Realm of Tatha Wiki

 History of Tatha Vol. XXII

"Living is easy with eyes closed..."

Meruvian Development

S. Bufont

In the beginning...
During my travels, I have learned many things about the world and its people. One thing that stands out is the willingness to put oneself out into the world on the chance at fame or fortune, another, arguably more important thing, is that people are hard to get useful information out of unless you want to pay them. So be thankful that your lovely teacher has taken the time and spent the money to find all these wonderful facts and mythos just to compile them together for your reading pleasure! (I don't get paid enough for this...)

History, while often boring on the surface, can provide you with wonderful locales and people to visit on your own journeys, it can even give you advice on where to go, or not. The most important part of travelling is a good guide! Someone to do all the thinking for you, y'know? Well, I spent a lot of money on this map below, so I'm changing that answer to maps! Maps are now the most important part of travelling! Feast your eyes on my work in progress map!

This is a map of the continent Meruvia; I know I know, it's a little barren, but if you want quality, you won't get it from me in the art department! (I'm a historian, not an artist!)

I suppose I can help you learn your history if you're a bit interested; I can tell you basically anything you need to know and if I can't, just go to "you-know-who" and they certainly can.

Countries and Kingdoms
The nations of Meruvia come in all shapes and sizes, their people the same. Opportunities for all people may be found in these lands, as many an Elf seem to think. Pick your poison and stick with it, I'm sure you'll catch a break eventually.

We'll start with the Monarchy of Ostrana. It's quite a simple place, really; pleasant fields of green in the spring, vibrant and colorful trees in the fall.

Inside their monarchy, the crown lies in Ostrana, while several duchies control delegated land; Ardeval, Shez Tyre, Silma' na Rausta, Sinclisilma, and Ustea.

Shez Tyre happens to be a Dwarven nation that excommunicated themselves from the rest of their people, they originally sought to involve themselves more in the human affairs and now they got their wish.

The Holy Meruvian Empire is a new, up and coming face in the realm of powerful kingdoms. Their monarch seems to liken himself to a deity and has even taken it upon himself to take control of the Grand Church of Meruvia.

They call their subordinate nations principalities and they are as follows: Atrington, Zoston, and we will count the land that the Iron Rose controls as belonging to the HME.

Ghennduran is really easy to explain, honestly. Dwarves. That's all you need to know, I promise... You really want to know more? *Long breathy sigh* Alright, alright, fine.

The Dwarves own their own nation that takes care of most of the iron trade in Meruvia, but they happen to have city-states in multiple nations: Ardeval, Cuskena, Zoston... Well, they sort of don't have the ones in Ardeval or Cuskena anymore, those two split off from the main group of Dwarves fairly recently.

The Kingdom of Veragun is... interesting. They have been quite hostile in their growth; their leader, King Rath' Zet'al, has subsumed the peoples that controlled land in their nation previously. All of the land belongs to them now aside from a few select places.

Cuskena is a relatively wild and free nation that used to belong to Ostrana, after a nasty bit of fighting that is no longer the case. King Rath set up what he calls an "embassy," which is more like a castle with a delegate situated on the throne to watch over all of Cuskena and its peoples.

The Merchant Republic of Zhal' kur'amal would like to consider themselves completely free from Rath's control, but I think they were given an ultimatum that forced them into siding with Veragun in a fight with Ostrana. Their council of cities are trying their hardest to keep control over their rightful land.

Baseline
I'm changing various things about D&D to fit my narrative and what I want out of a setting, certain races are not available for a variety of reasons, certain styles of class/play as well won't be as viable, and there will be a definite power disparity between this game and others (as long as you're in a group that I think can handle these changes). If you have an issue with any particular change, bring it up to me; although I can't guarantee I'll actually do anything about it I may be able to explain my reasoning.

I plan on having games using these rules be slower paced than some other games have been, hopefully allowing people to enjoy what they have and grow used to things in ample time while also figuring out how to apply their skills to the world. The pace of the game outside of leveling will almost entirely be decided by players; the focus I want is more on humanity and realism, which I am trying to facilitate through rule changes and the setting, of course.

