Stats and What They Mean

These resource pages are to be considered Work-in-Progress. Expect to see more detail added to them as I progress plots and add more details to the developing setting.

Prowess

Prowess represents the number of ordinary people a character can engage in combat and hope to hold their own against. Note that holding one's own typically means prevailing against someone to win over time, not instantly dispatch them. Prowess of 10 should be rare and reserved for masterful champions, so opportunities to raise Prowess should be infrequent and come with some kind of narrative or mechanical cost.

Renown

Renown is the percentage chance that a common person will know of your deeds. So at Renown 100 a character should expect to be universally known in their immediate area. As they travel, however, this figure might get divided to represent local gossip not covering foreign lands. A Renown 100 character, for instance, might be familiar to only 5% of people in a distant kingdom. While notoriety increases with popular and infamous actions, Renown presupposes a positive recognition, so only Renown should go up with positive actions.

Wealth

Wealth is the number of commoner's salaries a character has. So a common person has a wealth of 1, someone who makes double their income has a wealth of 2, and so on. Note that the 1-in-X proportions from the Titles description above do not estimate the income range of different classes of characters because, for instance, while kings might rule over millions, their direct buying power will not be nearly so high as even the worst tyrant cannot hope to take every cent from their subjects and put it in their personal coffers. Wealth should go up and down to reflect personal holdings, treasury, and lands owned. For narrative purposes, suppose a commoner gets no more than 100 gold pieces of value per year, so a lump sum treasure of that amount or something with ongoing cost or income relative to that would be worth 1 wealth shift.

Army

Army is the raw manpower of a fighting ****. An army of less than 50 men will usually disband easily and in most situations should result in a defeat, no matter how elite the **** composition. Note than Army losses in battle won't always be a matter of men killed, but also those wounded and fled or otherwise unable to fight in the next battle. Also keep in mind that most any battle, no matter how well orchestrated, will result in some losses to the tune of 1 man for every 100 foes defeated, and a ten-to-one ratio is probably a much more functional upper range for a battle that isn't won by one-sided out-maneuvering. When hiring mercenaries, a normal mercenary unit of 10 men costs 1 Wealth, since their contract assumes foraging, fringe benefits, and permission to loot enemies after battles, etc. A competent soldier should be Prowess 2 or 3.

Health

Health is the physical resilience of a character. In battles where the character fights personally, single-decision loss should probably range from 5-50% Health loss. Healing should generally be no more than a few percentage points per week of assumed rest--more if magically healed or otherwise in the narrative of the story.