Ancerra Before

Playtest Disclaimer THIS IS PLAYTEST MATERIAL. All content within this document is subject to change.

Ancerra Before: The First Supereon introduces Telgaia, a massive supercontinent from the centuries before the Tear that brough Ancerra back into contact with the other planes of existence. Explore Telgaia and discover the living kingdoms that either fall to ruin or manage to endure the many challenges of the ancient world.

Gathandia and its sister continents are quite young, historically speaking. For dozens of centuries before its creation, the land of Ancerra was a single great supercontinent, plus a few surrounding islands and large ice caps. The supercontinent was known as Telgaia.

In the days of Telgaia, Ancerra was still completely encased in powerful demi planar wards set in place by the Avadri. As Ancerra’s solar system drifted through the endless Pale, these wards prevented the vast majority of the Pale’s ravenous eldritch denizens from touching Ancerra. By day, those who looked to the sky could see vast, unbroken stretches of clouds beyond the sun. By night, no stars were visible, and the concept of stars was completely unknown. Rather, these same expanses of clouds would be lit in eerie patterns by the light of Ancerra’s five moons.

Magic

Magic enters into Ancerra in full force when the Tear opens in the demi plane protecting the planet. Prior to the Tear, magic is exceedingly rare and quite limited in its capacity. Arcane, Divine, and Occult magic do not exist before the Tear.

Psionic magic is directly tied to a creature’s Essence, so it exists in this time period. Psions are powerful contributors to society and instrumental in protecting towns and cities from the threat of enormous monsters, so most towns of any notable size have at least one psionic caster.

Primal magic also exists in very small quantities across Telgaia. Points of raw environmental energy, such as volcanoes and the deepest hearts of jungles, have thin barriers between Ancerra and the Everwilds, allowing trace amounts of primal magic to seep through.

Magic Heroes and Creatures

The lack of magic in pre-Tear Ancerra dramatically impacts some classes and talents. The Cleric, Mage, Vessel, and Witch classes from the Core Rulebook are unplayable in this setting. You may play a Zealot, but you do not gain Divine Power. Additionally, Tinkerers and some tracks of the Rogue (such as Guild Affiliate and Conman) are extremely rare in Telgaia during this time period. They would only be found in the rare city-state or national capital large enough to have a robust economy similar to that of a nation in the second Supereon. Most cities are utilitarian, focusing only on a surplus of food and on security, so economically dependent tracks are illogical.

Furthermore, you may not learn the Student of the Arcane, Disciple of the Divine, Initiate of the Occult, or Warden of the Primal talents, even if you would normally learn them through a class talent. If you play an Oracle, for example, you must choose Adept of the Psionic instead of Warden of the Primal.

The Fiendblood lineage is incompatible with this setting as Inferno has no contact with Ancerra. Similarly, Golems are not created until after the Tear, with the exception of Psionic Golems. Undead exist in very rare circumstances, but cannot be created via any form of harnessable resurrection magic; instead, they seem to just be anomalies of nature. You may not select any options from any lineage that would give you access to magic, unless it is Psionic or Primal.

Creatures that use Arcane, Divine, and Occult magic cannot be found on Ancerra during this time period. Creatures that use Primal or Psionic magic are unaffected.

An Age of Titans

Telgaia is home to creatures of enormous proportions. Dinosaurs tower over humanoids, and the dreaded kaijan in turn cast black shadows over these terrible lizards.

The greatest struggle of humanoid creatures in the First Supereon is survival in the face of such enormous predators. The earliest groupings of humanoids were disorganized nomadic groups whose travel patterns followed prey and fled from predators. Eventually, some nomads began making permanent or semipermanent homes below ground. While enormous subterranean caverns came with their own threats, they were generally safer than the surface world. An, the first nation, existed primarily underground.

Many subterranean nations came into contact with technology far beyond anything they could have imagined, including the Remnant lineage. These ancient artifacts are the legacy of the Avadri that created Ancerra in the distant, unknowable past.

Surface-dwelling humanoids eventually found other methods of adapting to the great dangers posed by kaijan and dinosaurs. It became known that dinosaurs are vulnerable to psychic energy; psionic casters, therefore, rigorously trained to ward off dinosaurs from their settlements. Other psions went farther, learning to briefly control and domesticate dinosaurs and incorporate them into their societies. Psionic sentinels and dino wranglers both enabled their societies to set permanent roots and offered them the means to resist the terrors of the kaijan.

