Ask Me Anything About "Sundara: Dawn of a New Age" (Seriously, Please Do!)

As regular readers know, I've been putting out splat books for my Sundara: Dawn of a New Age fantasy RPG setting for more than a year now. Compatible with both Pathfinder Classic and Dungeons and Dragons 5th Edition, the idea was to make a fantasy setting that gets back to basics, but then goes off in unexpected directions, while also standing certain givens of fantasy RPGs on their head. From eliminating alignment, to making gods multi-faceted and beyond the true understanding of mortals, to making a setting that foregoes nations as we know them in favor of towns, villages, and city states, Sundara feels familiar while still being an utterly new and unique place to play.

The setting is still fresh and growing, though, which is why I figured it was a good time to open the doors, and to start taking questions from the readers out there so I could get an idea of which areas folks wanted to see fleshed out more in-depth going forward!

Seriously, come take a look around!

Before we get into the nitty gritty this week, don't forget to sign up for my weekly newsletter to get all my updates right in your inbox. Also, if you've got a bit of spare cash that you'd like to use to help keep the wheels turning, consider becoming a Patreon patron!

Lastly, to be sure you're following all of my followables, check out my LinkTree!

Got Curiosities? Well, Ask Away!

As I mentioned in my most recent Speaking of Sundara video over on the Azukail Games YouTube channel (which you should totally go subscribe to so I can try to make bigger, longer, and more involved videos going forward), I recently hit a kind of end of Phase 1 release for Sundara. From the initial Cities of Sundara books, into Gods of Sundara, and then through Species of Sundara, I laid the ground work for locations, magic and the divine, and talked about how a lot of the available fantastical creatures work. And that all came full circle with Towns of Sundara, which provided a sampling of 10 towns complete with maps, histories, notable locations, named NPCs, and potential plot hooks for Game Masters to use as seeds for side quests.

As I mentioned in the video at the time, I've got some plans for what I want to do with Sundara going forward. I want to focus more on organizations, like I did with Sellswords of Sundara (for both Pathfinder and DND 5E) where I put together 10 different mercenary companies in the setting and used them to build stories and lore while also giving players and GMs some mechanical toys to play with. I'm thinking about cults, merchants, and guilds, just to start off with.

However, I also want to take a moment to bend an ear to those who are actually checking out the setting. That is where you all come in!

For an upcoming Speaking of Sundara video I want to address any questions, curiosities, or suggestions people in my audience have. Whether you're wondering about what kinds of governments exist across the setting, what weird kinds of technology are going to be added in the future, the plans I have for any of the existing cities that have come out, or a question you've been wondering about for a while now, I want you to ask it!

Where? Well, to ensure that I see it try to direct your questions to these spaces:

- In the comment section of this blog post

- In the comment section of Speaking of Sundara: How It All Got Started

- Sent directly to me via the contact widget on this blog

- Left in the comment section on social media where I share this blog post

My hope is that over the next week or so I can collect enough genuine inquiries from folks that I can put together a decent video to address your questions, and perhaps to get some idea of what players and Game Masters alike want to see from Sundara as it develops.

So don't be shy! If you've got a question, fire away.

Why Not Take a Closer Look For Yourself?

If this is the first time you've come across my Sundara setting, and you're not sure what it's all about, consider checking out the supplements below! Also, don't forget to stop by the Azukail Games YouTube channel where I've talked about the setting at length, in addition to presenting some short audio dramas (like the one below) set in the world of Sundara!

Cities of Sundara

The setting first began with the Cities of Sundara splats. Self-contained guides to some of the larger and more powerful centers of trade, industry, arms, and magic, these unique locations provide plenty of fodder for character generation and plots. Not only that, but each one comes with unique, mechanical goodies for players and GMs alike to take out for a spin!

- Ironfire: The City of Steel (Pathfinder and DND 5E): Built around the Dragon Forge, Ironfire is where the secret to dragon steel was first cracked. The center of the mercenary trade in the region, as well as boasting some of the finest schools for teaching practical sciences, Ironfire is a place where discovery and danger walk hand in hand!

