Stefan Clevenger

Sometimes you have to play with stuff to really see how it works. I'm a little bit surprised, although I shouldn't be, that his To Hit score is +10 already at only 4th level. But with pretty much maxed out STR (for a human) and the Fighter class, well... that's the way it goes.

That isn't a problem, I'm just not 100% sure that that's the kind of combat vibe that I meant to have, where fighters are kind of glass-jawed, relatively speaking. They can get in there and kick some serious butt, but they still better think about something other than just running in and attacking, especially given that the hit points of lots of the monsters are going to be quite a bit higher than that. 

Sigh. I'll think it through. Maybe there'll be an update 1.3 coming soon where either hit points are changed a bit, or monster hit points are deflated significantly. Maybe. I'm not 100% that I want to do that, but I'm also not 100% sure that I like the way it is now. 

UPDATE: I did it. It wasn't as big a change as all that, so I just updated version from 1.1.1 to 1.1.2. For normal (as opposed to HARDCORE MODE) you don't get 2 hit points per level, you get 1d4 and you can roll the dice twice and take the better of the two rolls. This will give you an average of something a little bit higher than 3 or 3½, but not crazy. It turned Stefan's 4th level hit point total from 15 to 20, for instance. Five more hit points over three levels.

Dark Fantasy X Version 1.1.1

I've made some changes to the Dark Fanasy X document. I'm going to review them just a little bit before uploading them; sometimes the editor in me doesn't see problems too soon after writing the stuff that I'm editing in the first place. Among a few other minor things that I did, I removed a big chunk of the appendix on traveling. I've never actually been quite sure why I wrote that stuff. I mean, it mirrored the old Zeb Cook Expert set in many ways, and I thought it'd be kind of useful, but I never used random encounter tables, so I've never been quite sure what possessed me to believe that I needed them here. Some of this editing and updating was sparked by my recent iconics and campaign planning activity; I have an iconic that's a dhampir, but I had no dhampir race! This was really more of a story thing than something that I wanted to reflect mechanically, at first, but I ended up adding it as a race in the appendix, where it's more appropriate. 

I do actually have an alternative travel ruleset that I prefer, which I found on a blog many years ago, and was reminded of recently. But what I'm thinking of doing now is keeping the rulebook more or less as it is, but having travel and some setting stuff all be part of a Dark Fantasy X Companion document, of about the same size as the original book, give or take a few pages. And I'd throw my maps in too.

All in all, it'd be a digital equivalent to one of those boxed sets that used to be popular when I was young, and which seem to be making a bit of a comeback. I don't really know that it'd play much like those, since most of the boxed sets were designed specifically for newbies, but I like having a book of how to play and then a book of optional stuff, including some setting gazetteer stuff, as well as a few optional rules, like traveling.

Also, I made a new character sheet. I did it in LibreOffice Calc, while the original had been done in Write, so it's quite a bit better. The original spreadsheet version, naturally, works as a fillable document, but the pdf version is just to print off and write on, the old fashioned way. When (if) I actually run this, I'd probably make the .ods document available to them, but otherwise, it's only available on request. Everyone else can look at the pdf.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1ols2sEepL5KwkiqoapwgiVYEKMfSymqC/view?usp=sharing

I've also, on a bit of a whim since I've been so Hero Forge crazy lately, updated my old Dark Heritage Mk. IV material on the Heresiarchs to the new Dark Fantasy X paradigm. These are supervillains of the highest order. I tend to relate them to the Ten Who Were Taken from Glen Cook's Black Company series of novels. If fantasy were Marvel Superheroes, D&D 5e would be the Avengers, but Dark Fantasy X would be the Daredevil show. However, the Heresiarchs are Avenger's level villains. And yet, here I am, making them part of my campaign planning. That said, I don't necessarily envision that players would have their characters charge in all huzzah! and fight them directly. Hopefully by the time they realize who's pulling the strings, they've figured out some more clever way to defeat them than simply charge at them with their swords.

All of them were originally based, at least in terms of concept, if not in terms of anything else, on some prestige classes from the 3e era of D&D. Each Heresiarch will, therefore, have his concept noted.

There are rules for Heresiarch as a monster in the monster list for DFX. However, each of them probably needs a special rule added for the concept that he's embodying.

