To Rule the World
Greetings oh wise Lord !
I, your most humble servant, will help you
with the burdens of leadership so that you
can fully enjoy the benefits of your
glorious reign. There is no need for you to
get involved in the boring details. Just tell
me your wishes and I will do everything
in my power and more to make your
dreams come true. There is no need to read
any further as you can completely rely on
your trustworthy stewards and advisors
to handle anything and everything for
you. And rest assured your majesty that
we would never ever abuse the trust you
put in us !
So you really wish to get to know the
tedious details of ruling a nation ? As you
wish. I will do my best to help you
understand the complicated ways of
politics and administration.
You have to decide how to direct your
subjects efforts. These are split into four
broad categories:
A successful kingdom requires constant
attention to even the most minute details.
Luckily you have loyal servants to face
these taxing burdens. Did I already
mention that you can trust them
completely ?
Administration

Once per year you have to make an

Growth
administration roll. This is an Intelligence
This is important if you want your
(History) Check. The difficulty of this roll is
population to grow.
determined by the table. You also gain a +1
Culture bonus per 5 points of culture.
Culture describes how well educated your
population is. This gives them access to more Population Administration Maximum
skilled specialists and generally raises the per Hex difficulty Culture
living standards in your realm making it a Under 2000 0 0
better place for everyone. 2000+ 5 5

Trade 4000+ 10 10

A high trade is very valuable as it functions 8000+ 15 20

like growth but also gives you access to better
markets and specialists. But there are two
things to be aware of: firstly you can only
raise trade if you do have partners to trade
with. Secondly is a bit more risky. Should you
loose your trade partners or trading routes
you will loose all benefits from trade.
Expenses
Expenses is usually the focus of most rulers.
This lets you hire soldiers and other
hirelings, build fortifications and pay for
everything else.
You can distribute 100 points on those
categories in steps of 5. Keep in mind that
culture is limited by your population (see
table below). You may also put a negative
value on growth to have more points for
other categories.
16.000+ 20 30
32.000+ 25 35
64.000+ 30 45
Modifiers: Peaceful fertile lands with natural
resources have no modifier. Less arable lands
or those swamped with dangerous critters
will raise the administration difficulty.
A natural 1 or a failure – You loose 2 %
population + 1 % per 5 Points negative
growth. You can redistribute 5 Points. You
may get an additional 5 points to distribute
by lowering other values by 10 and raising
unrest by 5.
A success – You gain 0,5 % population per 5
points growth + trade (or loose 0,5 % per 5
points of negative growth). You can also
redistribute 10 points.
You may get an additional 10 points to
distribute by lowering other values by 20 and
raising unrest by 10.
A natural 20 or a success by 10 points or more
– You gain 1 % population per 5 points
growth + trade. If you have negative growth
you don't loose population this year. You can
redistribute 20 points.
You may get an additional 10 points to
distribute by lowering other values by 20 and
raising unrest by 10.
You can choose to have a hired advisor make
these rolls for you. But be warned that those
NPCs can have their own agendas.
LIES ! I only strive to help your lordship
attain greater freedom. You should not be
weighed down by the tedious day to day
decisions. Why not go hunting or throw a
feast instead ?
Morale
Your realm consists of a lot of different
things. Most basic of these are the people.
They work the farms, mine resources and
fight for you. As worthless as these filthy
masses are, you should strive to keep them
happy as an angry mod can be an ugly
thing.
Once a year you must check to see the mood
of your population. Use intimidation,
persuasion, insight or even deception,
depending on how you want to rule. If you
choose deception you gain advantage on the
roll. You also get a +1 bonus on the roll per 5
points of culture.
If you happen to fail the roll or roll a natural 1
the following happens:
Insight – Loose 1 Morale OR +20 Unrest and
+1 Rebels
Intimidation – Loose 1 Morale OR +1 Rebels
Persuasion – Loose 1 Morale OR +20 Unrest
Deception – Loose 1 Morale OR +40 Unrest
If you attain a roll of 10 above the difficulty or
a natural 20 AND rolled for insight, you gain
+1 Morale.
Rebels – If you ever reach 10 Rebels you have
a rebellion at your hands. 2W6 % of your
Population will rise against you. Luckily the
Rebels will most likely be simple commoners
who should be no match for trained soldiers.
They can be quite numerous however...
Unrest – Reduce various categories by the
number and raise unrest by the same
amount. Points on unrest as such don't do
anything so you might want to redistribute
them as quickly as possible.
 The Market
Culture and trade determine what is available
in your kingdom. Each region has also a few
specialties it might be known for.
Without culture only items worth up to 1
gold are available. For each 5 points of
culture this is multiplied by 10. A culture of
15 for example means you can find item of up
to 1000 gold on your markets.
You can also pick two specializations (or even
specialize on the same thing twice). Possible
specializations include: Magic Items, Divine
Casters, Arcane Casters, Warriors, Agents,
Mounts, General Equipment, Luxury (gives
you a +1 Bonus on the mood check), Advisors
(gives you a +1 bonus on the administration
check), Buildings or Ships. Specializations
also reduce local prices for the specialized
items by 25 % (but not any upkeep).
Trade gives you access to items from other
markets. You even get a 10 % discount if your
trade partners have according specialties and
you reached an agreement with them about
this. This however does not stack with any
specializations you might have on your own.
Expenses
Once your taxes are in they will be spend
according to your wishes. Once per year you
get population x expenses in gold. So a
population of 10.000 and an expenses value
of 50 will give you 500.000 gold to spend.
Truly, there is nothing more tedious then
spending endless days counting vast
amount of coins. Some things are clearly
not worthy of your majesties attention.
Rest assured that your finances are in
good hands and everything is in perfect
order !
Hunters and gatherers
If the people under your rule are primitive
tribes, the rules are a bit modified. The
difficulty of the administration roll is raised
by 5 and the maximum culture is lowered by
5. If they have under 2000 people per Hex,
they only have one specialization instead of
two. Administration checks are rolled with
Wisdom (Survival) instead of Intelligence
(History).
On the plus-side they get "Wild" troops for
half the price and the culture requirement for
wild troops is lowered by one.
 Hireling Culture Training Upkeep Special
Acolyte 5 1.200 700
Archmage 15 201.600 10.100
Assassin 15 93.600 6.900
Bandit 0 600 600 Unreliable
Bandit Captain 5 10.800 2.100 Unreliable
Berserker 10 10.800 2.100 Wild
Commoner 0 240 500 Defender
Cultist 5 600 600 Brave
Cult Fanatic 10 10.800 2.100 Brave
Druid 10 10.800 2.100 Wild
Gladiator 15 43.200 4.500 Brave
Guard 5 600 600
Knight 10 16.800 2.900 Brave
Mage 15 55.200 5.300
Noble 5 600 600
Priest 10 10.800 2.100
Scout 5 2.400 900
Spy 10 4.800 1.300
Thug 0 2.400 900 Unreliable
Tribal Warrior 5 600 600 Wild
Veteran 10 16.800 2.900

