Arcana: Iron and Magic

Ether - magical power and knowledge

Force - magical application

Life - trade/diplomacy and personal development

Matter - order/bureaucracy

Void - exploration and sea/skymanship

Preliminary map of Arcana

The World

Arcana: Threads of Religions
Arcana: Schools of Magic
Arcana: The Alfar Empire

The Essence Gates

In the distant past, long before recorded history, the vast network of Essence Gates were constructed. These arcane and enigmatic constructs of high magic span Arcana, shortening the distances between places hundreds or thousands of miles apart to just a footstep. They take the form of immense standing stones of almost indestructible materiel inscribed with ancient runes and placed in linear chains sometimes approaching a quarter-mile long. Each Essence Gate is attuned to one and only one of the five Essences; Ether, Force, Life, Matter or Void. When active, their mana flares correspond to the following colors in order; White, Blue, Green, Red, Violet. Any given Essence Gate can connect to any other gate of the same Essence. At any given time a gate will typically be open to between three to six different gates, though this can vary immensely depending on the location. The skills required to magically determine the destination of a specific gate opening is relatively easy to learn and no serious traveller will fail to both learn how to do this and acquire a gate map. Actually opening a gate requires more skill, but is something almost every halfway-competent mage learns.

The magical gate is both two-way and double-sided, and can be compared to a door or window between two distant locations that instantly swap the locations of those who walk through them. If one walks into the left-hand side of one gate, one emerges at the right-hand side at the other. Likewise, going in the right-hand side will see one emerging from the left-hand side at the destination. Most gates managed by merchants or other officials will encourage using one side as an 'in' and the other as an 'out', to minimize confusion. Opening a new gate window can take anywhere from ten minutes to an hour or more, depending on how long it has been since the last connection; the longer since the last connection was made, the more time it takes for the gate window to open.

It was inevitable that Essence Gates would become key links for both trade and war, and indeed it was upon both of these that the Alfar Empire drew its power. Cities are often found near gates, connected to them via the ancient Alfar roads. However, there are the clear security issues involved with gates and most sensible lords have surrounded them with walls and other fortifications designed to bottle up any invader in killing zones. For this reason attacks through gates are quite rare and are often combined with other actions. Instead, standard military doctrine has armies travel to distant gates in uninhabited lands and then marching overland to their eventual target.

The Rules

Races of Arcana

Baseborn Races

Humans

The generic

Racial Alignment: None

Orcs

Originally tribal, some are now civilized. Can be green, brown or red.

Racial Alignment: Matter

Infantry units are tougher

Mage units are weaker

Goblins

Surface ones are mostly in isolated regions, underground ones are angry.

Racial Alignment: Void

+1 to all Drafts

Infantry units are weaker

Dwarves

Short guys that like beer and live in underground halls.

Racial Alignment: Force

Infantry units are tougher

+25% to all Mine output

-1 Common draft

Underdark Race

Beastfolk

Catgirls and furries, oh my!

Racial Alignment: Void

Lizardmen

Primitive reptilian humanoids that come in two distinct types. One inhabits the deep deserts far from civilization, the other ('Frogmen') inhabit wild swamps.

Racial Alignment: Life

Infantry units are faster

Immune to attritionary effects of Wastes

+1 to Common draft in Wastes

Highborn Races

Noble races can 'buy' Common race Domains to represent feudal (or enslaved) underclasses.

Elves

Fuck'n pointy-ears

Racial Alignment: Ether

Bow and Mage units are more powerful

All Common draft halved

Dark Elves

Underground Elves

Racial Alignment: Ether

Bow and Mage units are more powerful

All Common draft halved

Underdark Race

God-Blooded

Humans with a touch of ancient god in their bloodline

Racial Alignment: Life

Infantry and Mage units are stronger and tougher

All Common draft halved

Monster Races

Monster races require GM approval to play.

Draconians

Mutated dragon eggs. They're angry

Racial Alignment: Matter

All non-mechanical units are tougher, breathe fire and fly

May not use Horses

Trolls

Big green regenerating guys

Racial Alignment: Void

All non-mechanical units are much stronger and tougher

All non-mechanical units regenerate

All drafts halved

Dryads

Half-plant, half-human physical tree spirits. Insular.

