Easily distracted

So, during the holidays I opened once more the good old Kalevala and read it. And it got me thinking; this would do nice DCC setting, and moderately familiar to my crew. In addition to Kalevala itself, I'd draw inspiration from brilliant CRPG UnReal World, and Ontot Kukkulat by Petri Hiltunen. Also listening to Amorphis' great albums has had some influence. 

The rough-and-tumble conversion for system would go as follows;

- Mages would not learn spells only from tomes or books (barring exotic spells from foreign countries), instead main way of learning the words of Power that Väinämöinen and Louhi left behind as they departed the World is from other shamans, witches and mages. Also spirits and patrons teach supplicant, and some books have powers, but as all ways are expensive and arduous, the books are particularily so due to there being two-three witches for every book.

- Instead of elves and halflings, there'd be two types of fey; trolls and goblins. These'd function mechanically identically to the book, but instead of alien and intelligent elves one would play gifted and primal trolls (man sized, slightly more animalistic and exotic skin/hair colourations like blue/purple hues), and instead of small comfort-seeking halflings you get mischevious and curious goblins (same size, grey/green skin and wide range of hairstyles).

- Dwarves are unchanged, but their story is slightly different; the dwarves that reside in the lands of Kalevala are refugees now residing in the abandoned stone cathedrals of trolls, cast out from their lands in Danmark and Sweden by the coming of Church and clergy. In Norway the old ways still hold sway, but the clans have been at odds since times of old and as such refused shelter. Hence, they travelled over the sea, and have somewhat integrated into Kalevan societies with their impeccable smithing skills.

- The tribe/clan of human character counts; one tribe has knowledge on old runes (necessary for learning true magic from old texts), one has good relations to Swedes, one knows the secrets of swamps, one has fought decades against the Njerpez (eastern raider tribe)... So forth.

- Gods are real and thus give power to clerics. Although only the missionary characters may become literal clerics; others are called shamans and wise-men, even witches.

- Mage and cleric classes have little less difference in this setting, mainly the fact that deity-given power is not hampered by armor whereas using words of Power draws raw strength of the Tuonela (Netherworld), or the Taivas (Sky), or even the Linnunrata (Milky Way) and thus is more incident-prone when channeler is clad in metal.

- The Pohjola is abandoned, a sprawling ruin left to rot, and adventurerers to explore. I've always seen the land of the Pohjan Akka as industrous place where magic is used to augment the natural, as later on the LoTR trilogy showed Saruman doing (my first reading to Kalevala was, what 25 years ago? I was really impressed by the scene when the movie came out). I think this might be good choice to introduce a place of urban ruin exploration, since most Kalevan towns are small (100-500 people tops) hill forts where no considerable riches are about. Also it would introduce a mystery, i.e. what happened to Pohjolans after Akka left?

More to come about this later, I hope.