The government of Newcomen

Newcomen is an orderly city. The chief official, analogous to a mayor, a duke or a dictator in other cities, is the Magistrate. This position is currently held by "Ironsides" Fairfax, a man known to be scrupulously honest and incorruptible. He has been Magistrate for some years now, having worked his way up through the court system beginning as a simple Pleader, and having taken stints as Judge and Greater Judge. He lets it be known that he does not tolerate association between criminals in what he regards as his city.

The maintenance of law and order in Newcomen is entrusted to a strange organisation known as the Dead Man's Shilling. This secretive organisation, thought by some to predate the city, consists of four hundred men, all utterly dedicated to the Shilling, and is widely known to deal with any attempts at bribery by punishing the bribe-offerer with death, for a first offence. The four hundred Coppers, as they are known, do not speak of the inner mysteries of the Shilling, even with the many apprentices who act as their auxiliaries; they merely assess whether a man has the capacity for loyalty needed to become a Copper. Once a man has taken the Shilling, as the term goes, his sole exit from the brotherhood is by death. It is the proud boast of the Dead Man's Shilling that in all their history, no man has ever deserted. The current leader of the Shilling is their colonel, one "Stoneface" Cromwell, who is held to be humourless and dour, even for a Copper. The Shilling investigates any reports of crime in the city of Newcomen, keeps public order when necessary, and fulfils other functions of a police force. A stipend to the Shilling is paid from the city's coffers, but they are by their own demand independent of the city and free to leave whenever they wish, forfeiting only the payment of their stipend. Even the Magistrate is afraid of the secretive Shilling, but is able to work with them to keep the city orderly.

The ways of Wizards

Magic is a mystery, and disturbs most people. After all, who wouldn't be worried by something so arbitrary? However, the following is pretty clear:

All magicians can make illusions easily. Those are insubstantial, but can be worrying anyway, especially if you can't tell that they're illusions.

Real names are important to sorcerors. They'll never let anyone know their real names, and most people won't risk letting a wizard know their name. Since you can't tell who's a wizard, most people go by nicknames.

A wizard is capable of pretty much anything he wants to do. The only real difference is that a more powerful wizard can do it faster.

All wizards agree that while you can draw power from killing, you shouldn't, because it's extraordinarily harmful morally and besides, there aren't enough people to go around.

For the scared-to-email, and others interested

I'll be at Black Diamond Games on Saturday for their Ding and Dent auction. Feel free to buttonhole me and talk. I'm the one with long hair and a beard.

Just so you can tell which of the many long-haired bearded types I am, look for a fedora-like hat.

The social and gaming contract

At this point, this is fluid. However, these are ground rules:

- I'm happy to host, whether or not I'm GMing. My home does have cats and is non-smoking; drinking is OK but not to the point of impairment, ESPECIALLY if intending to drive. There is limited parking nearby.
- There is no such thing as a lost die. Because I have cats, lost dice are a potential hazard, so any dice that leave the table must be retrieved. I will provide a tray for rolling dice in.
- We have chips and salsa. However, feel free to bring snacks, as long as you're OK with sharing.
- Politics stays away from the gaming table.
- Religion stays away from the gaming table.
- The GM's call is final in the event of rules disputes.
- If the GM's sucking rocks, he should be told.
- The GM is not out to defeat the players, nor are the players trying to beat the GM. We're cooperating in search of fun.
- I try to run rules-light. If the rules get in the way of the players being awesome, said rules will be told to go hang. Think of it as a Neutral Good style of GMing; I'll follow the rules or briefly suspend them as appropriate to make sure you get to do awesome things.
- Role-playing will be rewarded. Minmaxing probably won't.
- The players get to drive the story forward. If you go off chasing something I didn't expect, I'll do my utmost to hook it into the story.
- I like to be surprised.

Suggested reading for this campaign.

Note: none of these are compulsory. They will, however, help in getting a feel of the world and the morality therein.
Glen Cook - the Black Company series. I own Chronicles of the Black Company and The Books of the South. Anyone willing to loan me the Books of Glittering Stone may well find himself getting extra plot hooks and more bennies, because a happy GM is a generous GM. For the same reason, craft beers are always welcome.
Stan Nicholls - Orcs
China Mieville - Perdido Street Station and the Scar

The craft of the dragon hunter

In the depths of winter, among the highest peaks of the fearsome Dragonspine range, the dragons hibernate. The dragon hunter must climb to the frigid heights and find a solitary dragon. The solitary dragons are always fully-grown bull dragons, the most dangerous dragons. The hunter must creep into the dragon's cave and cut its throat with an obsidian knife, as metal is too dull to cut the skin and could spark, which would cause the dragon to catch fire and incinerate them both. He must skin the dragon within hours, as it rapidly gains weight upon dying, and would otherwise be immovable, and must extract the skull within days lest it carry the stink of rot forever. No part of the dragon is edible, but its liver is prized as fertilizer and its mucus as fuel for starting fires.

