In this Quest you'll be playing as the Shield Hero. Luckily for everyone involved you will...
Shield Hero, but hopefully Heroic
- Thread starter Sword of Mars
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Statistics (9 threadmarks, 5.7k words)
User Total Sword of Mars 9
Ruleset
Sword of Mars
Magical Girl Aficionado
- Location
- Canada
Ruleset:
Edit: Prettied up the formatting.
The game is covered by 5 main stats and their substats (of which some may be hidden and need to be unlocked, and they can be negative). You pass actions via skill checks. We're dealing with flat numbers because I can't be bothered to roll dice.
Now that it is no longer a spoiler, you can learn more main stats. Like the one we did in story, the Spiritual Energy Stat.
These will be assigned after character creation depending on what you picked and events in game will effect these stats and add new substats to the character sheet.
Here's the Stats and some examples for substats.
Might: Your general strength.
-Shield: How skilled you are at being a rip off Captain America
Agility: Your nimbleness, balance, etc.
-Gymnastics: From fancy artistic flips and elegant balance, to parkour and circus performance. Your general skill for actually putting your agility to use.
Awareness: How much you notice things with your senses, and how quickly do you catch onto things.
-Social Awareness: detecting how people view you.
Personality: Your general skill for raw charisma.
-Socializing: How good you're able at interpersonal communication.
Intelligence: How smart you are generally, and retaining information and learning.
-Reactive Planning: How quickly you can adapt to unexpected changes in circumstance in and out of combat.
By now you must have realized how I've omitted some of the rules, such as trauma. Let me just copy and paste the explanation from the character sheet:
Trauma. Allow me to explain the rules here now that we're far enough into the story that it won't spoil or meta game people now. Trauma has a max of 20, the more of it you get the more your character breaks. The more bad habits you get, the more fucked up personality you get, and the more they bleed into the default personality. Trauma also unlocks special actions that wouldn't be available otherwise, and also locks some things for you.
Edit: Prettied up the formatting.
The game is covered by 5 main stats and their substats (of which some may be hidden and need to be unlocked, and they can be negative). You pass actions via skill checks. We're dealing with flat numbers because I can't be bothered to roll dice.
Now that it is no longer a spoiler, you can learn more main stats. Like the one we did in story, the Spiritual Energy Stat.
These will be assigned after character creation depending on what you picked and events in game will effect these stats and add new substats to the character sheet.
Here's the Stats and some examples for substats.
Might: Your general strength.
-Shield: How skilled you are at being a rip off Captain America
Agility: Your nimbleness, balance, etc.
-Gymnastics: From fancy artistic flips and elegant balance, to parkour and circus performance. Your general skill for actually putting your agility to use.
Awareness: How much you notice things with your senses, and how quickly do you catch onto things.
-Social Awareness: detecting how people view you.
Personality: Your general skill for raw charisma.
-Socializing: How good you're able at interpersonal communication.
Intelligence: How smart you are generally, and retaining information and learning.
-Reactive Planning: How quickly you can adapt to unexpected changes in circumstance in and out of combat.
By now you must have realized how I've omitted some of the rules, such as trauma. Let me just copy and paste the explanation from the character sheet:
Trauma. Allow me to explain the rules here now that we're far enough into the story that it won't spoil or meta game people now. Trauma has a max of 20, the more of it you get the more your character breaks. The more bad habits you get, the more fucked up personality you get, and the more they bleed into the default personality. Trauma also unlocks special actions that wouldn't be available otherwise, and also locks some things for you.
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Character Sheet
Sword of Mars
Magical Girl Aficionado
- Location
- Canada
Finally got around to creating this. It took a long time due to some errors and typos in my QM notes but finally we're here.
Character Sheet:
Name: Sakura Yukihime
Gender: Female
Age: 14
Socioeconomic Class: Impoverished
Parents: Former Prime Minister Saizo Sakura and an Unknown Mistress.
Boon: You found companionship in your pseudo-daughter
Bane: You interested a local warlord who wanted you gone.
You met an old man: Who saved you from someone who clearly outmatched you.
You died in the war: during the second week.
Skills, an entirely average person would start at 5.
Subskills usually start at 0, the higher the number the more skill you have.
Skill Tier example
0-2 are babies to small children, 3-4 are children to young teens, 5-6 are average, 7-8 are athletes and 9-10 are the best of the best for a human on Earth.
Subskills mostly compliment their Skill, and show your familiarity with what you're doing.
Example: 0 is barebones understanding, 1 is a basic understanding, 2 is an intermediate understanding, 3 is above average, 4 is professional and 5 is masterful.
Might: 7, you are impressively strong
Shield: 2 You know how to defend yourself with one.
Blackwood Sect Martial Art The Cruel Princess: 3. You are more efficient at breaking people now.
Horse Riding: 3. You can ride one casually without much issue.
Agility: 6. You're surprisingly nimble for how you lived.
Ambusher: 4 The ability to hide, and to strike from shadows.
Gymnastics: 3. You have quite the amount of experience in using your agility to break into places that needed an unconventional approach.
Dodge: 4. Usually the best way to stay alive is not getting hit.
Awareness: 10, years of wandering and scavenging in Old Japan has left you with an almost superhuman level of awareness to your surroundings.
Social Awareness: 4? You generally know what people think of you, how your image would affect you and what not to say.
An Eye for Talent: 2. By hanging around business owners, and generally looking for safe investments and good service you're adequate at seeing who's skilled at what.
Personality: 7? You'd make a decent cult leader.
Interpersonal communication: 4 You can talk your points well without muddying your point and connect with strangers.
Childcare: +2 to personality while talking to children.
Inspirational: +2 to personality while under the effects of the Prince.
Intelligence: 5 You're averagely smart all things considered.
Literacy: 3. You have a surprising grasp on linguistic knowledge for someone born after the Three Year War.
Strategy: 3 You are decent at swinging your intellectual muscle at problems that require multiple steps and critical thinking. You can command armies decently and see more options.
Business Sense: 1. Using your other skills has given you a firm idea of other's character, but you lack the experience to put your advantages to the test.
Reactive Planning: 3. How fast you are to adapt to changing circumstances.
First Aid: 2. How good you are at mundane medical techniques.
Spiritual Energy: 6. You have a lot of it for someone who recently got any at all.
-???
-Spirit Sense: 5. Due to your base awareness this novice skill lets you see way more than you're supposed to. Any living thing within in your range is something you can see barring obstruction via other means.
Trauma. Allow me to explain the rules here now that we're far enough into the story that it won't spoil or meta game people now. Trauma has a max of 20, the more of it you get the more your character breaks. The more bad habits you get, the more fucked up personality you get, and the more they bleed into the default personality. Trauma also unlocks special actions that wouldn't be available otherwise, and also locks some things for you.
Trauma: 12. Your hands are trembling.
