Byzan Setting Primer #3: The Byzan Age, a short worldbuilding essay.

 As a scholar (and not of the fabled citadel, but rather privately tutored in the greatest cities of the world, such as Ataphoq, Kheev, the Capitals, and other smaller provincials), I am happy to thank my sponsor, Hestus Gaudreaumar, for funding this history of the Great Empire of the Vosdht, or Byzan to give it the name from their legends. 

There is little worth discussing pre-empire - these were civilizations of savagery, chaos and bloodshed, and most engaged in religious rituals to various dieties that encouraged the cruelest applications of violence. Civilizations that reached only as far as the brutish chieftans could see with their own eyes, and often died with said rulers, as the interregnums would often destroy the land in squabbles by men without vision or intellect. 

There was also the city known as Vulca, and I will not reiterate the legendary poems and stories of its fall, but Vulca was destroyed by the peoples - the Faithless - that lived in what is now called the 'Eastern' Empire, and one of the survivors, Byzan, led a group of survivors to their safe haven. Again, the great tales of their exploits aren't to be repeated here, this is a scholarly work, not a commentary on the Homeland or other works of lesser peoples.

The people named themselves Vosdht, which, as far as I have found, is just an older term for "person", like the slave word "dorf", and found themselves at home near the sea, in a settlement that they called various names, but have since just become "The Capitals".

The Kingdom

We will skip ahead a few hundred years, as not much happened aside from the normal trade, immigration, smaller wars and growth of the Capitals. The Vosdht came into contact with Men and other peoples, adopted rules of law and coinage and began to write down mostly inventories of wealth. There was some art and poetry and such at the time here, but these never got much respect. A good Vosdht served in the military, and then in the Senate, an advisory body of the most important people in the Capitals and worked on their careers, securing positions and honors for their families.

There were kings after Byzan, but as he left no heir, each Byzan king after the last, for eight successions, were weaker and more foolish than the last, and eventually, the Senate overthrew the last King of the Capitals. There was a tradition back then to rename the city to the name of the King each time there was succession, with the exile and eventual death of the last King, the city was renamed to Byzan, but some preferred to just call it the Capitals, as it was really eight settlements that formed one mighty city.

The Republic

The Senate, realizing that the slave populations (mostly Men, some Vosdht) needed a guiding hand, took over rule and inscribed the Law of Byzan into the walls outside of the Senate house, for every citizen that was able to read. This led to many issues with citizens using their right to petition senators about issues, even in the street, and one can imagine how tiresome this became. Due to some minor unrest, the Law of Byzan was removed for a time, and a system of needing to hire educated men to petition the Senate on one's behalf, on days the Senate was in session when the Senate was finished with normal business was implemented. 

Byzan began to expand at this time, coming into contact with various populations. This included the men from what is now known as Ataphoq, and of course, the "dark" Vosdht which resided across in the sea that betrayed Byzan on his journey to found the city that would one day rise up as the greatest Empire that straddled the world. 
"Dark" doesn't mean complexion here, and the ancient sources are conflicted, but it appears "dark" refers to the content of their hearts, being descended from the Faithless who did not follow Byzan to the founding of the Capitals (and the loyalists of the last King of the Capitals, and the Vosdht and men who destroyed the city of Vulca, driven to these acts by Bharraghur, he of the shattered glory, a curse be upon him and the worthless wretches who follow him). This author will refer to them as the "faithless" as it eases confusion in the contemporary reader, for that is what they were, as a people, regardless of their views.

The Vosdht strength of arms was never known for its invulnerability, and the Vosdht taste for putting themselves at risk was always rare, and with the loss of their mighty city, Byzan sought out an alternate source to secure the security of his civilization, and so, they discovered the means to create the Towers. 

The Byzan Tower, more than its Legions, almost as much as the Dwarfs, almost as much as the Forges - this was how the Empire has grown it's heights. The primary function of the Tower is to allow the casting of larger spells - before the tower, casting Spells of particular strength would often kill the magic-user, and there are many tales of the heroes of the Republic who gave their lives to protect their peoples - and with the Tower, the ability to harness Spells, of ever greater power, became easier. 

