Brief Draft of Human History of Hearth

HUMANS

Hearth is the home world of the human race, and over the countless generations they have manage to find a way to scrape a foothold even into it's farthest reaches. As they spread out across the globe they formed distinct cultures, and their appearance took slight changes to suit the environment they made their home. These cultures created their own civilizations with differing taboos and social norms. Some cultures tended towards peace and knowledge, while others towards war and conquest. Because of their extreme proliferation on Hearth, almost every major sovereign body is ruled by the humans. Humans spread and populate so rapidly that three quarters of the hominid population of Hearth are humans.

Early in the history of human civilization there were powerful rulers who gathered vast empires spanning continents, and even groups of continents. The greatest of these empires spanned three continents and lasted through three millennium. Their power waned and started to crumble as other groups garnered their own power bases around and within. Even ages after their downfall the ruins of their great civilization dot the landscape. Relics of the empire have also fallen into legend, lost to the ages.

In the current age of the world many nations have sprung up where vast empires were before. Some minor empires remain, though nowhere near their glory of ages past. One continent bears a scar, forged by a volcanic chain of mountains, that is ruled by dragons, it is called the Dragon's Maw. Conflict among disgruntled nations around the scar are forced to a strained peace because of the power dividing them. The human nations to one side of the dragons have formed a union to protect each other and their own interests of preservation.

Magic amongst civilized humans is not directly discouraged, but it isn't a completely common occurrence either. With radical groups hunting magic wielders as abominations, it is no wonder that most magic is used either in secret or in a select few sanctuary cities, like Archaven. Some mages disregard the rules and the threats and use their abilities to help people openly.

What Archaven is to mages, there are a few counter minded cities where human purists keep strict laws on the books against using magic, or even being a non human within certain borders. Some of these laws can be as strict on what you are in the borders from incarceration to execution. These human purists follow a deity of fear and power named Morliad, whose downfall is prophesied to come at the hands of a practitioner of great magic. The militant arm of the cult of Morliad are called the Staffbreakers, for their goal of destroying mages and their iconic objects of focus.

Archaven has successfully remained hidden and neutral through the last millennium. Most outside arcane universities have a connection to the Grand Academy in Archaven, that is severed when a possible threat from the outside is made known. This link keeps the universities abroad kept up with the most advanced magics, and keeps Archaven away from prying eyes. Mages outside of Archaven spend years hoping to receive a summons to the city, and a chance to visit the Grand Academy.

This is what 10 attacks per round looks like.

In TaleMix a character can concievably get 10 attacks per round. This is what that level of skill looks like.

Why?

Why am I doing this?
Why don't I just write a novel?
Why not just make a supplement for an open system?
Why?

I have been to some sites and discussed the project with people, and get told that I should write a novel or a setting, but that's the easy way out. I may one day write a novel in the setting of TaleMix Fantasy, and I would consider working a dual system version in the future, but I kind of like the system I have been toiling with for so long. It is starting to feel like a hard boss on a video game, you have fought it so many times that you believe you have found the secret to finally ending the fight.

I love the fantasy or mythical genre, and I have gotten to learn a lot about the different characters and creatures found in myth around the world. Some creatures may be different than they have been portrayed over the decades because of my mythological starting point. Kobolds will not be the barking mad lizard men from one of the largest RPG's around, but much more like Dobby from the Harry Potter series. For most systems that I could write a supplement for of the setting, I would have to break them just to portray the peoples as I want to.

My magic system is different from most I have seen, and I would have to spend days weeding through the spell lists just to figure out where to put them all. Elemental magic will feel much like Avatar the Last Airbender, which I only found out because a friend got me hooked on that show. However with the spellcrafter advantage, most people would call a Feat, you can churn the water and fire together for steam blasts, or fire and earth for a lava flow. There are 25 magic types that can be mixed and matched this way to some cool effects. While there will be spell lists, they are more of a guideline for what levels of power in a magic should be able to perform.

Combat in most systems is a number crunching game, and I want to see how I can make the flow of a fight more smooth, and more brutal. You shouldn't have to spend 3 hours fighting minions, and your entire experience pool shouldn't be how many things you killed in what level relation to you. I like the way most point buy games dole out the experience and what it is used for in this respect. Combat should also be more cinematic, and so I have added in some combat tricks to the rules to spice things up. One example is tentatively called "Around The World", and it is for the move used most frequently with a staff or polearm to clear the area around themselves by spinning their weapon in a wide arch. There is also "I Got My Own Back" which is an active defense move used as a block, the visual is seen in every swordplay movie ever where the hero is going to be attacked from behind and points their sword under the arm to kill the random minion.

There are just so many more things I can build in to my own system instead of having to break someone else's. To briefly touch on stats, which will be a subject of another blog, I have a separation of the normal Dexterity stat by making Coordination and Agility their own thing. Coordination basically being eye-hand, and Agility basically being whole body or most directly feet. My biggest example given for that choice is that an expert watchmaker is not exactly going to normally do a triple summersault and a backflip.

So I am going through all the hard work to make things the way I feel they should to fit the setting offered. As for why it is not just going to be an overly researched novel though is because I want to let others enjoy the world through the eyes of their own characters and have their own stories. Afterall, how many more books are needed about the fantasy genre where a prophesy says some nobody is going to pull off something awesome to stop the most epic of epic evils.

Until next time, and sorry for the lack of pictures this go around.

Gripping The First Post With The Claws

Welcome to the storyteller's circle, my name is Lucas . Through this blog I will be showcasing monsters and such as seen through my mind's eye. They are just drawn on paper and not set in stone, I love feedback on anything I do. Talemix is a roleplaying system that I am developing to be a multi-genre game, even though I am beginning with the fantasy setting.

To the right there will be a stream of my photobucket album dedicated to the project, though I will occasionally link to my deviantart account www.Lucaspuryear.deviantart.com.

Introduction over, tonight's subject was easy to get a grip on. Tonight is all about claws.

In Talemix creating creatures is in only a few cases a matter of copy and paste, however some things are so universal that they don't have to change for every single creature or race that has them. Claws are one of those things. In doing some illustration of animals, I have identified three major types of claws.

The Utility Claw: For most animals this type of specialized finger and toe nail modification has a specific use. They can be formed for digging, climbing, and getting places pudgy digits can't reach. While some of the claws in this category look like they would be in another, the creatures that use them are too slow to make them actually damaging, like the sloth and the anteater.

For the game purposes these will however grant a bonus to damage, but not as much as either of the other tiers. At the time of this writing, the way damage is done, the utility claw at normal size grants a single bonus die to the roll, and a higher skill bonus to the claw's utility. In general the utility skill bonus for these type claws will be a 10.

The Hunter Claw: This is the nice predatory claw that cats, bears, and raptor birds have in common. They are big, sharp, and lethal, yet they also still serve some of the functions of a utility claw as well. For example a bear uses it's six inch claws to break into logs and stumps, but still delivers a nice lethal smack.

As these claws are for damage as much as utility they will grant a 5 in a skill but two dice to damage.

The Reaper Claw: This bad boy is designed only for death, some exceptions can apply though. In most creatures with a reaper it is kept away from the ground in movement, or otherwise stored in a place that it won't get damaged. These claws are the ones like you would see on a velociraptor while watching Jurassic Park, or on a cassowary. Another creature the Therozinosaurus has three foot long reaper claws, generally used for digging in termite mounds, but deadly enough to lop an adventurer in to four adventurers.

Since these claws are generally only killing machines, they grant three bonus dice to damage.