A FEW CRYSTALS MORE 2 - IMPERIAL NOBLE CLASS

 A FISTFUL OF CRYSTALS SUPPLEMENTARY CLASS

NEW CLASS - IMPERIAL NOBLE

Note: Imperial Nobles are a sort of  “advanced class”, a substitute form the traditional “elf” and reference to OD&D’s confusing fighter or Magic-User method of leveling elves.  Creating a noble is a more complex task than creating most characters, and even requires a light form of “character building” … a decision or two  and a few extra rolls, both at creation and during advancement. Don’t worry though, neither these choices or the character creation process will take more than a few minutes of time. The PDF for the details of the Imperial Noble class is found here: IMPERIAL NOBLE For a more complete explanation of how the rules for this class work please see the "Fistful of Crystals" document in this post: A FISTFULLOF CRYSTALS

To be a noble of the Successor Empire is to stand at the pinnacle of human achievement: half god, half human. You are the product of thousands of years of marriages and liaisons, aimed towards perfection of the bloodline… though admittedly the results are still less than godly... The lucky are broken gods in the sickly, warped, frame of frail humanity. A nobility burdened by thousands of years of incomprehensible rituals, strictures, and courtesies. Nor does wealth remain and the young will only inherit an  eccentric education, a handful of trinkets, and the magic poisoned blood that is the legacy of an unwholesome, eldritch lineage.

While Imperial nobles have some advantages over regular people, the “craftsmen” and “toilers” of lower Imperial orders, and the subjects of the vibrant resurgent Kingdoms, few of the nobility are capable of coherent speech or normal movement. Most are at the edge of destruction from the excesses of their ancestors: wracked by strange, unique disease, minds subsumed by the screaming demands of ancestral  generations, or teetering on porcelain brittle bones. The majority remains immured in the great mansion spires of the capital, suffering for the magical transgressions of distant ancestors and dreaming of fortunes and privileges now illiquid, untouchable, and useless.

Few nobles venture beyond the walls of their curse shrouded compounds, but those that do, find the world unforgiving, and even if they have valuable skills, a code of honor and family strictures forbid them useful work. War, genteel theft, or magical exploration are the Imperial Noble’s only available paths through the world beyond rakish debauch -- choices that drive most  into adventure.

Despite the disadvantages of their class, Imperial Nobles are well suited to the dangerous lives of tomb robbers. Most have been trained from birth in some form of combat, most often dueling or hunting with exotic or heirloom weapons, and almost all have an innate faculty with sorcery. Many have also been tutored in esoteric knowledge and skills such as: arcanism, engineering, chemics, dead languages.