Humans

Designer's Notes

Backgrounds are the human equivalent of the nonhuman races' skills, powers, and ability bonuses. Unlike the backgrounds in 5th edition D&D, the backgrounds in Into the Dark are intended to more accurately reflect actual ancient and medieval societies. 

In addition, these backgrounds are more indicative of the social class and environment in which a character was raised, rather than his initial occupation before becoming an adventurer. As such, most of the backgrounds can be combined with most of the adventuring classes without making too awkward of a fit; there are some exceptions, though, such as the fact that the Scholar background makes a poor fit with the fighter or thief classes, and a better fit with the cleric and magic-user classes. 

Some backgrounds are explicitly prohibited or required with respect to the training packages associated with the adventuring classes (which will be explored in future posts); the Cavalier training package, for example, requires that a human character have the Noble background, and the Barbarian training package forbids the Scholar background. Other restrictions based on the social realities of the campaign setting are left to the referee's discretion.

The backgrounds are intended as a quick, one-word way of summarizing a character's past; they provide a little bit of back-story, and a short list of background skills, without a whole lot of fuss or decision points.

The birth rank score, which is determined by background, is an indication of a character's social level or standing in society. Birth rank will be explored a bit more in a future post; it relates to a character's family history, family and personal honor, and inheritance.

Human

Size:                             medium (5’-6’)

Movement:                  12”

Ability Bonus:             varies by background

Race Powers:               none

Race Skills:                  varies by background

Birth Rank:                  varies by background

Native Language:         varies by culture

Background

Every human has a background, which determines his ability bonus, race skills, and birth rank.

Background represents a human character’s upbringing and education. In general, a male is trained in the occupation of his father and a female in the occupation of her mother. Most exceptions occur due to the custom of fostering, in which a boy or girl is sent to another family to work as a servant or apprentice, and to learn skills relevant to his or her intended profession or station in society.

The ability score bonus gives a character a +1 bonus to one ability score, but each background permits a player to choose from two abilities when assigning the bonus. No ability score may be raised above 18 as a result of this bonus.

Background Table

#	Background	Ability Bonus	Background Skills	Birth Rank
1	Craftsman	D or I	appraisal craft teamster	1d4+6
2	Fisherman	C or D	fishing rowing or sailing weather sense	1d6+4
3	Forester	D or W	direction sense outdoor survival tracking	1d6+4
4	Herdsman	C or W	animal husbandry musical instrument weather sense	1d6+4
5	Merchant	C or I	appraisal merchant scribe or teamster	1d6+4
6	Mountaineer	C or S	climbing tracking weather sense	1d6+4
7	Noble	Ch or S	courtesy riding scholarship or tracking	1d4+12
8	Nomad	C or D	animal husbandry riding tracking	1d6+4
9	Pauper	Ch or D	appraisal begging bluffing	1d2+2
10	Peasant	C or W	farming teamster tracking	1d4+6
11	Scholar	I or W	divinity, juristry, or medicine scholarship scribe	1d4+6
12	Seaman	C or S	rowing or sailing swimming weather sense	1d6+4

Culture

Every human has a particular culture, which determines his native language, religion, name, and available backgrounds. The details of human cultures depend on the particular campaign, as determined by the referee. 

Adventuring Parties

Designer's Notes

The following rules are intended to give a little bit of structure to player character adventuring parties--not so much as to severely constrain their composition or goals, but enough to provide them with some initial cohesion and purpose, and to help the referee come up with ways of hooking them into the campaign setting.

Into the Dark presupposes a nonlinear, sandbox style of play; the referee is not encouraged to generate a single adventure hook based on a party's type, but a party's type can help the referee develop and introduce multiple hooks which are suited to the party's general goals and interests. The players can also more easily initiate their own adventures, because they already have pre-established objectives.

Adventuring Parties

Before each player creates his own particular character, the players must agree on what type of adventuring party they will form.

An adventuring party’s type determines its main motivation for adventuring. The referee can use adventuring party type to develop adventure hooks, NPC contacts, allies, and enemies for the player characters.

At least one half of the members of an adventuring party must belong to the main class for their party type.