Hirelings Defender – Commoners do okay when

Hirelings have the following traits:
Culture – the minimum culture needed to
hire these people.
Training – The cost to hire or train them.
This is in addition to the upkeep for the first
year.
Upkeep – The cost per year.
Special Rules
Unreliable – These troops have low morale.
They make morale checks during mass
combat with a disadvantage.
Wild – Hunters and Gatherers have +5
culture for hiring those and only pay half the
price for hiring and upkeep.
defending their own country. When
attacking other countries they count as
unreliable.
Brave – These troops have advantage on
morale checks.
Your majesty, may I suggest to invest in
competent guards ? This is money well
spend. It might also be wise to fortify your
capital. Not everyone has your best
intentions at heart like I do.
 Fortifications
Defensive Structures are bought per 5ft
square (but 10ft deep in the case of a double
strength wall). They give 3/4 cover for the
defenders (+5 to AC and Dexterity Saves). In
addition to that, they usually get an
advantage on their melee attack roll against
attackers trying to climb the walls with ropes
or ladders. The exception are "earth wall and
spikes" which only give 1/2 cover (+2 to AC
and Dexterity Saves) and no advantage (nor
need attackers any equipment to pass
through, but it will cost them half their
movement).
T stands for threshold, meaning any damage
BELOW the threshold is ignored completely.
The DM may rule that certain types of
attacks ignore this threshold. The listed HP
are for a section 10ft wide. Upkeep for
fortifications is 10 % of the price per year.
Each year this upkeep is not payed there will
be weak spots forming which have their HP
reduced to the threshold.
To find out how many fortifications you need
to protect a settlement, you can take the
square root of it’s population and multiply
this by 10.

