New domains

[Green Knight]

Hi,

While all DMs get to make interesting NPCs, only the BR DM really gets to make his own domains.

I find it immensely fun to write up new and interesting domains, small or large, for use with my BR games. Some replace existing domains as guilds get crushed, chrches og out of favor or realms are rent asunder by war and intrigue. Others grow from humble beginnings to become powers in their own right. And some I simply squeeze into the tiny gaps between existing domains.

I'm surely not the only one who does new domains, and I'd I'd like to hear some of other DM's favourite new domains (or perhaps re-writes of old ones).

Here are some of my favourites (all in Anuire I'm afraid). I'll go into more detail if this thread lead anywhere:

The Wardens - A group of rangers and druids (some with elven blood) that protects the Erebannien. They control law, guild, temples and a few sources in the Erebannien, and have some law and guild outside the forest as well.

The Knights of Haelyn - Located in Endier. Controls some of the law there. Aligned with the WIT. Later they ally with the OIT, and when COunt Kalien goes missing the take over his holdings, making it a very wealthy order (it's kind og Knight Temmplarsish).

The ruler of Ghoere is killed by three of his allies: Ghorien Hiriele, the Sword Mage and General Merran Daulton, his chief general. They split Ghoere three ways - into separate realms, but ones that cooperate against external threaths.
Duchy of Ghieste & HOT - Ghorien takes the three wwestern provinces and tries to recreate the Duchy of Ghieste. With his guild he is immensely wealthy.
Duchy of Dhalaene - Daulton gets to keep most of the law and the castles and the army. He also gets Dhalaene (the capital) and the two provinces next to Roesone
Duchy of Tornilen - The Sword Mage makes himself a "Duke" of the three northwestern provinces, but keep controlof soruces throguht old Ghoere.

The Iron Rider - The two Swamp mages of Osoerde turn out to be a man and a woman, and when they settle their differences they become the Sworn Lovers. They turn their arts to supporting Duke Raenech and the priests of Belinik. They are later defeated by a cabal of good mages. In the power vacuum left rises a new power - the Iron Rider. A chivalrous knight/sorcerer that rides a magical metal horse.

To the BRCS/Atlas people: Maybe this is outside the scope of your work, but it would have been nice if you added something new ;-)

[Hrandal]

Well, I did have Lesser Diemed created in one of my games. This was composed of about half of Alamie that was conquered by Diemed during a surprise attack.

The essential backstory was that Heirl Diem was fed up butting his head against the stone wall that was Medoere and Roesone, so he hatched an alliance with Guilder Kalien. Kalien then provided gold to Baron Diem, who massed a huge army. Of course, everyone thought he was preparing to attack Medoere, but in actual fact he was stirring up trouble between Alamie and Tuornen. When Alamie launched their latest attack on Tuornen, he had them betrayed so that their army was destroyed, then used Guilder Kalien's fleet of riverboats to sail up and land his forces in Alamie.

This indirectly also caused the disintegration of Tuornen, as troops from both Avanil and Boeruine "invited" themselves in to try and "restore order". Eventually Tuornen ended up being sectioned into the "Avanese" southern half and the "Boeruinean" northern half. All the Duchess had left with any real power was her capitol, Haesrien. At least if took the heat of the PC's kingdom of Taeghas - every cloud has a silver lining.

I was noticing the old rule book had a points-buy system for creating kingdoms. Is there any equivalent for the new system?

[Benjamin]

Originally posted by Hrandal@Oct 23 2004, 09:31 PM
I was noticing the old rule book had a points-buy system for creating kingdoms. Is there any equivalent for the new system?
This was brought up elsewhere, and the answer is yes. Not exactly sure which thread it was in, though. But I am sure of the answer!

[irdeggman]

Actually the answer is no. But it will be included in the revision. It was left off the playtest document as an oversight and I haven't been able to find the write up that was originally sent around to the BRCS team on it yet.

[Raesene Andu]

This is the only information I could find on my computer that could be what you were looking for. It is from the first draft of Chapter 5.


Designing Domains
A domain can take many forms and shapes. A character may start play with any number of different types of domains under his control. This section expounds upon how a character de-signs his own domain, if he so wishes.

Domain Points (DP)
A character begins with a number of domain points equal to his maximum RP score (i.e. five times the character’s blood-line). These points are spent on buying provinces, holdings, and assets for a character’s domain, depending on his starting class(es).

