Let's say you aren't rich and you want to learn how to fight?

A good place to start might be a mercenary guild. Your parents might pay the guild to take you, or perhaps you could find some other arrangements to pay. This would be relatively cheap. Do not think of "mercenaries" only as who gets paid to fight in wars. This would include private guards, caravan guards, etc. They might be close with a city watch, and they might piss them off to no end. You would probably do most of the work. In some nations, a mercenary guild may be obligated to be the reserve soldiers or city guards.

But let's say you have more money. More specifically, you family does. A minor noble son would be sent off to be a page for the court of the king (or duke or whatever is appropriate). You'd learn some things, become a squire, get some proper training, and eventually go into the service of a knight until you yourself are knighted. A knight is ultimately loyal to the king in any given nation.

What about more important nobles? The prince isn't going to be a squire to some knight. No, there are some very specific schools for these fellows. It's pretty expensive. Nobility here is a pseudo-requirement... but cost is the real problem. If a non-noble can afford it, the schools will find a way.

What if you aren't noble at all, but want to be a knight? Well, any knight can take a squire. It can be as simple as "hey, kid, want to be a squire?" Though it's not normal, it could happen. However, this is the entry to nobility. If a kid is picked as a squire, and he does a good job, he may be knighted. So if you're a rich merchant descended from pirates, you might pay a good chunk of money to a knight to get him to take your kid.

Enlist in the army or navy. You'll probably get killed, but they pay you!

Hey, maybe your dad can teach you to fight, you little peasant. How cool would that be? Maybe he's a ranger out in the wild, or perhaps he is a retired champion of something.

Cost cheapest to highest: Enlist, have a fighting dad, mercenary, squire to knight, service to king as minor noble, special schools for combat.

With regard to tournaments, there are special schools also dedicated to tournament-style combat. They take men who are pretty good and train the hell out of them in jousting or melee. They are not necessarily good warriors; real warriors use real weapons.

Rogues usually learn how to fight from gangs, thieves guilds, etc. It's also possible to learn from a father or something, of course.

Piratey types would start a kid off as a cabin boy and teach him to kill along the way.

Barbarians, usually in tribes, teach their young boys how to fight. That seems fairly obvious.

The two orders of paladins typically start with boys. They do not care a shit about the birth of the boys. Maybe they have been sent into the priesthood and it didn't quite fit. Maybe their parents pay some to the paladins to take him. The kids work for the paladins, and they can work their way through being a squire to being knighted by the church. Whaaaat? Not ultimately loyal to king? Nope, they are loyal to their god. A man may come to the paladins later in life, though. So long as he can satisfy the training requirements and wants to live the life of a paladin, they are cool with it.


If you want to be a cleric, you go to the church as a wee lad and they teach you a little self defense along the way. This isn't too expensive for parents. Druids function much like priests in the less civilized parts of the world, but they tend to operate in solitude. It would be more of a master-apprentice sort of thing.

Wizards operate in secret. These will only exist in master-apprentice scenarios as a school for magic would be burned to the ground and everyone inside executed. It's not that people would say they would do that... it's that if there is a school of magic, you could only imagine what goes on in there... and it's probably evil. Kings and other higher nobles often have wizard advisers. Most wizards may have remote homes, and they don't dress in robe with stars on them.

Sorcerers are also generally distrusted. Even wizards don't care for them much. But since they don't have countless books to lug around, they tend to just blend in and be master and apprentice. Maybe they live next door and you just never knew what they did. They aren't necessarily evil, but they're probably trying to rob good people out of their money.

Left out the ninja again!

I'm pretty sold on Frost Elf, so I'd like to see some equivalents for them, though I'm not too lost on an intro story or anything. But what you bring up is human specific, and you do have some sizable strongholds of elves and dwarves- how might they start out?

Outside of their own lands, dwarves are free to work with mercenary guilds and join temples. Within their own lands, dwarves have a flatter society than humans. They tend to have kings, but beyond that they don't have much in the way of titles. Sure, they have poor dwarves and rich dwarves, but even the brother of the king is expected to do some meaningful work, and he wouldn't bother coming with with a title. That doesn't mean the brother isn't respected for his position, only that they don't bother with birth-based titles. Other positions of power are generally appointed by the king (regional governor).

