Runehack: Timberhaven

Ever since I started to work on Runehack, I knew that I wanted fairies to play an important role in this world. If there were humanoids roughly six times smaller than we are in our worlds, maybe minimizing the technology would have gone a lot faster. Looking for inspiration made me realize, that fairies are usually associates with freedom and nature. And the latter is a hard thing to do in a world like Runehack, seeing how the wilderness here is dominated by the massive monsters looking for prey at all times. Not to say, fairies would be even more vulnerable to such creatures than a regular human. In order to survive out there, they’d need a protective figure, a guardian. So, keep reading to see how I tried to mix the natural aesthetic of fairies with a cyberpunk world populated by monsters that prowl in the wilds. Enjoy, and have a grand day!

Timberhaven

In the deep woods of the Old World stands a city populated by fairies, found inside of the tallest tree in the forest that happens to be shaped like a woman in a dress. While most cities have "fairy towns", which are districts smaller than the regular ones so that fairies can live in them comfortably, Timberhaven is primarily built for the fairies.

"I will always be here to take care of you, my little ones."
All of the art featured in this article was kindly provided by Arell, a friend of mine

Geography

Somewhere in the eastern Old World Timberhaven, surrounded by the Antediluvia Jungle. There are no rivers going through the city, but there are some water springs found underneath the city through mining.

Eating meat is rare in this city since animal herding is rather difficult for the fairies. Fortunately, the barks of Timberhaven are very fertile, allowing them to grow all kinds of fruits and vegetables, sometimes even without access to the sunlight. Underneath the city is a plentiful reserve of amber for their use in the technology they create.

History

There is an ancient fairy legend of the wild mother, a woman taller than all trees, who was overgrown with bark and created the first fairies. She wandered the wilderness, growing throughout her life and carrying the first settlement of the fairies with her. But one day, she had to pass away. Instead of rotting like most do, though, she has supposedly rooted herself, in order to keep growing and blooming every year.

The only piece of evidence that supports this legend being true is the fact that Timberhaven is shaped like a tall woman in a long dress, lined at its bottom hems with silver to protect the city from the monsters. The world's most leading academics in cravenlore suggest that the tree has been shaped through the use of shaping molds developed by an early civilization before the foundation of the earliest kingdoms. The city of Timberhaven is found on the inside of the tree's trunk, underneath the "skirt" and inside of the "body" of the tree, up to and including the head.

Over the last few decades, Timberhaven has been experiencing some internal struggles due to a small group of fairies who wish to end its monarchy. One attempt at a revolution was made 19 years ago, but it did not succeed.

Structure

Timberhaven is a vertical city, with most of its districts determined by their relative altitude when compared to the other districts. Only two out of these six districts are exceptions, neighboring multiple other districts due to their heights.

Lower Circle. The lowest district of the city is used for the mines and many other forms of manual labor, as well as crafting workshops.

Middle Circle. This is a mixture of a residential district, the cultural center of the city, and workplaces for non-manual labor. It's taller than the Lower Circle, High Circle, and Crown District combined. Most of the non-prestigious schools are found here.

High Circle. Mostly mirroring the Middle Circle, High Circle is a mixture of a residential district with some establishment for respectable jobs, entertainment, and higher education.

Crown District. The highest-located district is used for farming due to its greater access to the natural forms of sunlight. The moss growing at the highest parts of the city is surprisingly fertile, providing plenty of nutrients for the crops grown on it.

Outskirts. This district is on the outside of the city. The only buildings located here are the watch shelters and gateways for the intercity forms of transportation.

Tram's Quarters. Due to her massive relative size, Tramona's room is a district of its own, neighboring the Lower, and Middle Circle on the south. While the room doesn't take that much space up, it's big enough to keep Tramona comfortably inside even while she rests.

Culture

For many years, Timberhaven has been a place of freedom, a cultural notion that persists even after the city has been connected to the Mistweb. There were very few unwritten laws to follow, and they shared most of their belongings so that everyone would get what they needed.

Isolated from the rest of the world thanks to the mother-tree's protection, the fairies have grown both judgemental of the outsiders, but also curious of the lives they lead. While the tall ones were strong, hairy, and grounded due to their lack of wings, the little folk were fascinated by their culture and over time started to imitate it. The big ones seem to have these "Kings" and "Queens" who establish rules for others and represent them? The fairies figured they should find someone like that too. The big folk seems to keep animals around, so the fairies have tried it too a couple of times. They like to write things down, so fairies started to do the same. This imitation game has stopped when the monsters have appeared, and the fairies had to isolate themselves. Though, that didn't last too long.

When the first flying machines visited Timberhaven, the big folk have for the first time entered Timberhaven and found the fairies within. Sure some of the fairies have moved out of the city to live in the bigger cities, but plenty of them remain within the tree. While nowadays the Timberhaven fairies recognize the need for laws, they still put great emphasis on the freedom of everyone. Their thoughts of the big folk have grown less judgmental and offensive, as their exposure to them became a lot more direct thanks to the runetech they have provided and keep providing them with.

Some of the phrases and traditions that originated here include:

• "Snatched by a fairy" is a comical descriptor for anything that's lost.
• "Living in a tree" is used to describe people who are clueless about what's happening in the current times. It's seen as somewhat offensive by the fairies who don't live in Timberhaven, while those that do usually laugh at it.
• During the last 7 days of the last month of winter, the denizens of Timberhaven have a tradition, in which they give gifts to each other by hiding them someplace where the receiver of a gift will sooner or later find it. It's advised to inform the receiver where any unfound gifts are before the summer starts, but some people forget or prefer to not tell the person at all, leading to small unexpected gifts found once in a while.
• "Wingless" is a metaphorical nickname for someone who is not free, either because of being enslaved, in prison, or in a complicated social situation that feels inescapable. In the old times when the first laws came to be, the only punishment comparable to execution was tearing off one's wings.
• On the last evening of summer, the fairies share plenty of sweet meals out of various berries with each other. This tradition doesn't seem to have a name or a specific historical origin.

Fairies

I don't know when I'll get around to writing a separate article on all of the races, so now's probably the best time to talk about how fairies of Runehack function.

All the races of fairies in Runehack. Going from left to right: Barrens, Meadow, Oceanic, Mountain, and Tundral. The banana is there for scale, and so is a runecard. The fairies wear outfits that are all mixes of various Runehack subcultures.

Fairies are winged humanoids recognizable for their very small size, a pair of wings sprouting from between the shoulder blades on the back, and long downwards-pointing ears, that can rise up when they experience great excitement or pay close attention to something. The skin tones of fairies range from the beige and brown skin tones typical to humans to light and dark green skin tones. Uniquely, their hair can be naturally of any color. Their wings are for the most part monochromatic gossamer wings, but occasionally a fairy with butterfly or multi-colored wings can be born. Their eyes are monochromatic, and glow very lightly.

Fairies are capable of flying at about the speed of a slow-walking human. There are no historical nor present records of a male fairy ever existing, making the fairy species all-female. Their average lifespan is 200 years, and their height ranges from 6 to 17 centimetres tall (2.3 to 6.7 inches) with no proven correlation between the various races of fairies. An average fairy is capable of digesting meat, but it is not required for their survival. (Note: They reproduce asexually, but so far I don't know how exactly so I'm omitting that for now.)

There are five basic races of fairies that people of this world distinguish. Understandably, plenty of fairies nowadays are mixtures of these, but they tend to recognize themselves as one of these, or a combination of two.

• Meadow. Meadow fairies originated in the midlands. Their skin tends to be pale green, and their hair is usually some shade of brown or blonde. 
• Barrens. Barrens fairies originated in the desert. Their skin tends to be dark brown or reddish-brown, and their hair is of any vibrant color. 
• Tundral. Tundral fairies originated in the arctic environments. Their skin tone tends to be pale beige, and their hair usually takes on hues of cold colors such as blue, purple, or rarely green. 
• Oceanic. Oceanic fairies originated in or near the seas. Their skin tends to be dark green, and their hair bright, usually green, blue, or yellow. 
• Mountain. Mountain fairies originated in the hills and mountains. Their skin tone is usually a saturated green skin tone, and their hair is of some dark color. 

Subculture Showcase: Wilderpunk

Note: This section is not meant to imply that the presented subculture is in any way unique to or most represented within this city. It is just a subculture I chose to present because it felt most thematically fitting and it wasn't introduced yet.

So many times are fairies dressed up in leaves and flowers and other natural clothes, I figured it would only be fair to put a subculture that's like that into my world too. Pun intended.

Art Curiosities: Drawing toes is hard, and these are just models for outfits anyway, so please don't judge. Also, these two are not fairies.

Traditionally, the natural world outside of city walls is viewed with an acquiescence. People are aware of the monsters out there that can take on any form they wish, which is a major concern for anyone who wishes to move between the cities. But where some see tricks and danger, others see beauty and freedom.

Wilderpunk is about rebelling against civilization by embracing that which they fear the most—the natural world. The most visible way in which they show this is in their outfits, which commonly use leaves and petals (or cloth that’s made to resemble them), and more unusually bark, vines, furs and scales, or sometimes even imitations of wings. Elves, fairies, and goblins make up a disproportionate majority of the various Wilderpunk communities.

