Hi, this is my first RPG! Hope you like it.
In Edgeland, 300 years ago, a force appeared that changed everything. That force was magic. It sprung out of everywhere in a spontaneous emanation, and people started harnessing it almost immedately, for good or evil. All of a sudden, labor was easier, smelting was easier, healing was easier, and people led more prosperous lives. But at the same time, warfare was more deadly and troublemakers had a new tool to subvert others and get their way - mind control.
However, the situation was overall better, until after the first wave of magic, 100 years from then, the demons came. Vile, chimeric creatures from an unknown land started roaming the plains of the continent of Edge, putting everyone in danger. Furthermore, their influence corrupted the very essence of magic, corrupting those that used it extensively.
100 years have passed until the humans learned how to protect themselves from demonic possession and how to kill those beings. Paladins were trained to deal with the scourge, both of the demons and the newly corrupted spellcasters. And then came the age of Withering - when paladins where forced to cut off individuals' connection to magic, guarding them from corruption but at the same time dooming them to the mundane.
Since 20 years ago, however, demons came back with renewed strength, and are no longer seceding to the efforts of the paladins. More and more villages and towns have been hiring adventurers to join in groups and rid everyone of this menace. You are one of them. Make the best of it.
Stat block:
Name: The name of your characters. Nobiliary titles or functional titles may also go here.
Gender: male/female/asexual if Aberration or Acidspawn
Age: minimum 16 for humans, minimum 10 for cambions, minimum 25 for tieflings, no minimum for demons
Profession: If, aside from adventurer, your character has any side profession, such as blacksmith, mayor, physician, scribe etc. If human and does not, just write in adventurer. If demon and does not, just write in Not Applicable.
Total Level: Start with 1.
Race: Human, Cambion, Tiefling, or Demon. If Human or Cambion, go to EXHIBIT A. If Demon, go to EXHIBIT B. If Tiefling, the choice is up to you.
But first, a short description of the races.
0. Humans are the most populous race, and they're like real life people. They live either in classical feudal societies, monarchic city states, full blown monarchies, or relatively small democratic republics, with levels of technology roughly equal to 15th-16th century Europe. Humans leave 60 to 70 years on average, although people with high affinity can live for hundreds of years.
Racial traits: add +2 to 2 stats of your choice at character creation, +1 to their effective Paladin level if they have at least 3 levels in Paladin, deal 25% more damage to demons, receive 50% damage from positive energy, receive 150% damage from negative energy.
1. Cambions are children of a demon and a human that exhibit only human traits physically (aside from their lack of a pulse). They are usually the result between a human and a succubus/incubus' union, where the human parent has a high affinity for magic. They mature quickly and live 100 years on average, although with a high enough affinity can survive indefinitely. Some Cambions are on the demon's side while others side with the humans (most side with the humans), but regardless of this, they gain class levels as a human.
Racial traits: add +2 to Affinity and Perception at character creation, +1 to their effective Spellcaster level if they have at least 3 levels in Spellcaster, receive 75% damage from cold, electricity, and life, receive 125% damage from fire, immune to fatigue, Cambion Insight - able to detect instantly if a demon is within 200 meters.
2. Tieflings are children of a demon and a human that exhibit some sort of demonic trait, like wings or horns or goat legs. Aside from the special union that creates a cambion, all human-demon offspring are tieflings. Tieflings mature slightly slower than humans but live 150 years on average, and are the only beings whose lives are not extended because of affinity. They side with either the demons or the humans (50%/50%) and use either class advancement, A or B.
Racial traits: add +2 to Constitution and +2 to another stat of your choice at character creation, ability to Disguise as either human or demon for total level + 1 hours per day, receive 75% damage from negative energy and 125% damage from positive energy, +1 to a class or demon level when they reach 10th level, and 1 of the 3 benefits below:
Horns - deal 5 physical damage
Demon Skin - receive 75% damage from physical attacks
Wings - gives ability to fly
3. Demons are extremely diverse. They are separated in 7 categories, one for every deadly sin. They don't advance by class level, but by demon level. They have general traits that apply to all members, and specific traits for every category.
General racial traits: add +2 to a stat of your choice, ability to teleport once per day, receive 150% damage from positive energy and 50% damage from negative energy
Lust (Succubus/Incubus) - +2 Presence, ability to fly, Charm once per day per two levels at medium range - select an opponent with lower total level than you. He must do what you want for 1 turn if he fails a willpower check. If he refuses, his corruption increases.
Gluttony (Aberration) - +2 Constitution, Bite attack dealing 3 physical and 3 life damage and healing yourself of an amount equal to the physical damage dealt.
Greed (Dragon) - +2 Perception, ability to fly, fire breath dealing 5 fire damage at melee and close range. Damage of fire breath can be increased to up to 10, but for each point of increase it is on cooldown for 1 turn.
Sloth (Acidspawn) - +2 Accuracy, deals 2 life damage to all that touch it, acid bullet attack dealing 4 life damage at long range.
Wrath (Pit Fiend) - +2 Strength, deals 50% more damage to other demons and tieflings
Envy (Imp) - +2 Affinity, ability to fly, ability to teleport more than once per day (once per day per two demon levels + 1)
Pride (devil) - +2 Integrity, unavoidable aura increases corruption of humans and cambions by 2
4. Undead are formerly dead creatures animated by magic. They are not a playable race. In Edgelands RPG, they are NOT sentient.
