EditorBFG said:
Please oblige, I played the $#!+ out of Lords of Magic back in the day-- a drastically underappreciated game.
Well, all righty then.
I was considering starting a new thread but since Cam had asked for specifics I'll leave it here for now...if anyone is
really interested in this stuff, PM me and I can e-mail what I have.
The game takes place after the video game "campaign" is complete; the Deathlord Balkoth has risen and fallen. Death, Earth, and Fire were allied against Life, Water, Air, and Order, with Chaos barbarians fighting on both sides, sometimes changing allegiances overnight; though in the end, Earth, Fire, and Chaos all turned on the forces of Death.
Here's the intro paragraphs:
The Deathlord Balkoth has fallen. The War of Eight Faiths is over. The Rebirth has begun.
With the fall of Balkoth, the Dark Elves who rule the forces of Death have retreated to their capital Mortu'us amidst the blasted wastelands. Their former allies amongst the Firefolk and Earthfolk - Fire Giants and Fire Dwarves, Stone Giants and Hill Dwarves - having turned upon the Death-worshippers at the last, have withdrawn into the burning Red Mountains and the dour Iron Hills, after forging a wary truce with the four Faiths - Air and Water, Order and Life - who stood against Balkoth from the start. The Chaos tribes and those sworn to Air have returned to the howling majesty of the Shatterpeaks. The fields and forests that surround the great Tree of White and Gold are again tended by followers of Life. The manors and fortresses of the human Archon nations once again stand as bastions of Order, and on the shores of the Anrak Sea the ships of the Water-sworn Viantha Amazons ply the waves without fear of attack.
On the Isle of Midian, central island in the Anrak Sea, the merchants and diplomats have cautiously returned to Hubmoot, and the Great Bazaar and the Hall of Eight again ring with the sounds and voices of people of many races. Ships of all Faiths make the journey to Midian...even the tattered galleys from the docks of Mortu'us can be seen on occasion.
The Wheel of Life has no beginning, nor end. Life is ascendent, but Death remains, and the Eight persist...
In terms of world history I stayed fairly close to the video game for the "distant past" - the world was created by the Timeless Ones, who gave way to the elemental Titans. The Titans created the other, lesser races - primarily the Giants, who were the Titans' main servants and the most strongly tied to a given element. (In the video game, only Fire and Air had Giant heroes - Earth had Stone Giants as creatures summoned from the Great Temple, and Water didn't have Giants at all, but to stay consistent I decided that each Elemental Faith would be dominated by the race of Giants. So, there are Fire, Stone, Storm, and Sea Giants. They are much the same as the AE Giants, though the skill bonuses are slightly different, and they don't get the WIS bonus but get the Elemental Resistance Feat. As in AE, they're still the dominant species.)
Other creatures that were created were the Faerie/Faen (originally Air), the Aeslan/Elves (Air), the Lizardfolk (Water), and the Duergar/Dwarves (Fire and Earth). The Faen are as in AE, but are restricted to Loresong Faen (i.e. no Quicklings). Elves are very similar to PHB Elves. Dwarves are, again, a lot like in the PHB, though the skill bonuses are slightly different from PHB Dwarves and between the Hill (Earth) Dwarves and Red (Fire) Dwarves. Lizardfolk are much like they appear in the
Monster Manual.
Humans are portrayed in this version of Urak as being a "cast-off" race - they weren't closely tied enough to any one Faith to be kept around by the Titans, so they were discarded and congregated in remote and forgotten parts of the world where, in true Human fashion, they arranged themselves into tribes and started breeding like rabbits.
Eventually the Giants had had enough of dying in the Titans' wars and made common purpose (the Giantpact) to overthrow their Titan masters. That done, they established the Codominium of the Giants and the four Elemental Faiths governed the world.
However, now that the world was not in a state of constant war, plant and animal life flourished and the tribes of Man began to emerge from their refuges, often as thieves or raiders. Humanity was the force behind the four Younger Faiths. Their anarchic and often brutal outlook, along with the innumerable spirits and gods they worshipped, gave root to the Chaos Faith,. As time went on, it also became clear that there was a Power inherent in living things that was equal to the Elemental Powers; some Humans were also the first adherents of the Life Faith. Some Elves and Faen came down from the Shatterpeaks and abandoned worship of Air to join the Life Faith - and later, some Elves realized the power available from Life's opposite, and were the first followers of Death. Finally, some Human tribes began to form feudal, regimented societies, and began to worship the forces of Order. (Some Humans also converted to the Elder Faiths - some of the mountain barbarians followed Air or Fire, and some humans also followed the Water Faith and became the Amazon nations.)
Urak character classes are mostly AE classes but with some additions from the PHB. Wizard-types are mostly Magisters, though Life mages are usually Greenbonds, Death mages usually become Darkbonds, and Chaos magi are always Runethanes. Runethanes are specific to the Mountain Barbarians, and so also exist (to a lesser degree) in the Air and Fire faiths. Mageblades exist in every Faith except Chaos. The unified spell list is also great for the world, since the video game just had one spell-casting "class" - wizard - that, depending on the Faith, included wizards, shamans, priests, and so forth. Having a "priest" Feat rather than a Cleric class was something else that made AE suit Urak well.
Warmains exist in every Faith except Chaos, who have the PHB Barbarians instead. Chaos is also the only Faith to have Totem Warriors. Unfettered exist in every Faith except Order, and Oathsworn (for obvious reasons) never serve Chaos. PHB Fighters and Rogues exist in every Faith; Rangers exist only in the Life, Death, Order, and Water Faiths.
Champions, of course, suit Urak very well, though they are limited to being Champions of one of the eight Faiths; there aren't racial champions or champions of other causes.
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As far as our campaign goes, there are only two player characters. They started at 4th level and recently reached 5th - a Storm Giant 3/Oathsworn 2, and a Champion of Chaos 5. They met an NPC early on (a kid from an Air-sworn mountain barbarian tribe; the kid's just earned his first PC class level and is currently a Warrior 1/Expert 1/Rogue 1) who seems to have become a fixture. The Oathsworn's been tasked with recovering the Breath of Galroi, an artifact of Air that was captured by Earth forces during the War, and that led them to a Stone Giant who, after the PC's had found some missing Dwarven friends of his, told them about the battle where the Breath was captured. Then they travelled to a port where they bought passage on an Amazon ship, but were caught in a storm that swept them "out of Urak" and to an island where the forces were out of alignment and Order was too dominant. (I portrayed it as being kind of like an MMORPG - you can't cut down the trees, NPCs are stuck in routines that never change, the water moves in an oddly orderly fashion, etc.) They managed to set that aright and are now continuing to the town of Stonehallow in the Earth Realm to continue tracking down the Breath of Galroi.
As I say, if anyone wants the full meal deal, I'm happy to e-mail it to 'em, or if there are any questions, I'm happy to answer 'em.
