The processes of creating and running a kingdom are similar to creating and playing a character. It has ability scores, skills, and feats.
There are four ability scores: Culture, Economy, Loyalty, and Stability. Each Kingdom Ability Score starts at 10, representing the average. Ability boost increases a score by 2, flaw decreases by 2.
Culture: Interest and dedication of your nation, its people to the arts and sciences, to religion and reason. Value learning, research, music and dance.
Economy: Practical day-to-day workings of the society, making and building, buying and selling.
Loyalty: Collective will, spirit, and sense of camaraderie. Trusting and depending on one another. Supporting the kingdom's leadership.
Stability: Physical health and well-being. Infrastructure, buildings, wellfare of its people and how well things are protected. Maintaining, reserving, repairing.
Step 1: Kingdom Concept
When PCs are granted a charter to explore and settle a portion of the Stolen Lands, players should work together to decide the sort of kingdom they want to establish.
Step 2: Select a Charter
A charter granted by an established entity gives the kingdom a much-needed enhancement right at the start, typically manifesting as boosts to two of the kingdom's ability scores and a flaw to a third score. Choose one of the five forms, this is a permanent choice.
Vance and Kerenshara. A Kingdom's Charter now give both a set trained skill and a free one. If you were already trained in a skill granted by your Charter, you instead become trained in another skill of your choice.
Sponsors have conqeured the area, former leaders routed or even killed. You're put in charge and commanded to hold and pacify it in the name of your patron. People are devoted and supportive of your rule, if partially out of fear. Threat of war hinders the arts and makes it difficult for the citizens to relax. You are asked to set up your kingdom against Pitax.
Ability Boosts. Loyalty, Free
Ability Flaw. Culture
Granted Skill. Warfare, Free
In charge of a domain adjacent to already settled lands with the expectation that your nation will remain a strong ally. Support from patron bolsters society but the reliance fluctuates your fortunes. You are expected to remain strong allies with Restov.
Ability Boosts. Culture, Free
Ability Flaw. Stability
Granted Skill. Exploration, Free
Sponsor wants you to explore, clear, and settle a wilderness area along the border of the sponsor's own territory.
Ability Boosts. Stability, Free
Ability Flaw. Economy
Granted Skill. Wilderness, Free
Patron grants funding and resources without restriction on kingdom's development, but they do require you to employ many of their citizens and allies.
Ability Boosts. Economy, Free
Ability Flaw. Loyalty
Granted Skill. Industry, Free
Free agents staking their own claim. Open charter with no restrictions and no support.
Ability Boosts. Free
Ability Flaw. None
Granted Skill. Free, Free
Step 3: Choose a Heartland
The new kingdom cosists of a single hex. You can choose any hex (subject to GM approval) that you've Reconnoitered. Wisest to select a hex that already has a structure. Note that terrain features can grant other benefits to the kingdom when claimed. The choice of terrain influences how the Favored Land kingdom ability functions.
The heartland grants an additional boost to one of the kingdom’s ability scores. If the hex has more than one terrain feature, the PCs should choose only one of them.
Vance and Kerenshara. A Kingdom's Heartland now give both a set trained skill and a free one. If you were already trained in a skill granted by your Heartland, you instead become trained in another skill of your choice.
Your nation begins in woodlands or swamplands, so there are no shortages in natural resources or wonders to bolster your citizens’ imagination and mood.
Ability Boost. Culture
Granted Skills. Wilderness, Free
Your nation starts in an area that is easy to traverse. This is reflected in your citizens’ temperament; they appreciate that your choice makes their lives a bit easier.
Ability Boost. Loyalty
Granted Skills. Agriculture, Free
By establishing your nation on the shores of a lake or river, you ensure a built-in mechanism for trade. Even before a road is built, merchants and travelers can reach your settlement with relative ease via boat.
Ability Boost. Economy
Granted Skills. Boating, Free
Your nation is founded in the mountains or includes a significant ruined location, and it uses these natural or artificial features to bolster defense. Your citizens tend to be hale and hardy, if not stubborn to a fault.
Ability Boost. Stability
Granted Skills. Defense, Free
Step 4: Choose a Government
If the PCs choose upon a different type of government than a feudal kingdom, adjust the names of leadership roles. The choice of government grants three boosts. Two specific and a free one. The type also gives trained proficiency in two specific skills and a bonus Kingdom feat.
Your nation’s rule is centered around a single individual who seized or inherited command and whose authority is absolute. The ruler of this kingdom still retains advisors and assistants, but only when they obey the ruler’s whims.
Ability Boosts. Stability, Economy, Free
Granted Skills. Intrigue, Warfare
Bonus Feat. Crush Dissent
Your nation’s rule is vested in a dynastic royal family, though much of the real power is distributed among their vassals and fiefdoms.
Ability Boosts. Stability, Culture, Free
Granted Skills. Defense, Trade
Bonus Feat. Fortified Fiefs
Your nation’s rule is determined by a council of influential leaders who make decisions for all others.
Ability Boosts. Loyalty, Economy, Free
Granted Skills. Arts, Industry
Bonus Feat. Insider Trading
Your nation draws its leadership from its own citizens. Elected representatives meet in parliamentary bodies to guide the nation.
