The Three Sisters

A few notes on the last few posts…

Call of the Three Sisters – Tier II: AR 6 seems like a lot to me. I propose to lower that to Natural AR of 4 against cold-based attacks. Then it could stack with worn armor in the same way as Natural Armor normally does. And it’s in line with what a Heavy Armor would give for AR.
(Also I like the Tier III ability.)

Nightmare, Lesser – I kind of liked the way the original version was a delayed effect. It felt less like a combat spell, and more like a way for a stealthy Hunai to sneak up on a group of slavers at night and try to scare them off. I’m not opposed to the changes, but I prefer the original. (The Greater version was for combat.)

Winter’s Wind – (“Chilled Wind” now)
1. Should be “all affected creatures” since you need to bypass their Fortitude.
2. How long does the penalty last?

Spells in general, When I form a mental image of the Hunai (from my interpretation of the excerpt) I think that there would be healing magic, spiritual magic and harvest magic. However, harvest magic seems very long-term and not something that would appeal to players. So I find myself wondering about who the intended audience for this crunch is… Players of Hunai PCs? Game Masters? (To elaborate, spells like “Shield My Children” and “Nightmare, Greater” have obvious usefulness. But a spell that helps a field of crops grow or that brings rain or something, while useful, would not be something that any PC is likely to be interested in. So is this a direction that we should spend some of out efforts exploring, or is it not likely to be adopted into the final product?)

Regarding the “Winter’s Wind” and the temperate climate, I don’t think that the spell would be out of character. It’s not… “overly wintry” in my opinion. And since they do see the occasional “cold snap” I could see them using that as spell inspiration.

Henry: Is it possible to get more “flavor” information about Lyssandra? From the excerpt posted, we know that she’s feisty and is affiliated in some way with the green moon. We know that her light tempers the darkness. Is there something else we could use to help us come up with additional flavor crunch?

Nayal’s Dark Night – Since there is no attack roll (if you’re in the area, you’re affected) I suggest that you change, “While this condition can be lifted once they leave the darkness” to, “This condition only affects creatures while they remains in the darkness”. (I take it that the flaws are there to offset the automatic effects?)

Shield My Children – Is this in line with other Tier III spells? (Essentially, it’s a push 4 to negate an attack on an ally.)

Scott

A few notes on the last few posts…

Call of the Three Sisters – Tier II: AR 6 seems like a lot to me. I propose to lower that to Natural AR of 4 against cold-based attacks. Then it could stack with worn armor in the same way as Natural Armor normally does. And it’s in line with what a Heavy Armor would give for AR.

I chose this number because Infernal Heritage (Frost Born and Fire Born) and To Withstand the Crucible of Flame all grant Elemental AR 6.

Nightmare, Lesser – I kind of liked the way the original version was a delayed effect. It felt less like a combat spell, and more like a way for a stealthy Hunai to sneak up on a group of slavers at night and try to scare them off. I’m not opposed to the changes, but I prefer the original. (The Greater version was for combat.)

My pass at it was a pretty close point-for-point retread of your spell, though I altered the wording to be more concise. I’m not sure where you’re coming from here. . . Do you mean Nightmare, Greater? If so I chose the Horror Check because functionally it does at least as much as you said, as well as additional choices. Personally, I’m not a huge fan of simple “Push” effects, especially at higher tiers since they’re effectively useless in my experience.

Winter’s Wind – (“Chilled Wind” now)
1. Should be “all affected creatures” since you need to bypass their Fortitude.
2. How long does the penalty last?

Fixed! Thanks!

Spells in general, When I form a mental image of the Hunai (from my interpretation of the excerpt) I think that there would be healing magic, spiritual magic and harvest magic. However, harvest magic seems very long-term and not something that would appeal to players. So I find myself wondering about who the intended audience for this crunch is… Players of Hunai PCs? Game Masters? (To elaborate, spells like “Shield My Children” and “Nightmare, Greater” have obvious usefulness. But a spell that helps a field of crops grow or that brings rain or something, while useful, would not be something that any PC is likely to be interested in. So is this a direction that we should spend some of out efforts exploring, or is it not likely to be adopted into the final product?)

