[Infinity Archmage] I need your help building the world of Archmage!


Homebrew and House Rules

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Each of the types of magic and the gods have their own archetypal creatures. I haven't done much on them so far.

Angels

Angels are manifest spirits of holy magic, usually serving the gods that favour the same magic. They are usually thought of as forces of good, and are the manifest spirits most commonly allied with humans.

They usually appear as winged humans of wondrous beauty. Some may appear with complex metallic structures floating around them or have skin made of metal. Angels of more exotic forms are spoken of in legends.

Archangel - Archangels are formed of pure holy magic and are more powerful than angels of mixed heritage.

Angel of Law - Angels of Law serve Ganne as her representatives and often have great influence in the courts.

Angel of Death - Angels of Death serve Malevi. To see one is a grim omen. They are enforcers and assassins, bringing doom to those that do not pay their debts.

Angel of Vengeance - Angels of Vengeance serve Helior as champions on the battlefield, wielding great flaming swords.

Angel of Grace - Angels of Grace serve Anaton and are the most commonly seen living amongst mortals. They work to ease pain, heal the sick and help communities avoid strife.

Leviathans

Leviathans are manifest spirits of arcane magic, keepers of ancient lore and guardians of perilous secrets. They are very reclusive and reluctant to share their magnificent libraries with any but the most worthy scholars.

Leviathans are vast creatures, often serpentine, that dwell in the deep places of the world. The vast majority of them lurk in the dark depths of the oceans, but some choose to lair in underground seas or remote swamps.

And I've run out of energy after just that. Bleh. To be brief for the rest: Death = demons, Chaos = dragons, Nature = behemoths. I may detail them later.


Let's see how much I can get out of this dose of caffeine.

I haven't done much on the other creatures, but here we go.

Note, each type of creature can have many different subtypes. Think of each larger grouping as a creature type, and each type described under it as a subtype.

Of all the manifest spirits, the leviathans are physically the largest but also the most passive and reluctant to use their powers. Due to their reclusiveness, they are the least understood archetype creatures.

Deep Sage - The great servants of Selai are the largest and most powerful leviathans. They slumber beneath the ocean until needed. None can match their mastery of the arcane.

Cloud Serpent - Ganne's graceful cloud serpents spend as much time sailing the skies as they do the seas. They are divine keepers of legal knowledge and may be consulted for aid in difficult cases or to serve as judges when supernatural creatures are brought to trial.

Abyssal Leviathan - It is Lyriasha's leviathan, a serpentine thing that dwells in the darkest places, keeping the darkest and most powerful secrets. It is said that they inherit all knowledge that is lost to death.

Many-Armed One - Aldran's leviathans are often in the shape of octopuses, squids and sometimes even vast jellyfish or even stranger forms. As creatures of both arcane and chaos magic, they are erratic and intelligent, and those desiring sparks of inspiration may seek them. The many-armed ones command the elemental power of lightning.

Great Whale - Yazrath's leviathans typically take the form of vast whales, although it is said that of all the leviathans, the great whales are the most adept at shapeshifting magic. They are masters of natural magic and knowledge.


I expected dragons to be spread between spheres instead of being creatures of Chaos. Too much Might & Magic on my side, probably... Demons - death & dragons - chaos? Oh, Heroes Of Might & Magic 4! Right. More or less.


All of these creatures have a primary aspect and may have one (or more?) secondary aspects.

Using dragons as an example, all of them are chaos. Some dragons also have aspects of the other paths as well. This also determines ther elemental type.

Pure chaos: All types, elemental mastery sort of thing.

Chaos/Holy: Fire

Chaos/Arcane: Lightning

Chaos/Death: Sonic

Chaos/Nature: Cold


Hmmm, such picks for element taken...

Personally I would probably go with Death->cold and Nature-> acid but that's just me.


Chaos/Nature gets cold because it's about survival of the fittest, and cold environments are the most common 'natural' killer of all the elements.

Also, acid isn't an element under my system. It is a damage type, but it's not classed as elementalism.

There are several elements, divided into two categories:

The Chaos Elements, characterised by change and energy:
Lightning, Cold, Fire

The Nature Elements, characterised by matter and phases:
Air, Water, Earth

Sonic is sort of an outlier, but Shelas and her minions get that because she's crazypants.


Also, thanks for commenting. It helps me keep going. Now, if only I could muster the strength to update Divinity Forge. D:


There's not just HoMM in here. There's a lot of Master of Magic (and by association, Magic the Gathering) in here, too!