Fortification Culture Price Structure

Earth wall and spikes 0 5 AC 15, T 10, HP 25
Palisade 5 100 AC 15, T 20, HP 50
Stone Wall 10 250 AC 17, T 30, HP 60
Double Strength Wall 10 500 AC 17, T 40, HP 80
Wooden Gate 5 25 AC 15, T 10, HP 25
Sturdy wooden gate 10 500 AC 15, T 20, HP 50
Iron Clad Gate 10 1000 AC 18, T 30, HP 50
Iron Gate 15 2500 AC 19, T 40, HP 50
Stone Gate 15 2500 AC 17, T 40, HP 80
 Animals
There are many usual and unusual beasts in
the world that may serve a mounts, draft
animals in war or in a combination of those.

Animal Cost Upkeep Culture

Camel 50 18 10
Donkey or Mule 8 18 5
Elephant 200 150 15
Horse, Draft 50 18 10
Horse, Riding 75 18 10
Mastiff (untrained) 25 18 10
Pony 30 18 10
Warhorse 400 18 15
Griffon 5.000 150 20

The following table lists the upkeep for

animals, which depends on their size and
diet:

Size Upkeep Herbivore Upkeep Carnivore

Tiny 0,3 0,3
Small 2,4 2,4
Medium 18 18
Large 18 150
Huge 150 1.200
Gargantuan 1.200 9.600

Assorted additional rules Earning Money

Training a mount Work Income per Month
Once a month, make a Wisdom (Handle
Unskilled Labor 3D10 Gold
Animal) Check DC 10 to train it for war,
riding OR draft work. The difficulty is 15 if Skilled Labor Skill Bonus x 2D10
training for war, riding AND draft work. The Gold
DM may raise this difficulty by the CR for Working You get D8 Silver
monsters that are hard to train. Once you Occasionally instead of D10 Gold
succeed on three checks it is fully trained. If
Adventuring As unskilled or Level
you fail three checks the training did not
x D10 Gold
catch and it cannot be trained any further.
Adventuring implies that your character uses
his class skills for relatively safe work. A
fighter might act as a guard, a wizard offers to
identify items, a cleric heals wounded etc.
Working occasionally is applied for those
that put in maybe 1 hour per day. This can be
done in addition to other activities if the DM
allows. This can also be done while resting.
Doing risky business can be applied to some
forms of income (ask you DM if he thinks if
Adventuring or Knitting can be done in a
risky way). It doubles your earnings but you
also have a 50 % chance to start the next
adventure in a sorry state (you will be down
to 1 HP and you will have used up all class
abilities).
Lifestyles
These rules expand the lifestyles listed in the
players handbook:

Lifestyle Per Month Culture Effect

Wretched -- 0 Restless DC 20, no replacement, equipment Damage,
Exhaustion DC 15
Squalid 3 Gold 0 Restless DC 15, no replacement, equipment Damage,
Exhaustion DC 10
Poor 6 Gold 0 Restless DC 10, no replacement, equipment Damage
Modest 30 Gold 0 --
Comfortable 60 Gold 5 Well rested DC 20
Wealthy 120 Gold 5 Well rested DC 15
Aristocratic 300+ Gold 10 Well rested DC 10

Restless
The character has to pass a Con-Save to get
the benefits of a rest. A failed long rest still
counts as a short rest.
Exhaustion
Having not enough food and not being
protected from the elements can be taxing
and even deadly. Each month you have to
pass a Con save at the listed DC or take one
level of exhaustion. These levels do only
disappear when you can afford a lifestyle of at
least "poor" and manage to successfully
complete a long rest.
No replacement
Small usable items (like arrows, med kits,
paper etc.) are not automatically replaced.
Equipment damage
You do not have the coins to keep your
equipment well maintained. Roll 1D10 per
piece of equipment. On a 1 it is damaged.
This usually applies only to items that are
being used.
Well rested
When you take a short rest you get to roll a
Con-Save at the listed DC. If you pass it
counts as a long rest instead. When you take
a long rest, you can roll a Con-Save at the
listed DC. If you pass you regain Inspiration.
Spellcasting 0+ (or natural 1) you get 1 complication
10+ You buy or sell the item for the normal
The table below lists the costs to hire an NPC
price (see below)
to cast one spell. Any materials have to be
20+ (or natural 20) you get or save an
payed separately. Scrolls cost double this
additional 25 %
price. Crafting a scroll costs this price and
needs an intelligence (arcane) check DC 10 + The normal price for an item is modified by
Spell Level to be successful. the market (see Market rules in the
Leadership section). The normal price when
Spell Level Cost Culture selling a used item is 50 % or 75 % when
0 2,5 5 selling a new item. If you are trying to find /
buy an item that is not available in the
1 10 5
current market you get one additional
2 40 10 complication per 5 missing culture levels. If
3 90 10 trying to sell an item that is not available on
the current market to you get 25 % bonus to
4 160 15 it's price (in this case just once and not per
5 250 15 missing culture levels). The DM may also put
limits on what the local market can sell or
6 360 20
buy.
7 490 20
Possible complications:
8 640 20 - The item is 25 % more expensive
9 810 20 - The seller needs you to do a quest for him
- It takes a while for the item to arrive or be
Buying and Selling manufactured (usually one month)
- The item is of lower quality (but also less
If you want to buy or sell something your expensive)
character may make a Charisma roll using
whatever skill he thinks might apply to the
situation.
Ships & Siege Equipment
Ship Cost Culture km per day Crew Passengers Cargo
Galley 30.000 20 50 80 – 150
Keelboat 3.000 15 12,5 1 6 1/2
Longship 10.000 15 50 40 150 10
Rowboat 50 5 25 1 3 -
Sailing Ship 10.000 15 50 20 20 100

