Talk:Faith and Firearms

GM Notes

Morale

In general, it's assumed that you have adequate morale. You receive no bonuses, but suffer no penalties either. However it is possible to lose morale or gain it, and your morale rating determines how effective your units perform- and how effective enemy tactics are against them. While most stats are mechanically represented, Morale is the only stat really tied into the narrative. Write about things which improve morale, and your troops will be better insulated from bad morale. Don't, and you won't have those protections. How you run your armies, too, will influence what your morale is considered to be.

Ultimately, Morale is not a numerical stat with a specific value, but a vague abstract. Still, some game elements will reference and interact with it.

The Golden Miasma

This 'last curse' of the Old Ones acts with a purpose. Any faithful who enter its area will become lost and disoriented, passing out of the sight of their gods, and eventually going mad. Ships that pass through the fog will travel endlessly until the sea claims them.

The faithless are not immune to these effects, though they're much less likely to go mad- they just get lost and drown.

The only way to pass safely through the Golden Miasma is known only to a handful of scholars, an order sworn to secrecy in the aftermath of the Caliber Empire's downfall. From the Emperor's person they recovered a device which burns the faithful on contact, a device which the Emperor's personal diary referred to as an 'Astrogator'. A device he used, successfully, to navigate the Eon Fog, and purportedly landed on the shores of a city of the Old Ones.

After the collapse of the Empire, the device was sent north to be held in trust by the Monks who study at the base of the thousand spires. Neutral and trustworthy, the Monks and their God, in the aspect of Secrets, claim to guard against many ancient evils that lay beyond the mountain range. Now too, they guard and guard against the Astrogator.

If a player rolls a natural 100 on a relic roll, they find an Astrogator.

Major NPCs

Wardens of the Eye

The monks who study at the base of the thousand spires are said to have been first enlightened when a single Tall One came south of the spires to study the steppe people who lived there in the aftermath of the destruction of the Old Ones. Guided by faith, and curious to their nature, she became a link between them and the first God to turn an eye back to the people of the world, becoming its Oracle.

The monks revere knowledge, even forbidden knowledge. They do not believe any history should be destroyed, and they do not condemn the choices of others. They are staunchly neutral, and their Priesthood follows a divine mandate to shield the world from knowledge other deities have declared heretical.

Seferati

Goddess of the Wardens of the Eye, Seferati is a fallen Angel, a luminous being that was once cast down to Earth in the Time before Time. Through penance and dedication, through service and duty, she rose through the ranks to ascend once more, taking her place among the other gods. When the Old Ones strayed too far from the grace of the Divine, she was one of the few who remained neutral during the war, for she was one of the few who understood them, as none of her fellows did.

In the aftermath, her Oracle brought her wisdom to the people of the steppes, the range that would become known as the Thousand Spires, and through her mandate, they gathered the fractured, ancient remnants the Old Ones left as they abandoned their cities and her brethren toppled their empires. Much knowledge was lost in that time, but Seferati saved what little she could. Histories. Music. Art. Memories, and stored it within the Endless Library, safe from harm and the sight of those who would put such knowledge to the fire.

Among her fellows, Seferati is respected for her neutrality, and her consideration. Every God has their indiscretions, and many have confided them to her, entrusted her to duties they cannot leave to others. This is one of the myriad reasons they alone holds the Book of Lineages, that tracks the bloodlines from the birth of time, to the height of the Old Ones and their Fall, throughout the Cataclysm and into the present. Of all the knowledge she possesses, it is the most forbidden for another to know. To unite in their cause, to ensure the destruction of the Old Ones, the Gods set aside their differences, their grudges and wars- taking that knowledge and entrusting it to Seferati. There is no war in heaven because the Gods do not remember cause for conflict.

All that knowledge, all that power, all contained in a mortal tome, hidden away somewhere in the Endless Library.