D&D 3.5 - Ravenloft - Alba

Setting

Alba is a land of highlands and mountainous regions surrounded by misty marshes. Numerous towns and villages dot the landscape, divided into a series of fiefdoms ruled over by feudal lords. The largest settlement is Skara Brae, the defacto capital, a large walled town, though not quite a city.

The people are of celtic stock with large families and clans predominant social forces. Legends tell of elves and spirits living far off in the woods, but no one in Alba has ever seen a demihuman.

Alba may or may not be a pocket domain in Ravenloft. Tales of strange creatures prowling the lands after dark and the spirits of the dead haunting the living are common. The land is quite large, several hundred square kilometers in size. Stories tell of war with other countries far beyond the borders of the land, but these are years old and peace has reigned for many years. People generally do not venture beyond the borders of the land.

Travel in the wilderness is still dangerous and arms and armament are common for those who can afford them. Rangers are common travellers. Soldiers are rare except for the small militias kept by the feudal lords. Mages and magic are the stuff of legends, unknown to the local populace and viewed as witchcraft should it become so. Yet some do practice the dark arts, hidden away in secret societies, playing with forces they do not fully understand.

Religion in Alba follows 'God' which may or may not be the Abrahamic God of the real world. Also reverred are a huge number of saints. Prominant saints include St Torm, St John, St Ilmater and many others. Spellcasting clerics are almost unheard of and most priests have no magical abilities, there is one man though, a Priest of St John who is renowned as a healer. Any PC Clerics will likely have some affiliation with him.

Rules/Gameplay

Hit Points are rolled and retained by the DM. Low hit points may or may not be used.

Race

Humans preferred, demihumans might be possible but see above.

Fighters/Rangers/Rogues/Barbarians/Monks

No changes

Mages

Mages do not automatically gain new spells as they go up in level and must learn spells they find or research. To address the balance somewhat they start with a spellbook they've either bought, found or had bequeathed to them by a relative or similar. This book contains 12 spells, 4 1st, 4 2nd and 4 3rd level spells. These spells are chosen by the player, but vetted by the DM.

Bards

Bards do not automatically gain new spells as they go up in level and must learn and memorise spells each day in the same way as a Mage.

Clerics

Clerics do not automatically gain new spells as they go up in level nor do they have access to all divine spells as normal, instead they must learn and memorise spells each day in the same way as a Mage. To address the balance somewhat they start with Prayer Scrolls containing 4 1st, 4 2nd and 4 3rd level spells. These spells are chosen by the player, but vetted by the DM.

Sorcerers/Paladins

Do not exist in this setting. If you absolutely must have one we can discuss.

All other starting conditions as per PHB. PCs start at 1st level.

Other details

PCs should have some relationship to Lord Cináed mac Ailpín, Laird of Skara Brae and defacto Lord of the Land.

It would also be useful for PCs to have some dark secret in their past, something that may attract the interest of Ravenloft, if that is indeed where Alba is located.

PCs should be Good or Neutral. Not necessarily 'do-gooders', but not psychotic evil bastards.


I dunno when the next campaign is actually gonna happen, it could be next week or next year, so no rush to post character ideas, but whack 'em in when you have 'em.

You sure you want the PCs posted up here and not in the Current PCs forum?

Reserved.

Oh, well wherever makes most sense I guess. Do they count as current if they're not immediately being used?

Yes, why not? People can write them up there. Sounds like a better idea for me, cos they'll be used "eventually" in theory.

I'll reserve a space there when I think of something deeeeecent.

Also, so.. Monks are okay then?

I was thinking of a monk, right, but he primarily uses random weaponry (whatever he can mostly get his hands on) to deal with monk unarmed damage.

That okay?

OK cool - please post characters in the current PCs thread.

Well as far as I'm concerned any class is OK providing it can be made to work in a celtic medieval highland horror/ghost story type setting.

I said no to sorcerers/paladins as I couldn't see a way to make them slightly less 'fantastical', but if someone can come up with a way to do it for a PC then I'm all ears.

As for monks, I think it could work, but he'd probably have to be a 'classic' type monk, ie brown habit, shaved middle of the head that kind of thing, from an order, vow of silence, brewing beer etc etc.

I like your idea of random weaponry as kung fu, martial arts etc clearly wouldn't fit in the setting too well. The only thing I would say, without elaborating too much, is you may find yourself in situations where there isn't any, so maybe don't make it something he relies on.

Maybe he could be built like a brick shithouse, so rather than doing 'kung fu', his hands are just raw power and thus count as armed attacks?

Well. The idea isn't a monk at all, I'm just using the "monk" template, as it were, to make a PC. I repeat, it's not a monk. It's a celtic woad warrior, who yes, is a fucking shit brickhouse.

He can use all sorts of weaponry and objects to infilct horrid wounds, cos he smashes them hard enough and in the right places (Unarmed damage). He's quick and light on his feet, usually wearing old a kilt and woad, but depends.

Anyway, well see, was just my initial idea and yes, he is lawful.

I mean, yes, he gets unarmed damage, but it's brutality, not precise strikes. I'm still thinking about how it'd work out with all the later on funky shit, but I think it'd work well enough.

Anyway, I'm not 100% yet, so don't worry too much, I have slight issues with having a "hard" PC in a horror game, cos... well, cos I do for reasons that should pretty much be obvious. So I may go for a thief.

OK sounds cool to me. Lemme know when you've fleshed it out more.

Btw. You didn't set any sort of attribute system.

I'ma write something up in a bit with an assumed point count, which can be changed when you set it down.

Oh yeah - I guess we'll just use the standard thing which is....75 points?

Although- how would people feel about 70 points for a slightly more 'low power' feel?

Posted this in Zerts character thread, but it's more universal so thought I'd add it here too. I'll add more languages as I think of them, if any:

Languages

Common - spoken by everyone in Alba, this language is slowly taking over from Gaelic.

Gaelic - spoken widely and is the original language of Alba which is now slowly dying away in favour of the more modern common tongue.

Druidic - a very old language, perhaps akin to Latin in our world. Would likely have been learned by aristocrats sent to be privately educated, and also spoken by those few actual druids who still remain in the world.

Clan based languages - Iain's gone for a type of highland warrior who I assume would likely be part of a clan. While such character would speak Gaelic, I could also see them having their own dialect specific to their clan that would be different enough to the standard tongue to constitute a new language. This could be called whatever you wanted really.

Other Languages - If your character were a spell caster (mage or priest) or had some affiliation with some kind of secret society then elvish, planar, infernal, abyssal etc would be possible.

For the record, I would prefer 70 or lower for stats. Low power is high fun!

Well, there really no is standard system as it were, it's different for all campaigns.

I'd probably prefer 75 points, since when I wrote up basically what I wanted for a PC, it totalled at 74, which means I'm either gonna have an extra point to spend, or I need to lose 4 points. Easier for me to just add 1 =)

Besides. 75 is *hardly* high power. 75 is pretty fucking low if you ask me.

On second thought, 74-75 is coo. Lower than that is pretty...gimp.

Either's fine with me to be honest. If mike or trom do not violently disagree, 75 it is!