raven mockers are far far too terrifying to be a 0 HD race :)
Meh, not really...
Though I can see it being a Template though.
Yeah, I agree Az, but the soucouyant is already statted in the isle of Shackles books. Although, good news, I am building the Nahual as a template. It's been slow going because this week is graduation and I'm working it at the school I work at, but once that blows over, I can show you what I've come up with. Started off as a Druid archetype, but I didn't want to ignore its modern comparison to the bruja, which is TADA a witch. So I went with a template similar to the Animal Lord with some druid and witch stuff here and there. It's got an animal companion (tonalli), a curse ability, and some other stuff here and there.
True... Though one could just modify that into a Template. Wouldn't be the first time.
Though I prefer 0HD Races and Templates... They allow more customization. ;P
BTW: I love the Wereshark!
Haha yeah. Right now, going through making a jaguar. It's pretty much a leopard with a couple of changes. If I recall, I removed the rake ability, gave it a swim speed, made it somewhat stronger but lowred dex, and a stronger jaw attack. Might've lowered land speed. Don't recall that part.
Sweet.
Doing a bit of thread necromancy to get the ball rolling again. I recently had an idea for drow in Arcadia. Something I noticed is that in a lot of Native American creation folklore, from North, South, & Central America and the Caribbean, has their people emerging from underground caverns into the surface world. What if they had to deal with drow along the way as enemies trying to keep them underground? Or chased out by them? Or, what if we reverse the drow-are-evil trope and say that drow were shepherds of humanity's ancestors, leading them out of the Darklands for whatever reason?
Interesting...
Although (personally) I would prefer the Drow to stay centered in the Inner Sea/Casmaron/Tian Xia area. I would prefer another race responsible for that.
Weird enough, at least in some southwestern myths, "ant people" were believed to be fulfilling that shepherding humans from the underworld role, although admittedly most of what I read regarding this is fringe alien conspiracy stuff, and I am skeptical how closely the interpretations of those original legends actually fit what people believe. But it could maybe suggest that Formians could be a major race in the Arcadian Darklands.
I kinda dig that actually. Shame formians are aliens from Castrovel, but it'd be cool to see them in Arcadia.
There are ratfolk in Tian Xia and Akiton, and elves on Castrovel and Golarion. Who says Formians couldn't have spread farther :P
This is true. And, it just so happens that the Bestiary 4 is coming out with Formians in it :) Count me super psyched.
Northern Crown, an older 3pp d20 supplement, might come in handy. I used it for planning a "historical" pirates campaign. It describes a circa 1692 magical counterpart to our world (including close to RW cultures and geography, but it does have a bestiary).
Also out there, but not d20/PF, is Witch Hunter, which is a darker take on the same concept.
Colonial Gothic, I think, has a d20 version.
Also check out Nick Logue's Razor Coast for some North American/Polynesian stuff. A fan placed it in northern Arcadia(Check out Celeador's post with the timeline in the product discussion thread.)
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Hey everybody, been a while since I poked in here.
I just wanted to toss out a note that I am going to be starting an Arcadian-set dwarven kingdom building campaign about a group of dwarven settlers come over from Avistan to start anew. I'm setting the campaign (in the beginning) in the northeastern corner of Arcadia and will be creating lush hex-exploration maps for the locale at the 1 hex = 12 miles scale. I plan on incorporating a lot of the great ideas found in this thread and concepts of my own design.
For those interested in peeking in from time to time, it will be found here behidn this link.
:O I'm jealous! Adam , please divulge more info!!
Currently, I'm running a Caribbean inspired Kingmaker game with my players. I have different island nations separated into two groups; the natives and the colonists. Each native nation is based on a mixture between an aspect of Taino and Carib society, as well as the present day analogue of that country. I also have made lizardfolk into a race and gripplis are much more present. There's also a new race of fey I made that are (almost) always born as twins and represent some duality nature concept.
So far it's been doing well, with arguments over the native drow, as well as them making contact with one of the established native nations. This nation I built to be focused around worship of the hurricane and druids that run the country. I also based the topography off of Cuba, with more plains and hills and cenotes in the area. Cenotes are great for scary adventuring. I've statted up quite a few native monsters, though I'm still working on the Nahual. Currently deciding whether it should be a Prestige class or a template
What I've statted up so far:
Jaguar
Hupia/Op'a
Zemi
Ciguapa
Calaca
Alebrije
Working on the Lagahoo right now, though it's difficult trying visualize it. I'll have to post stats up eventually.