Folks who would consider themselves part of the Wilderpunk subculture live their lives with little to no concerns. Ideally, they’d prefer to move out of the cities to live in the country, creating their own food and managing on their own without all this fancy runetech. But the silence of those few who tried this is a lesson for any who would actually wish to attempt this. In fact, it feels like the megacorporations are making citizens of their cities more dependent on them with each passing day. It’s why most of these punks prefer to move into the Independent Kingdoms, hoping that not all of them will succumb to the two biggest movers and shakers of the worldwide society.

The punks who remain in the city-states have one goal that they share: to bring independence back to the city. Whether it’s through attempts of reaching the government level to change the local laws, educating the public, or by protesting loud and clear, wilderpunks do what they can to change the world. The means by which they wish to change it divide the community into smaller ones, mixing them with Acumen, Loyalists, and sometimes even with the corporations.

Relations

Timberhaven is the closest ally to the Amberwatch, as well as independent kingdoms generally. Avurai University knows of Timberhaven and usually picks up personal assistants there. Currently, the city has also good relationships with Nexuspace, meaning if it were to lose its independence, it would most likely be purchased by that company.

Curiosities

Several points of interest are in the Timberhaven, including but not limited to:

• Rooted Mines are mines found beneath the Lower Circle, where the hollowed-out roots of the tree have grown. These mines are surprisingly rich in amber.
• The Heart is a wooden statue found in the High Circle district. Its shape is closest to an elven heart, but some differences are present there. It's assumed to be a creation of a long-forgotten artist, and it's found slightly lower than it would be in an elf scaled up to the size of Timberhaven.
• Candyrock Spa is an establishment built in one of the mines currently unused due to a water spring. It is a fairy bathhouse that also contains a confectionery store.
• Firefly Season is the name of two annual periods of time. First starts in the middle of spring and lasts until the first days of autumn. The second period lasts for the entirety of winter. At this time, fireflies enter Timberhaven to reside there, either safe from the jungle's summer wildlife, or for protection from the cold. Fairies used to bring fireflies with them as a portable hands-free light source before runetech, and some still do to this day.
• The Empty Portal is a structure located in the Middle Circle. It's a ring shaped out of natural branches, standing on one of the few city streets. It was created by a long gone fairy artist, inspired by the ancient myths from the nearby kingdoms of witches and wizards who could create portals that allowed for instantaneous travel between distant places.
• Fairy Tunnels are entrances to and exits from Timberhaven, hidden well to be unseen by naked eye from the outside.
• Glowing Orchard is a mossy garden in the Middle and High Circle. All of the moss here is bioluminescent, glowing in the dark well enough to illuminate the immediate surroundings.

Tramona Towers

Years before the monsters have appeared, Tramona Towers was born in the city of (city name). She was a nice child, and a good climber, but she was shy due to other kids in the school making fun of her for her small height. For many nights, she wished to grow taller so that the kids wouldn't make fun of her anymore. And once she reached puberty, she got her wish in a way she never would have expected. She grew quickly, and in a matter of months, she has become the tallest female elf in the whole world, at a height of 240 centimeters. Taller than even average height orcs, however, she has once again become a target of judgments and jokes, this time due to her extreme height. Frustrated, she left the city and went into the world to find a place for herself.

Over her travels, she has stumbled upon Timberhaven, the city of fairies. They were rather small, and while they recognized she's taller than average, they welcomed her with open arms. Over her time spent in the city, which was massive even for someone as big as her, she helped fairies by carrying them to the various heights of their city to let their wings rest. This has lead to the fairies gifting her with an outfit equipped with plenty of pockets and standing platforms, employing her as a mode of mass transport within Timberhaven. Tramona, nowadays also nicknamed "Trammy", has become an instant celebrity when the Mistweb found out about her years later, inspiring many of the children worldwide who thought like they don't fit with her life story. One entire district is dedicated to serving as a room just for her. Once every year, she takes a three weeks long vacation, spending two of these weeks at its unstopping festival to meet up with her fans. One thing is for sure—since elves live for a long time, Tramona will be helpful to the Timberhaven for many years to come.

Trammy, surprised by her small friends bringing her an ice-cream of her favorite flavor (cookie).

Important People

A few examples of the important people from the Timberhaven:

• Jenissa Sevenleaf, fairy, female; the current queen of Timberhaven.
• Tramona Towers, elf, female; the carrier of Timberhaven's fairies.
• Sallice Redleaf, fairy, female; influencer, internationally popular singer, actress originally born in New Prista.
• Imma Freshblade, fairy, female; doctor who has graduated the Avurai University.
• Lanessa Freestone, fairy, female; representative of Nexuspace who's waiting for her opportunity to buy this city.

Design of Runehack: University's Pillars

Ahoy! Did you notice the school year is starting again? And so is the university? Or maybe it did already. I don't know, it seems to happen at different times all around the world. Anyways, while working on the next Runehack city article, I got distracted, wrote, and published a one-page RPG for One Page RPG Jam 2021. Runehack: Univerity's Pillars is a game taking place in the Avurai University and it's all about balancing your life by choosing and stacking dice representing the opportunities you've got over your time spent studying. While I could describe all of the rules, or add yet more rules to the mix, I figured I should try to talk for once about how I've designed them. The game is freely available on itch.io through the link above, so if you want to, feel free to check it out and download it as a PDF. Let's hope this won't be too chaotic.

I've wanted to write a dice-stacking RPG for a long time. Making towers out of the dice was something that I always found neat since it's something of a meme in the D&D community for players to do while bored. I also wanted to make a school game, where the player has to make decisions about their personal life, and how they invest the time they spend there. One day, I had a bright idea of combining the two.

The lore article regarding Avurai University was entirely written before I conceived of this game, but there were some cool things to latch onto. For example, three semesters (trimesters?), each of which lasts three months, for a total of four years of study. After a lot of time spent deliberating, I figured I'll make the player earn one extra die for every month that passes. And, coincidentally, that was a very good choice.

How many pillars? I wrote down some ideas, combined some, and ended up with three core pillars that sounded good enough to me:

• Self, which stands for improving yourself by exercising, working on your passions, and caring for yourself,
• Contacts, which stands for your friends, family, and potential romantic partner as well,
• and School, which stands for your performance on the exams, lectures, lessons, and extra-curricular but school-related activities.

There was a small problem though. I didn't have enough dice to test it out. So, I went to a local gaming place, where I stacked dice for about an hour or two. Fun fact: To play this game optimally while being sure you'll never run out of dice, you would need 4d4 (or more if you somehow manage to balance d4's on top of d4's), 38d6, 36d8, 36d10, and 36d12. The highest towers I made were 11 dice tall each, most of them below that but usually above 6 dice.

I thought about whether that's a problem or not, did some maths to see what the final numbers should be. There are 4 years of 9 months, for a total of 36 dice to distribute into three pillars. This means... at least one would have to have 12 dice.

But wait! I did include a way for a player to remove a die. While that is true, it's also extremely rare - this chance is 1 in 36. In other words, it would happen on average once per four years of study. By the way, getting a d4 has the same chance, and that die serves as a nice way of preventing a player from progressing further in one pillar due to some critical problem. Anyways, even with one die removed on average, that's 34 dice.

This was a hard problem to overcome, but in the end, it turned out to be only a matter of mindset. It's fine because I'm emulating here a flying university that expects the impossible out of their students. Only fifty students finish the fourth year from each of the faculties, and that's assuming their test results were good enough. Who knows, maybe with enough training, there could be players who can reliably stack 12 dice. If I did 11 with little to no training, others can surely do better with training.

Believe it or not, in the beginning, the rolling worked very differently. The player rolled once to see which die they get, and each die could go into one, two, or three pillars. I originally wanted to make separate tables for every group of events, but... that turned out to take up too much space on the precious single page I could use. I know I could have technically used two since One Page RPG expects you to print the paper from both sides (at least I think?), but I liked the challenge better this way. After reworking how the core dice rolls work though, everything became much more clear - instead of making a lot of events based on choices players could make, I could just... randomly generate the options that a player has to choose from. Another quirk that turned out to be a good thing for reworking was the rolling of "scores" for the summaries of study years. Originally, you had to roll these at the end of your school year. Which meant... you had to take apart your beautiful tower, roll the dice, add them up, find out you have no romantic partner nor social life, and then put the tower back together. Using the rolls from the events instead turned out to be a much better idea, plus impactful for the player.

Alright, there's that! It took me surprisingly long to actually get back to this article, because... well, I've revived an old project of mine. You might even get to see a preview of it sooner than you'd expect.

Thank you for reading my rambling, and have a nice day!

My D&D Characters

Howdy there! While I'm working on all sorts of things, I had a random thought of writing a short article on the various D&D character I've played, as well as some of my favorite NPCs. While I recognize most of these are tied to their setting in one way or another, feel free to use them in your own games as NPCs. If it makes your game better, it will make me happier.

Sam Eks Kopee

While the name is a little on the nose, this is one of my all-time favorite characters I've ever played. In a long-term solo game, Sam served as a master infiltrator to the Thieves' Guild wielding the combination of his changeling powers and roguish training for spying. Better yet, I got to play one of my favorite creations, the faceless (which was my rework of changelings before the 5e Eberron book has been released). It also came with several feats for expanding the shapeshifting powers, which was just awesome.

