Player Handbook:The Iron Road
Glorious day, Comrades! As children of veterans of the People’s Revolution, you will be honored to know that you have been chosen by the Glorious Leader to contribute to the greater good. As I’m sure you must have heard, our Leader (may he live and serve forever) has commissioned the most magnificent public work the world has ever seen - an iron road to allow trains to cut across the interior of the Glorious People’s Republic of Hagiv (GPRH,) through All People’s Mountain, and out the other side. And it will all be ready in time for the jubilee celebrating 150 years of equality and strength since the Revolution.
Crews from Szasz will build westward through the rich farmland and gentle forest that provide so much bounty to the citizens of Hagiv before delving into the newly-rediscovered tunnels beneath All People’s Mountain. There, they will clear out any lingering resistance to the will of the Revolutionary Council so that tracks can be laid through the mountain and out the other side. Workers from Nagev’s Glory will cut a road through the jungles and swamps of the western interior and meet those from Szasz on the other side.
Once the roads are joined, the trains will run through the interior in a fraction of the time it now takes to ship the bounty of Hagiv to those who need it most.
Some of you may be thinking you do not deserve such an honor because you have transgressed. You may well be right. Contributing to Hagiv’s glory should be reserved for faithful sons and daughters of the Revolution. But the Glorious Leader in his wisdom has decided that the iron road will be a chance to redeem those who have forgotten the path of the greater good as well as an opportunity for greater glory to those who already serve.
Contents
Welcome to Hagiv
Set in a campaign world twenty-five years in the making, Hagiv is a structured scenario created to be played under a limited subset of the Dungeons & Dragons 3.5 rules and the d20 system. While Hagiv is part of a larger world called The Thalassan Sphere, which is only a few centuries out of a world-destroying Cataclysm, you don’t need to know any of that. Hagiv is a closed society. Contact with the outer world is limited to party officials and their most trusted allies. Common citizens must be protected from the corrupting influence of outsiders who would lead them into selfish ventures and away from the greater good.
The Iron Road is a scenario designed for mixed playing styles and environments. It uses a modified experience system of which combat and adventures are only two components. Set in a work camp that moves with the railroad, it allows players to partake in one-off adventures or to follow their characters through to epic adventures. It also allows online play between live sessions for players who are interested.
The history of Hagiv (as the PCs know it) starts with greedy overseers and aristocrats exploiting a largely dwarven workforce in its fields and mines. A dwarven slave named Nagev discovered a milky white crystal as large as his head washed up on shore and, when he touched it, was filled with a strange and wonderful power that delivered him from his tormentors and allowed him to raise an army of his fellow slaves and oppressed workers to overthrow the largely human aristocracy and their elven allies and install a more equitable government under the Revolutionary Council.
That crystal, called the Sunstone, remains in the Palace of the People where it continues to provide power to the Council, the Glorious Leader, and the party faithful. They use this power to defend the Hagiv People’s Republic against monarchists and capitalists who would destroy Hagiv to keep their own oppressed workers from learning by the revolution’s glorious example and from internal subversives who would steal bread from the mouths of their comrades so that they may live in decadent luxury.
Hagiv has a lot of inspirations behind it - starting with a book called Enemy of the People about growing up in Hungary in the 1950s and 1960s, the RPG Paranoia, and the writing of China Mieville.
Ruleset
The Hagiv campaign is run under a limited subset of the d20 ruleset and the Dungeons & Dragons 3.5 rulebooks, but with experience points per level are standardized across classes using the table provided with 4ED. It is a game focused on storytelling and not ideally suited to min-maxing. At the end of it, you might not have the coolest half-drow paladin ever, but you will hopefully have a good story to tell.
To keep the game simple for new players (and a DM who hasn’t kept up with the rules since 2ED was new,) the following core rules will be followed: basic combat, contested action rolls, attribute-based modifiers, armor class, and spell lists from the Player’s Handbook. In many cases, your spells and feats may be assigned to you by the Revolutionary Council.
PC classes and races are restricted to those listed below. None of the rules supplements, monster manuals, or The Complete Anything are canon here.
Over time, the list of rules and classes will grow as we bring more details into the game and the setting changes.
Storytelling, Mechanics, and Experience The Iron Road is designed to be more about storytelling than “roll playing” and it uses two primary tools to enforce that preference: a modified experience system and and a new mechanism called Goals.
Goals are assigned to player characters by the DM according to race, class, and alignment. Each goal has a target activity, a reward for completion, and a penalty for failure. Goals are generally kept secret from the other players and often involve the other PCs. Rewards and penalties are usually in terms of experience points, XP coefficients, or Loyalty (explained later.)
