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1st Ed DMG P193, Emirikol the Chaotic, more
specifically the city represented. There are also docks with a high seas trade,
if the PCs decide to go privateering.
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Key Inspirations: Three Musketeers et al;
The Phoenix Guards et al; Captain Alatriste et al
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The empire has no emperor - the last emperor,
who lived well over a century, ascended to Godhood and left a republic in his
wake. Most of the noble houses admit this is for the best, and the larger
houses are major landholders and are hardly without power in the republic.
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The mercantile class is burying up lesser nobility’s
lands; technically they are purchasing a lien, as only the emperor/an act of
the republic can deprive a noble property. Nobles in bad luck lien out lands to
get funds to survive until the next lien period, leading to lots of landless
nobles.
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These landless nobles are the PCs. The
Aristocrat is being beefed up to be a full character class, and if any PCs
takes levels in that they still have some family land (and therefore funds).
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The landless nobility take personal honor, and dueling
to protect it, very seriously. There are dozens of different fencing schools,
each proclaiming their own superiority, along with church forces and the
republic’s armies.
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Like fencing, magical combat is taken seriously.
Sorcerers are those who have trained in specific spell and weapon combinations so
obsessively that they can perform them unprepared (often by lesser nobility),
and they also gain the short sword proficiency .
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Some of these schools are so well developed as
to have their own prestige classes, enterable at or around 6th
level. Paladins have become a Prestige Class; once the emperor’s personal
guard, with the last emperor’s ascension these incorruptible swordsmen are
beacons of justice.
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Legal duels require a witness (preferably a
paladin), fought to first blood or unconsciousness. With a Paladin and Lay on
hands present, it means legal duels are seldom fatal - though the Paladin will
heal 1 point to keep you from bleeding out and you can heal the rest on your
own....
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As far as weapons are concerned, Emirikol has no
heavy armor. Classes with heavy armor proficiency get 1 extra skill point per
level instead. There is no heavy armor because there are firearms - single shot
guns that do d6 or d8 damage with a threat range of 17-20 and a x4 crit
multiplier – and heavy crossbows. Basically, why heavy armor died in the real
world.
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Short bows, longbows, and light crossbows are illegal
inside the city, and not considered the weapons of noblemen outside them. There
are laws/customs for who can carry what weapon where, all designed to keep the
PCs armed with daggers, short swords, rapiers, and longswords.
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There was some time of chaos in the past, from
which the law-driven empire was founded. Over time some noble lines fell into
chaos cults, building elaborate chaos crypts for their rituals and
treasures. Those lines ushered in a chaos invasion, and when that was beaten
back the lines were destroyed. Anything found in a chaos crypt is fair game,
tax free.
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Monsters that can’t be affected by critical hits
(especially corporeal undead) are exceedingly rare; beast men of all sorts and
chaos agents are the real threat. Clerics worship the 4 elements plus ancestors
and the divine emperor. Turn Undead will get a boost since undead are rare.
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Since the 1st level multi-classing
rules are a pain, and I want PCs to define early with multi-class (especially
with Aristocrat) I am letting people stat out at 2nd level, but they
still have to earn the 1000 XP to get from 1st to second (so at 3000
xp earned they get their first in game level up).
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limit the starting PC races to Human, Elf, Half
Elf, Gnome, and Halfling; I am hoping to see more gnomes and halflings, I don’t
want to deal with Dwarves/Half Orcs. Human names are Spanish; Elven, French;
Halfling, German; Gnomes, Hungarian. Avoid random collections of syllables.
This was enough to get started and share with the players
for character concepts.
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