Kingdom Come Setting

1. Kingdom Come is an, as Sacha put it, Epic Fantasy. It is not the World of Darkness. It is not the X-Files or the Matrix. It is set in the world we live in, right now. If someone beats someone up in the middle of the street, the police come and arrest someone. If someone gets stabbed, they'll probably bleed out.
   
2. Player characters are generally around 20 years "Reckoned". Any player wishing to play a character older than this must chat it over avec moi and must take Maturity Points (Maturity points give you extra Creation Zeal, but it also costs you an extra 3 Zeal for every new Archetype, per point of Maturity. Most characters with Maturity must also take Lingering Trauma. I don't remember if this last bit is part of the rules or not; it's something I am doing.).
   
3. Fallen do not remember Heaven and have not been permitted, for the most part, into Hell.
   
4. Fallen do not remember their past lives. They may have dreams, or snippets of memories, the longer they have been Reckoned. Dave put it well when he described all the knowledge of the creation of the universe and hundreds of lifetimes all trying to be crammed into a tiny little dusty human brain in the World of Clay. It would be like effectively and successfully stuffing a King size duvet into the point of a pin.
   
5. Fallen do not remember Purgatory. When they return from Purgatory, they are weak and useless and unstable. They know they endured horrible, horrible things, but details are elusive (details can show up in dreams and/or flashbacks). More to the point, while most of the time, a Fallen enduring the Hollow Death is gone for roughly three days, the amount of time they spend there can be an eternity, and while there, there is really no knowledge of what is happening or whether it is real or imagined For this (and other) reasons, Fallen fear and detest even the thought that they may have to endure the Hollow Death. There is none of this "I'll be back in 3 days! It's okay!" business.
   
6. Fallen who have a domus, should they suffer the Hollow Death, show up close to their domus. If you've spent Zeal and created a ranked Affection of your Domus, you will probably return *in* it. Fallen without a Domus come back anywhere in the world.
   
7. This has come up before, but I feel it should be mentioned again: Technology is not effective when in the presence of Fallen. Which is to say, Fallen get sick if they try to watch television or movies. They get irritable and suffer headaches if they try to listen to iPods. Computers are Right Out. When a Fallen absolutely needs to rely on technology, it will fail. The transmission will fall out of a car. The telephone will explode, or just go dead. Simple mechanisms and devices might work, unless you really, really need them to. Essentially, this means that if you are protected by the effects of Nimbus (so, Angels, Devils, Fallen, some Nephilim), there is a good chance you're hooped when it comes to text messaging.
   
8. Certain kinds of weapons are not effective against Fallen, and Fallen cannot use them. In particular, ranged weapons. Specifically, for rules-folks, ranged weapons do base wound plus one non-refreshing Offensive Maneuver (so, essentially, they cause the same damage as any other weapon) and are limited in what Distance Ranks they can be used at (apologies for the horrid grammatical construction in that sentence). They *cannot* do Winnowing damage (damage that 'skips' a wound level, so inflicts Severe rather than Surface wounds, for instance). This does not mean that guns don't exist. They do, and they're difficult to acquire (either legally or illegally), and even more difficult to license. "Ranged Weapons" include crossbows, guns, longbows, shortbows, slingshots, spears, etc..
   
9. The Codex, the system of laws to which the Fallen have chosen to adhere, has been in existence for roughly 60 years. It was designed as a way for Infernal and Divine to be in the same area and not murder each other. Before the Codex, Fallen did not tend to congregate together, except in their own Congregations.
   
10. It's pretty much impossible to lead a 'double life' once you Reckon. You cannot go back to your 'day job'. You must find new ways of ensuring your Body of Clay does not die.
    
11. This is an important one that I really ought to have put up at the top. Fallen live every hour of every day with the knowledge that they *could be*...**are** so much more, but cannot activate any of that power. Fallen know the Truth of things; they were there at the dawning of the universe, and while they have no memory of heaven, they know the answer to the question of genesis. They have been permanently removed from their home...from their very existence. They are *very* emotional and emotionally raw. Imagine the one thing you care most about in your life...maybe it's your kid(s), or your art, or sex, or your parents, or your sexuality or your physical prowess...you are somehow prevented from all access to that one thing. For the rest of your life. But you still have to live on, forever, knowing what it is you cannot see/touch/hear/taste/do. And not only that, not only can you *not deny* the existence of that one thing...you have to live each and every day with the knowledge of it...and some connection to it - maybe you can never hold your children again, but you can always hear their voices. Maybe you can never take up the pen or read again, but you work in a library....You can never join the Symphony again, but you hear it and sense it **every second of every moment of every day of your existence**. It is there in front of you, reminding you of some sin you have committed, something heinous enough to cast you from Grace, but not...seemingly important enough...to remember.
    
12. Think "The Prophecy" instead of "The Professional". Think "Wings of Desire" instead of "Pulp Fiction". Think "Immortal Beloved" instead of "There's Something About Mary". Other books/movies in the arena of epic or epic fantasy are:
    "The Neverending Story", "Lord of the Rings", "Chronicles of Narnia", "Star Wars", "Indiana Jones"...
    

Wikipedia's entry on "Epic Fantasy wrote:These stories are generally serious in tone and often epic in scope, dealing with themes of grand struggle against supernatural and/or forces.

The Codex, the system of laws to which the Fallen have chosen to adhere, has been in existence for roughly 60 years.

Cheriour wrote:How much extra Zeal do points of Maturity give you?

Keth wrote:Another note. The way its worded you could have a character about a hundred years old with 3 ranks of maturity, or a character of the same age (+/-10ish years) with only 1 rank of maturity. Depends how much you character has grown in those 100 years. And stat wise.. how much lingering trauma you are comfortable with.

This has come up before, but I feel it should be mentioned again: Technology is not effective when in the presence of Fallen. Which is to say, Fallen get sick if they try to watch television or movies. They get irritable and suffer headaches if they try to listen to iPods. Computers are Right Out. When a Fallen absolutely needs to rely on technology, it will fail. The transmission will fall out of a car. The telephone will explode, or just go dead. Simple mechanisms and devices might work, unless you really, really need them to. Essentially, this means that if you are protected by the effects of Nimbus (so, Angels, Devils, Fallen, some Nephilim), there is a good chance you're hooped when it comes to text messaging.