When it came to his personality, he was careful but curious. In his free time, he worked as an actor for the local theatre. This profession was so ingrained into his personality, that he would usually entertain his closest ones by transforming them when with them to jokingly mock them. However, that was always just a facade that he used to hide his insecurity about who he feels like he should be, and whether society could accept him for that. Due to his risky profession, he turned his faith in the Goddess of luck and chance, Avandra (although this could be replaced by a fitting deity in your own games).

When it came to mechanics and magical item equipment, he is a simple character. Two magical items I can't imagine him without are glamoured studded leather armor, and gloves of thievery. While the gloves make his hands much more dexterous than they normally would be, the armor serves as his second skin. Not only can he change his appearance using an action, but he can also alter the appearance of his clothes as a bonus action too, completely changing how he appears. Other potentially useful magical items for him are the medallion of thoughts and the slippers of spider climb. While his subclass was originally Swashbuckler, the truth is he could be almost any roguish subclass depending on the world and his role during the infiltrations. Soulknife sounds rather fun if you wanted him to have more supernatural powers. While most of his stats could be adjusted easily, I would keep his Dexterity and Charisma high.

Picture not included, because he could literally look like anyone. While he did have a default appearance, revealing it would kind of ruin the surprise, right?

Katerina S.

A bit of a metagame backstory before I get to the character herself. Over two years ago, I have started my live campaign that lasted for quite a while. I overestimated myself, and managed to gather another group of people, "just for a oneshot". However, as it goes, those friends have called their friends, and then friends of friends have been called. When the number grew too big, I asked my friend for help, if he could take over DMing this group for me. He helped me out, and I am thankful to him to this day. After the oneshot, he actually started to DM a game for us that's been going on to this day. My character in that game, which simply put was a half-orc monk with some extra homebrew stuff, didn't last too long though. He has fallen in combat against an owlbear, trying to help out his cleric companion by attracting the monster's attention away from him and to himself. However, the beast has rolled a little too well, and in one mighty swoop, the legend of the half-orc has ended. I wasn't sad, however. I was glad because I knew this could have an impact on the party. I have chosen to not attend the next game on purpose, to let the party feel the void, and to give them some space before the new character arrives.

Since this happened before a major release like Tasha's Cauldron of Everything, I was looking for inspiration in the homebrew. Turns out I had a little too many ideas, so my DM asked me to make a "vanilla" character. Without homebrews.

Katerina is a human, who has lost the memories of her early childhood. The earliest memory she has is that of waking up on the street without a home, knowing she just made a pact with the Evening Star. She uses her magical powers to protect all that is good, and fight the evils of the world. If this doesn't ring any bells for you, let me add that one of her eldritch invocations was Armor of Shadows, which lets her cast mage armor. And since the appearance of that could be reflavored...

~Fighting evil by moonlight,
... wait, wrong lyrics. Uhh...
~Caught in destiny we shine for we are meant to be the Star Guardians
... wait, wrong again. Wait, I remember now!
~We are, the great Starlight Brigade!

Artwork kindly provided by Yurco_.

Yes. It used to be a joke character. Emphasis on used to.

Katerina is a considerate optimist. Since she was made to patch up something that the party was missing at a time, she is more intelligent than charismatic and uses her Intelligence for her spellcasting too. If there's one thing that makes her happy, though, it's making other people happy. Whether it's through generosity, motivational words, or a little bit of magic. She also suffers from claustrophobia due to an accident when she was growing up.

The world she lives in is an unwelcoming one to the arcane casters. Wizardry is outright banned by the United Order, a religious organization that rules the entire continent. Sorcerers are kidnapped by the soldiers and trained for unknown purposes. And warlocks, well... people don't know yet that those exist. Katerina didn't get much choice in becoming one, at least as far as her memories go. Being a child of the street, she has been found and raised by the previously-mentioned half-orc monk. What he did wasn't legal, but Katerina knew that he did it out of necessity, not because he wanted to. When the United Order has begun founding adventuring guilds all over the continent, he decided to leave his criminal life behind and joined one. In part thanks to this, Katerina got to study under the tutelage of one of the last wizards living in secrecy.

Katerina is a warlock, serving the Great Old One patron. All of her abilities are flavored in a positive optimistic way, usually related to the stars or hearts. What others would consider a disturbing way to telepathically communicate with people by crossing the linguistic and auditory barriers is Heartspeech, a way to speak to another person's heart directly across the barriers. The Pact Boon of choice for her was Chain, with her first familiar being a sprite named Xandra. With her powers, she could tell the good people from evil using her tiny friend, but after an encounter with a genie, she achieved the powers of Heartsight. Since then, her familiar has used the statistics of an imp, still resembling a fairy but a bit more fiendish. The vast majority of her spells revolves around utility outside of combat—long-distance communication, illusions, and charms. Some of her iconic magical items are a robe of stars for some extra spells and a misty scarf that she regularly uses for short-range teleportation.

TCUU

This entry will be quite a bit shorter, but I do want to return to this character someday or reuse it. Since at the moment I don't have games in which I would play him, I don't have any need to hold back the spoilers for his backstory.

Artwork by shinji2602.

Once upon a time, there has been a research facility hidden from the world someplace underground. And in this facility worked an elf called Vittor Robotnik, clever for an artificing apprentice and loved by his family who didn't know of this job. What he worked on he didn't know, it was way above his paygrade. However, his life has changed forever once the accident happened. The facility has blown up, killing many, and among them Vittor too. Unexpectedly, though, he was the only one who did not die completely. Since there were exotic materials related to the current study of the ethereal plane present, his soul was stuck there, lingering and unable to move on. However, over the time spent there, he learned that he could move very small objects on the Material Plane around.

It took him decades, but his project was finally finished. Combining the small parts, he managed to make bigger and bigger parts that he could move. Luckily, everything important for the construct was present, which is why he was able to create a mechanical body for himself. His soul is now bound to the mechanism, which he called TCUU (pronounced tee-see-yous), resembling a local legendary hero who has supposedly recreated his own body.

The decades have made him cold and calculated, but patient. While some of his humor still remains, it is completely dry by now. Each of his jokes told in a monotone voice has to be followed with "Ha. Ha. Ha." to let others know that it was meant to be funny. His motivation was like a boulder rolling down a hill—it takes a while to get moving, but it's hard to stop its determined roll. Upon finding out that his wife has died, he was hopeless until he came to learn that she too is now stuck in the Ethereal Plane. He is dedicated to crafting a body for her to inhabit, which is why he'll do anything he can in order to obtain more robotic parts.

TCUU is a warforged artificer of the armorer specialization. Unfortunately, since the campaign he was in ended after a couple of sessions, he didn't get to experience all that much stuff. One day, though, I'll get to play him some more, and define him better.

The magical rings salesman

This one is even shorter, since it's an NPC. There are very few constants across my various games. However, I always try to find some way to include this character. He's a simple NPC to portray. A fire genasi whose skin and "hair" are blue (possibly due to Wild Magic?), he doesn't have a consistent backstory of any kind. What's better, his name is remembered by nobody. He probably sold it to a fairy or something.

A wonderful rendition of a cross-dimensional NPC magical rings salesman, provided kindly by /u/Seqarian.

But oh what's this? A cart that's filled with all kinds of magical rings! Wait, why isn't anyone paying attention to him? What's this, they're saying that his magical rings are all just pranks? Nonsense, there must be something useful! Let's dig in...

Oh, how about a ring of flying? Oh wait, it only makes you fall upwards. Hmm, maybe a ring of fishing? Huh, so it attracts fish only because it's glittery. Aha, here we go! A ring of impressions, which lets you do supernaturally good handshakes, even when the other person would try to bluff you by turning it into a high-five or a fistbump!

... maybe they were right about him. What was his name again?

I could go on and on about my other characters. Some of my favorites being the Seven-Cursed Queen Arcadia, Doirend the archfey, Gray the noble, Ebenezer, Krush, Kyrislav, and so many others. But for now, I'll spare myself, and see if this is something people like and want to see more of. I hope you've enjoyed this, that perhaps you'll find a use for these in your games someday, and I wish you a great day!

Runehack: Jewelstake

I have spent plenty of time thinking about a desert-based city and how to make it interesting. Whether it's Ancient Egypt in general, Las Vegas, Agrabah, Jerusalem, or any of the other desert-based cities, it's a fascinating thing to me to consider. After plenty of thought, I found a way to make my desert city that's interesting—a pillar of natural glass. Turns out that's all I needed to create what's Runehack's version of Las Vegas, which is rather lovely for a cyberpunk world to have. While the exact physics behind something like this aren't explained, there's enough hints dropped in this article to suggest how this pillar of glass came to be. I'm excited to have created something that sounds plausible when explained, but supernatural when it's not, because things like these have lead to myths and legends in our past.

A significant part of this article to me is the magicore, a magician subculture. I have been into magic tricks for years, so it's something that means a lot to me. I'm glad to have found a way, in which this premise could fit into the Jewelstake, and you can expect to see some references to real life things within that section.

