Behold the frontier!

Last Friday, Nate told me about his diceless campaign. We went through character creation in about half an hour and then began some actual play.

I decided to be a magic user. Nate had me make up four spells off of the top of my head that would be equivalent to what a first level character might have. He decided I would get four spell uses per day. I made all of the spells based on a fire theme. I then asked him about armor restrictions, and he explained that there weren't any. His game was more about thinking realistically, not about balance. My character could do whatever he wanted.

While I was working on that, Nate drew up a map of the frontier and surrounding countries. If a page was divided in half, the frontier was the upper half. It was divided from the three southern countries by a nearly impassible mountain range (which is why it is very sparsely populated) and a large body of water in the center. Below this was a country to the left, the republic of Essum, and a country to the right, the Highland empire. South of Essum was a sea, and south of Highland stretching west below the sea was the Kingdom of Jowston.

I decided my character was from Highland, which probably meant I was used to more authoritarian rule. Well maybe he was naive about the rest of the world, but basically well

meaning. This led to a discussion about why I might be in the frontier.

So here's what I came up with:

Character: Talif

Abilities: battle mage

25 years old. Average height.

He wears chain mail with an imperial robe, red and purple with yellow embroidery along the collar. (Nate says, "you might not want to show that off"). Also wears leather gloves, jackboots, a skullcap and has a long knife in a sheath at his side.

He carries a backpack with a rope and a grappling hook, a spellbook, a water skin and simple provisions. In his hands he carries a staff. The staff has a runed metallic orb on one end, and a metal sheath covering a thin spearhead on the other.

His spells are as follows:

1. Fire shot. Shoot a fireball long range.

2. Flame Jet. The orb of his staff essentially becomes a close range flame thrower.

3. Flame Aura. A heat whirlwind surrounds my character affording protection from projectiles.

4. Summon Fenix (Nate suggested I spell it this way). My character calls a flame bird from the sky to serve him.

In addition to these spells, he can perform any minor cantrips (such as creating magical light or creating a small flame across a room) at will.

Here's the story we came up with:

Talif's father was a glassblower in the town of Brindle (in the western part of the empire, somewhat close to Essum.) All children in the empire are required to serve in the youth brigade, and those who show great promise are selected to train at the battle academy in the capital. Talif was one of the select few chosen to become a battle mage.

Nearing the end of his training, he learned more and more about the Emporer Luca's ambitions to invade the peaceful Republic of Essum. Talif's uncle was from Essum, and he was very fond of the country; thus he began to distrust the empire.

Talif decided to desert the service, but a rival and prefect battle mage, Edric, ratted him out to the captain as a traitor. He had to flee for his life and ended up faking his own death "Fugitive" style by jumping down a waterfall.

After this he managed to hide in a wagon cart to escape the city. From here he fled along the outskirts of the mountains until he found a pass to the north.

The campaign begins as our hero clears the mountains and makes his way along the main north road into the frontier land.