Burrowowl

Radio Free Llael is a podcast produced rather in the spirit of Fell Calls, but instead of being run by a gaggle of wargamers, it is run by a group of roleplaying enthusiasts. At only two episodes, it is already shaping up to be the National Public Radio to the Fell Calls’ wacky sports talk. The tone is relatively mellow, and the hosts Thurston and Nick clearly get along well with each other and their guests very well. One thing that is clear from the first two episodes is that these folks aren’t afraid to break away from the canonical Iron Kingdoms, going so far as to incorporate airships into their upcoming Llaelese Resistance campaign.

Give it a try for some mellow, geeky fun.

With the release of Five Fingers: Port of Deceipt, Privateer Press paints an interesting picture of an “evil city” for their campaign setting, the Iron Kingdoms. From other sourcebooks, we fans of the setting knew Five Fingers as a pirate haven on the border of Ord and Cygnar, a city with a dark and lawless reputation. Port of Deceit simultaneously confirms and dispels these notions.
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Tonight saw an IRC-based interview with Privateer Press writers Douglas Seacat and Wolfgang Baur regarding their upcoming release Five Fingers: Port of Deceit. Mr. Seacat is a Privateer Press veteran, having a hand in just about everything they’ve published since the second installment of the Witchfire Trilogy, and Mr. Baur was a major contributor to the best campaign settings ever released by TSR: Planespace.

I enjoyed it greatly, in no small part because several of my less-asinine questions were directly addressed. Transcript follows.
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As part 0.11 of the IK Fate Roadmap, it is necessary to generate a representative sampling of Aspects that characters in the Iron Kingdoms may find useful or interesting. I will break them up into a handful of subcategories for organizational purposes. This is not intended as a complete listing of possible aspects, as a total lock-down of the character-generation process strikes me as antithetical to the Fate system.

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Migrating an existing campaign setting from one rule set to another can be a daunting task. Many of the details of the setting are strongly-tied to the assumptions of a given system. In the case of the Iron Kingdoms, a great deal of this has to do with the mechanisms of magic, especially who can use it and how. Dungeons & Dragons themes of Wizards, Sorcerers, Druids, Paladins, and Bards suffuse the setting, and should be translated into any new system for the Iron Kingdoms to any other rule set.

Happily, there are some fairly-close correlations between the various rounds of character creation in the d20 system and Fate, and between one of the recommended Fate magic systems and the way spells have traditionally been divvied up in D&D. I’m sure this is no accident, as most folks that design RPGs have at some point played Dungeons & Dragons themselves.

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I was recently exposed to a rather interesting alternate RPG system written by the folks over at Evil Hat Productions. Traditionally, published roleplaying games will have an assumed setting built into its game mechanics. This is often in the form of a series of core attribute statistics that define how strong, nimble, smart, or persuasive a given character is, and reinforced through systems of character classes and pre-defined skills. Characters built within these parameters lend themselves, in theory, to the assumed setting. This is the case with World of Darkness system, Deadlands, or Dungeons & Dragons.

Others attempt to be universally-applicable. They do so by modifying an existing ruleset to include a preponderance of additional skills and rules tacked onto the older system (d20 Modern and Palladium strike me as good examples), or by creating an amorphous uber-system like GURPS.

Fate takes a third, higher road, by imposing a ruleset that revolves around types of attributes, not the specific definitions thereof. Characters have various Aspects and Skills, and some number of Fate Points. The nature of those Aspects, and the particulars of the definitions of those Skills are left to the gamemaster and players to work out, with an emphasis on relevance to the story instead of absolute quantities. For example, to create a brave sword-wielding adventure of prodigious strength, a D&D player may create a Fighter character with a high Strength score. He’ll also have Dexterity, Constitution, Intelligence, Wisdom, and Charisma attributes, but none of these are key to the character concept; they’re present to satisfy the character-creation process. A similar character in the Fate system may have Aspects invested in “Prodigious Strength” and “Brave,” and Skills invested in swordsmanship.

The Aspects can be just about anything (the core ruleset has examples ranging from “intelligent” to “expendable”) , and frankly so can the skills (which can include supernatural skills such as psychic or magic powers). Lest this seem entirely too free-form, a great deal of the 90-page core document revolve around ways to narrow things down to suit the needs of your setting and your story.

Toward this end, I’m thinking of writing up an overlay of sorts for the Iron Kingdoms. Before I get too deep into it, I’ll need to decide how detailed I’ll want to get. If this is just some intellectual exercise, it can be as specific as the current campaign I’m running using d20. If it is to be more generally-applicable, skill sets and aspects need to be considered for aspects of the setting that I don’t intend to personally use.

