Malleus Maleficarum

Hey and thanks for checking out Malleus Maleficarum, Hexenhammer, the Hammer of the Witches, etc. formerly Under A Killing Moon. This is currently my big/main project, and is also my first bona fide for reals commercial project. It will be episodic and the first episode will be free, serve as the demo, and be probably somewhere in the neighborhood of two hours long. It isn't currently marked as episodic because I simply don't even have a good guess right now how many episodes long it will be.

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Here's a big infodump on most of the game's (major) Characters, which will shortly be a page, although it made sense to post it as a blorg first. To follow: In Game Religion(s), the Sanguine Peninsula (an overview of the game's setting), and Features/Systems (alchemy, dungeon mechanics, spending AP, skill learning, and more) should all be pages eventually (and will be blorg posts first). Also to follow: actual page CSS. I've left it as default for the time being but that's meant to be temporary.



Starting Class & Level: Knight Lvl 2
Age: 22
Skill Types: Break Arts
Proficiency: Short Blades, Long Blades, Axes/Maces, Polearms, Crossbows, Light Armor, Heavy Armor, Shields
Backstory:
Beatrix hates every confounded, convoluted reason that her title is "Sir" but at least she's doing the work she was born for, destroying evil in the name of the Lord.

Women are not allowed to join the Szargovian army, of course. But the sacred texts of Holy Mother Church allow for any lay servant of the Church to join the Inquisition, and to even bear arms and armor as an Inquisitor if they can pass the requisite tests. Her father, Duke Bernadotte, "humored" his daughter by pulling the right strings so that she could take the tests--and then pulled other right strings to ensure she would fail it, so he could say he had given her a fair chance with her wild ideas before she settled down and started being a proper noblewoman.

In spite of her father's meddling, Beatrix passed her text with flying colors. Duke Bernadotte took the necessary political steps so that Beatrix could retain her noble rank and title of Marquessa--some less well-connected Inquisitors must forego theirs. However, there are no Marquis in the Inquisition, so her title there is "Sir", the highest title that the inquisition's men-at-arms are allowed: not that she's actually a MAN at but a woman-at-arms. (Beatrix badly needs the Sanguine Peninsula and the nation of Szargovia to invent feminism, but that movement may be centuries off if it comes at all.)


Starting Class: Physicker Lvl 2
Age: 21
Skill Types: Physick
Proficiency: Short Blades, Long Blades, Axes/Maces, Crossbows, Guns, Light Armor
Backstory:
Wendel doesn't have a last name because he was born a commoner, not a noble, and commoners don't have last names (sometimes, serfs or peasants may use the last name of their landlord, if allowed). His title, Frater, indicates that he chose to become a member of the Clergy, one of the only routes of social advancement available to a commoner. As a chirurgeon, Wendel's intense intellectual fascination with science, physick, metaphysick, medicine, maladies, and of course alchemy has limited his advancement in the Clergy to his current rank, which suits Wendel fine. Wendel's main reason for joining the Inquisition was to learn what he could from witches and demons--before burning them, of course. Wendel doesn't like to talk about his past or the peasant family he came from.


Starting Class: Inquisitor Lvl 4
Age: 59
Skill Types: Break Arts, Miracles
Proficiency: Short Blades, Long Blades, Axes/Maces, Bows, Crossbows, Guns, Light Armor, Mystic Armor, Shields
Backstory:
The tale goes that Rickard Hardin was an ordinary pastor in an ordinary parish. Then a witch that was close to him, but not intimate--she could have been an aunt, cousin, or a stepchild but it wasn't a wife or blood daughter (he never married)--gave him ample reason to fear the Dark. The witch sacrificed his entire village to Baphomet. Hardin barely survived and allegedly marched bedraggled, wounded, dirty and exhausted to the nearest chapterhouse of the Inquisition and collapsed on their doorstep, begging to join. Ever since, Hardin has been a legendary witchhunter and has attained the prestigious rank of High Inquisitor, on the High Council immediately beneath the Grand Council and Grand Inquisitor Grimaldi. Never once in his 30 year career has he showed a witch or a creature of the Dark mercy.