Ability Boosts. Stability, Loyalty, Free
Granted Skills. Engineering, Politics
Bonus Feat. Pull Together
Your nation is governed by those most skilled in magic, using their knowledge and power to determine the best ways to rule. While the type of magic wielded by the nation’s rulers can adjust its themes (or even its name—a thaumocracy run by divine spellcasters would be a theocracy, for example), the details below remain the same whether it’s arcane, divine, occult, primal, or any combination of the four.
Ability Boosts. Economy, Culture, Free
Granted Skills. Folklore, Magic
Bonus Feat. Practical Magic
Your nation is decentralized and relies on local leaders and citizens to handle government issues, sending representatives to each other as needed to deal with issues that concern more than one locality.
Ability Boosts. Loyalty, Culture, Free
Granted Skills. Agriculture, Wilderness
Bonus Feat. Muddle Through
Step 5: Finalize Ability Scores
Choose two different Kingdom abilities to receive additional boosts. Then total the boosts and flaws the kingdom has received for each ability, and record the final ability score and its associated modifier on the kingdom sheet.
Vance and Kerenshara. We’ve increased the number of free boosts by 1. So choose three instead of two.
Step 6: Record Kingdom Details
Choose a name for the kingdom. Record it on the sheet with the initial statistics.
- Kingdom Level: 1 (Maximum level is equal to the party level.)
- Size: 1
- Resource Die: d4
- Resource Dice total: 5
- Control DC: 14
- Consumption: 0
- Unrest: 0
- All four Ruins start 0, and each Ruin's initial threshold is 10.
- Commodity Stores: 0. Maximum storage limit for each is 4.
Step 7: Choose Leaders
The leaders include the PC's. Assign each PC to a different leadership role. Then, assign any remaining roles to NPC's (companions) who are capable.
Next, choose four leadership roles to invest. Investing a role provides a status bones to Kingdom skill checks based on that role's key ability. Invest roles assigned to PC's first.
Then, each of the four invested leaders chooses to apply the trained proficiency rank to a different Kingdom skill. You may not choose skills that already received training from your choice of government type.
These initial leadership assignments happen as part of the founding of the kingdom and do not require a kingdom activity to occur. Once the kingdom is established, adjusting leadership requires the New Leadership activity.
Vance and Kerenshara. Instead of each invested Leader choosing a Skill to be Trained in, the Kingdom simply selects 4 skills to be Trained, for a total of 10 Kingdom skills that the Kingdom will begin with as Trained.
We are replacing the Status Bonus for invested Leadership Roles from the base rules with a new type of bonus called a Leadership Bonus, which is tied directly to a character’s skills. This means that the investing of Leadership Roles, and the Status Bonus such investment gives are removed entirely. As such, we no longer need the original fix of “Status bonuses granted by Kingdom feats are cumulative with status bonuses granted by invested Leadership Roles” so that rule is eliminated.
Calculating Leadership Bonus:
A Leader that is Trained in two or more of the listed Relevant Skills for their Role gains a +1 Leadership Bonus on all Kingdom Skill checks.
A Leader that is an Expert in two or more relevant skills raises this Leadership Bonus to +2 on all Kingdom Skill checks they make. This bonus is increased to +3 if they are a Master in at least two relevant skills, and to +4 if they are Legendary in at least two relevant skills.
With GM approval, any Lore deemed viable may count as a relevant skill. Lores specific to the role (i.e., Magister Lore, Ruler Lore, etc.) always count as relevant skills. A Leader may only count one Lore skill towards the two needed for their Leadership Bonus.
Check 3. Leadership Roles for Relevant Skills for each Role.
Record the leader assigned to each role, and record the four skills that your nation received training in.
Step 8: First Village
Somewhere in the heartland hex lies the kingdom's first village—the capital. Checkthe rules for founding settlements, but the players can skip Step 1 and Step 2 of that process when founding this village.
Since this is the first village, the PC's gain 40 kingdom XP as a milestone award.
If the chosen site has any established structures listed in hex's resources, place them in blocks of the PCs' choice on the Urban Grid. New structures wont be added to the settlement before their first Kingdom turn.
Step 9: Calculate Skill Modifiers
Calculate modifiers for each kingdom's skill. Each skill is associated with a specific ability and the initial modifier for each skill consists of the ability modifier for the associated ability, plus a proficiency bonus, plus a status bonus for skills that receive them from invested leadership roles. There are several other types of bonuses and penalties that can affect skill modifiers later in the campaign.
Initial modifier = modifier of the skill's key ability score + proficiency bonus + status bonus
If a kingdom is not proficient in a skill, the proficiency bonus is +0; if a kingdom is trained in a skill, the proficiency bonus is that kingdom’s level plus 2. (It’s not possible to attain proficiency ranks beyond trained until 3rd level.)
For example, the Agriculture skill is associated with Loyalty. If the kingdom’s Loyalty modifier is +1, and it is untrained in Agriculture, then its Agriculture skill modifier is +1. If that 1st-level kingdom is trained in Agriculture, though, add to that a proficiency bonus of 3 (the kingdom’s level plus 2). If a leadership role that provides a status bonus to Loyalty-based checks (Ruler or Emissary) is invested, add another 1.
Step 10: Fame or Infamy?
Decide if you want your kingdom to aspire to fame or infamy.
- A famous kingdom bolsters its citizens, forges alliances with neighbors or oppose the rise of cruelty.
- Infamous kingdoms uses its citizens as resources, undermines and sabotages its neighbors or actively seeks warfare.
There is no alignment to track. The choice here solely determines whether the kingdom uses Fame or Infamy points and the influence ceratin structures might have on the kingdom.