Hey everybody, been a while since I poked in here.
I just wanted to toss out a note that I am going to be starting an Arcadian-set dwarven kingdom building campaign about a group of dwarven settlers come over from Avistan to start anew. I'm setting the campaign (in the beginning) in the northeastern corner of Arcadia and will be creating lush hex-exploration maps for the locale at the 1 hex = 12 miles scale. I plan on incorporating a lot of the great ideas found in this thread and concepts of my own design.
For those interested in peeking in from time to time, it will be found here behidn this link.
Btw, if you are doing Kingdom Building in the jungle, I'd suggest allowing farms to be buildable on Jungle tiles. As written, you can't and that really makes bringing down consumption difficult. I made farm built on jungles cost the same as on hills.
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Let me start by saying that none of this is official, of course. I was just a guy running a five-hour game at a convention.
I am however very interested in Arcadia and have my own ideas about the continent, so instead of sticking to the Inner Sea for Terror at Turnwater Tavern, I thought it'd be fun to play around with some of those ideas. This game was pretty minimal in use of those ideas. There were only a few clues—such as "Arcadian" and "Coolan" listed in the language line of some of the pregens, a deity name on the cleric sheet, and one of the pregens was a skinwalker druid (that no one chose!). It was all self-contained in a small city/large town called Turnwater. It's in a delta region upriver from a tropical gulf. The PCs had to uncover a dark folk plot to turn an entire town bezerk and homicidal with a strange machine transmitting some magical emanation.
Sounds like a lot of fun. One of these days, we should share notes on our New World games. I've been keeping everything recorded on my binder and transferring to Google Docs.
Most excellent! Then it is my duty to keep this thread alive and running with ideas. And if you guys ever need to talk with someone that knows a decent amount about Caribbean folklore (both Pre and Post Columbian), I'm pretty knowledgeable about the subject. Between books and my grandfather, I know a lot, though there's always more books out there to read.
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Almost forgot. I wanted to show you guys over to this website. It has a large listing of Native American clothing worn in North America by tribe. It's very informative and would be a great stepping point for artwork in the Arcadian book. Adding to the resource page on the original post. Enjoy!
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Ok...my turn to bump this.
I just picked up this through interlibrary loan:
American elves: an encyclopedia of little people from the lore of 380 ethnic groups of the Western Hemisphere
It's a dense tome with probably a 1000 different folklore creatures from EVERY SINGLE ETHNIC GROUP in the Americas. Half the book is bibliography, so it seems well sourced. Downside is some critters only get a sentence of description, or just a rather evocative name. Also it's very narrowly prescribed. Stuff that doesn't fit into the elf/fairy category, in at least a vague way, is not included.
As I go through and take notes, I am going to post snippets from it
One intriguing being from the Sea of Cortez region:
Totarapei, a dwarfish figure known as the "Master of Cockroaches"
I can find absolutely no info online about this character, but you got to admit that is a damn evocative name.
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Ok...my turn to bump this.
I just picked up this through interlibrary loan:
American elves: an encyclopedia of little people from the lore of 380 ethnic groups of the Western Hemisphere
I tried searching for this in our library system and couldn't find it. Can you give me the ISBN? That might help me search for it or even request the library to get it. Sounds cool, especially the Master of Cockroaches.
My Caribbean game ended last week. I'll have to throw my note up for it on here at some point.
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Okay just got turned onto this thread and I have to say hats off to you this is amazing and I have to say I'm totally going to mine this for some of my own games.
But now I do want to bring something up that could be cool. People keep mentioning the existence of the obsidian trade and how important it was for real life economy of the region and yet how hard it would be to import that into the pathfinder world but I think it could be an incredibly interesting way to go. What about if the economy of the region was built around it and it's uses in place of metals like iron and what if they included other special non iron based materials? Imagine them having huge markets of things like obsidian, blood crystal, or viridium. On top of that you could layer things like living steel which might be one of the few forms of ferrous metal they naturally collect, iron woods and dark woods along with other special exotic woods they might collect from the environments and special minerals or stones like turquoise used to create sacred charms and such.