With all this said, I hope you'll enjoy reading about another of my cities, and I wish you an awesome day!

Edit: After redeeming a sketch from the awesome Densetsu_VII, I'm adding it into the article with his permission.

Jewelstake

When an ancient tribe of orcs and goblins finds a pillar of gem-like crystalline material in the desert near a river, it's reasonable to assume they would build a village nearby. When they find out over the years that the stake is actually growing, they start to place bets. And once the news began spreading, people from all over the world gathered there to keep placing bets. This of course draws the attention of Lifestock, and the business starts to ponder: what if we made a couple of businesses around this city for people who like to make bets?

A historical sketch of the Jewelstake's early origins, sometime after the orc and goblin clans found out that the stake is indeed growing. I really like the idea of skull motifs in the Ironskulls' architecture, as well as the orange hues in the green stake of natural glass.
Art kindly provided by Densetsu_VII.

Geography

Jewelstake is located in the White desert that's found in southwestern New World. Since the city was built around it, the Lively river flows through it, splitting it into two halves. One of the ways in which the river is unique is its riverbed of small vibrant natural glass pebbles.

Majority of the foods that Jewelstake produces are poultry, as well as fruits and vegetables that do well in this temperate climate. Cotton is something that also fares well in this region. While this place is very poor when it comes to the natural reserves of amber, it has plenty of gold, silver, iron, and oil. One of its biggest sources of income though is tourism and gambling.

History

One of the nomadic tribes of orcs mixed with goblins has wandered the world in search for a place they could call homeland for years before they stumbled upon this sight. A pillar of natural glass rising from the ground is indeed a peculiar natural phenomenon, one could say it's unique within this world to this very spot.

Some of the goblins have made a bet that the orcs soon joined in on. "Which way will the stake fall" is something they have pondered for decades. At first, the bets started with small goods, which decayed and rotted years ago. So they looked for a substitute that wouldn't spoil, and found the pebbles of natural glass in the river. They figured these pebbles would be a good representation of goods, so they used those. Some historians speculate that this was the first instance of a fiat currency in the world.

The pillar's growth was slow, and so it turned out that the bet will likely not come to fruition within the lifetimes of the original settlers. Some of them left the village, wishing they had nothing to do with it. Rest in turn reacted by raising the stakes to entice each other to stay in the bet for generations. Eventually, they formulated a law, by which everyone invested in the bet has to add more into the bet, or leave it on the summer equinox of each year. After several attempts to knock the pillar over, another law was formulated, stating that whoever breaks the stake will be executed.

When the money grew large enough, the village attracted travelers from the entire continent, and over years grew into a city. The bets keep increasing, and with that more and more people run out of money. So, they start to bet things that grew in value over years, such as expensive imported wines, cheese, and eventually even plots of land.

The age of monsters began, and the city has surrounded itself with walls for protection. When Lifestock grew large enough to buy cities, they bought Jewelstake and inspired by its ongoing bet, came up with the gambling dens—establishments where people get to gamble in various ways with a promise of a small chance to get a lot more.

The bet is yet to be resolved. Scientists estimate that the tower could collapse at any moment, with the greatest estimate for the tower's maximum height being 530 meters. Due to the bet taking so long, many betters have sold their spots in the wager to others, and over time a market revolving only around the sale of the spots within this contest has been established.

Structure

Jewelstake is divided into 7 districts, 4 of which are now held by the major betters in the Jewelstake’s bet, and will belong to its winner. Thus, to discuss these districts properly, we need to discuss the four major players in the historical bet.

• Lifestock. As soon as they bought the city, they started to convince people to sell them their wagers, offering them money in return that would be valued more than everything they’ve bet up until the moment. Plenty of people fell for it, which is why now Lifestock owns the greatest percentage of the bets, 30%.
• Pagachi. The bet began when the Marlin Pagachi claimed that the Jewel Stake will fall northwards. The man was confident about it, making his children promise to him on his deathbed that they will insist on this fact. When others started to sell the bets, the family started to buy out anything next to the north, until it reached precisely 25% of the possible ways the stake could collapse.
• Ironskull. The orkish woman of the Ironskull clan disagreed with Marlin, and said that it will fall to the south. While her family wasn’t as busy with buying out the bets, by now they own 15% of the possible bets.
• Vilfae Rehar. The dwarven billionaire came to this city only after Lifestock bought it, seeking the opportunity of a lifetime as the newest competitor. She bought most of the remaining bets, paying generously for them. Nowadays, she owns 25% of the bets.

The remaining 5% is distributed among the commoners of the city. Parts of the bets of all parties except the Pagachi family are what the stock market around the bets is based upon. The seven districts of Jewelstake are as follows:

Pagachi Street. The oldest district of the city is populated majorly by the goblins of various clans, with the epynomous Pagachi family owning all the gambling dens and bars in it. It occupies the southern parts of the city, bordering The Wall, the Central District, the Steel District, and the Wheels District.

Steel District. Orcs of the Ironskull clan have settled in the western part of the city. Several farms can be found there, along with some inns, and a few entrances to the mines. The Steel District's neighbours are The Wall, the Central District, the Green District, and the Pagachi Street.

Central District. This part of the city is where all the corporations brought to Jewelstake by the Lifestock can be found. It borders all the districts with the exception of The Wall.

Rehar Town. The district placed into the bet by the dwarven billionaire contains majority of the mines, plenty of hotels, and a handful of gambling houses. The district is filled with various copies of world’s wonders, attracting many tourists regularly. This district borders The Wall, the Central District, the Green District, and the Wheels District.

Wheels District. The Wheels District is one of the newer parts of Jewelstake, and fortunately first of the districts to not be placed into the great bet. It’s named after the plethora of casinos, which all use wheel motifs inspired by the stake itself to place bets onto. Several small companies, as well as many residential buildings, are also found here. The Wheels District is bordered by The Wall, the Central District, the Rehar Town, and the Pagachi Street.

Green District. All the vertical farms can be found along the coastline of the Lively river in the northernmost district of Jewelstake. Green District borders The Wall, the Central District, the Steel District, and the Rehar Town.

The Wall. While it’s not a proper district per se, it keeps growing in size due to newcomers who decide this district is the best for them. It has been agreed to be a neutral ground that cannot be placed into the bet for the safety of all within it, which is why many of the people who move into Jewelstake will be drawn to choose this district over any of the ones involved in the bet. The Wall borders all districts with the exception of the Central one.

Culture

The clothes billow upon movement on purpose to keep their wearer cool by providing breeze. While common clothes are normal in the desert too ever since the cooling/warming fabrics have been invented, these outfits are still a regular sight in the Jewelstake.
Art kindly provided by Arell, a friend of mine.

It would take a daring nature to live in the desert for generations, just to see if you're right about a pillar of natural glass falling one way or another. Citizens of Jewelstake tend to be rather daring, loving competition and wagers. While some show such tendencies in physical ways, such as traversing the city over the flat rooftops by jumping the great gaps between them, others prefer to dare with their expression—be it their outfit, their speech, or their art.

However, it takes two to compete or make a bet. And while their courage is seen as normal within the city, outsiders might find it a little off-putting. Jewelstakers have thus developed a culture of hospitality towards those new to the city. It takes three days to fully welcome someone within the city, if all the traditional rites were to be performed. Each of these three days consists of five meals that consist of the best thing that those who are welcoming the outsiders can afford, and showing the city. While these rites are today a rarity, local elders still insist on doing them even for people who they wouldn't approve of.

People of Jewelstake look down on the criminals and cheaters, but everyone deserves two chances. In order for a wager to work as it should, both sides must play by the rules, which include paying the price upon losing. A century ago, it was normal for the punishment of the criminals and cheaters to be loss of an eye. It was a mark for life, and a mark that anyone who would look them in the eyes could see immediately, branding them as a swindler. Great part of the culture has thus become focus on the eyes of people when talking to others. Attempts to cover the eyes in any way seem to the local as a sign of dishonesty and potential ulterior motives.

Subculture Showcase: Magicore

Note: This section is not meant to imply that the presented subculture is in any way unique to or most represented within this city. It is just a subculture I chose to present because it felt most thematically fitting and it wasn't introduced yet.

Magician outfits serve two purposes: to draw the attention to the magician, and to draw the attention away from the magician.
Art kindly provided by Arell, a friend of mine.

Art Curiosities: The cultural significance of witch hats that both of the performers depicted wear have been shifting over the history between a sign of scientific prowess and the knowledge of supernatural. The magicore uses brushes as implements of "magic" for their performance, because the early runes have been considered a form of magic in the era before the monsters came, and runes used to be painted with the brushes. Dark clothes can help them with hiding fish lines that could be used for tricks, in which they make it seem like they can levitate a thing wherever they wish without using runes, and red color serves to draw attention to them.

Magicore is focused on making the extraordinary seem to be real. While most forms of cheating are unacceptable here, magicians are seen as acceptable for the wonder they spark whenever they perform. There are three core tenets that the magicians must follow to keep calling themselves a magician, although as you'll see, over the years exceptions have surfaced.

1. Keep it real. You shall never reveal nor admit your tricks. To keep your magic real, you must say it is real.
2. Once per show. You shall never perform the same trick twice on a show. The more you show it, the more likely it is they'll find it out.
3. Never after reveal. If someone uncovers your trick, you cannot perform it ever again, for magic known to the commonfolk is never again wondrous.

