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Valor campaign setting overview
MAGIC
Humans have the ability to exert their will to alter reality in accordance with their own beliefs. Belief is the heart of magic - anyone can use magic, but the great hurdle that stops most people is the failure to believe that magic works. Even when one does have the personal belief to make magic work, it's a battle against the belief of the world you're using the magic in. This is how magic stays underground - if somebody tried to use magic on public television, it would be their magic against the disbelief of millions of viewers, so the magic would fail.
Magic has three unavoidable limitations:
1: Magic does not exist to create or reconstruct souls. New life cannot be created, and the dead cannot be revived.
2: Magic cannot change the past. Once something has happened, it is immutable.
3: Nothing can be gained without sacrifice.
There are three schools of magic, each corresponding to a different object of belief, source of power, and school of expertise: Arcane, Divine, and Innate.
ARCANE MAGIC is a highly ritualistic form of magic that draws from the belief in magic itself - more specifically, in a metaphysical source of all magic, the Akashic Record. The belief is that the Record exists and from it all supernatural power is drawn. Arcane wizards are most proficient in altering the world around them - molding the land, slinging fire and lightning, classic sorcery. It is less powerful when it comes to altering living things, focusing instead on indirect methods (hit someone with a heavy rock rather than draining their life force directly). Most arcane wizards answer to the Order of Flamel, an organization of highly powerful wizards who police their own kind, making sure that magic never becomes to widely known.
DIVINE MAGIC is magic drawn from the belief in a higher power, be it God, any of the old pantheons, or even an unknown divine spiritual presence. The unifying factor is that divine wizards believe that their power derives from a consciousness above our plane of existence. Does it? Nobody knows for sure, but divine wizards are most proficient in affecting other living beings. This includes illusions, mind control, healing, and manipulation of the physical bodies of their enemies (the ancient and terrible art of Curses). There is no unifying organization that governs divine wizards, but the largest of such organizations would naturally be the Catholic Church.
INNATE MAGIC is a more informal school of magic that draws from a belief in the power of the self. It is attained by looking within, seeking enlightenment, and believing in one's own ability to overcome any obstacle. Innate wizards are most proficient in altering themselves - enhanced perception, magnification of physical attributes, regeneration, transformation, and so forth. Innate magic has no central organization, being primarily practied by individuals who will take other individuals in as their students.
THE CROSSROADS
Earth is not all of creation. There are four known worlds, and the one at the center of the others is the Crossroads, an endlessly shifting and boundless network of roads and paths. Any sort of road can be found in the Crossroads, from asphalt highways to poorly-maintained brick pathways to cold rivers filled with empty boats drifting along dark waters. Entering the Crossroads without a trained navigator is a quick way to get lost, as the logic that governs the paths through it are wildly removed from conventional geometry.
The only known native inhabitants of the Crossroads are the Wardens, monolithic creataures of unknown origins that periodically harass anyone who obstructs the roads, urging them to continue moving. If they refuse, they will be given an option to be returned to the gate they entered from. If they refuse, they will be annihilated.
The main purpose of the Crossroads is that it connects other worlds, so any travel between them must pass through the Crossroads. The known places one can reach from the Crossroads are Earth, the Wild Keep, and the Astral Sea.
THE WILD KEEP
Home of the Fey, the Wild Keep is a world quite unlike Earth. The land itself is alive, growing like a world-sized tree to naturally form spires, bridges, courtyards, and great halls. Dozens of wildly varied species of Fey live here, and it's a very dangerous place for humans, who are only welcome there in very rare circumstances.
THE ASTRAL SEA
A plane of great mystery, few have ever ventured into the Astral Sea and returned to tell the tale. The beings that make their home here are so alien to humans that communication with them is almost always impossible. They are referred to as Outsiders, and vary in form even more than the Fey.
FEY
While magic is the gift of humans, Fey gifts are as varied as their species. There are shifters, which possess great strength and can assume deadly animal forms. There are golems, incarnations of the Wild Keep's living stone. There are the Dark Walkers, creatures that live in shadow and can take the face and voice of another. The list goes on.