This could get even more interesting if you factor in other races that could be native to the region that are now greater threats because of this discrepancy and cause them to develop other means of defense. Take lycanthropes for example, lycanthropes like werewolves and such become a much greater threat for communities when you don't have silver floating around and could be an interesting avenue for the dev's to explore ways that cultures without would respond and defend against it.
Ohh that could be a cool avenue to explore for the skinwalkers...
Ohh I would also love to see arcadia used to give us more options for the witch class including some shaman themed hexes and archetypes. The idea of a mask based archetype for the witch based on the False Face Society would be awesome and the origin story totally sounds like the beginnings of a very interesting patron.
You could throw bronze in there too, as it was available in the area. I know in the Caribbean, the Taino tribes created medallions from a bronze alloy that we call guanin.
While I made lizardfolk and grippli base races in my homebrew, it was difficult to figure out a new race option inspired by the Caribbean section that I was working with. I'll have to give it some more thought.
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You could throw bronze in there too, as it was available in the area. I know in the Caribbean, the Taino tribes created medallions from a bronze alloy that we call guanin.
I would love to see creatures that get new material weaknesses as well. I know in my home games I've started to use viridium as the weakness for aberrations in place of magic or other special materials, maybe we could get some of that. It always felt weird to me that paizo keeps putting out all these setting neutral materials that would be so cool as weapon options and yet gives us no enemies for them to be weak to.
Also as I added above more witch stuff like hexes and archetypes that could be based on the false face society or other groups. The false face society back story seems like fertile ground for an interesting witch patron and archetype.
I'll have to add that to the main page on the first page later. Finishing up work and am kinda tired ;)
Also want to plug Heroes of the West. It is a great resource for classes and archetypes that fit the setting. Tell your friends so they can make more :)
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I'll have to add that to the main page on the first page later. Finishing up work and am kinda tired ;)
Also want to plug Heroes of the West. It is a great resource for classes and archetypes that fit the setting. Tell your friends so they can make more :)
Might have to pick this up depending on if I can find out more about what's in it. A lot of this actually plays into a home game I'm working on set in an area inspired by the environments of the great plains and rockies region.
Now that being said wanted to bring up the horse debate I've seen earlier in the thread. I would like to see them show up but maybe we could see a twist on it to help preserve some of the horseless culture that exists. Maybe the majority of these horses are prehistoric breeds like eohippus or other ancient breeds that maybe are great for transportation of goods and work animals but not as much for riding. Then on top of that you could have whole nations that might have more modern breeds or specially trained versions of the prehistoric breeds that can take a mount. These nations would look at said horses as a national treasure and a key piece of equipment in them maintaining their position on a national scale both due to being able to field rapid response soldiers and for the economic power it would give them. This could give you both the iconic horseback cultures that developed later in native american history and also keep the other infrastructure based on that lack of mounts and other stronger pack animals.
I tried searching for this in our library system and couldn't find it. Can you give me the ISBN? That might help me search for it or even request the library to get it. Sounds cool, especially the Master of Cockroaches.Ok...my turn to bump this.
I just picked up this through interlibrary loan:
American elves: an encyclopedia of little people from the lore of 380 ethnic groups of the Western Hemisphere
ISBN 0-89950-944-4
Note that many creatures are really only listed by a name with a few words of description (Although my reading was more a light skim...they actually divide out the descriptions for each ethnic group from social habits, artifacts, etc, so it it's possible I missed stuff). Although some critters such as Duende or Chaneques are cover in depth.
I'll have to add that to the main page on the first page later. Finishing up work and am kinda tired ;)
Also want to plug Heroes of the West. It is a great resource for classes and archetypes that fit the setting. Tell your friends so they can make more :)
Might have to pick this up depending on if I can find out more about what's in it. A lot of this actually plays into a home game I'm working on set in an area inspired by the environments of the great plains and rockies region.
Now that being said wanted to bring up the horse debate I've seen earlier in the thread. I would like to see them show up but maybe we could see a twist on it to help preserve some of the horseless culture that exists. Maybe the majority of these horses are prehistoric breeds like eohippus or other ancient breeds that maybe are great for transportation of goods and work animals but not as much for riding. Then on top of that you could have whole nations that might have more modern breeds or specially trained versions of the prehistoric breeds that can take a mount. These nations would look at said horses as a national treasure and a key piece of equipment in them maintaining their position on a national scale both due to being able to field rapid response soldiers and for the economic power it would give them. This could give you both the iconic horseback cultures that developed later in native american history and also keep the other infrastructure based on that lack of mounts and other stronger pack animals.
