Urbis Tenebrae

BLACKOUT

2012-01-18T09:29:00.000-08:00

I would be posting the full text for my adventure "Playground of the Damned" today, but instead my blog is blacked out.

I am a content creator and occasional writer of fan material. My blog would most likely be destroyed by PIPA/SOPA, so I am urging people to speak to their congressfolk to stop these horribly damaging bills before they get a chance to become horribly damaging laws. That is all for today.

End of the Kickstarter

2012-01-13T23:09:00.000-08:00

Well, the Kickstarter for Black Bottom Hollow ended unsuccessfully. Thanks to everyone who contributed or shared information about the project. This isn't a failure--just a setback. Anyone who didn't get a chance to read the prologue is welcome to do so. It's still online:

https://docs.google.com/open?id=0B-5OPhhQeRkhZjYwMjFkMjktZTI5Ny00NjFmLWI5NWUtMTQyNWMyNTg5YzNl

Here's to the future!

Edition War II

2012-01-11T08:35:00.000-08:00

Meant to post about this yesterday, but was so worried about beginning-of-school stuff that I didn't get a chance.

D&D 5th Edition has been announced, and right on time from my predictions a few years back. When I was playtesting D&D 4th Edition a few years ago (no, really! look in your book! I'm in it!), my group told the designers that there were significant holes in the system, that the fluff and flavor didn't feel like D&D anymore, that it did too much to throw away the legacy of the game, and that once they started adding new mechanical options it was going to be tough to continue balancing the game--and tougher to make those options distinct. Now, we're getting word from the new design team that all of those concerns, which were basically ignored at the time, were all pretty much right on the money and are driving concerns behind the creation of the 5th Edition game. Oh, and of course that they're kind of getting murdered in market share by Pathfinder.

Monte Cook and Mike Mearls are both working on it, so it's bound to be awesome. The game might well turn out to be the best version of D&D ever. The problem is that it will also probably have all of the same problems with the economic end of things that 4th Edition has: Wizards going for a quick buck instead of the long haul. Making money now instead of building the fanbase and enjoying their loyalty is very much the Wizards of the Coast way of dealing with the game, and the biggest part of their profit motive is based around short-term hobby gamers instead of lifestyle gamers.

Paizo, on the other hand, has taken their magazine subscription model and turned it into a very strong way of doing business as a gaming company. While Wizards is talking about an "open playtest"--which was one of the big draws of Pathfinder--that alone won't nearly be enough. They're going to alienate their 4th Edition fanbase without necessarily regaining the trust of the people they abandoned when they moved away from 3.X Edition. Their quick-money, quick-turnover way of doing business doesn't win them any points for customer loyalty, and Paizo has very much cornered the market in "customer loyalty" right now, so I wonder how Edition War II is going to pan out.

Meanwhile, Savage Worlds continues to chug along merrily, wondering why everyone over in Otherplacia is fighting amongst themselves. ;-)

Mistborn

2012-01-04T20:29:00.000-08:00

Now that the holidays are over, I'm back!

Recently, I picked up the Mistborn RPG from Crafty Games. I'm frankly floored. It's simply amazing. I'm a huge fan of the Mistborn novels, and getting to meet Brandon Sanderson earlier this year was a real treat for me, but the game is really good on its own merits. A big chunk of the book is dedicated to the setting and to the setting's very unique magic system, but the core system is solid in and of itself. The game basically sets difficulties from 1 to 5, the player rolls a pool of 2 to 10 six-sided dice, and matches sets of at least the target number succeed. Rolling 6's doesn't count toward success; instead 6's are "nudges," which you can spend to get better results from a success or reduce the penalties of a failure. The system is pretty narrative-driven, which I've been getting more into lately, so that's a plus.

"Does that mean this blog will stop being primarily about Savage Worlds?" you ask. No! Still, Mistborn has won enough of my love that I'm seriously thinking about using a hack of it for the steampunk game I'm planning right now instead of SW, which makes it the first game I've considered using over SW in a couple of years. I'll give some more info once I get to playtest it a little.

More coming soon! Happy New Year!

Scavengers in the Urban Wasteland

2011-12-01T18:49:00.000-08:00

In the campaign setting I'm proposing, the collapse is only a short time in the past (or still ongoing, depending on when your personal campaign begins), so scavenging through ruins for food and other basic supplies is a viable survival strategy.

A character can choose to dedicate a day to scavenging and make a Survival roll. This roll can only be made in an urban area. On a success, the character draws a card to determine what useful goods he has discovered. The GM then draws a second card to see if the hero has suffered a random encounter; on a clubs card, a random encounter occurs.

Suit Scavenged Goods
Clubs Medicine
Diamonds Components
Hearts Food
Spades Weapons or ammo
Joker Cache (see below)

Card Quantity
2 1 unit or broken archaic weapon
3-6 2 units or damaged archaic weapon
7-10 3 units or intact archaic weapon
J 5 units or broken firearm
Q 5 units or damaged firearm
K 5 units or intact firearm
A 10 units or intact firearm with full ammo
Joker Cache

Caches: A cache is a veritable goldmine of useful objects, food, and ammo. Such hoards hold 2d6+10 units of one resource, plus 1d6 of another; for weapons, the hoard contains 1d6 intact firearms and 2d6+10 units of ammo. Unfortunately, such caches tend to be swarmed, guarded, or both. For the second card after a Joker, any card is a random encounter except for another Joker. A two-Joker draw is an unguarded cache. Time to celebrate! If the second card is clubs, then the GM either doubles the numbers in a random encounter or takes two different random encounters and adds them together.

In the wilderness, a character can still use the Survival skill to find food for himself and his companions (as per the Survival skill description), but he must still draw a card to determine if he suffers an encounter.

Building Weapons: A character can build a new archaic weapon out of mechanical components. For an archaic weapon, the number of components needed is equal to half the maximum damage of the weapon. (So, a sword that does d8 damage requires 4 mechanical components to build.) Building a new firearm takes a similar number of mechanical components, plus half as many chemical components. (So, a firearm dealing 2d6 damage requires 6 mechanical components and 3 chemical components.) Building a new weapon requires twice as many hours as the weapon’s damage die. (So, 4d6 hours of work for a 2d6 damage firearm.)

Building Explosives: An explosive requires half as many chemical components as its damage dice, plus 1 mechanical component per die. (So, a Molotov cocktail inflicting 1d6 damage requires 3 chemical components and 1 mechanical component, while a 3d6 damage grenade requires 9 chemical components and 3 mechanical components.)

Generators: A survivor enclave’s greatest prize is often its electrical generator. Keeping it active is a daily chore, though. For every 10 survivors in an enclave, a generator requires 1 chemical component per day to keep it running. Keeping the generator in good working order also requires 1 electronic component and 1 mechanical component per week of operation. The generator will not work at all without chemical components. Each week without electrical or mechanical components requires a Repair check at –1 for each missing component type, and a cumulative –1 for each week of jury-rigged operation. A failed check results in an inoperative generator; it can be repaired with tools, a workshop, and 2d6 hours of work, as well as 2d6 electrical components and 2d6 mechanical components.

Tools and Workshops: Repairing an object requires tools, while building a new one requires tools and a workshop. Improvised tools impose a –2 penalty on Repair checks, which is cumulative with a –2 penalty for an improvised workshop.

Weapon Breakage

A common problem in the zombie apocalypse genre is that a hero’s weapons suffer damage with use and need to be repaired or replaced. In this campaign setting, if a hero rolls snake eyes (a critical failure) on an attack roll with a weapon, it becomes damaged (in addition to any other consequences); rolling a 1 on the skill die (regardless of the Wild Die) makes a damaged weapon broken. A damaged weapon suffers –2 on attack rolls with the weapon, while a broken weapon cannot be used effectively until repaired or replaced.

Fixing a damaged weapon requires a Repair roll and 1d6 hours of work, in addition to the components needed (see above). A raise on the Repair roll halves the number of needed components (minimum 1). Fixing a broken weapon doubles amount of time needed for the job and increases the number of necessary components by 1. A survivor can choose to break down a broken weapon for parts rather than repairing it. A successful Repair roll turns a broken weapon into 1 component of the appropriate type.

More to come!

A Double Helping of BRAINS

2011-11-27T16:03:00.001-08:00

Hey! Happy Thanksgiving to everyone out there in the blogosphere. Now that I'm back from my short vacation, here are some more rules and things to get you through the zombie apocalypse.

Consumables

Heroes in zombie apocalypse stories are largely motivated by the need to replenish their supplies and stay one step ahead of the walking dead. Because of this, heroes are required to keep careful track of food, medicine, repair parts, and ammunition; to keep the hassle to a minimum, all such consumables are broken into abstract units.

Ammunition: While it is important for heroes to keep track of their ammo, the process of holding on to it is abstracted for a Dead Reign campaign. Ammunition is found in “units”; one unit of ammo is equal to 10 small bullets, 5 medium bullets, or 1 large bullet, decided by the survivor when he receives the ammo unit. The GM can instead give specific kinds of ammunition to heroes, but when found as units, the player characters get to choose.

Components: Weapons and gear break down all the time, but under normal conditions a character could just go to the store and buy parts or even a new gadget. In the harsh landscape of the zombie apocalypse, such objects are few and far between. Repair components are needed for every use of the Repair skill, such as fixing a damaged or broken weapon, building a new weapon out of spare parts, or cobbling together a useful item. Components are divided up into mechanical components, electronic components, and chemical components. See the scavenging rules for more about what a survivor can do with various kinds of components.

Food: Each character consumes 1 unit of food per day to operate as normal. A survivor can go on short rations, requiring only half a unit of food each day. A character on short rations must make a Vigor roll each day. Failure means the character gains a Fatigue level. Not eating at all forces a character to make a Vigor roll at –2 for every 12 hours without food after the first day (see the core book rules on Hunger). Survival rolls made to find food and water require a card draw (see below, under Scavenging).

Medicine: Each use of the Healing skill requires 1 unit of medicine. Not using any medicine units imposes a –2 penalty on the Healing roll. A character that is undergoing natural healing also uses 1 unit of medicine each week while recovering. Not being given any medicine during this time imposes a –2 penalty on the natural healing roll. Being given 2 units of medicine counts as +1 medical attention, while 3 units counts as +2 medical attention.

Now I know what you're thinking. Units? Consumables? How do I get some of those? Well, in the next installment I'll give you the skinny on scavenging through the ruins of the post-apocalyptic zombie wasteland. Stay tuned!

Black Bottom Hollow

2011-11-18T17:40:00.000-08:00

I'm taking another brief break from RPG work to promote my first novel, Black Bottom Hollow! It's being funded through Kickstarter. Stop by the site, take a look at the project, and maybe throw a couple of bucks my way. At the very least, I'd appreciate it if my few blog followers would spread the word through your own blogs, Facebook, and what have you. Thanks for any help you can give!

Zombies!!!

2011-11-10T20:35:00.000-08:00

To continue with the previous post's theme, here are some zombie stats! The common zombie is a little changed from the core rulebook one, and some of the others are based on the stats I did for my adventure "Playground of the Damned." A few you might recognize from some popular four-player zombie video games of late. Are there any more that you would like to see come your way?

Zombie, Common
Sometimes called “shamblers” or “walkers,” these are the most typical undead fiends encountered by survivors. They hunger for the flesh of the living, but they aren’t particularly quick. The greatest advantage possessed by the living over these relentless monsters is their base stupidity—common zombies are less intelligent than animals and are easily distracted.

Attributes: Agility d4, Smarts d4 (A), Spirit d4, Strength d6, Vigor d6
Skills: Fighting d4, Intimidation d4, Notice d4, Shooting d4
Pace: 4; Parry: 4; Toughness: 7

Special Abilities:
• Fearless: Zombies are immune to Fear and Intimidation.
• Slam: Str.
• Undead: +2 Toughness; +2 to recover from being Shaken; called shots do no extra damage (except to the head).
• Weakness (Head): Called shots to a zombie’s head are +2 damage.

Variant—Smart Zombie: Even zombies that have retained some basic cognition aren’t very bright—but they’re bright enough to open doors, go around barricades, and use simple tools. A few even seem to be able to understand simple words, though not to speak. A smart zombie has Smarts d4 and Shooting d4.

Zombie, Quick
No one knows why some zombies reanimate with greater speed and agility than others. Such creatures are far more lethal than their slow cousins, especially considering that it is virtually impossible to tell them apart before they start running. They also demonstrate some greater amount of cunning, roughly equal to that of a smart dog.

Attributes: Agility d6, Smarts d6 (A), Spirit d4, Strength d6, Vigor d6
Skills: Fighting d6, Intimidation d6, Notice d4, Shooting d4
Pace: 6; Parry: 5; Toughness: 7

Special Abilities:
• Fearless: Zombies are immune to Fear and Intimidation.
• Slam: Str.
• Undead: +2 Toughness; +2 to recover from being Shaken; called shots do no extra damage (except to the head).
• Weakness (Head): Called shots to a zombie’s head are +2 damage.

Variant—Fast Zombie: Some zombies aren’t just quick—they’re downright fast. These zombies have a running die of d10 and discard initiative cards of 5 or lower.

Zombie, Child
Children succumbed to the zombie plague in droves in its early days when it was airborne, though few children survive an attack intact enough to rise again. Those that do are a source of terrible despair to survivors.

Attributes: Agility d6, Smarts d4 (A), Spirit d4, Strength d4, Vigor d6
Skills: Fighting d4, Intimidation d4, Notice d4
Pace: 4; Parry: 4; Toughness: 6

Special Abilities:
• Fearless: Zombies are immune to Fear and Intimidation.
• Size –1: Child zombies are smaller than common zombies.
• Slam: Str.
• Undead: +2 Toughness; +2 to recover from being Shaken; called shots do no extra damage (except to the head).
• Weakness (Head): Called shots to a zombie’s head are +2 damage.

Zombie, Tough
Sometimes called “thugs” or “heavies” by survivors, these zombies have experienced a dramatic increase in muscle density from the zombie plague. They experience a sudden upswing in body mass and often literally rip their clothes from the size increase. Just as slow as common zombies, they seem to have a far more vicious demeanor. Survivors have reported behavior from these creatures that might be considered vindictive or even vengeful.

Attributes: Agility d6, Smarts d4 (A), Spirit d4, Strength d10, Vigor d8
Skills: Fighting d8, Intimidation d6, Notice d4
Pace: 4; Parry: 6; Toughness: 9

Special Abilities:
• Fearless: Zombies are immune to Fear and Intimidation.
• Powerful Blows: A tough zombie’s attacks are so strong that a survivor is likely to be knocked off his feet by them. After being Shaken or Wounded by a tough zombie’s slam attack, a survivor must attempt a Strength check or be knocked prone.
• Size +1: Tough zombies are somewhat larger than common zombies, roughly on the upper end of human normal.
• Slam: Str.
• Undead: +2 Toughness; +2 to recover from being Shaken; called shots do no extra damage (except to the head).
• Weakness (Head): Called shots to a zombie’s head are +2 damage.

Zombie, Belcher
These hideous monstrosities are so mutated and deformed that they barely look human anymore. Some are horribly bloated, while others have distended or entirely missing lower jaws. These adaptations serve to allow the zombie to project its stomach juices—a vile combination of decomposed tissue, strong acids, and flesh-eating bacteria—long distances at their prey. Survivors sometimes call these wretches “spitters” or “pukers.”

Attributes: Agility d6, Smarts d6 (A), Spirit d4, Strength d6, Vigor d8
Skills: Fighting d6, Intimidation d6, Notice d6, Shooting d6
Pace: 5; Parry: 5; Toughness: 8

Special Abilities:
• Fearless: Zombies are immune to Fear and Intimidation.
• Slam: Str.
• Undead: +2 Toughness; +2 to recover from being Shaken; called shots do no extra damage (except to the head).
• Vomit: Belchers have a special ability to project a stream of vomit at their targets. This stinking, caustic fluid clings to human flesh and burns like acid. This acts as a Shooting attack with a range of 5/10/15. On a successful hit, the vomit deals 2d6 damage. After using this attack, a belcher makes a Vigor check at the beginning of its turn; until it succeeds, it cannot use this attack again. A creature that suffers any damage from a vomit attack grants zombies a +2 to Notice checks made against him until he spends an hour cleaning off.
• Weakness (Head): Called shots to a zombie’s head are +2 damage.
Variant—Mighty Belcher: Some belchers put out truly copious amounts of vomit. Instead of a single-target Shooting attack, such variant belchers emit a Cone Template of vomit. Creatures in the cone must attempt an Agility roll to avoid the damage.

Variant—Exploding Belcher: A few rare belchers are so swollen with the vomit they hold that they literally burst like a tick upon being killed. These belchers gain a +2 bonus to Vigor checks made to recover their vomit ability, as well as +1 Toughness and –1 Pace from their obesity. When an exploding belcher is killed, anyone adjacent to it suffers 2d6 damage; anyone further away than that but within a Medium Burst Template can attempt an Agility roll to avoid the damage.

Zombie, Fury (Wild Card)
Resembling gaunt men or women dressed in the rags of their former clothes, these viciously clawed zombies are another form of horrible mutation brought on by the zombie plague. Unlike common zombies, who emit a low moan when attacking prey, these zombies actually shriek loudly enough to be heard nearly a mile off. Their sudden attack often catches survivors completely off-guard—to their sorrow. The one advantage survivors have against furies is that they’re not very attentive; they often totally ignore the living unless someone walks right on top of them.