With these tenets in mind, every show is a dare. If someone was to find out how one's trick is done, the magician is never supposed to perform it again. After the advent of Mistweb, this has lead to a culture, in which the tricks are revealed only by those who wish to be rude. Some magicians ignore this tenet, while others outright violate it themselves.

Repeats are usually not entertaining, but people who are curious enough about a trick will sooner or later ask for that same trick to be performed again. The magicore community has discussed over the years what exactly does the trick stand for here. Is it the mechanism in which the secret is performed? Is it the exact act that's performed? Is part of a trick a trick? If a magician performs a trick, in which they shuffle three cards around, making it seem like they are all the same card, is this all one trick being repeatedly performed, or is this whole performance a trick?

Finally, there have been some magicians who have donned a mask and started to reveal their own tricks online. Most famous of these has nicknamed herself "Null", and her identity is to this day unknown. Revealing one's own tricks is seem somewhat okay, but Null goes one step beyond and deconstructs the tricks of other magicians too. There are some guesses about who Null truly is, but for now most of these have no evidence that couldn't be pure coincidences.

A schism within the magicore community is whether usage of the real runes and runetech is acceptable, and whether it should be counted as part of first tenet, or even get its own. The issue with runes in a performance is that people have come to expect them, which is why some mages have accepted runes as a commonality, thus using them in their performances. The opposite end of this spectrum refuses to use runes of any kind in a performance, relying on far more traditional methods. Vast majority of mages though doesn't hesitate to use runes only to enhance the performance with extra sensations like glitters and fanfares without the runes being the real secret to a trick.

Due to all of the above, there's a minority of performers within the magicore community who have labeled themselves as "true mages". These performers take pride in following all the tenets, including no usage of runetech on their shows. These make some of the most famous magicians in the whole world, with their shows being rather costly to attend.

Relations

Jewelstake belongs to the family of city-states owned by the Lifestock. Despite the fact that Lifestock's ownership of Jewelstake is up in the air, the corporation still owns some parts of Jewelstake that are not involved in the bet.

There are two surprising partners that Jewelstake has in the other cities. One is New Prista, which is the origin of plethora of tourists who visit Jewelstake for a night or two. The other partner is Wondermire due to Jewelstake being its source of various performers.

Curiosities

Among the various points of interest that can be found in Jewelstake are the following:

• The Jewel Stake, a pillar of natural glass that grows out of the ground on the borders of the Pagachi Street, Steel District, and Central District.
• Fortunate Hall, a complex of buildings found in the Central District that's characteristic for its rentable hoverrooms, allowing its most paying customers to travel between the buildings without having to go outdoors.
• Headtemple of Boredom, a temple dedicated to scorning the deity of Boredom, that has turned into a casino over time. Regular scornages are still held once a week.
• The Vibrant Woman, a sculpture of a female humanoid without a face in the Green District that has been grown there by an unknown elf over decades. The woman is idealistic, reaching for the Sun with both hands.
• Lively Port, a port built on the Lively river. It's known all over the city for its mixed choir that has existed for nearly a century.

Important People

A few examples of the important people from the Jewelstake:

• Cataly Pagachi, goblin, female; the current elder of the Pagachi clan.
• Thalegh Ironskull, orc, male; the current elder of the Ironskull clan.
• Vilfae Rehar, dwarf, female; the billionaire who helped in the development of the Jewelstake with her investments.
• Waltward Wilmund Westford, human, male; the current President of Jewelstake.
• Jonrick Ironskull, orc, male; a famous artist and actor.
• Null, unknown, female; the masked Mistwebber who's a self-claimed magician revealing other magicians' tricks.
• Bernara "The Great" Blossomwell, fairy, female; a performer, actress, and the world's last true mage who's a fairy.

Encryption runes, Submemory, and Arunia

I've spent plenty of time pondering how the encryption runes should work. I think it's time I'll try to describe that, and while at it describe some related worldbuilding.

Encryption Runes

An encryption rune has three inputs: information, key, and mask. Its functionality is simple: If the observer holds the key in their memory or submemory, they will observe the information. Otherwise, they observe the mask. Out of these three components, key is mandatory, and while both information and mask are optional, the rune must contain at least one of these in order to make sense. While usage of either of those is relatively cheap though, combination of both is a lot more expensive, making encryption runes with all three components exceedingly rare.

Both mask and information are based on illusions created by the runes, using sight, hearing, smell and taste, touch, temperature, and northcall. You can't encrypt something that's already written down, though you could cover it up with a new encryption. If the encryption lacks a mask, someone who doesn't hold the key will perceive the rune's drawing, as well as whatever it's covering up as a white noise, or its equivalent in the senses that the information is conveyed in. If the encryption lacks an information, whoever doesn't possess the key won't perceive rune's drawing nor the effect it's supposed to present.

Key is an input written in the same format as a detection rune would be. It can be about any range or combination of physical sensations perceivable through sight, hearing, smell and taste, touch, northcall, and temperature. Time on its own doesn't work here, but it can be used to determine the durations of these sensations when combined with them. Understandably, if one wishes to make these sensations complex enough to be perceived by more than one person, they would have to cover a lot of wiggle room. But people have come up with a different way to do this too.

See, if two people look at a white piece of paper, what they'll see is slightly different. One could maybe have the Sun or other light source bounce off of it, while the other could be looking at its darker side. There's all sorts of factors that can skew our senses, which in the past required plenty of wiggle-rooms, making encryption runes so impractical they weren't used. That was until someone came up with a genius idea of using illusions as passwords. After all, illusions are easy to reproduce and convert into/from detection runes, so they make for ideal passwords. This discovery has revolutionized the encryption services ever since.

Finding an artwork depicting an encryption rune in action was hard. This should suffice.
Made by yours truly.

Submemory

People and machines can both memorize things. There's a strange advantage that people hold over machines when it comes to decryption. This trait came to be called by the scientific community as the "submemory", shortened version of subconscious memory. In layman terms, submemory is an inaccessible record of all experiences that the humanoid has ever experienced, including those that they do not remember. Machines do not seem to possess submemory, which means that they can decrypt only things, for which they hold a key in their memory.

The exact details of how a submemory works are unfamiliar even to the best of mindlore scientists. How the mind could increase its capacity in such a way, and keep it up all throughout an individual's life is seemingly impossible to comprehend. The best guess for an explanation is that the mind finds the most efficient way to encode memories all over the brain, although it's difficult to know how exactly it's doing this, if at all. A far easier (although more convoluted) explanation that they have formulated is that the brain is only a channel for something beyond the physical world. This "soul" of sorts could hold any number of memories, and be the actual source of the submemory. This explanation however opens a whole new can of worms and brings up more questions than it answers, so it's not generally accepted within the scientific society. For all they know, this theory could be completely false, but at the moment it is the best guess they have.

Arunia

Much like mutations happen in our world, something akin to this can happen in Runehack too. One mutation that's so wide-spread that it has its own name is called "arunia", and it's an inability to be affected by the runes. While the detection runes can detect things about them, these people are oblivious to the illusion runes, and in case someone would attempt to move them using the telekinesis runes, they would fail.

Due to the fact that an encryption rune becomes much more expensive if it were to contain both the information and a mask, and due to the fact that an encryption rune can be created on top of an already existing image, one easy way is to have someone who's not affected by the illusion runes (and thus also outputs of the encryption runes) present in a group of people to see if they spot something different. Arunic people are sought after by various governments worldwide, and accepted into jobs as law enforcers, intelligence agencies, investigators, as well as for the other jobs. However, such a life has its downsides, for it's impossible for the arunic people to ever experience the wonders of Mistweb, virtual realities, and other wonderful benefits bestowed by the illusions.

If two people are conceiving a child and at least one is not arunic, the child has only a 0.1% chance to be born arunic. If both parents are arunic, this probability increases to 99.9%. Due to this, the condition is quite rare, although not unheard of worldwide. This won't ever come up in any of my future articles, for sure. (It will.)

Thank you for reading, and have a nice day!

10 Guidelines to Moderating Magic

I think it's finally finished, or at least the first version of it is.

The 10 Guidelines to Moderating Magic is my document, in which I gathered all of the rules I came up with on the blog over time, added some things, edited others, and condensed them enough to put them onto a single page.

With that out of the way, here are the 10 condensed rules in text form, followed by the document itself. The document can also be found in my homebrew collection.

Thank you for reading, and have a nice day!

Cover art is Chef, by Stephen Stark.

10 Guidelines to Moderating Magic

Rule 0: BGC

For the purposes of these guidelines, BGC stands for background character—a humanoid character that isn't important to the plot. DM can determine which of these guidelines to use and whether they apply to player characters, villains, other NPCs important to the plot, and to the non-humanoids.

Rule 1: Maximum Level

BGCs can't multiclass, and their character level can't surpass the lowest of the ability scores their class requires (as per the Multiclassing Prerequisites table) minus 10.

Rule 2: Knowledge of Magic

The highest level of magic that a BGC possesses detailed knowledge of is determined by the magics that they come into contact with frequently, as well as the community they live in.

