This handbook provides the complete background, motivations, history, and chronology of one groups adventures in the world I call Gimel. The document can be used in a number of ways. As a "living" document, you can, as I have, to cronicle the adventures and store information about future plans, encounters, and act as a guidebook for the GM. You could also use this as a "history" for planning future adventures in the world of Gimel. Finally, you might be able to learn from the process I went thorough to improve your own world.
There are a number of major themes running through the world of Gimel. I try to create a framework out of which the details emerge. This section details a number of these guiding themes that influence the decisions that were made.
The guilds hold knowledge about professions and charge heavily for that knowledge. Thus, only the wealth middle/upper class children can become professionals.
Since the guilds control knowledge, they have teamed with merchants to make sure that only guild professionals get jobs. This agreement helps ensure the guild's control of the professions and merchants source of competent workers.
The only ways to join the guild are to either pay the entrance tuition and be trained by the guild, or be a foreign, already trained, professional and pay the heavy guild dues.
Graduates of the orphanage must hide their background from the guild so each student is given a new background and a way of recognizing fellow students without notice from guilders (see the BRAND).
The Father is hated by the guilds but they have been unable to prevent him from his work.
The guilds have tried to send their own moles into the school but have been unsuccessful so far
There were once two brothers, Nigel and Jonathan Curtis. Each was highly religious and each started their own order.
One, The Church for the Common Good, was set up to help young people have a future. Its leader Nigel became known as The Father and acted as a father to hundreds, if not thousands, of students.
The other, the Temple of Endara in Kovel, worked to help the mutants and out-casts to have a future. Their leader, Jonathan, became a protector to many that society would have squashed. Misunderstood mutants, good people with evil curses, and other outcasts where taken under the protective arm of the church and given hope.
Each feels that the other has missed the true path. Jonathan feels that the Father makes too many enemy and fights with the system. Only in his later days does the Father yield to his brothers wisdom and go underground. Unfortunately, it is already too late.
Jonathan, from the start, hides the true nature of his work which the Father feels is hiding the protecting power of the Endara. Jonathan works with the system to get things changed slowly. He is making a difference but change is slow. Too slow for the Father.
Their feelings toward each other leads to a split. The brothers have not seen or talked with each other in over 20 years. This split has hurt those around them in ways neither fully understand .
After the Fathers�s death, Jonathan has feelings of lost opportunities upon meeting some of the Father's students. Jonathan gives aid to the party by sending some of his own followers along on the mission and giving food, and supplies to the party. The party does not learn until much later that Jonathan and the Father were brothers.
The Government is a Duchy ruled by Duke Harold of Graymont. Duke Harold is a good Duke but does not get involved in the day to day activities in his Duchy. Duke Harold is an amateur scientist and spends most of his time tinkering with gadgets unearthed by the court archeologists. He leaves the day-to-day management of the Duchy to his Prime Minister, Mansfield LeBlank.
Prime Minister, Mansfield LeBlank is corrupt and runs the Duchy for his own profit. LeBlank hides his activities from Duke Harold and gives glowing reports on the state of the Duchy. In truth, the Duchy is in bad financial state and there is some unrest. LeBlank keeps the people under control with the help of the guilds.
The guilds keep the people quite by withholding services and LeBlank allows the guilds to monopolize the professions. LeBlank is also a leader in a underground organization known as the Black Glove. Reporting to the prime minister are a number of ministers responsible for the areas of Finance, Defence, Justice, as well as Guild, Church and Foreign relations. Although each of these ministers is in league with the Prime Minister, each have their own interests which sometimes conflict with the wishes of LeBlank.
One such area of conflict involves the Father. The Minister of Guild relations wants to see the Father eliminated since the Guilds see the Father as a threat. The Minister of Church relations forbids this actions since it could cause a popular uprising among the graduates. LeBlank agrees with the Church Minister and thinks he has put the matter to rest
The head of the guilds is call the Guild Master and the current Guild Master is Marcus Bello. Bello presides over the congress of guilds and is himself head of the Guild of Metalworkers which includes gold, silver and iron smiths plus makers of arms and armor.
Bello has a daughter named Adrian who is involved with Duke Harold and has been asked if she would marry the Duke. Adrian's father is putting pressure on her to marry the Duke so he would have a stronger influence on the Duke. Adrian truly loves the Duke and thus does not want to betray him. She is torn because she fears that the Duke would not believe her intentions if her father's arranging and plotting were made known. She will marry the Duke for she fears her father. She will do her best not to betray her lover and at the same time not anger her father.
Bello also has a son named Gregory who lusts for power like his father. Gregory borrows the Black Knife, which LeBlank keeps at the Bello residence, and kills the Father. He is later executed for his crime after the party uncovers the corruption in the government and guilds.
The Black Glove is an organizing with members in several countries. LeBlank is the local leader in the Duchy and reports to higher-ups in a nearby Kingdom. The thieves guild in the Duchy is controlled by LeBlank with the required percentage of profits going to maintain membership. Most of the members of the guild do not know that they are under the control of the Black Glove. The Black Glove is well known and the guild members believe they have escaped its clutches.
LeBlank, after his fall from power in Gimel, continues to lead the Black Glove. With their fighting force, the Ninjas, LeBlank escapes from jail and leads the party on a merry chase across the countryside to his mountain hideout.
The PCs will start life in the school nearing the time of their reaching first level. They will go on at least one pre-first level expedition where they will learn of dangers facing the orphanage. This first expedition will scare the players but should place in each of them a sense of cause. I want each character to see the Father's cause as right and worth dieing for. (Education of the poor, freedom of knowledge, break monopoly of the guilds).