Amrruk the Ancient (Oozemaster) (Masters of the Wild) His actual race and culture are unknown.  Amrruk may be the oldest of all sorcerers, a primal magician who existed before any of the modern nations even had their roots planted.  Some even believe him to predate the existence of humanity altogether; either as a Neanderthal or even some older, more primal being.  His involvement in affairs is rare, but his strange and bizarre tastes and appearance make him, along with Kadashman, among the most disturbing to behold.

Arzana, Clad in Black (Blighter) (Masters of the Wild) Arzana appears as a girl, little more than 12 or 13 years old, running naked and filthy through the wild places of the world, or clad in shadow and a rags, and her long, matted black hair.  She rarely speaks in words that anyone else can understand.  Nobody knows the source of her fury and paranoia relative to the forest, but she seems especially keen to destroy it whenever possible.  She makes no home, that anyone knows about anyway, but is most frequently spotted in the deserts, or high in the mountains above the tree line.

Bartolommeo the Many-Angled (Alienist) (Tome and Blood, and Complete Arcane).  Bartolommeo is a disturbingly post-human creature, made up of of hissing, whirring metallic parts and alien appendages as much as human flesh and blood.   Bartolommeo is completely insane, but luckily spends most of his time in a torpor-like slumber.

Demma Mennefer, the Gnomic (Fate Spinner) (Tome and Blood, Complete Arcane) A cautious sorceress who spends her time plotting massive webs of conspiracy that stretch for centuries.  Her apparent lack of overt action has caused many to underestimate her power.  She is the most driven by fear; fear of death, fear of loss of control. Her powers are in many ways based on seeing beyond what her mortal eyes would show her, so she usually keeps them covered... assuming she still has them at all.

Esmeraude, She Who Ushers In the Apocalypse (Elemental Savant—fire) (Tome and Blood) Esmeraude claims to frequently visit the mythical City of Brass, from which the jann claim their inhuman heritage comes.  Whether this is true or not, she clearly is obsessed with fire, and has an unnatural control over it.  There is still a city, located in the Boneyard, that is nothing more than blackened ruins and molten stone, supposedly the target of her ire many years ago.  Esmeraude is a girlish, exotic beauty in appearance, but fickle and short-tempered.

Hutran Kutir, the Hex-King (Eldritch Knight) (3.5 DMG) As the founder of Baal Hamazi, and (maybe) even the entire kemling race, Hutran Kutir has been one of the more active of the Heresiarchs in the past, but he has been sealed and sleeping for many ages. Rumors about of his return, somewhere in the Daemon Wastes.

Jairan Neferirkare, the Soulless (Infernalist) (No Quarter #14).  An alabaster woman of unearthly, unbelievable beauty, Jairan is most known for her long and fertile association with daemons of various kinds.  Fickle and vain, Jairan can also be among the most charismatic and charming of the Heresiarchy, when she so pleases.  In the past, she ruled in Hyperborea, and she is probably the result of the curse that now sets Hyperboreans apart from humanity.

Kadashman, He Who Peers Into the Void (Alienist) (Tome and Blood and Complete Arcane)  Much more contemplative and outward looking than Bartolommeo, Kadashman rarely acts in this world.  His efforts and energy are spent peering into the Spaces Between, and he claims to frequently travel the Realms Beyond.  Accompanied by a variety of mind-blasting servitors, Kadashman is among the most disquieting and bizarre of the major sorcerers.

Kefte Taraan, Mistress of Forgotten Secrets (Pale Master) (Tome and Blood and Liber Mortis) A beautiful young woman, at least to appearances, this vile necromancer has an unnatural affinity for--and some say, perverse attraction to--the dead.  Her association with the long dead and restless spirits has, however, granted her access to a wealth of knowledge that her colleagues can only dream about.

Sébastien, He of the Beast Aspect (Acolyte of the Skin) (Tome and Blood and Complete Arcane)  A gigantic, hairy post-human demon, Sébastien is a predator, who loves eating his victims, and in doing so, retains his immortality. 

