Level Up (A5E) Sins of the Scorpion Age, Sword and Sorcery Campaign Setting

[GuyBoy]

Thought for Samarsi Cultural Trait option:

Every Weapon a Tool
Choose a weapon with which you are proficient. Whenever you use this weapon as part of a skill check, you gain an Expertise Dice, subject to Narrator Approval.

Someone who picks a Quarterstaff could use it in Acrobatics for balance, or Athletics to pole vault. Or to search for traps with Investigation. Or use a Longbow for Survival checks to hunt. Or a Longsword on a Survival check to start a fire. You get the idea.

If your weapon is useful for that task, you get an expertise die.

Like this idea. Full of flavour.
A dagger to aid in climbing. A spear for balance.
Even a shield to slide down castle steps whilst shooting arrows...oh, wait!

 

[GuyBoy]

View attachment 144116

Surely there's nothing in those Mists, right?

Somewhere between a certain John Carpenter film and the ghouls of Yanaidar coming to reclaim their home, leaving a Mary Celeste-like City “empty” once again....

 

[Steampunkette]

I will say that I'm nervous about Yblisa and the Ysla people.

They're basically Vichy France for the world. But because I'm using a pseudo Azerbaijan style for the region I'm a little worried it'll just come across as general racism.

 

[GuyBoy]

I will say that I'm nervous about Yblisa and the Ysla people.

They're basically Vichy France for the world. But because I'm using a pseudo Azerbaijan style for the region I'm a little worried it'll just come across as general racism.

I understand your concern. Vichy France made the decision they did for a variety of reasons, including (but not limited to) political expediency, defeatism, anti-Communism, some sympathy for Nazism in certain individuals, a desire to preserve French independence to at least an extent.
Vichy did not result in significant racism towards the French people (other than that still extolled in the somewhat rabid right wing garbage of some aspects of the UK media), and part of the reason for this was the heroism of the Resistance and the Free French government.

So, one answer, with Yblisa drawing on pseudo Azerbaijan, might be to insert a hero or two who resisted the Ancais situation and is lauded today, at least in some circles. This shows it wasn’t the whole populace who betrayed and hopefully avoids any aspect of racism.

 

[Steampunkette]

A God of Love! Nothing sinister about -that-. He even falls in love with mortals multiple times per year...

Dozens of times in a year when injured.

 

[GuyBoy]

A great place to visit as part of an adventure path.

 

[Steampunkette]

Basically going for a "Sacrificed to the Volcano God" thing in a heavily romanticized sense.

The god in question is real and tangible and consumes life through love. He picks a person who he's going to love to death, they get a huge celebratory period of joy and comfort, and then they're handed over to the God who loves them. Nothing -sexual-, mind you. Just straight up kills them with his emotional weight and consumes the resulting emotions. But, like, -everyone- feels the love like the heat of a volcano, even the ones who aren't hit with lava, y'know?

Very "Moloch" from Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

 

[Steampunkette]

Did someone say "Greek Klingons"?

 

[GuyBoy]

“I have looked upon the face of Agamemnon” (even though it actually wasn’t).
Love this city. Perhaps some legacy weapons, armour (or even death masks) of the heroes still exist, as objects for a quest?

 

[Steampunkette]