A dragon hunter who can bring back one skull and one hide each year will be prosperous, as the hide makes the toughest, lightest and most flexible armour known, and the skull may be made into the famed dragonbone tinderboxes, which light in all weathers.

He will also be very lucky to be alive, as dragons sleep uneasily in their winter hibernation. The older a dragon is, the more profit it will bring, but the lighter it will sleep and the worse its temper will be.

The City of Newcomen

Nestled at the highest point of the Pass of Scales, Newcomen grew up around an ancient bastion known as the Cylinder. As the population grew and deposits of coal were discovered in the Dragonspine to the North of the city, the mining camps demanded protection from bandits. This led to the construction of the East Wall and the West Wall, each stretching from the impassable Trollspine walls to the South to the Dragonspine to the North, athwart the Pass. The mining camps, now known as the Carnot, expanded in the newly secured area which became known as the Beam. The Cylinder ceased to be a fortress and became the nucleus of a thriving town, sitting as it did upon the only practical route across the Spine. When rich iron deposits were found outside the Western wall, a new district grew up Southwards of the road to Sage and Grissomdale, known as the Firebox for its smelting.

With the Beam now full of buildings, apart from the large space of the Marketplace East of the Cylinder, and the only suitable land Westwards being the Firebox, the new district known as the Piston began to grow to the East, exploiting the newly discovered coal seams in the Trollspine. The smaller, less convenient coal seams below and North of the Carnot are now abandoned, leaving the residents of the Carnot to scratch a living as best they can.

Newcomen imports almost all its food, paying in refined iron, and exports coal to the city of Stirling, where it is used to smelt the rich copper found there, and traded to Diesel and Wankel. Newcomen also skims a tax from all transactions in the Marketplace, which is the only land-accessible place Wankel, Diesel and Stirling can sell their engines. Southwards of the Cylinder is an airship mooring tower known as the Crank.

Ancient history

The World Unchained

In ancient centuries, in times of legend, arose the Duke and the Duchess to power. With their minions, the Seven who were Slain, they came to dominate the Known World, persisting for centuries, until the Red Sword unseated them and bound the Nine of Legend to an uneasy rest in the Mouth of Darkness.

The Red Sword's faithful companions, the Eighteen, gave their lives willingly to hold the Nine bound. Their names are told:

The Hungry Man and the Heart of Iron were bound to the Duke.
The Man of Twists and Turns and the Golden Hair were bound to the Duchess.
The Lord of the Warcry and the Seafoam were bound to the Drowned Daughter.
The Leaden Amulet and the Broken Strand were bound to the Defiler.
The Elysian Knight and the Lady of Hardship were bound to the Musician.
The Prisoner of Hope and the Bride of Life were bound to Darkhunter.
The Wounded Saint and the Restless Lover were bound to the Wanderer.
The Stone of the South and the Silken Stalker were bound to Cityslayer.
The Hound of Strife and the Penumbral Feather were bound to Burrower.

Thus was peace returned, until the re-passing of the Great Comet, almost forgotten in the five centuries since its last orbit. The Comet portends change, and it came to pass that the researcher into ancient times known as Scrivener found texts from which he extracted, so it is told, the true name of the Duke, and used this to contact the Duke in his imprisonment. None know what truly came to pass, as the Comet dominated the sky, but when it had passed, Scrivener was no more, and the Duke was unbound. Immediately he fled into the scorching deserts of the North, and the watch on the Mouth of Darkness was relaxed once more. Full two hundred years passed before the Duke rode from the North leading an army of the wild men that live in the deep desert, and unbound the Seven. The Duchess, his bride, sleeps still, but the Duke and his Slain retreated again to the North, for near three hundred years, until memory of them was near extinct.

Now, as the Comet brightens in the evening sky, the Duke has returned once more from the North, to conquer Wolfram, the greatest of the Cities of Metal, and make it his capital in what all presume will be his empire.

World map

The shape of the world.

Points to note: this is a Southern hemisphere setting.
Areas around the Mouth of Darkness are dangerous and not entirely real.

Purpose of this blog

This blog exists to act as a repository for setting background and fluff for the World Unchained, my Savage Worlds setting.