- Moüd: The City of Bones (Pathfinder and DND 5E): An ancient center of trade and magic, Moüd was lost to a cataclysm, and then buried in myth. Reclaimed by the necromantic arts of the Silver Wraiths guild, this city has once again become a place teeming with life. Despite the burgeoning population, though, it is the continued presence of the undead that helps keep the city running, ensuring that Moüd is not swallowed up once more.

- Silkgift: The City of Sails (Pathfinder and DND 5E): Built on the cottage industry of Archer cloth (an extremely durable material used for sails, windmills, etc.), Silkgift is a place that prizes invention and discovery. From gravity batteries that store the potential of the wind, to unique irrigation systems, to aether weapons, the city positively churns out discoveries... and then there's the canal they cut through the mountains that makes them a major center of trade across the region.

- Hoardreach: The City of Wyrms (Pathfinder and DND 5E): A center of power across an entire region, Hoardreach is ruled over by a Cooperation of five different dragons. A place for refugees and outcasts of all sorts, Hoardreach boasts some of the most unusual citizens and creations from across Sundara. Infamous for their sky ships, which require the cast-off scales and unique arcane sciences of the Dragon Works to take to the air, one never knows just what they'll find in this city built atop a mountain.

- Archbliss: The City of The Sorcerers (Pathfinder and DND 5E): A floating city in the sky, Archbliss has been a refuge for sorcerers for thousands of years. It's only in relatively recent years that the city has allowed those from the ground below who lack the power of a bloodline to join them in the clouds. However, while there are certainly amazing wonders to behold, there is a darkness in Archbliss. Something rotting away at its heart that could, if not healed, bring the city crashing to the ground once more.

Gods of Sundara

- Gods of Sundara (available for Pathfinder and DND 5E): In a world with no alignment, and where the gods are often genuinely mysterious forces that are far too large for mortals to truly comprehend, the divine feels genuinely strange and unknown... something that really does have to be taken on faith. This supplement provides a sample pantheon for Sundara, but also provides instructions on how to easily make your own gods in a world where you can't cast a spell and tell whether someone is good or evil.

Species of Sundara

Sundara is filled with creatures that many of us recognize, but I wanted to give greater depth to their cultures, and a wider variety of options. After all, humans always get 15+ ethnicities, languages, and unique histories, while elves, dwarves, orcs, halflings, etc. are almost always left with footnotes, or maybe with a handful of offshoots. So, in short, I wanted to give all the fantastical creatures the treatment that humans usually get in our games.

And there is no human book yet. If readers demand to know more, then I may sit down to pen one... but I figured that humans didn't need to be front-and-center in this setting just yet.

- Elves of Sundara (Pathfinder and DND 5E): Elves are one of the most quintessential fantasy creatures... but if you want to see more than just high elves, wood elves, and elves of the sun and moon, then this supplement has you covered!

- Dwarves of Sundara (Pathfinder and DND 5E): The children of the primordial giants who were meant to fill in the details of the world they'd made (or so the myths say) there are as many kinds of dwarves as their are kinds of giants... and possibly more, depending on who is keeping count.

- Orcs of Sundara (Pathfinder and DND 5E): Supposedly a creation of the elves, none can say for certain exactly how or why orcs have been made. What most agree on is that these creatures are far more than most may think at first glance.

- Halflings of Sundara (Pathfinder and DND 5E): Little cousins to the dwarves, halflings are tough, clever, and not to be underestimated. From living beneath the hills, to taking up residence in the deep forests, halflings in Sundara come in quite a variety!

- The Blooded (Half-Elves and Half-Orcs) [Pathfinder and DND 5E]: When orcs and elves mix their bloodlines with other creatures, the result is one of the Blooded. This inheritance takes many forms, and it can even wait generations before manifesting when the right combination of individuals come together to have a child.

- Gnomes of Sundara (Pathfinder and DND 5E): Gnomes are strange creatures, found in places where the spirit of the land has coalesced and made children of its own. The sons and daughters of the ancient nymphs, they are the stewards of these places, and they change as often as the weather and the land.

Like, Follow, and Stay in Touch!

That's all for this week's Moon Pope Monday. To stay on top of all my content and releases, make sure you subscribe to my newsletter at the bottom of the page!

