Black Sands (Game Collective) (Inactive)

Game Master Doomed Hero

Alhazad:

The City of Towers, the Hub of the World, the Gods' Gift, the Last City.

It is a place of wonder and wretchedness. Splendor and rot. Plenty and starvation.

The city runs in rings. Seven of them.
The Tower of Heaven lies in the center. It is the heart, where the Undying Pharaoh, The Sultan of Sultans, the Great One Called Osir Ra lives when he is not meeting with the gods themselves on behalf of men.
The Temple rings the Palace. The Vizirs live here endlessly toiling away at the bureaucracy that keeps the water flowing and the masses fed.
The Palace sits around the Tower, where the Council of Sultans and the Great Families live in splendor.
The Glass District is where the wealthy come to live. The spires glitter and the clothes do too. The wealthiest families seem in competition to raise their towers the highest, but none can even hope to compare to the awesome heights of the Tower of heaven itself.
The Great Wall. More of a fortress than a wall, the Great Wall is a barracks for the Last Army, a place of training for guards and soldiers, the site of the Last Prison and the location of the Great Arena.
The Bazaar, called so because of the market which never ends. The majority of the city lives and works here in haphazardly cobbled together homes that lean and stack on each other. The wide Road that rings this district is always full of people and vendors and noise. Outside the Road, the district is completely packed with houses and tiny twisting alleys. The guard puts on a show of maintaining order, but outside the Road, outside the eyes of the law, many things which should not.
Dust Town. Tents, hovels, shacks and rickshaws make up the majority of the buildings here. Entire neighborhoods have been known to rearrange or vanish over night. Technically outside the city's main walls and not a part of it, Dust Town is where those with nowhere else to go try to eek out a meager existance. So long as the Dusters don't interrupt the flow of caravans and merchants in and out of the Bazaar, the law ignores the outermost district. The Dusters have built their own wall to keep out the sands, but it is only leather and cloth and wood. The sands are stubborn and the winds insidious.

Languages:

There are many, many languages spoken in the Last City. There is really no "common tongue" any of the following languages can replace Common as a bonus language (according to character background)

The most common, Dust-Tongue, is a pidgin tongue of about a half dozen others used primarily by merchants hawking goods and by Duster thugs and urchins who live in the dregs of society. It is marked by a continually evolving slang. It has no standard written form, but has a surprisingly intricate graffiti language of gang symbols and bastardizations of other alphabets called Dust Scratch. Anyone who speaks Dust Tongue and has at least 1 rank in Knowledge Local is able to understand Dust Scratch.

The next most common language is usually referred to as the Last Tongue. It is the language of the aristocracy and of the educated. It's written form is a precise alphabet consisting of trios of lines and angles called Last Script. It is essentially a more complex form of Cuneiform. Anyone fluent in the Last Tongue with at least one rank in Knowledge Engineering can read Last Script.

The last notable language is the Elder-Tongue. It is considered the oldest language and it is painstakingly preserved. It is spoken by the Vizirs and by most of the priesthood and by historians, academics and wizards. It's written form is essentially Egyptian hieroglyphs, commonly called Glyphs. It is a far more complex language than any other. Written fluency requires at least one rank in Knowledge: History, Knowledge: Arcana and Knowledge: Religion.

Debt Laws:

Debt law is simple. All debt is to the Pharaoh. Private debt is illegal. There are no money lenders in the Last City. There are Safe Houses, but they are not banks. They are merely vaults that people may pay to have their possessions protected.

If someone commits a crime against the Pharaoh they may be fined. Those that cannot pay become debters, commonly called the Collared.

The Collared are called such because of the collars that they wear. Each collar has a length of chain attached to it that represents the debt they owe. Different types of links represent different amounts. The links are made of a lightweight metal that no steel can mark.

Anyone my "purchase a link", which entails going to a Vizir, describing a task they need done, paying a sum of money and receiving a writ which can be delivered to any debtor (or debtors).

The debtor cannot refuse a writ. They must take the contract. If they fail the task, or refuse it, their debt may actually be increased (there are many contributing factors to what happens in the event of a contract failure. generally, they are all best avoided).

Once the last link bought and the last contract complete, the collar is removed.

There are a small number of people, marked by gold collars, who have no debt but still take contracts. Instead of working off links, they earn them and use them as currency and prestige. These people are called the Golden Servants. Many of them are former Debtors.

The Sea of Sand:

In all directions from the Last City lies the desert. There are other places and other peoples, but they tend to be transient, moving often in the endless search for water and food. The topography shifts often. Landmarks are rare. Only the stars are a reliable guide.

In the deep desert are warring nomad tribes, ruins of forgotten cities and temples, savage beasts and wild herds, and the glaring sun and frigid mood all seeking to end men's lives.

The Gods:

The Egyptian Pantheon primarily.

House Rules:

All creatures with an intelligence of 3 or more receive Power Attack and Combat Expertise as bonus feats.

Longspears may be wielded one-handed.

Dervish Dance is weapon-specific (like weapon focus) but may be applied to any finesseable weapon.

Size Matters: Creatures that are bigger than you might move you if they hit you.

Reposition: The caveat about not being able to move people into danger with this maneuver is removed. (seriously, why else would you want to do it?)

Any effect that creates food or water does not exist.

Drawing Objects From Pouches: Any adventurer worth his salt knows that sometimes it's handy to have things like caltrops, tanglefood bags or potions as accessible as possible. As such, bandoleers and pouches are made to store one object at the ready. These specially made pouches are treated exactly like (and cost the same as) Wrist Sheathes or Spring Loaded Wrist Sheathes. A typical belt can hold up to six of them. Custom harnesses can be made to accommodate up to twenty on various places on the body.

Others may be added as they come up.

NPCs:

Balandan, Dig-site foreman. Large, excitable man. Talks with his arms. Smiles a lot.

Fala, Balandan's Crew Chief. Wiry and thin. Wears man's clothes. No nonsense, very organized and competent. Has a sharp tongue when upset.

[Kahai], rescued researcher who lost a foot to acidic goo. His specialty is ancient languages.