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Sample file Sample file Crusades of Valour When Gods Collide Paul Cockburn Contents Credits 2 Introduction Editor Matthew Sprange 5 Crusades - An Overview 9 Heroes of the Crusades Cover Art 13 The Knight Chris Quilliams 21 Feats and Magic 26 Crusader Orders Interior Illustrations Aaron Siddal, Andrew Jordan, Danilo Moretti, Eric 47 The Carroccio Lofgren, Marcio Fiorito, Philip Renne, Ralph Horsley, 48 Running a Crusade Campaign Reynaldo Batista, Renato Guedes, Rick Hershey, Rick 60 Player Characters and Crusades Otey, Nathan Webb, Stephen Cook, Stephen Shepherd 69 The Cinematic Battle System 78 Gods & Followers Sample fileProduction Manager Alexander Fennell 92 Designer’s Notes 93 Rules Summary Proof-Reading 95 Index Ian Barstow 96 Licences Open Game Content & Copyright Information Crusades of Valour is ©2002 Mongoose Publishing. All rights reserved. Reproduction of non-Open Game Content of this work by any means without the written permission of the publisher is expressly forbidden. Crusades of Valour is presented under the Open Game and D20 Licences. See pages 96 for the text of these licences. All game mechanics and statistics derivative of Open Game Content and the System Refernce Docu- ment are to be considered Open Gaming Content. All other significant characters, names, places, items, art and text herein are copyrighted by Mongoose Publishing. All rights reserved. If you have any questions on the Open Game Content of this product please contact Mongoose Pub- lishing. ‘d20 System’ and the ‘d20 System’ logo are Trademarks owned by Wizards of the Coast and are used according to the terms of the d20 System Licence version 3.0. A copy of this Licence can be found at www.wizards.com. The mention of or reference to any company or product in these pages is not a challenge to the trademark or copyright concerned. Dungeons & Dragons® and Wizards of the Coast® are Registered Trademarks of Wizards of the Coast, and are used with Permission. Printed in Canada. Mongoose Publishing Mongoose Publishing, PO Box 1018, Swindon, SN3 1DG, United Kingdom [email protected] Web enhanced - Visit the Mongoose Publishing website at www.mongoosepublishing.com for regular updates. INTRODUCTION Reaching for Fantasy Introduction Using the information in this book, you can introduce magine a vast army on the march, a huge religious conflict into your campaign world as both column of soldiers, mounts and machines of a background and foreground element for all levels war, under gaudy pennants and banners. I of play. Low level player characters can take part Warriors from different cities, different lands; clerics, in crusades, joining a crusader force, or signing up lords, smiths, sutlers, camp-followers of every kind. to one of the more permanent military orders. At All different, and yet united by one thing – a device mid-level, they might undertake special missions or emblem each wears on his surcoat, perhaps, or a to capture, slay or destroy a relic, temple or high- symbol painted on their shields. All of them grim- ranking priest of another cult, as well as leading faced and determined, because they are not just any detachments of the crusading army. Finally, ranked army, seeking battle, spoils or territory for their player characters might themselves call for a crusade commander – no, this is a crusade, and they fight in and seek to raise followers to build up a crusading the name of their god. force of their own, charged with the destruction of a heretic enemy. Then imagine this same army, set out on the plains of a foreign land, facing an enemy force on its home As crusaders – permanent or temporary – player soil. Huge phalanxes of spearmen crash against characters can embark on specialist careers, such as each other; arrows dart across the sky like birds that of the Knight. They will learn how to raise a of prey; mounted troops skirmish and draw blood host from fellow believers, maintain their fervour and on the flanks. Behind each regiment, a priest calls morale, and lead them into battle. They will become upon his god for a blessing on his troops before their acquainted with the most advanced magicks, as they commander hurls them into battle. No quarter is take on the arcane and divinely-inspired defences asked and none given, the soil stained with the blood of an enemy temple. Many will be drawn into of holy and unholy alike. Finally, with battle joined, politics, diplomacy and the murky world of covert the skies darken and avatars swarm down upon the compromise. defenders, rending man and beast alike, destroying their will to fight on. This book also attempts to place heroic individual or party combat in the context of a greater battle, so the Weeks later, the crusaders