Again, for more of my work, check out my Vocal archive, and stop by the YouTube channel Dungeon Keeper Radio. Or if you'd prefer to read some of my books, like my cat noir thriller Marked Territory, its sequel Painted Cats, my sword and sorcery novel Crier's Knife or my latest short story collection The Rejects, then head over to My Amazon Author Page!

To stay on top of all my latest releases, follow me on Facebook, Tumblr, Twitter, and now Pinterest as well! To support my work, consider Buying Me a Ko-Fi, or heading to The Literary Mercenary's Patreon page to become a regular, monthly patron. That one helps ensure you get more Improved Initiative, and it means you'll get my regular, monthly giveaways as a bonus!

Why Are So Many Settings Post-Apocalyptic?

Folks who've been following my expansions for Sundara: Dawn of a New Age have noted several things about my setting that seem to buck the trend for a lot of other worlds we play in. For example, I'm doing everything I can to eliminate the idea of non-human characters all being part of religious and cultural monoliths by introducing a wider variety of cultures, physical adaptations, and faiths into the world. I'm foregoing the idea of national and even racial identities (which are surprisingly modern constructs), and focusing more on localities, clans, tribes, and a world in the smaller-scale. I'm including a lot of unique "period" technology, ranging from the dragon steel of Ironfire (a version of pattern-welded "Damascus" steel), to the wind catchers used for air conditioning in the towers of Silkgift.

But I realized something else that I did without even thinking about it, specifically because it's confused a lot of players used to traditional settings who are reviewing Sundara; namely they're under the impression that this is a young world, or that folks are playing during the golden age of this setting.

Young world? Not so much...

While several of the cities I've written guides for are only a hundred to a few hundred years old, Sundara is by no means a young world. Folks who checked out Archbliss: City of The Sorcerers (for either Pathfinder Classic or DND 5E) have seen that this floating city has been going strong for millennia. Moüd, pictured above, has only been recently re-inhabited, because the city was abandoned centuries ago due to a catastrophe that took an entire guild of modern necromancers to get under control until the place was habitable again. The cultures being released in my Species of Sundara books (particularly the ones for the elves and the dwarves) didn't just appear overnight; that kind of development takes a long time.

The longer I thought about what is giving this impression, though, the more I realized there's another relic of Tolkien's famous tales that made its way into our games without us really remarking on it. Because almost every setting I've ever played in has been a post-apocalyptic setting, or one that's in the middle of a Dark Age... and that's something I just didn't want to do when it was time to make my own world.

As always, subscribe to my weekly newsletter if you want to stay on top of all my releases. And if you want to help me keep this blog going, consider becoming a Patreon patron today!

And The World Fell Under a Shadow (Every Time)

One of the central themes of Tolkien's Lord of The Rings is that the world is in a dark place. Men have grown weaker and weaker, and amazing places and peoples have fallen into ruin, or been utterly forgotten. There is corruption everywhere, and the world is slowly approaching its last gasps. There are still some pinpricks of light where elder races preserve relics from the days of glory, but it is a dank, dreary, deadly world that has entered a twilight... basically a slightly more hopeful version of Dark Souls if you read between the lines.

And this is the same model so many, many RPG settings follow. All you need to do is look at the loot you find, and where you find it. It's why the Older is Better trope reigns supreme in so many of our games (I wrote more about that in Older is Better: A Trope That's Become a Reflex For Many Writers for those who need more details).

I didn't really intend to become the new standard, you know.

Because while most of us don't think of Middle Earth, Golarion, and other settings as post-apocalyptic (since we associate that with stuff like Mad Max, The Road, and zombie movies), most of them are. And if they didn't go full apocalypse (which Golarion has done half a dozen times according to the timeline), the game tends to be in a dark age. Old knowledge and techniques have been lost, relics of the past are rare but superior, and people are always trying to build back to where they were once more.

I didn't really stop to think about it, but Sundara does exist in opposition to this setup. Because the world isn't new. It isn't in some golden age. There have been catastrophes that have destroyed cities and altered regions in the past. There have been wars, and coups, and all the other growing pains of civilizations. But the purpose of the setting (and the themes of many of the cities I've released for it so far) is about progress. It's about moving forward, using the resources that exist to overcome trials and challenges. It's about invention and creation, rather than about looking backward to try to recreate the world as it was.

