'll want to do something about."

I created a tool for generating leaders a while ago.

Minister (M): Administrative Skills and Book Smarts

Diplomat (D): Diplomatic Ability and Standing with Peers

Warrior (W): Martial and Tactical Prowess

Populist (P): Popularity with the masses and general charisma

I have four basic traits and I roll a d10 for each trait, then I make up a short bio for what the combination of traits means.

1-Terrible
2-Bad
3-Bad
4-Adequate
5-Adequate
6-Adequate
7-Good
8-Good
9-Good
10-Amazing

I took Mateo and automatically put his highest in W and his lowest in P and it turns out he sucks all around.

2 M, 3 D, 9 W, 2 P. So he beats his rivals into submission and rewards his lieutenants by letting them essentially do whatever they want to the peasants whenever they feel like it.

I randomly determined Mateo has three adult sons and four daughters.

Eldest son, 8 M, 6 D, 5 M 9 P and a 1 on family loyalty. So somehow Mateo accidentally raised a son who cares about the common people and earned their respect and he is a bit of a nerd. How long can he last? He probably hates his father based on moral grounds, that is why he has a low family loyalty.

The middle son got a 2 on family loyalty.
The middle son is like a slightly smarter version of his father. 3M, 5D, M8, P4

With his low family loyalty he probably wants to replace his father.

The youngest son got an 8 on family loyalty. And he is tough like his father. M4, 10D, 10 M, 4 P

So I'm thinking the youngest son who is very good at putting up a false face convinced his oldest brother that he too opposes father's cruel ways. He convinced the middle brother that "Our older brother is weak, you should inherit father's lands and title and I will support you." Then arranged the deaths of both brothers and made it look like they killed each other.

Let's look at the girls. Mateo is a misogynist evil man, but even evil people can love their daughters.

Dulce, Eldest daughter, family loyalty 7.
M10, D 5, W 1, P2

Dulce is perfect daughter for an asshole like Mateo. He is probably pleased his daughter has no martial ambitions (cause women are supposed to stay home), but she is a very good manager and capable of handling the mundane details that Mateo finds boring and difficult. Plus she's loyal and yet she has zero problem with him abusing the peasants and probably gets her jollies being cruel as well. Perfect daddy's little girl. He probably doesn't want her to get married because no one is good enough for her. But also she kind of channels the spirit of Delores Umbridge so no one wants to marry her.

Daughter 2, family loyalty 5
M 9, D 10, W3, P10

So, anyone in this family with a high P rating is not going to fit in with Mateo's court. She is good at diplomacy, so she probably convinced her father to let her marry outside the realm.

Daughter 3, family loyalty 2
M 9, D 5, W 6, P5

I'm going to assume her father married her off to one his lieutenants whom she hates. She is mad at her father and has been using her position in the management to quietly sabotage his book keeping.

Daughter 4, family loyalty 4
M2, D 3, W2, P3

She is not really good at anything. She resents that she is not allowed to do anything and sort of skates through life "Do you know who my father is!"

So I guess out of seven adult children, Mateo now has one loyal son, two loyal daughters (only one is useful), and one daughter plotting against him.

Matteos' Assets

He's got about 40,000 subjects, about 400 soldiers (4-5 dice pools) of which he has about 20 really good soldiers (6 dice combat pool). 10 ogres and 10 especially skilled and loyal knights. The ogres hit like a truck and the knights have top of the line armor. If push comes to shove, he can create a militia of about 4000 people but they are not very good (3 dice pools) and are not very brave or loyal. Mateo himself is a bad ass (9 dice combat pool) but fighting is about all he can do. He's got about 10 spellcasters on his payroll but only one warlock is actually able to go toe-to-toe against the PCs.

If you want to know what a X-dice combat pools means in narrative terms. Check out this article. The hilarious cover art is used with the artist's permission.

Mateos Liabilities

Mateo has been overtaxing the peasantry and inflicting such cruelties that the population has been gradually going down. Besides the oppressive taxes, Mateo and his goons are rapacious bullies. A lot of the peasants are half-starved, and while they are not in any condition to mount an uprising, they are very unmotivated to serve their lord and will not oppose a regime change. It also means tax revenues are falling as the the workers are either dying or unmotivated so Mateo has less money to pay his goons with, so their loyalty is dropping.

Mateo's primary advisor and magical enforcer, a Tester, recently disappeared without a trace leaving him in a lurch. Due to a complicated series of events, a young exiled noblewoman affiliated with a branch of Testers is hoping to seduce a powerful boytoy who getting her the kingdom she thinks she deserves. The locals do not know about Lady Felijca Wiern but they do know that Mateo's strongest supporter is now missing. Mateo has a modest stock of healing potions, but now his only magical healer is AWOL.