Racial Alignment: Life

All non-mechanical units are much stronger and tougher

All mechanical units are grown, not built

Wilds generate +1 Food

All drafts halved

Iron Dryads

What happens when you put a Dryad grove in an iron smelter

Racial Alignment: Force

All non-mechanical units are much stronger and tougher

All mechanical units are grown, not built

Wilds generate +20 Mana

All drafts halved

Revenants

Self-willed undead from the Necro War. May not look like zombies or skeletons.

Racial Alignment: Void

All non-mechanical units are tougher

All units have certain magical resistances/immunities

Domains

Arcana Domain Customization

Domains are what make up your nation, the real estate so to speak. They are where your people live and work and have a very real effect on your national character.

Domain Limits
A nation may have up to 12 domains without any problem, however past that there is a surcharge of +10 points per additional domain. In the turbulent times after the Necromantic War, few large states exist.

Countryside

Cultivated fields interspersed with small forests, creeks, etc.

10 points

Produces 2 Food and 100 Gold

3 Common Draft

Horses

Wilds

Deeper forests of virgin oaks and old-growth cedar.

5 points

Produces 50 Gold

1 Common Draft

Somewhat defensible

Beasts

Hills

Rolling hills, often with small woodcutting or ranching operations. A popular site for gold mines, both collapsed and non-collapsed.

10 points

Produces 150 Gold

1 Common Draft

Defensible

Adamantium, Gold

Mountains

Tall, snow-capped peaks with the occasional high pass and raging river.

5 points

Produces 50 Gold

Very defensible

Adamantium, Levistone, Gold

Wastes

Deserts, swamps or tundras. Not nice places to be, but they make great borders.

1 point

Attritionary

Beasts

Demesne

20 points

Produces 1 Food, 100 Gold and 100 Mana

Adamantium, Levistone

Underdark

15 points

Produces 1 Food, 50 Gold and 50 Mana

1 Common Draft

Adamantium, Gold

Very Defensible

Is associated with another Domain

Underdark Lightfield

20 points

Produces 3 Food, 50 Gold and 50 Mana

2 Common Draft

Adamantium, Gold

Defensible

Is associated with another Domain

Underhaven

25 points

Produces 50 Gold and 150 Mana

Adamantium, Gold

Very Defensible

Beasts

Is associated with another Domain

Sites

Sites are geographical entities that are relatively small; cities, castles, nodes, etc. They must be placed in a Domain.

Keep

Large fortified castles, complete with forges, smithies, bowyers, enchanters, ridiculously giant cannons, early-warning scrying pools and a rickety wizard's castle.

30 points

Requires 1 Food and 100 gold

Produces 100 Mana and 10 Books

2 Noble Draft

Must be seized and captured before the associated Domain can be conquered.

Maintains 25 gold/month of units free of charge, so long as they remain in the Domain.

Town

Vital cogs in a nation's economy, Towns are home to thousands of people. Like Keeps, they are home to various craftspeople and specialists.

10 points

Requires 1 Food

Produces 200 Gold and 10 Books

2 Common Draft

City

Much larger than Towns, Cities are centers of commerce and production. It is in Cities that the most powerful and amazing weapons and magics are crafted.

50 points

Requires 5 Food

Produces 1000 Gold, 100 Mana and 30 Books

6 Common Draft, 1 Noble Draft

Production sites for all Mechanical units.

Underhold

Even the denizens of the Underdark build cities, vast halls full of the myriad different tasks of civilization.

50 points

Requires 4 Food

Produces 700 Gold, 200 Mana and 30 Books

5 Common Draft, 1 Noble Draft

Production sites for all Mechanical units.

Must be sited in an Underdark Domain.

Horse Ranch

While any old nag is more than sufficient for a country bumpkin to pull his turnips to market, a knight demands a proper warhorse. These are large, strong, well-fed and often ill-tempered beasts.

10 points

Requires 1 Food

Produces 25 Horses

Monster Ranch

Some warriors are perfectly happy with a proud stallion for their mount, but some prefer something a bit more exotic. Perhaps with the ability to breath fire, or fly through the air, or simply be fifty feet tall.