Eohippus and friends were about the size of...cats. So probably not a great form of transportation. In general, until you get to modern Equus horses, most horses are just too small to be of much use.
I tend to think Horses are pretty important to Arcadia, if only because if you want to capture certain tropes associated with the New World, such Sioux hunting Bison mounted on mustangs, they are necessary. And like I mentioned upthread, horses evolved in North America and were common elements of the fauna.
But I do like the idea of alternative pack animals. Brontotheres would be effective beasts of war, and got as big as elephants. Macrauchenia I could see being interesting pack animals.
I tried searching for this in our library system and couldn't find it. Can you give me the ISBN? That might help me search for it or even request the library to get it. Sounds cool, especially the Master of Cockroaches.Ok...my turn to bump this.
I just picked up this through interlibrary loan:
American elves: an encyclopedia of little people from the lore of 380 ethnic groups of the Western Hemisphere
ISBN 0-89950-944-4
Note that many creatures are really only listed by a name with a few words of description (Although my reading was more a light skim...they actually divide out the descriptions for each ethnic group from social habits, artifacts, etc, so it it's possible I missed stuff). Although some critters such as Duende or Chaneques are cover in depth.
Also, did you try a University library, or just public? Not sure about the communication between the two systems, but I could see this being in more circulation in university libraries, as it appears to be aimed at more an academic audience.
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Eohippus and friends were about the size of...cats. So probably not a great form of transportation. In general, until you get to modern Equus horses, most horses are just too small to be of much use.
Ah, but the dreaded dire Eohippus (or dire pronghorn antelopes) could be do-able in a fantasy version.
Then again, I'd prefer standard horses, mustangs, paints and appaloosa, anyway.
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ISBN 0-89950-944-4
Note that many creatures are really only listed by a name with a few words of description (Although my reading was more a light skim...they actually divide out the descriptions for each ethnic group from social habits, artifacts, etc, so it it's possible I missed stuff). Although some critters such as Duende or Chaneques are cover in depth.
Also, did you try a University library, or just public? Not sure about the communication between the two systems, but I could see this being in more circulation in university libraries, as it appears to be aimed at more an academic audience.
Just the public library system here. Doesn't look like they have it, so I'll try elsewhere. Thanks for the heads up.
The irony is that the book is stamped as coming from the University of Washington in Seattle. So it should be returning there when I am done...
Aha, YOU are why is registers as unavailable in the UW catalog! :P
<insert evil laugh>
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I'll have to add that to the main page on the first page later. Finishing up work and am kinda tired ;)
Also want to plug Heroes of the West. It is a great resource for classes and archetypes that fit the setting. Tell your friends so they can make more :)
Might have to pick this up depending on if I can find out more about what's in it. A lot of this actually plays into a home game I'm working on set in an area inspired by the environments of the great plains and rockies region.
Now that being said wanted to bring up the horse debate I've seen earlier in the thread. I would like to see them show up but maybe we could see a twist on it to help preserve some of the horseless culture that exists. Maybe the majority of these horses are prehistoric breeds like eohippus or other ancient breeds that maybe are great for transportation of goods and work animals but not as much for riding. Then on top of that you could have whole nations that might have more modern breeds or specially trained versions of the prehistoric breeds that can take a mount. These nations would look at said horses as a national treasure and a key piece of equipment in them maintaining their position on a national scale both due to being able to field rapid response soldiers and for the economic power it would give them. This could give you both the iconic horseback cultures that developed later in native american history and also keep the other infrastructure based on that lack of mounts and other stronger pack animals.
Eohippus and friends were about the size of...cats. So probably not a great form of transportation. In general, until you get to modern Equus horses, most horses are just too small to be of much use.
I tend to think Horses are pretty important to Arcadia, if only because if you want to capture certain tropes associated with the New World, such Sioux hunting Bison mounted on mustangs, they...
Actually from what I've read the Eohippus was much bigger then that, about twice the size of a fox. Now that doesn't make it a mount but it is much bigger then a cat.