Nicotine Addiction. It takes the edge off, something to focus on other than the bombs or the guns.
Malnutrition. It's fine, I can go without for a little while more, please do not feel bad for me.
Paranoia. Whats that over there? Is it a shadow? A dagger in the night? Someone trying to kill me?
Grievously Scarred. Your body is a mess, a true horror show encompasses your entire body. You avoid mirrors, you can still feel the phantom pain when you look at them.
You have enough Hate to kill
Personality States Unlocked: Red. Purple. Black. Gold. Magenta.
Character Sheet:
Name: Sakura Yukihime
Gender: Female
Age: 14
Socioeconomic Class: Impoverished
Parents: Former Prime Minister Saizo Sakura and an Unknown Mistress.
Boon: You found companionship in your pseudo-daughter
Bane: You interested a local warlord who wanted you gone.
You met an old man: Who saved you from someone who clearly outmatched you.
You died in the war: during the second week.
Skills, an entirely average person would start at 5.
Subskills usually start at 0, the higher the number the more skill you have.
Skill Tier example
0-2 are babies to small children, 3-4 are children to young teens, 5-6 are average, 7-8 are athletes and 9-10 are the best of the best for a human on Earth.
Subskills mostly compliment their Skill, and show your familiarity with what you're doing.
Example: 0 is barebones understanding, 1 is a basic understanding, 2 is an intermediate understanding, 3 is above average, 4 is professional and 5 is masterful.
Might: 7, you are impressively strong
Shield: 2 You know how to defend yourself with one.
Blackwood Sect Martial Art The Cruel Princess: 3. You are more efficient at breaking people now.
Horse Riding: 3. You can ride one casually without much issue.
Agility: 6. You're surprisingly nimble for how you lived.
Ambusher: 4 The ability to hide, and to strike from shadows.
Gymnastics: 3. You have quite the amount of experience in using your agility to break into places that needed an unconventional approach.
Dodge: 4. Usually the best way to stay alive is not getting hit.
Awareness: 10, years of wandering and scavenging in Old Japan has left you with an almost superhuman level of awareness to your surroundings.
Social Awareness: 4? You generally know what people think of you, how your image would affect you and what not to say.
An Eye for Talent: 2. By hanging around business owners, and generally looking for safe investments and good service you're adequate at seeing who's skilled at what.
Personality: 7? You'd make a decent cult leader.
Interpersonal communication: 4 You can talk your points well without muddying your point and connect with strangers.
Childcare: +2 to personality while talking to children.
Inspirational: +2 to personality while under the effects of the Prince.
Intelligence: 5 You're averagely smart all things considered.
Literacy: 3. You have a surprising grasp on linguistic knowledge for someone born after the Three Year War.
Strategy: 3 You are decent at swinging your intellectual muscle at problems that require multiple steps and critical thinking. You can command armies decently and see more options.
Business Sense: 1. Using your other skills has given you a firm idea of other's character, but you lack the experience to put your advantages to the test.
Reactive Planning: 3. How fast you are to adapt to changing circumstances.
First Aid: 2. How good you are at mundane medical techniques.
Spiritual Energy: 6. You have a lot of it for someone who recently got any at all.
-???
-Spirit Sense: 5. Due to your base awareness this novice skill lets you see way more than you're supposed to. Any living thing within in your range is something you can see barring obstruction via other means.
Trauma. Allow me to explain the rules here now that we're far enough into the story that it won't spoil or meta game people now. Trauma has a max of 20, the more of it you get the more your character breaks. The more bad habits you get, the more fucked up personality you get, and the more they bleed into the default personality. Trauma also unlocks special actions that wouldn't be available otherwise, and also locks some things for you.
Trauma: 12. Your hands are trembling.
Nicotine Addiction. It takes the edge off, something to focus on other than the bombs or the guns.
Malnutrition. It's fine, I can go without for a little while more, please do not feel bad for me.
Paranoia. Whats that over there? Is it a shadow? A dagger in the night? Someone trying to kill me?
Grievously Scarred. Your body is a mess, a true horror show encompasses your entire body. You avoid mirrors, you can still feel the phantom pain when you look at them.
You have enough Hate to kill
Personality States Unlocked: Red. Purple. Black. Gold. Magenta.
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Shield
Sword of Mars
Magical Girl Aficionado
- Location
- Canada
The main perk to being the Shield Hero is the stupid amount of versatility it gives. Shove anything into it in the manga and a new shield is unlocked.
Unfortunately that doesn't really reflect well in a quest so we're gonna have to alter it, with Shield Types and dividing the powers into categories. This will stop useless bloat from unused trash shields cluttering up the quest.
As for actually using the Shields? The MC will use their discretion in battle, but you will decide whether to use Offensive, Defensive, Magic, or hell even a Utility Type in battle and of course I wouldn't use something like the Cursed Type without a vote.
Offensive Type, this type adds bonuses to your offense in battle.
-Squishy's Venomous Bite It transforms your shield into a deadly weapon. A spider attached to your arm with it's 'face' an inch from your fist to allow it to bite people you punch. It releases a deadly venom which you've observed to paralyze.
Defense Type, this type adds bonuses to your defense in battle.
-Small Shield +1 MGT to Defensive Action
Magic Type, this type adds bonuses to your ability to cast magic.
Utility Type, this type is for the utility shields, bonuses towards crafting, medical aid, whatever.
-Balloon Shield. Just stores Balloon corpses.
-Direwolf Shield. Also stores corpses of its type.
-Squishy's Spider Sense. Allows you to sense the world like a spider would?
-Burn Cream Shield. Relieves a small amount of pain from burns, and slightly heals burns faster.
-Lice Removal Shield. Instantly creates a toxin in your hair that kills lice.
-Headache Relief Shield. Helps with headaches... Really.
-Pain Relief Shield. This one is unhelpful because it actually injects the medicine right into your body! Meaning, using it for prolong periods of time will make you OD or get high.
-Disease Resistance Shield A genuinely good shield that helps you resist diseases and speeds up your immune system against them.
Cursed Type, Ỵ̜̱̠͇̫̗o̸̬̞̰͔̭̲̝u̯̼ ͉̤̩͔͉fe̻͎̙̯͇͘e҉͍̰̣͔l͈̼̕ͅ ͏̲s̨̰̠̤͖͓o̺̤̠m̟̦e͈̬̜͕͚̭̥͢t͇͖̥͓͚h̗̘͖̲͠í̯̱͖̦͚̯n̪̬̪̙̦g ̢̰̥͖͚ͅḅ̟͎̠̖u̶r͈̬̝͙̗͡n͓̙̗͎͝i̙̟̪͓̬͟n̹̰̬̯g̢͖͈̩̟
Unfortunately that doesn't really reflect well in a quest so we're gonna have to alter it, with Shield Types and dividing the powers into categories. This will stop useless bloat from unused trash shields cluttering up the quest.