10 points

-1 Common Draft

Produces 25 Beasts

Wizard's Tower

Large, tall, possibly crooked and glows a faint greenish-yellow-purple at night.

10 points

Produces 50 Books

Gold Mine

Gold (or other similar precious materiels like silver and gems) need to be laboriously extracted from the earth to enrich the local lord.

10 points

Produces 200 Gold

Adamantium Mine

The reddish, incredibly tough metal known as Adamantium is prized across Arcana. While it makes excellent armor and weapons, it is one of the few substances (and by far the most available) that can be used to construct the frames of Guymelefs.

10 points

Produces 25 Adamantium

Levistone Quarry

Levistones are chunks of Arcana's rock that have become so infused with mana that they can ignore the grip of gravity. In some select areas these can be quarried and then floated to the shipyards where they become the keel of skyships.

10 points

Produces 1 Levistone

Nodes

Air Node

Often the sites of continual lightning, rain, snow and other more unusual atmospheric phenomenon. A flare at an Air Node can send storms across a continent, providing much-needed rain - or ruining crops.

50 points

Ether-Aligned

Each Air Node provides 500 Mana

Increases non-Node mana by 5%

Fire Node

Archetypically a bubbling volcano, though vast fields of bubbling mud or geysers is not uncommon. More rarely, Fire Nodes can be twisted spires of rocks, dispersing raw energy into the air - or those venturing unwisely close.

50 points

Force-Aligned

Each Fire Node provides 500 Mana

Reduces Mana cost of Constructs by 10%

Wood Node

The vibrant energy of a Wood Node imbues the local forests with unnatural vitality, turning them into vegetative battlegrounds of constantly-growing trees, creepers and other flora.

50 points

Life-Aligned

Each Wood Node provides 500 Mana

Increases Wilds draft by +1

Earth Node

Often taking the form of ridiculously rugged mountains that are fairly bursting with precious gems and ores, Earth Nodes are the foci of the geomantic forces of Earth magic.

50 points

Matter-Aligned

Each Earth Node provides 500 Mana

Increase Gold income by 5%

Water Node

Endless fonts of crystal-clear water that fades to the deepest indigo above their unknown depths, Water Nodes are sources of pure water, even when they are found in an ocean.

50 points

Void-Aligned

Each Water Node provides 500 Mana

Increases City and Keep drafts by +1 each

Spirit Node

It is difficult to define a Spirit Node with any certainty, save that those who unknowingly travel through them will find fires not shedding heat, no animals to hunt and enigmatic dreams that can never be properly recalled.

50 points

Spirit-Aligned

Each Spirit Node provides 500 Mana

Unique Nodes

The Sun

Ether/Force aligned

The Clouds

Force/Life aligned

Yggdrasil

Life/Matter aligned

The Core

Matter/Void aligned

The Skies

Void/Ether aligned

The Sea of Chaos

Ether/Life aligned

The Heartsforge

Force/Matter aligned

World's End

Life/Void aligned

The Font of Creation

Matter/Ether aligned

The Grand Flow

Void/Force aligned

Resources

Horses

Warhorses, in specific. Needed to equip any unit with Warhorses.

Adamantium

A crucual component in making Guymelefs.

Levistone

What keeps skyships in the air.

Books

Mages need books.

Common Draft

Commoners are the bulk of any military, coming from various lower classes.

Noble Draft

The nobles are the priviledged few of titled birth, typically forming the hard core of a Lord's military.

Military Units

Arcana: Advanced Unit Design

Infantry

Peasants
In times of dire need, (or when they're rebelling) slaves, peasants, and criminals can be quickly arranged into something resembling a fighting unit. The process of "arming" and "drilling" them costs only a couple gold and unlike most other units, can be done practically anywhere that's inhabited. Unless magically controlled however, peasants tends to be poorly motivated, and always have to make do with the worst equipment and training. Their raw availability however, means they often make up the bulk of poor armies in times of war and if your cities and castles fall, these are all you'll have if that.