Then Charting was discovered. There are commentaries and treatisies on it repeated as nauseum, so they do not need to be repeated here, but the Charting - the ability to break the domain of Rhea and simply arrange it as needed - this allowed Byzan to defend themselves when necessary. With this, the Klaue peninsula was conquered with the establishment of a few Towers. 

Then the Faithless War began.

The Faithless War

The Faithless did not abide the growth of Byzan as a power without envy, but lacked the abilities of Byzan's greatest mages(or any skill beyond sailing and building vessels for such) but as an ocean separated Byzan from the Rend, the war was more traditional than some, as the Faithless understood the dangers of allowing a Tower to be built due work of spies, which should prove a precautionary tale to letting plebians be involved in the construction of military assets! Byzan won its first naval war at great cost, and the faithless, led by a Vosdht whose name is lost to history, known only as the Wretch, led an army through the Upper Klaue mountains from lands to the east, swarming into Byzan lands, capturing and destroying the North Tower, its mages turned to the cause of the Wretch by bribes and sorcery. This sneak attack was headed off by Scipio, but on the eve of Battle, the course of history was set by the discovery of the Dorfngir - the Dwarves.

Tradition holds that as Scipio's scouts were exploring the passes, they encountered a strange, stunted race that appeared to live inside of the Klaue mountains. They wore the "shells of bugs", spoke an odd, halting language which sounded like 'grunted poetry' but were generally amenable to offers of food, wine. They had never heard of Byzan, any of its peoples, gods, or anything else - literally living under a rock. They mostly just referred to having come from a destroyed kingdom long ago, which had many of the Vosdht in attendance agree they had come through a "stranger path" from the ruins of Vulca - despite the odd appearances, the Vosdht found the little creatures (called affectionately, the Basht-Vosdht - the little rock people) incredibly helpful - providing impressive industry, turning small bases into forts and wanting little reward but to be left alone and settle underneath them. The smaller paths and roads built by Vosdht soon became highways and arteries of traffic, all maintenance handled by the Dwarves - who again, wanted little but to settle in hills and underground in their towns called Khargir. Never has a single client people simply fit so neatly into the Empire's destiny like the Dwarves - and it is by their unceasing subservience that the retributions against the towns and allies of the Faithless the practice of slave-taking was increased to its modern equivalent. 

The faithless lost the war. There were some battles, but the roads and towns and walls built with dwarven labor gave the Vosdht a feeling of sheer invincibility. There was, eventually, temples built to the apparent "god" of these works - GirDaga, and the occasional merchant will still toss a coin at a shrine they pass by as a thanks for these incredible works - built with dwarven hands, sure, but with Vosdht direction and vision. 

The Faithless towns that did not surrender were destroyed, inhabitants sold into slavery, riches taken, and of course, their home city was destroyed. While defeated in battle easily with a simple strategy, it was deemed necessary to erase the name of the Faithless - a charting was done to the surrendering city, and its inhabitants were cursed into warped forms, their "Vosdht-ness" erased from their "spirit", forced to wander as mindless beasts, driven to the far north to die there. It is true their leaders did one day swear an oath to return and destroy Byzan in it's entirety but every writer from the period agrees these primitive sub-Vosdht provided no serious threat at would never in the future. 

Empire

There's not a Vosdht of any worth who hasn't read the Commentaries on the Lodge War, so there's no need to repeat it here. A brief summary - some decades after the Faithless War - a fairly short war all told, a descendant of Scipio - Scipio Khulmar - would make war on the various Lodges from the North of the Klaue mountain regions. These Men would be conquered in turn, divided as they were, and integrated into the system. With immense wealth, and a massive army loyal to him, Scipio Khulmar invaded the Capitals - and again, more details of this can be found in the Commentaries on the Vosdht War, so the details need not be repeated here. 

With a real leader in charge, the Republic was transformed into the highly efficient Byzan Empire and many issues were able to be resolved quickly with a single strong ruler, which was dubbed "Khulmar", the 'mar' becoming a term used for "master of" and the Khul meaning 'lesser/junior peoples'. 

The Forges

The Byzan did not inherit a compliant world, with the exception of the Dwarves. There were various difficulties in keeping the populations pacified, and many Vosdht had zero interest in having to put down constant rebellions - Charting was becoming increasingly difficult to do and more costly to Byzan, and so the Byzan showed true innovation - the need to have the Empire be a machine that could be directed to and forgotten - imagine if you will, an Empire that functions like the Dwarves - simply present a problem to it, and have it resolved the way you expect without much need for oversight. This was the presiding goal of every Khulmar.