Adventuring Party Type Table

#	Type	Main Class
1	Mercenaries	fighter
2	Missionaries	cleric
3	Order of Knights	fighter
4	Patrician Family	fighter
5	Plunderers	fighter or thief
6	Retainers	fighter
7	Thieves Guild	thief
8	Wizard Order	magic-user

Mercenaries

Nobles and towns hire mercenaries to bolster their forces for an invasion, or to defend against the raids and invasions of their enemies. Mercenary companies can number in the hundreds, but there are also smaller bands of mercenaries numbering in the dozens or fewer, which fit the case of a typical adventuring party.

Many people dislike mercenaries, in part because unemployed mercenaries frequently resort to banditry. Mercenaries typically receive hospitality through intimidation rather than through genuine generosity.

Missionaries

Missionaries are clergymen who seek to convert nonbelievers, and to uphold the orthodoxy of already converted communities, by weeding out heresies and survivals of other religions.

Most missionaries are lawful, but neutral or chaotic missionaries are possible as well. The latter are typically members of underground cults, which try to surreptitiously gain converts in societies dominated by lawful religions.

Order of Knights

An order of knights consists of warriors of noble birth dedicated to a particular political, religious, or moral cause.

An order of knights has a general alignment (lawful, neutral, or chaotic) in addition to its particular cause. Most orders of knights are lawful. Neutral orders of knights are generally the elite warrior societies of pagan cultures. Chaotic orders of knights are secret societies dedicated to fighting in the name of demons or chaos gods.

Patrician Family

The goals of a patrician (noble) family include defending and expanding their lands, securing good marriages for their sons and daughters, and avenging insults to the family honor. A patrician family adventuring group can include servants of plebeian (common) rank as well as actual members of the patrician family.

Patricians can typically expect hospitality from others of their class, provided that they are not enemies actively engaged in war against one another.

Plunderers

Plunderers make a living exploring and looting ruins. Ruins are often guarded by faeries, spirits, monsters, witches, and bandits, but generally also contain treasures that can be sold for considerable sums to nobles, clergymen, or wizards.

Retainers

Retainers are low-born (plebeian) servants of a king or patrician family. They perform tasks such as patrolling a border, scouting an enemy force, raiding an enemy base, escorting members of the family on long journeys, rescuing kidnapped members of the family, hunting down criminals or fugitives, and retrieving stolen treasures.

Thieves Guild

A thieves guild is an organized criminal enterprise. Guilds vary in size from a dozen or so to hundreds of members. A guild will often specialize in a particular form of crime. Common specializations include: assassins; burglars; counterfeiters; cutpurses; forgers; gamblers; kidnappers; muggers; procurers; racketeers; and smugglers.

An adventuring party associated with a thieves guild will typically be a smaller operational team or unit within the larger criminal enterprise.

Wizard Order

Wizard orders (also called guilds or lodges) are dedicated to the study and practice of the art of magic. They often operate in secret, because of the common belief that all magic involves invoking demons or other dark powers. Wizard orders vary in size from local groups which may have a dozen or fewer members, to international orders which can have hundreds of members spread out in different kingdoms.

A wizard order has an alignment (lawful, neutral, or chaotic), which represents the type of spirits its members invoke in order to attain their magical power (celestial, elemental, or infernal spirits, respectively). Lawful wizards desire to use their magic to benefit society, through spreading knowledge and enlightenment, while chaotic wizards desire to use their magic to gain power for themselves at the expense of others. 

Into the Dark

The main purpose of Into the Dark is to create rules which are compatible with other old school role-playing games, but which are a better fit for campaigns based on historical cultures and on traditional beliefs about magic and the supernatural.

Into the Dark was designed with the following seven criteria in mind:

1. Characters and other game elements should reflect ancient and medieval societies.

2. Spells and other game elements should reflect traditional beliefs about magic.

3. Low level characters should be moderately capable—neither too weak nor too powerful.

4. Player characters should be moderately customizable, without an elaborate chargen metagame.

5. The rules should be compatible with other old-school RPG’s.

6. The rules should be easy to learn.

7. The rules should be easy to apply during play.

Into the Dark has been greatly informed by many old-school role-playing games, supplements, and blogs. In particular, Daniel Collins’ Book of Spells: 2nd Edition, Original Edition Delta, and his blog Delta’s D&D Hotspot have had a major influence on this game’s rules for spells, attacks, and saving throws. My hat is off to Mr. Collins and the other contributors to the Old School Renaissance.

This blog will also offer content for particular campaigns created for use with Into the Dark, including the Dark Ages Britannia campaign, and the Gothic fantasy Twilight Empire campaign.