Training Cost: 0 Gold

Upkeep Cost: 1 Gold

Militia
Formations of medium infantry are an excellent balance of low price, reliability, power, and mobility and inevitably form the backbone of most armies. If armed with spear and shield, they will defend well against cavalry, swords and shields allows them to efficiently kill at or under their weight, whilst arming them with heavier weapons makes them credible against more heavily armored opponents.

Training Cost: 0 Gold

Upkeep Cost: 4 Gold

Men-at-arms
Many local lords do not rely entirely upon levies of local peasants and burghers for defense, preferring to keep a number of trained soldiers on permanent retainer. These are colloquially known as Men-at-arms. Drawn from the laboring classes, men-at-arms are often former militiamen who have distinguished themselves in battle. Hardened veterans who have often fought in many battles, men-at-arms are both more skilled and more disciplined than regular militia, making them invaluable as the core of any expanding levied army.

Training Cost: 25 Gold

Upkeep Cost: 4 Gold

Knights
As much of a social class as a military roles, knights are trained since childhood to be warriors and soldiers and are always found at the center of an army or the vanguard of an attack. Trained to be deadly opponents on foot or on horseback they are accustomed to wearing heavy armor. Often in peacetime they will act as a King’s enforcers, in which capacity they tend to be even more lavishly equipped than the norm. Coming mostly from the minor nobility, knights cannot just be drafted by any king with gold in his coffers and take a lifetime to train. During peacetime knights will often act as tax collectors, halving their gold upkeep.

Training Cost: 100 Gold

Upkeep Cost: 20 Gold (10 when not mobilized)

Beasts

Giants
An ancient race of enormous humanoids, giants have drifted among the smaller races of Arcana for millennia. Several times the height of a human or elf and commensurately strong, Giants stereotypically interact with the ‘littles’ as stoneworkers or foresters. When roused to war though, or hired on as immense mercenaries, they can make devastating addition of any force.

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Monstrous Cavalry
An ancient race of enormous humanoids, giants have drifted among the smaller races of Arcana for millennia. Several times the height of a human or elf and commensurately strong, Giants stereotypically interact with the ‘littles’ as stoneworkers or foresters. When roused to war though, or hired on as immense mercenaries, they can make devastating addition of any force.

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Machines

Scout Striders
By far the most common warstrider design, few nations are without at least a handful of these mechanical warriors piloted by their best warriors. Conventionally they are armed with immense swords, hammers and giant-sized bows, though many lesser lords will lavishly equip their most loyal squads with a variety of exotic and lethal weapons.

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Knightstriders
A natural progression of the time-tested Warstrider concept, 'Knight' Warstriders are stronger, tougher and more responsive than conventional infantry Warstriders. Unsurprisingly they require sophisticated construction techniques that few nations posess. Due to their relative cost and rarity, most Knight Warstriders are well-equipped with magical weapons, conventional swords and bludgeons being a waste of their superior abilities.

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Siege Striders
Seen as sluggish and uncouth but nonetheless occasionally useful during the long centuries of the Alvar Empire, Siege Warstriders proved far more popular with the squabbling warlords of Chora in the tumultuous Warring States period and see common use to this day. Their strength and armor, much greater in scope than basic Infantry Warstriders makes them perfect for wading into the very strongest enemy formation, battering down walls or carrying heavy artillery.

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Golem
In simple terms, a golem is a warstrider that needs not a warrior to guide its actions. Few are those who possess the skill to enchant these impressive war machines to life. Fewer still are those who survive fighting them, as cold iron feels no pain, and knows no mercy.

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Skycraft

Air Boats
Air Boats are small propeller-powered dirigibles with a cabin slung underneath, capable of carrying a couple dozen passengers or several ton of cargo. They are most often used as couriers or scouts, or else to transport small quantities of high-value items.

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Air Galley
Nothing more than upscaled Air Boats, Air Galleys are significantly larger applications of the same design principles. Like Air Boats they are rarely armed and overall make fairly poor combatants. However, they are reasonable efficient merchantment.

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Skyship
Skyships are a step up from Air Boats like how Warstriders are a step up from Knights. Built around a floating Levistone boulder, they can rapidly sail between the shells. Equipped with multiple artillery cannons, they can also hold a squad of warstriders or similar-sized cargo.

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