The curses and stuff may be subject to change if I think of more appropriate ones or whatever.

Demons

It may be that there are far more demons in the world than there are any other kind of manifest spirit, largely because souls sold to dark gods are often transformed into new demons. It's also commonly thought that demons never truly die, and defeated demons merely slumber for centuries for returning. If these myths are true, then the number of demons in the world can only increase over time. This would be completely terrifying if there weren't also tales of redeemed or peaceful demons. All demons suffer a characteristic curse.

Archdemon - The purest and most powerful demons are the old archdemons under Mevyann's rule. They can command armies of the dead and wrench the life from a body as easily as the greatest necromancer. In form, they are spectral and shadowy, things of vague shape that suggests horrifying truths. Archdemons are cursed with pride; they cannot oppose a foe that they do not honestly consider worthy unless attacked directly (beware; an archdemon may consider an army a worthy foe, even if the individual soldiers are not).

Demon of Coin - Demons of Coin are Malevi's servants and are masters of bargaining. They rarely disguise their motives and are said to always tell the truth (unlike Lyriasha's demons of secrets). An encounter with a hostile demon of coin may often be avoided by offering a large sum of gold. They tend to be powerful, regal-looking humanoids with extravagant jewelry and elaborate, gold-plated horns, talons, and whatever other appendages they might sport. Demons of coin are cursed with truth; they cannot lie. They can omit information or refuse to answer... unless persuaded by enough gold.

Demon of Secrets - Lyriasha's demons of secrets are some of the more approachable demons, generally disinclined to violence. However, they are exceptionally cunning and excel at trapping mortals into soul-slave contracts with clever words and temptations. They take the appearance of finely-dressed humanoids, albeit with a blue flame in place of a head and often with a partial upper jaw or other skull fragment made of filigreed silver floating before the flame. Demons of secrets are cursed with blindness; they cannot see or hear (but may be aware of indirectly) any creature that does not interact with or speak to them.

Demon of Passion - Shelas and her demons are often petitioned for mastery of artistic talent, for success in romance, or for satiation of other mortal desires. In exchange for these gifts, pact-bound mortals are destined to become soul food for these demons or even transform into demons themselves. Demons of passion are usually but not always exotically attractive yet are usually the most prominently spiky demons, with many jagged claws and horns. Demons of passion are cursed with madness; each has a kind of impairing mental disorder (that may be related to its gift in life).

Demon of Rot - The demons bound to Yldrienne are horrible, putrefying things filled with poison and disease. Though their patron is usually considered the most benevolent of the dark gods, it is said this form is the fate of those who displease her or use her gifts to harm nature. Demons of rot are cursed with wasting; though immortal and constantly regenerating, they often find parts of their body failing at random.


I just now thought of a plot involving a demon of passion:

A death mage managed to bind a powerful demon of passion and is using it to conquer and control a town. The party cannot hope to defeat it on their own, but a series of clues may lead them to discover the demon's mortal identity... and from there its terrible weakness.

The demon was a painter in life, and if presented with the painting it created using demonic inspiration, it will be crippled with paralysing fear and unable to move. The party may then slay the demon easily. The death mage is probably still a decent fight, though.


I'm back!

Somehow, I managed to get myself on track with working on this system again. The former eight injury charts (head, chest, abdomen, groin, arm, hand, leg, foot) have been condensed into four (head, torso, arm, leg) and I've added rules for reducing starting stats below the norm (along with a warning about dumping in a system that cares about every stat).

Equipment lists have been refined and edited. More spells have been written (descriptions for existing spells; no new ones yet).

I haven't done more on the world, but if asked, I could elaborate on some aspect.

I might actually be able to get this thing playable soon!


Prosthetic Parts!

In a game where you can lose bits of yourself in combat, it's a good idea to have some way of fixing yourself up. If you don't go for regeneration or powerful healing magic, you can get replacement parts!

Conventional

Made from wood, bone or metal, conventional prostheses often resemble the missing part or simpler shapes but have no ability to move on their own. Some more advanced pieces may be cleverly articulated, with joints and springs to aid movement.

Cheap, not subject to pain or energy loss, usually cannot restore full function.

Fabricant

A very recent development, a fabricant prosthesis is mechanically and mystically animated in a similar fashion to the fabricants themselves, and can be used by the wearer just like a real limb, albeit with some advantages and disadvantages due to being nonliving machinery.

Some fabricant parts may include intricate devices and tools, or even hidden weapons.

Expensive, not subject to pain or energy loss, cannot use talents that cost energy.

