Nimrodel: Legend of Ourissa

Rules

Introduction

Nimrodel: The Legend of Ourissa is a play by email RPG, where each player plays a single character in the fantasy world of Nimrodel. Unlike most PBEM RPGs made by myself and others, this game is designed to not be accessible to everybody. Rather, it is designed for a small number of players (10-15) working in 3-4 parties, with each party being wholly distinct from the others. It is expected that the parties will never meet each other over the course of the game except by rare circumstances, and you are encouraged to only RP within your own party.

The result of this party focused play and low member count will hopefully be a game that is easy to run, easy to play in, and one where each characters roleplaying and storyline can be focused on specifically by the game staff. Because parties will be largely seperate, I want to encourage people to not worry about doing "better" than other parties, or to worry about min/maxing. RPing and questing within your party should be the primary focus.

For people who are interested in joining, please be aware that joining this RPG will only be open by invitation. If you'd like to join and were not sent an invitation email, please talk to me about it personally, as I may have forgotten somebody or may make an exception. There will be room for people who are not invited to potentially play as backup characters for short periods of time, as quests develop. Perhaps somebody who is not one of the main PCs can make a short cameo as an antagonist, or as an NPC character assisting the party with a specific event.

Updating Rules
The RPG will be open for emails Monday, Wednesday and Friday, with updates allowing for elongated events the other days of the week. Once the RPG begins, joining as a new PC will not be possible. The email used is oywrpg4@gmail.com. The action deadline is 5:30 PM Pacific.

Since the member count will be low, extensive leeway will be allowed for strangely formatted emails.

Your Character

Each player in the game plays a single character, who might be a wizard or a thief, a military soldier or even a merchant tradesman. Each character is represented by a number of attributes and skills, which are detailed below. There is an enormous number of classes, and a system for multi-classing, so it should be possible for everyone to have a completely unique character.

Governments and Race
Each character belongs to one of the games six governments. Either Ayotya, Varans or the Free Cities for the civilized humans of the south, the Harakkan Tribes or Western Centaur for the nomadic tribes of the north, or the Sea Peoples of the ocean.

Your chosen government does not mean you are an agent of its political system, it simply dictates where your character grew up, and which government they know the most about. The Governments page in Lore, as well as the map pages, detail the governments.

Additionally, each character is a chosen race, either Human, Centaur or Sea Peoples. The Races page in players guide details the three playable races.

Attributes
Each character has six attributes in the game. Their race has starting attributes, and beyond that their class and skills give certain attribute bonuses. The six attributes are explained below.

Strength (STR)
• Dictates your characters physical brawn and strength when attacking. A character can carry a number of items equal to their STR x2, and an amount of weight equal to their STR +1.

Agility (AGI)
• Dictates your characters speed, their accuracy when attacking, ability to dodge, and has a minor effect on their speed when casting spells.

Constitution (CON)
• Dictates your characters relative toughness, stamina and the speed at which they recover from injuries. A characters natural health regen is their CON+1, doubled when Resting and tripled when at a hospital or inn.

Intelligence (INT)
• Dictates your characters power at using magic as well as their magic resistance. Certain non-magic skills such as Tactician or Razor Wit are also affected by INT.

Charisma (CHA)
• Dictates your characters ability to assist the party in non-combat negotiations or other more social and political events.

Luck (LUK)
• Provides a minor bonus to all other statistics in times of crisis. Luck is the hardest attribute to increase.

EXP and upgrades
Characters gain experience points through events. These points do nothing on their own, but are used to purchase classchanges and skills. EXP spent is instantaneous and skills and new classes are gained even in the middle of an elongated quest.

Classes and changing Classes
Each character has a class, with a number of prerequisites, skills and attribute bonuses.

Every character starts as the "Novice" class, and uses their starting EXP and EXP gained through events to go up in class tiers. There are six primary class tiers (Soldier, Fighter, Outlaw, Tribesman, Tradesman and Conjuror) and each has six subclasses, with each subclass separated into 3 tiers.

In order to advance to a higher tier class, the weapon proficiency requirements as well as all class skills must be purchased, though the order in which they are purchased is unimportant. For example, to go from Novice to Soldier, one must purchase 1h or 2h proficiency, and then spend 25 EXP classchanging to Soldier. Then to go to Knight, they must purchase Armor Proficiency, Shield Proficiency, Sword Adept and the Soldier skills Teamwork and Discipline, in any order. Then they may classchange to Knight.