Siggeir the Flesheater (Flesheater) (Dragon Magazine #300)  This savage beast was once consort to Jairan Neferirkare.  When he was freed of her domination, he hid until he was able to amass sufficient power to challenge her.  Their battle ruined and cursed Hyperborea to this day, but Jairan was overthrown from her throne.  Despite this, the two remain somewhat fond of each other.  They don't trust each other, certainly, but they remain uneasy allies in many things.  Siggeir also seems to suffer from the curse of ghoulism, but rather than wilt under the appalling things he is made to do by the curse, he embraces them as the source of much of his power. 

The Master of Vermin (Vermin Lord) (Book of Vile Darkness) Surrounded by filth, insects, spiders, and rats, the nameless Master of Vermin is another disquieting and disgusting member of the Heresiarchy, who rarely appears in his natural form.  What exactly his concerns are, or what his intentions, plots and conspiracies may be geared towards, are anyone's guess.  Like Amrruk the Ancient, he seems almost beyond (or beneath) concerning himself with the world of mortals, and lives a more primal existence.

Worldbuilding by campaign

I should probably be doing this on this blog, but instead I'm doing it on the old Dark Heritage blog; I've been planning potential campaigns of Dark Fantasy X. One side effect of planning campaigns is that a flood of worldbuilding is the inevitable result of it. I'll shortly be drawing up a new campaign map, that will focus specifically on the Hill Country, since that's where it takes place.

I'm finding a couple of things that I didn't expect:

1) Northumbria is bigger and has more going on than Southumbria. My "Hill Country" column on the 5x5 Front really ended up becoming focused specifically on Brinchshire, which is a name that I hadn't even invented until a couple of days ago. I do see the towns, villages, ranches and whatnot north of the Haunted Forest and the Chokewater Wood as possibly the most iconic part of the Hill Country, so it's natural that that become the focus. Ironically, in the older version of the map, it was very much part of the Dunsbury orbit, which would have been Southumbria. Not sure how to fix that, but it probably means rethinking where the Umber River is. Maybe it isn't the same river as the Chokewater after all, and it runs further north across the southern part of the Golden Wold.

As an aside, Brinchshire is what I expect an older name like Brynachshire would become after time, named because the Brynach population is higher here than in the bigger towns and cities. Maybe Brynachshire actually looks/sounds better, though. Although the Culmer, Brynach, Carlovingia, etc. stuff is nice as a deep backstory reference to the setting, it isn't much use and I doubt I'd refer to them. I'm actually considering moving the Umber River (renamed from the Chokewater River) farther north, so that more territory belongs to Southumbria. That would make a lot more sense, since even back in DH5, the Copper Hills area was associated with Dunsbury, not Waychester. My decision to cut the Hill Country in half didn't really quite work the way I wanted it to, so a little rearranging of the geography is warranted, I think.

2) I'm coming up with more material than I can reasonably use, unless this were a very long or very sustained campaign. If I played weekly for a couple of years, I could possibly still be in just the Chaos in Waychester game, without even getting to Cult of Undeath or Mind-Wizards of the Daemon Waste. Because I'm considering using some iconics and fictionalizing this material too, I'm thinking that I may need... yet another iconic party, so that I can have three different groups off addressing different parts of the plot. (The anti-PC evil party doesn't count for this. I expect that they'll be villains in one of the other campaigns.) This way, these three PC parties can address all of the issues without running all over the place like crazy people. It just made more sense to me that way; if there's any urgency to the situation with the Grand Duke and his wife, or with the Tazitta Death cults, either one, then it doesn't make sense for the PCs to be doing tangents related to the subregional x5 fronts, or the character specific smaller fronts.

I'd had an idea that my "main" protagonist iconic character, Stefan Clevenger, had an older brother who was also a freelance Shadow. Kind of like Racer X to Speed Racer, if you will, although he's not in disguise, and his identity isn't secret. Stefan and this older brother Ragnar aren't exactly estranged, but they don't see each other much, and Ragnar is a little bit hesitant to spend much time with Stefan and his sidekicks, because his wife and Shadow partner Cailin was attacked by a vampire and is "partly turned." This would make her, maybe, a dhampir, which I don't have rules for. But I do have a handy racial traits generator in the appendix (to Hack Fantasy X, at least). Because his wife is half a vampire now, he's a little hesitant to spend too much time with other Shadows, even his brother. In fact, Stefan doesn't even know (at this point) Cailin at all, much less that she's got "a condition."

