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The known histories are scarce. Little has survived since the Long Winter, but some records still do exist, buried in the caves of the north. Millenia ago, the Great Spirit descended and formed the world. With it He formed man and the creatures, to populate and fill it. From that He taught us how to create fire, how to farm our land, and how to survive the elements. Then He left, ascending back to His realm to allow us to survive and flourish. Many did; peoples of untold number filled the land, thriving and learning. But then the Long Winter came. Pictures show a great light light in the sky, then, the darkness descended. The sun itself died, and from it, the first uktena was born. We were scattered as our very crops died and the world grew cold. For centuries snow and ice dominated the landscape, with monstrous creatures of the north migrating downward. The spirits became silent as the world froze, and all life seemed to be at an end. Then the Long Winter ended. Life returned, and with it, so did we. Centuries more would pass, but many would find their way to our land, the Great Expanse. Now we farm, we hunt, and the spirits have returned. Once more we may commune with them, and with them, we can repair this once desolate land. We can become unto the ancients themselves. Brief account of the histories Shaman Tseg'yin, Green Hand tribe SPIRITS AND MEN Created by Alex Humva Hosted by Alex Humva and Basilisk Laws of the Land All BZPower rules are to be followed.Common sense is important in this game, please use it.Do not prolong battles longer than they need to be. Continually dragging battles out and refusing to declare a victor will result in the GM coming in to decide.Player killing is not banned, but player abuse is. This is a game, keep personal vendettas out of it.Metagaming is severely frowned upon. If a player cannot back up why their tribe just so happened to know that the enemy was coming, but said player knew because of OOC chatting, it won't be pretty for that player.Use IC when discussing things in game and OOC for discussing things out of game.Use the discussion topic when delving into large arguments or large questions. Use OOC to get general quick information and the like. As a rule of thumb if your OOC response exceeds a paragraph or is entirely OOC without anything immediately important to the game, it should go in the discussion topic.Common sense. Use it.Have fun ya'll. Removal of Power The GMs are capable of using any of these punishments to fit any crime, though any punishments denoted with an asterisk require a two thirds GM majority to take effect. A warning.A natural disaster that effects your tribe.A plague that effects your tribe.Secrets of your tribe leaked to other tribes.The genocide of your tribe.*Temporary banning from the game.*Full banning from the game.* The Known World The world that this RPG takes place in is an alternate one to our own (there's spirits and werewolves, what did you expect), and as such there's just a slight bit of geographical variance. The chunk of it that players are romping around in is about 40,000 square miles in size (actually it's closer to 50,000, but schematics). This handy dandy map lets you see the geography, though it is more of a broad thing and thus smaller geographical details will simply need to be figured out as time goes on. This map is a draft. The features of it will remain the same, but the finalized version will be far prettier looking. Mechanically though, there will be no difference, and this map is entirely functional. When submitting your tribe, please tell me where you want to be on the map and a color with which I can mark your presence. You can either open it up in an image editing program and give me exact coordinates, or just say "hey I'd like to be in the docile plains, near that big eastern lake" and I'll do my best. The Normal Map The Tribal Map The Duties of Chiefdom In Spirits and Men, players control entire tribes. After going through the tribe creation process, you are promptly dumped into an area about the size of the state of Kansas, with the ability to mark on the map where your tribe has settled down. Now, the task of controlling a whole tribe may seem daunting, but truly it isn't that much of a task. There are no number charts to sort through or complicated rules to follow; simply spell within common sense and you'll do fine. Keep in mind the technology level; we're roughly around pre-European contact North American civilization levels. There is no metallurgy to speak of, stone is still the preferred material for weaponry/tools, and medicinal technology isn't the greatest. Written word is, however, an option if you so choose it for your tribe. Managing your tribe rests in three areas; diplomacy, warfare, and spirituality. Diplomacy is your interactions with other tribes, as well as managing your own tribe. Things like negotiating a trade of horses or building new huts for your people fall under this category. It is for the most part run by common sense; unlike other RPGs of its kind, Spirits and Men has no IP system to speak of. Rather, things are done on the fly by whatever GM is present to work it out. Let's use the hut building project for example; your chief orders a new medicine hut to be built. You would then say “I sent # men to collect materials,” the GM would take five minutes to get a ballpark estimate of the effort required, and give you an ETA on when that'll be done. For more complex projects like, say, damming a large river, proportionally more time and thought is put into it. This system is very effectively summed