Quote from: LordVreeg;381923So the christian church will be the primary source of priestly magic.  Gotcha.
What's the source of non-priestly magic?  
Would a Mithras cult be wizardly, or something else?

And do you assume both Popes to be high-pwer clerics, or are you avoiding the assumption of high levels going with high political power?

Yes, the Church will be *the* religious power of the time. The differences between Clerics would come from the Saint they worship as Patron, with each Saint having his own portfolio, so to speak.

There would still be Clerics of other traditions. Baphomet is coming to mind. I'm unclear as to what happened to the Templars in the beginning of the 14th century, whether they were wiped out by Philippe le Bel, Jacques de Molay burned at the stake, etc, or not. It'd be immensely cool to still have them around. That's where Clash's ideas on Outremer could be plugged somehow to this setting.

Anyway. I wouldn't allow a player to play any Cleric from any other religion than the Church (or maybe other Christian traditions), unless the player would have met this tradition in the game through a previous character himself. I don't want to start with Clerics of Mithras, in other words, but Clerics that fit the original strong "medieval Church" feel of the class in O/AD&D.

As for the powers of characters relating to their authority over the world, the rules of OD&D are pretty clear that there is a relationship between the level of a particular character and his rank within the hierarchy of his order, fief, nation, guild or whatnot. This does not mean that all characters in the world are either fighting men, clerics or magic users, though. I'm actually strongly considering using the Majestic Wilderlands non-Adventuring class. With it NPCs basically still fulfill the idea that there is a relationship between experience, authority and level, but it doesn't have to follow that a character got zillions of spells or hit dice.

On the subject of magic and religion, I've never really run an OD&D/S&W game in a monotheistic Mythic Earth setting. But this is what I've toyed with:

Clerics are miracle-workers affiliated with any Abrahamic monotheistic religion. The standard cleric is very much a soldier-priest like Turpin, or Odo of Bayeux, or the Crusader knightly orders (Templars, Hospitallers, Knights Teutonic, etc.), but some variation of the UA "cloistered cleric" (using the magic-user's HD, weapon and armor selection, and spells/level) nicely covers less militant holy men, like Greek Orthodox hesychasts, Jewish baal shem and Islamic Sufi mystics. Always Lawful.

Druids are followers of the Old Gods of the peoples Rome vanquished, and the Cross converted; the primitive Proto-Indo-European pantheon, in its various incarnations (Germanic, Celtic, Slavic etc.). They are wise men and women who have a spell or two to help the village with the crops and the livestock... as long as they're provided with a suitable occupant for the wicker man. They are also scary as fuck. In my games, they are not supposed to be PCs, either (usually). Always Neutral, and not in a good way.

Magic-Users may claim that their legacy dates back to Rome, or Greece, or Egypt, or even further back. Some say they worship the old gods of Rome, while others speak knowingly of Pythagoras and sacred geometries of old. Still others mumble about hoary Egypt and heretic pharaohs, their apostasies so horrid as to be stricken from any records. A rare few whisper of mysterious empires, sunken beneath the waves and alluded only the vaguest of terms by the ancient philosophers. The wizards themselves are rather tight-lipped on the subject, and have little organization other than a rough hierarchy of personal power and reputation. They usually pay at least lip service to the local religious authorities. Any alignment.

Anti-Clerics. Those are the guys selling their souls to the Dukes of Hell, or to child-burning pre-Islamic gods, or to tentacled monstrosities from beyond space-time, in exchange for power. Inverted cleric spells make great curses. Always Chaotic.

Bear in mind that my take on Alignment uses the Jeff Rients Threefold Apocalyptic Alignment Test conventions.

Very cool stuff, Butcher. I actually think you saved me some time, because that's pretty much in line with what was lurking in the back of my head about the topic.

Also, since Denmark is apart of the rest of the Germanic world in this Magical Medieval Europe, there could still be an active Nordic Pantheon there. By your thinking these could be "Druids", in terms of powers and abilities. Skalds. Hmm. Food for thought.