Forgecursed

Getting a forgecursed prosthesis is easy. That is, if you can take the limb off a forgecursed. The tortured masses of metal and flesh are eager to reconnect with life and basically install themselves if surgically attached to the appropriate site. They function just like a normal limb. There is the downside of constant pain and a tendency toward gaining some of the negative forgecursed personality traits, making it the least popular option.

Rare, fully functional, constant pain and risk of madness.

Undead

Necromancers can animate dead parts and attach them to a living body. This may be nauseating to think about, but is perfectly safe and sanitary so long as the recipient does not let the part's reservoir of life force run empty. The limb may then attack the wearer and those around it in attempt to replenish itself. This can be particularly strange if the prosthesis is not a limb.

Creepy, fully functional, requires upkeep or risks becoming an uncontrolled undead.

Magewood

A more exotic option, magewood replacements are not crafted, but planted in the wound and grow into the appropriate shape, albeit with a woody and sometimes leafy appearance. Magewood parts are tough and function well but require extra care, frequent sunlight and periodic watering.

Expensive, tough, fully functional, requires tending.


I have finally started putting together what might end up as a Campaign Setting book for all this. At the moment, it's a whole lot of chapter headings and a bunch of notes copy/pasted out of this thread.


Anyone still interested in this? I'd like some discussion I can respond to.

Have I posted about the greater Nature creatures? Nope! Let's see if I can think of some stuff right now.

Behemoths

Something?

The greatest of the Behemoths are Silai's favoured heralds. They embody the purity and strength of nature, unfettered by any other aspect. I can't think of what kind of creature they should be.

A GIANT KITTY

ARGATH'S MANIFEST SPIRIT IS A CAT
IT IS HUGE AND ALSO REALLY FAST

Fungal Mass

Often resembling a vast quadruped, the Fungal Mass is a constantly growing, decaying and reforming creature of indeterminate origin. Representing renewal, the parts of itself that slough off in its wake bless the ground with wondrously fertile soil. However, whatever lies in front of it is likely to succumb either to its powers of rot or its mighty strength.

Roc

The great birds of Anaton watch over his flock from the high places. So long as they have sufficient food, they will viciously defend territory from opposing creatures of power. Few farmers are willing to pay the price to appease such ravenous behemoths, however.

Something weird?

I haven't thought of a behemoth for Yazrath yet.

This was less successful a post than I anticipated.


Oh well. Should I call this thread dead?


Nope! It just needs some bumping so the people that commented here notice that it is active again!


Possessing Spirits

It's fairly well-known by the scholars of the modern age that a common desire amongst the gods is to manifest wholly and physically in the mortal plane. It is believed that by doing so, their power will magnify by an incredible factor. Thus far, all attempts by deities to inhabit physical forms have been entirely unsuccessful.

Lesser spirits, however, have proven quite able to enter the bodies of mortal creatures and influence - or even directly control - their thoughts and emotions. We believe that ancient spirits were able to alter the bodies they possessed as well, but evidence of that is sparse at best. The story of the creation of the Syldanar is the most substantial record, but most versions do not include bodily possession by the spirits.

A possessing spirit can gain an increase to its power by taking a body, not to mention a more tangible ability to interact with physical objects and phenomena. Depending on the nature of the spirit and the strength of the possession, it may be able to manifest its magical powers through the body, although these powers are often influenced by the flesh they are channeled through. A spirit possessing a mage and attempting to cast a spell contrary to its nature is more likely to produce an aberrant result than not.

Possession is not always performed without the consent of the vessel. The Krodanoi have a long tradition of selecting favoured warriors prior to important battles to be possessed by spirits of chaos. The spirits drive the warriors into battle with fury and strength unmatched by their kin. Unfortunately, these chaos warriors quickly lose sense of friend and foe as they dive into combat and usually have to be subdued after the battle is over lest they start slaughtering allies.

What does this mean for players?

I guess it's kind of like the Binder. Put a spirit in you, get cool stuff, at the cost that sometimes the spirit wants to do stuff that you might not want to.

Can constructs or undead be possessed?

Sure. Why not? Spirits possess inanimate stuff all the time, so some inanimate stuff that walks and talks is just fine.


The Elemental Cycles

Chaos magic rules the elements of change: Heat, cold and electricity; and their manifest forms: Fire, ice and lightning.

Nature magic rules the elements of being: Gas, liquid and solid; and their manifest forms: Air, water and earth.

Each element overcomes two others, and in turn is overcome by two elements.

