MISCELLANY

Items & Materials

The equipment a Champion uses in their previous incarnations will pass down through the ages. As the ages progress, new materials and processes become available, as well as new designs and types of weapons.

Classical Ages
• Ash (Common Material)
• Axe (1H Blade, 2H Blade)
• Bone (Common Material)
• Bow (Ranged Weapon)
• Bronze (Common Material)
• Black Bronze (Rare Material)
• Club (1H Bludgeon, 2H Bludgeon)
• Dagger (1H Blade)
• Diadem (Focus)
• Fetish (Icon)
• Iron (Uncommon Material)
• Leather (Common Material)
• Maul (1H Bludgeon, 2H Bludgeon)
• Oak (Uncommon Material)
• Orichalcum (Legendary Material)
• Periapt (Focus)
• Sacred Scroll (Icon)
• Silk (Rare Material)
• Skymetal (Legendary Material)
• Sling (Ranged Weapon)
• Spear (1H Blade, 2H Blade, Ranged)
• Staff (2H Bludgeon, Focus, Icon)
• Steel (Rare Material)
• Sword (1H Blade, 2H Blade)
• Wand (Wand)
• Yew (Rare Material)

Middle Ages
• Black Bronze becomes Common
• Iron becomes Common
• Silk becomes Uncommon
• Steel becomes Uncommon
• Oak becomes Common
• Yew becomes Uncommon
• Adamantite (Legendary Material)
• Crossbow (Ranged Weapon)
• Folded Steel (Rare Material)
• Grimoire (Focus)
• Laminate Wood (Uncommon Material)
• Lancewood (Rare Material)
• Pattern Welded Steel (Rare Material)
• Prayer Book (Icon)

Modern Ages
• Folded Steel becomes Uncommon
• Laminate Wood becomes Common
• Lancewood becomes Uncommon
• Pattern Welded Steel becomes Uncommon
• Silk becomes Common
• Steel becomes Common
• Yew becomes Common
• Advanced Alloys (Uncommon Material)
• Advanced Composites (Uncommon Material)
• Duranium (Legendary Material)
• Muskets (Ranged)
• Signet (Focus, Icon)
• Pistols (Ranged)
• Rifles (Ranged)
• Titanium (Rare Material)

Future Ages
• Advanced Alloys become Common
• Advanced Composites become Common
• Folded Steel becomes Common
• Lancewood becomes Common
• Pattern Welded Steel becomes Common
• Titanium becomes Uncommon
• Crysteel (Rare Material)
• Diaphene (Rare Material)
• Focused Plasma (Legendary Material)
• Magitech Array (Focus)
• Paracausal Matrix (Icon)

Once the Final Age has been reached, no further advancements in materials or items can be obtained.

Upgrades & Inheritances

Probably one of the biggest mechanics players will be engaging in is upgrading their equipment, coming up with newer and more powerful enhancements to increasingly archaic weapons which somehow manage to keep pace with or even outpace "present day" counterparts. Probably the fastest way display this would be a color-coded system. It's common enough in other RPGs at this point, and it would speed player understanding. A chart for weapon/armor qualities would probably run something like this:
• Gray - Junk (cannot be upgraded) - Low quality material, shoddy workmanship, one step above an improvised weapon
• White - Basic (cannot be upgraded) - Average quality material, low to average quality workmanship, nothing remarkable about it
• Green - Good (Capable of accepting Minor-quality upgrades) - Good quality material or average materials worked by a skilled artisan, clearly of better craft than the typical example
• Blue - Excellent (Capable of accepting up to Major-quality upgrades) - High quality materials or good materials worked by a highly skilled artisan; if it's not a bespoke piece or commission, it's the next best thing
• Purple - Superb (Capable of accepting up to Grand-quality upgrades) - The highest quality materials, or "just" high quality materials worked by a master artisan; likely a one-off creation which carries a lot of prestige to it
• Gold - Masterpiece (Capable of accepting up to Legendary-quality upgrades) - The best materials shaped by the greatest of artisans; once-in-a-generation pieces, the stuff that legends are made of
The actual number of upgrades a piece could carry might either be randomly generated or part of a specific scheme of segments (e.g. hilts, pommels, blades, guards for swords).

With regard to the upgrades:
• Green - Minor - Small boosts to damage (weapons) or damage reduction (armor), low order effects (elemental or poison damage), or small debilitations to targets (brief stuns, slowing effects)
• Blue - Major - Modest boosts to damage or damage reduction, medium effects or debilitations to target, duplication of effects from early-tier spells
• Purple - Grand - Significant boosts to damage or damage reduction, large effects or debilitations on target, duplication of mid-tier spells
• Gold - Legendary - Boosts to damage or damage reduction doubled or tripled from their base value, damage effects or debilitations on target equal to or greater than base weapon damage, duplication of late-tier spells

There will undoubtedly need to be some system for "reforging" gear to accept new enhancements.

NOTES

Potential Challenges

Fundamentally, Reliquarian is a roguelike writ large. There's a lot of ways this could ultimately evolve. It could be a classic isometric ARPG (akin to the Diablo or Torchlight series), which could have potential issues relating to procedural generation. It could be done up as a "loot shooter" (or "loot slasher" in a lot of spots) similar to the Destiny series (if going FPS) or The Division series (3rd person over the shoulder). However, it might be better to keep better quality weapons behind quests, give players a reason to explore and seek out august personages. Yes, it might be a fetch quest, ultimately, but it's one that will genuinely benefit the player instead of sending them to get ten rat ears because reasons.

Inspirations

None of us work in a vacuum. All of us are undoubtedly swiping small mechanisms and notions from other works. These were some of the ones that influenced me the most while working on this beast.
• Michael Moorcock - What can you say? The man's a legend of fantasy fiction. The "Eternal Champion" books were a major infuence.
• Red Aegis - This is a very weird TTRPG that I've never really had the chance to play. Designed by Brian R. James (with writing assistance from Ed Greenwood of Forgotten Realms fame), this had you playing not as a single character, but an entire clan across generations and ages, from the earliest days of recorded history to the other planets of your home star system and beyond. Definitely a very different perspective.
• Exalted - Terrible TTRPG systems, but always a compelling setting. Larger-than-life heroes equipped with relics of a bygone age that shatter mountains or cut through a soul like it was paper, all while fighting even more over-the-top villains. It's hard not to be excited by insane wire-fu coupled to ridiculous anime weapons.
• The Cthulhu Mythos - When you look at the Mythos as a whole, when you see the scope of it all, it kinda melts your brain a little bit. It's easier to focus in on certain periods like Robert E. Howard's "Conan" stories or the original stories from Lovecraft himself. But then you kinda want to connect the dots, trying to figure out how you get from Conan of Cimmeria to Nephren-ka to Charles Dexter Ward.
• Buffy The Vampire Slayer - This series (along with the spinoff Angel) did an excellent job of mixing urban fantasy with horror. Not simply in the visual side of things, but also in the characters and storylines. It's kind of a master class in how contemporary characters handle anachronistic equipment and knowledge.
• Eternal Darkness: Sanity's Requiem - Probably didn't think this would be the big video game influence, did ya? Sanity Effects aside, the structure of the game's plot and its emphasis on bringing characters back to the same places ages apart, and their effects on the world, is subtle but so well executed. Also, it serves as the other big "Things Man Was Not Meant To Know" influence besides the Mythos. The Strangers are very much an homage to both this game and Lovecraft.