Reworked the map of the Franc Barrois a little bit:


Le Franc Barrois, 1388 AD (click for larger resolution)

The arms shown at the bottom of this map are, in order, from left to right:

• The Kingdom of France
• Ancerville
• Bar
• Ligny-en-Barrois
• Commercy
• The Duchy of Luxemburg

Benoist it seems like you have everything squared away, but for your consideration, have you read Three Hearts and Three Lions and A Midsummer's Tempest?

HIGHLY recommend them for this scenario.

Quote from: thedungeondelver;384838Benoist it seems like you have everything squared away, but for your consideration, have you read Three Hearts and Three Lions and A Midsummer's Tempest?

HIGHLY recommend them for this scenario.

I'm reading Three Hearts and Three Lions right now, actually.

I don't know A Midsummer's Tempest. Poul Anderson too?

Quote from: Benoist;384842I'm reading Three Hearts and Three Lions right now, actually.

I don't know A Midsummer's Tempest. Poul Anderson too?

Yes.  I highly recommend it for light reading.

Reposting some bits of information shared recently on that thread, for easy reference here:

As you might have noticed, I'm seriously pondering the question [of dual-stating the Magical Medieval France]! OD&D is what I'm basing the whole thing on, even on a purely inspirational point of view. For instance, OD&D mentions exploring the Wilderness and walking by Castles, triggering the Knight of the Castle to basically challenge any fighting man in the party to a Joust to gain rights of passage. That's something incredibly cool and flavorful which I'm going to use in the Eidos of the Magical Medieval France (akin to a Dreamlands or Ethereal plane kind of parallel dimension with which I'm going to use the actual original Outdoor Survival gaming board). I might switch things around a bit and replace Castles with other landmarks (possibly Cromlechs, actually), but the idea's going to be used. If I use RuneQuest for a game later on, the Knights challenging for Jousts will still be there. It's kind of weirdly reminiscent of HeroQuesting in Loskalm or some Hrestoli land, which fits the bill perfectly for me in terms of feel.

I'm really finding out a lot of little synergies like this that really grab me and make me want to run this thing real bad, real fast.

(...) Though in effect, if I'm pushing my logic of picking up a particular system with a particular game group to create the best synergies between setting, rules system and playstyle, I'm probably considering tri, quadri, even more multiple-stating in practice*. OD&D, AD&D, Lejendary Adventures, Rolemaster, Dangerous Journeys, RuneQuest... who knows where this could be going? The thing to me would be to basically embrace the game system, whatever it is for this or that particular campaign, and accept that the world will feel differently. It could create an interesting effect, for instance the fact that in AD&D plundering the depths of the Eurth and such will be part of a normal adventuring life, whereas players using say, Lejendary Adventures to play the game might wish to play other types of adventures. It's interesting to consider in any case, and might make for a richer, prismatic world in the end.

* [Actually, it'd be more like actually stating what's being used with the game being used at the time. I wouldn't just stat stuff for six different game systems all at once. That'd be a ridiculous waste of time. My baseline system is O/AD&D at this point, as previously discussed.]

eventually, my friend, I feel like you'll find a system that actually matches best.
Your setting polyamory will eventually settle down...

Quote from: LordVreeg;413172eventually, my friend, I feel like you'll find a system that actually matches best.
Your setting polyamory will eventually settle down...

As far as the Medieval Eurth is concerned? I agree. The idea is still evolving at this point, along with the larger picture which also involves Praemal and the alternate Earths.

Right now, my cosmology is actually evolving in a way that includes a number of game systems associated with particular settings, with all these settings being part of a wider multiverse. So you have Ptolus using 3.5/Pathfinder, Dunfalcon and AD&D, Aerth and Mythus/DJ, the Medieval Eurth with (probably) my houseruled OD&D, Gamma World and Gamma Terra, etc, all of these and more existing in the same Cosmos.

