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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Deadguy" data-source="post: 127477" data-attributes="member: 2480">I apolgise in advance if this is wandering off topic too far but:The Dark Ages were not that dark! Certainly not in Britain and Ireland, where the many fragmented kingdoms still dealt with the Continent (i.e traded far and wide). The treasures of the Sutton Hoo burial included goods from Byzantium and Egypt, and I do not mean that they were leftovers from the Roman era, but rather traded goods.These kingdoms were based upon personal power and prestige. Alignments and wars constantly shifted the balance of power according to the abilities of the monarch, and there are cases of kings being removed by what amounts to coups conducted by brothers and cousins. And borders are always fluid: minor nobles and the powerful leaders of towns might shift allegiance according to the dictates of war but also according to their best judgement of who will serve the place best (basically tax it least and protect it most). This can be healthy to players who are used to the idea of borders being fixed and firmly demarcated: the town they visited in one season might have changed hands by the next!Now in Britain, the Church was an extremely powerful player and made a lot of the flavour of the age. It was the source of education of knowledge of the past. So you mght want to look at the role of religion on your continent. Some faiths may even split along territorial lines, so the Priests of Tarlok in the kingdom of Cynbrea might not like the same Priests of Tarlok in the neighbouring kingdom of Alandia! Personalities count a lot here too, and priestly leaders who are strong with the king might be willing to use the resources of their church to support him. On the other hand, religious assets might well be appropriated in order to feed the king and his entourage, or to fight his wars. And this doesn't necessitate powerful magic from these churches. Many might well be multi-class Cleric-Experts or Cleric-Fighters or Cleric-Aristocrats according to their bent.I guess what I am trying to say is that whilst the age might be Dark it needn't lack in being cosmopolitan - some people did travel widely, and the leaders of realms aren't going to be ignorant of events outside their borders. Whislt they probably don't know what happened beyond their "curtain" they may well be surprisingly well informed about what goes on within.Putting this into D&D3e terms, I can see no reason to actually restrict classes (except maybe you'll need to rework the Monk). You might consider tying the study of arcane magic with priestly magic - making it a gift from the Gods and thus practised by dual-classed people. That carries the flavour of otherworldliness to all power. And the use of the leadership feat might be very important: the drive for most people is to look after their families, so personal loyalty, or a true concept of nation, is rare. Even Kings might amount to people who have the Leadership feat several times over (and with followers who also possess it). These bonds of personal  loyalty are what, in fact, make them powerful.Hoping that these thoughts actually help <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" /></blockquote>

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