Fire overcomes ice and air, and is overcome by water and lightning.
Ice overcomes lightning and earth, and is overcome by air and fire.
Lightning overcomes fire and water, and is overcome by ice and earth.

Air overcomes ice and water, and is overcome by earth and fire.
Water overcomes fire and earth, and is overcome by air and lightning.
Earth overcomes air and lightning, and is overcome by ice and water.

I tried to fit them all into a symmetrical cycle by ehh... I'm not too happy with some of the interactions. Anyone got a better layout for these six that is still 'balanced'?


Rethinking summons.

I'm wondering if perhaps it should be impossible to physically summon something as a combat spell (that would be reserved for ritual-style casting), and instead all short term combat summons are 'elementals'.

Instead of being your generic protoplasmic blob of associated matter or energy, each elemental would have a particular form.

For example, the early nature summons might be Hawk of Air, Snake of Water, and Boar of Earth.

They are solid and can be interacted with, but are drawn from the elements rather than formed from flesh and blood out of thin air.

Chaos summons would be ice, fire and lightning. Death animates corpses and summons shadows, so that doesn't need changing. I can't remember if Arcane still has Phantom Warrior and Phantom Beast, but those are illusions so that's fine. I don't think Holy had any summons.


Last night I dreamed that someone replied to my thread.


Tales of the Prime

With so many gods and spirits from a former world, there are equally many stories of life in the Prime. Most are fanciful and impossible, describing a place where man could cross nations in a day upon sorcerous devices, and wars where even the lowliest soldier struck at foes with divine lightning. Most such stories, unfortunately, are severely lacking in specifics. No nations are named, nor any places or people, save those that escaped to Deutero. If the gods themselves remember, they have told no-one.

Spirits have expressed distress and confusion at the haze over their memories of mortal life in the Prime, and opinions differ over the reason for this loss. Oft stated is that when the Prime dissolved into the Maelstrom, so too did its history and knowledge. Only by the will of the gods did mere fragments survive. The subject is of particular interest to servants of Ganne, Silai and Lyriasha. This is a point of conflict between the Silai and Lyriasha's faithful; Silai's sharing of knowledge against Lyriasha's covetous secrecy.

A separatist cult of Ganne called the Preservers aims to work in concert with a group of spirits of wisdom and memory to best recreate the works of the Prime in Deutero. They disdain innovation and creativity, seeing these as dangerous and destructive traits - perhaps the very same that led to the end of the Prime. Their goal is to restore only what was, and to create any more than that is heresy. With how fractured and vague stories of the Prime are, most of their work goes into gathering and cross-referencing them to extract what solid facts they can.


I'm really struggling. The depression isn't helping. I'd like to actually finish this one day.

So! Please ask questions about the setting or the ruleset!


Umbral Reaver wrote:

Can constructs or undead be possessed?

Sure. Why not? Spirits possess inanimate stuff all the time, so some inanimate stuff that walks and talks is just fine.

I would say that undeads created by binding spirit (original or not) back into the flesh might have a degree of resistance or outright immunity to possession. In fact I now started to wonder if you have already defined liches for Archmage? Maybe liches would be undeads created by process of turning the mortal soul into a spirit-like ghost and then binding that spirit to the body? instead of rebuilding the destroyed body like the D&D liches do it would instead possess a new body (or a prepared construct vessel) after destruction. More powerful ones could even have multiple bodies/vessels prepared and switch between them as needed.


Drejk wrote:
Umbral Reaver wrote:

Can constructs or undead be possessed?

Sure. Why not? Spirits possess inanimate stuff all the time, so some inanimate stuff that walks and talks is just fine.

I would say that undeads created by binding spirit (original or not) back into the flesh might have a degree of resistance or outright immunity to possession. In fact I now started to wonder if you have already defined liches for Archmage? Maybe liches would be undeads created by process of turning the mortal soul into a spirit-like ghost and then binding that spirit to the body? instead of rebuilding the destroyed body like the D&D liches do it would instead possess a new body (or a prepared construct vessel) after destruction. More powerful ones could even have multiple bodies/vessels prepared and switch between them as needed.

Alrighty! Let's see where I can go with this.

I may be contradicting some of my earlier stuff, but I think it works something like this: There are several kinds of undead. Spirits of death can possess corpses and animate them under their control. They may be summoned into the corpse by a necromancer. This death spirit may range from something like a simple, mindless automaton all the way to a demon spirit. So yes, an undead created this way is already possessed and would have some resistance, in the same way that a living creature being targeted by possession can resist.