There are plenty of secrets, ruins, relics, and more scattered throughout the map, but what is just as common is that for every old way of doing something, there's a new way to improve on the process. A way to make it faster, stronger, better that represents a step forward in thinking, or in solving new problems... or solving the old problems that previous generations ignored, for those who read the secrets of what's going on in places like Moüd: City of Bones.

A Difference in Attitude

The more I thought about this, the more I wondered how deeply it affects our story desires, setting expectations, and even attitude as players and Game Masters. About how much of the "no guns in my fantasy" or "you can't make new magic items, only find lost and forgotten ones" attitudes are influenced specifically by this foundation. Wondering whether or not part of the restrictive attitudes a lot of games have is because it's baked into the setting that invention, progress, attempts to forge new paths are not what this world is about.

We aren't here to rebuild and move on, to become better than we were. Instead, we're just trying to survive in the shadow of lost glory.

Just some food for thought this week, and a request that all of us take a look inside and ask what we're trying to do with our games. As always, there's no right or wrong way to do this, and you should pursue the kind of games you want, and that are fun for you... but it's important to look at those games with a critical eye, and to break down the elements involved so you can recognize them for what they are.

If You Haven't Checked Out My Setting Yet...

For folks who are curious as to what a setting that's looking forward and trying to build a better tomorrow looks like, particularly in comparison to the more traditional settings we have where the world seems to be crumbling and civilization is just trying to hold on, consider checking out some of the releases I've put out so far!

- Ironfire: The City of Steel (Pathfinder and 5E): Built around the Dragon Forge, Ironfire is where the secret to dragon steel was first cracked. The center of the mercenary trade in the region, as well as boasting some of the finest schools for teaching practical sciences, Ironfire is a place where discovery and danger walk hand in hand!

- Moüd: The City of Bones (Pathfinder and 5E): An ancient center of trade and magic, Moüd was lost to a cataclysm, and then buried in myth. Reclaimed by the necromantic arts of the Silver Wraiths guild, this city has once again become a place teeming with life. Despite the burgeoning population, though, it is the continued presence of the undead that helps keep the city running, ensuring that Moüd is not swallowed up once more.

- Silkgift: The City of Sails (Pathfinder and 5E): Built on the cottage industry of Archer cloth (an extremely durable material used for sails, windmills, etc.), Silkgift is a place that prizes invention and discovery. From gravity batteries that store the potential of the wind, to unique irrigation systems, to aether weapons, the city positively churns out discoveries... and then there's the canal they cut through the mountains that makes them a major center of trade across the region.

- Hoardreach: The City of Wyrms (Pathfinder and 5E): A center of power across an entire region, Hoardreach is ruled over by a Cooperation of five different dragons. A place for refugees and outcasts of all sorts, Hoardreach boasts some of the most unusual citizens and creations from across Sundara. Infamous for their sky ships, which require the cast-off scales and unique arcane sciences of the Dragon Works to take to the air, one never knows just what they'll find in this city built atop a mountain.

- Archbliss: The City of The Sorcerers (Pathfinder and 5E): A floating city in the sky, Archbliss has been a refuge for sorcerers for thousands of years. It's only in relatively recent years that the city has allowed those from the ground below who lack the power of a bloodline to join them in the clouds. However, while there are certainly amazing wonders to behold, there is a darkness in Archbliss. Something rotting away at its heart that could, if not healed, bring the city crashing to the ground once more.

- Gods of Sundara (available for Pathfinder and DND 5E): In a world with no alignment, and where the gods are often genuinely mysterious forces that are far too large for mortals to truly comprehend, the divine feels genuinely strange and unknown... something that really does have to be taken on faith. This supplement provides a sample pantheon for Sundara, but also provides instructions on how to easily make your own gods in a world where you can't cast a spell and tell whether someone is good or evil.

Like, Follow, and Stay in Touch!

That's all for this week's Moon Pope Monday. To stay on top of all my content and releases, make sure you subscribe to my newsletter at the bottom of the page!

