Wednesday, February 1, 2006

Travelers


 


Your "nation" may instead be a group of nomadic people, tied together roughly by their shared ethnic heritage and cultural history. They travel about the world in small groups of 10's of individuals or perhaps a few hundreds in some rare cases. The total population of your people, at least those who share a direction connection or loyalty to your group, is 50,000 - though no more than 500 can gather in one place unless there are exceptional circumstances and no more than 10 such groups of 500 can exist. Most of your people will live in groups of 50 or less. There reasons for this are not supernatural but rather that greater gathering of your people turn the local people against them. Even in such small groups, the travelers are still sometimes hated or despised by the locals and can only remain in one particularly area for 1 turn before moving on.


10% of your people, and no more than 20% of any given gathering or group of them, will be thieves. Thieves have extremely high dexterity and are highly skilled in stealth, picking locks, picking pockets, and other equivalent skills. They aren't necessarily that skilled at combat though, and prefer to run when confronted. In addition to the skills mentioned, each thief has one additional skill form those listed below:


Assassination - the thief is a skilled killer and knows how to slit a throat or straggle someone from behind.


Deception - the thief is extremely charming and charismatic. This allows him to trick 75% of sentient creatures into believing some lie or story, if the story is particularly plausible, mostly true, or of minor importance then the chance can increase up to 90%.


Combat Trained - your thief is a skilled fighter as well as a rogue, he has combat skill putting him in the top 10% of human combatants, his style of fighting will emphasize small and light weapons which can utilize his agility.


Seduction - the thief is a beautiful woman who uses her charm and looks to seduce and manipulate men. Because of her skills, she has a 50% chance of seducing any man she sets her sight upon, though this increases to 75% if he is already inclined towards seduction or looking for a relationship. Once seduced, the man will do what he can to help the seductress as long as it doesn't violate his principles or put him in serious risk - if he is able he may also want to marry her which may put her into a position of power and influence. This is not a supernatural effect and wont make people do things against their will, though it also cannot be countered by magical resist either.


Entertainer - the thief can incredible ability at some sort of performance skill - dancing, singing, playing an instrument, telling stories, poetry, acting, acrobatics, etc. This allows him to gather crowds of people to watch him perform, create a cover for his illegal activities, or allow him to make contacts with wealthy or influential individuals.


5% of your people, and no more than 10% of any one group, are blade dancers. These are individuals who are highly skilled with the use of blades and weapons. They have peak human combat ability. These utilize small and easily concealable weapons such as daggers, short swords, cane swords, or other such weapons. They have an almost supernatural ability to avoid harm and danger, letting them dodge or otherwise avoid 50% of attacks directed against them even magical effects.


1% of your people, and no more than 2% of any given group, are seers, people who have the ability to look into the future and sometimes use other magical effects. Seers can use some form of divination - such as a crystal ball, tarot cards, casting bones, reading innards, or the like to predict minor events in the future. This can be used to determine future weather conditions, if someone will have good or bad luck, or even the outcomes of battle. Because your people have access to seers they can adjust their behavior in accordance to these readings - effectively improving their luck by 10%. Seers can also communicate with other seers through dreams or other special divination magic, which allows all of your people to stay in close contact despite being spread across the world. Seers each have one additional power as well, chosen from below:


Awareness - the seer can recognize any supernatural being on sight and can tell exactly what it is even if it is trying to conceal its nature. She can also see through illusions or can even see the invisible. She can also recognize when a creature is under the effects of magic.


Good Luck - the seer has an increased likely hood to win any game of chance, she gets the statistical equivalent of a reroll when she engaged in any game of chance. For example, if flipping a coin she would have a 75% chance of winning instead of 50% even without looking into the future.


Curse - the seer can put a curse on one other person who she can touch or has some personal item of. This curse effectively causes extremely bad luck for the victim, giving the equivalent of a reroll for any random event where successes are rerolled. Alternatively, the curse can cause some minor health effect like hair falling out, a wart growing on the nose, an itchy rash, etc. The curse is permanent unless ended by the seer or some other individual. Magic using creatures (including necromancers, other seers, warlocks, vampires, even paladins and priest) are immune to this power.


Potions - the seer can brew potions which have a variety of minor magical effects. A potion can cure minor physical ailments - restore lost hair, remove warts, cure diarrhea, increase fertility, etc. A potion can give someone a 10% greater chance of winning the heart of a love interest. A potion can be used to cause a euphoric effect that lasts an hour. A potion can give someone a 20% chance to resist magical effects for a single day. A potion can be poured onto a wound to prevent infection, reducing the chance an injured person will die.


Remove Curse - the seer can remove any one negative supernatural effect from a single victim. For the curses of other seers, this takes only an hour long spell and always works, for more powerful curses or magical effects it takes a full day and only has a 50% chance of success - failure means that it cannot be cured by a seer.


In addition to their own special individual skills, travelers pick up other people from their journeys and either learn their special skills from them or adopt them as members of the group. Up to .1% of your people will be those with special supernatural skills - meaning you start with 50 such people. These people are so special and rare that you can have them distributed among your own groups in what ever ratios you would like - though evil people cannot be in the same group as good ones. Evil types are underlined while good are italic.


Choose from the following list, though no more than 10 people can have the same sort of power - acolyte necromancers (Necromancers), warlocks (Infernal), fledgling vampire (Vampires), red wizards (Humans of the West), blue wizards (Humans of the West), green wizards (Humans of the West), black wizards (Humans of the West), blue knights (Humans of the West), red knights (Humans of the West), green knights (Humans of the West), black knights (Humans of the West), healers (Holy), paladins (Holy), priests (Holy), priests (Hobbit), rogues (Hobbit), merchants (Hobbit), ninjas (Humans of the East), and mystics (Humans of the East).


Leader of your group of travelers can with be an elder seer or prince of thieves.


The Elder seer is just like a normal seer but has far greater powers. The elder seer has all 5 special seer powers instead of only 1. The elder seer can see into the future with such clarity that the player can ask me any questions that they want about any course of action and the repercussions up to 1 turn into the future. The elder seer can curse someone with death, causing them to lose 1% of their vitality each day until they finally die after 100 days, this only effects living creatures who the seer can touch or has a personal item from. The elder seer is resistant to magical attacks, being affected by them only 50% of the time and only the suffering half of the normal effect.


A prince of thieves is a master thief whose ability to steal is unsurpassed. The prince of thieves has all of the thief special abilities. He also has peak human fighting ability and double peak human dexterity. The master thief can pick any lock, any pocket, or gain entry into any dwelling even if it is magically guarded. If danger is presented, the prince of thieves is so talented at escape and evasion that he has a 90% chance of successful escaping even if it would be otherwise impossible because of magical or mundane reasons. The prince of thieves has also trained his underlings well, all thieves have peak human dexterity instead of merely high dexterity. The price of thieves is also highly skilled at selling and transporting stolen goods, so that all stolen items can be liquidated safely.


Aside from the special units available, travelers have access to 10th century technology, though if they openly brandish weapons or wear armor which is not concealable they will usually be ejected from what ever nation they reside in. Despite having a relatively limited ability to make their own weapons and armor, it is not uncommon for them to have access to more advanced goods from their travels such as gun powder. Over all, your nation consists of 50,000 travelers, of which 5,000 are thieves, 2,500 are blade dancers, 500 are seers, 50 are special individuals with skills form other factions, and 1 is either a prince of thieves or elder seer.

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