up as common sense with a bit of GM research thrown in. Inter-tribal diplomacy follows a similar system. So long as you're specific on what you're trading, things will work out beautifully. If you aren't then things are going get messy really, really, quickly, so try to be specific and everyone leaves happy. The Art of War Warfare! Its bound to happen at some point, so it stands to reason that some regulation needs to be laid out. First, a quick briefing of warfare of the time. Wars like we think of them today didn't really happen in stone-age civilizations. Rather, raiding was the preferred method of combat. The idea of subjugating another civilization was far from a foreign one, but generally speaking there simply wasn't enough resources for that. Raids ultimately were far more profitable than, say, empire building. Keep this in mind when planning your over-arcing strategy; it might sound like fun to go conquer the entire map, but how practical that will be is... debatable. Now, onto actually waging warfare. For that you'll need warriors; warriors follow a sort of experience system that indicates how effective they'll be in combat. For the most part your warriors will be hunters, as that's where they're most useful to society while still practicing their craft. In a tribal system, you can't afford for a bunch of strong peeps to be hacking at straw dummies all day long. Because of this, you'll have a surprising amount of population to warrior ratio, simply by the virtue that you need a lot of hunters. This does not mean, however, that you can rock everyone with a bunch of warriors. Hunting elk and fistfighting bears is slightly different from hunting the most dangerous prey of all, which is where the experience system comes in. Experience is based off of two things; age, and the number of battles/raids/skirmishes/whathaveyou participated in. These two things are kept with your warriors; feel free to use whatever formatting system you're the most comfortable with. How does this effect things in-game? We have no things like health points or damage points, so this simply serves as a convenient way of demonstrating seniority and helping to judge a battle's outcome. In all likelihood a middle aged man at his prime with ten battles under his belt will be able to beat a freshly recruited boy easily. When things are more balanced, the standard logic of RTSRPG style games comes in; poke each other until the GM gets fed up and declares a winner. Reaching a resolution without GM interference is generally preferred though. Logistics is something of a non-factor. Your warriors will undoubtedly be trained hunters; in small raiding groups, they can easily fend for themselves in the wild. The only cases logistics come up is during the winter months and in the more barren areas of the map. This will be handled on a case to case basis, with a GM ruling on what sort of debuffs will be present. The Concepts of Spirituality Arguably the most complex and confusing part of this RPG, so strap yourselves in. In the world of Spirits and Men, shamanism is a big thing. We don't call it magic because, erm, too middle-age. It's tribal shamanism. A shaman is a person who is capable of communing with spiritual beings and in some instances drawing mystical power from these spirits. A shaman can be born with this ability, or sometimes be taught to become more receptive to the other half of our world. For most civilizations, their shaman is just as important as their warrior, if not moreso. A shaman can invoke spiritual power to perform great feats, from healing the sick to summoning rain. The spirits themselves are odd creatures. Nearly everything in the world has some sort of spirit to represent itself; in a way, the spirits serve as a distorted mirror of our half of the world. Most spirits are sapient creatures, though the untrained shaman may take their simplistic nature as a lack of intelligence. Spirits are creatures of simplistic wants and simplistic needs. Take for instance, a wind spirit. For it there is no greater achievement in its eternal life than to float on currents of air forever. To the unknowing shaman, a wind spirit could appear to be totally inanimate; to the experienced shaman, it is simply a matter of finding a way to hold that spirit in one spot long enough to have a meaningful discussion. But how can the spirits influence our half of the world? Well, spirits themselves do very little to alter the physical world, though they are quite capable of exhibiting their influence on our mortal plane. Usually though, their power is channeled through that of a shaman. A shaman can, after creating a bond with a spirit, take that spiritual influence and use it to manipulate certain aspects of this world. In practically all cases, shamans are simply manipulating forces of nature in their mystical works. Summoning rain, for instance, is simply manipulating the environment to produce it. No new energy is created, no new matter formed, simply an adjustment of the natural weather patterns. The long term consequences of this though can be potentially disastrous, creating a situation where active shamanistic interference is in fact required to prevent catastrophe. Other examples include healing the sick, the shaman's power simply bolstering and reinforcing the subject's natural immune system, or summoning the dead, which creates a pathway from the nether realms to the physical world so as to converse with said dead. But what is the extent of shamanistic power? Well, spirits are composed of mana, and from that weird spiritual force, they can give their powers to shamans. Spirits and the things shamans