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Message: <blockquote data-quote="PA_Gamer" data-source="post: 9429525" data-attributes="member: 7043905">Beneath the hood Medieval Tales is a traditional TTRPG that utilizes the standard dice: D4, D6, D8, D10, D20, D00, as well as rulebooks and physical character sheets. Dice rolls are used in character generation (everything from determining what star a character was born under, to generating attributes, birth order, and the social rank a character is born into). Dice are also used in the making of skill checks, and in resolving actions in combat.Players play characters struggling to survive during the violent era of the Hundred Years War. Characters can be peasants, commoners, nobility, or clergymen. They begin as relatively obscure men and women, but through experience they can not only better their skills and financial situation - and secure better gear - but they can also earn "Achievements" in the form of glory, position, service, or study. Achievements open doors for characters and provide access to better professions. They can also be used to earn "Honors", which are special rewards that range from being given benefices (monetary rewards), to a grant of arms, the ability to design their own coat of arms. Other honors include being dubbed into knighthood, buying a patent of nobility, or attracting an entourage of minor NPC followers.Most combat actions are based on contemporary fighting techniques (for example, many of the maneuvers described in the 15th century Le Jeu de la Hache are actions combatants can take during a round of combat). Instead of a single hit point track, Medieval Tales uses the "four humors" (based on medieval concepts of the body and health) to track injury, self-control, the effects of poison, and resistance to demonic possession. The mechanics are not based on any pre-existing system, per se; however, many elements are certain to be familiar to seasoned players.The second book, Bestiarium Vocabulum, is a GM resource that is filled with creatures from medieval legends. This includes many creatures most gamers will be familiar with (e.g. basilisks, dragons, demons), but being based on French folklore, many will likely be new, such as the shapechanging birette, the hag chauchevieille, the age-like simiots of the Pyrenees, the vampiric fausserole, and a race of trickster demons known as crieurs.While there are an abundance of magical creatures and monsters with which to challenge characters and populate adventures, this is a relatively low-magic setting. In keeping with the theme of "what medieval men believed in is what is real", the kind of magic available to characters is based on medieval concepts of magic. Every spell or formula in the third book, The Grand Grimoire, is drawn from actual sources (that is, grimoires that existed in the 15th century such as Albertus Magnus, the Cipher of Roger Bason, Corpus Hermeticum, Donum Dei, Heptameron, etc). Alchemy is a legitimate "science", and the power of amulets and charms is a matter of fact. But there are also forbidden invocations that call on angels (or demons) to produce fantastic effects or bind spirits to service, and darker maleficia, as well as peasant magic, "theurgy", which deals with the breaking of curses and the making of folk medicine.</blockquote>

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