Attributes: Agility d8, Smarts d6 (A), Spirit d6, Strength d8, Vigor d8
Skills: Fighting d8, Intimidation d8, Stealth d6
Pace: 6; Parry: 6; Toughness: 8

Special Abilities:
• Claws: Str+d4. Furies do not bite on a raise, so they do not risk transmitting zombie plague.
• Fear: When a fury attacks, those witnessing the brutality of the attack must make Fear checks.
• Fearless: Zombies are immune to Fear and Intimidation.
• Frenzy: A fury can attack twice with its claws in one round.
• Undead: +2 Toughness; +2 to recover from being Shaken; called shots do no extra damage (except to the head).
• Weakness (Head): Called shots to a zombie’s head are +2 damage.

Zombie Apocalypse

2011-11-07T15:37:00.001-08:00

As some of you might know, I'm a big fan of zombies. It's one of the reasons I enjoy Savage Worlds so much--how could I not like a game whose examples of play inevitably include zombies? I've been playing a lot of Dead Island lately, and celebrating the premiere of the new season of The Walking Dead.

Because of that, I went and picked up War of the Dead, a fairly good adventure path style campaign set from Daring Entertainment. While I would recommend the adventures for people interested in running a zombie campaign, I find the infection rules a little harsh. Yes, I agree that genre emulation calls for a fairly lethal zombie plague, but fun is a higher concern than genre emulation--and seeing at least one PC die every fight isn't all that fun.

Since a lot of video games now posit the idea of player characters as immune to the zombie plague, here's some setting rules and material for a Savage Worlds zombie campaign to back that up.

Setting Rule:
Zombie Plague

All zombies, unless otherwise noted, are infectious. The disease commonly called zombie plague is blood-borne, spread through direct blood contact with a zombie. Just getting splashed with a zombie’s blood isn’t enough to spread the disease to wild card characters (usually), but since a zombie’s saliva has been replaced by blood, getting bitten is a surefire way to catch this terrible plague.

Most zombies attack with a slam--simply bashing their prey with fists and flailing limbs. With a raise on a slam attack, the zombie does not get the usual damage bonus; instead, the zombie has bitten a hero rather than bashed him. With two raises, the zombie gets both the bite and the +1d6 damage for a raise. If a character suffers a Wound from a bite attack, the character must make a Vigor roll at –2. On a failed roll, the character has become Infected.

Once a character becomes infected from a zombie bite, the rate of death and transformation depends on the seriousness of the wound. In Savage Worlds, this is indicated by the number of wounds the character received during the attack that made him Infected.

One Wound: If the character only received a single wound, the bite isn’t usually deep. The character begins to suffer from the infection after 2d10 days.

Two Wounds: When a character receives 2 wounds from a zombie’s bite, the injury is usually enough that the virus has entered the bloodstream directly. The character begins to suffer from the infection after 2d6 hours.

Three Wounds: If a character receives at least 3 wounds from a single bite, the depth of the wound pours infected blood into the character's body at a prodigious rate. The character begins to suffer from the infection after 1d6 minutes.

Once the infection begins to affect him, the hero gains a level of Fatigue as the fever starts. This Fatigue does not go away from the character resting. Every day, hour, or minute (depending on the severity above), the character must attempt a Vigor roll to avoid gaining a new level of Fatigue. When a character infected with zombie plague dies, he rises again as one of the undead in 1d6 minutes (unless the head is destroyed before then).

New Edges

Boom! Headshot! [Combat Edge]
Requirements: Seasoned, Agility d8+, Fighting d8+ or Shooting d8+
When your character makes a called shot against a zombie’s head, you only suffer –2 to the roll rather than –4. When your character takes this Edge, it applies only to the combat skill used to qualify for it (Fighting or Shooting). If the character has (or later gains) d8+ in the other skill, it applies equally to that skill as well.

Immune Survivor [Background Edge]
Requirements: Novice, Vigor d6+
For whatever reason, a few rare people are naturally immune to zombie plague. Your character has already gone through his first exposure to the dreaded disease and come out the other side unscathed. The hero suffers no special effect from a zombie’s bite (other than taking damage, of course).

Setting Rules

2011-09-10T20:13:00.000-07:00

...and we're back again!

I want to take a minute to talk about Savage Worlds Deluxe Edition, which just came out at GenCon. It's a full-sized, hardcover update to the Explorer's Edition rules, and it's entirely worth the time of anyone who like SW. While I'm glad that the EE-sized digest book is coming back (and I'll probably pick up a couple of them for my table when they go back to that size), I'm equally glad that I went ahead and picked up the new "core" in this really posh version. Not just because it's pretty as all get out, but because the new stuff in it are things that are entirely useful to me right now, as a designer and as a GM.

The one that stands out to me the most at the moment is the idea of "setting rules." Most every Savage Worlds GM has had to do this at one time or another, and pretty much every iteration of the game has encouraged it. The innovation with SWDE is that it puts it on paper, which helps certain kinds of GMs think "outside the box" when it comes to setting design, as well as offers a number of very useful variants for different kinds of games. The Guts skill is now a setting rule, for example; the default rules have fear effects target Spirit, while settings that are more focused on horror and terror can use the Guts skill to represent adventurers "hardening their hearts" against fear.

When I ran the TORG setting using the Savage Worlds rules a few years back, I noticed how easily modified the core rules set was to allow extra things to be stuck on the framework, that wouldn't interfere with the core rules at all. Each Realm had its own "world laws" that defined how heroes and villains interacted there. The inclusion of "setting rules" as a default, defined part of the system makes running things like TORG even easier.

That got me to thinking about running cross-world type games, the sort that I've always enjoyed, like Rifts, TORG, and Suzerain. The idea of setting rules allows a GM to make a quick note about each world or dimension or realm or whatever, and use that to create a sense of verisimilitude--not "realism," but a feeling of reality. It's a clever rules shorthand to allow a GM to say "things are different here" without altering the basic way that characters interact with the rules.

For my Mario-inspired setting, "Heroes of the Mandragora Kingdom," one of the major setting rules involves the ability of characters to jump enormous distances. At the time, I was just making a joke about Mario's ability to jump five or six times his own height, but it occurred to me that it's also a good setting rule for any wuxia-inspired campaign, or for one that relies heavily on anime tropes.

Great Leaping [Setting Rule]
Maybe gravity is less in this setting, or maybe heroes are just really good at ignoring it. Whatever the reason, a Wild Card can jump 1” horizontally from a dead stop, or up to 2” with a running. A successful Strength roll grants an additional 1” of distance per success and raise.

When sitting down to run a campaign, I think a GM should always ask himself what rules modifications he can make to turn the rules into something that support the playstyle of the setting. Savage Worlds makes this particularly easy, and the setting rules concept codifies it in such a way that it becomes apparent.

Collection Services

2010-09-28T21:54:00.000-07:00

To make up for the long drought, here's a campaign idea I came up with a little while back, called Collection Services.

Making deals with the devil is easy--after all, the devil wants people to make deals, since it's just about the only way for him to collect human souls at death. Only the absolute worst of humanity goes to hell naturally, so there's a premium on human souls. Various demons offer various things for souls: wishes, vengeance, wealth, money, fame, power, any number of things. The terms of the deal are just as varied: souls collected in one year, ten years, one hundred years, at the moment of death, soul of a firstborn child, and so on.

Unfortunately, many of those people wish for things that they then use to try and cheat the devil of his due. When that happens, the collectors are called in. Collectors are former humans, shaped and twisted by the powers of hell and sent back to earth to act as the agents of demons, who cannot directly affect mortals due to ancient pacts with the Creator. Collectors are sent in small, elite teams that can make quick judgment calls in the field on how to go about the collection, whether to be subtle or blatant, violent or diplomatic, and so on.

In between missions, collectors are given leave on earth to act as they will--rape, murder, pillage, have a happy home and family life, whatever. When the call comes, though, they must drop everything to meet with their collection agent, a demon who gives them their assignments. Fail an assignment, and it's back to the pit. Keep succeeding and damning others, and it's high living for as long as you keep up the "good work." Sometimes, that means sending an absolute sack of garbage screaming into the flames. Sometimes, that means stealing a crying woman's baby, or scraping up what's left of a life of charity and good works after a moment of horrible weakness.

You are a collector, one of hell's repo-men. May god have mercy on you, because your employer certainly won't.

More on Marikuhl soon!

Back to School

2010-08-25T03:00:00.000-07:00

Well, today is the first day of the new school year. It feels like things are looking up! My schedule is pretty good, I have an interview for a new job next week, and I got the Hellfrost gig! I just need to sign the contract and mail it to TAG, but after that I'll be working on the Hellfrost conversion project officially. I'm so excited about working for Triple Ace Games; I've admired their stuff for a long while now, and working for Wiggy Williams is going to be a real treat.

Wish me luck!

Hellfrost

2010-08-19T01:35:00.000-07:00

There's a rumor going around that Triple Ace Games is looking for a freelancer to convert their awesome Hellfrost setting to Paizo's Pathfinder RPG. Well, not so much a rumor as it is that Wiggy Williams, TAG's head dude, posted about it on the Paizo forums. I applied for the job, and Wiggy says that they'll be doing their determinations over the weekend. Wish me luck!

Strands of Fate

2010-08-19T01:11:00.001-07:00

While I normally talk about Savage Worlds on this blog, I'm sure by this point that my readers (*cricket, cricket*) are aware that I play and enjoy lots of other games. Pathfinder is a dear friend of mine, as is World of Darkness (in both Classic and New Coke flavors). Over the years, though, there's one game that I have tried several times and receive a weird sort of frission from playing, in that I badly want to like it, but something always seems off to me.

That game is FATE.

The bastard daughter of FUDGE, FATE is a generic system with a free license that has most recently been used by Evil Hat Productions to power their award-winning Spirit of the Century and the much-anticipated Dresden Files RPG (based off Jim Butcher's excellent novels), as well as by Cubicle 7 Entertainment to power Starblazer Adventures and Legends of Anglerre. All of these games have been internet darlings, but I've just never been able to "get" them. Maybe something in my old, grognarded-up brain has trouble grasping the design principles of the system, but I've always seen them as "hand-wavey," or "metagamey." Even though I love the hell out of certain indie games (like Evil Hat's brilliant Don't Rest Your Head), I always have trouble grasping FATE.

Part of it is the nature of the beast. FATE's most current iteration (3rd Edition, for those keeping track) has never had its own corebook. All of the existing games for it are fairly devoted to their own idiom. Dresden is a modern-magic detective game; Spirit is a roaring '20s pulp game; and so on. Anglerre has options for running either heroic fantasy or grim-and-gritty fantasy, but ultimately it's still geared toward a fantasy game. With this in mind, I started to wonder if the real problem with me getting into FATE was that I could never face the rules on their own ground, so to speak; they always had baggage, always had little elements of legacy code that didn't mean much of anything to me. I had been telling myself for a while that I would reinvest my energy into FATE when someone finally got around to putting out a truly generic corebook for it.

Well, somebody finally did. Void Star Games, under the auspices of lead designer Mike McConnell, has set out to strip out all the old legacy code from the various iterations of FATE and put together a truly generic core rulebook for the system. With my long-standing desire to like FATE, and my lack of solid exposure to the current rules system (I've played a few short demos of various FATE things, but it never stuck), I thought that this would be the perfect time to try and get into the game.

Fortunately for me, Void Star decided to run a beta playtest for the corebook, called Strands of Fate, and I was able to jump in. I'm currently browsing through the opening of the beta release, and I have to say that the book is attractive if nothing else. If they put anywhere near as much craftsmanship into the final product as they did into the beta, then I'm very much looking forward to seeing it. I'm not that deep into the rules yet, but from what little I've seen, one of my biggest concerns about FATE is no more: "the ladder."

Whenever I demoed FATE before, I would get told about target numbers, but also that each target number had its own adjective descriptor, like "Good," "Average," and so on. I never could understand why it was necessary to use those adjectives, which didn't actually carry any sort of standard numerical weight, other than dedication to older editions. Really, it reminded me a lot of the old Marvel FASERIP system, which operated on similar (equally confusing) principles. Now, just a short way into the book, I can see that the ladder of adjectives is no more; everything is dealt with by target number alone. That's a huge relief to me as a potential player and GM, and it clears up a lot of confusion.

I hope to do more reading on Strands of Fate over the weekend and keep up the review work, and do some actual playtesting in the next week or so. Keep an eye out to hear more!

Western Baronies: Ecology

2010-08-17T03:26:00.000-07:00

The climate, terrain, and environment of Marikuhl is as varied as its inhabitants, ranging the gamut from chill and frozen northlands to steamy tropical jungles to enormous mountains and everything in between. The original settlers from the Old World landed on the coast and simply made their way inward, creating “bands” of habitation from north to south along the continent. A few later colonies followed the rivers to more inland areas, creating habitation further into the continent than the originals had managed to reach.

Toward the northern end of the continent lay the mountain ranges that shelter Marikuhl from the Asatru barbarians. While the northmen sometimes come across the peaks, they prefer the open seas, so imperial territory officially extends right up to the slopes themselves. In the south, imperial dominance runs to the gulf and adjacent plains that connect to Teotihuacal. Technically, Marikuhlian lands traverse the Galatean continent from east to west, but everything west of the great Corundum Mountains is baronial territory and dealt with in its own section.

In the north, the area surrounding the Greyshield Mountains is rocky, interspersed with thick coniferous forests. This area is cold most of the year, and snow falls for over half of it. The region is not quite tundra, but it approaches taiga at its worst. This area is home to animals of enormous size, gigantic versions of more common beasts such as wolves, elk, eagles, and even badgers. Such dire animals are noted for their ill tempers and territoriality. The northern provinces are also home to several related humanoid races possessing shaggy fur and foul dispositions. Collectively known by their Ko’Manna name of saskatch, they are noted for devouring human flesh and being a constant threat to exploration.

As one travels south along the coast, the area quickly becomes warmer and wetter, due to the influence of the mild ocean winds. During the autumn, these coastal regions are often flooded or swamped by huge storms, but the weather is calm during the rest of the year. These areas are home to heavily lumbered deciduous forests, and much of the central coastal region is tamed. A few strange beasts remain in the forests, preying on lumberjacks and other woods folk, but this area—close to the imperial capital of Vasting—is one of the safest in the country.

Further south from this are the sandy coasts of southern Marikuhl, and inland from those lay balmy wetlands and hot swamps. These regions remain extremely dangerous to outsiders, home to any number of venomous snakes, giant insects, water-dwelling humanoids, huge reptiles, and—supposedly—degenerate cannibals living in the depths of the swamps. From the early days of exploration, a great many people died in despair in these areas, giving rise to groups of abominable undead, men and women who died in such anger and pain that their corpses rose from the muck to destroy the living.

Inward from the coastal provinces is a small range of mountains called the Ironweals, home to much of the mining industry in the empire. At one time, this area was the sole supplier of corundum to the empire, but as the mines have dug deeper, the mineral has become more rare. Underground beasts and strange humanoids have forced the empire to permanently garrison much of its standing army nearby to protect its mineral interests, and the miners themselves have had to become proficient warriors to avoid death at the hands of hideous monstrosities. The surface region is home to mixed coniferous and deciduous forests, as well a large number of lakes, rivers, and springs. Goblins and goblinkin are particularly common in the Ironweals.

Past the Ironweal Mountains, the land becomes more level, finally flattening out into broad, vast plains, interspersed by rocky plateaus and mesas, occasionally broken by wide chasms. This area is home to all manner of big cats, such as lions and leopards, as well as huge birds and stranger beasts. A few unusual humanoids dwell in this region as well, but most of them are far more shy than the eastern ones and avoid contact with humanity whenever possible.

In the far south of the plains region, just before reaching the sea once more, the land abruptly rises and falls in a series of ridges. This area is heavily forested, creating a large jungle region that eventually ends at the southern inlet of the Atlantean Ocean. To the west, the region drops off into tropical plains and grasslands, eventually giving way to the lands of the Teotihuacal. The Marikuhlian jungles are full of arboreal life, such as apes and tree cats, as well as a large population of reptilian humanoids, such as lizardfolk and kobolds.

When the first settlers colonized Galatea, they found an untamed wilderness, full of possibilities and dangers. The Ko’Manna had learned to live alongside nature, taking only enough to survive and moving on when the land needed time to recover. They understood the dangers of the local flora and fauna—and of Galatea’s other inhabitants. While the Ko’Manna were the only native humans, a great many other intelligent races lived in Galatea, and still do in many places.

Though the Ovidian settlers have long since become the Marikuhlian peoples, though they have lived on Galatea for seven centuries, they are still ignorant of many of the land’s greatest mysteries. The Ovidian way was to build large, crowded cities, and the original settlers followed suit. Safety in numbers was the keyword of early settlement, and even today, most Marikuhlians live in or near large cities. While Galatea’s resources have been greatly strained and deeply damaged by the number of people living there, huge tracts of untouched wilderness remain between the Marikuhlian cities, places where people fear to travel.

The Ko’Manna were justified in their fear and respect for the natural world—the Galatean ecology is a dangerous one to the uninformed or the arrogant. When the Marikuhlians unified and expanded, the threats did not go away, they merely consolidated at the edges of civilization. Even now, there remain vast regions within a few hours’ ride of a major city that no living human can claim to have seen. Every day the Marikuhlians extend their conquest of nature a little further, but nature is hardly giving up without a fight.