In parallel, I'd like to run at some point the great D&D campaign, using OD&D, AD&D, 3.5/PF and 4e in different eras of the Praemal history.

I posted some ideas about Praemal and the alternate Earths at one point. Ah, here it is, from the Knights & Knaves (where I was asking for information about Gary's alternate Oerths):

The start of it all for me are the Seven Spires, a D&D 3.5/Arcana Evolved game I ran with friends around here which naturally evolved into my second major campaign, the Praemal Tales (Ptolus), after events basically changed the world forever and created a prison for the Galchutt, supernatural beings or "gods" very reminiscent of the Lovecraftian deities. Praemal is basically a prison plane in which these entities (or parts thereof) are contained.

At some point in the Praemal time line (which at the scale of the multiverse might as well be 'now', 'yesterday' or 'whenever') an event called the Night of Dissolution occurs which basically shifts the balances of power in the world and reopens the prison plane, whether the Galchutt themselves are destroyed, or freed, or altered in some way.

My theory at this point is that the Seven Spires formed a proto-world which became Praemal to allow for a multitude of different materials planes to evolve free of the Galchutt. Praemal is the origin, and the prison in which these horrors remain, while the alternate worlds (including our Earth and its own multitude of parallel timelines and dimensions) evolve on their own.

I would have seven alternate Oerths, to reflect the original seven spires.

Oerth – Alternates include the original canon Greyhawk setting, as well as my Dunfalcon variant.
Earth – Our material plane. Includes more or less supernatural versions of the world (Call of Cthulhu, Paris by Night), as well as alternate timelines.
Ærth – Mythus/Dangerous Journeys, Lejendary Earth.
Ïarth – (Thinking of using the Umlaut instead of 'Y' because it makes me think of "Ïa! Ïa! Cthulhu Fhtagn! Ph'nglui Mglw'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn.") "Yarth has a sprinkling of things magical." I'm thinking of a campaign setting for Essentials D&D right now which would be a completely wrecked material plane with only bits and pieces of land, seas continents floating in the night. This could be a Ïarth alternate.
Uerth – "Dweomers are weak, chancy things." I was thinking maybe of making the Wilderlands of High Fantasy, as well as the Majestic Wilderlands, alternate Uerths.
Eurth – My Mediaeval Eurth. My Gamma World. The Enrill.

The seventh world would be a mystery, another declination I would keep completely under wraps until something happened in my campaigns that would suddenly reveal its nature to me.

Several locales, maybe individuals, may be repeated in variant worlds. Whether these act as anchors between the worlds, as gates, or have any other reason for being is generally unknown, though experts do have different theories on the topic. The Black Abbey (my megadungeon) is one such locales. Here it is outside my window for instance:



This is actually a test to include the Black Abbey in my own Gamma World version of British Columbia (this is the actual view outside my window right now, minus the 'shoped Abbey).

This would also explain how say, Castle Greyhawk, or Rappan Athuk, or other pieces of gaming goodness I use in different settings would pop up all over the multiverse. So... it's brewing. I don't want it to become really set in stone in a scientific kind of way. I'd rather put it in writing at some point in-character, as a theory some NPC formulated, for instance. Much more evocative while leaving a lot more room for further modifications and expansions later on, if need be.

Just a note here to point out that the ideas here evolved greatly since the last time I updated this thread. The setting of the Franc Barrois and the Medieval Eurth around is pretty much the same as described earlier in this thread. There has been a much greater evolution of the concepts explained in the last post here - this one, just before this post here.

This actually led to an entire revision of the entire multiverse all of my games are taking place in. Whether we're talking AD&D, Vampire the Masquerade, INS, Star Wars... it's all the same meta-campaign, in fact.

It would deserve its own thread so this one could be reserved for later updates on the Franc Barrois and Medieval Eurth themselves.

This is a very cool idea Benoist.

Agreed, this is interesting.
I have run a fantasy historical game set after the second Crusade, but nothing to the depths of world and cosmos building you are working on.
Kudos.