can do them are based on a ranking system, demonstrated here: Minute spirit: The insects of the spirit realm, their influence is small and irrelevant. While as common as the insects of our own world, a shaman's own spiritual influence far surpasses these.Wild spirit: Spirits that often manifest themselves as animals in our world. Their influence is on par with a human's spirit, though is used for different applications.Average spirit: Where many spirits set on the spiritual ladder. Patron spirits are always of this influence, and most spirits a shaman will come across are in this area. Perhaps the most diverse of all the spiritual steps.Regional spirit: A spirit commanding great influence and knowledge; these spirits are rare, but it is not unheard of for a shaman to find at least one in their lifetimes.Legendary spirit: Truly massive spirits, these spirits are speculated to of been the first created at the start of the world. To meet one is a great honor, and a great risk.Great spirit: Not a class of spirits, but a spirit. The very first, and the very greatest. It has not manifested itself since the creation of man, and its current were-abouts are unknown. From this you see the outline of how spirits work. Minute spirits are too weak to be of any practical topic and wild spirits serve a function described further down. Thus we have average, regional, and legendary spirits to work with here. Spells shamans do are subsequently classified as average, regional, and legendary spells. An average spell can be done with all three, a regional spell, with the latter two, and a legendary spell, only with a legendary spirit. From this you can begin to see how these things work. Spirits have sort of spell "slots," allowing for multiple spells to be cast from the same spirit. Think of them as spiritual batteries, charging your spells. Average spirits have five average spell slots. regional spirits have three regional spell slots and ten average spell slots. A legendary spirit has one legendary spell slot, six regional spell slots, and twenty average spell slots. Understand so far? Good. For a bit more complexity, an spell can count as two or more of its class but not advance to the next. Example, you can have a spell that costs two average spells. This is denoted by a "times n" by the spell's description. Spell slots charge one at a time, per classification. Average spells slots refresh per day; regional spell slots refresh monthly. Legendary spell slots refresh yearly. This is done with in-game time, which we'll discuss later. Now, you might be wondering what your shamans can actually do. This is where a system of discovery to replace a nonexistent technology tree comes into play. While the RPG will start off with knowledge of how to do some shamanistic rituals and spells (think healing the sick, communing with the dead, fun stuff like that), your shamans are capable of far more. How do they do this, though? Well, there are a number of ways. One is to hold an inter-tribal shaman meeting and discuss ideas. Another is to go into the wilderness, meditate, and hope something comes to you. Arguably the most successful way is to actually commune with the spirits themselves. Your shaman goes out in search of a particular spirit, and talks to said spirit. Depending on how the conversation goes, you might get useful knowledge, you might not. If you get something that you think you can use though, go out, try it. You might discover some powerful spell that you can do. At this point it's important to pull out the holy trinity of spirits. You see, not all spirits are made the same; due to this, there are three distinct classes of spirits, capable of doing different sorts of shamanistic goodness. These are patron, wild, and nature spirits. Patron spirits are your go to jack of all trades spirits. Your patron spirit is the spirit of your tribe, and all patron spirits start out as average spirits on the power level. It is possible to move your patron spirit up the spiritual ladder, though the specifics of how need to be discovered. So if patron spirits are so generic, what's their importance? The fact that they're generic. You see, nature spirits are the spirits that you find roaming the land, protecting their trees and sleeping in mountains. They are also defined by what they are. If your shaman bonds to a nature spirit, he or she is restricted to what that spirit has known. For example, if you bond to a... mountain spirit. That mountain spirit will have an innate understanding of earth, of being strong and unmoving. You could perhaps use that to imbue your warriors with increased hardiness. You cannot use that spirit to make it rain. It is a mountain spirit. It might get a good look at the sky all the time, but it knows no more about making it rain than a river spirit does about making trees spontaneously combust. What is the point of this? Patron spirits can do any spell, so long as its in their influence bracket. A mountain spirit may be more powerful, but a patron spirit can both imbue your soldiers with hardiness and make it rain. This genericness is important because constantly swapping between spirits is generally a bad idea, as it often requires several days of meditation and rituals before it actually happens. Finally we have wild spirits. Wild spirits can't actually be harnessed to do shamanism, but they have two defining abilities; they can be seen by normals, and they can make pacts with humans. Wild spirits usually manifest in animals, and upon creating a pact with a human, the human and wild spirits merge into a sort of duality. This grants the wild spirit's abilities or characteristics