All XP earned in The Iron Road is applied a coefficient determined primarily by how well a character is following their alignment with additional modifiers added or subtracted based on goals. While many campaigns seek to keep player characters close in level, The Iron Road is designed to allow for a degree of level inequality. A character who is fulfilling the requirements of their alignment and achieving goals can quickly sprint past one who ignores alignment and plays only a hack-and-slash style.
Characters additionally have a Loyalty rating. Loyalty is a measure of how loyal the character seems to the Party and changes (primarily) through other PCs reporting on them to the Ministry of Information. Why would other PCs do that? Usually, because it’s one of their Goals. Characters whose Loyalty falls too low can be imprisoned, blackmailed, or exiled.
The interplay among Alignment, Goals, and Loyalty will frequently lead the characters to difficult decisions where service of one is at the detriment of the others or where all of the decisions are bad and the “least bad” decision has to be chosen. Additionally, characters will often have conflicting AGLs, which leads to conflicted decisions.
How does this lead to party unity? It doesn’t. The Iron Road is about a paranoid, dysfunctional society and produces paranoid, dysfunctional groups. Quite often, conflict between characters will be as intense as those between the PCs and the monsters around them. Guard for the sword from the front and the knife in the back.
That doesn’t mean characters won’t form long-term friendships or come to trust each other over time. But they won’t be walking up to strangers in a tavern and forming life-long bonds over a couple of cold ones and a regularly-scheduled brawl either.
Character Creation & Secrecy
While playing The Iron Road, characters will probably know what race and gender their groupmates are. Beyond that, everything is subject to subterfuge, misdirection, and outright lying. Even things as basic as character class may be hidden and there may even be in-game penalties for such information “getting out.”
The creation of characters is handled privately with the DM before the session starts. Players are welcome to bring character sheets to the game and even show them to each other. The DM will neither confirm nor deny whether any details on the sheet are true unless they’re discovered in the course of play. In other words, if you bring a character sheet, fill it out as the character you want the other players to believe you are.
To start character creation, determine your stats, race, class, gender, name, and alignment using the guidelines described below.
For stats, characters may choose one of the following sets of “rolls”:
- A: 15, 14, 13, 13, 13, 12
- B: 17, 13, 12, 11, 10, 10
- C: 18, 11, 11, 11, 11, 8
They may be assigned any way the player likes. Players who are thinking they’ll get a jump-start by having an 8 CHA should note the rules on the Loyalty ranking and how CHA affects it before they get too far ahead of themselves.
Once you’ve chosen these things, e-mail them to the DM directly. He will assign you a loyalty rating and one or more goals based on these choices.
Race
Obviously in an egalitarian society like the GPRH, Race doesn’t matter to your social status only revolutionary zeal and good work. We can’t help if these two sterling qualities are more present in some races than in others. There are three playable races in The Iron Road:
Dwarf: Dwarves were the backbone of the Revolution and are now the proud stewards of the GPRH. Most of the Revolutionary Council is made up of Dwarves. The Glorious Leader is a Dwarf. The leaders of nearly all our institutions are Dwarves. Even though these roles require great responsibility and wisdom, Dwarves have chosen to shoulder these burdens because they have the broadest shoulders. Don’t forget to thank a Dwarf for their service today.
All dwarves start with +10 Loyalty and one additional Revolutionary goal.
Human: Humans are a crucial part of Hagiv and many fine workers and subalterns are human. They lack the constitution to lead, but proudly support their Revolutionary Dwarf brothers in solidarity.
At least most of them do. Humans are a varied lot and not to be completely trusted. Humans start with -10 Loyalty.
Half-Elf: There’s nothing half about “half-elves.” When human overlords exploited their dwarven brothers, elven hands held the whip. Even though those of the purest blood were driven from our shores by our Glorious Leader, many of their get have remained and they carry a treacherous blood.
Elves (as any human with Elven blood is called in Hagiv) start with -20 Loyalty and one additional Counterrevolutionary goal. Additionally, Elves who wish to speak Dwarvish (the lingua franca of the GPRH) must take it as a talent.
Character Class
In order to promote justice and fairness, the GPRH is a classless society. However, specializations are still required. Just don’t call them classes, Comrade.
For the initial sessions of The Iron Road, a limited subset of character classes are available. There is no place in the Glorious People’s Republic of Hagiv for druids, monks, rangers, or barbarians (although they made be introduced as PC classes later.) Generally speaking, the Party is deeply suspicious of “folk who muck about in the woods.”
Additionally, the classes that are allowed have the following modifications:
Bard: Bards are viewed with extreme suspicion by the Party. In order to perform legally, they must be registered with the Arts Ministry and must take Patriotic Music (Hagiv) as one of their talents. Bards also must file in advance their plans to perform and all performances must be organized prior to traveling to perform them. Bards lose loyalty points for performing frivolous, unpatriotic, or counterrevolutionary music or for performing for groups at an unscheduled time.
