Elven Academy

Character Development

Your starting scenario: You play the role of Dandelion, a novice witch or wizard. Your mother died mysteriously, and you inherited her magical elf book. The book is a portal to the Underworld, where your mother was attending Owl River Academy, a school for humans in the Blessed Isles of the Seelie elves and fairies.

Your background: You are a human with rare magical gifts at the start of the game. You are also a visitor to the Underworld, where humans are 99% enslaved or contracted to serve in the dark Lord’s domain for all eternity. The few free humans (other than you and your classmates) are the lowest and poorest people—Gypsies, lawless pirates, or escaped slaves who live and hide from the devils in the hellish wastes.

Your moral choices: Your choice of Light Game or Dark Game mode (see above) will somewhat change the game flavor and plot, but you also have many opportunities to roleplay a good or less ‘good’ character. Your good and lawful choices will increase your Charm attribute, while more chaotic, rebellious choices will increase your Cunning attribute. These attributes affect your spellcasting and diplomatic skills (see below.)

Attribute Advancement: In most cases, Dandelion’s personal attributes will improve by using them in a main story adventure (i.e. A1, A2, A3, A4, etc.). Only the first completion of a story adventure or dungeon counts towards attribute advancement. Some attributes can also be improved more slowly through other activities, such as reading library books or completing club or class activities. These grinding methods always have a hidden cap in place. (If not, please report as a bug!)

Classes

Elven Academy was originally created to be class-less, but classes are now added as of Spring 2021. You choose a class at the end of the character creation module (A1).  A class gives bonuses to a set of relevant starting stats, and gives the player a roleplay template. The classes also give the developer three character personality types to design for.

Fairy and Bardic characters tend to be charming, flirty, fun, goofy, kind, compassionate, and artistic. Hedge and Druidic characters tend to be practical, earthy, nature-loving, and good in dungeons and outdoor adventures.  Fate and High characters tend to be snarky, cynical, depressed, egotistical, ambitious, and darkly humorous.

Fairy Wizard/Witch: Charm, Luck, Romance, Empathy

A fairy wizard or witch has an intimate kinship with flowers and nature. Instead of fierce wildness like the druid, you are gentle and open to the magic and wonder of life. You know the source of all life is love.

Bardic Wizard/Witch: Charm, Romance, Aesthete, Persuasion

A bardic wizard or witch is often flamboyant, with a charming smile and wit. You love to travel. You incorporate music, arts, and all things beautiful and aesthetic into your magic.

Hedge Wizard/Witch: Agility, Ranger, Perception, Engineering

A hedge wizard or witch is an eclectic practitioner. You aren’t the best magician, but you have quickness and luck. You are also more skilled in wand-making, traps, gadgets, and potions.

Druidic Wizard/Witch: Agility, Toughness, Ranger, Intimidation

A druidic wizard or witch is at home with the animals, plants, and nature magic. You are a survivalist. You aren’t the best wizard,~witch, but your cat-like agility and bear-like toughness will get you out of many situations.

Fate Wizard/Witch: Cunning, Perception, Psychic, Deception

A fate wizard or witch sees into the weave behind all reality. You can perceive things unseen to most folk, whether those things are material, spiritual, or even evil. Your haunting visions will make you a non-conformist in polite Fey society.

High Wizard/Witch: Cunning, Toughness, Scholar, Nobility

A high wizard or witch desires to be the best. They are often highly intelligent and immerse themselves in books and magical theory. They are often courtly wizards~witches of noble birth, but they tend to be cynical egotists.

Attributes And Skills

There are eighteen primary personal attributes, or ‘stats’ in Owl River. The gameplay usually involves choosing actions, and then making challenge rolls against attributes to determine success or failure. The story continues accordingly. The stats are listed below for reference.

Personal Attributes (First tab of character panel.)

• Charm:  Wit, charm, and good nature. Illusion magic and enchantments of light.
• Cunning: Cleverness, subtle motives, and chaotic nature. Illusion magic and enchantments of darkness.
• Alacrity: Quickness, dodging, and feats of physical ability. Fire elementalism and spells governing speed and quickness.
• Toughness:  Strength of body and spirit. Resistance to negative affects such as poison and curses. Earth elementalism and healing magic.
• Perception: Noticing, seeing, or smelling anything, such as a hidden fairy in a bush, a dropped coin, a ‘tell’ on a face, or a subtle hand grasping a weapon. Air elementalism, including telekinesis.
• Fortune: Luck is a catch-all for any circumstance given to fortune, chance, and fate, including the results when you ask your companions to do something. Governs ability to cast water magic.

Personal Skills (Second tab of character panel.)

• Aesthete: Knowledge of fine arts, including dance, classical music, painting, sculpture, and literature.
• Sage: Knowledge of history, myths, religion, and theories of wizardry and witchcraft.
• Psychic: A second sense for things happening behind the face, or in a distant place. Includes aptitudes for tarot and divination.
• Engineering: Knowledge of chemistry, physics, and materials. Includes aptitudes for crafting and repairs.
• Ranger: Knowledge of plants, animals, and the outdoors. Includes aptitudes for pathfinding, herbalism, first aid, and dealing with wild creatures.
• Romance: You understand the fine arts of beauty and romance. You know how to dress, style your appearance, flirt, and please others.

Diplomatic Skills (First tab of review panel.)

