I think some of the possible confusion here is that the Heortling Homeland Keyword (p. HQ48) contains the ability "Farming." It would be easy enough to replace that with "City Dweller" for a city dwelling Heortling, keeping the rest of the keyword, perhaps replacing "Farming" with "Agrarian (for most Heortlings) or City Dweller." Since the rest of the keyword is the same, there is no need for a new keyword.
> > What about the
> > Pol Joni? Or do they use the Praxian keyword?
>
> No, not by a long shot. They would hav ea PolJoni cultural keyword.
Any thoughts on how the Pol Joni keyword would differ from the Heortling keyword, Greg (looking for your insight on this)? Some things are obvious to me, like "Ride (Critter)," but I'm curious if there's something special in your mind.
> At some point similiar culures can be perceived as being diferent.
> Esrolian and Heortling and Haraldings and Tarshites all have a lot in
> common, but are different.
>
> The question is too broad or me to wrap my head around.
> Are the AldaChur Sartarites culturally different enough to have their
> own keyword? No, not to me. They are Heortlings.
> The Volsaxi? To me, they are still Heortlings.
A possible workaround for this last part (Alda Chur vs. Sartarite vs. Volsaxi) is to alter "Heortling Customs" slightly to "Sartarite Heortling Customs," "Alda Chur Heortling Customs" (and maybe "Alda Chur Alakoring Customs"), "Volsaxi Heortling Customs," etc. These abilities can then have penalties when dealing with a different but similar culture, probably only -5 for these three in my game. This keeps one keyword, with an ability change to "(optional subculture) Heortling Customs."
> But the differences between Lismelder and Colymar are not culturally
> significent. At least not in the scale of the Sartar relbellion story.
And if this level of distinction is desired, the customs ability can be further subdivided into "(optional subculture, optional subdivision, etc.) Culture Customs," for example, "Sartarite Heortling Customs (Particular Tribe, Particular Clan)." In this case, I would advise not adding further penalties, instead adding bonuses for further similarity, for example:
Sartarite Heortling Customs (Particular Tribe, Particular Clan) interacts with:
Other Subculture Heortlings at -5,
Other Sartarite Heortlings at no bonus or penalty,
Other of same tribe at +10,
Other of same clan at +20 (and really, without a flaw, should a
self-respecting hero fail at this one?).
I use something similar with languages, but I use this a color ("you have a funny accent"), rather than for rolling dice.
Thanks,
Andy
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