Either way I am totally on board with their being a horse culture in the plains or certain areas of Arcadia but I can see them also being not as ubiquitous there both as a way to explore the native cultures more and to promote more interesting story options for play. Like imagine arriving on those shores and having to transport a ton of magical steel to an allied tribe but finding out not only that their aren't any horses but that their aren't really any roads to this tribes territories that could even take a wagon or horse. Hell people from the inner sea might not even be able to identify the roads considering if you're using byways for humans they could end up looking like just game trails or small paths.
That being said I would love to see horses treated as a special commodity that only certain tribes know how to train and breed akin to how only certain drow houses know how to fleshwarp.
Also other thing I learned is that there are apparently an ancient megafauna that were the ancestors of whales and called "Hooved wolves". Now I don't know how common they were in the Americas but the idea of a giant mountable wolf that could have horseshoes and be ridden by warriors or savage races like gnolls would be awesome.
well we will have to see. But I think the vibe I have been picking up from the developers is that a lot of native cultures will probably have pretty sophisticated civilizations with roads and such.
I think teh "hoofed" wolves you are thinking of are mesonychians...were are no longer considered whale ancestors. Indohyus and anthracotheres (hippo like critters) are the ancestral whales. Mesonychians were a major group in the Paleogene, but lost out to true carnivorans and creodonts. Some were indeed pretty big. Andrewsarchus is thought to be the largest mammalian carnivore ever.
I learned about this today and found it fascinating.
Note the weird little cluster in Northern California. I find the movement of Native American groups fascinating
Today's Arcadian Critter is the Hantceiitehi
Google search only reveals that they are a race of cannibal dwarves from Arapahoe beliefs
I found a bit more info on them in the book noted above: note that I am basically going to just copy and paste these from my notes, so pardon the sentence fragments or terseness of the info. I also included some generic Arapahoe little people info in...I wasn't sure if they refer to a distinct other group of beings, or also refer to the Hantceiitehi. Also, as is often the case, some of the factoids seem contrary to one another.
"Hantceiitehi = Arapaho NA; race of cannibal man-eating dwarves; swift, muscular, and strong; cruel-looking, with brown skin. Could become invisible; had childlike voices. Thick, matted and dirty hair; dwell in deep woods and high mountains. The Arapahoe were warned by the gods to avoid them; Mostly hunt on nights of the full moon; believe that only those who die violent deaths can ascend to paradise; will reanimate unless head is severed. Use poisonous arrow and carve homes from rock; wear cloths made of goat; also create tepes and tree nests; scared of warriors in body paint. Can remove heart from body to make themselves invulnerable. Destroying the heart kills them."
These might make a good Arcadian race of goblinoid, or some other monstrous humanoids.
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Something else that could be interesting is how that fear of owls and their association with the Syrinx could play against the worship of the empyreal lord Taanagaar who's the lord of owls, night, and watchfulness. I could totally see him having some interesting cults and societies in a land where his face and favored animal are treated as something to fear and scorn
Ohh god a group of monks/ninjas who use the symbol of the owl to strike fear in their evil adversaries. We have an owl based batman who isn't evil or crazy. /tangent
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I learned about this today and found it fascinating.
Note the weird little cluster in Northern California. I find the movement of Native American groups fascinating
Today's Arcadian Critter is the Hantceiitehi
Google search only reveals that they are a race of cannibal dwarves from Arapahoe beliefs
I found a bit more info on them in the book noted above: note that I am basically going to just copy and paste these from my notes, so pardon the sentence fragments or terseness of the info. I also included some generic Arapahoe little people info in...I wasn't sure if they refer to a distinct other group of beings, or also refer to the Hantceiitehi. Also, as is often the case, some of the factoids seem contrary to one another.
"Hantceiitehi = Arapaho NA; race of cannibal man-eating dwarves; swift, muscular, and strong; cruel-looking, with brown skin. Could become invisible; had childlike voices. Thick, matted and dirty hair; dwell in deep woods and high mountains. The Arapahoe were warned by the gods to avoid them; Mostly hunt on nights of the full moon; believe that only those who die violent deaths can ascend to paradise; will reanimate unless head is severed. Use poisonous arrow and carve homes from rock; wear cloths made of goat; also create tepes and tree nests; scared of warriors in body paint. Can remove heart from body to make themselves invulnerable. Destroying the heart kills them."
These might make a good Arcadian race of goblinoid, or some other monstrous humanoids.