Again, for more of my work, check out my Vocal archive, and stop by the YouTube channel Dungeon Keeper Radio. Or if you'd prefer to read some of my books, like my cat noir thriller Marked Territory, its sequel Painted Cats, my sword and sorcery novel Crier's Knife or my latest short story collection The Rejects, then head over to My Amazon Author Page!

To stay on top of all my latest releases, follow me on Facebook, Tumblr, Twitter, and now Pinterest as well! To support my work, consider Buying Me a Ko-Fi, or heading to The Literary Mercenary's Patreon page to become a regular, monthly patron. That one helps ensure you get more Improved Initiative, and it means you'll get my regular, monthly giveaways as a bonus!

Specific Background Details Make Your Character an Organic Part of The World

Character backgrounds are sometimes a contentious topic. On the one hand, you want to have enough of a history to get an idea of who your character is, what drives them, and how they picked up the skills and abilities they possess. On the other hand, there are folks who argue that you can put in too much extraneous detail about your character. After all, unless your character's younger brother that you spent half a page talking about is going to show up in your story somewhere, or their childhood friend who joined up with the militia has the potential to become a plot point, there's no point in insisting those details take up space in the GM's memory.

However, there is something I've seen trip players up when it comes to figuring out who their characters are. Because too often players will make generic backstories hoping to ensure their characters can fit in a variety of game settings, but that can have the effect of making a character feel more like a sketch rather than a fully-inked design.

My character? Yeah she's from... "small fishing village." No, I don't know where it's at!

That's why this week I want to talk about the little details you can add to make your character feel like an organic part of the world where the game is actually taking place. As always, if you haven't signed up for my weekly newsletter yet, consider doing that to get all my shiny updates right to your inbox!

Where Are You From... Specifically

When most of us make characters we tend to start with rough concepts. We know our paladin grew up in a remote farming community, or our sorceress is from a noble family in a major city, etc., but too often we just leave things at that point and forget to go back in and fill in the blanks.

If you're going to focus on necessary, impactful details that tie you more closely to the world you're actually playing in, that's a good place to start.

There's a hot spring in my wizard's home town. Where is that? Ugh...

The devil is in the details here. Because there's a difference between being from "a small faming community," and being from Astspear. The former is a general, vague sketch of a place, while Astspear is a town that focuses on fishing and farming, where there's a tradition of militia service among all young people of a certain age, and where there is a vehement anti-piracy stance. It's a place with a specific culture, and which has unique locations like Scalawag's End or Fletcher's Finds in it. Even if the party never ventures to this location, it provides concrete history for a character, along with references, and an idea of the particular forces that shaped this character. Also, if you look at where this town is, and where the party is now, you can see all the areas they traveled through to get where they currently are, giving you an idea of the sorts of sights they've seen and experiences they've had along the way.

For those who are curious, Astspear can be found in my 10 Fantasy Villages supplement.

And if your character is from a city rather than a smaller town or village... well, that's when these details become extremely important. Because if someone tells you they're from a city, that's a generic idea of the sort of place they come from. But the difference between New York, Chicago, Los Angeles, Tokyo, London, Paris, or a hundred other places is marked, to say the least. So while knowing your character is from a city is important, the culture, styles, fashions, norms, etc. of that particular city can make them feel like they're a more organic part of the setting as a whole. Especially since cities can pack so much culture and variety inside them that you can really get down into the nitty gritty of a character's history.

For instance, a character that's a generic big city enforcer who used to work for a gang is a good starting sketch. If they were an Ironfire duelist who fought in the Red Circle, though, that's vastly different than someone who was a grave robber in Moüd, or someone who worked the canal docks shaking down sailors in Silkgift. Not just because each city will have its own gangs, its own guards, and its own laws, but there will be unique cultures and opportunities, as well as certain groups you may or may not have crossed paths with that can give a character a unique perspective on the setting.