to the human; in some cases, it even allows for full transformations. Thanks to this, you can get some very strange effects and abilities, depending on what you do exactly. However, once a pact is made, it is permanent. It cannot be removed and no others can be made until death. Pacts made after death are another story. Do you feel lost? Totally confused? Look at this infographic. It's a much more concise version of all of this nonsense, and the visual representation should help you out with the more confusingly worded bits. Spells This is the spot where some examples of how your shamans can exhibit their influence in the spiritual world. As well, it will serve as the spot where people's spiritual discoveries are cataloged for convenience. You can and probably should use this format as well when submitting profiles. Note that some spells require continual spiritual input and thus will not let your spirit recharge its mana like normal. This only applies if it specifically is said. Communion With the Dead: All shamans can talk with the dead via having some sort of physical link to their soul; crushed bone from the subject is the preferred summoning method. This does not rest on the ranking ladder and thus has no cost. This is available to all shamans, regardless if it is chosen or not. If a spell costs more than one spell slot, it will be noted. Preliminary Healing: The basic tier of shaman healing. This requires the shaman's constant presence with the patient, and acts to reinforce the subject's immune system. Because of this it cannot directly heal wounds, but can stop infection and thus help the healing process. This is an average spell and falls under earthen spirits. Spirit Lure: This spell serves as a way to attract specific spirits out of their patrolled areas and towards your shaman. The specific spirit that will come depends on what materials you use. This is an average spell and has no spiritual category. Animal Lure: This spell serves as a way to attract specific animals out of their habitats and towards your shaman. The specific animal that will come depends on what materials you use. This is an average spell and falls under earthen spirits. Far Sight: By bending light and air, your shaman is given the ability to see a hundred times better and farther than any other mortal. This is an average spell and falls under air spirits. Raise Skeleton: Via some darker forces, your shaman can raise a skeleton. It must be properly decayed to the bone and flesh will only impede it's movements. It has little sentience and thus will only follow the orders of its masters with little intelligence. This is an average spell and falls under graveyard spirits. Earth Mover: The first tier of this spell, your shaman can create earthquakes ranging from a 3 to a 5 on the Richter scale. A 3 costs one spell slot, a 4, two, and a 5, four. This is an average spell and falls under earth spirits. Far Voice: A shaman can harness the power of his patron spirit to make his voice carry, sounding no louder than usual but capable of carrying for hundreds of kilometers. This is an average spell and falls under air spirits. Steadfast: This spell reinforces the faith and vigor of a group of people, driving out all fear and doubt from their minds. This spell costs one average spell slot per person and falls under earth spirits. Land Sculptor: This spell lets a shaman will the very earth itself into shape, molding soil and stone to fit his whims. This costs five slots, is an average spell, and falls under earth spirits. Blood Rage: Using a ritual of choice and the blood of a fallen foe, his blood becomes a powerful drink for your warriors, granting your warrior the combined strength of his foe and himself. This also has the side effect of turning your warrior into a beserker. This costs two spell slots, is an average spell, works for one warrior per sacrifice, and falls under fire as well as graveyard spirits. Exorcist: Using the power of the spirits to (ironically) cast out spirits, this spell allows your shaman to banish a person's soul from their dead body back to the afterlife. This is an average spell and falls under graveyard spirits. Flight: Whipping up the winds of the south around the shaman, this spell grants a limited form of flight and can be used to soar through the air with limited distance. This is an average spell and falls under air spirits. Bestial Curse (Land): With dark forces, your shaman can turn an opponent into a hideous half-human half-beast abomination, so long as it dwells on land. This spell takes two days to take effect, two days that it remains, and two days that it wears off, making for six days total. This spell's recharge only begins AFTER the six days are over. This costs four spell slots, is an average spell, and falls under earthen spirits. The Creatures of Myth Now, if spirits and shamans weren't enough for you, guess what! You get supernatural beasties to deal with. Now, some of you will instantly know these guys from Cherokee mythology; while I've done the best I can with a number of sources to ensure some measure of accuracy, artistic license ultimately wins whenever I make some mistake in the nature of these creatures. Said nature of these creatures is detailed below; the creatures that will appear are not limited to this list, but if an odd one does pop up, it'll get a spot here edited in. Nunnehi: A sapient race of wandering nomads, these humanoid creatures stand at an average of seven feet in height and are know for their immense strength. They have a fondness for humans, though are invisible to the naked eye unless they chose to reveal themselves. Tlanuwa: These giant birds are the size of a full grown man and live in the mountainous regions of the north. Their feathers are impenetrable and cover the entirity of their body, making killing one quite the feat. At the same time, their feathers are as light as any other feathers of a bird. Uktena: Serpents with legs, these creatures have foul tempers and are similar in nature to that of Chinese dragons. While accounts vary, the Uktena are generally very malicious creatures, though many still possess a human level intellect. Reasoning with one rarely works, and in battle their tough scales make killing them difficult. It is well worth it though, as their scales make superb armor and can be ground into a cure for any disease. The Flow of Time Time here exists in a sort of spurty way. There is no formal progression of time, though if there's no interaction going on a 1:1 ratio of time progression is assumed. There is, however, date keeping and time skipping. Every so often, preferably weekly but sometimes more often and sometimes not as often, a time skip will take place, using seasons as their unit of choice. Usually this'll take place when there's a slump in interaction, or the game simply needs to progress. The GM doing so will take the situation into account, see who all is still interacting with each other, and from there make a decision on how big of a time skip will follow. This may be democratized in some cases. The current season and year is always kept recorded by one of the GMs. Tribal Perks In an effort to make tribes feel more customized and unique, this RPG has a system of perks. You chose one perk when you make your profile, which drastically changes how you play the game. Its a one time only thing, so make sure you choose wisely. Universal Shamanism: Your entire tribe possesses the gift of a shaman. They can all enact their own spiritual feats, but at the cost that they can only tap into a single spirit rather than having individual bonds. Spiritual Communion: Your tribe has a far greater understanding of the overarching spiritual world. Spirits speak easier to your shamans and your people are more in tune with the oddities of the universe, giving them sight of things not seen by others. Necromantic Shamans: Your shamans are empowered by the cycle of reincarnation; with each generation, a new shaman takes the place of the old, embued with the experiences and knowledge of all the tribe's shamans before him. Fearless Minions: Via thorough training and a tribal lineage of the spirits themselves, your warriors know no fear. They will never route nor waver in battle, meeting their deaths with the intelligence of men and the viciousness of predators. Unclean Ground: Your entire tribe is cleansed of the spirits; no spirit will go near it, and no shaman can effect it. Your warriors are protected from the influence of enemy shamans, but have no shamans of their own. Influential Diplomats: Via powers stemming from your patron spirit, your diplomats are incapable of being deceived or led falsely. Animal Pact: In times long ago, your tribe made a pact with the spirits of the wild. With this their very spirits are merged with that of an animal, granting the ability to transform at will into the creature. Innovative Tribesmen: Your tribe is constantly looking forward and trying to come up with new things. While not everything may work the way it was supposed to, progress is still being made, allowing for further innovations of existing ideas. NewGame+ Here's something you don't see often; in this game, you, as the player, can be utterly destroyed. Wiped from the map and your remains spat on. Really adds some tension doesn't it? However, because we GMs aren't completely cruel, you have the NewGame+ feature. In game, your patron spirit flees after the destruction of your tribe and finds its way to another tribe, merging with its spirit and transferring some spiritual knowledge. This means two thirds of your discoveries are transferred to the new tribe, meaning you don't have to play a total catchup game with everyone else in the RPG if you get the business end of a sword. Or tomahawk. Whichever one really. Other than that, you start out with the same stuff as a normal new player. Profile Tribe Name: [Really, you can go wild on this. Tribe Blue Mountain? Tribe Xhognsuea? Use your creativity.] Tribal Population: [This is a spot for the GMs. Everyone starts at hundred and twenty villagers and it'll hover between one hundred and one hundred fifty.] Tribal Characteristics: [Anything that really defines these guys? This can be skills, common birthmarks, a societal norm, something that makes your people more unique in this world.] Tribal Society: [No need for anything complex, but if you feel like writing an essay please do so. Are your people led by a chief? Is it communistic? Do they abhor violence? Worship the spirits? Just use this to give us a good baseline of what to expect about your people.] Starting Spells: [Ok, so, this is arguably the hardest part. Your shamans can do spiritual spells and be all shaman-y and cool. This is where you put your three starting spells. These all will of course be average level. Pick three reasonable ones and I'll help you tone it down or buff it up if need be.] Tribal Perk: [Feel free to pick from the list, or suggest your own to me over PM.] Tribal History: [use this to mention any important events in your tribe's past. Keep in mind all of our tribes are relatively recent; the most your tribe can go back to is three centuries.] [Note: Please PM me your profile initially for approval, but then post your profile in the Discussion topic afterwards.]