Western Baronies: Religion

2010-08-10T19:09:00.001-07:00

RELIGION

The religious institutions of Marikuhl are starkly divided between two disparate and seemingly incompatible faiths that nonetheless continue to coexist. Most common Marikuhlians worship the old gods of the state religion, called Ma’at (“balance”), who form an intricate mythology of related deities and interrelated worship. Many noble Marikuhlians at least pay lip service to Ma’at, though their true allegiance frequently lies with the other half of Marikuhlian faith: demon worship.

Officially, Ma’at condemns the practice of demon worship, viewing it as corruptive and damning. However, the leaders of the faith have long since come to the practical realization that opposing demon worship among the nobility is likely to affect only the amount of donations they receive each year, and not change anything about the practice itself. Quite simply put, while Ma’at offers spiritual salvation, inner peace, and a lasting legacy of faith, demons can offer actual power.

The number of demons in existence is unknown, though some arcane scholars believe that a new demon is formed from every ill feeling, each cruel action, and any unpleasant happenstance. If they are correct, then the number is essentially countless. Most Marikuhlians understand that demons exist in a spiritual limbo, able to perceive the mortal world but unable to interfere in it unless invited in by a mortal. They are barred from action unless given leave—though “leave” can often be given unintentionally by the ill informed.

Demons hunger to enter the world of men and can offer much in the way of incentive. Once they establish a foothold, their power grows greatly, even to the point of offering mystical prowess, unholy luck, or fiendish cleverness to their supplicants. What they gain in exchange for these favors is unsavory in the best of times, and can range from simple material goods to favors to the sacrifice of men, women, or children. Some look upon the successes of their fellows, however, and decide that such prices are worth paying. While demons can twist the spirit of their contracts, they must honor them to the letter, and so long as all debts are paid in full, many feel, no harm can come to a bargainer.

These two competing ideologies counterpoint the deep social divide in Marikuhlian society, with the common folk just trying to lead lives of prosperity and normalcy while the nobility constantly plays power games with those lives. A few commoners turn to demon worship in an attempt to escape the drudgery of their lives, just as quite a few nobles avoid demon worship and still genuinely revere the gods of Ma’at, but generally speaking these trends hold true.

There are many dozens of gods worshipped in the Ma’at faith, but the following six are the most often prayed to and have the most temples built in their honor.
•Wey-At, god of justice and law. The head of the Ma’at pantheon, Wey-At is sometimes known as “the Just King,” representing the role of nobility as both rulers and servants of the people. Wey-At is typically depicted as a broad-shouldered man with a heavy mustache, one hand on a sheathed sword.
•Virgil, god of peace. Wey-At’s brother, this god is usually shown to be silent in myth and legend, and statues in his honor typically depict him as a younger, softer version of Wey-At, wearing the robes of a scholar rather than the armor of a warrior.
•Ira-Aten, god of hunters and woodsmen. Ira-Aten was once far more popular in Marikuhl, befitting its status as a frontier nation, but his forest temples are less visited now than they once were. This deity is usually shown as a tall, wiry man with long hair, carrying a hunting bow and surrounded by foliage and animals.
•Marya, the bountiful mother. The patron of agriculture, motherhood, childbirth, and the womanly mysteries, Marya is usually shown as a beautiful middle-aged woman wearing a hair-covering shawl and a long blue dress. As mother of all things, Marya is the god prayed to most often for mercy or aid.
•Sofya, weaver of fate. Marya’s only daughter, Sofya is invariably depicted as a teenaged beauty carrying an hourglass in one hand and a bloody knife in the other. She represents the inevitability of death and the possibilities of the future. Her priestesses are said to hold the secrets of prophecy, and many seek their knowledge of the future.
•Castur, god of war and madness. This warrior-deity is depicted in statuary and art as a blood-soaked berserker, naked to the waist and surrounded by the corpses of his enemies. Castur is the madness in the heat of battle, the fury that drives men to do terrible things. The Marikuhlians believe that Castur is present at every battle that is fought, and that the battles with the greatest atrocities are the ones in which he participates.

As mentioned above, the number of demons in existence is virtually without number, but a few of the known ones are more popular than others. Any potential demon worshipper can learn the rites necessary to call a random demon from the spirit plane, but many Marikuhlians would rather depend on the tried and true than risk summoning a useless demon or, worse, a genuinely dangerous one. The following are some of the better-known demons, descriptions of their powers, and the magical schools they typically grant to their mystical worshippers.
•Asteroth, demon-lord of chaos. It is said that while other demons lurk in the spirit realm awaiting summoning into the mortal plane, Asteroth remains there despite having been called forth. While he extends his influence into the world, he remains in the spirit world, for only there is it possible for his true form to exist. Asteroth allows his followers to summon pieces of him to act as servants and minions, though their forms inevitably dissipate after a time. (Conjuration)
•Ba’al Zevuv, demon of pestilence. This is the demon that was summoned during the Scourging, and that prevents Marikuhlian occupation of Ovidium. It is said that Ba’al Zevuv, when not hunting his hated foes, dwells at the heart of the nation he destroyed, lounging on a throne of bones and holding court over his undead thralls. (Necromancy)
•Beleth, demon of fear. This demon teaches her supplicants to be paranoid and cautious, instilling them with a drive to protect themselves and their interests that approaches the insane. She typically appears as a black-skinned woman with dead-white hair, and ceremonies to her involve terrifying others, often to death. Still, her cautious nature and terrible wrath make her a fine choice for those seeking defense rather than offense. (Abjuration)
•Hastyr, demon of madness. Often called “the Unspeakable,” Hastyr’s most common manifestation is of a blighted leper wearing tattered yellow finery. His worshippers grant him mastery of their bodies for short times, effectively becoming possessed, in exchange for the power to rend minds and conceal the truth. (Illusion)
•Ithaxa, demon of cold. Ithaxa’s powers over the winter months and creatures of cold draw many ice-hearted individuals to his service. The Ko’Manna sometimes call Ithaxa “the Hungry” for his ability to instill cannibalistic hunger in those that draw his ire. Most of his rituals involve the consumption of human flesh. Often, these disgusting rites allow them to steal the strength of the dead. (Transmutation)
•Kuhultu, demon-god of the Atlantean Ocean. This is the demon summoned by the Ordo Astra Lyceum during the War of Vengeance to destroy the Ovidian fleet. Kuhultu has dominion over the entire Atlantean Ocean, though he sleeps almost constantly, answering his faithful when their dreams touch his. He is known to induce madness during such visions, but all the plenty of the sea is his to offer. (Divination)
•Molech, demon of fire. A powerful demon indeed, Molech offers the power to destroy one’s foes with flame and chaos. However, only one thing attracts Molech’s dire attention: the sacrifice of a child by burning. His “blessings” are always destructive but undeniably powerful. (Evocation)
•Shaitan, demon of deception. This manipulative seducer offers his supplicants powers over the minds and emotions of others. It is said that much of his time and effort is spent in setting his minions against one another to amuse himself by their struggles. (Enchantment)

Western Baronies: Imperial Culture

2010-07-31T04:39:00.000-07:00

IMPERIAL CULTURE

The Empire of Marikuhl is a despotic imperialist aristocracy, corrupted by the acquisition of too much power too quickly without the application of restraint or mercy. Recent years have twisted the empire even further, sharply dividing the nation’s interests between the demands of the nobility and the necessities of the economy. Still, at its heart, the empire was founded on a principle of freedom from distant masters and loyalty to the emperor. These concerns are still in the hearts of the average person as well as many nobles.

The primary facet of culture and daily life in the empire is obedience to the emperor, and by proxy to his immediate servants, the noble class. This obedience is shown by the common folk primarily by leading lives of quiet anonymity. Nobles have much more expected from them, and are consequently granted both broader powers over commoners and greater responsibilities to their superiors. The emperor himself is seen as both the most powerful individual in the empire, and the one with the greatest responsibility to its safety and continuance.

No one in the empire truly owns property, save the emperor himself. All land is owned by the emperor personally, and noble families pay taxes to the imperial treasury for the right to develop the land granted to them. Only a handful of times throughout history have a major noble family failed to pay taxes, and each time tragedy resulted. These ownership laws are enforced by the loyalty of the people to their ruler, as well as by virtue of the emperor having the largest standing army in the empire. Noble families other than the emperor’s are restricted on the size of their military forces, but the emperor’s legions are staffed with soldiers drawn from all across the empire.

Most commoners live lives of little note, usually as laborers, farmers, or other types of unskilled work, living on property allowed to them by their noble masters and paying rent for the privilege. Some are given the opportunity to serve in the Marikuhlian military as grunts and cannon fodder, called conscripti, positions that actually hold some level of respect and accomplishment for the common folk. Career soldiers often come from family lines of the same, and many conscripti are as skilled at the arts of war as any noble. Conscripti from long lines with distinguished records are sometimes adopted or married into noble lines, making the military occupation even more attractive to the downtrodden masses.

A development of the last couple of centuries is the rise of an unofficial “merchant class,” commoners with money enough to virtually own their own property and employ other commoners in their businesses. These merchants frequently form guilds, unions, and other forms of organizations to regulate prices in their area, monitor new businesses, and safeguard their interests from outside merchants and the noble class. The recent Succession War has left merchants and nobles deeply distrustful of one another, despite the fact that they must work together to keep society functioning.

The nobility of Marikuhl is divided into two categories: major noble families, and minor noble families. Major families are those lines descended from the twenty-one original rulers of the Marikuhlian colonies, though five of those lines are now extinct, leaving sixteen great families, including the imperial family. Minor families are nobility instituted since the inception of the empire to aid in the bureaucracy of imperial life, govern regions in a major family’s territory, or raised up from virtuous and worthy commoners. The creation of a minor family is a significant event, and each major family has only a handful of minor families serving it.

CRIME AND PUNISHMENT

The average citizen of Marikuhl has few rights other than to bring grievances before his ruling family’s magistrates, which guards only against crimes committed by other commoners. Nobles are largely immune to prosecution under the law, except crimes committed against other nobles. Such crimes are arbitrated by the noble’s superiors, if committed against a member of the same family, or an imperial magistrate for inter-family struggles. Crimes against an imperial representative are always dealt with by an imperial magistrate, and often by a group of several working together.

Punishments for crimes are typically swift and without reprieve. Marikuhlians do not believe in prisons as a method of social correction, so most punishments tend to be immediate in nature. Minor crimes are dealt with by fines, forced labor, or forfeiture of possessions, while severe crimes are typically punished by maiming or execution.

Nobles can sometimes escape punishment in criminal cases by accepting exile to the Western Baronies, while imprisonment is frequently reserved as a necessity for individuals too useful to kill but too dangerous to allow freedom. Commoners cannot opt to be exiled, though many, when faced with the possibility of death or maiming, will abandon their lives, take their meager possessions, and flee west. These poor souls often change their names and live out their days in fear of being discovered. Especially dangerous escapees sometimes warrant the attention of a magistrate, or the posting of a bounty.

TECHNOLOGY

The empire is one of the most technologically advanced nations in the world. With their emphasis on military development, the quality of steel has been drastically increased in recent centuries. By the same token, the production of rare-metal items, such as from adamantine and mithril, is commonplace in the empire for those wealthy enough to afford it. The Marikuhlian skill in metalworking has also allowed the construction of more stable and durable objects that utilize metal in their construction secondarily, such as wagons, barrels, and so on.

One of the great innovations of the western migration was the development of a type of covered wagon that could act as both storage and living accommodation over long journeys. This wagon has also acted as a prototype for the new carriages designed for long hauls between the empire and the baronies, creating a significantly more comfortable traveling environment for passengers and messengers. These covered carriages, sometimes called “stages” for their shape, are also more defensible, a necessity with the prominence of the Ko’Manna raiders.

Artificers have long worked with ways to turn the black powder used in fireworks into a viable weapon, but the grain size of the substance makes such use impossible, even in large-scale weapons. The battlefields of the modern day are largely the province of armored knights, given aid and backup by legions of archers, with foot soldiers and armored infantry acting as storm troops and cannon fodder. Siege weapons are common as well, especially the trebuchet and catapult. Foot soldiers are often given crossbows to use in need, though longbows are the obvious weapon for true archery units. Horse archers are utilized as hit-and-run troops by many armies, to great success.

The power of steam has been harnessed in small ways, most of which are impractical for normal people, but artificers keep up with the developments in the hope of creating useful devices from the bulky engines. The lack of anything hotter-burning than wood has largely stymied this development, though alchemists have shown some success in substituting wood with chemical fuels.

The influx of corundum into the empire has increased the crafting of items of mystical power in recent years, though such creations are still extraordinarily rare. The energies empowering the crystal are still drawn from the chaotic power of the universe, making the use of any magical item an exercise in both caution and wonder.

FOREIGN RELATIONS

In many ways, the foreign policy of the empire reflects the worst things about it. Truthfully, most of the empire’s vices can be directly traced to its history of aggression and distrust toward foreign powers, especially those of the Old World. Marikuhl was originally a peaceful, agrarian nation, provincial in the extreme, until the War of Vengeance changed the nation’s character forever. From that point on, the Marikuhlians were no longer happily complacent in their own freedoms—outside powers would be made to respect their authority.

Many of the events of the centuries following the War of Vengeance are dealt with above, but specific considerations should be noted in the Marikuhlian dealings with foreign powers. Specifically, there are no official relations with the Old World any longer. The demon summoned during the Revenge remains in Ovidium, unable to pursue its destined enemies across the ocean, but forever preventing them from returning to the Old World.

Any Marikuhlian that sets foot on Ovidian soil is immediately aware of the demon’s presence—and that it is aware of them. From that moment forward, the demon will relentlessly hunt down the intruder, incapable of resting until the “invader” is dead. So long as even one Marikuhlian draws breath, it will never be freed from its duty, and no Marikuhlian in the Old World will be able to rest easy.

The demon requires time and energy to find its target, thankfully, making short sojourns onto the continent possible. The many islands surrounding the mainland are not protected by the demon, making them feasible locations for diplomatic envoys and small military bases. Small groups and individuals are also harder for the demon to find than large groups (such as military columns). The military control of Marikuhl over Ovidium was effectively broken by the Revenge, however, and all modern Ovidians are aware of the fact.

Marikuhl has done little to build bridges with its former parent nations. The mutual losses suffered by both regions mean almost nothing to the despotic government, while the Ovidians openly flaunt their immunity to Marikuhl’s superior military by offering highly imbalanced trade and harboring pirates and privateers. Had the Marikuhlians the power to remove the offending nations entirely, they would likely do so, but for now their rage is impotent and turned inward.

While the imperial court is aware of continents other than Ovidium, the general consensus about such places is that they are irrelevant and unimportant. They are too distant for regular trade, or even regular contact, and the continents of Galatea and Ovidium present more than enough challenges without seeking out new ones. Even much of Galatea remains unexplored, more than seven centuries after it was first settled by the Old World.

The known peoples of Galatea besides the Marikuhlians are also something of a mystery to the arrogant empire. To the north lies the lands of the Asatru, a tribal seafaring people only recently united under a single banner. As pirates and raiders, the Asatru are interested in the Marikuhlians only as targets for their predations, and the Asatru represent an enemy that the Marikuhlian navy can sharpen its teeth on. The south is the home of the Teotihuacal, an expansive empire at least as old as Marikuhl and perhaps older that is even more blatant in its worship of demonic forces. The “gods” of the Teotihuacal pantheon are little more than bloodthirsty demons that demand almost daily human sacrifice. The empire would gladly destroy the southern folk, except for the considerations of distance and poor terrain. As well, some whisper, the empire fears the power of the southerners’ demon-gods.

CLOTHING AND APPEARANCE

As the hodgepodge descendants of almost two dozen different cultures brought together by a common government, the Marikuhlian people are extremely varied in skin, hair, and eye tones. Their builds range the gamut from tall to short, from wiry to broad. Few commonalities about their general appearance can be made, not even that they dress similarly. With the provincial differences in local fashion, and the combination of a burgeoning middle class with the older upper class, the fashions among the elite of Marikuhl change almost as quickly as the seasons.

A few things stay in fashion from year to year, at least among the common folk. Most Marikuhlian commoners, both male and female, tend to wear trousers, loose shirts, and sandals. In the colder climes of the north, full shoes are worn rather than sandals, and the whole outfit is topped off with a heavy cloak or long parka. A common affectation among male commoners is to wear a vest decorated with the local colors, whether provincial to show national pride or the colors of the local noble family to show loyalty. Many commoners will also wear cheap jewelry, typically earrings or bracelets, which have been passed down through the family for generations.

Until about a century and a half ago, hair length was a requisite for women to show off their cultural status—the longer the hair, the greater the status. Only the oldest and most conservative nobles enforce this tradition, however, and women of all stations have begun to wear their hair at any length. Shorter than neck-length is still considered somewhat scandalous for noblewomen to wear, and many women of common birth hesitate to let their hair grow much past their shoulders.

Men of noble birth frequently wear their hair long, tied up into topknots at formal affairs or when holding court. A few younger nobles have begun wearing their long hair in loose braids or ponytails to flaunt tradition, but long hair is still seen as very important for a nobleman’s image. Older noblemen sometimes wear exquisitely crafted wigs in late age to conceal their impending baldness. Commoners, merchants included, typically wear their hair short as a matter of practicality—long hair gets in the way of honest work by commoners, while the merchant class is still struggling to create its own independent identity.