Anyway, a little too much character building. Here's the rules from my Hack Fantasy X for custom races. I actually hadn't remembered that I'd cut them from Dark Fantasy X, but they're obviously still compatible, and I should think about adding them back in in the appendix.

If you need more options, creating a race is an a la carte option endeavor that's relatively easy to do. Use two Racial Template Points (RTP) and add them to your character at creation. The same RTP can be taken, if desired, more than once. One RTP is equal to either:

• A +1 Stat bonus. This could also include a +1 to AC as natural armor, even though AC isn't normally a "stat" per se.
• Two skill points (i.e., +2 to one skill of your choice, or +1 to two skill bonuses of your choice.)
• A special trait or ability (usually an affinity, as described above in the Expert class. If a character has the same affinity for both race and class, allow them to reroll twice! They clearly really want to be good in that area, and are spending character generation capital to do so at the expense of something else.)
• Another special ability, which can be designed to suit, if desired. Here are a few samples:
• The ability to breathe water as well as air.
• Retractable claws which allow you to climb vertical surfaces.
• The ability to see in the dark as if you have biological night vision goggles.
• The ability to run twice as fast as a regular humanoid creature (+10 to chase rolls.)
• Subject to GM approval, some races may give up the equivalent of a negative RTP to gain an effective third RTP, but I wouldn't do much of this (the wose is an example who has a negative stat bonus and a negative skill bonus.) Otherwise, however, players are strongly encouraged to play around with this race system to create the customized version of their character that they want.

Anyway, here's the new little group. They're less racially diverse, even though one of them is a dhampir; they're all human, though, and in fact, mostly all Hillmen, although one of them has Timischer ancestry.

Ragnar Clevenger, as noted above, is Stefan's older brother (by a year; they're both in the upper 20s.) They both are freelance Shadows, and both are relatively grim and serious in personality as a side effect, most likely, of their profession. Both left the official Shadows at the same time over a controversy with a well-respected Ranger who they had to take down. While they were vindicated for any wrong-doing, and in fact were lauded as unsung heroes by the Ranger organization, their taste for having someone to report to turned sour in their mouths, and they both went freelance. They both have a lot of friends and others who look up to them in the organization still, however. 

Ragnar has a nemesis, that he often spends a lot of time hunting; the vampire who turned Cailin into a dhampir in an attack, back when she wasn't even a Shadow herself and wanted to live a quieter, more peaceful life. He burns with rage and resentment of this vampire, and it has hardened his resolve to hunt the monsters of the Lurking Dark.

Ragnar's wife, Ciarin Adalhild (now Ciarin Clevenger) is the daughter of a landed gentleman from the southern coastal area of the Waychester Bay near Roanstead and Burham's Landing. She's in her early twenties, and her life is defined in part by her "condition"; after an attack by the vampire Lysander Draven which gave her some of the strengths of a vampire, but a vulnerability to some of their weaknesses. It takes constant effort by both her and her husband to keep her change into a vampire halted at the state that it is now. I like how this gives both Ragnar and Ciarin built in character fronts to deal with.

Here's an image of Lysander Draven thrown in for the heckuvit. Because I've got plenty of vampire images. Here, he's got a kind of feral Nosferatu/Orlock look to him. Other vampires might be more suave and urbane.

But I expect Draven to feature more in a Cult of Undeath campaign than in the Chaos in Waychester campaign. 

Fredegar de Vend is the scion of a Normaund family that came to the Hill Country several generations ago with money, so they established themselves as an important part of the gentry in the Karst area south of Waychester. It was actually the de Vend family that was brought in to disgrace by the Clevengers; one of Fredegar's cousins was thoroughly corrupt, and the family patriarch not only knew about it, but profited from it. While his family has lost much of their material possessions as a result of the scandal and the trials and executions that followed, Fredegar does not resent the Clevenger's at all; in fact, he is thoroughly ashamed of his uncle and cousin, and deeply admires the integrity of Stefan and Ragnar. Because of this, he swore an oath, to himself, since neither brother would take it, that he would accompany and protect them. Of course, Ragnar and Stefan do not travel together, so he had to choose, and he ended up with Ragnar, as a kind of noble body guard and martial sidekick.

