knowledge – age of legends?

Answer: no, you cannot. There was a joke in the last campaign’s Core Book iirc about Knowledge: Metagame which is basically what you are describing (along with a Ranger Favoured Enemy as Metagamers).

Sure, you have met some adventurers, but remember a few things: 1) this is a pre digital, barely pre printing press world where your ability to find this info beyond myth is basically nil. 2) your ability to track down heroes is basically the same, as unless you can afford Ansharan Gates you are limited to travelling no more than 10 miles a day (rough range of a horse). 3) the actual ‘canon’ existence of any individual Hero from the last campaign is suspect except for those specifically honoured by PCI (like Ven val’Sosi), so you really can’t say (from a Metagame perspective) that your Grandpa told you all this stufheroeseven if they did, anything they would have told you would have been brushed awayas myth by most in the same way you would today if you said you were a Vampire Hunter for reals. 5) there have been Heroes for ever so Age of Heroes is tantamount to Knowledge everything.

If you are a Kick starter backer the new Blessed Lands book is including sections which tell characters what they can know based on race and knowledge ranks (eg: unless a normal Human has 12 ranks in Knowledge History they have no idea what the ilHuan war was.

They would know that at the Battle of Enpebyn a bunch of bug monsters swarmed up from the ground. Without a narrator giving the population box text, all your average person would know is “ahhhhhhh! Bug monsters!”

The most learned humans and dwarfs would have heard of these beasts in the same way that your more learned person would know who Wu Chang’en is: I have heard of him but unless I have committed to study ancient Chinese literature all you might know is that he wrote Journey to the West. The same is true for il’Huan: you may have heard the name and that they fought the lizard folk, but you know nothing else about them.

The only reason the Heroes from 3.5 know anything about them us because the one they met in the sewers of Savona gave an info dump to them (and them alone). Even the Elorii who were there didn’t have much more info (as the number of them who would have seen one before is probably less than 1% of their population).

Hello,

I have to agree with Cody, for the most part.

While the average person growing up (i.e. most of the current adventurers) would know the basics,but the special knowledge gained on top of that by the players (such as like what the true fate of the a certain general in Abessios) would not be widely known.

As an example, think of it this way: The average person knows about what occurred during WWII, but without specialized knowledge/study would they know about what operatives of the OSI and MI6 discovered? I don’t believe so.

Hello,

I have to agree with Cody, for the most part.

While the average person growing up (i.e. most of the current adventurers) would know the basics,but the special knowledge gained on top of that by the players (such as like what the true fate of the a certain general in Abessios) would not be widely known.

As an example, think of it this way: The average person knows about what occurred during WWII, but without specialized knowledge/study would they know about what operatives of the OSI and MI6 discovered? I don’t believe so.

Sure, but MI6 and OSI didn’t file reports to three (or more) different organizations and then talk about when they did in bars either, and I (who have done almost no research on the subject) still know about the enigma cipher, gold smuggling, and some of the heavy water operations done in Scandanavia.

And I’m not arguing for Joe farmer to know this stuff, but for people who volunteer to go down into the hole in the ground and deal with what’s down there, and who have thought to do some research on what might be down there, to have a clue. What I’m saying is, if you took a knowledge skill that covered recent adventuring, or the heroes of the light, or “the age of heroes” or something of that ilk, doesn’t it make sense that you could learn about these things?

It seems that if someone did, thinks like, “my god, what is that thing! (Il’huan, psionic, armored bug, don’t let it plant an egg in you!)” would be a low difficulty check, while the ancient history of them would be a very high difficulty check (needing many ranks – like the 12 ranks of history for knowing about their defeat by the Ssethregorans). While what happened to the Cadican legion would fall somewhere in between.

A few things: 1) if the Heroes spread their info after the battle, what would they know beyond “ahhhh! Bugs!”? Even if 100 people have a good idea as to what is going on, how are they going to relate this to 10,000 legionnaires without it becoming one huge game of telephone? By the time the info has disseminated they will probably ve saying they were sent by the Elorii to punish mankind for ancient wrongs? Without things like the internet to fact check, what you’ll end up with is information chaos.

2) it is almost certain the governments and societies will have this info, but why would they share it? Information is power, so spreading this info is bad for them. Even members of the ES wouldn’t know about this unless they were high up on the ladder in the same way all the CIA’s secrets aren’t known to the random file clerk on the 2nd floor of the US embassy in London, even though that person is a government employee

1.What I’m saying is that those heroes who had information about them (from year 1) probably stood up and disseminated their knowledge after the incident at Epynym quite loudly and widely,and I suspect people believed them. They obviously disseminated the information widely enough for the emperor to believe them before had as well – and there is no reason to believe that other organizations didn’t have the information as well. In fact, I thought the information about the emperor using the Cadician legion as hosts for them was quite widely spread by the rebels as propaganda, and that the Cadicians and Val’Borda took it quite seriously. No reason to believe there was serious misunderstanding there, and lots of reason to believe that could be found now.