I will agree that Belisarda’s spells in the Pantheonistic spells should be healing/harvest based (hence the choices I suggested). Things for Crops and whatnot would probably fall under the auspice of ‘Ritual’ rather than “Spell/Cant”, if for no other reason that from a game-play perspective they would not add much to the player experience. Things that have more immediate uses (like Blessings of Plenty) would be more appropriate for the Living Campaign in my opinion.

Nayal’s Dark Night – Since there is no attack roll (if you’re in the area, you’re affected) I suggest that you change, “While this condition can be lifted once they leave the darkness” to, “This condition only affects creatures while they remains in the darkness”. (I take it that the flaws are there to offset the automatic effects?)

That is more concise. Thanks! And I added the Flaws mostly for flavour reason (though I did make the talents better because of it) to represent the damage to their souls that they were willing to take on to let Nayal purely into their life. That is up to Henry and all you guys to tell me if it is worth it

Shield My Children – Is this in line with other Tier III spells? (Essentially, it’s a push 4 to negate an attack on an ally.)

Scott

It is a Tier III, ranged version of a Unique Spell (Arcane Shield). I figured Tier III would be an appropriate place for it, but I’m perfectly open to suggestions.

Question re: the Hunai – You mentioned the possible need to stat them. Do they have some Elemental nature or other thing that makes them not normal humans (like the Undir, Kio, and maybe Pengik)? If not, I agree we just need to make them human.

Additionally, would you like other Paths for the other two Goddesses? Those who focus more on Belisarda getting more healing/hunting paths, and those that focus more on Lyssandra gaining things that makes them warders of the people (illusionists, protectors, etc)? Basically Priest, then one “Holy Champion” for each Goddess?

Well, looking at the Backgrounds, I think (from a realistic point of view) we’re somewhat limited in what angles we can take. From your descriptions the Hunai are basically a Hunter-Gatherer society with a fairly well developed religion based on their desperate, tribal nature. Because of the Tribal structure, a lot of the jobs that would be needed to be filled in their society are mostly covered by what we have already. After all, if they are peaceful, militaristic Backgrounds (ie: Soldier, Mercenary, Templar, etc) would not be appropriate, and nor are a lot of Cultural-specific Backgrounds (like Squire, Equestrian, Laerestri, etc). Unless we develop the Hunai more, they’d basically be ‘stuck’ with the fairly generic Backgrounds:

Former Slave and Former Gladiator – Representing those Hunai who we’ll mostly see in the Blessed Lands

Former Merchant, Huntsman, Peasant/Plebian, Performer, Vagabond and Woodsman would all be representative of general tribal life and would also be useful for backgrounds from before they were brought to the Blessed Lands.

For the ‘nobles’ of the Hunai, Diplomat (inter-tribal), Initiate of the Gods (I’m still not fond of this being here as to me it suggests more structure than I think exists), Keeper of Traditions, and possibly things like Tutor could also be acceptable options.

I know this might be a stretch , but looking for a “real life analog” for a Hunter-Gatherer population, my mind goes to groups such as the Ojibway First Nations group from where I grew up. Their society was split into different Tribes, yes, though they were all allied with each other (and the Ottawa and Potowatomi) under the Council of the Three Fires (a loose coalition of culturally similar tribes, known collectively as the “Anishinaabe”). They were further split between different ‘Clans’, effectively castes within Ojibway society, which were designed to fulfill various roles within the society: The Crane and Loon Clans were the Clans of the inter-tribal diplomats, chiefs, and other ‘nobles’ and ’emissaries’ of the Ojibway, serving as their balanced system of governance; the Fish Clan consisted of the teachers and sages, and acted as an intermediary clan between the Loons and the Cranes; the Bear Clan consisted of those who patrolled the Tribe’s territory, and acted as basically EMT’s and Police in our society; the Deer Clan were responsible for the upkeep of the community, building housing, making poetry and other spoken word, etc; the Martin clan were the more militaristic clan, consisting of the Hunters and warriors; and the Bird Clan was responsible for the spiritual well-being of the tribe. The Tribes were not permitted to intermarry (ie: Two Bears could not intermarry). Additionally, there was another group involved in the Anishinaabe peoples: The Midewiwin Society, which was viewed as a Shamanistic Cult of Medicine men.