Communities by Level:

1. Village
2. City
3. Magic School
4. Castle
5. Tower
6. —

Rule 3: Awareness of Magic

BGC's awareness of the magic's existence rises with the perceivability and frequency of its effects.

Rule 4: Training Duration

For a BGC, reaching a specific level requires training that lasts a number of months equal to twice the level they wish to learn. The DM can choose to extend this duration by a number of months equal to 5 minus the BGC's Intelligence modifier.

Rule 5: The Standard Spellcaster

The most frequent spellcaster in society would be the one that's reproducible in the most reliable and easily accessible way.

Rule 6: Magic Costs

The recommended cost of a spell provided by a spellcasting service equals 12 gp 5 sp × (2 to the power of spell's level), halved if the spell is cast as a ritual, plus the cost of a costly material component, halved if the material component is not consumed. For the costs of magic items, use the Sane Magic Item Prices.

Rule 7: Magic Item Crafting

With the exception of spell scrolls and potions, a BGC can start making common magic items if it's a 5th level spellcaster. Uncommon items require 2 more levels, and for each increase in rarity, this amount increases by 1.

Rule 8: Permanent Spells

A spell with permanent effects should be used more often the lower its level is. These spells include: find familiar, arcane lock, continual flame, magic mouth, Nystul's magic aura, glyph of warding, fabricate, Mordenkainen's private sanctum.

Rule 9: Illegal and Regulated Spells

The DM should carefully consider what magic is illegal and/or regulated.

Recommendations for Consideration: spells that cause harm, enchantment spells that manipulate others' actions, necromancy and conjuration spells with a chance for the raised/summoned creature to break from mage's control, wall spells, arcane lock, continual flame, control water, detect thoughts, dimension door, divination and spells of a similar character, enlarge/reduce, glyph of warding, knock, Leomund's tiny hut, magic mouth, modify memory*, Mordenkainen's private sanctum, reincarnate*, teleportation circle*.

* This spell is of 5th level, so unless it's public knowledge that it exists, it technically wouldn't be illegal.

Rule 10: Two Witnesses

For any important activity where the use of magic could prove to be a problem, a BGC should have at least two witnesses present. If the BGC can afford it, at least one of them should be able to cast counterspell/dispel magic.

Warlock Powers are Free*

While I was working on my 10 Rules, people kept having issues with rule #5. The rule is a claim that warlocks should be much more common in the world since the only requirement to become one is being capable of agreeing to a contract. I've talked about this matter once before, but due to all the arguments I've had over the last week on the topic, I was forced to reexamine my views. And my dear viewers, things can be so much worse than what I've envisioned back when I wrote a prequel to this article.

Let's begin with a question: Have you read all of the Terms and Conditions that you've agreed to in your entire life? Were all of these readings thorough enough to allow you to understand them all? If you haven't, do you have a friend who did? I personally will admit that I haven't. In fact, I have yet to meet a person who would with confidence tell me they did. We keep doing this so often without a second thought, but why? Because it would take too much effort, and because this way it's... much more convenient.

How to Be a Good Patron?

Let's do a thought experiment, and imagine that you are an otherworldly warlock patron. Let's imagine that making plenty of pacts is good for you. How do you get a lot of people to sign your deals?

Hint: The answer is not offering them a lot of power. In fact, too much power will make them even more suspicious. Even worse is the fact that not everyone is power-hungry. Some people are okay leading small, relatively insignificant, simple lives. And there's no shame in that.

First thing first, you should consider rebranding yourself. I mean, you can lie, right? If you can't, you'll have a harder time making lots of pacts (though it's not impossible). Instead of presenting yourself as Asmodeus, the lord of Nine Layers of Hells, maybe highlight your positive characteristics to those interested in serving you. Repeat after me: "I am a chief management officer of a multi-level organization localized on an outer plane, specializing in providing contractual services." It's all a matter of perspective, only extremely desperate would sign a contract with you if you introduced yourself as a lord of Nine Hells.

Similarly, present your personal values in a positive way. One of them should definitely be "making the world a better place". Other classical values can be any of the following: loyalty, expanding opportunities, progress, satisfaction, fulfillment of visions, etc. Feel free to be vague about these.

For the love of everything that's dear to you, don't intimidate them. That sort of reputation either spreads like a wildfire or keeps building up over the years until someone smears your public image with many witnesses you've wronged over the years. Intimidation might seem like a good thing at the moment, but trust me—it's not.

Can any of you tell me what he's doing wrong? It's multiple things. Present yourself in your best possible form to your warlocks, not just any old robe you find laying around in your home. Please, cover your chest if there's blood flowing out of it. And most importantly, please keep your contracts tidy. You can cast prestidigitation for a reason, it's not that hard, and a clean readable contract will make you seem much more trustworthy than a blood-oozing bunch of squiggles.
Jokes aside though, this is cool art. Art is for the Blood Scrivener MtG card by Peter Mohrbacher.

Make the cost of your powers something that's barely known to your warlocks. A traditional example is their soul, but if the public is too well informed about the details of that, this might prove to be a problem. Perhaps it could be perceiving the world through their senses or access to their thoughts and memories. Maybe an occasional "job opportunity", through which they could earn a small extra (for example a monetary reward) for performing a little service for you. 

Make sure that your contract is barely comprehensible to a mere mortal mind on a first read-through. Maybe show it to some acquaintances you trust, or try some A/B Testing until you nail down a contract that has the highest chance of being signed.

Present your powers as free. The only thing necessary to do is to sign a contract after all. You don't need to inform them of the details in the contract, you could just give them some legalese brief description of the cost that makes the contract seem like a good thing.

Make your powers seem like a convenience. Previously, I've said that not many people are power-hungry. Honestly, you don't want to even target that demographic in the first place, since they will sooner or later seek a way to overthrow and replace you. Instead, seek people motivated by comfort and ease of life. Convince them that they want these powers, because they'll make their lives so much easier. Why bother standing up and grabbing a mug of ale, when you could just mage hand it right to you? Make cleaning the floors, clothes, dishes, and anything else a breeze with prestidigitation, or automate it with an unseen servant. Get yourself a pair of the Eyes of the Runekeeper, and you will never need to bother studying different written languages ever again.

Building a community is a major step towards improving your approach. Let your warlocks recommend you to their friends, and encourage them to recommend you to their friends too! Who wouldn't want this community to grow, letting more folk join in and share their experiences, teaching each other how to grow and develop together?

Networking! What a buzzword to use, but it's so true. Get into deals with small villages, magic schools, noble families, guilds and so many more. Keeping up good relationships is a great boost for your public image too.

How to be a Great Patron?

You know, I feel like you already knew all of this. For all I know, you might be presenting yourself to the people as a non-divine saint with a small cult following that keeps bringing more and more people even after you've stopped contacting people on your own. "Yeah yeah, just sign this contract, it's all fine. I and all my buddies did, and that's how we got these cool powers!" But… I think you're looking for something more. You want to really step up your warlock-hiring game. Let me present you with the following mantra that I came up with.

"A good patron makes their powers seem free. A great patron makes their powers seem like a privilege."

If you wish to get people interested in your powers even if they don't need them, make them seem scarce. If too many people are asking for your powers, ask them to send you a resume with a brief description of their life history. Invite them over for an interview. Ask them all the classical stuff: strengths and weaknesses, expected uses of these powers, their personal values, etc. If you don't find them worthy, tell them so. If you wish to actually bestow them with warlock powers, privately send them tips on the areas they could improve in. Remember: you want this contract, but so do they if they go through all this work. They'll see the powers themselves as a reward, not as something they have to pay for.

As a final step, advertise yourself. Recall how I said that you should make them want these powers? Forget that. Convince them that they need these powers. If you're big enough, they'll see them all around themselves anyway. Highlight how these powers make your life easier, and the many benefits of their use. They can save your time, letting you spend more of it on things that matter to you: your family, your friends, the pursuit of your true passions, or even improving the world one small bit at a time.

Maybe even mention the potential of earning money using these powers. While the studied wizards and faithful clerics have more potential to use their spells instantaneously, your strength lies in this potential replenishing faster. You just need to keep yourself relaxed on your job all the time, and you'll get all of your potential back within an hour. I mean, would you rather spend years studying wizardry, and spend even more time afterward by hunting spells for your spellbook? That whole thing is awfully expensive. Imagine if your job was to literally stay relaxed until customers come in. Hey, maybe you could even manage to do this 8 hours a day, seven days a week, four weeks a month, twelve months a year.

Internet folks love lists, so here's everything compiled into two neat lists, free of charge!

Good Patron list:

• Rebrand yourself in a positive light
• Present your personal values positively
• Don't intimidate people interested in your offer
• Make the cost practically imperceptible
• Use legalese on your contract
• Present your powers as free
• Target the comfort-oriented demographic, not the power-hungry or a desperate one
• Build a community and network

Great Patron List

• Bestow your powers only upon those who deserve them
• Convince them they need the convenience of your powers
• Let them know of the money-making potential

Thank you for reading, have a nice day, and best of luck hiring your new warlocks and expanding your very own Eldritch Community.

P.S.: You can also choose not to follow any of this and be a bad patron. But beware, for that is a way to only get the most desperate and power-hungry of the warlocks to sign contracts with you, only to hate you for the rest of their lives.