As for actually using the Shields? The MC will use their discretion in battle, but you will decide whether to use Offensive, Defensive, Magic, or hell even a Utility Type in battle and of course I wouldn't use something like the Cursed Type without a vote.
Offensive Type, this type adds bonuses to your offense in battle.
-Squishy's Venomous Bite It transforms your shield into a deadly weapon. A spider attached to your arm with it's 'face' an inch from your fist to allow it to bite people you punch. It releases a deadly venom which you've observed to paralyze.
Defense Type, this type adds bonuses to your defense in battle.
-Small Shield +1 MGT to Defensive Action
Magic Type, this type adds bonuses to your ability to cast magic.
Utility Type, this type is for the utility shields, bonuses towards crafting, medical aid, whatever.
-Balloon Shield. Just stores Balloon corpses.
-Direwolf Shield. Also stores corpses of its type.
-Squishy's Spider Sense. Allows you to sense the world like a spider would?
-Burn Cream Shield. Relieves a small amount of pain from burns, and slightly heals burns faster.
-Lice Removal Shield. Instantly creates a toxin in your hair that kills lice.
-Headache Relief Shield. Helps with headaches... Really.
-Pain Relief Shield. This one is unhelpful because it actually injects the medicine right into your body! Meaning, using it for prolong periods of time will make you OD or get high.
-Disease Resistance Shield A genuinely good shield that helps you resist diseases and speeds up your immune system against them.
Cursed Type, Ỵ̜̱̠͇̫̗o̸̬̞̰͔̭̲̝u̯̼ ͉̤̩͔͉fe̻͎̙̯͇͘e҉͍̰̣͔l͈̼̕ͅ ͏̲s̨̰̠̤͖͓o̺̤̠m̟̦e͈̬̜͕͚̭̥͢t͇͖̥͓͚h̗̘͖̲͠í̯̱͖̦͚̯n̪̬̪̙̦g ̢̰̥͖͚ͅḅ̟͎̠̖u̶r͈̬̝͙̗͡n͓̙̗͎͝i̙̟̪͓̬͟n̹̰̬̯g̢͖͈̩̟
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Inventory and Assets
Sword of Mars
Magical Girl Aficionado
- Location
- Canada
You guys are probably curious on what you currently own.
Your Inventory
282 Pieces of Silver You've figured out that this is quite a sum. Currency works in three tiers, Copper, Silver and Gold. One Hundred Copper to a Silver, One Hundred Silver to a Gold. You figured out that most people deal in Copper and Silver. Basically nobody uses Gold unless they're nobility or otherwise filthy rich.
Your magical shield, It's a bit annoying in how it almost crippled you that one time. It has its utility you like however... You can use it to crack skulls and some of your moves transition well into it, but you're not used to it at all.
Camping equipment. Two tents, and some field rations.
Seven Giant Spider Eyes
Assorted spider teeth and one fang.
A single rock you didn't need to throw that one time.
Your Combat Outfit. What you were used to, but it was black, had a gold trim and had a cute little shield on it. It doesn't have pockets outside of the pants, but the shield is basically a big pocket anyway.
Your Prince Outfit.
It's cute as fuck. It projects your ideal of a prince, perfectly and lets you look more inspiring than grotesque in your opinion.
Your shitty JSDF knockoff uniform You dislike them, but they're a reminder.
Your fathers locket
A pair of dice.
Assets
Glasshopper, you make around 50 copper a week from your investments here. A funny little store that sells cute glass items and professionally supplies glassware for local restaurants. Sequestered.
Gus's Old Wine and Dine, you make around 20-60 copper a week here from your investments. Gus's place is something you'd call 'homey' and strangely inviting. Gus himself is a little too boisterous and laid back for your liking however. Sequestered.
Companion Equipment and Inventory
William Blackwood
He owns a robe, a backpack and a large staff.
Your Inventory
282 Pieces of Silver You've figured out that this is quite a sum. Currency works in three tiers, Copper, Silver and Gold. One Hundred Copper to a Silver, One Hundred Silver to a Gold. You figured out that most people deal in Copper and Silver. Basically nobody uses Gold unless they're nobility or otherwise filthy rich.
Your magical shield, It's a bit annoying in how it almost crippled you that one time. It has its utility you like however... You can use it to crack skulls and some of your moves transition well into it, but you're not used to it at all.
Camping equipment. Two tents, and some field rations.
Seven Giant Spider Eyes
Assorted spider teeth and one fang.
A single rock you didn't need to throw that one time.
Your Combat Outfit. What you were used to, but it was black, had a gold trim and had a cute little shield on it. It doesn't have pockets outside of the pants, but the shield is basically a big pocket anyway.
Your Prince Outfit.
Your shitty JSDF knockoff uniform You dislike them, but they're a reminder.
Your fathers locket
A pair of dice.
Assets
Companion Equipment and Inventory
William Blackwood
He owns a robe, a backpack and a large staff.
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Yukihime's Health
Sword of Mars
Magical Girl Aficionado
- Location
- Canada
Allow me to gather all the long term health maluses and bonuses into one place so you don't have to go through the entire quest looking for all the information and it won't come as a surprise when you keel over due to a bad health decision or something.
So if you read the quest, you'll know that you're on a time limit. It's entirely possible to fuck your body so bad that you'll just drop before the end of the quest.
Life Span: Five Years. Ten Years in Good Conditions.
Ziggurat. To achieve Immortality. A series of regenerative drugs that are probably the only thing keeping you alive. You feel it in your blood and it burns. It consumes and adapts, you have no idea where you end and the Ziggurat begins.
0034-X. The slow Ablation. Designed to destroy.
Nicotine Addiction: Recovering.
Malnourished: Recovering.
So if you read the quest, you'll know that you're on a time limit. It's entirely possible to fuck your body so bad that you'll just drop before the end of the quest.
Life Span: Five Years. Ten Years in Good Conditions.
Ziggurat. To achieve Immortality. A series of regenerative drugs that are probably the only thing keeping you alive. You feel it in your blood and it burns. It consumes and adapts, you have no idea where you end and the Ziggurat begins.
0034-X. The slow Ablation. Designed to destroy.
Nicotine Addiction: Recovering.
Malnourished: Recovering.
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Yukihime's Forces.
Sword of Mars
Magical Girl Aficionado
- Location
- Canada
This is gonna look pretty pathetic for a while.
Yukihime Sakura, a would be Warlord attempting to free the people from bondage. You are out gunned, out manned and without support or resources. However, you believe that you can struggle through this disaster, and you would rather die then support the slavers in any fashion.
William Blackwood. He's Yukihime's adviser and aide-de-camp. He gives you martial art and spiritual energy instruction. He is an invaluable supporter of yours and your main connection to people who may think like you. He's also a formidable combatant.