Using this as an example, would it be fair to make similar roles for the Hunai? As such, we could fit Backgrounds with Clans (castes, roles, etc) which would allow us a bit more freedom to make up new, unique backgrounds.

One Background we could take would be a replacement for “Initiate of the Gods”, as that Background seems a bit. . . structured to me. Maybe “Faith Healer”, or fit in “Keeper of Traditions” from the Codex of Heroes. This may be me trying to fit a square peg in a round hole, but my read doesn’t see Initiate being an appropriate title for them.

If they only represent one section of the book, I think 2-4 Paths and maybe 1-2 Backgrounds would be appropriate (after all, we still have Khitani, Almai, the Andyar, etc. to go!). For talents, I’d say we have maybe 2-3 new talents for the Hunai in addition to the Limited Talents granted via their Backgrounds and Paths. Spell-wise, I’m unless people want to fill in the ‘off the shelf’ spells that I had for Diety (Pantheonistic, Three Sisters), I’m not sure what else would be needed for the Hunai. They do not cast Elder Spells, Henry has said they do not have much of an Eldritch Tradition, and they do not cast Psionics. That would only leave Hunai specific Deity (which Scott and I have listed a few options) and Primal. Unless there is a cult or nature-worship above the Three Sisters in the Hunai, I would say that we keep the spells narrowed to Divine. We may want to have a few “Hunai-only” Divine spells, but I think Deity covers that because then we start getting into Exotic and Secret Spells possibly.

Edit: With the additions I made below, of my suggestions/modifications of Scott’s stuff there are: 4 Paths for the Hunai, 6 Spells, and 6 Talents. I think this is a pretty good selection for what is probably a fairly small portion of the book.

Catching up on the conversation that I missed over the weekend.

Cody: Yeah, I had similar thoughts about the Hunai culture, but hadn’t articulated them to the point that you did. Thanks! (I have visions of an early Native American tribe, with some modifications.)

“Summoner of Beasts”
– Remove the requirements. Since this is a [Limited] Talent, it will need to be granted by a Path. And any Talent granted by a Path will ignore the Requirements, anyway. (So it’s just redundant that that point.)
– You mention a “spell’s radius” but there is no spell. So that will need to be adjusted.

“Merciful Kill”
– Same comment about the Requirements.

“Lyssandra’s Blessings”
– Lyssandra’s Illusions – This looks like it’s supposed to be a binding spell. My suggestion is that you officially make it a spell, and the Talent grants you the ability to cast it using your Stealth Skill instead of Arcanum. (Mechanically, this works a lot like the bloodline powers of various Val. For example, the Val’Borda.)
– Lyssandra’s True Sight – I like this. But I wonder how much confusion will be generated by that last phrase, “as if it were illuminated by a full moon.” Maybe you shoudl clarify that it grants sight as if Shadowy Illumination to a specific distance?

What do you all think about a path for an Oral-Tradition historian? Or maybe a background for it? That seems to me like something that the Hunai culture would do. Also, maybe something along the lines of a Shamen… A Path that would grant the ability to cast divine spells for those that happen to be sensitive to the spirits. I’m not thinking about an official title of Tribal Shamen or anything, but something for someone who happens to “feel the urge” and gets picked by the spirits to learn divine casting.

Thoughts?

Scott

Good catch!

The question of “If we want to reuse Keeper of Traditions” brings up an additional question: What Hierloom do the Hunai get? The ‘basic’ options of weapon, armour, and (likely) horse do not seem to fit with them and their lifestyles, so what mechanically tangible items are there that they could get? The Quarterstaff is a good option, though possibly look at something like an (unengraved) Runestaff or an (equally unengraved) wand? Do the Hunai used Fetishes that can ‘take the place of’ one of these above items? Belisarda’s chosen weapon is a bow, so maybe one of those using the rationale that it can be used for hunting as well as warfare?

Farming implement type items that can double up as a weapon such as a sickle or a scythe might not be bad options as well