Runehack: Avurai University

If you've been reading this blog since its beginning, or if you happen to have read its earliest posts despite the fact they're super outdated, you might remember my list of settings I wanted to work on. It's funny looking back at that list and at my current priorities. Sivobog I see to this day as a mistake, while Grimwick is a world that has lingered in the back of my mind for years, but I never really felt like starting actual work on it. Then there's E2020, and Charodey. The former, full name Earth-2020, was an urban fantasy setting: basically our world, but with magic and fantastical creatures. While it was a fun thought experiment, I realized quickly that this can't be done easily because of magic, which is why it eventually evolved into the Ethernet of Keys. That setting toned down its magic to an absolute minimum by the 5e standards, permitting literally only cantrips. The more thought I gave it, the more I realized that the further back you go with the introduction of magic, the more differences our timeline should contain. Today, I know that the easiest solution to that would be to just.... introduce the magic right as the game starts, or as close to that point as possible. Back when I thought otherwise, I started to work from the ground up on a world with minimal magic. That's how Runehack was made.

Charodey was another setting that has lingered in my mind for a long time. School time is associated in my head with some nice memories, a collective that can but doesn't have to always work well together, and learning. While the original premise was much more fantasy, I remembered it when this article was half-finished. Sure this university is very, very different from Charodey, but somehow it found its way into the Runehack too it seems. Back then, I literally named the school "Charodey Academy", the word Charodey coming from the Slovak word for a wizard. The Avurai University is different though. It's a place full of elitism, betrayal, competition, but above all else education. Hopefully, it will be a homage to an idea I had a long time ago, despite the fact that this school has basically no magic in it.

I wish you at least as good of a time reading this, as I had writing it up.

Avurai University

Avurai University is a surprisingly influential city, considering it can't expand, has practically no goods for export, and that it has a capacity of 5000 people, 50 visitors, and 3000 fairies beyond that. While the island can support more people than this, it's much safer to keep the numbers below the actual limit. This university campus travels around the world and educates only the best of the rich, as well as the richest of the best worldwide. Earning your place in this university is truly a prestige, whether as a student or as the staff.

Geography

Avurai University is the biggest city entirely located on a floating island. The island usually travels around the world in an orbit, though the rulers of the city can direct its flight through a complex mechanism built into the island. Due to its original location being above a warm temperate climate, most of its natural fauna would resemble that of a typical deciduous forest. However, ever since it started to traverse the world, it only retained on its surface plants that would survive in any climate. The only expansion it ever went through was hollowing out the inside of the island to create buildings on its surface, and to establish an underground farm for the food.

The closest thing to the exported goods of the Avurai University would be its educated people. While the island can hold thousands of people, it has barely enough space to produce its own food and wood. Anything else, such as metals or amber, has to be imported up into the city. Due to this, anyone who wishes to study at the university must pay a lot to stay there.

History

The history of this city goes back to 2900 years before the era of monsters when the greatest cryptoexplosion of the recorded history happened. This produced the biggest flying island in the world that flies to this day, Freeland. Over the centuries, the island gathered dust on its surface, which turned out to be fertile enough for life to start there. It's theorized that birds or other historic flying animals have brought the first plants to the island, which without other competition thrived there since the island flies low enough to receive rain.

Once humanity has developed the first flying vehicles, a handful of hopeful settlers set the course to Freeland. However, the more of them gathered there, the more they realized the many disadvantages of this land: lack of goods they could produce combined with the very limited space for living was discouraging enough to make them leave.

Twenty years later, a handful of wealthy Lifestock employees had a vision of what the Freeland could be, bought it, and claimed it as their own. Once they started to build a university there, Lifestock has started to show interest in the project. When the offers started to come, first from their employers and later from their competitors, the owners of the island and the university decided to quit their jobs and establish independence. Building the university took a total of 3 years, and the university has operated for nearly 160 years ever since until the present day. While the university has remained completely independent ever since its founding, its independence relies only on the constant influx of wealthy students and keeping up its reputation.

Structure

The city has 5 major districts, some of which are divided based on the five faculties. While the Dormitories and the Scholars' Way are not connected, other districts are all interconnected at least in one way. Each of the districts houses some non-teacher staff, though outside of the Main and Farming districts it's only for the most needed matters.

Dormitories. This is the residential district where all of the students live. It also contains some places where the students can hang out to enjoy themselves.

Farming district. This district is off-limits to anyone but the farming staff and those who govern the Avurai University, and it takes up the entirety of Freeland's underground spaces. Vegetables, fruits, crops, and even some meats produced there are then transported to the other districts based on their needs. While the students above are told that the illusory sunlight is good enough for the plants, only the farmers know the truth of how these plants can be grown underground.

Main district. Most of the non-educational establishments of the Avurai University are found in this district. Shops, catering, repairs, and many other services are available in the largest outer district of the city.

Scholars' Way. The university teachers live in their own district on a single street that could be mistaken for a part of the Main district. This district also hides beneath it the control panel that determines which way the Freeland island travels.

Studies. Buildings intended for the education of students are all located in the Studies district. It is the most defining part of the whole university both due to its unique architecture in comparison to the rest of the city, but also because of its function.

The people are divided into these groups based on their relations to the university:

• Teachers, those who are employed by the university to educate its students.
• Personnel, those who are employed by the university to take care of the cleaning, cooking, services, and any other necessities.
• Students, who are equally subdivided into the following five Faculties based on the fields of science:
• Cravenlore. These students learn about the nature of non-humanoid beings such as plants, animals, and apex predators. Their representing color is green.
• Mindlore. These students focus on politics, economy, psychology, art, history, and other matters related to the study of humanoids. Their representing color is red.
• Runecraft. These students learn everything there is to know about the runes, runetech, and their applications in practice. Usually, the knowledge of runes would fall under the Worldken, but it has been separated into its own faculty due to the breadth of things that the runes are used for in practice. Their representing color is orange.
• Witlore. These students focus on the study of all matters nonphysical, that include mathematics, logic, and philosophy. Their representing color is pink.
• Worldken. These students learn about the chemistry of inorganic materials, the fundamental laws of the universe, and their utilization in practice. Their representing color is blue.

Culture

Standard uniforms of the Avurai University are beige in color, with dark brown details, and colored signifiers of which Faculty they belong to in the form of shoulder pads and the neck gemstone.
Art kindly provided by Arell, a friend of mine.

Art curiosities: The fairy secretaries are a luxury permitted on the university for all personnel, as well as students of 3rd or 4th year of study.

If someone asked anyone from the Avurai University how they'd characterize life there in four words, they would say it has to be educational, snobbish, competitive, and back-stabbing. Since it's the university's policy, the choice of who gets to stay is governed by strict rules.

The students can study at this university for up to 4 years, or more if they can afford it. At the start of every school year, the school admits the 400 of the best students done across all of the cities of the world into each Faculty, as long as their test results were above 60% correct. This usually totals to the 2000 students in the first grade. Every year, only half of that number passes to the next year, with the same condition of at least getting 60% of the answers right. The final fourth year thus holds only 50 students in each faculty, to a total of 250 fourth graders across the whole university. Out of these, anyone who gets at least 60% of the answers on the final tests correct gets to pass, receiving a title and usually leaving the university. Since they have more free time due to requiring less sleep, the majority of students attending the Avurai University consists of elves, with higher concentrations in the latter years of study.

Since Freeland has a carrying capacity, each student is limited in how many things they can bring with them. While stationary is largely unaffected, they can't bring with them things such as their own vehicles (including hovering ones, which is a matter that puzzles students yearly), hovering rooms, or pets. University's population is also kept in check, with any of the personnel or students who perform the forbidden intercourse running a risk of getting expelled permanently.

In order to ensure the highest quality of the teachers and personnel, at the end of every semester, the worst 20% of them are replaced with the new hires from cities all over the world. This also includes the runebots who serve double duty as janitors and security of the city. These runebots are replaced only when it is necessary, for example, due to a malfunction.

Beyond the standard limit of 5000 people and 50 visitors, there's a limit of up to 3000 staff fairies on top of that. Any student who is a fairy doesn't count into this limit and gets counted as a regular student to the limit of 5000 people. Some common jobs for the fairies employed by the Avurai University include education, surveillance, repairs, accounting, library guides, and working as waitresses in the bars using special hovering food trays. But the most common job for the fairies here is a personal assistant. Any employee, as well as students of 3rd or 4th grade, can bring along a personal assistant fairy, as long as they employ and pay her properly. A fairy employed this way serves as a secretary to whoever they're employed by, keeping track of their schedule, duties, and anything else that the individual wishes to delegate upon her. Since a personal assistant bypasses the merit-based requirements for coming to the university in another way, it is the greatest hope for many of the fairies who would want to see the Avurai society in person.

Every school year is split up into three trimesters and a holiday, all of which line up with the seasons perfectly. The trimesters cover spring, fall, and autumn, and the holiday lasts during the winter. There are several official events organized by the teachers and university personnel, and a handful of unofficial events organized by the students for the students.