Starting Class: Witch Lvl 1
Age: 15 at start of game.
Skill Types: Sorcery
Proficiency: Short Blades, Rod/Staff, Mystic Armor
Backstory:
Camila's just a poor girl, from a poor family! /Queen. Camila, (who goes by Mila to close friends and family) is a poor peasant girl from the poor peasant village of Vaasa on the central-eastern Sanguine Peninsula, just on the northern border of Szargovia. An ordinary child, she is entirely unprepared for the enormous power that is about to find her and invest itself in her, let alone the responsibilities and enemies that power comes with. She's going to have to shed her innocence and grow up fast, coming of age in a grave, brutal world, if she wants to survive. Chax--the mysterious embodiment of that power--likes her to think she is the chosen one. But the truth might owe more to pragmatism.



(It won't be easy to tell which is which, as some NPCs have class & level listed too.)



Starting Class: N/A
Age: ???
Skill Types: Sorcery, Necromancy, Powers Of Hell
Proficiency: Can use a Short Blade, a small Crossbow, a shortbow or a Gun (anything else is too big for him to handle, he's 3' 66 lbs), but chooses to wield none of these, instead throwing balls of sticky flame when not casting spells. He has no proficiency with any kind of clothing/armor.
Backstory:
Chax's origins and intentions are unknown. He has thus far demonstrated the ability to take the shapes of: a cat, a bat, a rat, a crow, and an owl.


Starting Class: ???
Age: ???
Skill Types: ???
Proficiency: ???
Backstory: ???


Starting Class: ???
Age: ???
Skill Types: ???
Proficiency: ???
Backstory: ???


Starting Class: Knight Level 6
Age: 30
Skill Types: Break Arts
Proficiency: Short Blades, Long Blades, Axes/Maces, Polearms, Crossbows, Light Armor, Heavy Armor, Shields
Backstory:
Her name is pronounced "Colleen". Its literal meaning in Avalonian is "girl", a rather cruel irony. Sir Cailín was the first of two women in the Inquisition. Her route in was nothing like Beatrix's, although she too is the scion of a royal family, House Salem. She disguised herself as a man to join the Inquisition and as the story goes by the time they figured out she wasn't, they had long since pronounced her indispensable. Cailín is perfectly comfortable with the title "sir" because it indicates respect. Fear and respect are what Cailín crave from her interaction with others, and she inspires no small portion of both. Of the same rank as Hardin on the High Council of Inquisitors, even among Inquisitors she is known for the violence of her zeal. The saying is that while most Inquisitors are trying to determine if a suspicious person is a witch or a warlock, Cailín has already run that person through with her sword and moved on to the next.


Starting Class: ???
Age: 27
Skill Types: ???
Proficiency: ???
Backstory:
While very bright from a young age, the young Prince Quinn Salem was generally regarded as an irredeemably, fundamentally unserious person. Almost from the moment puberty hit he was a notorious, philandering lush. Quinn loved good food, good wine, beautiful women, beautiful men (at least if some of the rumors are to be believed), song, and dance. In other words, Quinn quickly developed a reputation as a party animal. Although Quinn is Cailín's younger brother, and in spite of all of his failings, he was the heir apparent to House Salem. That's why it was a cause of some upset when the prince disappeared a few years ago, and why greater upset still has been caused by sightings of him around Innsbruck in the last few weeks.


Class At Death: Knight Lvl 9
Age: Approximately 40 at his time of death, approximately 100 years ago.
Skill Types (while alive): ???
Proficiency (while alive): ???
Backstory:
A loyal soldier of Trieste, Dante Albrecht was a commoner who proved himself a hero in the Trieste-Szargovian war of the late 15th century, and as a reward, was knighted by King Frederick VI of Trieste, and considered part of the royal Oldenburg family. Like most heroes, Dante plunged himself into the thick of battle again and again, his courage unfaltering, his skill legendary...until he died, also like most heroes. His tomb is believed to be somewhere in central Trieste.