Sir Gregory. He is one of your two officers, he follows you out of belief in your words that you can make the world a better place. He holds a large grudge against Aultcray, and Melromarc in general for the disrespect he was given as a knight of a conquered region. He serves as your adviser.
Sir Bradley Richwood. He's one of your two officers, he follows you out of a desire for vengeance. He hates Melromarc itself beyond rational reason, and likely would've became a bandit or joined another rebel group if you didn't recruit him first. Deceased. Your first officer death.
Itsuki Kawasumi. Your distant ally who you accidentally proselytized. He is the Bow Hero, and has been killing nobles for the last week. He completely believes in your vision, and is holding onto it like a lifeline. He is going towards Schildfrieden with a large amount of former slaves to gather support for your cause.
Master Hillwick. He owned a small army of martial artists in the mountains, and was willing to join your cause if you helped him free some of his captured students. One of which was his daughter. You think he's trustworthy so far and has been easily convinced on your philosophy of the world.
Thirty Adepts. These are monks under Master Hillwick's sect. They're elite shock infantry, however they are poorly armored and do not fare well in long pitched battles. They will decimate any non supernatural force on the battlefield without much issue, but will not last against harsher foes.
Ten Demihuman Militia. Former slaves of Lord Rey who forcibly volunteered to your cause. They're armed with spears, shields and chainmail from the Castle's armory. You don't expect them to amount to much in combat due to their small numbers and lack of training.
Yukihime Sakura, a would be Warlord attempting to free the people from bondage. You are out gunned, out manned and without support or resources. However, you believe that you can struggle through this disaster, and you would rather die then support the slavers in any fashion.
William Blackwood. He's Yukihime's adviser and aide-de-camp. He gives you martial art and spiritual energy instruction. He is an invaluable supporter of yours and your main connection to people who may think like you. He's also a formidable combatant.
Sir Gregory. He is one of your two officers, he follows you out of belief in your words that you can make the world a better place. He holds a large grudge against Aultcray, and Melromarc in general for the disrespect he was given as a knight of a conquered region. He serves as your adviser.
Itsuki Kawasumi. Your distant ally who you accidentally proselytized. He is the Bow Hero, and has been killing nobles for the last week. He completely believes in your vision, and is holding onto it like a lifeline. He is going towards Schildfrieden with a large amount of former slaves to gather support for your cause.
Master Hillwick. He owned a small army of martial artists in the mountains, and was willing to join your cause if you helped him free some of his captured students. One of which was his daughter. You think he's trustworthy so far and has been easily convinced on your philosophy of the world.
Thirty Adepts. These are monks under Master Hillwick's sect. They're elite shock infantry, however they are poorly armored and do not fare well in long pitched battles. They will decimate any non supernatural force on the battlefield without much issue, but will not last against harsher foes.
Ten Demihuman Militia. Former slaves of Lord Rey who forcibly volunteered to your cause. They're armed with spears, shields and chainmail from the Castle's armory. You don't expect them to amount to much in combat due to their small numbers and lack of training.
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What even is Melromarc with Sword of Mars
Sword of Mars
Magical Girl Aficionado
- Location
- Canada
So about the whole war arc I've been struggling to plan out here, its actually really difficult. So let me actually talk about world building for a second before we go down the trail of conquest.
What is the geography of Melromarc?
LOCATIONS: Melromarc's western border is connected to the land of Faubly. Schildfrieden is along the South Eastern border from Melromarc and border Siltvelt on their Western Border. Zeltoble is on the North Eastern border from Melromarc and border Siltvelt on their Western Border. Siltvelt borders Zeltoble and Schildfrieden from their East, and Q'ten Lo to their West. Q'ten Lo borders Siltvelt somewhere in the East in a period of vague isolationism.
(At least this is what I figured out after walking through the wiki for locations for a few days. Then I looked at who they were mentioned being 'surrounded by' and made some logical conclusions on where thing were. Actual geography info trumping surrounded by information.
This may be enough to actually make a map out of, simply to try and place where everything is but I'm actually pretty bad at making maps. But I think making one for Melromarc at the very least will be important.)
Shield Hero has nonsense geography. As in the thought of multiple nations and conflicts within the original work were literal after thoughts. There is no detailed map that shows anything more than a portion of the world, and there is no actual in depth descriptions on exactly where each nation is relative to each other. If they simply gave cardinal directions from each other then it would be fine. For the most part I've been thinking of a mixture of Mexico, Central and South America with Europe. Very humid, wet, swampy and generally things are very isolated. It's difficult to march by land much due to geography and it's hot.
From what I remember from the Manga Melromarc suffers from very hilly and mountainous terrain, along with what looked to be Mediterranean forests and what I assume to be swamps scattered around. The wiki puts the overall population of Melromarc at 750 000, I'm assuming this doesn't count slaves if it does that's actually really sad because that's not enough to maintain a large functioning state. Melromarc's capital which I'm going to be calling also Melromarc(because Castle Town is fucking stupid, give fucking names to your shit Shield Hero.), is likely built along a river that goes out to sea. I'm also assuming that Melromarc has access to the sea somewhere. Oh yeah, Melromarc is set up within a land of active volcanoes.
60 thousand of the population is in the capital. which means 1.25 % of Melomarc's entire population lives there. (Which is still a laughable population size, I'm going to assume that constant monster attacks and the wars has effectively culled the population of the planet to apocalyptic degrees).
How do they feed their people (and why is revolting so popular)? Serfdom and slave labor. Humans are not allowed to be bought and sold in Melromarc, but they are still property under law. You cannot brand a human but you can enslave him to a plot of land without trouble. To feed the large population centers, armies and themselves they need to force people to toil. So most people are serfs. If a serf makes enough money they can potentially buy their own land and become a Yeoman of some variety or multiple generations of recompense could allow them to become Gentry.
In theory the Serf toils for their lord, so they will protect them... In practicality the Serf either dies instantly to some monster somewhere while thinking 'where's the lord's men!' or doesn't need it at all and just sees most of their work get taken away as taxation. Slaves don't even get the benefit of protection, and are likely seen as disposable due to how monstrously cheap they are in setting. The agriculture of Melromarc is: Rice, Barley, Wheat, Oats and Wine with minor cash crops and vegetable farming. They follow a Manorial System. A local lord or priest oversees a large groups of serfs (and slaves) to direct a communal effort of agricultural farming. Usually the controller of a Manor would be a Baron but those who only had small holdings would simply be Manor Lords. Serfs also make up a small portion of the levy, often only equipped with spears, gambesons and if they're lucky a shield.
Melromarc in particular is unlucky because of how fucked up its geography is, much of its territory is simply autonomous, very disconnected and often the roads simply do not connect conveniently to each other in a timely fashion. Messages to get from one place to another can take weeks or months depending on distance and supernatural interference. Attempts have been made to attempt to centralize authority and improve communications but the nation is in too much of a political quagmire to pull off a massive project like that.