5. Critters is the simple description of any non-undead creature that lacks sentience. If something lacks sentience, it cannot be corrupted, lacks affinity, and lacks presence (this includes undead). They are not playable races.
-- EXHIBIT A --
Humans, cambions and some tieflings advance through class levels and the stats of this template. let's look at the stats first: there are 3 physical stats, 3 mental stats, and 2 magical stats. Everyone starts with 0 in all stats, plus racial bonuses, and then continues to gain stats through class levels.
Physical stats:
Strength: Added to melee damage, added to hit with melee weapons, requirement for some weapons and armor.
Accuracy: Added to medium range weapon damage, half is added to long and close range weapon damage, every point of accuracy adds a cumulative 5% chance to crit (deal double damage), used in some fine tasks like lockpicking, requirement for some weapons.
Constitution: The health of an exhibit A character is equal to 20 + Constitution*total level (for instance, with Constitution 3 and Total level 10, you have 50 health, and with constitution 2 and total level 5, you have 30).
Mental stats:
Perception: Ability to understand unknown languages, discern the motives of others, hear well, find things well hidden, avoid danger rapidly.
Presence: Ability to influence others.
Willpower: Ability to resist the influence of others, usually opposed to presence checks.
Magic stats:
Affinity: Ability to cast increasingly complicated spells to greater effect. Characters with negative affinity can't cast spells, but add the absolute value of their affinity to opposed checks against magical effects.
Corruption: Subtracted from willpower checks and half of it subtracted from presence checks. Also linked to some spells and other abilities. Corruption never goes below 0 - for instance, taking 5 levels in Paladin doesn't reduce your corruption to -5, but it does allow you to then take 5 levels in Spellcaster and still have a corruption of 0.
Every time you gain a level, your total level increases by 1, and then you must choose a class to add a level to. The classes are: Spellcaster, Harrowed, Paladin, Warrior, Rogue, Hunter. This entry should look like so, for example:
Total level: 3
Class: Paladin 2, Spellcaster 2, Hunter 2 (Druid)
Every character has a single overall class, dependent on the levels he has taken. I decide the name of that class whenever a character levels up. For instance, as seen above, if someone has 2 levels each in paladin, spellcaster, and hunter, he is hereby referred to as a Druid.
An exhibit A character may not multiclass in more than 3 classes. Gaining levels in classes gives SECRET abilities which I will reveal as the game moves on, but also specific stat boosts, as seen here (every level):
Paladin - Willpower +1, Perception +1, Corruption -1
Spellcaster - Affinity +2, Corruption + 1/2, Presence +1/2
Harrowed - Corruption -2, Willpower +1
Warrior - Strength +2, Constitution +1
Rogue - Strength +1/3, Accuracy +1/2, Constitution +1/3, Perception +1/3, Presence +1/2, Willpower +1/4, Affinity +1/4
Hunter - Accuracy +2, Perception +1, Affinity +1/3
1/x means that the class gives +1 to the stat every x levels. For instance, a level 12 Rogue has +4 Strength, +6 Accuracy, +4 Constitution, +4 Perception, +6 Presence, +3 Willpower and +3 Affinity, while a level 12 Spellcaster has +24 Affinity, +6 Corruption and +6 Presence.
Another thing to talk about is attack and defense bonuses. Attack is the ability to hit opponents, and is added to attack rolls, and defense is the ability to avoid attacks, and is added to Evasion. Classes give attack and defense bonuses at different rates. Below, the first is the attack progression, and the second is the defense progression:
Paladin - +3/4, +1
Spellcaster - +1/5, +1/3
Harrowed - +1/3, +1/2
Warrior - +4/3, +4/3
Rogue - +1/2, +1/3
Hunter - +2/3, +1/5
The difference is that here, 1/x does not mean +1 every x levels. Instead, decimals ARE used, so just add the value every level as normal.
-- EXHIBIT B --
Demons and some Tieflings advance through general demonic levels and category demonic levels. Every level, they must choose to either add one level to general demonic level or to their category. Since Tieflings normally don't have a category, they most choose one upon choosing this exhibit, out of the following and only the following: Devil, Succubus/Incubus, Imp.
Unlike exhibit A characters, exhibit B characters have 4 physical stats, 3 mental stats and 1 magic stat. Thus, they don't have a Corruption stat, but gain an Integrity stat which when negative means that they are banished and cannot return for a month (after which it's 0 again).
The bonuses received are secret.
Health is calculated as such: 10 + class level * (Constitution + Integrity)
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Damage types: physical, fire, electricity, cold, life (includes poison damage, disease damage, acid damage, biology-based spells etc), positive energy, negative energy, life.
Ranges: melee, close, medium, long
You can also have armor, weapons, shields. They sometimes add damage, defense and attack.
And here are the complete templates for easy signing up.
Exhibit A:
Name:
Gender:
Age:
Profession:
Total Level: 1
Class:
Race:
HP:
Attack/Defense:
Str:
Acc:
Con:
Perc:
Pres:
Will:
Aff:
Corruption:
Armor:
Weapons (includes shield if any):
Backpack (also lists money, you start with 100 gold):
Exhibit B:
Name:
Gender:
Age:
Profession:
Total Level: 1
General and Category Level:
Race and Category:
HP:
Attack/Defense:
Str:
Acc:
Con:
Perc:
Pres:
Will:
Aff:
Integrity:
Armor:
Weapons (includes shield if any):
Backpack (also lists money, you start with 0 gold):