Bards start with -15 Loyalty and one additional Counterrevolutionary goal. They must be Human or Elf.
Cleric: Gods are merely tools that priests and monarchists use to oppress the proletariat. The worship of gods is strictly prohibited in the GPRH. Clerics in Hagiv worship the Greater Good and are granted their powers through the Sunstone.
Clerics start with +15 Loyalty can be cut off from their power by the Revolutionary Council if their Loyalty falls below -25. Loyalty losses are halved for clerics with an overall positive score and doubled for those with an overall negative score.
For alignment, Clerics must be Greater Good and can not be Chaotic or Subversive. They can be Dwarf or Human. Their spells are assigned to them by the Revolutionary Council.
Fighter: All dwarven and human citizens of the GPRH are required to serve four years between the ages of 16 and 22 in the Glorious People’s Army and all have at least basic weapons training. Fighters who have served may choose between being Footsoldiers of the Revolution or Brawlers. Fighters who have not served (generally half-elves,) can only be Brawlers.
FotRs start with one additional Revolutionary goal and +5 loyalty.
Brawlers start with one additional Counterrevolutionary goal and must take one fighting talent that is either unarmed or involves a non-traditional weapon or club.
Paladin: Paladins in the GPRH operate under a number of serious limitations and have concomitant advantage. All paladins are fanatically loyal to the Party and the Revolution. Hagiv paladins must be Lawful Greater Good.
They gain their holy powers from the Sunstone and can be cut off from it by the Revolutionary Council, which will happen if they fall below -15 Loyalty. Paladins start with +25 Loyalty. They do not accrue Counterrevolutionary goals for high Loyalty unless they already have one or more Counterrevolutionary goals.
Paladins can be Dwarf or Human. They start with two additional Revolutionary goals. Paladins gain (or lose) an XP multiplier equal to 1% times their loyalty score up to 50%.
Hagivi paladins do not gain Special Mount. They do get Intimidate as a class skill.
Rogue: Rogues are both a crucial part of Hagiv society and a scourge depending on their inclinations. Rogues can choose to be Eyes of the Council, Criminals, or both.
Eyes of the Council start with +5 Loyalty, two additional Revolutionary goals (one of which is common across EotCs,) and one additional Counterrevolutionary goal. Unlike other classes, they aren’t automatically imprisoned at -50 Loyalty, but they can be executed or assassinated at the DM’s discretion if their loyalty falls below -75.
EotCs all have a Revolutionary goal: Report counterrevolutionary activity (by any PC) for which they are rewarded 1% of the XP for their next level and +1 loyalty.
Criminals start with -10 Loyalty and two additional Counterrevolutionary goals. Being discovered as a Criminal causes a -20 Loyalty penalty.
Sorcerers: There are no sorcerers in the GPRH. Some people develop magical talent, but using it in an unregistered and unlicensed way is Counterrevolutionary.
If there were sorcerers, they would start with -10 Loyalty and one additional Counterrevolutionary goal. Being discovered using sorcerous powers incurs a one-time -30 Loyalty penalty.
Wizards: Among all of the dwarves’ human allies, wizards have proven the most stalwart and been given the most responsibility as a result. A wizard even sits on the Revolutionary Council and most of the highest-ranking humans on Hagiv are wizards.
Human Wizards can be Administrators, Cabalists, or both. Half-elf wizards can only be Cabalists. Administrators all belong to the Ministry of Magic and work directly for the Revolutionary Council. The start with +15 Loyalty and two additional Revolutionary goals. Cabalists start with -10 Loyalty and two additional Counterrevolutionary goals.
Any Administrator who falls below -10 Loyalty is declared anathema and a Cabalist (even if they weren’t before.) Anyone discovered by the party to be a Cabalist (including abruptly former Administrators) takes a one-time -30 Loyalty penalty.
Alignment
The alignment system for the Iron Road is different from ordinary 3.5 rules. The original designations have slightly different meanings and are joined by 3 new designations: Ordered, Subversive, and Greater Good.
Additionally, all characters start with an alignment score of 100%. Decisions the characters make change their alignment score and that score is used as a coefficient for all XP the character gains. When characters follow the non-neutral aspects of their alignment in meaningful decisions, they gain alignment score. When they act against their alignment, they lose points of alignment score. Alignment scores can range from 0% to 200%.
Lawful: Characters who are lawful in alignment obey the law of the Republic. They do not apply their own interpretations to it, stretch it, or break it.
Lawful characters are completely loyal to the Party and gain one percentage point of Alignment Score for each point of loyalty they earn (losses apply in reverse.) They start with +10 Loyalty, have one more revolutionary goal and one fewer counterrevolutionary one than their class/race combination usually allows. They gain Loyalty at +50% the normal rate.