Dean Bannermane, while also a Hillman, grew up in Simashki where Hillmen were rare. He ran with a bad crowd, although in Simashki that's almost a given, since most crowds are bad. He prefers, now that he's old enough to decide for himself, the company of his own people and his ancestral homeland; he feels more at home in the Hill Country where he's only recently lived than he ever did in Simashki where he was born and raised. 

But... old habits die hard. He prefers life in the bigger cities, where he feels a bit more at home and can make more money. Albeit illegally. He appreciates his association with the freelance Shadows and Rangers, since it allows him to use his skills in a way that benefits society at large, but that's because he's still young and somewhat feckless. Even a life on the touch streets of Simashki hasn't made him cynical.

It's almost time for me to actually build all of these iconic characters using the rules. Now that I've got the better part of fifteen or so of them. Luckily making characters is pretty quick and easy in Dark Fantasy X!

Races of Dark Fantasy X

I've been more and more unhappy with a few race names in Dark Fantasy X that I inherited from Dark•Heritage, that I will probably change as part of my update from 1.02 to 1.1 that I'm in the process of.  Skraeling is a name that the Vikings called the Injuns and Eskimo, and while I liked some aspects of using it, it never really fit very well. Cursed was a great name too, but it clashes too much with the adjective "cursed" so I want something more specific. 

I've often struggled with the name of the woses too. While a woodwose is an actual folkloric element that goes back centuries, and is even part of heraldry, few people know about that, and all that they know of the word is that Tolkien used it to describe Ghân-buri-Ghân and his people. That said, none of my other alternatives have been better, and while it will naturally draw readers to make unjustified comparisons to a Tolkien race, the same is probably true of orcs too. If people can accept that my orcs are a bit different than standard savage and evil orcs, and are instead just a little more primitive and no more likely to be evil than anyone else (and they aren't nearly as green, nor do they have such big teeth, jaws and ears and other exaggerated features) then they can probably get over how the woses in my setting are really more like shifters in Eberron than they are like Ghân-buri-Ghân. I could possibly improve that by calling them woodwoses, though.

So, the changes that I'm proposing, and I'm posting them here as a draft while I think about it, are the following:

Human → well, no change is required here, obviously.

Skraeling → Atlantean

Orc → no change

Goblin → no change

Cursed → Hyperborean

Jann → no change

Kemling → no change

Nephilim → seraph

Wose → woodwose

I also have been meaning to add languages, although I may keep them separate for a setting document, and leave the rules to stand alone as is. I'm still noodling around on what to do with languages, other than for names (i.e., Tarushans use Romanian name-lists, Timischers use German, Hillmen use Medieval English, etc.) I think for convenience, it makes sense that most people will all speak a common tongue, i.e., the Common made famous by Lord of the Rings and Dungeons & Dragons both. But some minority populations might have their own languages that they use among their own people, and there might be ancient languages that are useful to know, such as scholars today learning Latin, Ancient Greek or Biblical Hebrew.

I'm going to say that there is no separate Timischer language anymore; if there ever was, it's gone out of use and nobody speaks it anymore. Timischers just speak English with a pronounced German accent. The Tarushans have a minority language, but rarely use it in public, and the Timischer upper class frowns on it, mostly. The kemlings also have an ancient Infernal language that was popular during their age of empire, but now is mostly a scholarly language of old texts from that age, and is no longer a living language. Kurushat has its own language, Kurushan, although you'll only hear it in the very northernmost cities, and even there, Common is very (no pun intended) commonly spoken, and many people speak only common, especially if they belong to another ethnicity. Zobnese is the language  of Lomar (because it's a colony of Zobna) and a different dialect of it is spoken near Inganok in Timischburg. Woodwoses don't have their own language, although thurses do (not a playable race.) Dagonic is an ancient language often used in texts that contain bizarre occult knowledge, and may predate humanity altogether. And the Atlanteans have their own language, Wendak (the same as their own name for their people), but they're a reclusive people who interact as little as possible with others anyway. An ancient form of it, called Atlantean, was the language of their ancestors, and still survives in some old scripts and on stelae, etc.