Father sends the group out on missions to grain experience. The group could be a set of Finders, or Protectors on these missions. The Father is killed so the players have to find the killers and bring them to justice. The group will then learn that justice is corrupt and that the group is now in deep trouble. After some time, the PCs will carry out their cause and eventually bring the responsible parties to justice. This event will get someone higher up mad and trouble will start again.
Magic in this world was created by a nuclear war which unleashed the quantum forces of nature. Most electricity is now magical and woe is the person caught in the open during a thunder storm. Because of the changed nature of electricity, most pre-war technology will no longer function as expected. Computers transported themselves themselves into other dimensioned because of the magical vortices created by the micro chips. Common electrical equipment may still work but must be powered by pure magic (a very draining exercise for the run-of-the-mill magic user). The characters will know that lighting can cause deadly effects but will not understand the changed nature of electricity.
Characters foolish enough to try and create electricity without understanding the new nature will be subject to random magical effects. The radiation of the war did not have the effect that their creators intended. The radiation (electromagnetic) created magic which made the particle radiation (and the bombs themselves) non-radioactive. The areas where the bombs landed are still "hot" from the explosions but the heat is magic and not radiation.
Since the quantum state of the area around the Earth changed, all hard radiation within Van-Allen belts is no longer lethal. The Van-Allen Belts prevented this change from flowing through-out the solar system, which is good since the sun would have stopped fusing. These belts have now formed into a anti magic shell which prevents magic from leaving. External radiation still passes through the belts and enters the Earth. The hardest of these rays are absorbed by the belts which keeps the belts active. The belts should be steady-state for several million years unless some powerful event disturbs them.
Since the world of Gimel is in fact the Earth, most celestial events are similar to the real world. The great war did cause some subtle changes to the Earth and the details are as follows. The coming of magic caused the Earth's rotation to slow, and synchronize with the Moon and Sun.
The year is exactly 364 days long and each month is 28 days. The moon also orbits in exactly 28 days. There are thirteen months.
The following table will give the dates of the full, third quarter, new and first quarter moons for the entire year. The first day of the year is held on the Winter Solstice.
The Weather in the Gimel area is sub-tropical with a roughly 30 mile radius circle of arid land surrounding the School to the east. This arid area is within a half day travel to the south or east of Gimel. Local weather is determined by the time of year and average temperature and rainfall can be seen on the following chart.
The Gimel campaign began on ??/?? in the year 1327. Years are reckoned from the year in which magic started. The common notation is OME or "Of the Magic Era" but most do not know the meaning of the letters. 1327 OME opened with the final training of the player characters. The party was ready for their solo on ??/??.
All events are based on this time and careful note of moon phase and weather should be taken.
There are two main locations where player characters may start adventuring: The School and Sancuary, also known as the Temple of Endara in Kovel. Each of these locations are nuteruing spots run by clerics of the god Endra. All player characters start their lives as either orphans or cast outs. Each location is discussed in detail in the next two sections.
All player characters at the school are orphans. Your parents were killed when they were quite young and they have lived much of their early childhood on the street. You were taken in by a good cleric whom they have came to call The Father. This name is fitting in two ways: he has been like a father to each orphan at the orphanage and he is a senior Priest in the Church of the Common Good. Father has cared for you and in turn, you have come to love him like a father. There are a number of other orphans at the orphanage with whom you have become good friends. At the orphanage, you and your fellow orphans have been trained in a profession, taught the ways of the church, and given loving care over the years. Learning is so much a part of the orphanage that you have come to call The School and yourselves Students.
The School is located on a remote mesa. On this mesa, the School has developed of a fortress, pastures for crops and livestock, shops for training artisans, laboratories for studying magic, a temple to worship, and parade grounds for training warriors. The Father, founder of the Church of the Common Good, believe that the best way to fight poverty is to train the masses. These teachings go against the interests of the local guilds.
The guilds are the center of knowledge in the Duchy in which the School resides. The guilds control this knowledge and will only offer it to those who can pay the high entrance tuition to the guild schools. Since the main source of trained professionals is the guild schools, the guilds hold great economic power over the local merchants and shop keepers. The Father, on the other hand, believes that knowledge is to be shared for the betterment of mankind. Needless to say, the guilds do not like the Father or the School.
Because of the animosity between the guilds and the School, trained professionals from the schools (or Graduates), must keep their background hidden from others. Each graduate is given a public name with a constructed background. Each student also has a true name that is only known within the school by students and graduates. To help identify one another in away from the school, the Father gives each student a magical brand or tattoo on the inner wrist of the right hand which is only visible when brought next to another such brand. The brands will then glow forming the two halves of the School symbol. A tingling is also felt on the wrist when the symbol is completed. If either wrist is covered, then just the tingling will occur enabling discrete identification.
The Temple of Endara in Kovel, also known as Sancuary, is a safe haven for those that sociaty has outcast. Those of less than honorable birth, those cursed with desease or magical curse, and those who sociaty has misunderstood are all welcome in Sancuary. A church of the god Endara, like the School, Sancuary was started by Johnithan Curtis who still runs the church. Like his brother, Johnithan belives that Endara cares for all but especialty the unfortunate. Unlike his borther, Johnathin publicly works with the system to get things changed and hides the day to day work of the church. Over the years, Sancuary has hidden, vampires, werewolves, orphans, lepors, insane, and half-breeds. Each was supported, helped and became productive citizens. For some the need was secracy. For others, the need was healing.
Party members start who come from Sancuary are most likely former street urchens and minor thieves. Reformed of their erring ways, they move on to be most any class that their talents lead. Someone from Sancuary must perform at least the one rescue in order to graduate from Sancuary. This actions is usally their first mission outside Sancuary.