Some skeletons may be closer to constructs than undead, albeit still powered by death magic. They just eschew the spirit and are much simpler and more controllable creatures, albeit devoid of skill or initiative. Possessing one would probably be a lot easier for a spirit, since there's no mind to resist it.

Currently, the only concept of a 'lich' exists as a typical undead capable of casting spells, particularly ones that let it regenerate energy/stability (which undead cannot do on their own). Perhaps even have some magical process that does this automatically. The idea of the spirit discorporating upon the body's destruction and seeking a new host is a good one! It would probably be pretty rare even amongst undead mages.

What kind of host a spirit can possess and the difficulty in doing so is largely dependant on the kind of spirit it is. Death spirits prefer corpses. Nature spirits prefer animals and plants. Chaos spirits prefer bodies formed from elemental energies (a trick other spirits would have a tremendously hard time with). Arcane spirits prefer magical artifacts and books and stuff, and would be the most likely source for intelligent items.

Holy spirits are those most fond of possessing people, since Holy is the type most closely associated with civilisation. This may be seen as a blessing, akin to being touched with the gift of prophecy or divine something or other in lands where Juric and his children are the favoured deities.

Woo. See, this is what happens when I'm prompted! Thanks. :)


Umbral Reaver wrote:
Currently, the only concept of a 'lich' exists as a typical undead capable of casting spells, particularly ones that let it regenerate energy/stability (which undead cannot do on their own). Perhaps even have some magical process that does this automatically.The idea of the spirit discorporating upon the body's destruction and seeking a new host is a good one! It would probably be pretty rare even amongst undead mages.

I think there might be two modus operandi for liches then: one would be classical stealing required energy from living victims, making vampires a subtype of lich that wants to keep its body, the second lich path would rely on using up energy reserve of the body and jumping to a new body with fresh energy reserve. It would probably need more mitigators to reduce energy costs, though, to make it worthwhile. Others might be just power hungry consumptionist psychopaths with severly restricted long term planning (which would tell them that overexploitation of resources is counterproductive long-term).


Possession and the flesh:

Does the possession involve physical transformation of the possessed vessel to more closely represent the spirit within? Or is the possessing spirit using the body as is and relying on using its magic?

This question came to me after reading the sentence about Holy spirits being fond of possession and I started to imagine typical seraph from HMMV and wonder if in Archmage it would be human body possessed by the holy spirit and transformed by the possession or would the wings be merely magical creation of the spirit within.


That could happen, but would not occur in all cases. It would very much depend on the power of the spirit, its type, and its individual nature and abilities. There is a high level holy spell that lets you manifest angelic wings (flight + inspiring aura), and a possessing spirit may know that spell!


Umbral Reaver wrote:
That could happen, but would not occur in all cases. It would very much depend on the power of the spirit, its type, and its individual nature and abilities. There is a high level holy spell that lets you manifest angelic wings (flight + inspiring aura), and a possessing spirit may know that spell!

So it would be rather a magically induced manifestation instead of transformation of the possessed body.

That made me jump to slightly different topic: Does your world include polymorphy effects or is such complex rearrangement of cellular structures beyond the scope of magic in Archmage?


Drejk wrote:
Umbral Reaver wrote:
That could happen, but would not occur in all cases. It would very much depend on the power of the spirit, its type, and its individual nature and abilities. There is a high level holy spell that lets you manifest angelic wings (flight + inspiring aura), and a possessing spirit may know that spell!
So it would be rather a magically induced manifestation instead of transformation of the possessed body.

Both are possible.

Quote:
That made me jump to slightly different topic: Does your world include polymorphy effects or is such complex rearrangement of cellular structures beyond the scope of magic in Archmage?

Shapechanging magic can be found in arcane (for disguise) and nature (for combat/utility). There is a historical instance of chaos magic being used to mimic nature+arcane manipulation of form, but it went very badly for an entire nation.


Thinking about Harpies.

Harpies are totally the kind of weird hybrid that the Rhayud Rhuz would have made, and could have spread out across the world. But how well would they work as player characters?

Consider a humanoid that has large wings instead of arms, grasping birdfeet, and a feathered tail. Obviously, they're going to be severely limited in what they can do without help, due to the lack of hands and the limited ability of their talons.

What would you do with an adventuring PC that gave up hands for the ability to fly?


Personally? Nothing. I use variant wingless harpies that have arms/hands, but that's because I'm not in favor of the flying races.

But you do mention grasping talons, so prehensile feet? Nice for skythrown weapons...


The idea is that they can hold things with their feet but not perform complex tasks. They're not a technological race, although there's no particular mental barrier against learning. They just don't have thumbs.