• Nobility: You know how to speak and comport yourself like royalty. (Appearance, Charm, Ranger)
• Empathy: You know how to sense and connect with the mood, feelings, and motives of others. (Psychic, Charm, Aesthete))
• Mercantile: You know how to barter, haggle, and negotiate when money or other things are on the table. (Perception, Luck, Science)
• Persuasion: You know how to coax, flirt, and cajole using magnetism, glamour, and attractiveness. (Appearance, Charm, Cunning)
• Intimidation: You know how to assert yourself agressively, to apply pressure and threats. (Toughness, Cunning, Appearance)
• Deception: You know how to lie, bluff, hide the truth, and otherwise manipulate people. (Cunning, Perception, Appearance)

Diplomatic skills rely heavily on appearance. Appearance is a very important use of gear (see below). The first contributing attribute listed in bold above is double-weighted compared to the others.

Derived Stats

‘Derived stats’ are mathematically computed from other stats. For example, the six diplomatic skills listed above can be increased with use like the others, but their base values are actually derived from your six personal attributes and six personal skills, plus your Appearance score. This makes them derived stats.

For example, Leadership is derived from Charm (25%), Ranger (25%), and Appearance (50%). You can learn the mysteries of the other diplomatic skills either by common sense or by talking with characters in the game who can educate you. Let’s look at the rest of the derived stats used in Elven Academy.

• Appearance: The elves place a high importance on appearance. Appearance figures into four of the six diplomatic skills! The formula for appearance takes into account your perfume bonus, your clothing bonus, your romance skill, and your aesthetics skill.
• Experience Points (XP): Your XP are a simple sum of your 18 whole number attributes and skills, plus your partial % progress towards advancing those attributes above the numbers of an ‘average’ non-Fey human, which are 8. Your XP is used to calculate your HP and School Year.
• Health Points (HP): Your HP in the Underworld are a measure of your entire energy body, i.e. your spell power, chi, willpower, morale, and ‘physical’ condition. Your health points are determined by your Toughness and experience points. The formula is roughly: HP = (Toughness x 15) + (XP / 100).
• School Year: At every 2000 experience points, you will statistically gain a ‘year’ as an Owl River Academy student. Your wand or staff bonus for casting spells cannot be greater than your school year. (It can be less if you are using a poorly made wand.)

Gear And Buffs

Equipped gear and bonuses: There are four pieces of equipped gear: Clothing, Scent, Wand or Staff, and Accessory. Your personal attributes are the base numbers used for Challenge Rolls, but bonuses are very important. Bonuses to attributes and skills come from your gear and other sources. Bonuses from all sources add directly to your Challenge Rolls.

Buff bonuses: In some cases you will have ‘buffs’, which are conditions that add to your effectiveness, but do not come from gear. The main example is your blessing, shown beneath your scent on the character sheet. You may only have one blessing, and it persists between adventures until you apply a new one. Another buff is your selection of Sagely study.

Impaired States. Sometimes your character may be dazed, confused, drunk, shroomed, or suffering from some other impairment. These states are indicated by a persistent icon on the left side of the game panel, and usually causes a penalty to your Challenge Rolls.

Challenge Rolls

Challenge rolls are the core gameplay mechanic. Maybe you would like to convince someone to let you pass a bridge. Maybe you would like to dodge an ogre’s club. Maybe you would like to cast a spell. Most difficult actions of consequence require a successful Challenge Roll.

Difficult actions have a higher challenge rating (CR) than easy actions. In some cases, you can see the Challenge Roll rating before you choose the action. In other cases, you might make a choice and be surprised by a the Challenge Roll, if the Game Master thinks the element of surprise is appropriate.

In simple terms, the game rolls two dice based on the statistic you are rolling against and adds them. The game then compares the roll against the Challenge Rating (CR) of the action. The roll results in a binomial distribution (similar to a ‘bell curve’) with the highest probability result centered on your statistic (including any bonuses.)

There main rule to remember is that a challenge rating equal to your attribute or ability score represents a 50% chance of success. For each ability point higher or lower than the challenge rating, there is about 7% greater or less chance to succeed. This means a CR15 against an ability score of 10 is actually a very difficult roll.

If you wish to further study the math of Challenge Rolls, you can experiment with the Challenge Roll Helper tool.

Spell Casting

In theory, spells in Fairy Land must be cast by speaking a rhyme. This turned out to be too wordy and clunky to design, especially in language translation. So the game is moving towards an elemental spell system. Staves are also being phased out, with only wands used.  Your main character attributes each govern a different school of magic (see attributes above.)

There are a few additional points to consider.

• Every spell drains your health (energy) equal to the spell difficulty. This isn’t much due to Dandelion’s large health pool, but it can add up on a long, difficult adventure.
• A successful spell requires a challenge roll against the spell difficulty. The challenge roll for an Enchantment spell uses either your Charm or your Cunning attribute, whichever is higher. Other spells use the appropriate elemental school, or your psychic ability.
• Your spellcasting roll receives a flat +1 bonus from your wand or staff.  If you lost your wand, you lost  the bonus, and additional bonus based on the wood type of your weapon.
• You can only bond to one wand at a time. To equip a new one, you must abandon your old one.

The End

That’s all for the game rules! TLDR: a mature story, a character with 18 attributes, and lots of challenge rolls on those attributes, modified by your gear, which modify the story. Easy! No. If you find that you have little opportunity to roleplay as a Druid or a Bard, for example, well it’s being worked on.  Classes were a relatively recent addition to the game design goals.

This document will be updated with any changes made to the game. I hope you enjoy playing Elven Academy as much as I enjoyed making it. If this guide has a glaring omission, please contact me on a blog, or on Twitter. Thanks for reading.