The most recent widespread fashion statements include long dresses for noblewomen, typically brightly colored and patterned, and tightly form-fitting. Such dresses are typically clasped at the shoulder with high necks, though a few have a high collar in the back with a swooping V-neck in the front. Noblemen’s fashion currently includes the addition of a long overcoat in place of the more traditional mantle or cloak.

A common aspect of cultural distinction in Marikuhlian society is the wearing of weapons. Traditionally, commoners have been forbidden from the bearing of arms, save in the direct defense of the nation or at the order of a noble. Such restrictions have only rarely applied to the carrying of tools that can be used as weapons (such as cutting knives, wood axes, and threshing flails), but the wielding of swords, spears, and bows has long been the province of the nobility and their favored servants.

The carrying of a sword is an important part of the Marikuhlian aristocracy’s heritage, and many such swords have been passed down through generations until they acquire names and legacies unto themselves. The most common weapons wielded by Marikuhlian nobles are the longsword, a favored weapon of military families, the rapier, popular among lines noted for their skill at dueling, and the bastard sword, so named because of its popularity among the minor families that invented it. Many female nobles carry weapons as well, though their short swords and daggers are more often for show than for usage. In Marikuhlian society, carrying a sword is a sign that you are ready and willing to use it, and duels for honor among the nobility still happen fairly often.

The burgeoning merchant class still technically belongs to the ranks of the commoners, making the wielding of weapons for self-defense somewhat problematic. To circumvent the issue, merchant typically only carry daggers on their persons, but surround themselves with guards and retainers trained in the use of “peasant weapons,” such as clubs, hammers, knives, sickles, slings, bolas, nets, and so on. For those merchants that seek to emulate their betters, a few have coerced their local governments to pass laws permitting the carrying of weapons for a license fee. These “armed merchants” will often use the privilege to carry a short sword as well as a crossbow, though sometimes a merchant will become truly skilled enough to wear a larger sword openly.

Western Baronies: The Modern Empire

2010-07-21T01:31:00.000-07:00

THE WESTERN EXPANSION

Rather than persecute or judge the remaining nobles, the new emperor declared an armistice to the war and a pardon for all parties involved. Publicly, the nobles were commanded only to set aside their differences and work together to rebuild what had been lost. Privately, however, the emperor’s advisors were plotting to make certain that this emperor’s reign would be more peaceful and robust than the last. The emperor, too, was concerned—he had seen his father murdered, his “loyal” subjects turning on him like a rabid dog on its master.

The noble families and merchant leaders most complicit in the beginning and continuance of the war were closely monitored for further signs of dissension. Such spying would eventually attract their attention, however, and the court knew that a permanent—or at least long-term—solution must be found soon. Thus, with this in mind, a plan was hatched to remove the more dangerous elements of society while enriching the empire as a whole.

In the past, the few explorers to travel beyond the Corundum Mountains in the west had returned with tales of glorious riches, including the rare and prized crystals for which the mountains were named, gems necessary in the construction of items of magical power. The west was known to be home to only uncivilized tribes of the barbaric Ko’Manna, unclaimed by any imperial force or family. It was decided that an ideal solution to social pressures at home, including the flagging economy, was to open the western lands for settlement.

An imperial decree was issued: any man could journey west and claim land, and so long as he paid taxes on that land appropriately and on time, it would remain his possession. Since in the empire itself, only nobles could truly own land, the idea of property ownership sparked the minds of many commoners.

As well, any landowner that could pay taxes of a certain amount for a period of no less than ten years would garner a noble title for himself, to be passed along his family line. Merchants and ambitious commoners alike virtually drooled at the thought of gaining a noble title, earning recognition and greater social standing for themselves and their families. Nobles also paid close attention to this decree—it threatened their power in a way that demanded they retain a presence in the west, a presence that would strain their resources and diminish their prominence in imperial affairs.

Those nobles and merchants deemed most “dangerous” by the imperial court were strongly hinted to that maintaining western holdings would ingratiate them to the emperor—and that not doing so would bring down trouble upon them. Caught in a bind, the most troublesome elements of the empire were undercut tremendously with virtually no effort on the emperor’s part.

The western migration attracted folk from all walks of life: commoners seeking a better existence, nobles hoping to increase their holdings, merchants looking for respect and power as well as wealth, and criminals following their livelihood. Tens of thousands of them streamed across the passes, accompanied by an imperial legion to safeguard the construction of a new city. This city would be the official imperial capital of the region, a place where the emperor’s handpicked representative would ostensibly oversee the new provinces. Due to the vagaries surrounding its inception, this city would come to be called Cenotaph.

The western migration relieved many of the stresses of the day, but more were coming.

THE EMPIRE TODAY

The modern Marikuhlian Empire is like an oak tree infested with worms: strong on the outside, but corrupt and weak in the interior. The noble families, their numbers significantly smaller due to the Succession War, hold less power than even a century ago, and the emperor has largely become a figurehead for the council of advisors and delegates that once were his court. The power of the merchant families is great, but so is that of the vast and varied crime syndicates. Indeed, so many merchants deal in the illicit, and so many crime families in the legitimate, that it has become hard to tell the two apart in many cases.

The average commoner has enough to eat to stay alive and keep clothes on their backs, but little besides. Public education is lacking, and public services virtually nonexistent for the poor. Almost everything is based around one’s ability to pay—taxes to the nobles, money for goods to the merchants, more to the crime families for protection, and only a small amount set aside for the earner. The traditional way of serf and master has been left behind, but few rights or protections have arisen for the common folk.

The little power left to the imperial family is largely from its connections to powerful mage-priests, demon-worshipping sorcerers who have long served the emperor and his kin. Their hunger for corundum continues to be a major expense for the imperial family, while the dregs of the supplies are then resold to the lesser noble families for their own court sorcerers to utilize.

The noble families divide their time between their Marikuhlian concerns, where all of their political power and much of their economic wealth is located, and their baronial interests, where there remains much opportunity for advancement for the bold and the lucky. This keeps their attention divided, allowing the merchant class to frequently run roughshod over them and permitting the imperial court to further undercut their political ambitions.

Common folk, greatly emancipated from their lowly social status of a century ago, frequently abandon their lives to travel west. Many die in the journey, and still more find the western lands impossible to adapt to. Still, they try, seeking a better life beyond the horizon. Those who remain behind do their best to survive and adapt in a bad situation, especially now that the possibility of social advancement exists. Most never rise above their position of birth, however.

The empire is far from dying, but it is sick. This sickness could, given time and allowed to continue unabated, spell disaster for the old empire of Marikuhl. Hope remains, but it is as narrow as the edge of a sword.

Western Baronies: The Rise and Fall of Imperialism

2010-07-14T02:30:00.001-07:00

IMPERIALISM ASCENDANT

After a century of peace, followed by a decade of war, Marikuhl had transformed from a carefree frontier nation into a mighty world-threatening empire[1]. The aid offered to the emperor by the Ordo Astra Lyceum had its terrible price paid—during the war and after. One hundred years of human sacrifice also changed the character of the empire. Its leadership became significantly more jaded, more inured to horror and compromise. Though the war had been won, demon worship forever became embedded as a constant in the Marikuhlian nobility and public consciousness[2].

The War of Vengeance left a deep and abiding mark on the Marikuhlian persona, making the people more conscious of war and the nobility more aware of the potential of military force. The necessities of military action over the decade of the war forged the Marikuhlian Empire into a militant and rigid hierarchy, one in which military service was the highest goal a commoner could achieve and in which nobles were expected to be generals.

Quelling the remaining rebellions in Ovidium and exacting tribute from the defeated took the better part of a century, during which Marikuhl grew fat and strong on the labors of those who would have been their masters. Finally, after the end of the century of repayment to the demon-god of the Atlantean Ocean, Marikuhl extracted its interests from Ovidium and turned its attention to home. The society there was unlike the one that had existed before the war—more politically charged, more militant, crueler. Demon worship was as common as the following of the gods from the Old World.

Over the following centuries[3], Marikuhl solidified its hold upon the eastern half of Galatea, ignoring the largely desolate lands beyond the Corundum Mountains in the west. At the same time, the Marikuhlians, expanding for the first time in over two hundred years, drew the attention of forces both to the north and south of their empire.

To the north, a savage and clannish people called the Asatru[4] had ceased warring with one another and began turning their gaze outward. The Asatru had once been a seafaring people, descendants of an ancient colony long forgotten by the empire that spawned it, but their livelihood had been destroyed by the Marikuhlian pact with the demon-god of the ocean. The storms that prevented the Ovidians from crossing the ocean also prevented the Asatru from fishing. Starvation decimated their numbers, and it took them long generations to repopulate. Finally, their numbers strong once more, they rebuilt their mighty ocean fleet and began preying on Marikuhlian trading ships and Ovidian tribute vessels.

South of Marikuhl, lay an empire with a history spanning many centuries, the land of Teotihuacal[5]. The Marikuhlians knew of a distant land populated by strange folk, but only during the expansion period did they actually have cause to encounter them. Where demon worship was an accepted, if somewhat distasteful, part of life in Marikuhl, in Teotihuacal it was the norm. Frequent and public blood sacrifices and daily bloodsports were the accepted order in Teotihuacal, all under the fanatical rule of a group of god-kings—arcanists drawing immense power from their demonic patrons. As imperial lands encroached upon their ancestral lands, Marikuhlian citizens began to disappear from their homes, victims of Teotihuacal raiding parties.

Both of these problems would occupy Marikuhlian public consciousness and the military’s attention for the next two centuries.

TROUBLED TIMES

While vanquished, Ovidium was far from content with its lot. Many of the countries that had stood aside in the War of Vengeance came to regret their actions, feeling that if they had aided their former enemies, then perhaps they could have beaten back the colonials[6]. Now that Marikuhl had demonstrated its power and quelled its rivals, they feared, the day would come when Marikuhl’s expansionism would lead them to conquer the rest of the continent. The continuing Marikuhlian presence in the neighboring nations did little to allay their fears on this matter, and the noted continuance of demon worship in Marikuhl only made matters tenser.

One hundred and fifty years ago, a leader of one minor nation began forging secret alliances with neighboring leaders, seeking to build a coalition to stand against Marikuhlian ambition when the time came. The rumors of a gathering army were reported to Marikuhlian spies almost immediately. Before the War of Vengeance, such a rumor would have been greeted with cautious concern, and right after the war, it would have been met with humorous disdain. In the centuries since the war, however, the Marikuhlian leadership had grown paranoid of threats and greedy for resources—an unstable combination even at the best of times.

Based on these rumors, the military was mobilized and prepared for battle against once-harmless Ovidian countries. Even the battle-hardened soldiers of Marikuhl showed pause, however, when they found that their opponents were militarily weak and hardly a threat at all. Even the basic mutual defense agreements made by the Ovidians fell apart under the hammer of Marikuhlian force, and nation after nation fell in stunning fashion.

Desperate to save their people, a group of Ovidian sorcerers turned to dark patrons for aid in much the same way that the Marikuhlians had done so long before. This time, however, they did not simply seek to delay the invading force, as had the Marikuhlians, but to utterly destroy it. Such magic exacted a higher price than they were truly prepared to pay, however. While the demon-god summoned up by the Ovidians wiped out nine-tenths of the Marikuhlian invasion force, the population of their entire nation was consumed, to the last man, woman, and child.

The few remaining soldiers returned to their commanders, beaten and broken by the sights they had seen during the demon-haunted night thereafter called “the Scourging.” Faced with a crippling shortage of manpower and a possible mutiny if they chose to remain, the leaders of the army chose to limp back to Marikuhl, skeleton crews manning the ships that once held hundreds. While the nobility publicly mourned their losses, privately they fumed over those losses. With the army diminished their previous stranglehold on power was loosened, perhaps fatally.

The people did not take this opportunity to rebel, as their leaders had feared, but only stoked their anger against the Ovidians. Their faith in their noble ruling class was harmed, however, and the common Marikuhlians gained a deep distrust of their leaders. This distrust, and the weakness of the noble families, allowed a burgeoning merchant class to rise from the commoners, gaining power and influence in areas of daily life that had once been the sole province of the noble class[7].

Where nobles could once simply order their commoners to perform labors in exchange for a portion the food they themselves had grown by virtue of controlling a large military force, the losses in the Scourging War made such simplicity impossible. Now, those that had money could gain greater service than nobles, who were forced by necessity to themselves offer payment for things once theirs for free. As a corollary of this fact, merchants—who were expert at producing goods or moving them around in such a way as to generate profit—could make money more efficiently than nobles—whose sole skill, generally, was rulership[8].

The noble families gradually grew weaker as the merchant class strengthened, their control over the non-military aspects of Marikuhlian life slipping dramatically. Within a decade of the losses suffered during the Scourging, many merchants were living as well as their betters had done; within two, many merchants were the de facto rulers of their regions and provinces, governing through the regulation of trade while the nobles were too weak to stop them.

THE SUCCESSION WAR

The Succession War of half a century ago initially started as a conflict over the rights of individual noble families as compared to the inclusive powers of the imperial court[9]. Over the last decade, the imperial family and the emperor’s court had been placing more power directly in their own hands, circumventing the traditional checks and balances of provincial control by passing sweeping laws that affected all territories equally.

The initial thrust of these laws were actually designed to hamper the power of the merchant class, now that the empire’s army was back up to strength and the reigning emperor strong enough personally to envision their defeat. With the merchants thus hampered, however, trade slowed and stagnated, making goods more expensive locally and regionally, as well as damaging the remaining trade interests of many noble families.

Those nobles that had adapted to life under a strong economic system resented the trade law changes, while those that had not done so were too poor to truly benefit from them. The new taxes greatly benefited the emperor’s family and those families that had gained his favor, but few others saw profit from the alteration.

As the emperor’s court grew richer and more decadent, the rest of the nation suffered in poverty. Many merchants continued to trade goods under cover of night, turning to smuggling and racketeering to make their profits. Crime rates soared as even normal people were forced to turn to crime to support themselves. The nobles, ever struggling for dominance, entered the contest as well, bringing finesse and skill to the tables of the underworld.

The war was truly happening in the shadows and dark corners of the land for months before it was officially declared. When a minor noble family was implicated in the death of a merchant family leader ostensibly under the protection of a major noble family, the two groups went to war. Such a thing had never been done in the empire before, and all too quickly, now that the traditional means of settling grudges had been passed by, old hates and rivalries came to the fore. Within a month, most of the noble families were at war with one or more of their fellows.

The imperial family struggled to remain above it all, impartial and beyond reproach. Fear of the imperial legions and remaining respect for the emperor’s line kept the noble families from acting against the emperor directly, but they stayed deaf to repeated pleas to end the conflict.

Five years passed with the empire locked in a nearly constant state of warfare. Entire noble lines were extinguished in the conflict, and the common people suffered greatly. Starvation became a real concern in many provinces, as well as increased bandit activity, the commonality of criminal syndicates, and the rapaciousness of the army. In battles, few distinctions were made against military or civilian targets, and the citizens of rival provinces were often seen as little more than spoils by an invading force. The war raged on, no end in sight.

In the fifth year of the Succession War, a battle spilled over into imperial territory, and a legion responded to the encroachment with lethal force. Both enemy commanders turned on the interlopers, and the legion was destroyed, nearly to a man. When the dust settled, the emperor decreed both families at fault and commanded that they be eliminated. Rather than wait for the command to be fulfilled, one of the families—no one is quite sure which—had the emperor assassinated. Now truly leaderless, the empire collectively drew its breath in horror.

For over six hundred years, the line of the emperors had been sacrosanct, untouchable. Now, an emperor had been murdered by those that called him liege. The other noble families rallied around his death as a point of honor, setting aside differences to destroy both families—for in their eyes, both had been to blame. When the dust settled, and those two families had been eliminated, a truce was brokered with the new emperor, oaths were renewed, and the nobles looked out upon their folly and wept.

Notes:

[1] Much like America did after World War I. Admittedly, the timeline here isn't a direct analogue to American history, but it's a fantasy setting, so I've got some leeway.

[2] If one were politically minded, one could interpret this as America's increasing willingness to compromise its founding principles in the face of expedience.

[3] I leave this time vague here, but I believe I later establish the overall amount of time that Marikuhl has been around, so it's possible to extrapolate it from that.

[4] Yes, Vikings. Everything is better with Vikings. Especially if they're stand-ins for Canadians. =3

[5] Also, Aztecs. I tried my best to depict the neighboring cultures as not actually worse than Marikuhl, just a different kind of corrupt. This isn't a personal commentary on Canadians and Mexicans so much as it is a way to build up the Old West's mythology into a coherent sense of otherness. In the milieu of the Old West, all "foreigners" are dangerous; at least the natives have some sort of nobility amidst their savagery.

[6] This really is the sort of regret that France's nobility felt in aiding America's revolution when their own people rose up against them a few years later. Other colonial powers would look back on the American and French revolutions as the beginning of the end of the colonial age, though Britain would continue expanding well into the 20th century.

[7] The rise of the middle class is a necessary step toward the settlement of the west.

[8] This is intended to be a direct comparison to the decline of samurai power at the end of the Tokugawa Period, leading into the Meiji Restoration.

[9] Yes, it's the American Civil War.

Western Baronies of Marikuhl: The War of Vengeance

2010-07-07T05:14:00.000-07:00

THE WAR OF VENGEANCE

A century of easy peace and prosperity passed for the Marikuhlian Empire, its various provinces holding on to their colonial identities with pride and their noble families ruling well and with light hand. After the heavy-handedness of the old empires before the secession, no one wanted to risk public ire again by putting too much pressure on their people or their resources. Expansion halted as population growth slowed; without a constant influx of new settlers from Ovidium, the need for more land abated.

