Glad To Have That Out Of My System

You ever get a bee in your bonnet about something and you just can't get on with things until you've done gone gotten it out? That's how I felt about Item magic!  It's not perfect. It could be better. Never playtested it; probably never will. But mathematically it works. It's tasty. It's got what this guy craves.

Have You Ever Wondered Why There Is A Prince of Wales?

13th c. Wales via Wikimedia

The reason I was working on it at all in the first place is that I want some magic power for a setting I'm developing based on 11th-13th c. Western England and Wales. No proper wizards. Clerics aren't a weird mishmash of Jesus and van Helsing. The Marcher Lords and the lands they squabbled over are a rich backdrop for politics, intrigue, adventure, and romance. (Read the link, it's really cool.)

I had initially thought that I would have "proper magic" in the form of alchemists and herbalists. Not so fast! Having worked out the details, these classes would be too complicated to justify their story value.

Here is my current plan for magic users in the Realm.

Druids as they appear in first and second edition, basically btb.  It's a good class. It's so tasty. The limits are strong (3.5e broke the Druid.) They're a great base anyway. I will have to figure out what changes they need.

Oh! And it's illegal to be a Druid in the setting, because they're heretics. The punishment is death, but if they confess and convert, they get a nice Christian burial. So the Druid will be the heavy hitter magic user. But also very risky to play. 

The other two Magic classes will be the Witch and the Hedge Wizard (or something, I don't know yet.) I'm going to see if Tim Brannon can help me with a reasonable and flavorful witch. A couple days ago he posted some awesome tea rituals for witches to perform that seem like a great base for the class abilities of a witch. 

I'm also going to nick the wise woman/clever man from Backswords and Bucklers to replace the base Cleric. Maybe with armor and weapon restrictions.

Anybody who is actually Lawful or is Neutral-but-devout can try to turn undead.

There will be a Thief guy class called the Rat-Catcher.

There will be a Bard class too but probably not as magical as normal D&D Bards. Bards from the First Estate are called Cantors. They're gonna be useful to big wigs as heralds and spies, not just buffbots in combat.  They will have a great opportunity to play politics all day and night.

I think there will be two kinds of fighting men - one the noble Knight, and one who can be either a commoner or an outlaw called the Footmen (Gosh, I don't know, it's accurate but lame) or Fighters.  I am envisioning "kits" like in 2e to differentiate one kind of fighter from another. 

Maybe there should be an option for an outlander fighting man too, but I'm not sure about that. 

Some goofy Catalan Infantrymen via Wikimedia

This is the Realm of Men

PCs are all Men. Elves are really alien, scary horror movie fey. They are individually immortal but dying off as a species, and taking magic with them. You would NOT get it on with a Elf.

If ever such a thing as a Dwarf came to be in the Realm, it would be a Norse dwarf. Evil magic users. Not gold grubbing klingons.

No hobbits. Hobbits is Tolkien and this isn't Tolkien. If you like hobbits, be a commoner.

He Runs Like a Welshman!

A lot of the time of the Marcher Lords was spent with Normans and their descendants, nominally subject to the English Crown, ruling over a local population of Welsh, English, German and French peasants. It may behoove me, as long as we're going the "kit" route, to write some kits for the other kinds of Men in the Realm.  Welshmen in particular as the proud majority ought to be quite different than the other kinds who have come as invaders.

I'm frankly surprised at how little "progress" I've made in two weeks of thinking this up. Progress in this case meaning change. It seems like the Big Idea sprong into my brain fully formed in the middle. It needs some specifics filled in and poof! new setting for a new campaign.