Also, for those who are curious, each of the cities mentioned are part of my Sundara: Dawn of a New Age setting, and details can be found below:

- Ironfire: The City of Steel for Pathfinder 1st Edition and Dungeons and Dragons 5th Edition

- Moüd: The City of Bones for Pathfinder 1st Edition and Dungeons and Dragons 5th Edition

- Silkgift: The City of Sails for Pathfinder 1st Edition and Dungeons and Dragons 5th Edition

Always Be Specific Where You Can

While the place a character is born and raised is a good spot to start, this same attitude can apply to every major aspect of the character's history. For instance, if your character is a noble, be specific about what kind they are, and what that responsibility entails. What is their title, where are their lands (if they have them), what's their crest, family reputation, etc., etc. I covered a lot of these things in 5 Tips For Playing Better Noble Characters, but since noble families are one of the bigger parts of any social fabric, you need to know how your character is tied into that society specifically instead of just in a vague sense.

You can apply this to basically every aspect of your character. If you were a criminal what gang did you run with? If you were a mercenary, what was the name and heraldry of your free company? If you graduated from a wizard's college, what is it's name, and where was it? If you were trained as a priest, who taught you, what branch of the church handled your tutelage, and what specific location did you live in while you handled your studies?

And so on, and so forth.

Any time you can tie an aspect of your character to the specific world you're actually playing in, do that. Because not only does it integrate your character with this setting in meaningful ways, but that is how you give your GM the strings they need to tug on. Because now you're not just creating random details; you're marking locations on their map that matter to your history, and which can be used as tools to motivate and reward your character.

Additional Resources

For those looking for additional inspiration when it comes to making their own settings, or finding details to include if a world doesn't have what you need, take a moment to check out some of the following:

- 5 Tips For Creating Fantasy Towns and Cities

- 100 Random Mercenary Companies

- A Baker's Dozen of Noble Families

- 100 Knightly Orders

- 100 Gangs For Your Urban Campaigns

Like, Follow, and Stay in Touch!

That's all for this week's Fluff post!

For more of my work, check out my Vocal archive, and stop by the YouTube channel Dungeon Keeper Radio. Or if you'd prefer to read some of my books, like my alley cat thriller Marked Territory, my sword and sorcery novel Crier's Knife or my recent short story collection The Rejects, then head over to My Amazon Author Page!

To stay on top of all my latest releases, follow me on Facebook, Tumblr, Twitter, and now Pinterest as well! To support my work, consider Buying Me a Ko-Fi, or heading to The Literary Mercenary's Patreon page to become a regular, monthly patron. That one helps ensure you get more Improved Initiative, and it means you'll get my regular, monthly giveaways as a bonus!

Who Are The Famous Brand Names and Merchants in Your Setting?

Polyhurdis hefted the steel, getting the balance of it. He held the blade up, looking down the edge and the flat to see how straight it was. He swung it, forehand and backhand, his wrist rolling and making the steel whistle through the air.

 

"And as you can see, Sir, it still has the mark of the Berthas forge there on the blade," the merchant said, smiling a wide, obsequious smile. "A fine weapon to sit on the hip of a warrior as skilled as yourself."

 

Polyhurdis thumped the blade with his finger, and held it to his ear. He sneered, and tossed the sword at the steel merchant, who fumbled to try to catch it.

 

"Polishing pig iron doesn't make it crucible steel, fool," Polyhurdis said, turning his back on the sword seller. "Save your lies for someone who can't tell the difference between a sword and a plowshare."

 

Try to cheat me again, and I'll split your skull with that dolled-up prybar.

Brand Names, Maker's Marks, Guilds, and Companies

World building is not an easy thing to do, and all too often we will just overlook or ignore parts of it that we don't find fun, useful, or immediate. However, if you're looking for a unique twist to put on your setting that will affect both the players' experience of your world, as well as how they think about everything from their weapons and armor to the brew they order down at the tavern, it really helps to consider merchants, guilds, and the idea of brand name products or services in your setting; because everyone is looking to protect their methods, their secrets, and their good name.

Yep, looks like this is genuine Arisban steel. That changes things.

 

Consider some of the following examples

 

- When your dwarven sellsword bellies up to the bar, does she just order an ale? Or does she ask if the keep has Red Mountain, bottled and sold by the Rolling Hill clan?

 

- When your swordsman is looking to upgrade to a masterwork blade, do they just want a +1 to hit, or do you give them a choice between weapons forged by the artisans at Garrus Foundry and the Crimson Mark Forge, each of which are considered some of the finest in weapon craft?