All of that ended in an eyeblink when a huge war fleet landed in Medrach Province and overran the provincial government within a day. From their beachhead at Medrach, the invaders made known their intentions: they had come from the Old World, newly united under a single ruler, and they intended to take back what they saw as theirs.[1]

The early weeks of the War of Vengeance were a bloody and futile affair, with the Marikuhlian forces beaten back time and again before the sheer size of the Ovidian army. More ships landed every day, and things seemed grim for the young empire.

An increasingly desperate emperor turned to his greatest advisors and generals for answers. At first, none were forthcoming, and it seemed that the empire must fall before their enemies. However, from obscurity came a cabal of sorcerers who offered their aid to the emperor. Magic, long a feared and reviled force in Ovidium, had flourished once more on Galatea, out from under the heel of oppressive and fearful governments. While Marikuhl had never officially sanctioned arcanists, neither had it persecuted them. This cabal, the Ordo Astra Lyceum, revealed to the emperor and his court a way to turn the tide of battle—though the cost would be terrible.

With heavy heart, the emperor accepted the cabal’s bargain: in exchange for a century of human sacrifice, the order’s patron, a mighty demon-god of the sea[2], would turn the seas against the Ovidians. Without the aid of their navy to speed battles or to allow reinforcements, the Marikuhlians would have time to organize a suitable defense. As well, the cabal would grant their services to the army itself. While magic was of little use against large numbers of men, its aid in destroying key personnel and facilities was invaluable.

The empire turned its significant resources to the manufacture of weapons and armor, the production of siege engines, and the indoctrination of soldiers. With a year of stalemate guaranteed by the emperor’s terrible bargain, the Marikuhlian Empire returned to the war in a far better position. The fearless Marikuhlian soldiers, fighting not just for their homes but for their way of life, harried the depleted Ovidian forces across the southern provinces of the empire, finally rooting them out of their last strongholds and sending them scrabbling for the deadly embrace of the sea.

It took nearly three years, but the Marikuhlians were at last successful. The expulsion or death of nearly every Ovidian invader was not enough to sate the newly awakened Marikuhlian bloodlust, though. The people cried out that the War of Vengeance would live up to its name—that they would have revenge upon those who would attempt to usurp their sovereignty. The nobles heard their cry, and a massive effort was put forward to build an invasion force. Within six months, with the aid of the demon-god of the sea and a massive building effort, the Marikuhlian fleet made their way across the Atlantean Ocean and back to the continent of their origin—where they would be victorious.

The end of the War of Vengeance was as one-sided as the beginning, but no salvation made itself known to the embattled Ovidians. Any empire that aided in the invasion was cast down, its leaders slain, its army shattered. Those that had not been complicit in the War of Vengeance were given a simple message: stand aside or share in the same fate. Since most of the remaining empires were losers in the Ovidian Ascension Wars of the previous century, and thus barely recovering themselves, the choice was easy.

Within five years, the empires of Ovidium were no more, and the Empire of Marikuhl had made its supremacy in world affairs known.[3]

Footnotes:

[1] Yes, this is intended to be a fantasy version of the War of 1812, turned up to 11.

[2] Cthulhu, basically. In later stuff about the Marikuhlian Empire, I make the Lovecraftian stuff a lot more clear.

[3] Like I said, dialed up to 11. The War of Vengeance starts off as a fantasy version of the War of 1812, but sort of ends as a fantasy version of World War I: "America gets big and goes to Europe to stomp all over everybody." Of course, the Marikuhlians are invaders this time around, and that ties in neatly with some of the themes of the setting, particularly about how barbarism saves civilization, but also condemns it. Giving in to violence is the only way to protect yourself from violence, but it also turns you into the thing you're fighting.

Western Baronies of Marikuhl: History of the Empire

2010-07-07T03:49:00.000-07:00

ORIGINS OF MARIKUHL

Eight hundred years ago, the empires of the continent of Ovidium[1] were strong and confident in their power. They held ancient rivalries and passed down grudges from one generation to the next. Many wars had come and gone on Ovidium, leaving regions of the continent with blood-soaked histories dating back centuries. Finally, however, the wars had paused long enough that several of the empires began to look beyond their own borders to lands that had been hinted of by scholars in old times—the legendary Western Lands.

A dozen unsuccessful naval expeditions across the Atlantean Ocean[2] left a bitter taste in the mouths of many governments, but others kept trying. After years of trying, one such expedition took root on the eastern shores of a continent that its discoverers named Galatea[3]. This land quickly became known by its nickname, though: Nova Mundi, the New World. The success of one colony inspired the launch of dozens more, many of which were modestly successful. After fifty years of colonization, almost twenty self-sufficient tributary colonies had been established along Galatea’s green and prosperous coast.

With the passing of decades, the Galatean colonies grew and encroached inward on the continent, pushing back the native peoples, the Ko’Manna[4]. While early contact with the Ko’Manna had been peaceful, colonial expansion and greed caused tension with them in less than a generation. The Ko’Manna lost much territory but gained a new innovation: horses. Fleeing west, the Ko’Manna became horse nomads, many tribes giving up their traditional homes rather than have to face the foreigners in open warfare. Several tribes of Ko’Manna actually integrated with the colonials, becoming a valued and vibrant part of life in a number of the colonies.

Communication with the Old World became more sporadic as tensions among the old empires increased. The colonies reflected these attitudes at first, acting toward one another with hostility and spite. Gradually, however, the colonial citizens came to realize that they had more in common with one another than with their originators back home. Many colonies had become so thoroughly dependent on one another for trade and economy that the rivalries of their empires could not be practically pursued in any fashion.

Finally, as had long been expected, war broke out once more in Ovidium and the many empires of the Old World demanded that their colonies follow suit. Orders for colonial food, soldiers, weapons, crafts, and aid of all sorts passed down to the regional governors, who then had to face the rancor of their people. The overburdened colonies groaned beneath the weight of their own needs added to the demands of their distant masters. Many regions faced deprivation, while others had to deal with insurrections against the local government.

At last, a leader emerged to take command in this time of strife. His name was Marik d’Amici[5], and he was a nobleman who had long been a staunch supporter of greater freedoms for the colonies. As civil unrest became more common, Lord Marik led a delegation of nobles from all of the colonies to make certain decisions for their people’s well being. Seeking to insure their own livelihood and the survival of their people, Lord Marik’s council came to the inevitable and difficult conclusion: to stand against the commands of their empires, they would have to be united, and they would have to cut all ties to their original homelands.

It took surprisingly little effort to unite the colonies beneath Lord Marik’s banner, and the brief skirmishes needed to expel imperial military forces were hardly worth the appellation of “war.” Busy with their own affairs and wars, the various empires of the Old World put aside their desire to punish their wayward children until they were finished with the matters at hand. It became an unspoken condition of the war that whichever empire triumphed would have first pick of the colonies when the time came to recapture them.

In a matter of scant months, the Galatean colonies had gone from territorial holdings to a single nation, united in spirit if not in origin. The many races and nationalities of the colonies celebrated their new freedom from distant masters and lauded their noble lords with praise. Lord Marik’s council was elevated to the status of rulers, and Marik himself was crowned Marik I, first emperor of the Empire of Marikuhl[6].

From these twenty-one families rose the ruling caste of Marikuhl, each family holding sway over one of the former colonies, now provinces, plus an additional region now set aside as the personal demesne of the imperial family. Each ruling family set up subsidiary noble families to keep account of their holdings and to administrate the daily goings-on of the provinces.

Footnotes:

[1] I called the "old world" Ovidium because it was evocative of Ovid, a Roman historian and poet, which set the tone for the old world as being "classical" and ancient.

[2] This is to tie the "new world" into the real-world myths of Atlantis, as well as to keep a touchstone with actual history. The Atlantic Ocean is also named for Atlantis.

[3] Galatea is the woman created from a statue by Pygmalion. The imagery I was trying to evoke here was of a new world made from the efforts of explorers, embodying it as a woman who came to life by the will and desire of her creator. It also continues the Greco-Roman theme of the old world.

[4] For the native peoples, I was looking for a world that included "mana" (magical energy or life force), so I shortened "cooperating-with-mana" and redubbed it a bit to make it look exotic. As a note, the Ko'Manna are human; there are no non-human PCs in the setting.

[5] Again, the naming is to emphasize the Romanesque sense of the old world. Also, it's a setup for the eventual name of the empire.

[6] Take "America," slur it to "'mericuh" and conflate it with "miracle." You get "mahr-ih-KOOL."

Western Baronies of Marikuhl: Intro

2010-07-07T03:45:00.000-07:00

So it occurred to me that I've never posted up the medieval fantasy Wild West setting I wrote ages ago, Western Baronies of Marikuhl. When I wrote it, I was looking to create an Iron Heroes setting, but the elements work well enough in any action-oriented roleplaying system. Essentially, I wanted to capture the things that were iconic about the American Old West in film and literature, and then retrofit them to a medieval-fantasy setting. Remove guns and replace them with swords, but otherwise try to capture the feel of the Old West with magic and dungeon-crawls.

Over the next week, I'll be posting up the pieces of the setting (and there's a lot of it). Feel free to let me know what you think about it!

Sign of the Zodiac: The Empowered

2010-05-21T00:59:00.000-07:00

THE EMPOWERED

People with extra-human abilities can be generally divided into four categories, all gathered together under the catch-all name of “the empowered.” Beneath this general grouping, there are:

Zodiacs
The twelve bearers of the Zodiac Signs. This is naturally the most exclusive group, since there are only twelve such individuals at any given time. Currently, all twelve Signs are in the custody of the United Nations peacekeeping forces and are assigned to specially trained operatives. Not all twelve Signs are active at all times, due to manpower shortages, training schedules, routine testing, and casualties, but the UN does its best to make sure that at least six Zodiacs are in the field at all times. These heroes are also sometimes called Alphas.

Betas
This parlance has really only become common in the last decade as studies of Annunaki science and Omega genetics have paid off. Anyone with human-produced artificial powers, whether a robot exoskeleton or gene-spliced claws, is a Beta. The term was intentionally coined by the media as a bridge between Zodiacs (“Alphas”) and Gammas. It is widely believed that science may only be a few short decades from unraveling the secrets of the Zodiac Signs. Some humans with no powers except for resources and gadgetry are also sometimes mislabeled as Betas.

Gammas
Any empowered individual using an Annunaki relic to gain their powers is known as a Gamma, from the mathematical symbol for “variable.” Most relics grant far lesser powers to their wielders than the true Signs, and they are incredibly unpredictable. Some relics offer only instant death to anyone that touches them, while others transform the bearer into near-gods. Still, the promise of power has lured more than one person into relic-hunting. Others simply stumbled onto their relics by chance and have had to learn how to use them haphazardly. Gammas (sometimes called "Gizmos") have a reputation for being “small fry” and for being villains, since all of the Zodiac Signs have been in the hands of heroes for decades now. Reliquary sciences have led to the advancement of human technology at a rapid rate.

Omegas
Sometimes called “Zeds” or “Z-Twos,” Omegas are the result of the Hiroshima detonation, humans who were poisoned before birth by the released radiation of Annunaki technology, developing strange and aberrant mutations. Many Omegas are hideous monsters, twisted mockeries of the human form that suggest the nightmare shapes of the Annunaki themselves, while others could easily pass for normal—until they use their terrible powers. If anything good can be said about the Omegas, it is that Gammas have become more accepted since they appeared. The study of the so-called Omega Gene has become a major field of scientific endeavor in the last thirty years.

THE ZODIAC

The twelve Zodiac Signs have existed for thousands of years, drifting in and out of human history with the force of myth and legend. They have wandered the entirety of the world, though they are believed to have been created in the Middle East by a prehistoric figure called Gilgamesh who fought the alien slavers known as the Annunaki. The Zodiac Signs imbue their holders with amazing, seemingly supernatural powers, usually including increased toughness and longevity, but limited only by the willpower and force of personality of their bearer. The powers of each Sign seem to follow a general theme—Aries grants amazing combat prowess, while Pisces gives powers of healing—but they seem to rewrite their abilities for each new user. Perhaps the only constant of the Signs is that once they are bonded to a host, no known force save the wielder’s death can separate them.

The United Nations tells people that the Signs are currently all possessed by their Zodiac Division, which is comprised of dedicated individuals trained for years to act as a Sign-bearer should a current one fall in battle. The truth is somewhat different. At any given time, the UN only controls eight to ten of the Signs, with the others being missing in action. As well, the UN does not choose the Sign-bearers—the Signs choose their own wielders through some unknown process, traveling from their fallen host to search for a new one in a matter of moments.

Should a Sign-bearer fall in battle or die of old age (which has happened, albeit rarely), the Zodiac Division immediately mobilizes to find the new Sign-bearer and bring him into the fold before something can go wrong. The rare rogue Sign-bearers get reported to the media as especially powerful Gammas to preserve the UN’s secret (and the reputation of the Zodiacs). Occasionally, however, a Sign simply goes missing for months or years at a time, resurfacing just as mysteriously as it vanished. Signs also go quiet sometimes, spending weeks or months inert; it is during these rare quiet periods that actual research on the Signs is conducted.

Every Sign has certain personality types to which it seems to be drawn, and offers broad categories of powers. There are mythological and astrological associations with the Signs as well, and the practice of astrology remains just as popular in the modern day as it did in prehistory despite ample scientific opposition to its veracity thanks in part to the popularity of the Zodiacs.

Aries: The Ram

The master of warfare and strategy, Aries offers its followers melee combat prowess unmatched by any lesser warrior. Any weapon is deadly in the hands of an Aries, and every bit of terrain a key element to victory. An Aries thrives in situations that require courage, leadership and strength, though their aggressive nature sometimes leads them into rash or impulsive action.

Aries is a masculine sign, and its element is Fire. Diamond, also called adamant, is the birthstone of the Aries, and their preferred metal is iron. Red, white and black are the colors of Aries, colors commonly associated with warfare. Physically the Aries is tall in stature, and athletic in appearance. Even an Aries with a poor physique seems much fitter than he really is. Aries tend to have short, military-cut hair, even without cutting it. Their natural expression is that of a scowl, and they have great difficulty at showing mirth or joy easily.

Power Associations: Super-strength, invulnerability, mystic weaponry, close combat prowess, fire-based powers.

Taurus: The Bull

Resourceful and dependable, the Taurus is the epitome of defensive combat just as the Aries is the epitome of aggressive combat. A Taurus masters her own body to become tough and stable beyond the ability of others to move or harm her. Because of their desire for stability and forethought, however, a Taurus can often seem dull, argumentative or conservative to others.

Taurus is a feminine sign, and its element is Earth. Emerald is the birthstone for Taurus, and its metal is copper. Pale blue, light green and mauve are its preferred colors. Physically, individuals born under the sign of Taurus tend to have a full and square face, large and expressive eyes, and thick, often curly hair. Generally, there is something distinctly sensual about their appearance—earthy and full-figured. They are usually of average height.

Power Associations: Invulnerability, regeneration, force fields, immobility, earth- or metal-based powers.

Gemini: The Twins

The Gemini is a dualistic individual, on the one hand adaptable and articulate, and on the other fickle and insensitive. A Gemini’s abilities focus on interaction and the ability to become what others seek to see and hear. Cunning diplomats and moving speakers, a Gemini’s greatest flaw is his inability to be his own person—a Gemini ever mirrors others.

Gemini is a masculine sign, and its element is Air. The birthstone for Gemini is the pearl, and their metal is silver. Both represent the fluidity of personality and expression that Gemini consider essential. Gemini prefer white if they must pick only one color, but their true calling is in the panoply of the rainbow. Physically, Gemini tend to have a straight and narrow nose, long limbs, high cheekbones, large hands and long fingers.

Power Associations: Duality, speed, quickness, emotion control, disguise, shape changing, telekinesis.

Cancer: The Crab

Cancer is generous and devoted, capable of offering healing and care to others even at greatest cost to herself. Visionaries, teachers and lawgivers, the sign of Cancer lends itself to those that place the good of others over their own well-being. Unlike Taurus, who seeks to defend their physical selves, Cancer protects their rights and souls. Their devotion can easily turn to zealotry, however, and Cancer can seem controlling or even domineering at times.

Cancer is a feminine sign, and its element is Water. Ruby is the birthstone of Cancer, with its connotations of blood and health. Cancer’s colors are silver, white and black, muted tones for the seriousness of their calling. The physical characteristics associated with Cancer are below average height and short legs; many Cancers are also somewhat pudgy. A Cancer usually has dark hair, a round face, a pale complexion, and small eyes. They sometimes walk clumsily, for no readily apparent reason.

Power Associations: Group defense, invulnerability, healing, natural weaponry, water-based powers.

Leo: The Lion

Ambitious and independent, but ultimately noble, a Leo finds his truest calling as a leader of men. From magistrate to king, a Leo is born to greatness. Perhaps because of this regal bearing and their aristocratic calling, Leos also have a reputation for being overbearing and luxurious, without any concept of the value of money. A Leo does not request—he demands, and expects to be heard.

Leo is a masculine sign, and its element is Fire. Leo’s birthstone is the royal peridot, a jewel of nobility, and its metal is gold. Gold and purple are the colors of Leo. Leos tend to be large in all physical features. They are usually tall, with broad shoulders, large hands and feet, and tend to be quite tan. They keep their head held high and look down their noses at others, and have thick manes of light-colored hair.