Ability tends to drive position more than birth, but if you were taking bets, you would likely bet that the son of a mine supervisor is more likely to become a mine supervisor than the son of a common miner. They are sort of like socialists with a king.

If young lads show proclivity for fighting, they will be trained for the army. If they then show an ability to lead, they may be turned into officers. This would start off as being free, and then the kid would eventually get paid. Within the dwarven army there are specialties, of course, and some of those specialties might involve what we would call "special forces." All dwarven men receive some military training because there just aren't that many dwarves. If their homeland is attacked, miners and merchants pick up axes and stand ready to fight.

Dwarves tend to exist in some harsh environments. They open up huge underground caves every so often, and on the surface they are often in high in the mountains. There are dwarven rangers and druids, but not very many. They would be a rare exception, but valuable. When a young dwarf expresses more interest in nature than in being underground, the rangers or druids may grab him as an apprentice. He may start with one guy and then be passed to another master a bit later, but at any time it will be one apprentice and one master. The rangers and druids are loyal dwarves. For example, a ranger may send word that orcs have been seen in the southern passes and extra guards should be brought to the nearby entrances. Or a druid may try to shift a stream that is eroding near a mine entrance and may cause a collapse. Some of them may also work underground, ensuring the air is safe and there's nothing pissed off living in a cave.

Dwarves do not have knights. Male dwarves fight, many of them professionally, and their loyalty is always to the dwarves. However, it is possible that a dwarf of a particular temperament could become knighted in the service of a human king or queen, or even become a paladin (in theory, but none have tried).

Arcane casting dwarves are mostly welcome, but they have no place of learning with the dwarves. The very few qualified and interested dwarves would seek training with the humans or elves.



In many nations, but not all, wild elves may also train through mercenary guilds or enter temples. It will require a little more effort to find a tolerant master though as elves are not well trusted. Imagine being Muslim and trying to learn how to fly. You could find a place, but you wouldn't start looking in Kansas.

Wild elves live in smallish villages in some of the human lands, usually sticking to themselves. They made some nice things, trade with humans, and try to get along. For this group, they consider themselves loyal to just their own village. They would team up with other villages if something happened, of course, but they simply don't worry too much about an authority higher than the village. They obey the laws of the human country, of course. Each village would have a few soldiers on hand, and they would train the next generation of soldiers. A cleric or druid would train an apprentice.

Wild elves also live in the wild lands, of course. They seem to be somewhat nomadic, but they have more communication between the groups, and their loyalty shifts to a sense of the elven people (as distinct from a nation of elves). Again, they raise their own fighters, priests, druids, and rangers, but as there is more association, more options are open to young elves. Maybe parents would send their kid off to learn from the ranger master called Forest Shadows and then not see him for years.

Arcane magic is seen as a blessing for elves. It is one of their few weapons to hold off mobs with pitchforks. However, it is also part of why humans distrust them so much, so they really try to keep it secret from humans. A wizard might train apprentices in a hidden basement, for example. Sorcerers are seen as touched by Leti because they can frickin cast without the need for books or study! They can blend without risk.

There are rumors that the elves must have a stronghold somewhere in the wild lands. If so, it stands to reason they operate differently. But since no one knows whether it even exists, there can't be accurate details about how it would function. I suppose if you want to be an elf from this place, we can discuss it.



Orinsard elves, oddly enough, are more like humans. They have a king and queen, and they have nobility. There is still less difference between the nobles and the commoners because only humans are such assholes, but it is still there. Much like humans, young nobles who wish to fight are sent to the king as squires. However, this will never become knight and squire pairs. It's more like a group of squires will work with the knights and the army, doing some basic chores and learning skills along the way. As they develop as squires their particular talents will be uncovered, and they will eventually be directed towards ranger or knight. In this context, both ranger and knight are "knighted" orders, and the classes are ranger and fighter. So every official ranger of Orinsard is also a nobleman. The order of rangers commands more respect than the orders of knights, but officially they are of equal rank.