DP Costs Table
Province 3/level1
Dwarf, Elf, or Orog +2
Rjurik, Vos, Goblin
or Gnoll +1
Change Terrain +1

Holding
Law 3/level2
Guild 3/level3
Source 3/level4
Temple 3/level5

Asset
Army Units 1/6 GB of units
Buildings 1/10 GB of buildings
Embassy/Spy network 3/asset
Estate 1/level
Institutions 1/10 GB of institutions
Ley lines 2/Ley line
Lieutenant 2/lieutenant
Ships 1/10 GB of ships
Trade Route 1/level
Treasury 1/5 GB in treasury

Domain Traits
Fearsome Reputation 4
Influential Guilds 2/guild holding
Loyal Population 1/province
Mastery of Engineering 5
Militia 1/province
Mineral Wealth 2/province
Potent Source 2/source holding
Prosperous Temples 1/temple holding
Reserve Army 1/8 GB of units
State Religion 2/temple holding
Superior Shipcraft 5
Trading Post 1/province
Valuable Commodity 1/guild holding

Improve Starting Loyalty 1/two provinces raised to high

Starting RP 1/5 RP (max half bloodline x5)

0-level Province/Holding 1

1 – Barbarians, Fighters, Nobles, Paladins and
Rangers pay 2/level.
2 – Fighters, Nobles, Paladins and Rangers pay 2/level.
3 – Bards, Nobles and Rogues pay 2/level.
4 – Druids, Sorcerers and Wizards pay 2/level.
5 – Clerics, Druids and Paladins pay 2/level.

[Hrandal]

What about the different values of maximum Source and Level that different countries seem to start with? Would this make any difference to costing? I mean some lands are clearly just better than others, not because of any great advantage, but just because some lands are good for pretty much nothing.

Also, this does rely on using the map of Anuire, what if you want to make your own maps? Having looked at the 2nd Ed rules until my head hurts, I have to say that they don't make it easy to see what values should go where - the potential source and maximum level/movement cost charts seem to use entirely different types of land notation.

Also, while I can appreciate that making the strength of a new kingdom based on bloodline is an easy mechanic, is it very realistec in regards to the game setting? Laela Flaertes would have most of the power of Ghoere and the Gorgon would have an empire larger and more influential than Avanil by about 50%. William Moergen has a strong bloodline, but in real terms has very few holdings. There are many lands where the bloodline is stronger than the country would suggest, and vice versa.

Maybe a mechanic for buying starting character level and a set amount of starting points awarded by the GM would make for a more flexible system. That way you could quite easily choose to make a very tough wandering character in search of a kingdom or the Guilder prince who has concentrated on acquiring a large business to the cost of his developing his rogue training. This would also encourage variation in character level, and the relative power of kingdoms.

One of the things to admire about BR is that it is not only low-magic, but also has a realistic spread of character levels - lots of people who are just starting out as well as the phenomenally hard guys. I think its great the way they resisted the temptation to ratchet up all the levels so that not every regent was a demigod walking the earth.

[ConjurerDragon]

Hrandal schrieb:



>This post was generated by the Birthright.net message forum.

> You can view the entire thread at:

> http://www.birthright.net/forums/index.php?act=ST&f=2&t=2862

>

> Hrandal wrote:

>

...



>can appreciate that making the strength of a new kingdom based on bloodline is an easy mechanic, is it very realistec in regards to the game setting? Laela Flaertes would have most of the power of Ghoere and the Gorgon would have an empire larger and more influential than Avanil by about 50%. William Moergen has a strong bloodlin

> e, but in real terms has very few holdings. There are many lands where the bloodline is stronger than the country would suggest, and vice versa.

>

The 2E mechanic for building domains were meant ONLY for the initial

starting regent that you would create and drop into the existing map of

Anuire to replace whoever would have been at that place before. They

are not supposed to be used with characters from Anuire out of the Ruins

of Empire as these characters already ruled for a while and their

holdings/assets/bloodline have changed in the years of their rule. So

going from bloodlines of described NPC´s will not give the results you

would expect if you recalculate them using the domain creation rules.



In addition starting players in 2E NEVER start with a true bloodline and

the Gorgon has a true bloodline. So this character is not meant for

starting players and in addition in the Ruins of Empire book, his realm

is not recommended for being played by a character.

bye

Michael

[Birthright-L]

While the original BR rulebook`s "point buy" domain

creation system was only meant to be a rough guideline

for the distribution of holdings to roughly coincide

with a character`s bloodline, I think a more detailed

point-buy domian creation system could be useful for

the difficult task of setting up a multi-regent

campaign.



In addition to holdings and provinces, the point-buy

domain system could also be used to purchase

"balancing factors" such as army units, gold, regency

points, noble leaders, bonuses on certain random

events, realm spells, modifiers on certain domain

actions, or similiar "extras".



This way, if you need to, for game-play purposes, a DM

can take two domains and easily balance them prior to

play, or even perhaps measure a particular domains`

progress midgame in terms of points/value.





=====

"Royal is my tribe."



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