In Shield Hero the Church has immense amounts of political power... Which means they must have enough Manors to influence their position in the Feudal Society.
What even is the Military of Feudal Countries like Melromarc? Most of the military is reliant on Knights, Mages and Freemen. Knights are Gentry... Now you might be wondering how much of the population of Melromarc are knights? With the current population size, compared to 12th century England there would be 187.5 knights in Melromarc that could be raised... Realistically. However, Magic fucking exists so that isn't as much of a problem. Assuming that Melromarc actually wants knights and is using their resources to field them we can bring up that number likely to around maybe 937 in the entire country. Now you might be asking 'well, why specifically 937?' Well it's because I've arbitrarily decided that the force multiplier for magic here would be 5, and historically armies weren't that large in the first place. The amount of squires each knight has (and is likely allowed to have at maximum as lords don't like paying for them in the first place) is around 2 bringing up Melromarc's effective cavalry to 2182.5 split up between knighthood orders, the palace, and various noblemen across the country.
This is of course not counting hedge knights and unrecognized persons claiming to be knights.
Mages. Whew boy, here we go again. Battle magic is something that takes ages to learn if you aren't cheating. It's also very expensive, and restricted based on social class. You must be a land owner gentry to learn magic at an official institution. Now you might ask 'why don't they just learn the fireball spell and be done with it?' because that isn't how magic works. Magic works half off a game system of learning the spell, and knowing how to cast it and real life studying and research into magic. Without a artifact to make it easier, the steps to spell casting are like this: Knowledge of the Spell, Intent to cast, Manipulation of magical energy, and finally Expelling the magic. For an example, when Vivian casts her spell to enhance clothes she Knows the effects she wants to apply to the clothes, then she acknowledges her intent to cast a spell, leading into manipulating her magic to gain the required attributes to bring what she desires, and so she casts the spell. If she fucked up, the spell would malfunction... Which would be bad, not that bad, but bad.
Now, you have a mage in your army that you conscripted out a first year combat class. You command him to cast a fireball. He knows the basics of what a fireball is, and has seen one demonstrated before, he wants to cast it, so begins manipulating what he thinks should be the spell, and then casts it... Detonating himself, you and everyone around you. Combat magic is much more volatile than regular magic and unless you want to invent the suicide bomber it's a bad idea to field untrained mages in your army. So effectively for military matters the amount of mages Melomarc could field is probably fluctuating around one hundred. Non combat mages are much more abundant and are usually nobility and gentry.
BUT WHAT ABOUT HEDGE MAGES? They are lunatics who learned magic through trial and error, they are feared by the larger population and hated. Most lose their minds or die. The few who don't are feared. You don't know much more than that in story.
Freemen. These are your landowners (such as Yeomen) and petty gentry who cant afford to pay the tax to not serve in the army. They are expected to keep up a specific level of martial skill, maintain their weapons and armor themselves. Usually they wear cuirass, gambesons, and simple helmets. They usually come in to varieties: Spearmen and Archers. Spearmen have spears and shields, with a dagger as their sidearm. Archers are equipped with bows, and have daggers for self defense. They make up the bulk of a 'levy' with poorer armed and barely trained serfs filling in the gap.
Why does it look like Melromarc is one bad sneeze from civil war? Because Melromarc is very badly managed in the apocalypse. Oh there's a bunch of other things too, like the shitty communication system between settlements, or the Church taking more and more power away from the crown. Or how inquisitorial the Three Heroes Church is by necessity driving out minority religions into outright rebels. You can even point towards the fact that they just left a brutal devastating war but it all comes back to the fact that Melromarc is badly managed jenga tower swaying in the wind. Hell, it might have happened anyway if you didn't actively pursue revolution.
What is the geography of Melromarc?
LOCATIONS: Melromarc's western border is connected to the land of Faubly. Schildfrieden is along the South Eastern border from Melromarc and border Siltvelt on their Western Border. Zeltoble is on the North Eastern border from Melromarc and border Siltvelt on their Western Border. Siltvelt borders Zeltoble and Schildfrieden from their East, and Q'ten Lo to their West. Q'ten Lo borders Siltvelt somewhere in the East in a period of vague isolationism.
(At least this is what I figured out after walking through the wiki for locations for a few days. Then I looked at who they were mentioned being 'surrounded by' and made some logical conclusions on where thing were. Actual geography info trumping surrounded by information.
This may be enough to actually make a map out of, simply to try and place where everything is but I'm actually pretty bad at making maps. But I think making one for Melromarc at the very least will be important.)
Shield Hero has nonsense geography. As in the thought of multiple nations and conflicts within the original work were literal after thoughts. There is no detailed map that shows anything more than a portion of the world, and there is no actual in depth descriptions on exactly where each nation is relative to each other. If they simply gave cardinal directions from each other then it would be fine. For the most part I've been thinking of a mixture of Mexico, Central and South America with Europe. Very humid, wet, swampy and generally things are very isolated. It's difficult to march by land much due to geography and it's hot.
From what I remember from the Manga Melromarc suffers from very hilly and mountainous terrain, along with what looked to be Mediterranean forests and what I assume to be swamps scattered around. The wiki puts the overall population of Melromarc at 750 000, I'm assuming this doesn't count slaves if it does that's actually really sad because that's not enough to maintain a large functioning state. Melromarc's capital which I'm going to be calling also Melromarc(because Castle Town is fucking stupid, give fucking names to your shit Shield Hero.), is likely built along a river that goes out to sea. I'm also assuming that Melromarc has access to the sea somewhere. Oh yeah, Melromarc is set up within a land of active volcanoes.
60 thousand of the population is in the capital. which means 1.25 % of Melomarc's entire population lives there. (Which is still a laughable population size, I'm going to assume that constant monster attacks and the wars has effectively culled the population of the planet to apocalyptic degrees).
How do they feed their people (and why is revolting so popular)? Serfdom and slave labor. Humans are not allowed to be bought and sold in Melromarc, but they are still property under law. You cannot brand a human but you can enslave him to a plot of land without trouble. To feed the large population centers, armies and themselves they need to force people to toil. So most people are serfs. If a serf makes enough money they can potentially buy their own land and become a Yeoman of some variety or multiple generations of recompense could allow them to become Gentry.
In theory the Serf toils for their lord, so they will protect them... In practicality the Serf either dies instantly to some monster somewhere while thinking 'where's the lord's men!' or doesn't need it at all and just sees most of their work get taken away as taxation. Slaves don't even get the benefit of protection, and are likely seen as disposable due to how monstrously cheap they are in setting. The agriculture of Melromarc is: Rice, Barley, Wheat, Oats and Wine with minor cash crops and vegetable farming. They follow a Manorial System. A local lord or priest oversees a large groups of serfs (and slaves) to direct a communal effort of agricultural farming. Usually the controller of a Manor would be a Baron but those who only had small holdings would simply be Manor Lords. Serfs also make up a small portion of the levy, often only equipped with spears, gambesons and if they're lucky a shield.