Ummm... I'd actually say that makes for an amazing deurgar variant. I mean read it, small warrior people who turn invisible, hunt by night, and live in the high mountains? Maybe they are a weird variant that has morphed itself and have alchemists who can remove their hearts and make them invulnerable and things.
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I was generally leaning toward the monstrous humanoid or goblinoid spectrum. Mostly because I would rather we get new creatures/races for Arcadia, than refluffing existing races. Duergar (and traditional D&D Dwarves) are just to tied into European-based settings. Also not sure how well it would tie into Golarion fluff to make them a duergar offshoot, since Duergar are specifically dwarves that stayed behind in the Darklands during the Quest for Sky. And these guys are monsters that have always dwelt in the wilderness since before the coming of humanity.
There are actually some creatures from NA folklore that could be refluffed as halfings or dwarves, but I would prefer these guys to be unique.
My thoughts, as always, are "Arcadia has been in contact with Avistani cultures for FIVE. THOUSAND. FRELLING. YEARS, which, let me remind you, is ten times as long as it's been in the real world, and if the Arcadians are running around as Native American Pastiches in warpaint and feathers and have strictly inferior magic and tech compared to the colonials it will be remarkably insulting and racist."
Please let them have civilizations comparable at the very least to the Linnorm Kingdoms, if not Cheliax and Andoran?
Great points, I wouldn't focus so much on making the inhabitants match Native Americans as I would focus on what kinds of adventures does it present. The mega critters is probably a good start there. I'd want flavor in how the natives figure into the classes, but make them fully equal. Maybe have armor be a pure magical function here with it all done with sacred or enchanted items. Put some teeth in the ghost shirts. Maybe focus on magic over metal, with real naturist ties to explain the differences.
Great points, I wouldn't focus so much on making the inhabitants match Native Americans as I would focus on what kinds of adventures does it present. The mega critters is probably a good start there. I'd want flavor in how the natives figure into the classes, but make them fully equal. Maybe have armor be a pure magical function here with it all done with sacred or enchanted items. Put some teeth in the ghost shirts. Maybe focus on magic over metal, with real naturist ties to explain the differences.My thoughts, as always, are "Arcadia has been in contact with Avistani cultures for FIVE. THOUSAND. FRELLING. YEARS, which, let me remind you, is ten times as long as it's been in the real world, and if the Arcadians are running around as Native American Pastiches in warpaint and feathers and have strictly inferior magic and tech compared to the colonials it will be remarkably insulting and racist."
Please let them have civilizations comparable at the very least to the Linnorm Kingdoms, if not Cheliax and Andoran?
That's something I don't think we have brought up here yet...how do the classes work in Arcadia
Fighter, rogue, witch, ranger, barbarian all seem easy fits of course. Cleric would definitely fit in with any more urbanized regions. What are arcadian wizards like? alchemists? paladins? monks?
Bards I could see in some form.
Wizards would fit as well, I'd think. If the assumption is a pre-literate Arcadia to go along with a pre-Columbian sort of New World, you could still have Incan style Quipu "spellbooks". If the assumption is more of "New World allowed to develop on its own," then literacy and written tongues might not be wholly unknown, and wizards could also exist thusly. (Hypothesis: What if the "language" of magic was the impetus behind written language in Arcadia, much the way the development of language in the real world was prompted in so many ways by trade/economy?)
Clerics, as MMCJawa notes, would be likely; the urban based empires in the RW New World boasted organized theocracies, after all.
Bards I could see in some form.
Wizards would fit as well, I'd think. If the assumption is a pre-literate Arcadia to go along with a pre-Columbian sort of New World, you could still have Incan style Quipu "spellbooks". If the assumption is more of "New World allowed to develop on its own," then literacy and written tongues might not be wholly unknown, and wizards could also exist thusly. (Hypothesis: What if the "language" of magic was the impetus behind written language in Arcadia, much the way the development of language in the real world was prompted in so many ways by trade/economy?)
Clerics, as MMCJawa notes, would be likely; the urban based empires in the RW New World boasted organized theocracies, after all.
The "rope-based" magic would be interesting, especially since it would produce a situation where an Arcadian "spellbook" would be useless to a Avistani wizard, and vice versa
Druids would also be pretty easy to fit...there are plenty of stories of shape-shifting shamans...
Did the RW new world have any particular alchemy like traditions?