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Old 08-31-2022, 01:10 PM   #1
David L Pulver
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Default T'reo School for TFT Up on Kickstarter

As Phil Reed's notice says, The T'reo School sourcebook is part of the Hexagram #10 kickstarter.

T'reo is a magic school source book that details the wizard's school originally featured in the introduction to the WIZARD micro game (including backstory on the characters Arronnen and his student Yzor). The school - known as the T'reo School of Martial Magic - is infamous for its culture of magical duels and rivalry between wizards and students, making it a dangerous place to visit.

The school itself - whose history dates back to the end of the Mnoren Empire - is fully mapped out and the setting book is designed to be used both for wizard-school adventures and as a super-dungeon that can be raided by non-wizard characters: it contains monsters, ghosts, magical labs, a big treasury, and a huge library of occult lore, and even a dungeon level. There's also plenty of material on how the school works including clubs, secret societies, and the dueling, along with guidelines on getting jobs at the school so you can play faculty or graduate researchers as well as undergraduate students, or have existing wizards retire to teach.

There's also some more information on how spell research and magical training can work in TFT.

There's also dozens of detailed NPC wizards, both students and masters, all engaged in a web of relationships, plots and rivalries, so that a GM can drop them into the school and run a wizard's academy setting with very little prep needed. (We also have some further T'reo support material in the works.)

If anyone has any questions about the setting, I'll be happy to answer them!
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Old 08-31-2022, 01:21 PM   #2
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Default Re: T'reo School for TFT Up on Kickstarter

Pledged for $40 to get T'reo School.


Looking forward to it!
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Old 08-31-2022, 01:29 PM   #3
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Default Re: T'reo School for TFT Up on Kickstarter

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Originally Posted by stefanj View Post
Pledged for $40 to get T'reo School.


Looking forward to it!
Thanks! I hope you enjoy it. Compared to Ardonirane, it's a much more focused setting but it should be possible for a GM to just drop PCs into the school as 32-point student wizards and start play almost immediately - the school is detailed on a room-by-room level, with dozens of NPCs ready to go, and expansion run downs of how things function each day.
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Old 08-31-2022, 04:40 PM   #4
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Default Re: T'reo School for TFT Up on Kickstarter

Take my money David! I have been waiting for this.
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Old 08-31-2022, 06:39 PM   #5
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Default Re: T'reo School for TFT Up on Kickstarter

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Take my money David! I have been waiting for this.
Thanks! I hope you enjoy it.

Oh, I just counted. There's actually over 40 wizards fully described in the book (along with a half dozen other NPCs) Most of them come with some sort of adventure seed as well.
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Old 09-01-2022, 10:23 AM   #6
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Default Re: T'reo School for TFT Up on Kickstarter

At what age does a wizard's training start, and how does this training cause them to forget every talent they've learned so far in their life?
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Old 09-02-2022, 05:26 PM   #7
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At what age does a wizard's training start, and how does this training cause them to forget every talent they've learned so far in their life?
At the age of 18 every T'reo wizard reports to the school dragon. This is a unique dragon from an elder age, which retains the talent-erasing abilities from the original edition. This allows them to start afresh.

No, just kidding. Navigating the peculiarities of TFT's pedagogy is beyond my pay grade, and after several tries to pin down the powers that be on how things worked, I realized they didn't want to be pinned down. SO we decided T'reo School is a university (closer to a military academy - it was originally one of the late Mnoren Empire's military schools) that focuses on providing accelerated combat training and advanced studies for wizards who are Yzor's age, i.e., 17-21 years. Essentially, after you graduate from a local guild school or apprenticeship with your village wizard or emerge full blown into your talent, a small minority of wizards may go to T'reo for an advanced education. (I checked with SJ and he says the 20 year "starting age" for TFT characters should not be taken literally and many PCs may be younger.) In game terms, this means you hang out at T'reo taking classes and earn experience points from the duels, combat exercises, and extracurriculars, while possibly earning a job working for the masters in off time. Assuming a reasonable number of encounters generating XP per year (based on the campaign adventure I ran simulating a year at T'reo) one may expect a gain of about 1-2 points per year during the initial three years or so needed for an undergrad degree for active characters, or less for those who spend much of their time socializing or partying (or put their XP into spells, talents, or mana instead of stats).
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Old 09-02-2022, 09:54 PM   #8
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Default Re: T'reo School for TFT Up on Kickstarter

What's the source of money from the great unwashed mob of muggles to the wizards? Tickets to view duels? Are they behind anti-skeptical glass?
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Old 09-04-2022, 03:13 PM   #9
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Default Re: T'reo School for TFT Up on Kickstarter

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What's the source of money from the great unwashed mob of muggles to the wizards? Tickets to view duels? Are they behind anti-skeptical glass?
The finances of the school aren't really a huge area of interest to most people, so I covered them briefly. The text says T'reo is financed by a mix of tuition fees, endowments, profits, fees for consultations, and research money.

Perhaps the most important endowment is T'reo Island itself, which comes with villages of fishermen and farmers for which the school's government acts the feudal lord. (They in turn can expect better medical care and magical help, and an extra infusion of money for local crafts from the wizards and students, and for some, a chance to work at or be educated at the school).
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Old 09-05-2022, 06:06 AM   #10
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Perhaps the most important endowment is T'reo Island itself, which comes with villages of fishermen and farmers for which the school's government acts the feudal lord.
Is there a wizard-knight assigned to each village or is village chief an inherited post with rubber stamp approval by the wizards? (The chief then sends a runner to fetch a wizard to deal with things? Your lordship, a dispute over a cow produced two ghosts whose constant arguments keep the entire village from sleeping.)
Is there an annual festival of the choosing that gets the island kids over represented in the school and hence suffering from a higher percentage of drop-outs who then become the local village apprentice? (Respected as a wizard, and despised as worthless?)
Are dead islanders harvested for alchemy and necromancy and if so do they know this?
Does the island have an independent foreign policy or do they report to a queen instead and what duties and responsibilities tie the mages to the royalty?
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