Though I generally consider the presence of Iosans and Rhul-folk (Elves and Dwarves, respectively) to be unnecessary hold-overs from traditional Dungeons & Dragons, sacred cows that few d20 publishers are willing to disturb, they do have somewhat interesting implementations in the Iron Kingdoms setting from Privateer Press. In keeping with high fantasy tradition, the Dwarves are excellent stoneworkers that worship a variety of foundry, forge, and masonry-related deities that are considered the great grand-pappies of their species.

Also in keeping with tradition, the Elves are an ancient, noble, refined, and slowly dying race that has outlived its usefulness in the world. Towards in end, the pantheon of the Iosan Elves consists largely of deities that simply no longer exist. They vanished a few hundred years ago, with only one surviving, though sickly, and possibly comatose, tended to by a worried flock. This ailing survivor, Scyrah, is pretty well-described in the published material, but the others, being effectively defunct, have received little official treatment. The following descriptions are courtesy of Douglas Seacat, Privateer Press writer, on an unofficial basis (any details here are subject to change later on).
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The Shield of Ord, Midfast is a city truly vital to the security of its nation. Situated at the most navigable pass between Merin and Khador, Midfast has spent centuries as a vital byway of trade and a critical choke-point denying northern aggression. This city has been the scene of numerous seiges, the most famous of which culminated with the ascencion of Markus, the Morrowan patron ascendant of soldiers. To this day, national defense is the primary concern of Midfast.

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File under “Ordic National Board of Tourism”

Nestled between Cygnar, Khador, and the Sea of a Thousand Souls, Ord has ever had a fine naval tradition. What many do not know, though, is the pastoral splendor of our inland valleys, hills, and moors. Though not endowed with the rich mineral deposits of some other lands, Ord is a country steeped in history and culture.

The six Gravs of Ord are ruled by Baird Cathor II, the Bandit King. He has led our country with a skillful hand for over thirty years now, navigating the treacherous waters of international diplomacy and internal politicking with grace and cunning. It is his tact, wit, and guile that have kept Ord both strong and well-clear of the conflicts that presently embroil the other nations of Immorren. Three Lord Castellans and three Moorgraves govern the Gravs of Ord directly, setting local policies as they see fit, with interference from the throne only when necessary.

It is said that the law has a different meaning in Ord, with a storied history of brigandry and piracy going back since before the Orgoth invasion. It could be said that Ordic folk treasure their freedom perhaps a bit too much. From Grav to Grav, and even from town to town, law enforcement varies greatly with the dilligence, competance, and corruption of its leaders. The city of Five Fingers is particularly noted for its lack of governmental oversight and prosperous black market, while the city of Midfast sees very little crime with its preponderance of military personnel. Justice is served by three-judge panels that convict by unanimous vote. Those accused of crimes are considered guilty unless they can prove otherwise, and judges are given a great deal of discretion regarding punishments, which often involves some degree of flogging, or forced labor. Capital crimes are traditionally dealt with by hanging, drowning, or gibbeting.

Ord is the site of several significant religious centers, including the monastery and tomb of Ascendant Markus, Ascendant Gordenn’s tomb, and the Mor Cathedral, built on the site where Ascendant Doleth is said to have departed on his last sea voyage. The church of Morrow is highly active in Ord, though a minority of folk still worship Menoth here.

Ocean trade is the life-blood of Ord on an international scale, with her fleets of skilled sailors and canny merchants. Trade gives rise to currency, and Ord mints its own in accordance with the Corvis Treaties:

• The Blackpenny is roughly equivalent in value to the Cygnaran Farthing, and is struck in copper, and are thusly named due to the minting process leaving them darker in hue than other similar coins.
• A Half-galleon is equal in value to five Blackpennies, and is literally a silver Galleon cut in half. Blackpennies and Half-galleons are the most commonly-used currency amongst the commoners of Ord.
• The Galleon is struck in silver and is roughly the same in value as a Cygnaran Shield. The Galleon’s obverse has a vertical crease that makes chopping it in half quite easy.
• A Silverweight is a large coin struck in silver, and worth two full Galleons.
• The Royal is a coin struck in gold, equivalent to the Khadoran Talon or Cygnaran Crown.

Ordic coin has been plagued by a reputation for shaving, underweight castings, impurities, and counterfeiting, and as a result many merchants prefer Cygnaran currency for moderate and large-scale trade.