Iron Heros - What do you think of the Setting?

[Dr. Strangemonkey]

I'm fusing Iron Heroes with the Arcanis sourcebook Serpent Kingdoms, and making the Masters the Ssethric, and the First are Ssethric-tainted humans(probably yuan-ti of some flavor).

That sounds cool! As, of course, does A'koss plan though I feel as though I know more about it than most.

I think the Swordlands works really really well as an implied setting. The bare bone sketch fits the feel of the game perfectly and is open enough that you could spin it or supplement in any number of different ways without breaking anything. Which means you can run the Swordlands as a sort of setting template over another setting.

Personally I'd be very tempted to use it as a sort of template for how to run IH in something like Exalted's Creation.

As it is I'm likely going to use it in a setting that'll be sort of a highly culturally, historically, and technologically confused version of a demon and fey ridden dark ages Western Europe. Something round, say, (1)700 in something roughly equivalent to Italy.

Reasons I like:

-Fits the rules through the swordlands template

-Gives the PCs anything they want that's familiar enough to give them a connection to their character build. They getting pretty Dune with it, which is inspiring to me, so that we already have a Zen Calvinist Swordmaster from Highland Switzerland in the group and I think (if I understand things) that we are getting a French Ninja Harrier Executioner. It's sort of nice to have the PCs writing large portions of the landscape.

-Let's me use all sorts of both historical and fantastic known maps, characters, events and creatures without getting tied down into anything.

 

[Kaos]

Personally, I don't particularly for the setting itself; I do like the presentation of it though - enough to give an idea of the *kind* of setting IH lends itself 'best' to, but not enough to get in the way of anything.

 

[mearls]

Personally, I don't particularly for the setting itself; I do like the presentation of it though - enough to give an idea of the *kind* of setting IH lends itself 'best' to, but not enough to get in the way of anything.

That's exactly what I intended. I think that gamers already have plenty of ideas and inspiration for IH settings. A setting tied closely to the rules made no sense, IMO, and would just get in people's way.

 

[Kaos]

That's exactly what I intended. I think that gamers already have plenty of ideas and inspiration for IH settings. A setting tied closely to the rules made no sense, IMO, and would just get in people's way.

Yeah, I seem to recall you saying that at least once before. And as a player, I'd like to say that you've (IMO) definately succeeded, and that I do appreciate it.

In related news... having just checked out the introductory module, I had to laugh.
"Axenbough."
(Axe and Bow?)

 

[malladin]

I think IH would work well with settings like Conan, Iron Kingdoms, or Dark Sun. Gritty, combat oriented settings where magic is powerful, but not ubiquitous.

IH for Dark Sun? Brilliant!! I love DS and haven't found a decent enough conversion yet, but IH might be just the one... How would you incoporate psionics, though?

 

[ThoughtfulOwl]

IH for Dark Sun? Brilliant!! I love DS and haven't found a decent enough conversion yet, but IH might be just the one... How would you incoporate psionics, though?

A quick and dirty way would be to recycle the Arcanist: just replace the schools of magic with custom-made psionic disciplines. Likewise, you can differentiate between elementalist priests and defiler/preserver mages by adding a few mods to the class.

 

[Kaos]

A quick and dirty way would be to recycle the Arcanist: just replace the schools of magic with custom-made psionic disciplines. Likewise, you can differentiate between elementalist priests and defiler/preserver mages by adding a few mods to the class.

It's been a *long* time since I played DS, but random guesses for working defilers:
Let them drain life out of the area in exchange for bonuses to the channeling check, drop the pact mechanic.
Preservers I never really looked at, so I couldn't say what their big thing is (though I seem to recall they had a philosophy of using less mana so as to avoid draining it from the life around them; maybe drop the pacts (again) and give them small level-based discounts on the mana costs for spells?)

Priests... keep the pacts. They're getting help from the elementals, which is pretty much what the pacts represent anyway.

Aspects may need some work, though some of them map easily to elemental priests: bounding step - air; master of heat and flame - fire. Earth and Water are tricky, but could be forced in. Since you get three of them, just require that the priest take the one suited to his element first, and never take the one of the opposition element (then use Greater Aspect to enhance his primary element first...)

 

[philreed]

I've been primarily reading the rules (nice job, Mike!) rather than any setting information (what little of it there is) but I do have a question: This is the beginning of civilization but was there an earlier (now destroyed) civilization? I assume yes so that there can be ancient ruins (dungeons) to explore.

 

[Matrix Sorcica]

I've been primarily reading the rules (nice job, Mike!) rather than any setting information (what little of it there is) but I do have a question: This is the beginning of civilization but was there an earlier (now destroyed) civilization? I assume yes so that there can be ancient ruins (dungeons) to explore.

Yes. The Masters, who created humanity as a slave race, had a very advanced civilization. They supposedly destroyed themselves in a cataclysmic war, living only ruins, relics, humans and other monsters as their legacy.

 

[philreed]

Yes. The Masters, who created humanity as a slave race, had a very advanced civilization. They supposedly destroyed themselves in a cataclysmic war, living only ruins, relics, humans and other monsters as their legacy.

Sounds perfect. That leaves behind lots of places to play.