Commoners may enlist in the army and receive appropriate training. Great talents may lead to being promoted to knight or ranger in a way easier than it would be for humans. It's still rare for it to happen, but it does. Of course, this is also why nobles aren't so different from commoners.

Temples may choose a boy to be taken into their ranks, or parents may offer some money to really let the clerics know that their son is ready to join them. However, if you're selected by the druids... whoa. First, no money will be taken to influence decisions. The druids just show up one night, and take your son. You won't see him for a long time, but that's ok because the other parents will be insanely jealous. You just won parenting. This is the highest honor. The druids may take commoner or noble without question, though it stands to reason they might discuss things with the king before taking his son if they were so inclined. Druids have also taken orphans. The awesome thing about druids is they give exactly zero shits about nobility. There are royals, there are nobles, there are commoners, and there are druids. It's a tough call between royals and druids. Druids, however, may not officially marry anyone. If they knock a girl up, then that kid is a bastard with no claim beyond its mother's. Druids are rarely seen in the city.

Elves are not as scared of magic as humans are. Wizards and sorcerers may exist openly, but they still learn solely in master and apprentice pairs. Sometimes a master may take on two apprentices at once. They try to keep somewhat removed from the city, but they don't need to hide in the country. It's more like "Take the road out of the city past the tranners. Go about half a mile, turn right at the fork, and go another half mile, and they're in the tower." Again, this would be a choosing.. not an honorable as druid, ranger, knight, or cleric, but still better than shoveling horse shit for a living.



Frost elves. These people are hard because they live in a harsh environment. No talents can be wasted, so there is very little sense of nobility. Talent is identified and trained without cost to parents, and those who show exceptional talent will be awarded with the appropriate order. Being identified as the greatest ranger in the land, for example, is a great honor... but it does jack shit for your kids. Your kids will be judged entirely by their talents, and if the best they can do is shovel snow, then they will shovel snow. Honor and glory are entirely personal, not based on family. Every child is common, even the oldest son of the king. When the king dies, the heads of each order get together and choose a new king (usually from among their ranks).

These people are an odd mix of chaos and strict discipline. In any situation, every frost elf knows exactly who is in charge. Each order is ranked. First is obviously the king, then the orders of druids, the orders of wizards, the orders of rangers, the orders of sorcerers, the orders of clerics (which may include monks), and the orders of fighters (which may include barbarians). That seems easy, of course, but it's more complicated than that. The head of an order of clerics will outrank the newest member of an order of wizards. There are 3-4 orders of each class, and I'm not naming them all right now. Anyone not in an order is considered common, which is the majority of the population. But since all fighters are in orders, obviously noble/common takes on entirely different meaning for them, and is probably not the best term for it.

However, despite this firm social structure, frost elves do not usually fight in any sort of formation. They may make a raid a coastal village, for example, with great timing as they make their approach in the dead of night. Once the fighting starts, however, they fight as individuals, each standing out in their own way. They value boldness and maybe even a touch of insanity when it comes to fighting.


I hope that's enough.

Trelimen are generally welcome in human societies, so they also could learn from mercenary guilds or human temples.

Within their own cultures, Trelimen operate much the same way as wild elves with an exception - Trelimen often send their young off to other villages where they will be apprentices in particular fields. The young will stay for at least a few years, and then it's up to them whether they stay with their new village or return home. Some will also leave to take service with some wealthy humans. By sending out the young, they have a much strong tied with the other villages and thus the entire population of Trelimen. Stories of heroic Trelimen, stories of tragedies, and general news is easily spread through the entire race this way. And it also reduces the dangers of inbreeding, which is a bigger concern for a race that goes through generations much faster than elves.

A farmer Treliman, of course, would probably not send his kids off. They will help him farm, and that's just what they are going to do.

The Trelimen also operate in the same way in the wild lands.

Trelimen are a little scared of magic, but not too bad. They will have a few wizards and sorcerers willing to take on apprentices, but it may involve significant travel for a youngster. They may also seek out the help of elves.

Note that these are to give you ideas, and also to give you a sense of the world. It doesn't mean you can't come up with something different so long as it makes sense.