While a specific class, the character gains a number of Attribute bonuses temporary to the class, for example Tradesman gives +2 CHA. These attribute bonuses remain until the character changes classes.

Multiclassing
Characters may advance up or down in any class tree, and may advance down in order to multiclass, taking one primary class with some skills from another subgroup.

When you advance down a class, you keep one skill from your previous class subgroup, and a second with the purchased Locked Skill ability, but lose any other skills you purchased. You must change to your new class in a linear fashion. You may only classchange laterally if it is to avoid the Novice class.

For example, lets say you want to take Thane, but with the Boxer skill Cheap Shot. Your class change route is like so: Novice » Fighter (pick up Endurance and Intimidation) » Boxer (pick up Cheap Shot) » Fighter » Soldier (lose Endurance and Intimidation but keep Cheap Shot) (pick up Teamwork and Discipline) » Thane.

The intent of this system is to make all sorts of multiclassing possible, but A - it is easier to multiclass within your own class subgrouping, B - multiclassing higher tiered skills is prohibitively more expensive than lower tiered skills, C - You can only multiclass 2 skills, and D - The second skill is more expensive than the first. Certain advanced skills have prerequisite skills to make them harder or impossible to multiclass.

Skills and Proficiencies
In addition to your class and attributes, every character has class skills and weapon proficiencies, which dictate their abilities to weild specific weapons, cast magical spells, and all sorts of other things. They are purchased through EXP. Class skills remain only as long as you retain that class tree, while weapon skills are permanent.

Pets
Each character is allowed one pet, either a ridden horse or a dog, or something of the sort. Many different sorts of pets are purchasable through the shops. Some class skills, such as those of the Beast Master class, allow additional and more exotic pets.

Movement

Parties move across the map at the speed of their slowest member, either Boat, Horse, Caravan, or Foot speed. Some rudimentary movement distances are listed on the map pages, but every party will be given individual attention for their movement. It is possible for random monster attacks and other such things to occur while a party is moving.

Healing and Injury

Each character has 100 hit points. Through battle and other events their hit points will drop, only to be regenerated again. Each character regenerates their CON+1 HP per update. This regeneration is doubled when Resting, or tripled when Resting at an Inn or a hospital, etc. Certain skills increase HP regeneration.

When a character drops below 75 HP, their attributes will all temporarily drop. At 50 HP and 25 HP the attributes drop further. These reductions cannot reduce an attribute below 0, and are only counted for written events, not things like health regen or carried weight. However, severely injured characters may move across the map at slower speeds. Luck is never reduced in this way.

Injury reduces attributes by -1 per class tier. For example, a Knights attributes are reduced by -1 per injury level, a Commanders by -2 per injury level, and a Generals by -3.

At 0 HP a character is dead. When a character dies, we will try to figure out a way to introduce a new PC into the game, but it is possible that a player will be finished playing in the RPG when their character dies. This game is not designed to run forever.

Actions

Because of the small member count and the party system, I want actions to be very variable, and I want people to think up unique and custom things to do. Each parties questlines will be custom tailored to it, so there is no risk of lack of stuff to do. However, here are some example actions people and parties could do.

Move
• The character/party moves across the map.

Battle
• The character/party participates in an event or quest, or perhaps spars amongst party members for EXP during downtime.

Rest
• The character spends the day resting, doubling their HP regen or tripling it at an Inn or Hospital.

Shop
• The character spends the day shopping. Only one character needs to go shopping for the party to buy items for the entire party.

Craft
The character spends the day crafting or enchanting items.

Gather Information / Scout
• The character spends the day scouting out some form of information for the party. This action is intentionally very loose and freeform, and open to circumstances.

Steal
• The character tries to steal something.

Odd Jobs
• The character tries to make some money. This can only be done in towns/cities, and earns 2 gold +1 per level of Trading Liscence. Some skills increase the effectiveness of this, such as many Bard skills.

Special Actions
Some classes have skills that allow special unique actions to be taken. They are as follows.

Tracking
• The character tracks prey or a quest objective. Something like an extended Scouting action.

Tame Pet
• The character tries to tame an exotic beast of the wilds.

Pray
• The character prays to their deity, trying to answer obscure questions.

Scrying
• The character attempts to divine the future, trying (with better success) to answer obscure questions.

Other
Really, that's about it. It is intended, due to the expected low member count, for me to always be discussing things with parties, and shaping things for characters individually. So the golden rule of the RPG will be: talk to me about stuff before you do it, and we will work it out.