Melromarc in particular is unlucky because of how fucked up its geography is, much of its territory is simply autonomous, very disconnected and often the roads simply do not connect conveniently to each other in a timely fashion. Messages to get from one place to another can take weeks or months depending on distance and supernatural interference. Attempts have been made to attempt to centralize authority and improve communications but the nation is in too much of a political quagmire to pull off a massive project like that.
In Shield Hero the Church has immense amounts of political power... Which means they must have enough Manors to influence their position in the Feudal Society.
What even is the Military of Feudal Countries like Melromarc? Most of the military is reliant on Knights, Mages and Freemen. Knights are Gentry... Now you might be wondering how much of the population of Melromarc are knights? With the current population size, compared to 12th century England there would be 187.5 knights in Melromarc that could be raised... Realistically. However, Magic fucking exists so that isn't as much of a problem. Assuming that Melromarc actually wants knights and is using their resources to field them we can bring up that number likely to around maybe 937 in the entire country. Now you might be asking 'well, why specifically 937?' Well it's because I've arbitrarily decided that the force multiplier for magic here would be 5, and historically armies weren't that large in the first place. The amount of squires each knight has (and is likely allowed to have at maximum as lords don't like paying for them in the first place) is around 2 bringing up Melromarc's effective cavalry to 2182.5 split up between knighthood orders, the palace, and various noblemen across the country.
This is of course not counting hedge knights and unrecognized persons claiming to be knights.
Mages. Whew boy, here we go again. Battle magic is something that takes ages to learn if you aren't cheating. It's also very expensive, and restricted based on social class. You must be a land owner gentry to learn magic at an official institution. Now you might ask 'why don't they just learn the fireball spell and be done with it?' because that isn't how magic works. Magic works half off a game system of learning the spell, and knowing how to cast it and real life studying and research into magic. Without a artifact to make it easier, the steps to spell casting are like this: Knowledge of the Spell, Intent to cast, Manipulation of magical energy, and finally Expelling the magic. For an example, when Vivian casts her spell to enhance clothes she Knows the effects she wants to apply to the clothes, then she acknowledges her intent to cast a spell, leading into manipulating her magic to gain the required attributes to bring what she desires, and so she casts the spell. If she fucked up, the spell would malfunction... Which would be bad, not that bad, but bad.
Now, you have a mage in your army that you conscripted out a first year combat class. You command him to cast a fireball. He knows the basics of what a fireball is, and has seen one demonstrated before, he wants to cast it, so begins manipulating what he thinks should be the spell, and then casts it... Detonating himself, you and everyone around you. Combat magic is much more volatile than regular magic and unless you want to invent the suicide bomber it's a bad idea to field untrained mages in your army. So effectively for military matters the amount of mages Melomarc could field is probably fluctuating around one hundred. Non combat mages are much more abundant and are usually nobility and gentry.
BUT WHAT ABOUT HEDGE MAGES? They are lunatics who learned magic through trial and error, they are feared by the larger population and hated. Most lose their minds or die. The few who don't are feared. You don't know much more than that in story.
Freemen. These are your landowners (such as Yeomen) and petty gentry who cant afford to pay the tax to not serve in the army. They are expected to keep up a specific level of martial skill, maintain their weapons and armor themselves. Usually they wear cuirass, gambesons, and simple helmets. They usually come in to varieties: Spearmen and Archers. Spearmen have spears and shields, with a dagger as their sidearm. Archers are equipped with bows, and have daggers for self defense. They make up the bulk of a 'levy' with poorer armed and barely trained serfs filling in the gap.
Why does it look like Melromarc is one bad sneeze from civil war? Because Melromarc is very badly managed in the apocalypse. Oh there's a bunch of other things too, like the shitty communication system between settlements, or the Church taking more and more power away from the crown. Or how inquisitorial the Three Heroes Church is by necessity driving out minority religions into outright rebels. You can even point towards the fact that they just left a brutal devastating war but it all comes back to the fact that Melromarc is badly managed jenga tower swaying in the wind. Hell, it might have happened anyway if you didn't actively pursue revolution.
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Why do Demi Humans and Humans hate each other? A History Lesson
Sword of Mars
Magical Girl Aficionado
- Location
- Canada
So, you might be wondering exactly why Demihumans accept the label 'demi human' so readily even though it sounds really fucking racist? Well, because it is, but it's also pretty much a reclaimed term by the time Shield Hero canon starts, with both demi human nations using the term to give their peoples solidarity, as they can't afford to split the party against human majority nations like Melromarc. When 'DemiHuman' was first termed, it was almost 100% due to fear and to make them seem 'subhuman'.
This is because Demi Humans all have one thing in common: A supernatural ancestor. Through the power of magic, shape shifting, weird shit you don't want to think about, divine intervention, magical experiments gone wrong you name it, people began diverging from regular human status... Into something more powerful. The initial demihumans must have been literal demigods... So you might be wondering well, then how did humanity survive and not go extinct during this time? That's because Demi's aren't and never have been monolithic, they were even less so at the time. So they fought each other because they saw each other as rivals. Then as bloodlines dilute so does the power generation by generation as they get further away from their supernatural ancestor. The four hero summoning was probably invented to try to even the playing field with early demihumans... Only to add in more chaos and not really help out that much until like... Six hundred to maybe a thousand years ago? These days, the gap from demihumans and regular humans is much smaller and negligible. Aside from aging a bit faster and being a bit stronger on average Demihumans and Humans are on a equal playing field.
Anyway, so the term demihuman was only really used to discriminate against people with a supernatural ancestor and there was no common 'demihuman identity' until the establishment of Siltvelt and the changes to the world wide political scene.
So, now to the more modern reason humans and demihumans hate each other: Religion and War.
(oh good Sword of Mars gets to talk about fictional religions and make world building for the fictional work he's writing a quest on yay! not.)
Then the Four Heroes actually succeeded at bringing about world peace and an age of international cooperation... Only for them all to die and it to fall apart immediately. Those heroes turned into legend, and became the basis of the Four Heroes Church, and it's heretical sects the Church of the Three Heroes and The Church of the Shield. So, sometime like a thousand years ago (or so) religion did that thing where it splits into offshoot religions of itself, Three Heroes going into some racist monk's brain somewhere in Melromarc and the Shield going into where Siltvelt would eventually form itself from. So summoning the Four Heroes was a sacred right that happened every time they needed a new set after the previous ones died...