2. Why would governments and organizations share it? Yes, knowledge is power, but as we’ve discussed, this really isn’t that rare of information. IT was shared with most governments/organizations. Don’t share it with your members, and they stand to be the only ones in a race for xyz that doesn’t have the information they need. Generally, what I’m talking about isn’t unique information that can be held for a lot of gain. Additionally, while these hoarding of some information sometimes makes sense, so does dissemination. Why would anyone join a organization that tells its members nothing? (governments are a slightly different situation) Like I said, it makes perfect sense for followers of the Azure Way or Emerald society to be briefed on possible dangers in the dark, or get a 15 minute primer on what the last 6 dominant species or civilizations on Onara were. Half of what they learn might be wrong, but they shouldn’t be going, “Issori? Never heard of it, is that a Hinterland drink?” That one of the 12 keys may have been recovered would be ultra-top secret what-ever, but that Issori have eight legs?

I wrestle with this question all the time.

As a player I’m definitely part of the subgroup that wants to dive in and tease apart all the nooks and crannies of the world of Arcanis … because that’s my style of role playing AND because Henry plants plenty of Easter Eggs in the campaign. As a result I like to think I know as much as anyone in the player base about *what is really* going on. That means regardless of what character I’m playing I often have some idea of what I’m looking at unless its completely new. I try not to metagame IC too much. It helps me to have a clear idea of what my character knows.

How much do characters know in general?

Really depends on the character. Thrak the illiterate dark-kin gladiator with a spike chain probably knows nothing. “Oh, my GOD – Bug Men! That’s not right, Run!” One the other hand, my main character Tukufu is from Altheria (known for scholarship), has some ranks in Knowledge History & some more in Knowledge Myths and Legends (among others), is a member of the Emerald Society (shhh don’t tell), got a packet of secret knowledge as part of character creation (special reward character for writing modules in the IK program), is psionically awakened (and thus has studied the arcanum), and finally “officially” owns a book store in the First City with a nifty rare books room (via Blessed Lands Kickstarter). Put that all together and its my conceit that Tukufu knows (or suspects) most of what I know as a player. “Oh my god! Bug Men! Quick, someone count the legs! Are these Il’Huan or Issori?”

I personally believe that if you have the right kind of player character concept, and have taken time to invest in supporting mechanics (in this case predominantly the three knowledge skills of History, Myths and Religion) then its reasonable to assume you have *some idea* of the weird stuff other adventurers have wrestled with in the past. “Bug Men! Hey they might be the same as the Il’Huan who attacked Enpyben!”

How much is some idea? I have some guidelines I use with Tukufu.

ONE: I try to stay out of mechanics. Tukufu never talks in game (or in his letters) about “what the AR of something is.” He might say something like, “I’m guessing, based on what was written after Enpyben, that the carapace of an il’Huan is better than Lorica. But I’ve never had the chance to study one personally. They may be extinct again…certainly I haven’t heard of a sighting since the Coryani Civil War.”

TWO: Conflicting Tales. If an old module had more than one possible outcome I assume that Tukufu (if he has heard of it) has heard conflicting versions of the tales where both (all) outcomes come to pass. Unless its empirically obvious what outcome is correct I assume that has no reconciled the sources. Where appropriate to comment in game, I deliberately try to offer multiple interpretations of “facts.” In the case of the The Hara’mia I assume Tukufu has gotten a couple of different tales. He was freed. No he wasn’t freed. He spoke a bunch of lies. It was a prophesy. No he spoke of temporal paradoxes. And Tukufu doesn’t really doesn’t know what to believe about what he’s heard. On its face the story of that module IS pretty outlandish and takes place in the middle of an important rescue mission and the assassination of Menesis. Sort of major events in their own right. So maybe at the time important people weren’t all that worried about the Hara’mia.

THREE: Some “knowledge” is being actively suppressed. If you don’t have a reason to be in on the secret then that PC (IMO) should be ignorant of it. Take “the Silence.” Tukufu is a psion who has also been at four “special events” where “silence-y” entities were around. As a result I play Tukufu as aware (and somewhat afraid) of the Silence. As a counter example Tukufu really has/had nothing to do with the val’Inares family or the Temple of Anhar. So I play Tukufu as completely clueless about the connection between Anshar and Yig. You’ll never see him write a letter on the subject unless he somehow comes upon that knowledge in game and its appropriate for him to share.

LAST: I try to play nice. That means trying to avoid spoilers, or stealing the thunder from any other PCs, or writing about things before “their time.” For example while Henry was at Gamestorm he shared with me what the Gift was that Beltine gave to humanity at the dawn of the First Imperium. It’s creepy and wondrous, as befits the Goddess of the Cauldron. It seems likely to me that Tukufu knows of it so I asked once if I could share it in one of Tukufu’s Letters (as we got close to Halloween) and Henry asked me not to. So I’m sitting on it. It could be part of a future module … or it just might not be the right time to share yet. I think Tukufu knows, but I want to be careful with it as a responsible (and respectful) member of the campaign.