Also, hello again and welcome back to the thread! If there's any prior stuff I've mentioned that you'd like to ask about, I encourage you to ask. The more interaction you prompt, the more it helps me to flesh out the world.


Maybe their wings are shaped in a way that allows them to support themselves while not flying and they can use their hind legs as manipulators.

Maybe their wings have hands and fingers in the middle allowing them for (not as good as in normal humanoids) grasp.

Finally, maybe go with alternate image of harpy that has separate wings and arms.


I dunno. Their place as potential PCs isn't so important.

On to something else! Have I talked about Prime Shards before? Maybe. I'm too tired to check. Oh well, here goes:

Prime Shards

A Prime Shard is a cubic crystalline structure, varying in size, although the smallest viable shard is about six inches long; smaller shards are valuable only for their extreme rarity. The most distinctive feature of a Prime Shard is that its surface is reflective, like a mirror, and yet does not represent its surroundings. Instead, it seems to reflect unknown worlds, often beyond description. While it is commonly believed that Prime Shards are the shattered remnants of the Prime and that they reflect the old world, this has not been proven nor corroborated by the gods.

Zerrid, a Myrdanar scholar of the magical sciences, was the first to discover the potent properties of the Prime Shards. She was extraordinarily lucky to get her hands on two Shards. Her contemporaries rarely had the opportunity to see a single Shard in their lifetimes. At the time, they were regarded as little more than curiosities.

She performed countless tests both alchemical and arcane to delve into the nature of the Shards, and with two of them in her possession she was able to learn far more than any had before. While inert individually, a pair of Shards could be used as a magical relay. Spells channeled into the larger Shard could be directed to emerge from its smaller counterpart.

During these experiments, Zerrid also unlocked the power of Shard binding and thus became the first Archmage. The Shards allowed her to expand the range of her spells to extraordinary degrees, albeit at the cost of vast amounts of mana crystals.

When her research was presented to the Houses of Zer Terall, the hunt for more Shards began in earnest. Many were already kept as heirlooms of wealthy families and were confiscated before the secret of their true value spread too far.

The War of Towers

This surge in magical development prompted the Myrdanar to return to the surface and engage in war against the Syldanar. It was the first war of the Archmages. The Myrdanar had the initial advantage, able to cast spells of grand scale upon the battlefields. However, the tremendous amounts of mana crystals required to fuel these vast sorceries put a strain on Zer Terall's alchemists.

It was named the 'War of Towers' for the construction of many tall platforms from which Archmagi would rain down destruction on their enemies. Often, once positions were fortified, Archmage towers were expanded and improved to serve as permanent places from which magical dominion could be exerted.

In a move of overconfidence, the Myrdanar deployed an archmage for every shard they had. Several were under-prepared for the war, having previously been mere magical researchers, and were caught unaware by Syldanar spies. Thus, the secret of the Archmage fell into Syldanar hands.

As the war progressed, fighting began to revolve more around the control and capture of towers, both to capture Shards and the archmages that held them, and to extend the range of their own magical support. Archmages could not be trained fast enough to replace losses, and such powerful masters of magic became increasingly reluctant to take part in the war.

With the ratio of Shards to archmages increasing, their strategies changed. While the towers remained important, armies began carrying smaller Shards on tall banners, allowing their supporting archmages to strike from afar without being in range of an opposing archmage's spells. The focus of the war returned to armies, forces of elites carrying and guarding a Shard in the middle of a larger force of regulars.

My brain has run out of think. I may work more on the War of Towers later, if people are interested. Poke holes in the strategy and tactics if you like. I appreciate opportunities to tune up the story.


Pondering 'pets' for the various schools of magic. It might be neat. They would be optional, costing extra XP. Not every mage would have one.

Nature gets animal companion, probably the only one that's actually of any real power in combat.

Arcane could get a homonculus. Mostly because I want to reprise a fun NPC of mine that is a knitted doll homonculus called 'Mittens'. As the domain of thought, Arcane gets the most intelligent companion.

I'm not sure about the rest.

Death could get a traditional familiar, maybe, in line with its theme as 'pact magic'? Its unique feature could be a 'share spells' or even 'arc node' like spell conduit ability.

Got any ideas for Holy and Chaos?


Some sort of traditional small animal familiar of kind the most fitting the sphere could be available to every sphere.

Chaos and Nature could get mini-elementals of their corresponding elements.

Arcana probably could have alchemically grown homunculus or a tiny constructed clockwork/golem.