 

- If the wizard comes across a potent protective medallion in a dungeon is it just a magic item, or is there a mark on the inside lip bearing the sigil of the Averdius Acadamae, a school so famous for its craftsmanship that though it's a thousand years in the dust it is still considered the standard to which enchanters should aspire?

Brand names, company reputations, or even items that are manufactured only with a guild seal-of-approval can all add to your setting. Whether it's just a cool background detail, something used as a signifier of status, or a clue as to the origin of a particular piece of treasure, these make your game's world feel more organic.

 

Also, before you go any further, consider signing up for my weekly newsletter to make sure you don't miss any of my updates!

You Can Make It As Important As You Want

The thing with notable manufacturers, companies, brands, guilds, etc. is that you can make them as big of a deal (or not) as you want them to be. For example, in my post "Secrets of The Viking Sword" is a Documentary About How To Make a Masterwork Weapon, I talk about the Ulfbehrt swords. These were some of the highest quality swords ever wielded by Norsemen during the Viking age, and when compared to iron age blades they would have been seen as just this side of magical. As such they were a huge symbol of both status and prowess, and someone who carried an Ulfbehrt sword was, generally speaking, not someone you wanted to screw with.

I'm just saying... maybe we should try Diplomacy...

If all you want for your famous manufacturers and trusted brands to do is act as signs of quality while sitting in the background, you can leave it at that. However, you can take it a step further and use these brands as plot points, or even a way to outfit your party if you so desire.

As far as plot goes, let's return to the example of the Ulfbehrt sword. Only a select number of sword smiths knew the secret to making them, but there were a lot of individuals who were making knock-off blades that were average quality, but had a faux maker's mark on them. The Viking equivalent of that $10 Rolex you got from a guy selling stuff off a blanket in the Bronx. If there's a plague of knock-offs being sold and traded in the city, it could be eroding confidence in a particular foundry's name and product. As such, they'd make an ideal client for a party of investigators tasked with finding out who is creating this flood of substandard steel so they can be stopped.

And as for outfitting your party? Well, as Factinate points out, ancient gladiators often endorsed products the same way that professional athletes do today. So if your party did a great service, or achieved celebrity in some way, then you could probably skip giving them gold in lieu of giving them gifts from noted brands, merchants, or guilds. If the PCs accomplished something very publicly, such as winning a tournament, or defending an important member of the gentry, they might even receive a uniquely commissioned gift from said guild, merchant house, etc. Or even if you were doing something smaller, such as taking on freelance jobs for a guild, part of the reward for service might be that they provide the party with an operating budget, giving them access to an armory, transportation, places to stay, access to guild facilities, etc.

This approach helps remove all the coin counting and hauling around huge amounts of gold, but without cutting into your adventuring budget. Additionally, for those who are looking for some premade additions to their game they can slot into the background, you may wish to check out the following supplements by yours truly:

- 100 Merchants to Encounter: This one is Electrum verging on Gold at time of writing, and while there are a lot of independent merchants and caravan drovers, there are more than a few franchise holders and larger businesses in here as well.

- 100 Fantasy Guilds: A Silver seller that was quite popular when it first dropped, these guilds cover a wide range of trades and manufacturing that might crop up in your game. From arms and armor, to spells, bookbinding, spices, mining, and more, it will save you a lot of work in plotting your setting's corporate influences!

 

Also, consider checking out an old favorite from Dungeon Keeper Radio... Vanguard Tower Shields!

 

 

Like, Follow, and Stay in Touch!

That's all for this week's Fluff post!

For more of my work, check out my Vocal archive, and stop by the YouTube channel Dungeon Keeper Radio. Or if you'd prefer to read some of my books, like my alley cat thriller Marked Territory, my sword and sorcery novel Crier's Knife or my recent short story collection The Rejects, then head over to My Amazon Author Page!

To stay on top of all my latest releases, follow me on Facebook, Tumblr, Twitter, and now Pinterest as well! To support my work, consider Buying Me a Ko-Fi, or heading to The Literary Mercenary's Patreon page to become a regular, monthly patron. That one helps ensure you get more Improved Initiative, and it means you'll get my regular, monthly giveaways as a bonus!