Sailing Ship. A ship typical for traders of the

Equipment Culture Gold Crew east coast of the middle realm. Highly
Siege Ladder 5 5 4+ seaworthy but completely depending on the
Ballista 15 500 1+ wind to move.
Siege Ladder. Allows people to scale walls.
Cauldron 5 10 1 Be warned that you will have disadvantage
Mangonel 15 1000 4 while attacking from a ladder, while the
defenders usually have cover.
Ram, Tree 0 5 4+
Ballista. Takes 3 actions to fire, but a crew
Ram, Bronze Head 10 50 4+ can work together to fire every round. 0,5
Siege Ram 15 500 10+ Gold per “Bolt” (which is basically a javelin).
+6 to hit, range 120 / 480, 3D10 piercing
Siege Tower 15 2000 A lot
damage.
Trebuchet 15 3000 4+ Cauldron, Suspended. Is used to pour
These work exactly as described in the PHB liquids on targets below. The damage varies
and the DMG. They are listed here for your depending on the liquid used. Targets have a
convenience. Upkeep is 10 % of the cost per DC 15 dexterity save to halve damage. Boiling
year. oil (1 Gold) deals 3D6 fire damage in a 10ft
cube. Boiling Water (free) deals 1D10 damage
Km per day for ships can vary wildly in a 10ft cube. It takes 3 actions to fill a
depending on wind and weather conditions. cauldron and quite a while to actually heat up
Except for the Sailing Ship, all the ships of it’s contents.
the time can be moved by oars. This drops Mangonel. A catapult that fires one heavy
the speed to 25 km per day. stone every 5 rounds. The real limit to it’s rate
Galley. A big ship using simple sails and oars of fire is getting the stones. +5 to hit, range
to move. Typical for the Dracul Empire. They 60-200 / 800 ft, 5D10 bludgeoning damage.
have limited seaworthy capabilities, but tend Ram, Tree. A tree trunk. Branches have been
to stick to shores if possible. cut short to make crude handles. Attack +6,
Keelboat. These are used to ferry goods up 3D6 bludgeoning damage.
and down rivers. They are usually moved by Ram, Bronze. A bit more work went into this
setting poles. one. It is greatly improved by attaching a
Longship. A ship typical for the area of the bronze head to it. Attack +7, 3D8
bludgeoning damage.
Wolflands. Highly seaworthy.
Rowboat. You wont get far in this.
Ram, Siege. The real deal. A house like
structure mounted on wheels gives the crew
total cover. The ram itself is suspended from
chains allowing the crew to put more effort
into it’s horizontal movement. Attack +8,
3D10 bludgeoning damage.
Siege Tower. A massive structure build to
be slowly pushed towards the walls to allow
soldiers to reach the walls while enjoying
total cover. Attacking from a siege tower
negates cover for the defenders and
disadvantage for the attacks.
Trebuchet. Hurls really big stones. Attacks
once per 5 rounds with +5 to hit, range 60 –
300 / 1.200 ft, 8D10 bludgeoning damage.
Note: These are fantasy stats. In real life
catapults and trebuchets where lucky to get off
a couple of shots per day and siege towers
where often not mobile at all, being instead
build to give attacking archers and
crossbowmen a platform from which to better
attack the enemies battlements.