The Paladins of the Barony of Dragon Springs are hoping to topple Mateo and install a Paladin-friendly government or at the very least install a Border Baron that is not a rapacious and cruel warlord that harbors ogres. They have a few spies probing him for weakness.


We'll see what the PCs come up with. Neshik the gnome (great at healing and buff spells), Aranil the elf (good at killing things in melee and at range), and Svetlanna the Half-Orc (very good at killing things in melee) are now boosted by Neffrey the tengku.

Neffrey is a slick talker and a powerful enchanter. If they can sneak or bluff their way close to Mateo, they can probably kill him with minimal collateral damage (perhaps after ambushing an eliminating the warlock and/or ogres). But if they are not smart about it, they'll have to fight their way through hundreds of troops and liberate the realm on a pile of corpses over a blood soaked field.

 

[Scalenex]

My new artist that I commissioned is very detailed oriented and is giving me a lot of options, for example.



For instance I said I like the definition of ear 2 but the position of ear 1 and he's doing it. Pretty good bang for my buck. I eagerly await the finished product.

Back and forth talking has made me come up with the new Scarterran natural law that satyr ears move based on their current emotional state (though satyrs with a high Manipulation rating can move their ears or not move them at will).

As of now I have six major herds of satyrs.

Codenya satyrs , nature loving satyrs closely allied to wood elves and assimilating their values.

Confederate satyrs, minority satyr population found throughout the Colassian Confederacy

Faun satyrs are a pacificist leaning minority population within the land of Kantoc.

Kionus satyrs, barbarian satyrs roaming the cold northern region of West Colassia.

Mediterranean satyrs, earthy agrarian satyrs commonly found in the eastern inland region of West Colassia.

Poseidonus satyrs, sea loving satyrs that commonly work as sailors or set up homes in coastal regions.

The are the major satyr herds of the northern hemisphere. As of yet, I have not developed any satyr herds in the southern hemisphere (though Poseidonus satyrs sail to the northern coastal regions of the southern hemisphere. It just so happens that Scarterra's southern hemisphere is not nearly as well fleshed out as the north, at least for the near future. The north is where my RPG campaigns are and it's where my WIP fiction pieces are set.

Each of the six major herds has a population between 2000 and 100,000 satyrs. Hypothetically, if a player character did not find any of these herds to his/her liking, they can invent a new minor herd made of 50 to 1000 satyrs in a highly localized area and I'd be happy to incorporate them into Scarterra. Alternatively, if the story requires me to make up a new micro herd. I might add a new micro herd. I might add a relatively large micro herd in the Borderlands Region. I haven't thought of any details besides they would be nicknamed "Mountain Goats." True to form the Borderlands region is not just the border region between many different human and dwarf nations but it is the point where the geographic range of the Kionus satyrs, faun satyrs, and Mediterranean satyrs intersect and since satyrs are not exactly known for their chastity, this is where hybrid satyrs would be mostly likely to pop up.

I have commissioned a male and female representative from the Mediterranean satyrs, Poseidonus Satyrs, and the Kionus satyrs. So six portraits.

The Codenya satyrs, Confederate satyrs, and Faun satyrs may behave very differently but they all look very similar to Mediterranean satyrs, so I don't need to illustrate them all. Most as of yet undeveloped southern hemisphere satyrs probably look like this too. Earthy satyrs like the Mediterranean satyrs are sort of the default for Scarterran satyrs. Kionus satyrs represent satyrs with an unusually high amount of airy traits and Poseidonus satyrs represent satyrs with an unusually high amount of watery traits so that should give a good representation of the breadth of what Scarterran satyrs look like.

 

[Scalenex]

Here is the first of the new satyrs. An earthy satyr of the Mediterranean herd and also part of the Fumayan militia wearing Fumayan colors. I am not sure if I want to make the wheat on the shield yellow or leave it black. I didn't have the option to try yellow the last time I used the heraldry generator program.

Other than that, I see no reason to change anything as this picture is awesome.



Now for some boasting. I checked my analytics and my Scarterra wiki now has over 200,000 total article views. Last in late March I had about 75,000, so I am happy.

 

[Scalenex]

Character Portraits

Anyway, here is the first complete picture of the six commissioned pictures I paid a talented artist a very reasonable fee for. While I originally intended for this to be a representative sample of male Mediterranean satyrs, I plan to develop a name and fleshed out character for this handsome goat. He can be the commander of the Fumayan Satyr Irregulars unit.

Here a couple pictures one of the players in my RPG made using HeroForge for free.

HeroForge is an interesting site. You can make customizable fantasy models. You get a detailed unpainted custom model for about $20, a colored model for about $50 and the specs for a 3D printer for your custom model for about $8. But you can design a custom model, and save the picture for free.

