[Legend] The Order of Phalanos

[rust]

The neighbouring threads about organizations for the Legend RPG reminded

me of an old project of mine, a crossover between fantasy and science fic-

tion about a kind of "magical space research program". My original notes we-

re for the Harnmaster system, but it does not seem difficult to "translate"

the basic idea into the Legend system.

The description of the Order of Phalanos below includes only the "bare bo-

nes" of the idea, because I was too lazy to try to translate more, but I

think it gives an impression of the concept. Some parts are still missing,

especially the order's specific magic (I do not know the Legend RPG well

enough to design them) and the alchemical and magical items of the order

(I have not yet found out how alchemy and item creation work in the Le-

gend RPG).

The Order of Phalanos

The Order of Phalanos is a small society of scholars and sorcerers dedicated to

the exploration of the strange world beyond the ancient Gate of Phalanos disco-

vered by the sorcerer Mirdan of Thole.

The order began as a small circle of Mirdan's friends who shared his fascination

with the gate and the strange place it led to. When Mirdan failed to return from

one of his visits to Phalanos, his daughter Anryn took the lead of the circle, first

with the aim to find and rescue her father, and later to continue and expand his

studies of Phalanos.

The silver left behind by her father and contributions from the members of the

circle enabled Anryn to buy a small rural manor as her new order's base, where

she moved her father's library as well as the ancient Gate, which is now set into

the wall of a room in the manor's basement, from where it leads to the order's

small outpost on Phalanos.

Most of the order's members still live at the nearby towns, but they meet at the

manor ar least once per month to prepare their voyages to Phalanos, to use the

Gate and to record and discuss the new knowledge gained on Phalanos.

All of the members of the order contribute to the order's finances, and Anryn oc-

casionally sells some of the strange gemstones found on Phalanos to pay for ur-

gently needed equipment, knowledge or services.

The Members and Missions

Most of the order's members are scholars or sorcerers, but there are also some

alchemists, craftsmen, engineers and explorers among the members. While the

order has no ranks, Anryn of Thole is the respected and undisputed leader, and

there is an unwritten seniority based upon a member's number of visits to Pha-

lanos.

The order occasionally hires outsiders for various tasks, usually for missions to

aquire some rare ingredient or uncommon knowledge urgently needed for the

development of a spell, item or mechanism. Trusted friends of the order are so-

metimes asked to take part in a voyage to Phalanos when there is a need for their

rare skills there, and after some such voyages they may even be asked to become

members of the order.

The Order's Magic

Phalanos is a cold world of deserts of sand and rock and high mountain ranges,

with a poisonous air and very little water. The members of the order need magic

to visit and explore it, and over the years they have accumulated a grimoire of

the most common and useful spells of Common Magic and Sorcery, which can

also be learned by new members of the order.

The first sorcery spell learned is always Abjure (Air), other often used spells in-

clude Fly, Project (Sight) and Teleport.

- list of other and more specific spells developed and used by the order

- description of magic items developed and used by the order

The Order's Skills

The order teaches its members the skills required to visit Phalanos and explore

it, especially Craft (Cartographer) and Lore (Phalanos), and helps the members

to improve their magical skills Manipulation and Sorcery (Phalanos Grimoire).

- additional skills taught by the order

Well, this is what I have at the moment about my little "Magicians to Mars" idea.

Comments and ideas are as always most welcome.

Edited February 3, 2012 by rust

[RosenMcStern]

Quite a good idea, and very easy to develop. I think you might find several pieces of inspiration in Carcosa and other supplements for Lamentations of the Flame Princess, apart from the obvious references to JC of Mars, and Adamant Entertainment's "Mars" series for Savage Worlds.

[rust]

Thank you very much, I will take a look at the material.

Meanwhile I have found the rules for alchemy and the creation of magic

items in the MRQ II Arms and Equipment supplement, so I will perhaps

be able to design and post some spells, alchemical substances and ma-

gic items for the setting.

[rust]

A few more thoughts ...

Since the "adventuring magic" is already well covered in MRQ II and Legend,

I will first take a closer look at the kind of spells and items the members of

the order will need to visit Phalanos, to explore it and to gain new knowled-

ge about it - the things done with technology in a science fiction setting.

The necessary "survival" spells (providing air and warmth) and "travel" spells

(like Fly and Teleport) do already exist, I only have to design the correspon-

ding magic items. Legend does not use permanently active items, they work

only for a specific rather short duration and then need considerable time to

"reload", so I will have to find some combination of spells and items for those

"survival" spells to keep the explorers alive for more than an hour.The "travel"

spells do not have this problem, there the aim is to make it possible to use

them often with little effort.

The "scholarly" spells are a more complex problem, because I first have to

decide which questions a scholar would want to have answered, and which

methods he would normally use to find the answers.

The obvious things he probably would want to know are the location of Pha-

lanos (is it near Earth or far away ?), the form and size of Phalanos (is it a

sphere, and what is its diameter ?), the length of its year, and so on.

Magic should help him to find the answers, but it should not provide instant

answers, so I will have to do a little research on medieval scientific methods

to figure out how magic could make the process easier without making it too

easy.

Other things I am working on (very slowly) are the world Phalanos itself and

the order's "home base". For the latter I will use a version of Ars Magica's My-

thic Europe, it covers the right time period and seems to have all the informa-

tions I need, especially in its nice supplements like Covenants, City and Guild

or Art and Academe.

And then there is the more interesting "adventuring" part, from the rules for ex-

ploration (JBE's "Book of the River Nations - Exploration and Kingdom Building"

supplement seems to have good ideas I could "borrow") to the actual adventu-

res ...

[rust]

Meanwhile I have decided about the time and location of the setting, the

Order of Phalanos campaign will start in 1220 near the city of Metz on the

border between France and Germany. This will allow me to use the materi-

al from some of the historical Alephtar Games supplements, too, especially

from Stupor Mundi.

As for spells and magic items, a new type of Sorcery spell for this setting

will be Create (Substance or Condition), for example Create (Air) and Cre-

ate (Warmth), because these are the things required for the exploration

of the world Phalanos. The only "scholarly" spell I have designed so far is

"Perfect Recall", it enables the sorcerer to perfectly remember something

he has seen (like a page in a book or a constellation of stars in the sky)

- the magical equivalent of a digital camera.

I am still not very familiar with the Legend RPG, and there are some sys-

tems I still have to find (or to houserule, if they really are not there), es-

pecially rules for the research and development of new magic spells.

[dmccoy1693]

Very nice rust. I liked it a lot.

[rust]

Thank you vey much.

By the way, this is a first draft of what the world Phalanos will look

like, somewhat similar to Mars, but almost all of this will of course be

unknown to the characters - which enables me to add details as the

characters discover them.

[rust]

As for the adventures for this setting, I think it would be the best

approach to switch between adventures at the seat of the order

(e.g. conflicts with the church because of suspected heresy ...),

adventures beyond the gate on the world Phalanos (mostly explo-

ration adventures with environmental challenges) and missions to

various parts of the setting's version of Europe.

An example for the latter kind of adventure could be a diplomatic

mission to the court of Emperor Frederick II in southern Italy in

order to contact one of the Arab scholars who live there as the

Emperor's guests and to gain his permission to copy some of his

texts on astronomy and physics. This could be one of the excel-

lent Arab star charts, which the order wants to compare the con-

stellations of Phalanos' night sky with the known constellations

of the Earth's night sky, in an attempt to determine where Phala-

nos is in relation to Earth.