Economy and Equipment

Telgaia operates with a different economic reality than later settings on Ancerra.

Academic and Underworld

In a civilization’s early history, the primary concern of its populace is developing a surplus of food and maintaining adequate shelter. Academic and criminal endeavors are usually simple and disorganized. Most of these nations’ entries do not mention academic or underworld occupational spheres. Unless otherwise noted, it is safe to assume that these nations have very basic academic institutions that teach standardized writing practices and basic mathematics. Such institutions will primarily be hobbies among the wealthy. Likewise, you can safely assume that a nation’s criminal element does not extend beyond petty thievery unless it is otherwise noted.

Economy Notes

Early Supereon 1 deals mostly with trade and varies greatly based on supply and demand.  Eventually, as societies form, common weights and volumes are established via Elderwind Tree seeds. These measurements persist throughout Supereons 1-4, even though seeds as a currency has mostly been depreciated.

The Elderwind tree is hearty in nearly all environments and its seeds are almost perfectly identical regardless of its age or environment. A seed (Colloquallity 1es or 1 seed) weighs 1 gram and displaces water by exactly 1ml. Thus, units of measurement of weight are 1es to 1 gram and 1Kes to 1 kg and 1d/1 drop to 1 milliliter and 1Kd to 1 liter. Using these measurements may increase immersion for your players, but don’t feel the need to add extra bookkeeping if that’s not something your table loves!

Elderwind Trees can be found as decoration in most places of lending or exchange. Amber is a pellet-sized, orange, semi-translucent piece of hardened resin made from the resin exuded from the Elderwind Tree, which produces a set amount of resin that takes a uniform amount of time to petrify. This petrification process takes about a year. Once petrified, amber can withstand an incredible amount of heat and pressure, making counterfeiting surprisingly difficult but not impossible. They weigh about the same as a grain of rice.

The depreciation from Amber relative to Silver is 10x in early SE2. The conversion chart for SE1 is simply:

Unit	a	sc
Amber (a)	1	1/10
Silver Coin (sc)	10	1

Shopping and Trading in Supereon One

In the first Supereon, trade and barter are always going to fetch better deals than trading in amber. The general formula for pricing goods with amber is:

Simple goods or trade goods

(SE2 Silver Coin Cost of good) * (1.1) * (10) = Amber Cost of Good

Goods that require specialized labor

(SE2 Silver Coin Cost of Good) * (1.35) * (10) = Amber Cost of Good

Goods that require some metal

(SE2 Silver Coin Cost of Good) * (1.5) * (10) = Amber Cost of Good

Weapons, Armor, and Shields that are mostly metal

(SE2 Silver Coin Cost of Good) * (2.5) * (10) = Amber Cost of Good

Incomes are adjusted in Supereon One to reflect less income inequality and less aristocratic hold over economies. Generally, people would have more goods than Amber, and you can assume an individual would have about 5-25% of their annual Amber income on hand and available for trade.

Remember that these are meant to be guidelines, and your table may not enjoy crunchy economic bookkeeping. Do not slow down your table’s gameplay with calculations unless you are into that kind of immersion.

	SE2 Value	SE1 Value
Average Income	1400 sc	10,000 a
Average Skilled Income	3000 sc	20,000 a
Aristocratic Income	100,000 sc	80,000 a
Peasant	800 sc	9000 a
Master/Artisan	7650 sc	60,000 a

Technology Levels

Throughout broad strokes of Telgaia’s history, the technology level of most nations was roughly comparable to that of real-world Ancient Greece or Babylonia. Humanoids quickly figured out how to build large buildings and monuments, and iron weapons were far less common than bronze ones due to the latter metal’s abundance and pliability.

If you are playing in early history, consider making technology even more primitive: agricultural canals might be revolutionary. Conversely, if you are playing just a few years before the Tear, then feats of engineering such as cross-national aqueducts may be more commonplace.

Forward Compatible Lineages: The lineages introduced in this setting still exist in future settings. However, Kosavran and Dwellvur are much less common, and the elf and dwarf sublineages are disproportionately small compared to their other sublineages.

Forward Compatible BOPs: The BOPs introduced in this setting are mostly forward-compatible. The Augur and Godking are specific to this setting, unless your MC makes an exception.

Forward Compatible Class Tracks. Your MC may allow these tracks in other settings. Be aware that some of these talents are specifically designed to interact with dinosaurs. Others are intended to counteract creatures that have DT or are dramatically larger in scale than you might encounter in other supereons, so not all talents will be particularly relevant in other settings.