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The Broken Empire

The World:

Six millennia ago, the Republic of Bagarin learned to use magic in warfare.

Five millennia ago, all of the continent of Astragona had become part of the Astragon Empire, and the elected leader of the Republic, Adraga Partho, was crowned as the first Timeless Emperor.

What are now called The Succession Wars began about one thousand six hundred years ago (the exact date is uncertain; many records have been lost or destroyed).

The current Year of the Fall (YF) is 1547.  The Astragon Empire has fragmented into holdings as small as a single city with its supporting lands, or as large as nations that take weeks to ride across, and everything in between.  There are democracies, republics, monarchies, theocracies, autocracies, communes, corporations, and any other sort of government people can come up with.

What was once a single, unified language and culture has also shattered.  While Old Imperial is widely known and considered the Language of Learning, common folk speak more or less local languages that change noticeably over as little as a few days' ride.  A man from Varagost finds it easy to learn Delfarran, and vice versa, but without study or experience, they'll stumble over pronunciations, usages, and spellings that differ -- and Varagost is only five days by ship or a couple weeks by horse from Delfar.

The claim is that the Empire had marvelous machines: weapons that could kill at distances of miles, ships and carriages that moved without sail or horse or even flew through the air, like clouds or like great birds, automata that wove cloth or made metal objects or carried out basic household tasks -- but virtually none of those remain, and most of those that do no longer function.

Even the Imperial religion, Albagaranism (worship of Albagar, the Sun, his wife Vilegri, the Moon, their eldest children, the God and Goddess of the Earth, and their younger ones, the lesser gods) is no longer universal; many cities have temples to multiple different deities, and a few have none to Albagar.  Further, even Albagaranism has been subject to a schism, producing the Papacy (whose principle parting point is the belief Albagar is the only God and that Vilegri and all their children are merely aspects of the same Being).

The Game:

Out of character, as it were: We will use GURPS 4th Edition, with Fantasy, Sorcery, Magic as Powers, Low Tech, High Tech, Martial Arts, and possibly other supplements.  Most of the World is firmly in Tech Level 3, but there are pockets of lower technology, and places that are in the early stages of Tech Level 4.

All characters must be supplied to the GM as GCS files (GCS is free software, available natively for Windows 7 or later, Linux, and Macintosh operating systems; unfortunately, not for Android or iOS).  Here's a link to the first of a series of four videos on how to cost out powers -- whether for use as spells or more generally -- and the same YouTube channel contains several more videos on how to use GCS: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uKjl_ZEnY2U

The GM will provide and maintain a User Library edited to offer only campaign-appropriate Advantages, Disadvantages, Skills, and Templates, as well as an edited blank character sheet to allow use of specific "house rules" relative to calculated secondary characteristics.  Initially, player characters will be built on 150 character points, with up to 40 points of Disadvantages plus 5 points of quirks permitted.  Advantages, Disadvantages, or Skills not in the supplied User Library may be available, with GM permission (and likely a suitable level of Unusual Background) -- ask the GM, please!

There are a variety of magic systems in effect in the Broken Empire.  So far, we have Wizards (the GURPS mainstream, based on the core of Magic), Priests (Clerical magic, without prerequisites other than levels of Power Investiture, but a more limited spell list than Wizards), Druids (priests of the Green Church, yet a different, nature-oriented spell list but otherwise works very much like Clerical magic), and Witches (Arcane magic, observing the same prerequisites as Wizards for the most part, but accessible to those not Mageborn via a form of Power Investiture; with a limited spell list but the ability to switch spells "remembered" on the fly).  There are also Warlocks (patterned after those in Ethshar), whose magic is very different and in some ways more powerful than even that of wizards.  I'm working on Sorcery, generally only available to Teachers of the Old Believers.

If you're interested in playing one of these casters other than a Wizard, please send a Private Message to the GM to be added to the appropriate group so you can read the descriptions and details.  All of the necessary traits, skills, and spells are already in the User Library that has been supplied to players.