Fey are unified by great supernatural power coupled with strong bindings to Truth. A Fey's promise is law. Lies are to them as magic is to humans - the greater the lie, the greater the personal cost or sacrifice it requires.
OUTSIDERS
There's no easy way to summarize Outsiders. Incredibly little is known about most of them, except that they are almost impossible to communicate with directly and they are extremely dangerous. Many Outsiders are completely immune to magic, and some can drive men mad with their mere presence. However, there is one well-researched interaction with the Outsiders: Necromancy.
Since creating a new soul is impossible, the living dead need a way to operate without one. The standard method for this is to draw a minor energy-based Outsider into our world to inhabit a corpse. This creates a creature that can't think and can't die - it obeys the thoughts of its summoner, and can be stopped by forcing the master to dismiss it, killing the master, somehow disrupting their bond, or by damaging the corpse until it can't move at all. The proper term for such constructs is Abominations.
THINGS AS THEY ARE NOW
The campaign will be centered in New York City. Magic is real, but cannot emerge into the public eye that doesn't believe in it. Wizards and Fey engage in otherworldly dealings under the cover of darkness - in the shadows, among believers, magic can fly unrestrained.
There are a few high-ups in the NYPD who are aware of the second world hiding under the surface of the world we know. They have created a special and very hush-hush division of experts in the supernatural to deal with crimes caused by the things that go bump in the night. Not all or even any of the PCs have to be part of this division - there are also independent magical investigators, groups of Fey living in the shadows, and seedy criminal underworld wizards. I haven't constructed a metaplot, yet, so that depends on what you guys think up for character concepts.
TLDR Version:
-Magic comes from belief.
-Magical creatures come from the Wild Keep.
-Undead are raised by Outsiders.
-New York has a magical secret underworld.
-Part of the NYPD is in on it.
All of the above is subject to change, at this point. Let's have some thoughts on characters or setting ideas! Plot hooks, too!
Humans have the ability to exert their will to alter reality in accordance with their own beliefs. Belief is the heart of magic - anyone can use magic, but the great hurdle that stops most people is the failure to believe that magic works. Even when one does have the personal belief to make magic work, it's a battle against the belief of the world you're using the magic in. This is how magic stays underground - if somebody tried to use magic on public television, it would be their magic against the disbelief of millions of viewers, so the magic would fail.
Magic has three unavoidable limitations:
1: Magic does not exist to create or reconstruct souls. New life cannot be created, and the dead cannot be revived.
2: Magic cannot change the past. Once something has happened, it is immutable.
3: Nothing can be gained without sacrifice.
There are three schools of magic, each corresponding to a different object of belief, source of power, and school of expertise: Arcane, Divine, and Innate.
ARCANE MAGIC is a highly ritualistic form of magic that draws from the belief in magic itself - more specifically, in a metaphysical source of all magic, the Akashic Record. The belief is that the Record exists and from it all supernatural power is drawn. Arcane wizards are most proficient in altering the world around them - molding the land, slinging fire and lightning, classic sorcery. It is less powerful when it comes to altering living things, focusing instead on indirect methods (hit someone with a heavy rock rather than draining their life force directly). Most arcane wizards answer to the Order of Flamel, an organization of highly powerful wizards who police their own kind, making sure that magic never becomes to widely known.
DIVINE MAGIC is magic drawn from the belief in a higher power, be it God, any of the old pantheons, or even an unknown divine spiritual presence. The unifying factor is that divine wizards believe that their power derives from a consciousness above our plane of existence. Does it? Nobody knows for sure, but divine wizards are most proficient in affecting other living beings. This includes illusions, mind control, healing, and manipulation of the physical bodies of their enemies (the ancient and terrible art of Curses). There is no unifying organization that governs divine wizards, but the largest of such organizations would naturally be the Catholic Church.
INNATE MAGIC is a more informal school of magic that draws from a belief in the power of the self. It is attained by looking within, seeking enlightenment, and believing in one's own ability to overcome any obstacle. Innate wizards are most proficient in altering themselves - enhanced perception, magnification of physical attributes, regeneration, transformation, and so forth. Innate magic has no central organization, being primarily practied by individuals who will take other individuals in as their students.