Power Associations: Empathy, mind control, unnatural charisma, super strength.

Virgo: The Virgin

Purity is the watchword of the Virgo. Not just physical purity but spiritual purity as well. Not all Virgos are literal virgins, but even at their worst they seem virginal. A Virgo values innocence and justice, and is willing to pursue truth and moral uprightness to almost any extreme. Their modesty and discretion can make them seem prudish and perfectionists to those who have lower standards of excellence.

Virgo is a feminine sign, and its element is Earth. The Virgo’s birthstone is sapphire, blue and placid, and their metal is quicksilver, better known as mercury. Grey and deep blue are the representative colors for Virgo. Physically, individuals born under the sign of Virgo tend to have a graceful figure, a round head, large and clear eyes, and refined features. They are usually of slightly above average height, and their limbs are long and graceful.

Power Associations: Empathy, invulnerability, mind reading, energy powers.

Libra: The Scales

The sign of the Libra is one of the most valued in the Zodiac. With its penchant for balance and moderation, and talents that lend themselves to fairness and equality, Libras are judges, peacemakers and builders. Unlike the Gemini, who is skilled at copying another’s viewpoint and mimicking it, a Libra excels at actually understanding both sides of complex issues and finding ways to balance them. Some see Libras as easily swayed thanks to their willingness to shift views, however.

Libra is a masculine sign, and its element is Air. Opal is the birthstone for Libras, and has become the traditional precious stone in the garb of judges and magistrates. Steel is a Libra’s metal, and its colors are lavender and pale green. Physically, individuals born under the sign of Libra tend to have a graceful figure, charming appearance, a high forehead, and a “trademark” dimple. Libras are of above average height.

Power Associations: Mind reading, empathy, emotion control, telekinesis, air-based powers.

Scorpio: The Scorpion

Secretive and intense, a Scorpio revels in mystery and enigma. They understand that knowledge is the truest currency—and that the fewer people who know a given thing, the more valuable it becomes. Their innate talents lend toward being spies, thieves and infiltrators, and some Scorpios take their assets a step further to become assassins. Even friendly Scorpios hide things from their loved ones, and their inner passions often drive them to become manipulative or cruel.

Scorpio is a feminine sign, and its element is Water. The topaz is Scorpio’s birthstone, and, like Libra, its metal is steel. Scorpios have a natural affinity for maroon and black. The nose is the most prominent physical feature of the Scorpio; it tends to be large and hooked, aquiline. A Scorpio’s eyes are dark and piercing. Their faces are angular, and their hair dark, sometimes with a red tinge in direct light. A Scorpio’s body is short and thick, resembling its opposite sign, Taurus.

Power Associations: Stealth, invisibility, quickness, superhuman dexterity, natural weapons, magnetic powers.

Sagittarius: The Archer

Born with an eagle eye and a steady hand, a Sagittarius is a master of archery almost before he can walk. Freedom-loving and idealistic, the Sagittarius hopes that someday every person will embrace his broad-minded philosophy. At his best, a Sagittarius is open and honest, accepting of others, while at his worst he is impulsive, tactless and rebellious without good cause.

Sagittarius is a masculine sign, and its element is Fire. The birthstone of Sagittarius is turquoise, and its metal is tin. Blue and white are the colors of Sagittarius, though pink is also sometimes used. People born under the sign of Sagittarius have a large and well-shaped head, with a high and broad forehead. They possess a tall and broad figure, and fair hair that tends to grow long and wild.

Power Associations: Ranged combat prowess, energy projection, quickness, super speed.

Capricorn: The Sea-Goat

With their birth sign so closely resembling the traditional emblems of devils, it is no wonder that Capricorns are regarded with mistrust and suspicion. A Scorpio might stab you in the back, but she would do it in a moment of passion—a cold, ambitious Capricorn would do it with perfect calculation, having decided your doom months beforehand. A Capricorn’s mystical powers make them no less strange and terrible to others, but their hard-working and serious natures make them reliable allies to anyone willing to associate with them.

Capricorn is a feminine sign, and Earth is its element. Garnet is Capricorn’s birthstone, and many mystical properties (including summoning powers) are attributed to that gem. Electrum is the metal of the Capricorn—neither truly gold nor silver—and its colors are brown and dark green. Physically, individuals born under the sign of Capricorn tend to have dark hair, steady eyes, a dark complexion, capable hands, and prominent cheekbones.

Power Associations: Strange luck, pseudo-arcane powers, mind shielding, warding and defense, deception.

Aquarius: The Water-Bearer

The Aquarius looks into the depths of the human mind, seeking meaning in the pursuit of the intellectual. The urn held by Aquarius in myth does not hold only water, but the very water of life—the urn is the receptacle of all knowledge. Though somewhat detached because of their intellectual pursuits, an Aquarius is friendly and progressive in his personal life. He seeks knowledge not just for its own sake, but to share it with others and improve their lives by doing so. Their erratic pursuit of esoteric learning can make them eccentric and self-centered, though.

Aquarius is a masculine sign, and its element is Air. Amethyst, purple and full of palpable magical force, is the birthstone of Aquarius. Brass is its metal, and its colors are various shades of blue and purple. Physically, individuals born under the sign of Aquarius tend to have finely chiseled features and a slender figure. Male Aquarians are often somewhat soft in features, while females are somewhat broad-shouldered and strong looking but also fair.

Power Associations: Mind reading, mind control, super intellect, illusions, general psychic powers.

Pisces: The Fishes

With a sign that governs both beauty and health, a Pisces almost literally glows with attractive well-being. Where a Cancer would heal wounds, and a Virgo would heal spirits, a Pisces wipes away disease and pain. As well, their focus on appearance lends itself easily to the manipulation of appearance—illusion and reality mix freely for a Pisces. Sometimes impractical and even escapist in their fantasies, a Pisces is sensitive, creative and artistic. “Enchanting” applies to a Pisces in every sense of the word.

Pisces is a feminine sign, and its element is Water. Aquamarine is the birthstone of Pisces, and platinum is their metal. The colors associated with Pisces are aquamarine, purple and mauve. Individuals born under the sign of Pisces tend to have heavy-lidded and liquid eyes, a tall stature, and a broad physique. Their hair grows long but thin.

Power Associations: Healing, regeneration, aquatic powers, unnatural charisma.

Sign of the Zodiac

2010-05-15T00:25:00.000-07:00

It's been a while, but I'm not dead! Just very busy. In return, here's the outline for a superhero campaign I've been working on, Sign of the Zodiac.

SIGN OF THE ZODIAC

Earth is a troubled world, a world in need of heroes. But then, it always has been.

At the dawn of time, beings called the Annunaki called Earth home. They built a grand civilization on the backs of human slaves, making their homes in enormous towers of gold and diamond. Their technology was advanced enough that they did not need servants, of course, but the possession of slaves was a status symbol among the Annunaki, and Earth slaves were especially prized.

Cruel and inhuman as the Annunaki were, no human could truly say they truly understood their masters, who possessed seemingly endless magical powers. They slew men for sport, pitted their slaves against one another in gladiatorial fights, made them construct monuments though they had the power to do so more quickly and efficiently, and turned the primitive world of Earth into a paradise for themselves—and a hell for its natives.

The people labored under their masters for countless centuries, unable to think even of the concept of freedom because of the Annunaki’s uncanny powers of mind control. Finally, there came a day when a single man arose from the masses of humanity to call for an end to the tyranny. His name was Gilgamesh, and in his wake was rebellion. Charismatic, resistant to the powers of the Annunaki, and possessing great physical strength and intelligence, Gilgamesh learned the secrets of the Annunaki “magic” and turned it against his former masters. From among the people, he chose twelve champions named for the constellations and granted them weapons to use against the Annunaki.

In time, Gilgamesh and his Zodiac defeated the Annunaki, cast down their mighty towers, and drove them from Earth. The first hero and his companions passed down into the annals of myth and legend. Over the centuries, the regalia of the Zodiac would sometimes resurface, usually no more than a piece or two at a time, and epic legends of heroes and villains would be birthed from their appearance. Similarly, pieces of lost Annunaki technology would sometimes be unearthed in the strangest places, leading to “natural” disasters or the rise of petty tyrants. History is speckled with the legends of such occurrences, shrouded in the language of mysticism.

As the 20th century approached, such events became more and more common, and the governments of the world started taking notice. The British Empire was the first to connect the legends and strange events together, leading to their imperial push in the Victorian Age. Those in the know had put together the bits and pieces of history, creating a terrifying tapestry that they could not afford to leave in the hands of enemies. They never managed to garner more than a few scattered relics of this hidden past, but their scramble for power led to other nations discretely participating in the grand game as well.

World War I was the beginning of the end for the British Empire. While it won the war, it lost much of its spirit keeping the dangerous Zodiac Signs out of the hands of Germany and its allies. The Zodiac heroes on the side of America and England were tired from all the fighting and hoped to retire gracefully. Unfortunately, several mighty relics falling to Germany and Japan spurred the Second World War, during which the secret finally became stretched too thin to keep. By the end of the war, costume-clad heroes bearing Zodiac Signs or wielding Annunaki relics were flying alongside American bombers in the European theater or guarding warships from attack in the Pacific. During this time, anyone with super-human abilities (regardless of source) became known as the empowered.

By 1945, Germany was defeated and Japan was holding out only from sheer desperation. Unable to crack the atomic secrets held by an Annunaki ship uncovered in the American southwest, the government of the United States ordered their most powerful Zodiacs—codenamed Aries and Taurus—to unleash their full power on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Though reluctant, they were persuaded by the military high command that such a display would ultimately result in the loss of less human life.

Something went terribly wrong. Instead of becoming simple demonstrations of Zodiac might on Japanese soil, the incursion turned into a full-on battle between the American Zodiacs and a cadre of Japanese soldiers wielding Annunaki technology. In the three-day-long fight, both Hiroshima and Nagasaki were totally devastated, slaying tens of thousands of innocent civilians, inundating others with deadly radiation, and destroying buildings like matchbook houses. Finally, one of the relic-users tried something he had never done before, and for a brief second, Hiroshima was bathed in the fires of the sun. None of the empowered survived the battle, but the Japanese government was so demoralized by the attack that they finally surrendered.

After the end of the war, the world powers realized that another such conflict might mean the end of humankind. To avoid such a nightmare, a new organization was established to maintain and monitor the Zodiacs. The group, the United Nations, became a clearinghouse for diplomacy and negotiation, as well as the final arbiter of international conflicts. Armed with the power of the Zodiacs, no nation wanted to stand against the UN. The following decade saw peaceful relations between powers that once despised one another, at least on the surface. Truthfully, nations still fought and warred, they just did so on a smaller and more hidden scale. Since Zodiacs were only brought out for the most dangerous and significant situations, countries found that they could kill each other as much as they wanted, as long as they did so quietly.

The breakthrough in Annunaki technology came during the 1960s in Japan, as the government struggled to deal with the civil strife brought on by the rejection of American peacekeeping forces and the burgeoning population of Omegas. An Omega university student surpassed all of his peers when his Omega Gene went active, allowing him to leap decades ahead in raw technical prowess. By the end of the 70s, clean-energy engines were common and the internet had become a global phenomenon—and Japan had become the wealthiest country in the world. Many secrets remain to be pulled from the Annunaki relics, most of which still defy analysis. Still, it’s an exciting time to be alive.

The Present Day

The year is 1984. Jimmy Carter is the president of the United States, after winning a narrow victory against an actor-turned-politician from California. His efforts as a peacekeeper and humanitarian have made him incredibly popular with the international community, though he is little-liked by his own countrymen after several contentious decisions regarding his dealings with Communist nations. Still, America is wealthy, safe and powerful, riding high on its victories in the World Wars into a glorious future.

The Soviet Union is a mighty country, rival but not enemy of America, under the leadership of Konstantin Chernenko, though his ill health makes it seem likely that another leader will rise to take his place all too soon. Glasnost has been good to Russia, allowing the country to preserve its Communist ideals while still becoming more open to the world at large. America and Russia bicker amicably in the United Nations, while playing their long-term game of chess against one another through intermediaries in the third world.

The third great world power of this era is Japan, though Japan’s might is economic rather than military. With the large population of Omegas within the country, Japan has essentially supercharged its economy with laborers who exceed human strength and endurance, businessmen who can read minds or predict stock trends, and scientists capable of intuitively designing advanced computers and electronics. Their military, while substantially smaller than that of most major nations, is composed primarily of Omegas as well. The Japanese Self-Defense Force, or J-SDF as it is known, is the single largest organized group of Omegas in the world.

Much of Africa is in the grip of various Beta and Omega warlords, ruling over their territories like feudal kings without United Nations sanction or cooperation. China is restructuring itself as a pseudo-Communist state and rapidly becoming the Soviet Union’s primary local rival for power. The Middle East is a land of peace since the end of world reliance on oil, though just as prosperous thanks to their undertaking of major archeological and scientific study of the many Annunaki ruins beneath the surface of their lands.

Europe, on the other hand, has become a renewed hotbed of conflict since the German reunification in 1980 as the nations of the European Union, long engaged in rivalry with the Soviet Union, must now also contend with the German Federation. As well, England seems to be on a new imperial push after leaving the European Union in 1979 and conquering Argentina during the Falklands War of 1982 against United Nations political opposition. South America is rapidly restructuring its previously fractious governments to stand against English aggression, gaining a new foothold in the world community and building allies in the UN.

Modern Technology

Because of the rapid Japanese advances in electronics, computers, and robotics during the 1960s and 1970s, the modern day is a time of incredibly advanced technology. Cell phones, little more than science fiction a decade ago, have become a major part of the global communications network, and the InterNet (International Network) of home computers is rapidly gaining popularity as well. First world nations have access to nearly-unlimited power, most cars are electric, and virtually every citizen in the world’s largest countries owns a personal computer as well as a vehicle.

Along with the benefits of advanced technology have come the drawbacks, however. Energy weapons have taken the place of ballistics on the battlefield, and most security forces are now armed with “bolters” (plasma bolt weapons) or “sizzlers” (laser weapons) as well as advanced ceramic body armor. Only the most common criminals or concerned citizens use gunpowder weapons anymore. (The American right to bear arms was recently upheld to include “personal arms” like rifles and handguns but not “military arms” like bolters, but getting a military weapons license is easy enough for the wealthy.) Primitive force field technology has managed to banish the brief fears of nuclear war, after the development of the atomic bomb in 1969. Virtually every major city has a force-screen generator, allowing it to deflect incoming missile attacks, though these screen generators have only limited battlefield application.

Medical sciences have advanced along with civil and military sciences, making most forms of surgery simple outpatient procedures. Cybernetics have become quite improved, allowing people with missing limbs to regain almost full functionality (if not sensation). Exo-frames are becoming more popular in the medical field as well, used for restoring mobility to people with major bodily paralysis or granting it to individuals with mobility-related birth defects. Major strides have been made in cracking the Omega Gene, allowing for simple genetic manipulation and modification of individuals. Such “enhancements” have become very popular in some nations, leading to entire subcultures of body modifiers.

Space travel has been aided by the proliferation of free energy, and the United Nations has both a working international space station (named Lagrange Station) and a moon colony (ostentatiously called Luna City). A manned Mars expedition is expected within the decade, and corporate investors are pushing to allow private industry access to Luna City. Should they succeed, the sparsely populated moon colony could become a real city in very short order. Space exploration is considered vitally important for Earth, since modern people know that aliens exist, and that they’re likely to be hostile if the Annunaki are any standard to judge by.

The most unusual application of modern science is so called DT-science (short for Dimensional Theory science), the study of Annunaki technology. Most Annunaki relics store the bulk of their mass in sub-spatial dimensions, protruding only the necessary pieces into “normal” reality. The friction between dimensional strata is the basis for zero-point energy, the nearly limitless energy source that has made modern life so comfortable. The manipulation of dimensional layers is the origin of the seemingly miraculous properties of Annunaki relics (and the Zodiac Signs, of course), but little more than this is certain, even today. The few human made zero-point reactors are town-sized facilities, capable of putting out a small fraction of the power of a fist-sized Annunaki weapon.

***

Next post: The Empowered!

Heroes of the Tower: New Hindrance

2009-12-04T21:33:00.001-08:00

Just so people don't think I reserve all my love for Edges, here's a new Hindrance for Heroes of the Tower.

Roont [Major Hindrance]
You were a child of the Callas once, born in the borderlands between Mid-World and End-World, but as a child you were stolen away to Thunderclap and there things were done to you. You came back big, slow, and dumb, and while you may have gotten a little better since then, you’re never going to be quite all there—and you’re one of the lucky ones.
A roont character gains the benefits of the Brawny Edge (and cannot take that Edge again), but suffers some severe penalties as well. You cannot raise your Smarts above d4, even after character creation. You suffer a –2 penalty on Guts checks because of your occasional fits of irrational terror, and you take a –2 penalty to Charisma due to your slightly deformed and unnerving appearance. Additionally, your life span is only about half that of a normal person’s. Good luck.

TORG Redux

2009-11-24T22:15:00.000-08:00

It occurs to me that I mentioned a while back that I was running a Savage TORG game, but I never mentioned any of the mechanical stuff associated with it. I used some of the things from the Savage TORG conversion at Dragonsfoot, but I also tinkered with a lot of the mechanics myself. Since I had an Orrorshan monster hunter and a Nile Empire superhero, I also had to throw together some special Edges for those guys. Here's a sample of some of the changed and new Edges I did for that campaign.

