Age of Treason - Lots of Cool Stuff
A friend picked up Age of Treason for me at Gencon and I have been perusing it for the last couple of weeks.
I like this setting. There are a lot of very nice applications of and/or tweaks to the "Legend" core rules. Lots of cool stuff to borrow if you don't run your game the Age of Treason setting.
Examples of Magical Cool Stuff:
The religion of the Taskan Empire is a pantheon of gods which have some relevance to the peoples lives. The typical RQ cults don't control worship. Worship is an individual thing. Most people aren't initiated to a god, but attend the Holy Festivals and worship them. A person can establish a pact with a diety at special services, sacred sites, or even in the presence of a "Holy Man". A person can have pacts with several of the deities in the pantheon (requires at least one dedicated POW as usual), but they have one skill which applies to worshipping all of the gods in the pantheon. That skill is effectively Lore (pantheon). You can get divine magic from any of the gods you have a pact with, limited by the POW you have dedicated to that god. The gods only offer a few divine spells each.
Official religious worship is performed using various sorcery rituals to establish worship.
Cults of the gods do exist and there may be several rival cults worshipping a god. Cults may require that a person have a pact with the god as a prerequisite to joining.
Common magic is not common in the Taskan Empire. In fact, it is rare. Some special cults may offer magic that is essentially like common magic spells.
Sorcery is common. There are sorcery spells that are in the "public domain" and published for all who can read and understand them to use. These are mostly worship spells. Wealthy families may have a Family Grimoire with possibly more adventurer friendly spells. However, generally only people trained as a sorcerer's apprentice will have the Manipulation skill. So lots of sorcery at minimum levels. One NPC in the intro adventure has a family grimoire with 9 spells: Abjure Grief, Abjure Love, Restoration, Sanctify, Sense Honour, Worship Thesh, Worship Samanse, Worship Tethis, Worship Tarsen. I think this was intended to show a typical family grimoire. The Sanctify and Worship spells allow him to perform worship services where people can ask the gods for blessings.
Blessings are a new minor magic available. They are essentially one time benefits granted by a god. They can be acquired at properly sanctified worship services, usually performed by a professional priest. In game terms, they typically grant a 10% bonus one or more skills for a short duration. A carpenter might get a blessing from Hoonvel which gives him a 10% bonus to his Craft (Carpentry) skill for a skill test or an extended task. A warrior might ask Machank for a blessing to make his weapon true, which may grant a 10% bonus to his attacks for the duration of a combat. A typical character would be able to have 3 blessings available at time.
Spirit Walking is rare (a heroic ability or special divine magic).
Spirits are called to the shaman, or sought out at places where they are known to frequent.
Spirits can manifest into the physical world. Spirits may be able to force a person into Spectral Combat.
Spectral combat takes place in the physical world. (No getting jerked out of your body.)
You can do other things while being attacked by a spirit, if you need to.
You use your full Persistence skill or Spirit Binding skill (whichever is greater) to battle the spirit.
Several spirit Traditions are described.
Sorcery Duration (see the table in the preview) is extended over the core rules. Those of us who liked the long durations of AHRQ3 will like this. Two caveats: the maximum length of time for a spell is A Year & A Day (or POW X 1 month if you prefer); and the sorcerer can not begin to recover the magic points in the spell until it ends.
Alchemy is a form of sorcery. Manipulations include doses and shelf-life.
Enchanting is a form of sorcery. It generally involves permanent investment of characteristic points, not just POW. Characteristic points yielded are spent to add abilities to enchanted items. The amount of return on investment depends on the Grimoire skill. At 40%, a sorcerer could sacrifice up to 1/4 of a characteristic and receive 1D4 per point sacrificed to be spent on the enchantment.
Basic enchantments are generally available in standard sorcery grimoires. They include Create Familiar, Write Grimoire (sort of extra memory for spells), and Create Magic Source (object with MPs that regenerate).
Advanced enchants require the Enchanting Ritual and Craft(Enchanter) skill. These let you create enchantments with virutes and conditions. Virtues are grouped by the characteristic sacrificed for them. Some of the virtues are Armouring, Life Supporting, Anticipation, Magic Damage, Wand, Haste, and Fetish.
Non-Magic related Cool Stuff:
Extended tasks - this applies the Extended tasks rules introduced in Arms and Equipment to tasks other than crafting, engineering and mechanisms. Persuasion (influence, seduction, etc) and Education (a new skill) are given rules and examples for extended tasks. This opens up a lot of other possibilities for using extended tasks. Lockpicking and searching an area come to mind. There is a several page section devoted to the arts of persuasion and oratory and bribery.
Brawl skill replaces Unarmed as a common skill. Improvised and street weapons increase damage and may allow certain Combat Manoeuvres. For example, a broken bottle adds does a D3+1 damage and allows Bleed and Slash combat manoeuvres. Slash is a new combat manoeuvre.
The Brawl skill can be used by a person using a long weapon when their opponent has closed on them.
Drive is a common skill, Ride is not. You can sit on a horse while it walks and use Drive for steering and simple problems. Difficult terrain or problems require ride skill, or get off the horse and walk. To fight from horseback requires the Ride skill. To fight effectively from horseback requires Mounted Combat skill.
The Funeral Clubs are an interesting concept. Sort of social clubs whose members guarantee that they will provide a proper cremation and funeral for its members, they will be remembered on the proper Holy Days. This is very important in the Taskan Empire. Some have become much more than that and provide other services.
Some interesting tweaks to the combat rules regarding weapon styles and shield use.
The intro adventure is very interesting. The designer used it to good affect to introduce the setting and to demonstrate some of the concepts in the game, including some magic items and spirit traditionalists for the main opponents.
Essentially, the player characters are starting youngsters out to perform their mandatory two year militia service for the Emperor. They all end up in the same half-file of a company. (assuming that you have 6 or fewer PCs) I am going the have to sit down and tinker with this because it seems that it may be very deadly for the relative novice characters. The pre-generated characters mostly have low combat scores. They do get a little training, but it seems inadequate. But it looks fun none the less. I think a solo run through is in order.
The setting itself is interesting and has potential for lots of different styles of game.
Did I mention that every citizen of the Taskan Empire has a Pact(Emperor) skill and one POW devoted to it? The benefit is citizenship in the empire.