THE CROSSROADS
Earth is not all of creation. There are four known worlds, and the one at the center of the others is the Crossroads, an endlessly shifting and boundless network of roads and paths. Any sort of road can be found in the Crossroads, from asphalt highways to poorly-maintained brick pathways to cold rivers filled with empty boats drifting along dark waters. Entering the Crossroads without a trained navigator is a quick way to get lost, as the logic that governs the paths through it are wildly removed from conventional geometry.
The only known native inhabitants of the Crossroads are the Wardens, monolithic creataures of unknown origins that periodically harass anyone who obstructs the roads, urging them to continue moving. If they refuse, they will be given an option to be returned to the gate they entered from. If they refuse, they will be annihilated.
The main purpose of the Crossroads is that it connects other worlds, so any travel between them must pass through the Crossroads. The known places one can reach from the Crossroads are Earth, the Wild Keep, and the Astral Sea.
THE WILD KEEP
Home of the Fey, the Wild Keep is a world quite unlike Earth. The land itself is alive, growing like a world-sized tree to naturally form spires, bridges, courtyards, and great halls. Dozens of wildly varied species of Fey live here, and it's a very dangerous place for humans, who are only welcome there in very rare circumstances.
THE ASTRAL SEA
A plane of great mystery, few have ever ventured into the Astral Sea and returned to tell the tale. The beings that make their home here are so alien to humans that communication with them is almost always impossible. They are referred to as Outsiders, and vary in form even more than the Fey.
FEY
While magic is the gift of humans, Fey gifts are as varied as their species. There are shifters, which possess great strength and can assume deadly animal forms. There are golems, incarnations of the Wild Keep's living stone. There are the Dark Walkers, creatures that live in shadow and can take the face and voice of another. The list goes on.
Fey are unified by great supernatural power coupled with strong bindings to Truth. A Fey's promise is law. Lies are to them as magic is to humans - the greater the lie, the greater the personal cost or sacrifice it requires.
OUTSIDERS
There's no easy way to summarize Outsiders. Incredibly little is known about most of them, except that they are almost impossible to communicate with directly and they are extremely dangerous. Many Outsiders are completely immune to magic, and some can drive men mad with their mere presence. However, there is one well-researched interaction with the Outsiders: Necromancy.
Since creating a new soul is impossible, the living dead need a way to operate without one. The standard method for this is to draw a minor energy-based Outsider into our world to inhabit a corpse. This creates a creature that can't think and can't die - it obeys the thoughts of its summoner, and can be stopped by forcing the master to dismiss it, killing the master, somehow disrupting their bond, or by damaging the corpse until it can't move at all. The proper term for such constructs is Abominations.
THINGS AS THEY ARE NOW
The campaign will be centered in New York City. Magic is real, but cannot emerge into the public eye that doesn't believe in it. Wizards and Fey engage in otherworldly dealings under the cover of darkness - in the shadows, among believers, magic can fly unrestrained.
There are a few high-ups in the NYPD who are aware of the second world hiding under the surface of the world we know. They have created a special and very hush-hush division of experts in the supernatural to deal with crimes caused by the things that go bump in the night. Not all or even any of the PCs have to be part of this division - there are also independent magical investigators, groups of Fey living in the shadows, and seedy criminal underworld wizards. I haven't constructed a metaplot, yet, so that depends on what you guys think up for character concepts.
TLDR Version:
-Magic comes from belief.
-Magical creatures come from the Wild Keep.
-Undead are raised by Outsiders.
-New York has a magical secret underworld.
-Part of the NYPD is in on it.
All of the above is subject to change, at this point. Let's have some thoughts on characters or setting ideas! Plot hooks, too!
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Truthfully he just joined because he wanted to shoot things to relieve his stress.
:|a
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Setting fundaments: I Like. Feels like Dresden, but with less Having More Than A Couple Powers Makes You An NPC.
Atmosphere: I will admit to generally being a fan of more wuxia-like high action with a side of comic elements. However, in the right context, grittier can be fun too. Party interactions, serious and otherwise, are the meat of RP to me, with good combat being second.