Death could get a spirit or a ghost, possibly bound in a shell of bone or flesh... A skull, flying (Morte from Torment) or not (Bob from The Dresden Files) would be the right fit.

Holy... I don't know, maybe some sort of light or life spirit bound into a figurine or animal. Maybe just a flying spark of light, similar to D&D lantern archon but not as strong.

Chaos could possibly have more strange creatures shaped by growing a wildly chaotic body inhabited by least chaotic spirit. I have an image of pinkish-purple beholderling flying around a chaos mage.


Oh, and with dragons being beings of Chaos, a dragonling would be a suitable companion for Chaos mage.


Have you already played Warlock: The Master of The Arcane?

I started playing recently, and after overcoming the first "it isn't Master of Magic, duh..." reaction, I am having a blast with the game. It misses some aspects of MoM but has a few neat ideas on its own. I haven't noticed/remembered anything that might influence Archmage directly, yet, but it's worth giving a try if you can get your hands on it.


I have played it. It's okay, but I prefer Age of Wonders 3 a lot more.


I have revisited Infinity Mechanism and expanded more on it. Every time I do, the setting grows darker. Good grief!


Umbral Reaver wrote:
I have revisited Infinity Mechanism and expanded more on it. Every time I do, the setting grows darker. Good grief!

*raven's screech*Darrrkhhh!

Spoiler:
h added for more "gothic" feel :P


Military Forces of the Myrdanar

As the Myrdanar government (or lack thereof) and their society's resistance to formal code of law inhibits the formation of a national army. Instead, each of the great houses and several other wealthy factions each maintain a well-paid, elite mercenary force. In the underground, high power concentrated in small areas is key to success. In the world above, however, this leaves them unable to take and hold territory with their conventional forces.

When the Myrdanar invaded the surface to retake land from their ancient cousins, they employed vast legions of undead at great expense to their necromancers. While requiring expensive components for the initial animation, an undead force requires negligible upkeep compared to living soldiers.


North and South

The extremes of the planet remain largely unexplored due to the severity of environmental conditions the further one travels. The northernmost edge of the known lands are relentlessly smashed, torn and eroded by the Doomwall, also known as Ragann's Fury. A vast, eternal storm encircles the entire planet. It is impenetrable by any known means and no ship whose captain was daring (or stupid) enough to attempt a voyage into it has ever returned. Whether the storm continues North forever or does eventually give way to clear skies again is utterly unknown. Even the gods themselves speak nothing of what might be up there.

To the far south one encounters the biting cold and savage peaks of the Frosthelms. Even were it not so deathly cold, the slopes of the ragged mountain chains that dominate the Southern latitudes are the most vicious, unforgiving landscapes in the known world. The ice that spears into the bones in an instant of exposure makes exploration all the more deadly. Most lore regarding the Frosthelms says that things only get worse as you approach the pole, and that there is nothing but folly to be found there. There have been several recorded attempts to map the Southernmost Frosthelms, with most parties turning back and some never returning at all. The tunnels of the Deeps offer no easy passage either, and are assumed not to have any surface exits amongst those frozen spires.

It is generally assumed that the planet is spherical. A minority, considered mad at the best of times by most scholars, insist that the world must be a torus in non-Euclidean space, whereby one could travel North past the Doomwall and eventually reach the Southern edge of the Frosthelms or even that other habitable lands may be found between them.


Hmmm... Twisted non-Euclidean torus might be interesting...


I'm a bit blank right now. Somebody throw a topic at me!


Thank's to LordSynos generosity I am currently... Researching... Age Of Wonders 3.


It is a truly excellent game!

In other news, I've got a copy of the Spheres of Power pdf and it makes converting Archmage to Pathfinder tremendously easier than it was. I can assign spheres (with some notes and addendums) to each of the five paths of magic and casters can be constructed from them quite readily.

This has also led to working out a number of magical traditions per the SoP rules, which has been a creative boost for worldbuilding. My current aim is at least two traditions for each god (one civilian, one militant). A few get an extra one or two if needed. A lot of these have already been seen in this thread, but the traditions stuff helps me out a lot in expanding on them.


30+ magical traditions and orders outlined, and I'm even thinking of writing a 'good guy' and 'bad guy' example character for each to show how ambiguous alignment can be even in cults of life and death and stuff.

It'd be cool if people came up with some concepts of characters, too.

Here are a few blurbs:

-- TRADITION: THE PREIST-LORDS (JURIC) --

"To each is given a purpose and to that purpose given."