How would I have people go about learning languages? I suppose that if you have a positive MND score, you can pick up a number of extra languages equal to your score. What languages would you want to learn? If you are someone who needs to know Thursan, because you live in an area where thurse attacks are possible, that would make sense. If you want to learn magic and the occult, you'll probably find most of your texts in Infernal, Atlantean or Dagonic. Sadly, you may need to pick up all of them, or find the services of some kind of linguistic scholar who can translate for you if you're really serious about learning spells. The others, I suppose, depend on who you think you'll talk to and where you'll go. If you don't learn any languages, and only speak Common, you'll do fine pretty much anywhere in the setting, and that's kind of the default assumption. The others will just let you occasionally play around with showing off your character's scholarly inclinations.

A final note that I'm changing for flavor is some coin names. I'm still using gold pieces, silver pieces and copper pieces, although in setting I'm going to refer to them as nobles, shillings and pennies, respectively. Although they will commonly be referred to as gold, silver and copper, respectively, as well. I just don't want the D&Dism of gp, sp and cp because it screams D&D.

Hunger cultists

I just saw this image of Hunger Cultists in the digital Hero Forge library, and grabbed it. I love the image, but I have no idea what a Hunger cult is, so I need to figure that out. Because these make me want to use them.

Anyway, I found a minor error in the Hunger Cultists, coloring, which I fixed, and then it occurred to me that since the cult leader already looks almost exactly like a recolored hunger cultist, I should, in turn, recolor him to match. Admittedly, some of his clothing elements are different, but that just adds a little bit of variety; the hooded and masked cloak is the thing that would tie them all together anyway.

I also made an image of my Wyrd Sisters or the Gray Sisters, something sort of like the Norns, the Fates, or the Graeae from Greek Mythology, who have analogs in Norse mythology. Most famous from the story of Perseus, and iterations of it such as Percy Jackson.

All of them have shark-black eyes and shark-like teeth, but they otherwise look more or less human enough, especially little Beatriz. And they aren't necessarily found together. Nobody knows what they are; some kind of ancient, autochthonous horrors or fey spirits, who can read the future in the entrails of their victims. Among other things. 

All human samples

OK, in preparation for my "human ethnicities of Dark Fantasy X" video, which I will do shortly, I went through my collection and updated all of the models. A few I deleted, because they just weren't going to be up to snuff without major reworking. Most just needed a few element swaps, a little bit of reposing or re-angling the camera viewing angle, and some recoloring. A few only needed the roughness turned up on their hair texture so that they don't look plastic.

Some are ones that I created myself from scratch. Some are ones that I grabbed from the community library, although in those cases, I almost always made at least a few changes. But not always a lot. Plenty of human models just look already like the Medieval European standard for fantasy, or they look like the Americanized sword & sorcery of last century. The most extreme ones have the 3e "dungeonpunk" aesthetic. I mean, even if I found all kinds of weird Diversity, Inc. examples, it's not like changing the skin and hair and eye color, if needed, is all that hard. It also wasn't hard to change a bunch of action-grrrrl models into men; usually just a click of a single button and then a few minutes examining it for any clean-up.

Not that I didn't want any girls, because obviously did. Most of my girls are pretty feminine, though; I only have two outdoorsy pants-wearing and weapon-holding girls, if I recall.

Anyway, you'll see the whole collection below, now that I've cleaned it up. I decided not to worry too much about describing how different models fit into the different ethnicities. For purposes of this post, there are six ethnicities, but one of them only has one model; the ancient Egyptian-looking cultist, and one of them only has two; a couple of barbarian-looking characters (although one has a katana. Don't know why; he looks like an Injun. Whatever.) Other that that, the Drylanders are a unique ethnic group to my setting; they have weird silver-chrome eyes, though, so they tend to stand out. The other three are analogs of different flavors of Europeans, and because they all live in close proximity, anyone could be from any group due to intermixing. In general, the Tarushans are like the Romanians, the Timischers are like the Austrians, and the Hillmen are like the Anglo-Saxons and Scots. The last two groups wouldn't even tend to look differently enough that you could spot them at this resolution.

And, of course, there's a few of the models below that you can't tell about anyway, because they belong to some cult where they're covered head-to-toe, or they're vigilantes or psychos or something that otherwise hide their features. Like I said, with the exception of a very few, any model could potentially belong to any of the three ethnicities mentioned above. Except that the blondish ones are less likely to be Tarushans; blonde hair is extremely rare among them. Unless it's been bleached or dyed, or something, which does sometimes happen...