Specifics:
The Three Restrictions Of Magic don't quite feel right to me. This generally fits with my STRONG preference to highly optimistic tones, but is also because allowing for resurrections makes it easier from a player standpoint to feel right playing it risky - indeed, this is one of the things in D&D I like the most and see the least in other systems and settings.
Pre-empting Timestream Fuckery, on the other hand, is a great headache prevention measure, so I'm not nearly as opposed to that.
The idea of Equivalent Exchange - traditionally represented in D&D by Material Components that increasingly became ignored over later versions (do you even know what the material component for a Fireball is in D&D? Did you care) - is also kind of weird in my book, in that it tightly ties magic to a restriction and makes certain potentially interesting types of magic ill-fitting - and puts the interesting-but-painful risk of the Badass Normals being the most effective in many situations.
The core of humans-Fey-Outsiders has potential, though to maximize variety I'd also suggest that Earth-borne fantastic creatures be part of New York's underground (and, implicitly, other undergrounds around the world). Werewolves, vampires, Japanese mythological beings, etc. could be part of this.
This does seem like it'd be an excellent testbed for Valor's flexibility towards less over-the-top action, and other than my specific thoughts above, I Like.
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I do really want reviving the dead to be, if not impossible, then at least so hard that it's generally understood by most people to be impossible. Valor has very forgiving permadeath rules (when they're used at all), so it won't be a rules problem, but I really do want death to have impact.
The difference between the intent of the third law and FMA-style equivalent exchange is twofold: the form of the sacrifice isn't constant, and the values don't have to be equal. A more skilled or more powerful mage can get more for less, but there's always something. For most simple magic, it can just be a bit of vital energy from the caster, but if you want to avoid sucking your own life away with beefier magic, it can be supplemented with ritual, physical offerings, draining of real-world energy sources, etc.
On the fence about human world fantastic creatures. Under the current scheme, all the things you mentioned would be either Fey beings that have crossed over to the human world, or the descendants of such.
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If it represents something akin to using Halo's shield-then-health mechanic as an MP gauge, putting a limit on how much you can safely do without outside sources, it's one thing. If you NEED outside sources for it to not be slowly draining your lifespan, it's quite another.
I'd also like to point out - not as a good OR a bad thing - that the belief scheme as-written could be interpreted to provide a potential advantage to more subtle magics. Things that are less observable have less Belief glaring down on them, basically.
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I will definitely think about that last thing you said.
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- How powerful is the Order of Flamel?
- How well known are the astral sea and the wild keep to most human magicians? Are they places you would go visit for your daily commute or places of distant legend? I'm imagining somewhere in between, but I'm curious exactly where in between.
Character concepts:
- Order of Flamel Enforcer who is an asshole because he has a hard job
- Supposedly mundane anti-magic cop who survives dealing with all kinds of magic by believing so hard in his own abilities it subconsciously activates as magic and makes him JUST tough/strong/fast enough to survive
- Headstrong youth who just started learning to use innate sorcery and is only now realizing just how deep these waters are.
- Fey exile who is using his natural talent to run a detective agency on Earth.
- Nearsighted, aging wizard who spends all his times studying ancient texts and potions. He can't abide by all this bru-ha-ha and tomfoolery and what have you.
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Damn powerful, considering they have an entire planet of wizards to keep in check. Directly and openly opposing the Order is usually tantamount to suicide, and if a wizard is too good at magic for them to keep in check, they're not above hiring mundane assassins to take them out when they're out in the open.
How well known are the astral sea and the wild keep to most human magicians?
As you say, somewhere in between. Not somewhere you'd go if you can possibly avoid it, but somewhere that any well-learned wizard would learn a good amount on during their training.
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I... think costs, values, and such may vary based on personal and others' beliefs, but I just wanted to make sure.
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I'm going to play this guy.
With a gun--dammit Eq!
I'm thinking of playing an archive manager. Someone in the NYPD who's paid off to keep his mouth shut about the magic-centric cases he reads on a daily basis. Does that work?
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I'm probably gonna try and put together a chat for character concept powwow soon.