My homebrew RPG system uses "mind's eye" roleplaying and does not use miniatures, but if it did use miniatures I would probably bankrupt myself using HeroForge.

Anyway, here is Kormatin, his character for the solo campaign I'm running. Kormatin does a lot of espionage stuff. When he is undercover he wears armor that is less obvious but this is what he wears when he wants to draw attention to himself.

Here is the portrait he made of Kormatin's half-sister who is one of his loyal sidekicks now. She has the distinct family heterocromia. The hammer is because she is a blacksmith. I created her with a story purpose as Kormatin's sister but I wanted to playtest some rules in my RPG system so I made her a true Jack of All Trades type to see if it works. All the player characters were pretty specialized. Brigid is a divine bard with Crafts magic and mundane blacksmithing skill (hence the hammer and harp), a swordswoman, a smooth talker, and a sorceress with a bit of illusion and invocation.

Initially playing a character with her points spread so thin made her the least effective party member but after the group got a fair bit of experience points, she is now holding her own with the best of them.

Here is his other sidekick/adventuring companion Ragani the gnome. She is an earthy gnome but just enough watery traits to give her softer eyes and smoother hair.

She is not holding a warped blade, she is holding a stick made out of Silverwood. In this case, she has a primitive looking Silverwood wand that can command Plant ● even in areas of poor plant cover. She uses her wand during really dangerous fights. She doesn't use her battle axe very often, it's mostly ceremonial.

She summons eagles and lions often. That is her strongest power. We nicknamed her favorite eagle Sam the Eagle after a battle where Sam did amazing during a conjurer's duel helping Ragani win a David and Goliath style match trouncing a much better Conjurer. Since HeroForge does not allow animal companions to be scaled this means for this picture Ragani was either magically grown or Sam was magically shrunk. Normally Sam would be as tall as Ragani.

This isn't set in stone. I'm still not 100% sure how I want Scarterran gnomes to look like. There are a lot of valid artistic interpretations for how gnomes can look. This picture basically uses the limitations of HeroForge. Gnomes aren't that different from hobbits with somewhat elvish vaguely square-ish ears.

I could make Scarterran gnomes pretty similar to this mold, or I can change their noses, cheek bones, hair, eyebrows, ears or any number of things to make them more exotic and fantastic looking. At some point when I make up my mind on what I want gnomes to look like, I will commission an artist to make me a few gnomes.


In Kormatin's campaign, I have one player. Kormatin's player controls his sidekicks in combat, I control his sidekicks outside of combat. Baldur's Gate style I suppose.

I'm running another more tradition with four players and four player characters (though one player rarely shows up and her husband controls her character most of the time). Anyway, the player of Kormatin the Dusk Warrior cleric of Khemra also plays Neffrey the Tengku warlock. Here is Neffrey the Tengku bardic warlock.

We agreed that most of the time, tengku wear shoes, but the model looks better with Neffrey's bear feet showing, so he's not wearing shoes here. He used Heroforge's "Ravenfolk" template and removed the tail.

Hopefully the other players will follow suit and Heroforge their characters.

 

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Anyway, Neffrey/Kormatin's player is addicted to making Scarterran characters on Hero Forge and I'm okay with this.

Here is Criegor Redshaft. The character Neffrey's player played for a one-shot story before Criegor became an ongoing NPC.

And here is Kormatin's former sidekick, Tihalt, who died tragically but heroically saving his friends from a pack of ogres. Befitting for a chivalrous warrior with a 9 Willpower score.

I added a lot of these recent pictures into the earth ethnicity article. Since most of my RPG campaigns thus far has been taking part in landlocked regions with temperate climates, earthy characters predominate.

 

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Here is Ujarek. You wouldn't know from this picture, but Ujarek is actually pretty nice and personable for a Tester. He represents Kormatin's and a to a lesser extant Neshik, most morally grey and brutal ally. Ujarek doesn't attack people just because he can, but when he decides someone is an enemy...well sucks to be them. But Ujarek is actually a skilled magical healer so he can kill his enemies and heal his friends.

Krogresli is the adolescent dwarf Eclipse Touched that Kormatin rescued from Morlocks. Assuming she makes it to adulthood, she'll be great at making magic items. Right now, she can create an enchantment on weapons, armor, and tools that lasts about 20 minutes and she can do basic mundane blacksmithing.

Her religious order, the Sóleið
kept her sequestered away for her safety, but she figured "If I'm going to get kidnapped by cannibals from a 'safe' location, I might as well go somewhere 'dangerous'", so she opted to continue her apprenticeship in the capital of Fumaya to broaden her horizons by studying among humans.