Faubley, is the most populated and rich land on the continent. Because of this, it sees itself as the rightful summoners of the Four Heroes mostly for their genes and to marry their kids to them for prestige and this pissed everyone else off... Sort of because they also wanted that prestige, and also because they genuinely wanted to see their religious figures. So they needed a political reason to fight Faubley over the summoning of the Four Heroes, and what better way to do that than embrace a heresy (there was also the fact that Faubley controls most of the religious upper hierarchy that they could use to influence other nations with). So Faubley was eventually forced after most of the continent went to war (aside Q'ten Lo which doesn't care) to allow them to summon a hero of their choice, to the countries that mattered anyway, that being: Faubley, Melromarc, Siltvelt. (The fourth slot was offered to Q'Ten Lo, who rejected it because they don't care so Faubley also holds onto it...) But this meant that the continent is even more divided than before and Melromarc started feeling the effects of embracing a religion that embraced human supremacy, and the various demi human groups in Siltvelt already held a bunch of local religions that stated their individual race was better than everyone else with a minor Shield Hero church dedicated to the Shield Hero from the Four Heroes Church due to his favorable actions towards Demihumans.
Naturally both them tried to kill each other every other generation, the more and more Demihumans identified themselves as 'Demihumans' in solidarity. Humans and Demihumans enslaved each other and killed each other for generations, until Siltvelt and Melromarc had a final showdown fifteen years ago, when Siltvelt somehow massed enough soldiers to make a bid for continental supremacy, only to be destroyed by Aultcray in a mostly Pyrrhic victory. Mirellia, now Queen of Melromarc sought reconciliation and the end of constant warfare and they both signed an uneasy peace with the construction of two safe havens, a village in Melromarc for free Demihumans and one in Siltvelt for free Humans...
TLDR: Demihumans and Humans hate the shit of each other because they've been in a forever war that only just ended.
TLDR2: Demihumans accepted the term demihumans out of solidarity against Melromarc to unite themselves against a common foe and discourage infighting.
Additonal Note: Sometime within that time frame Siltvelt had a small scale civil war that led to Schildfrieden splitting off to form a Noble Republic, and Melromarc lost land to a mercenary revolt that formed Zeltoble.
Another Additonal Note: Q'Ten Lo literally doesn't do anything. I don't get it either.
Edit: this thing was full of errors, I was a bit distracted, my dog just went in heat.
This is because Demi Humans all have one thing in common: A supernatural ancestor. Through the power of magic, shape shifting, weird shit you don't want to think about, divine intervention, magical experiments gone wrong you name it, people began diverging from regular human status... Into something more powerful. The initial demihumans must have been literal demigods... So you might be wondering well, then how did humanity survive and not go extinct during this time? That's because Demi's aren't and never have been monolithic, they were even less so at the time. So they fought each other because they saw each other as rivals. Then as bloodlines dilute so does the power generation by generation as they get further away from their supernatural ancestor. The four hero summoning was probably invented to try to even the playing field with early demihumans... Only to add in more chaos and not really help out that much until like... Six hundred to maybe a thousand years ago? These days, the gap from demihumans and regular humans is much smaller and negligible. Aside from aging a bit faster and being a bit stronger on average Demihumans and Humans are on a equal playing field.
Anyway, so the term demihuman was only really used to discriminate against people with a supernatural ancestor and there was no common 'demihuman identity' until the establishment of Siltvelt and the changes to the world wide political scene.
So, now to the more modern reason humans and demihumans hate each other: Religion and War.
(oh good Sword of Mars gets to talk about fictional religions and make world building for the fictional work he's writing a quest on yay! not.)
Then the Four Heroes actually succeeded at bringing about world peace and an age of international cooperation... Only for them all to die and it to fall apart immediately. Those heroes turned into legend, and became the basis of the Four Heroes Church, and it's heretical sects the Church of the Three Heroes and The Church of the Shield. So, sometime like a thousand years ago (or so) religion did that thing where it splits into offshoot religions of itself, Three Heroes going into some racist monk's brain somewhere in Melromarc and the Shield going into where Siltvelt would eventually form itself from. So summoning the Four Heroes was a sacred right that happened every time they needed a new set after the previous ones died...
Faubley, is the most populated and rich land on the continent. Because of this, it sees itself as the rightful summoners of the Four Heroes mostly for their genes and to marry their kids to them for prestige and this pissed everyone else off... Sort of because they also wanted that prestige, and also because they genuinely wanted to see their religious figures. So they needed a political reason to fight Faubley over the summoning of the Four Heroes, and what better way to do that than embrace a heresy (there was also the fact that Faubley controls most of the religious upper hierarchy that they could use to influence other nations with). So Faubley was eventually forced after most of the continent went to war (aside Q'ten Lo which doesn't care) to allow them to summon a hero of their choice, to the countries that mattered anyway, that being: Faubley, Melromarc, Siltvelt. (The fourth slot was offered to Q'Ten Lo, who rejected it because they don't care so Faubley also holds onto it...) But this meant that the continent is even more divided than before and Melromarc started feeling the effects of embracing a religion that embraced human supremacy, and the various demi human groups in Siltvelt already held a bunch of local religions that stated their individual race was better than everyone else with a minor Shield Hero church dedicated to the Shield Hero from the Four Heroes Church due to his favorable actions towards Demihumans.
Naturally both them tried to kill each other every other generation, the more and more Demihumans identified themselves as 'Demihumans' in solidarity. Humans and Demihumans enslaved each other and killed each other for generations, until Siltvelt and Melromarc had a final showdown fifteen years ago, when Siltvelt somehow massed enough soldiers to make a bid for continental supremacy, only to be destroyed by Aultcray in a mostly Pyrrhic victory. Mirellia, now Queen of Melromarc sought reconciliation and the end of constant warfare and they both signed an uneasy peace with the construction of two safe havens, a village in Melromarc for free Demihumans and one in Siltvelt for free Humans...
TLDR: Demihumans and Humans hate the shit of each other because they've been in a forever war that only just ended.
TLDR2: Demihumans accepted the term demihumans out of solidarity against Melromarc to unite themselves against a common foe and discourage infighting.
Additonal Note: Sometime within that time frame Siltvelt had a small scale civil war that led to Schildfrieden splitting off to form a Noble Republic, and Melromarc lost land to a mercenary revolt that formed Zeltoble.
Another Additonal Note: Q'Ten Lo literally doesn't do anything. I don't get it either.
Edit: this thing was full of errors, I was a bit distracted, my dog just went in heat.
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Sentient Monsters vs Demihuman. Why they're distinct and not the same
Sword of Mars
Magical Girl Aficionado
- Location
- Canada
I'm going to be expanding on the lore of the world here, to accommodate things that are given like, front row seats in canon but never really 'explained'.
The first thing you must understand about Shield Hero is that the Gods are real. This changes things. A lot of things. This means that I, need to explain the difference between sentient monsters and demihumans (and sort of why the distinction is sorta fucked).
