Dark Era – Medi Evil Nights 1463
This is just a collection of ideas and thoughts for the home brew game I have been toying with for the last 12 or so years. The game went through a ton of system changes, until a friend showed me Eclipse. Dark Era now uses Eclipse as a character building system, with some adjustments, and a modified d20 rule system.
The era of 1463 is based on real world history and played in and around Germany and Europe in that year. Notable changes from ‘fantasy D&D’ are that there are no fantasy races. Players are human, 99% of their foes will be human as well. Secondly, there is no arcane styled magic. None at all. And thirdly, Divine magic is very different.
General system changes are similar to those in Star Wars the Saga Edition.
There is no Armour Class, instead you have three defences – Reflexes, Fortitude and Willpower. You still have hit points as well.
Any attack that deals damage in excess of your Strength score drops the score by 1. When your strength score reaches 0, you are knocked unconscious. If both your hit points and your Strength are reduced to 0, you die.
Alchemy
Alchemy replaces the standard wizard, but roleplaying wise they are almost equal in respect, awe and fear. Only the most intelligent of humans dare to become alchemists, for a failed alchemy check could destroy the character.
Alchemy is essentially a specialised form of magic and bought in Eclipse much like magic progressions are. You have a limited number of alchemical recipes when you start play, and can make a certain amount each hour of preparation – provided you have the ingredients. Unlike normal magic however, an alchemist can make as many items as he can and hand them out to his companions. Some of his potions will last for months, some however may only last a day depending on the formulae and the ingredients used.
Alchemists also need the bare basics of goods, and each player alchemist has this as part of his character. Other characters who become alchemists later on need to buy the basic alchemy kit – this is essentially a bag with pouches and pockets for ingredients, flasks, beakers, burners and the like.
Failing and alchemy check could have detrimental effects, some causing damage and some making loud explosions. Doing alchemy in an inn, and failing, can adversely affect your reputation in that city or even have you hunted down. Be warned and tread carefully.
Divine Magic
Divine Magic is different. Priests, friars, monks and the like do not pray to a god in the normal sense of the word. They do pray to God as there is only one and the primary religion of the era is Catholic. Priests pray to a varied collection of Saints, each who may give the priest a spell effect or special ability depending on what the saint covers. Divine magic also uses Faith Points that all characters have (heroes and sometimes really important npc’s or bad guys). Faith Points are used when praying to Saints and can also be used by any character to get ‘lucky’ on a dice roll or check. In fact any character can pray to a known Saint, but the priest is the specialist and most devout in this and while the party’s soldier might pray in desperation, he might be successful too, but will probably only be able to do so once. The Priest can do so multiple times across a day, and the more experienced he is the more he can use his divine magic.
Experience and Levels
Both of these are effectively meaningless in Dark Era. Player Characters improve by spending character points which might be called Experience Points in the game, and they are awarded those for several things. Roleplaying, defeating enemies are the main sources of Character Points. Character usually only get these points at a time when the characters can “breath” usually referred to as down time. During this time the player can spend the points as per the character’s “theme” or concept. Soldiers for example will spend points on attack bonuses and defences. Thief types will most likely improve their skills. Priests will spend the points improving Religion, Faith Points, and learning new Saints etc and same with Alchemists.
While in the game all characters can buy new equipment and Alchemists can buy new formulae etc, Alchemists and Priests need to spend CP (or XP) on them to learn them.
More from me later 
The calling on Saints’ names for magic-effects is a great idea. Lots of fun to be had with that. Could even use a list of real saints if that kind of thing doesn’t bother you.
Thanks Runjikol.
The whole idea for the game came back when I used to play a PC game called Dark Lands.
More info here http://www.darklands.net/
A thought of how they may work is something simial to Rune Casting in Eclipse…
Where the “saint mastery” will be a single skill covering all Saints – this determines your effective Caster Level and you buy each “Saint Casting” skill seperately per saint.
You can then attempt to create varied effects based on what your Saint’s Domain is so to speak.
EG, Saint Elmo was the patron saint of sailors and fire.
So you could invoke him to grant water breathing, or to throw a fireball
That is my current line of thinking….
That’s where my thoughts were taking me about this. The saint sets the flavour of the thematic magic. So Saint Francis, might be animal control and levitation, etc. In DnD speak the saint sets the domains that the priest has access to.