Kaiju Form [Legendary]
Requirements: Legendary, Spirit d6+, arcane skill d10+, must know shape change power
Your ability to assume new forms is no longer limited by mere size. You can change into the form of truly enormous beasts, creatures that dwarf buildings and blot out the sun.
You can become creatures larger than Size +4. Changing into such creatures costs 7 Power Points, plus 1 Power Point for every five full points of Size. So, changing into a Size +5 creature would cost 8 Power Points, while changing into a Size +10 creature would cost 9 Power Points. The duration of the power and all other limitations remain unchanged.

Storm Knight [Reality]
Requirements: Novice, Reality d4+
Your experience fighting against invading realities has given you an expanded ability to detect possibility energy. If you succeed in a Notice check against a target number of the target’s Spirit die (so d8 would be target number 8), you can detect whether or not they are possibility-rated as a blue and red aura around them. Doing so is an active use of the skill and requires a full round of concentration, during which time you can take no other action but movement.
You can also detect possibility energy in the environment as an intangible sensation. You always know whether a zone is mixed, dominant, or pure. If you pass within sight of a stelae, hardpoint, or other strong conduit of possibility energy, you automatically sense it.
Finally, you gain a +2 bonus on Reality rolls made for reality storms.

Storm Warrior [Reality]
Requirements: Seasoned, Storm Knight, Reality d6+
By spending a benny, you can infuse an inanimate object with a temporary reality field, creating a talisman. It functions similar to a reality bubble but has a radius equal to half your Reality die, and lasts for the remainder of the session.

Storm Lord [Reality]
Requirements: Veteran, Storm Warrior, Reality d8+
Over time, your experience with manipulating reality has made you a powerful force in the Possibility Wars. The number of eternity shards you can bond with is increased by 1, and you only disconnect from your home reality with a critical failure on a disconnect check.

True Sight [Weird]
Requirements: Novice, Spirit d8+, Notice d4+
Some characters from Orrorsh have cultivated a form of the “second sight” that allows them to see through the human-seeming guises of some types of monsters. A character with this Edge can peer through the veil that conceals such corruption.
The character makes a Notice check, opposed by the target’s Spirit roll, with a penalty equal to the creature’s Fear rating (if any). If the check succeeds, the hero sees through the disguise to the monster beneath. For each raise, the True Sight also reveals one of the creature’s personal weaknesses (GM’s discretion to which is revealed).

I'm thinking about starting a new Savage TORG game in the next few months, so I'll probably be posting more about that as time passes.

Heroes of the Tower

2009-11-24T22:09:00.000-08:00

I'm currently working on making a Savage Worlds campaign based on Stephen King's The Dark Tower series. The working title is "Heroes of the Tower," and I've just started putting together some arcane backgrounds and campaign-specific Edges for it. Here are a couple of them.

Gunslinger [Professional Edge]
Requirements: Seasoned, Quick Draw, Agility d6+, Spirit d6+, Guts d6+, Intimidation d6+, Persuasion d6+, Shooting d8+
You have been trained as one of the seppe-sai, a Gunslinger of Gilead. You wear the big iron, the gun of your ancestors, and you carry yourself with the effortless grace of one who knows the face of his father. You gain a +1 bonus on Guts, Intimidation and Persuasion rolls, and a +2 bonus on any roll made as part of a gunfighting duel (including damage).
You are also gifted with a personal firearm--a revolver of fine craft passed down through your lineage for many generations. Such revolvers often have personal flourishes or small enchantments about them, but this is entirely up to the GM.
Additionally, if you take the Trademark Weapon Edge and apply it to your personal gun, you gain a +1 bonus on damage rolls with that firearm. This bonus increases to +2 if you take Improved Trademark Weapon.

The Touch [Background Edge]
Requirements: Novice, Spirit d6+
Not every person gifted with a little bit of the supernatural is a full-blown psychic. Some folks just have a touch of strangeness about them. Maybe they get a little nudge in their heads when they’re in danger, or they can feel it when a close friend or relative dies. Regardless of the exact manifestation, your character has been touched by fate.
Once per session, you can spend a benny to request a hint from the GM relating to your current situation, or to determine the status of a friend or loved one. Hints should be vague but helpful, and the status is always broad ("He’s in trouble," or "She’s hurt bad, maybe dying"). The GM can refuse to give you any information, but if he does so, you do not spend a benny and instead gain an additional one.
Additionally, if you have the Danger Sense Edge, you make your Notice rolls for that Edge at no penalty.

The design philosophy here is that the Edges grant a tangible benefit, as well as synergizing with standard Edges from the core rules. I think that this lends itself well to creating characters who are campaign-oriented, and who are willing to take things that lend themselves well to emulating the genre. That is, by making a synergistic link between Gunslinger and Trademark Weapon, you encourage characters to build their gunslingers with a personal firearm that has a name, story, and background all its own, just like Roland's guns from the novels. (No spoilers here for anyone who doesn't know the story behind them.)

Personal Update and Project

2009-10-16T04:09:00.000-07:00

Buying a house is hard, time-consuming work. Remind me not to do this again, assuming I want to have a writing career.

On the plus side, in two weeks I will be out of my cruddy apartment and in a large, pleasant house that has a room my wife has already set aside as a study and writing office. Hopefully, things will flow more easily once I have a dedicated writing space, instead of trying to sneak in a paragraph here or there while I'm having lunch on campus.

The Savage Worlds version of my book Ronin is still up in the air. I've been fiddling a bit with it, but High Moon hasn't given me the formal go-ahead yet. In the meantime, I've been amusing myself with a side project: a wuxia-style setting that isn't set in a thinly-veiled historical China.

I love me some Asian history (as you may have guessed, O readers of this blog), but I think it's almost a disservice to myself to become typecast as "that guy who does historical Asian RPGs." There are worse fates, goodness knows, but I want to write something that isn't just "Sengoku with magic" or "Three Kingdoms with magic." I would very much like to do for China history what Rokugan did for Japan: take all the best parts, and cool things from surrounding areas, and make something new out of it. A Chinese-inspired game rather than a Chinese-historical game.

I can't tell you too much about it yet, not even what system I'm writing it for, but I'm currently doing my research, writing chapter snippets while consulting with my battered copy of Tao Te Ching, casting some trigrams for inspiration, and looking at lots of art about pandas. ^_^ Hopefully, something interesting will come of it.

Return and Review

2009-08-29T01:30:00.001-07:00

After saying that I wanted to update this blasted thing regularly, I drop off the face of the earth for six months again. Partly, it was professional obligations (that is to say, writing for which I am being paid), and partly my schoolwork. I don't talk about my personal life on here very much, since I think it detracts from the point of a design blog, but I feel the need to brag: Taking six months away from the blog must have paid off somewhere, since I am now in the running for the prestigious Rhodes Scholarship. If I manage to keep my GPA up and not horribly botch something, I could be one of a select group of students chosen to finish out my graduate education at Oxford University in England, where I will be pursuing my Master's in Library Sciences. Hold your applause, please. The odds that I'll be chosen even if I manage to still be qualifying for the thing in two years (which is the soonest I can apply for graduation) is about one in six at best.

Ah well, even if I don't get it, it's one of those things that's genuinely an honor for which to even be considered. And there's always getting my MLS right here at good old U of K, at which I am currently enrolled and pursuing my BA in English.

I just got back from GenCon the week before school started, and they had quite the plethora of things I wanted there. While I picked up Geist: The Sin-Eaters on the first day, as I always do with the new White Wolf game, I've barely glanced through it. Something about it is off-putting; maybe it's the lower quality of the book overall (coarser paper, smudgier edge work, that sort of thing), or maybe I'm just too melancholy about it not being NWraith. Either way, I'm hoping to slog through the thing at some point in the near future.

The big purchase of the convention for me was the Pathfinder RPG, of which I am a huge fan. Being out in the cold with the arrival of D&D 4th Edition, I'm pleased that Paizo, whose work I have respected for years, has decided to carry on the torch of 3.X. It's a huge book, weighing in at 500+ pages, and the interior is so beautiful that mere words can't describe it. Suffice to say that Paizo has outdone their usual (very high already) standards. I even got to run Pathfinder Society events on Thursday and Friday of the convention, so bully for me!

I was able to hit the Studio 2/Pinnacle booth for a while, and I basked in the soft glow of Savage Weird War II and Realms of Cthulhu, both of which I desperately wanted but couldn't afford. My only purchase there was one I've been waiting for, though: the Fantasy Companion. Two of my friends picked it up at Origins, and I'd been tearing out my (last remaining) hair over wanting my own copy. I'm still planning on picking up the other books (as well as Hellfrost and Space: 1889 when I can get around to them), though it might take a month or so before I have the funds.

My last significant purchase at GenCon was something of an impulse buy. I was hearing about a new d20 variant game on rpg.net the week before GenCon, something called FantasyCraft. It's made by Crafty Games, and is a revision/alteration of their very successful SpyCraft game engine (which they are apparently calling "Mastercraft"). I was iffy about the game, having had only sporadic and somewhat mediocre experiences with SpyCraft, until someone mentioned in their review of the pre-release that one of the base races were dragons.

Let me repeat: dragons. Not dragonborn, not lizardmen, not half-dragons, but actual fire-breathing, flying, scaly dragons. That sold me right there. I couldn't give Crafty Games my money fast enough at GenCon.

Now that I actually own the book, my ardor has cooled, but only somewhat. There's a definite learning curve involved, and one that isn't necessarily made any easier by having played numerous other d20 games before. There's an odd combination of flavorful, even amusingly snarky, writing mixed in with very dry (like arid) statistical description and standardized abilities. I mean by this, you can have a class with the incredible cool-sounding ability "I'll Cut You!" alongside similar class abilities such as evasion III and uncanny dodge IV. It's jarring to the eye, as well as making NPC and monster stat blocks incredible dense, almost to the point of incomprehensibility without understanding every niggling little thing very well.

Still, the game has a lot of charm, and almost all of the added heavy lifting seems to be on the GM end or on character creation. The actual system part of the game is much more smooth and easy to swallow than standard d20 in a lot of ways. I'm reserving final judgment on it until I run or play it.

Hopefully, I'll have it in me to actually update this thing at least once a week from now on, but I won't hold myself to unreasonable expectations. I am studying Japanese this semester, after all. ;)

Blog Called...

2009-01-27T13:55:00.000-08:00

...on account of freezing rain, snow, sleet, and hail. It's nasty as hell in Lexington right now, and I'm too busy trying to stay warm to post anything today. Good luck to the rest of you dealing with this winter storm mess.

Playground of the Damned: The Enemy

2009-01-24T20:36:00.000-08:00

Today's "Playground of the Damned" post is about the enemy: zombies! There are four basic kinds of zombies that are going to show up in this adventure: kid zombies (former classmates of the PCs), adult zombies (former teachers and neighbors), bloated zombies (who swelled up from decay and give the characters opportunities to make fat jokes at Hugo's expense), and legless zombies (to ramp up the tension).

Let's take a look!

Zombie, Kid
These walking dead are typical groaning fiends looking for fresh meat... just a little smaller and weaker.

Attributes: Agility d6, Smarts d4, Spirit d4, Strength d4, Vigor d6
Skills: Fighting d4, Intimidation d6, Notice d4
Pace: 4; Parry: 4; Toughness: 6

Special Abilities:
•Bite/Slam: Str.
•Fear: The first time a character sees a kid zombie, he has to roll a Guts check. They’re scary.
•Fearless: Zombies are immune to Fear and Intimidation.
•Infection: If a zombie’s attack inflicts a Wound on a victim, that target must attempt a Vigor roll. On a successful roll, the attack that did the damage was a slam; on a failure, the target has been bitten and is now infected. An infected character makes a Vigor roll every hour; a failure inflicts a level of Fatigue that does not go away, and failing at Incapacitated causes the victim to rise again as a zombie.
•Size –1: These zombies are the kids’ ex-classmates, so they’re a little smaller than normal zombies.
•Undead: +2 Toughness; +2 to recover from being Shaken; immune to poison and disease; no additional damage from called shots (except for called shots to the head).
•Weakness (Head): Called shots to a zombie’s head are +2 damage.

Zombie, Adult
These walking dead are typical groaning fiends looking for fresh meat. They were adults before they got infected, so they’re bigger and stronger than kid zombies.

Attributes: Agility d6, Smarts d4, Spirit d4, Strength d6, Vigor d6
Skills: Fighting d6, Intimidation d6, Notice d4, Shooting d6
Pace: 4; Parry: 5; Toughness: 7

Special Abilities:
•Bite/Slam: Str.
•Fear: The first time a character sees a normal zombie, he has to roll a Guts check. They’re scary.
•Fearless: Zombies are immune to Fear and Intimidation.
•Infection: If a zombie’s attack inflicts a Wound on a victim, that target must attempt a Vigor roll. On a successful roll, the attack that did the damage was a slam; on a failure, the target has been bitten and is now infected. An infected character makes a Vigor roll every hour; a failure inflicts a level of Fatigue that does not go away, and failing at Incapacitated causes the victim to rise again as a zombie.
•Undead: +2 Toughness; +2 to recover from being Shaken; immune to poison and disease; no additional damage from called shots (except for called shots to the head).
•Weakness (Head): Called shots to a zombie’s head are +2 damage.

Zombie, Bloated
These walking dead swelled up from the gases inside them and from eating too much (of what, it’s better not to imagine). Now, they’re enormously bloated and can belch out nauseating fumes.

Attributes: Agility d6, Smarts d4, Spirit d4, Strength d6, Vigor d6
Skills: Fighting d6, Intimidation d6, Notice d4
Pace: 4; Parry: 5; Toughness: 8

Special Abilities:
•Bite/Slam: Str.
•Fear –1: The first time a character sees a bloated zombie, he has to roll a Guts check at –1. They’re really scary and kind of gross.
•Fearless: Zombies are immune to Fear and Intimidation.
•Gasbag: Once per encounter, a bloated zombie can belch a foul cloud of rot and decay. This cloud fills a Medium Burst Template centered on the zombie. Anyone within the cloud must attempt a Vigor roll or gain a level of Fatigue. This Fatigue vanishes after an hour of rest breathing clean air.
•Infection: If a zombie’s attack inflicts a Wound on a victim, that target must attempt a Vigor roll. On a successful roll, the attack that did the damage was a slam; on a failure, the target has been bitten and is now infected. An infected character makes a Vigor roll every hour; a failure inflicts a level of Fatigue that does not go away, and failing at Incapacitated causes the victim to rise again as a zombie.
•Slow: Bloated zombies waddle more than even other zombies. They have a d4 running die.
•Size +1: Bloated zombies are big and fat, making them somewhat tougher than the run of the mill.
•Undead: +2 Toughness; +2 to recover from being Shaken; immune to poison and disease; no additional damage from called shots (except for called shots to the head).
•Weakness (Head): Called shots to a zombie’s head are +2 damage.

Zombie, Legless
These aren’t so much walking dead as crawling dead. Being low to the ground makes them sneaky, though.

Attributes: Agility d6, Smarts d4, Spirit d4, Strength d6, Vigor d6
Skills: Fighting d6, Intimidation d6, Notice d4, Stealth d6
Pace: 2; Parry: 5; Toughness: 6

Special Abilities:
•Bite/Slam: Str.
•Fear: The first time a character sees a legless zombie, he has to roll a Guts check. If he doesn’t see it until it attacks him, he rolls at –2. They’re really freaking scary when they do that.
•Fearless: Zombies are immune to Fear and Intimidation.
•Infection: If a zombie’s attack inflicts a Wound on a victim, that target must attempt a Vigor roll. On a successful roll, the attack that did the damage was a slam; on a failure, the target has been bitten and is now infected. An infected character makes a Vigor roll every hour; a failure inflicts a level of Fatigue that does not go away, and failing at Incapacitated causes the victim to rise again as a zombie.
•Size –1: Since it’s missing half of its body, a legless zombie is a little less tough than a normal one.
•Slow: Legless zombies can crawl pretty quickly, but they can’t really run. They roll a d4 running die.
•Sneak Attack: Legless zombies start every combat the same way--crawling silently up to their intended target and biting him on the leg. If a legless zombie succeeds in his Stealth roll, he gets the drop on his victim.
•Undead: +2 Toughness; +2 to recover from being Shaken; immune to poison and disease; no additional damage from called shots (except for called shots to the head).
•Weakness (Head): Called shots to a zombie’s head are +2 damage.

Coming soon: an actual adventure!

Playground of the Damned: Characters, part 6

2009-01-23T20:38:00.000-08:00

Even though you can only see five kids in the picture that inspired this adventure, I always try to make six characters for convention games. I'm not sure why; it just seems like a nice solid number. If it makes you feel any better, you can pretend that today's character--Hugo Hays, the fat kid--gets eaten before that scene happens. ^_^

Hugo Hays, fat kid

Attributes: Agility d6, Smarts d6, Spirit d6, Strength d4, Vigor d6
Skills: Climbing d4, Fighting d4, Guts d4, Notice d6, Persuasion d4, Stealth d6, Taunt d4, Throwing d4
Pace: 5; Parry: 4; Toughness: 6

Edges:
•Danger Sense: You have a bad feeling about all this... but more than that, you get a bad feeling just before anything really bad happens to you. Right before you would be surprised by something dangerous, you can make a Notice roll at –2. If you succeed, you start the first round of combat on hold instead of surprised; if you succeed in going first (which normally requires an Agility roll to interrupt your opponent), you can spend your action warning everyone else about the impending danger, causing them to not be surprised either.
•Luck: You’re even luckier than the other kids--which is good if you want to save your own fat hide. You get a bonus benny.