Ordered: Ordered characters follow a higher calling and answer to the laws of the universe, keeping things in order and fighting back chaos. Where the law of the land spreads chaos, it must be ignored.
Ordered characters gain or lose Alignment Score by maintaining or disrupting the status quo.
Chaotic: Chaotic characters are anarchists and seek to overthrow the natural order of things. Wherever order limits personal freedom, it must be destroyed.
Chaotic characters gain or lose Alignment Score by disrupting or reinforcing the status quo and by increasing or decreasing their own personal freedom.
Subversive: Subversive characters deliberately seek to undermine or even overthrow the Party. Subversives can be Corrupt, Counterrevolutionary, or both.
Corrupt characters gain one percentage point of Alignment Score for each point of Loyalty they earn (losses apply in reverse.) They lose Loyalty at -50% the normal rate. Additionally, Corrupt characters automatically get the bonus Talent “Cover Your Ass,” which negates any Loyalty loss that would be incurred when reported on by characters more than twenty points less Loyal than themselves.
Corrupt characters are the only ones who can receive Loyalty bonuses for Counterrevolutionary goals. Being revealed as Corrupt causes a one-time -10 Loyalty penalty.
Counterrevolutionary characters gain Alignment Score for giving aid and succor to enemies of the Republic and damaging the Republic’s ability to operate. They lose AS for betraying fellow counterrevolutionaries or helping the Republic in its mission.
Characters discovered to be counterrevolutionaries suffer a one-time -50 Loyalty penalty.
Greater Good: Characters with the Greater Good alignment are loyal to the Republic. They differ from Lawful characters in that they gain AS for seeking out corruption in the Party and hold the ideals of the state, not necessarily its officials sacrosanct.
Greater Good characters can have one fewer Counterrevolutionary Goal than their race/class combo normally allows. They lose Loyalty at a -50% rate.
Good/Evil: Good characters gain and lose AS based on whether they do right or wrong. Moral, charitable, and helpful acts give them AS. Immoral, greedy, and coercive acts lose AS. For evil characters, the reverse is true.
True Neutral: For now, there are no true neutral PCs involved in The Iron Road. (The mechanism is still being worked out.)
Goals
All characters are assigned one or more secret Goals by the DM at the time of creation. Additional goals are created as the characters rise in levels or cross thresholds in Loyalty and goals are replaced as they are completed or expire. Goals have three or four parts: an action, a reward, an optional penalty, and an expiration condition.
All Goals are either revolutionary or counterrevolutionary. Revolutionary goals are assigned to the characters by Party officials officially. They may not always serve the Greater Good, but they generally at least serve the official who thought them up. Counterrevolutionary goals act in direct contravention to the Party’s desires and usually involve a loss of Loyalty if the PC is discovered carrying them out.
Loyalty All characters have a Loyalty rating that changes during the course of the game. Loyalty is an indication of how loyal the Party officially believes the character to be. It primarily rises as characters perform Revolutionary Goals and falls when they fail at Revolutionary Goals or someone reports them to the Party for performing Counterrevolutionary Goals.
Loyalty can run from 100 to -100. Characters whose Loyalty exceeds 50, 75, or 99 during the course of play receive an additional Counterrevolutionary goal.
Characters who reach -25 Loyalty are given one additional Revolutionary goal. Those who reach -50 Loyalty are imprisoned, exiled, or blackmailed. Imprisoned characters are out of play for one session per negative loyalty point and gain 1 Loyalty point per week imprisoned. Exiled characters are out of play for this phase of The Iron Road (at least.)
Blackmailed characters gain one new Revolutionary goal and one additional Revolutionary goal for each goal they complete or fail at until they reach 25 Loyalty and are imprisoned or reach 0 Loyalty and stop accruing goals.
Characters start with a modifier to their Loyalty based on their Charisma and gain and lose Loyalty faster or slower as well.
| Cha | Initial | Gain | Loss |
| 3-5 | |||
| 6-7 | |||
| 8-9 | |||
| 10-12 | |||
| 13-14 | |||
| 15-16 | |||
| 17-18 | |||
| 19+ |
Disputes & Loyalty: Often in paranoid and dysfunctional groups, different characters will report back to the Party with different stories. When multiple characters report transgressive events so that more than one character can be blamed, Party officials will take into account the cumulative Loyalty of all witnesses for each side to calculate a Credibility Gap.
Where one side has a much higher cumulative Loyalty than the other, the “falsely accused” character may get off without Loyalty loss and their accusers could even suffer a partial Loyalty loss along with the guilty.
As a mitigating factor, when a transgression involves loss of life, property damage or theft, or there are simply too many people accused, Party officials tend to throw up their hands and punish everyone involved.
Special Talents
Coming soon.