The Academic Show is organized at the beginning of the summer trimester every even year. Students who choose to attend this show must present some kind of scientific experiment and/or invention in order to impress and educate others. The most impressive presentation from each of the faculties wins a monetary prize, as well as a university-paid trip to one vista within the winners' choice of a city that the University will pass over before the school year ends. Any participants who present an experiment that was showcased there during the last Academic Show are automatically disqualified from winning the prize, although they are allowed to present. Since the monetary prize for each team is equal no matter the number of members, participants usually limit themselves to working with up to 2 others, or preferably alone.

The Scholars' Soiree is a formal dance organized on the evening before the final week of the autumn trimester of every school year. It's preceded by the month of tailoring, during which the attendees of the Soiree have a chance to design and sew their own outfits. The Scholars' Soiree begins with a ceremonial feast, often considered to be the first of many winter feasts. After the feast, people are free to do as they wish: socialize with others, drink or feast some more, dance, or attend other activities. The secret judges mingle with people, examining custom-made outfits close-up until 1 hour before midnight. At that moment, the judges are unveiled and hand out the titles of the Lord of the Night and Lady of the Night to those who they deem to have the greatest self-made outfits. Understandably, even a friendly meaningless contest like this can and is cheated by those who can afford to cheat it. Since all of the students of 3rd and 4th year get to have a fairy as a personal assistant, those who wish to gain this title will employ fairies with past experiences in fashion design and tailoring.

The Winter Feasts are organized during the winter holidays. It's a simple event in comparison to the other two, all about having wonderful weekly feasts for all three months of the winter. Students who haven't finished their 2nd year of study are not allowed to stay at the university during the winter months, which means they cannot enjoy these feasts. Teachers use these feasts as a way to entice the students to stay in the University even during their holidays and possibly help out in it as a cheap labor force for some small credits.

Over the years, students of this university have formulated several humorous phrases revolving around the nature of their university that has ever since become commonplace, sometimes even beneath this island:

• "Drop-off" and "drop out" both stand for a student, who is not studying anymore due to a reason that's not graduation. They can also stand for things that have fallen from the island down to the world below.
• "Flying grades" are grades that will allow a student to attend the flying university for another year. In other words, they're a nickname for passing grades.
• "Hang in there" began as a phrase of encouragement told to those who struggle with passing. However, it has evolved to contain a strong sarcastic undertone.
• "Climbing the Tower" stands for the effort that someone puts into graduating the Avurai University with the intention to stay there as a teacher. It's due to the fact that only the teachers are permitted at the Tower of Knowledge.
• To "feast on meat" means to enjoy the rewards one has earned. The origin of this phrase is uncertain since it could stand either for general consumption of meat, which is much rarer than fruits and vegetables, or because of the Winter Feasts.
• "Traincatcher" is a student who is expected to fail their current year of study.
• "Streetcleaner" is a nickname for the janitorial runebot staff, mainly due to their capabilities of keeping the streets tidy, and enforcing curfews as well as laws.

"Hang in there, traincatcher!"

Subculture Showcase: Scientific Communities

Note: This section is not meant to imply that the presented subculture is in any way unique to or most represented within this city. It is just a subculture I chose to present because it felt most thematically fitting and it wasn't introduced yet.

Examples of the scientist outfits. The white lab coats are the most important part of the outfit, with the innerwear being optional, up to the individual scientist's wishes.
Art kindly provided by Arell, a friend of mine.

Art curiosities: The guy is wearing a VR headband. The scientists showcase two different types of clasps for the "semi-open" lab coat at the top—the male having two triangular flaps, while the woman has a gray band. They bear no cultural significance and are interchangeable. Pink is prominent within the scientific community due to its association with knowledge. The first versions of the illusory screens were made pink in order to stand out in most environments, and ever since then, the color gained a cultural meaning of intellect. Of course, it's not the only meaning there is for the color pink.

Once the monsters came to be, some people have tried their best to understand how they operate. Eventually, these people have created teams, which evolved into groups. Some of these groups have diverted their attention to other matters of study, such as inorganic matters of the world, physical laws, or abstract sciences. Once the mistweb was developed, the international scientific community was born.

The highest ideal they hold is the search for the objective truth. They wish to learn as much about the world as possible, which is why they try to measure everything and run many experiments. The only boundary that they tend to clash into is the vague line of morality. Since many of the scientists who enter this community are Avurai University graduates, it's rather competitive. If one can make themselves more famous and rich through their experiments, it is most likely that these graduates will be the first ones to step on, and sometimes even over, the line of morality out of the public eyes. After all, what is one to do if the secrets of the World lie beyond that hazy line? A way to improve the lives of thousands, if not millions, could be there.

• One of the places that scientists worldwide viewed as sacred is The Tower of Knowledge, atop of which is The Amber Telescope. Years ago it was said that every scientist worth their salt has looked through the Amber Telescope. Nowadays this belief is seen more as a superstition than a sign of prestige since many scientists have been successful despite dropping out of Avurai University (not literally), or in some cases even despite not studying up there at all.
• Once every four years, the Cognito Prize is given out to the most influential scientists in their respective fields of study.
• "A wrong train can still bring you to the right place" is a phrase that came to be due to an anecdote about Hernard Silverstem. When he traveled home from the Avurai University on a train during his third year of study, he fell asleep and dreamt of a wand that could control other people's minds. Only after waking up did he realize he was on the wrong train. Exiting it in the nearest city, the first thing he noticed was a great bronze statue which made him think of his most famous idea. Since then, the phrase came to mean that even an accident, a mistake, or a wrong way of thinking could get you interesting, and occasionally even correct results.

Relations

While most of the cities respect the Avurai University, considering it one of the few places with an objective outlook on the worldly situation overall, there is one city-state that tries to take it off the pedestal. Moorwell, the city that helped in the establishment of Avurai University, possesses sour feelings towards it ever since it has become independent. For years, it has been running a campaign to slowly erode people's trust in this institution, in hopes of discouraging new students from arriving. Without new students, the school would inevitably run out of money and have to find a patron who would gladly buy it in order to improve it. While within Moorwell this campaign is somewhat successful, other cities still hold enough people interested in studying there to keep the school afloat. One of the cities Avurai University cooperates with the most is the Everling, which thanks for its existence in part to the university, and thus regularly buys advertisements on the Freeland island.

Curiosities

Considering its size, the number of points of interest on the Freeland island is surprising. Here are just some of them:

• Brilliance Train Station is the train station located on the border between the Dormitories and the Main District. While the trains don't come by often, they do when the University is flying above another city to gather the travelers and bring any ordered goods to the island.
• The Grand Vestibule is the entrance to the main university building. It's great in size, with plenty of room to serve as a student lounge. It's directly connected to Jolye's Square.
• Jolye's Square is the only town square of the Avurai University, connecting all of the districts. It bears the shape of a pentagon and used to be mockingly named "Five-Sided Square" due to Jolye's famous claim that one could draw a five-sided square on the surface of a sphere. Once she has proven her claim, the square has been renamed to honor her.
• The Library of Wynbel is a library found at the border of Jolye's Square and the Main district. This building has three floors, and several elevators that can bring the students up, down, and to the other end of the building.
• The Platform, also nicknamed "The Long Way Down", is the main elevator that's used to travel down into the lands beneath the city. It's located on the edge of the Main District.
• The Rose Garden is a greenhouse for studying various kinds of plants found throughout the world. People of Cravenlore Faculty are assumed to hang out there the most, even though the actual difference is minuscule.
• The Tower of Knowledge is found in the Scholar's Way district and holds atop of it The Amber Telescope. Only the teachers are allowed to ascend this tower. All of the districts can be seen from the top of the Tower of Knowledge, and the tower can be seen from all districts. The only exception to both of these cases is the Farming district due to the fact that it's underground. While the telescope does have a name that draws attention, it's in fact not made out of amber.
• The VR Grotto is a laboratory found in the depths of the Runecrafts' Faculty studies. According to the University's records, it is the perfection of Kaily Runetooth's Academic Show project, which is a room that can emulate any sort of environment.

Important People

A few examples of the important people from the Avurai University:

• Jolye Hammerfist, dwarf, female; one of the founders of the Avurai University, and its very first Headmaster.
• Nedmund Palevine, elf, male; the current Headmaster of the Avurai University.
• Hernard Silverstem, elf, male; the inventor of runebots who has studied in the Runecraft Faculty.
• Kaily Runetooth, goblin, female; the scientist who studied in the Worldken Faculty, and invented a way of synthetically creating amber. It's a thing she keeps secret, but with the money she has earned from this, she studied Runecraft Faculty for extra 4 years, and afterward bought herself a city-state of her own, naming herself its queen.
• Pristina Ashenhart, human, female; the exemplar student of the Witlore Faculty, considered the most important philosopher of her time back when she was known to be alive. She's assumed to be dead in the present times.
• Maxton Amberblood, orc, male; the most famous student of the Cravenlore Faculty that has afterward remained on the university and revolutionized its farms.
• Catalia Volerich, fairy, female; a mistwebber who's a member of the Lucky Petals mistwebber group located in the Timberhaven.
• Winbel Moonshire, elf, female; an explorer who has written and sold many books about the wilderness, each with a questionable degree of fictionality. Her publishing is so popular, that she established a library on the Freeland.