To this, orders of skilled intelligent individuals, including those from slave-races like Men were brought in to fix the problem, and find ways to keep the machine of Empire moving along without needing input from Vosdht leadership or labor. These orders were given enormous resources and places to research how to achieve this (and other ends, however, I am just one Voshdt and the Imperial Family keeps things close to their chest). These facilities were called the Forges, and they were a proud reminder of Imperial wealth and privilege.

The Forge-Curse

[REDACTED THROUGH ORDER OF THE IMPERIAL PRESERVATION PROJECT. ALL COPIES OF THIS VOLUME ARE TO BE CONFISCATED AND BURNED]

ARCHIVIST'S NOTE: WHILE THE AUTHOR WAS GENERALLY KNOWN FOR HIS PATRONAGE FROM THE IMPERIAL FAMILY, MUCH OF THIS VOLUME IS LIKELY UP FOR DEBATE. COPIES SHOULD BE NUMBERED AND DISTRIBUTION TRACKED. TRANSLATIONS INTO BYZAN-COMMON SHOULD BE ONLY TAKEN WITH CARE. HOWEVER, THIS WORK IS NOT AS DANGEROUS TO THE GOALS OF IMPERIAL PRESERVATION AS SOME HISTORIANS ARE - WITH SOME EDITS IT SHOULD BE FINE AS BASIC LEARNING MATERIAL.

One- Round Combat Playtest report!

The first playtest has been completed. And here are the notes for how it works. Please see the previous post, but a quick recap is as follows:

The game is #OTC, or One-Turn-Combat, or OTCrpg, and honestly, bolting in the combat resolution mechanics from WHFB into another game ended up being a pretty good idea.

Scenario-wise the game we ran was actually "The Trial" from Heroquest, complete with a double-sized hallway map and a very small, hireling-free party. The roleplaying was decent(they had this whole lore thing with the two characters that rolled up background that don't start with shit weapons were prisoners who were fighting to gain freedom) and they generally acclimated to the concept well. They still played as tactical, looked through keyholes, etc. I picked the heroquest map(it was altered to double the size of the outer and inner hallways, so they could "rank up" without having to worry too much re: flanks. It also has stuff like weapons racks and an altar with a magic book which gave me a cheap excuse to attempt some of the other mechanics - players learned really quick that having better weapons/armor is good.

They liked the mechanic of the turnover - and I do think that the Turnover mechanic helps break up the meta that dominates the B/X-ish/adjacent dungeon game - said meta is hiring as many hirelings as humanly possible and winning in sheer numbers - but hirelings in Aketon and more importantly, OTCrpg don't really guarantee amazing results with the turnover. It's less about having lots of attacks and being able to throw as much combat dice as possible and more focusing on having quality combat dice, because enemies having a free-counter attack means you want to be careful.

It also had some niggling bits here and there - from this point on I won't be adding wounds that get removed every round but kills remain, instead we have a thing called Doom, which just sounds nicer than "points" and it was much easier. All Doom is removed after combat resolution(and I made some notes to experiment with having certain things cause Doom is be carried over, like poison or magical curses or amputations and such). 

All of them liked the concept of the banner, and there was a lot of questions about cheesing the system, like if there's one guy in the "front" and the rest are in the "back" and we concluded that while that means your ability to deal hits is quite limited(unless you're absolutely stacked to the gills in plate, at which point enemy turnovers are common), it's very badass to hold back the line yourself, and should count as a banner bonus. 
There wasn't much chance to test bard mechanics, even though I honestly believe their Tale Worth Telling ability is extremely useful - the ability to grant levels outside of kills and break ties is really good. 

Otherwise, the general conclusion is that the system needs work, it's got the ghost of a good idea in there, and with further testing has a good chance to speed up games in a way that's tactically interesting and fun.

Next game will be Sailors on the Starless Sea, a combat and trap-heavy affair which from my reading will provide made opportunities to fix this up nicely. This may or may not be after the game on April, but one way or another, the system must be tested with larger enemies and the terrible opportunity for attacks on the side and rear! May Byzan never fall! 

- Klang