The Priest-Lords serve Juric in both a religious capacity and as civic leaders. There is no separation of church and state in Juric's eyes; it is for the godly to rule. It is their burden and their privilige.

-- TRADITION: THE HOLY VASSALS (JURIC) --

"Virtue is noble."

The Holy Vassals act according to the expectation that rightful rulers and noble bloodlines are better and more virtuous than the common folk. Their edicts require that they uphold this ideal. They protect the lowly man from his faults.

Contrary to popular belief, cruelty to those of lower class is one of the most terrible sins to a Holy Vassal. Well-meaning arrogance, though never stated outright, is all but mandatory.

-- TRADITION: THE LAWGIVERS (GANNE) --

The Lawgivers are Ganne's ordained keepers of law and order in their rightful jurisdictions. They are sworn to be impartial and just in their service to the people they must judge.

-- TRADITION: THE GROVE TENDERS (ANATON) --

"Cherish the smallest sapling."

The Grove Tenders are Anaton's civil representatives, acting in service to communities for their betterment and wellbeing both socially and physically. In contrast to his father's lordly religion, Anaton's Tenders prefer humility, peace and equity amongst all people. They serve as urban druids as well, managing the abundance of natural beauty neatly arrayed in settlements where Anaton's influence is strong.

Grove Tenders tend to take vows of nonviolence and believe that even the hardest heart can be softened by a peaceful community. Accusations of emotion-quelling mind-control are not uncommon amongst the Grove Tenders' detractors.

-- TRADITION: THE VASSALS OF MERCY (ANATON) --

"Mercy to all but the merciless."

Anaton's militant order, the Vassals of Mercy, are held in high regard by many militaries for their excellent service as battlefield healers as well as expert combatants. They vow to strike a killing blow only against an enemy that is truly irredeemable. The Vassals of Mercy are not naive, and may use many nonlethal techniques that impair evildoers to keep them from doing harm. They are one of the few paladin orders that will not issue death sentences against those they judge.

-- TRADITION: THE BLIND SAGES (SILAI) --

"May no moment be lost."

The Blind Sages are not all blind. Only the highest eschelon of their order are ritually blinded and devote themselves to endlessly cataloguing the Infinite Pages, a vast work of literature meant to eventually encompass all known history and science, no matter its notability.

-- TRADITION: THE UNBLINKING EYE (SILAI) --

"Shy from no truth."

The members of the Unblinking Eye are scientists and magicians dedicated to unravelling every secret the universe holds, no matter the obstacles. Knowledge is the highest form of enlightenment, and little things like ethical considerations sometimes fail to be included in their plans. They are not deliberately cruel. The Unblinking Eye simply does not care what the consequences are, so long as they are able to verify and record them properly. Deliberate cruelty would be unscientific.


Pathfinder Adventure Path, Rulebook, Starfinder Adventure Path, Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber

Wow. This is incredible! You've already put so much work into describing the setting!

I have two thoughts on this:
1) You want narrower fields of magic, harder healing, harder traveling, three different energy resources... have you taken a look at the Iron Kingdoms tabletop RPG? I'm not sure how much in there would interest you, but it does a few things you describe; Priests and Arcanists use the same casting system and don't get very many spells, the only spell in the game that can flat-out heal someone comes with some nasty side effects, and the setting includes some budding magitechnology.

2) I know I've already undermined myself with the above post, but here's my point of view: Your game system is interesting, I'd love to playtest it at some point, but... these are the Pathfinder forums. Personally, I'd be more interested to hear how you'd bring this setting into the Pathfinder rules. How would you redo the Cleric and Wizard? Harder healing is pretty easy, just modify the Wound/Vigor system in Ultimate Combat. Maybe only have one main spellcasting class, kind of a scaled-up Adept, and have the five schools of magic be archetypes/features of that class? Just a few thoughts.

Overall, you're doing great! I'd love to hear more about this!

EDIT: I do have to admit some personal bias towards this setting; I haven't played a ton of MTG, but the idea of 5 main factions and the 10 minor dual-color factions is something I find very interesting.


I'm actually building it in Pathfinder now, using the Spheres of Power system.


Now that I am not short on time, I'll more fully reply:

Thanks! It's good to receive such comments to help me build up and sustain motivation to work on this project.

I'm familiar with Iron Kingdoms, but it's not quite the angle I'm looking for.

Unfortunately, while Spheres of Power is OGL, nobody has posted it to d20pfsrd yet. This makes it difficult to discuss its contents as pertains to my world and the Pathfinder conversion I'm working on.

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