break through the walls efforts of the player characters can have a bearing on of a nearby city. Trapped within areSample thousands of file the course of a religious war. followers of their adversary. Victorious troops the world over have always seen the fruits of the sack as Perhaps more than anything, player characters drawn their right, but imagine this army now, its numbers into a crusade will find themselves face-to-face with thinned by bloody battle, and exhorted by clerics to the followers, servants, acolytes, priests and avatars repay the unbelievers for their sins. of the many gods that exist in a truly poly-cultural world. They may receive blessings from their chosen There is something blood-chilling about a religious deity as a result of undertaking the crusade; but then war and in a high fantasy setting, with different races they may also find greater expectations placed upon worshipping many different gods, the possibilities them. Who knows, they may even come face-to-face become even greater. This sourcebook, Crusades with the gods themselves. Although it is not intended of Valour – When Gods Collide, covers many of that this book be any kind of definitive guide to those possibilities. Within these pages, you will find adventures on other planes, some information has information on running a crusade campaign, with been provided for those foolhardy enough to take on your player characters acting as part of a crusading a deity on its home turf. army, or undertaking covert missions to defeat and destroy the ‘unbelievers’. In the Name of God It should not need to be said, but we perhaps ought What particularly marks out a crusade from the to mention it anyway. Remember: this is fantasy. In common-garden variety of warfare is that its outward the real world, no-one should get bent out of shape purpose is to triumph in a god’s name. Sometimes a over the beliefs held by another person. But in the mundane clash between princes might see one side world of high fantasy – well, I say those damned or both claim to be acting in the name of their chosen night–worshippers have it coming. deity or with their god’s support, but it is only those 2 INTRODUCTION wars sanctioned by major religions that concern us from wearing his deity’s emblem at a critical here. moment. Because of that, we have taken the deities and Very often, a crusade to root out an infidel belief must religions outlined in the core rulebooks of the d20 be taken to the heartlands of that religion itself, and games system and developed those areas that are at the centre of any faith are its temples, shrines and of concern to Games Masters and players looking sites of special divine significance. Some examples to play in a crusader campaign. Clearly, many of the kinds of centres various races and religions campaigns have very different mythologies attached might create are included in this sourcebook – many to them, and each Games Master will have to make more will suggest themselves to readers as their own changes to the specifics, but there are ideas designed campaigns progress. to make it easy to see. For example, how a holy war fought in the name of a sun god might progress. Travellers’ Tales The authors have also taken a few liberties with the This sourcebook is the second in the new series from spell lists of clerics and like characters, surmising Mongoose Publishing, entitled Travellers’ Tales. what a god might do to make his followers more Designed to be slotted seamlessly into any fantasy- powerful when they are in direct combat with heretics based d20 games system, the Travellers’ Tales and unbelievers. So long as a cleric character is series introduces players and Games Masters alike operating within the confines of a divinely-inspired to a wealth of new options on which to base their crusade, he might rightly expect some assistance campaigns. Rather than detailing specific campaign from his chosen god. In the right circumstances, settings, each book of the Travellers’ Tales series will even a mage or a thief might just draw some benefit take an exhaustive look at the way entire campaigns may be run and explored. Sample file 2 3 INTRODUCTION The castle was ancient, perched on a desolate crag at the highest point of a remote pass. Within its stark, bleak walls, in contrast, the Hall of Shields was of modern construction; gleaming white stone reaching up into the clouds, perfectly dressed in the dwarven style, a tribute to architecture, power and money. The messenger’s heart beat a little faster just for being there. He pushed his mount through the open Tribute Gate, past the grumbling guards in their bearskins, up to the high portal at the front of the Hall. Above the vast doors, a disc of hammered gold was set into the flawless white stone.