A change in play I want to really see are human traits and flaws. I want players to make decisions based on their own irrational behavior, that changes how they see themselves and the world around them. The setting I am trying to build may be harsh, dangerous, and uncaring towards the player characters, but I won't let that be the entire game; there is always time for fun and joking around.

Theoretical Rule Changes
Some stand out changes I am making/working on are (in order of what I think of first):

Resurrection - This will most definitely be harder. I am not outright removing this, as it's been a part of D&D forever and I want people to have the option to continue as a character if they really want to but that will not be an easy task.

Economics - Each place you go to will be different; one city may have a steady supply of money and goods to trade with the party, while a small town in the woods may have nothing of interest to the party at all. The realistic aspects of economics will be a part of these games more so than they have been in previous games I've done. Be prepared to see a lot of silver and copper.

Magic - Magic at it's core will be rare, no +1-5 weapons at all most likely (at least no basic bitch ones, maybe some that are + whatever to certain enemies), spellcasters will be persecuted and mistrusted everywhere, the magic items/people you do find will more than likely be one of a kind and have their own style of magic and spells. I am also lowering spell slot and cantrip amounts and making them scale harder, but to compensate most classes are getting more abilities.

Racism - Yes, I know, very touchy subject and something most people wouldn't actively want in their game of make believe, but I think it can be used effectively in D&D without a DM/player actually being racist. It does require a bit of finesse and work to pull off to have it make sense, but I'm working on it.

Medievalism - The concept of a "Good King" will hopefully absent from the setting; there may be some whose intentions are good and they try their best, but often they only make things worse. Many kings/queens will thrive off their subjects misfortune and suffering.

Survival - Yes food is going to be important, the same with weather and its effects on travel and people. I'm working on making these not extremely tedious. Diseases will be made important and usable.

True Monsters - Do not plan on seeing many races outside of the available player options, all the others outside of those will be treated as monsters until proven otherwise. Sentient, friendly, talkative Troll barkeeper? Never heard of one, you may be confusing that with the Troll that came to the tavern down the road a few years back and slaughtered everyone inside, it was never found.

Armor and Weapons - These are just getting changed to fit a wider margin.

Proficiencies - For skills I am changing the system to be more akin to 3.x and pathfinder but lowering total amounts (you'll see). Armor will stay mostly the same but with some number changes. Weapons however are getting revamped to be similar to 2e, making characters have to pick and choose what to perfect and if they should have a back up choice (you'll see, it's pretty simple).

Races - I'm moving back to using negative ability score modifiers (read ability score section), so good luck, while also expanding a few options, like Human and Elf. Some races I have done away with entirely for the games in this specific setting: Bugbear, Firbolg, Gith, Goliath, Goblin, Gnome, Kenku, Kobold, Lizardfolk, Tabaxi, Triton, and Yuan-ti. The races I removed either didn't make sense for the setting, Gith, Kenku, Yuan-ti, and some are in the setting but I am not allowing as player races for various reasons, Firbolg, Goblin, Tabaxi.

Classes - As the game is supposed to be a bit longer than most, I plan on making level 1 more survivable through the use of extra hp at 1st level. Subclasses will be chosen at level 1 for all classes as well, making people more specialized from the beginning. As an aside, Druids, Paladins, and Rangers are all divine casters in my setting, well at least the type that immediately come to mind when you think about them, others may not be. On that note, class spellcasting abilities may change depending on what you want or what makes sense, i.e. intelligence warlocks will be the standard rather than charisma but it would depend on character and patron.

Ability Scores - Ability scores are weird, I'm probably going to let players have input on what ability score increases they start with instead of what I have in the Races page but taking inspiration from those is encouraged in most situations. I will also be encouraging negative ability score increases to start as they provide a lot of background and flesh out a character more than just positives. 

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