Noggra is a tengku military scout that Kormatin helped exonerate when the Swynfaredians tried to frame him for treason. He was part of "Kormatin's Seven" for his big scam against House Gorisonad where Noggra and Ujarek pretended to be bounty hunters and turned in Kormatin and his allies as part of a Trojan Horse maneuver.

 

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Here is Collme the ollum. Pretty representative of ollums in general (not that there are a lot of ollums skulking around). Though admittedly, Collme is one of the few villains that crossed Kormatin's path and lived. Ollums don't lose the gnomish ability to talk their way out of trouble.

Next is a good example of a jormanger. Dhorgolun was a jormanger skinchanger necromancer who was the major villain of a three session arc.

Dhorgolun is the weirdest looking character I introduced to Scarterra and it is impossible to create a degenerate dwarf with spider-like compound eyes, a stubby rat tail, various patches of mismatched fur, gradually hardening skin, and bat ears. He's been munching on kalazotz, igundans, and arachpliza picking up horrifying traits from all three races. So we are going to call this picture the "young" Dhorgolun.

On a less monstrous note. Kormatin ended up in possession with a large quantity of iron ore, so he set up a blacksmith shop where he lives with his sister when they are in the city of King's Lake. They share the shop with two roommates/employees, two young dwarf blacksmiths who have been steadily turning Kormatin's pile of iron ore into useful weapons to arm the Fumayan army.

EDIT: Here is some more.

Lady Felicja Wiern was a C-list villainess (possibly shifting to D-list villain), and was beaten by Kormatin and his allies about 60 experience points ago. Though she used her social status to avoid punishment (like the Decadents are famous for doing) and is plotting revenge against Kormatin, her sister the queen, and her father the Duke. She is really not in any position to beat any of these people but she is going to try. All three of Lady Felicja's targets are gearing up for a war with Swynfaredia, so she might try to utilize that as cover, but the Swynfaredians dislike Maylar's followers, especially Decadents.

Huelwen the skin changer witch was one of Kormatin's toughest fights Kormatin fought. His friend Tihalt fell in the battle against her and his minions as they fought to eliminate Huelwen's rising criminal cartel and to rescue their victim.

Nuldrun Dragonbane the stone mason was a hireling of one of Kormatin's allies. Kormatin helped defend Nuldrun's caravan and helped Nuldrun's nephew and nephews friend get set up with a steady job. Nuldrun provided Kormatin some useful introductions and provided him food and shelter when he was visiting Meckelorn.

 

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To take a break from Hero Forge portraits, here is a detailed article with lots of pictures I wrote on how people get drinking water in Scarterra.

 

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For the last month or so I have been adding excerpts to most of my main articles which you can see under the article dislay in the table of contents. They will also pop up if you hover the mouse over the hyperlink.

So if you hover over a hyperlink for camazotz a little box will pop up saying "aggressive large bat-like humanoids". If you hover over a hyperlink for Bellusk, it will say "Scaraquan goddess of strength and survival, the Mother of Sharks, alter ego of Maylar" If you hover over the hyperlink for Seeyirah it will say "the three principle goddesses of the sea, according to Scaraquans".

If you hover over the hyperlink for Keepers, it will say "the primary followers of the goddess Khemra".

I haven't got everything yet (and some articles aren't worth the effort to do this on), but I got most of the important ones I hyperlink a lot. Hopefully that will make navigating the site easier. Articles with self explanatory titles such as "ritual drownings for Greymoria" do not need a description. Nor do short articles for very obscure characters.

Unfortunately it will not affect hyperlinks I put on Lustria-Online.

 

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You all might be getting sick of Heroforge portraits but I'm not.

I was going to stop posting these here, but the last batch is really good.

Here is Janesh the Mereshi Outrider, who provided the much vaunted stereotype section for the Greater Mereshnari Tribe article. I still need to come up with heraldry for them but it can wait.

Heroforge does not have the means to make old wrinkly people but we communicated old man vibes with a walking stick to compensate for his bad knee and white hair.

Here is my friends attempt at a nameless orc wendigo.

But the Crème de la crème of my buddies artistic endeavors is his creation of a very accurate and detailed portrait for Dyrik Mykrrún, the most infamous and depraved dwarf wizard Scarterra ever seen and the most powerful skin changer witch ever seen if the Third Age, perhaps ever.

I like the picture so much, I might consider bringing Dyrik Mykrrún back from the dead as a villain just to have an excuse to use it more.

That said, Dyrik had a bunch of apprentices and cult followers still running around (and I already used one as a villain of the week once). Also Dyrik's original left arm has become a powerful relic now in the possession of an expansionist orc tribe. I left it vague on what sort of power the bones have.