Let me reiterate this: Creation Myths are real, at least most of them. For example: A great dragon birthed your race and rose you from the very dust of the land? Yeah that happened and you can prove it happened. This means that humanity was in fact created various times by deities in this realm. Humans were spun from clay, birthed by titans, created from the remains of dead gods, whatever. Along with other sentient beings that litter the land such as the Filolial, and many of the more sentient monster types... Humans were just lucky that they had more numbers and figured out tools and magic faster than most other races.
We're not going to go into how Gods being real in this setting fucks with me right now.
For example, a lot of the monster races (and when I say monster races, these are distinct from Demihumans who are 'merely' humans with supernatural ancestors, as 'sentient monsters' are entirely supernatural existences) came with their own massive draw backs. For example the Filolial can't achieve humanoid form until they gain enough 'strength' to manifest it... Even then, they rely on empathy and body language to communicate which isn't something many people are accurately able to communicate back with.
Now you might be asking 'what's the difference between Monsters, and Demihumans beyond their supernatural existence'. Because they aren't human. This is an important distinction, we all know how humans reproduce, how they think, what we are... Now take a Filolial, who is a 'Sentient Monster' who can in 'maturity' manifest themselves into a humanlike form... They don't think like humans, they don't act like humans and they don't communicate like humans. They stay Filolial even in human form. Sure you could teach a Filolial human language, human culture and what have you, but at the end of the day that's nurture vs nature. Their biology and base thought process will always remain similar to a avian then a human even if you could get them to fake it well enough to act human.
Filolial are fucked up in the fact that people enslave them to run carts. Fucking carts. The regular human doesn't have a clue that they could turn into something humanlike or have sentient thoughts, because to them it's just another farm animal. So many Filolial simply don't gain enough strength to be anything more than beasts of burden. This is the largest difference and gap between a Human and a Filolial, the human can communicate early on in its life, while a Filolial cannot do much more expression than the common dog, so are treated with around the same intelligence.
Compare this with say, a dragon. Dragons likely have the ability to transform themselves into a humanlike form, but simply don't. They are obsessive creatures that love not 'wealth' but [Wealth], things that have 'value' rather than 'valuable looking things'. They can communicate with other beings easily but mostly don't... Because it's so much easier to swat the equivalent to a fly and take their shit instead of asking. Whether that be a person, the nation's treasury, a painting of incredible wealth, whatever. Naturally, by being such a hostile existence they were mostly hunted into near extinction but being quasi-immortal you can occasionally see remnants of dragons every once in a while.
You get the point, Sentient Monsters are nonhuman sentient biological intelligence.
AN:
So where are the Middle Easterners and Black people, Shield Hero
? They never bring it up, despite the fact that Shield Hero is basically a medieval Europe inspired powder keg where the equivalent of the Thirty Years War looks about to come into play. There is no Al Andalus despite a lot of the Spanish themes, and there is no Africa in canon geography. It's strange I bring it up because a lot of the LN and manga that came out around the time Shield Hero was at least included a token middle eastern nation, hell Vanadis even had one. I'm going to assume it's because like a lot of fantasy that doesn't really give a shit about geography and world building outside of 'SMASH MONSTA FACE, KISS GRILL!' but still mindlessly rips off Europe and Japan in token effort.
Big fucking meme that we have dragon lore and their mating cycles but we don't have any brown people. So, I get to make up where they are, instead of you know brushing it aside and saying 'shhhh, don't think about it'.
The first thing you must understand about Shield Hero is that the Gods are real. This changes things. A lot of things. This means that I, need to explain the difference between sentient monsters and demihumans (and sort of why the distinction is sorta fucked).
Let me reiterate this: Creation Myths are real, at least most of them. For example: A great dragon birthed your race and rose you from the very dust of the land? Yeah that happened and you can prove it happened. This means that humanity was in fact created various times by deities in this realm. Humans were spun from clay, birthed by titans, created from the remains of dead gods, whatever. Along with other sentient beings that litter the land such as the Filolial, and many of the more sentient monster types... Humans were just lucky that they had more numbers and figured out tools and magic faster than most other races.
We're not going to go into how Gods being real in this setting fucks with me right now.
For example, a lot of the monster races (and when I say monster races, these are distinct from Demihumans who are 'merely' humans with supernatural ancestors, as 'sentient monsters' are entirely supernatural existences) came with their own massive draw backs. For example the Filolial can't achieve humanoid form until they gain enough 'strength' to manifest it... Even then, they rely on empathy and body language to communicate which isn't something many people are accurately able to communicate back with.
Now you might be asking 'what's the difference between Monsters, and Demihumans beyond their supernatural existence'. Because they aren't human. This is an important distinction, we all know how humans reproduce, how they think, what we are... Now take a Filolial, who is a 'Sentient Monster' who can in 'maturity' manifest themselves into a humanlike form... They don't think like humans, they don't act like humans and they don't communicate like humans. They stay Filolial even in human form. Sure you could teach a Filolial human language, human culture and what have you, but at the end of the day that's nurture vs nature. Their biology and base thought process will always remain similar to a avian then a human even if you could get them to fake it well enough to act human.
Filolial are fucked up in the fact that people enslave them to run carts. Fucking carts. The regular human doesn't have a clue that they could turn into something humanlike or have sentient thoughts, because to them it's just another farm animal. So many Filolial simply don't gain enough strength to be anything more than beasts of burden. This is the largest difference and gap between a Human and a Filolial, the human can communicate early on in its life, while a Filolial cannot do much more expression than the common dog, so are treated with around the same intelligence.
Compare this with say, a dragon. Dragons likely have the ability to transform themselves into a humanlike form, but simply don't. They are obsessive creatures that love not 'wealth' but [Wealth], things that have 'value' rather than 'valuable looking things'. They can communicate with other beings easily but mostly don't... Because it's so much easier to swat the equivalent to a fly and take their shit instead of asking. Whether that be a person, the nation's treasury, a painting of incredible wealth, whatever. Naturally, by being such a hostile existence they were mostly hunted into near extinction but being quasi-immortal you can occasionally see remnants of dragons every once in a while.
You get the point, Sentient Monsters are nonhuman sentient biological intelligence.
AN:
So where are the Middle Easterners and Black people, Shield Hero
? They never bring it up, despite the fact that Shield Hero is basically a medieval Europe inspired powder keg where the equivalent of the Thirty Years War looks about to come into play. There is no Al Andalus despite a lot of the Spanish themes, and there is no Africa in canon geography. It's strange I bring it up because a lot of the LN and manga that came out around the time Shield Hero was at least included a token middle eastern nation, hell Vanadis even had one. I'm going to assume it's because like a lot of fantasy that doesn't really give a shit about geography and world building outside of 'SMASH MONSTA FACE, KISS GRILL!' but still mindlessly rips off Europe and Japan in token effort.Big fucking meme that we have dragon lore and their mating cycles but we don't have any brown people. So, I get to make up where they are, instead of you know brushing it aside and saying 'shhhh, don't think about it'.