Hindrances:
•Fat: You’re a porker, all right. Your mom says that you have big bones, but everyone else just thinks you’re fat. On the plus side, you have +1 Toughness. On the downside, your Pace is only 5 and your running die is a d4. If there’s running to do, you’re probably getting left behind.
•Greedy: What’s yours is yours--and maybe some other stuff too. You always demand your “fair share,” and though the consequences for not getting it are pretty much limited to pouting, you can be a real brat about it.
•Young: You are only 10 years old. While you have lower attributes and less skills than an adult, you are also somewhat luckier and start with one extra benny.

Gear:
•Pocket Knife: Str+d4 damage. You’re really not supposed to have one at school, but it’s yours, and you certainly weren’t going to let anyone take it away from you.
•Food: You’ve got a bunch of candy bars in your pocket and some beef jerky hidden in your coat. It’s enough to keep you fed for a day or so... or maybe you’ll just eat it all when no one’s looking. Sharing it doesn’t even really occur to you.
•Pocket cash: $50. You’ve been stealing from your mom’s purse.

Savage Pathfinder: Edges

2009-01-22T20:09:00.000-08:00

I'm currently gearing up to run a Savage Worlds conversion of the Pathfinder Chronicles setting on Monday nights in the near future. Character creation is done, and really all that's left is to finish up our current Monday night projects (one more session each of Don't Rest Your Head and Changeling: The Lost) before jumping into the savage world of Golarion.

In order to get ready for the campaign, I've been relentlessly savaging various feats and class abilities into Edges. Here are a few of the ones I've been working on.

Crossbow Mastery (Combat)
Requirements: Seasoned, Agility d8+, Shooting d8+
You can load crossbows with blinding speed and even fire them in melee range with little fear of reprisal. The time required for you to reload a crossbow is reduced to a free action, regardless of the type of crossbow used. You may also fire a crossbow at an adjacent foe engaged in melee, but the target number is his Parry score rather than the standard TN of 4.

Dart Cloud (Combat)
Requirements: Seasoned, Agility d8+, Quick Draw, Throwing d8+
You can throw a large number of small weapons in one quick motion, filling the air with deadly steel. When you use shuriken or daggers as thrown weapons, your Rate of Fire is 3. You can draw and throw as part of the same action when performing this maneuver. You suffer the usual –2 penalty to attack rolls for using a weapon with a Rate of Fire greater than 1 when you use this Edge.

Versatile Caster (Power)
Requirements: Wild Card, Seasoned, Arcane Background, Knowledge (Arcana) d8+
In a pinch, some arcanists can reach into a reserve of spontaneous creativity and use their powers in a different way than normal.
This caster may spend a benny when casting a spell to change its trappings to a different trapping approved by the GM. Until the end of the encounter, the caster can use either this new trapping or his original trapping interchangeably.
For example, a wizard who knows bolt as “flame arrow” could use this Edge to alter it to “ice lance.” This would allow him to inflict cold damage instead of fire damage with his attack, plus any additional effects the GM uses for cold spells.

Arcane Archer (Professional)
Requirements: Novice, elf or half-elf only, Arcane Background (Magic), Smarts d8+, Shooting d8+, Spellcasting d6+
You have trained in the twin elven arts of sorcery and archery. By combining the two into a fluid whole, you can use your arrows to greatly extend the range of your magical powers.
While firing a bow (not a crossbow or other ranged weapon), you can cast spells with a range other than Personal, Touch, or any Template and use the range of the bow instead of the spell’s normal range. You still use Spellcasting for the spell’s attack, modified by the bow’s range increment. The arrow is consumed by the magic when you use it in this manner and does not inflict its usual damage.
For example, the bolt power normally has a range of 12/24/48. A long bow has a range of 15/30/60. When using your Arcane Archer Edge, you would use the bow’s range to determine the bolt’s effective distance and range penalties.

Free Runner (Professional)
Requirements: Novice, Agility d6+, Strength d6+, Climbing d6+
Many of the great cities of Avistan boast communities of people dedicated to moving quickly and nimbly through the streets and across the roofs of their home. Free runners (sometimes called shingle rats or roof runners) are experts in urban navigation.
A character with this Edge gains a +2 bonus on Climbing rolls and Agility rolls made as part of a chase. These benefits apply only in urban environments. Because of their ability to roll with a fall, Free Runners get a free soak roll against any damage caused by a fall.

Hamatulatsu Initiate (Professional)
Requirements: Seasoned, Strength d8+, Pugilist, Stone Hands, Intimidation d6+
This character has mastered a deadly fighting style inspired by the devastating attacks of the barbed devil. Practitioners of hamatulatsu seek to not just kill their opponents, but to first cripple and humiliate them with memorable, scarring pain.
If this character makes an unarmed Fighting attack against a foe and succeeds in striking the opponent but fails to inflict enough damage to render that opponent Shaken, he may immediately attempt an Intimidation roll against that foe as a free action.
Additionally, a Hamatulatsu Initiate can choose to inflict Fatigue instead of wounds with his unarmed strikes. He must declare that he is doing so before making his Fighting roll, and suffers –1 on the attack roll when doing so. Such attacks are still compared against Toughness and the target can soak normally.

Of course, all of these are in addition to the Faith Edges I posted about previously. If there's any interest in my players or readers of this blog, I might also post up campaign notes about the Curse of the Crimson Throne adventure path.

Playground of the Damned: Characters, Part 5

2009-01-22T18:51:00.001-08:00

Today's somewhat belated entry is Steve Hicks, the poor kid, and his buddy Rufus.

Steve Hicks, poor kid

Attributes: Agility d6, Smarts d4, Spirit d6, Strength d4, Vigor d8
Skills: Climbing d6, Fighting d6, Guts d6, Notice d6, Survival d4, Tracking d4
Pace: 6; Parry: 5; Toughness: 6

Edges:
•Beast Friend: You’re good with animals, possibly because your family has a lot of dogs. Animals won’t willingly attack you, and if you can get off school grounds, your dog is waiting for you nearby. Rufus will be a big help in tough spots.
•Nerves of Steel: You’ve been spanked more than the other kids, so you’re good at not minding so much when it hurts. You ignore 1 point of Wound penalties.

Hindrances:
•Loyal: Being poor has taught you the value of staying true to your friends and sticking up for them. You’d die (well, maybe get hurt a lot) before betraying your classmates, and you never leave someone behind if there’s any chance of survival at all.
•Poverty: Your family is poor and you don’t have much in the way of possessions because of it. You start play with less equipment than the other kids and no pocket cash.
•Young: You are only 10 years old. While you have lower attributes and less skills than an adult, you are also somewhat luckier and start with one extra benny.

Gear:
•Pocket lint and not much else.
•Rufus: If you can get off school grounds, Rufus is always waiting for you just around the corner. He’s a big, dumb mutt, but he’s loyal and he’s willing to fight for you.

Rufus, the dog
If the kids manage to get off school grounds, Rufus is waiting to join up with Steve. Rufus is intensely loyal to Steve and obeys his commands without question, even to the point of dying for his master. He’s not perfect, though, and he might spook if thrown into too many bad situations—-afterwards, he’ll come crawling back... if anyone’s alive, that is.
Unlike his master, Rufus is an extra, not a Wild Card, so he does not get the benefit of the Wild Die and has only 1 Wound.

Attributes: Agility d8, Smarts d6 (A), Spirit d6, Strength d6, Vigor d6
Skills: Fighting d6, Guts d6, Notice d10
Pace: 8; Parry: 5; Toughness: 4

Special Abilities:
•Bite: Str+d4 damage.
•Fleet Footed: Rufus rolls a d10 when running instead of a d6.
•Go for the Throat: Dogs instinctively go for an opponent’s soft spots. With a raise on his attack roll, Rufus hits his target’s most weakly-armored location (in addition to dealing +d6 damage).
•Size –1: Dogs are smaller than kids, even a big dog like Rufus.

Playground of the Damned: Characters, Part 4

2009-01-20T12:50:00.000-08:00

Today is a historic day, the inauguration of Barack Obama. I wanted to say something pithy and clever, but instead I'll just note the occasion and keep up my regular posting. This installment is about the prettiest girl in class, Ruthie Marcus.

Ruthie Marcus, prettiest girl in class

Attributes: Agility d8, Smarts d4, Spirit d6, Strength d4, Vigor d6
Skills: Knowledge (Pop Culture) d4, Notice d6, Persuasion d6, Shooting d6, Stealth d6, Taunt d4
Pace: 6; Parry: 2; Toughness: 6 (1 from armor)

Edges:
•Attractive: You’re the prettiest girl in class, and if you live through this nightmare, you might grow up to be downright beautiful. You have +2 Charisma (which affects Persuasion and Streetwise rolls).
•Marksman: If you don’t move during a round in which you make a Shooting roll, you add +2 to the attack roll.

Hindrances:
•Big Mouth: You tend to shoot your mouth off at just the wrong time, to just the wrong person. When there’s an opportunity to spill your guts about anything, you take it. You also tend to tell people (even your friends) just what you think of them.
•Gutless: You’re a big old fraidy-cat. You suffer a –2 penalty on Guts rolls.
•Young: You are only 10 years old. While you have lower attributes and less skills than an adult, you are also somewhat luckier and start with one extra benny.

Gear:
•Slingshot: 2d4 damage, Range 3/6/12. You carry this around in your purse, since you’re a little ashamed of having it… but you’re a crack shot. You have plenty of rocks for it too.
•Heavy Pink Jacket: +1 Armor.
•Purse: Every real girl has a purse.
•Makeup Kit: Mirror, powder, lipstick—check.
•Pocket cash: $30.

Playground of the Damned: Characters, Part 3

2009-01-18T23:47:00.001-08:00

Today's installment is the class jock, Billy Shaw.

Billy Shaw, class jock

Attributes: Agility d6, Smarts d4, Spirit d4, Strength d8, Vigor d6
Skills: Climbing d6, Fighting d6, Guts d4, Intimidation d6, Streetwise d4, Swimming d6
Pace: 6; Parry: 5; Toughness: 7 (2 from armor)

Edges:
•Brawny: You’re big for your age. You can carry your Str × 8 pounds before becoming encumbered (rather than Str × 5).
•First Strike: Once per turn, you get a free attack against any opponent that moves adjacent to you.

Hindrances:
•Clueless: You don’t pay much attention in class—-you’d rather daydream about soccer or your favorite TV show. You suffer a –2 penalty on Common Knowledge rolls.
•Stubborn: You always try to get your way, and you never admit you’re wrong. Even when it’s painfully obvious you’ve screwed up, you try to justify it with half-truths and rationalizations.
•Young: You are only 10 years old. While you have lower attributes and less skills than an adult, you are also somewhat luckier and start with one extra benny.

Gear:
•Broomstick: Str+d6 damage, 2 hands, +1 Reach. You can attack things that are farther away than normal with this long-handled broomstick.
•Soccer Pads: +2 Armor. You were getting ready for practice when things started getting weird.
•Matches: You keep them just in case you need to set something on fire... though you'd rather not have people know you have them.
•Pocket cash: $15.

Playground of the Damned: Characters, part 2

2009-01-17T23:31:00.000-08:00

Up today is the class geek, Tara Smith!

***

Tara Smith, class geek

Attributes: Agility d6, Smarts d8, Spirit d6, Strength d4, Vigor d4
Skills: Guts d4, Healing d6, Investigation d6, Knowledge (Science) d6, Notice d4, Throwing d6
Pace: 6; Parry: 2; Toughness: 4

Edges:
•Know-It-All: You read a lot, you pay attention in class, and you’re just naturally bright. You have a +2 bonus on Common Knowledge rolls.
•MacGuyver: You’re good at improvising tools when the situation calls for it. You never suffer penalties for lacking proper tools, and with a few minutes preparation and some materials, you can rig up lots of useful stuff (GM’s discretion-—think potato alarm clocks and crystal radios).

Hindrances:
•Bad Eyes: You wear glasses—-without them, you don’t see so good. Without your glasses, you suffer a –2 penalty made to attack or Notice something more than 5” (10 yards) distant.
•Weak Willed: You’re smart, sure, but you really want to be liked, and that sometimes makes you do dumb things. You suffer a –2 penalty on Tests of Will.
•Young: You are only 10 years old. While you have lower attributes and less skills than an adult, you are also somewhat luckier and start with one extra benny.

Gear:
•Brick: Str+d4, Range 2/4/8. You picked it up outside the door… just in case. There are also plenty more laying around, as well as heavy rocks.
•Glasses: These thick coke-bottle lenses prevent you from suffering the effects of your Bad Eyes Hindrance. They’re kind of fragile though, and every time you get Shaken or Wounded, you have to make an Agility roll or lose them. If you fumble the roll, they break.
•Pocket cash: $30.

Playground of the Damned: Characters, part 1

2009-01-16T20:27:00.000-08:00

First up for "Playground of the Damned" is the class misfit and party leader, Jimmy Corbett. He's a smart-alec with a heart of gold, and largely responsible for keeping the group together in the midst of the chaos.

As a note for rules sticklers: Since the kid characters are intended to be used for a convention game, they don't follow the rules precisely. Some of them have Edges that they don't quite qualify for, and at least one of them has two Major Hindrances, but all the point values add up and the kids are fairly balanced. Plus, they need all the help they can get. XD

Jimmy Corbett, class misfit

Attributes: Agility d6, Smarts d6, Spirit d8, Strength d4, Vigor d4
Skills: Climbing d4, Fighting d6, Guts d6, Intimidation d4, Notice d6, Taunt d6
Pace: 6; Parry: 5 (6 with trashcan lid); Toughness: 6 (2 from armor); Charisma: –2

Edges:
•Big Damn Hero: Once per session, when you spend a benny to reroll a die, you can add the result of your reroll to your previous roll. You must declare that you are using this ability when you spend the benny.
•Strong Willed: You have a tough head and don’t bow to pressure easily. Also, your smart mouth makes it easy to push people’s buttons. You gain a +2 bonus to Intimidation and Taunt rolls, as well as any roll made to resist a Test of Will.

Hindrances:
•Heroic: Inside your breast beats the heart of a true hero. Even though the other kids don’t like you very much, you’ve rallied them together to get them the hell out of dodge. You’ll never say no to a person in need, no matter how much you may resent it.
•Misfit: People don’t really know how to relate to you—you’re smart but lazy, you mouth off to adults, and you play mean jokes on your classmates. Truthfully, you just want to be liked, but you don’t know how. You suffer a –2 penalty to Charisma (which applies on Persuasion and Streetwise rolls).
•Young: You are only 10 years old. While you have lower attributes and less skills than an adult, you are also somewhat luckier and start with one extra benny.

Gear:
•Baseball Bat: Str+d4 damage. This was in your locker, but you managed to grab it before leaving the building. You had a hunch that it might come in handy.
•Trashcan Lid: +1 Parry, +2 Armor against incoming ranged attacks. This was on the steel trash bin right outside the school doors. You grabbed it up on another one of those hunches.
•Heavy Coat: +1 Armor.
•Pocket cash: $20.

Playground of the Damned: Intro

2009-01-15T21:30:00.000-08:00

I came across a neat wallpaper the other day that inspired me to want to run a short Savage Worlds zombies game where all of the player characters were grade-school children.

http://i39.tinypic.com/241w9l0.jpg

With that in mind, I've written up the quick intro for a short adventure I call "Playground of the Damned."

Adventure Background

At first, the adults tried to act like nothing was going on. They smiled and laughed like normal, but you could tell that something was wrong. Then one day you came to school, and most of the class was out sick, and so were almost all of the teachers. Your homeroom teacher was nervous and kept checking the radio while you and your few remaining classmates talked and played. You could overhear something about “infection” and “safe zones” and “evacuation points,” but you weren’t really paying attention until the town siren started going off.

Finally, the principal came in and told all of you to go to the emergency areas of the school and wait for the army to come. You’re worried about your parents, but the adults said that they would be all right. When you went to the emergency hallway, Mr. Owens the janitor was there, but he looked sick—and then he jumped on the principal and started biting him! Panic set in, and now you and four of your classmates are outside the school building, separated from everyone else. You’ve managed to pick up a few things you can use as weapons (or snuck some into class) and the class geek says he knows where the nearest safe zone is. With a little luck, maybe you can make it to safety.

But first, you have to make your way across school grounds filled with groaning, flesh-eating versions of your former classmates and through twenty blocks of urban wasteland. Get to it!

***

I'll be posting up the PCs for PotD over the next couple of days. Up first, Jimmy Corbett, the class misfit!

Savage Pathfinder: Faith Edges

2009-01-14T10:56:00.000-08:00

For the last little bit, I've been working on a Savage conversion of Paizo's Pathfinder Chronicles campaign setting. Today, I'm posting up the Faith Edges I've written for the setting. What are Faith Edges, you ask? Read on!

FAITH EDGES

The gods are real and powerful in the Pathfinder Chronicles Campaign Setting, and mortals are frequently tasked to carry out their will. The most common servants of the gods are priests and holy knights, and such characters typically have the Arcane Background (Miracles) Edge. Not every servant of the gods is a priest, though, and some priests are more devout than others.

Faith Edges are special Edges that can only be taken by characters that worship a particular god, and only with specific GM permission. Some Faith Edges require that the character be capable of casting miracles, while others are open to any member of the truly faithful.

Adept of the Inner Mysteries
Requirements: Novice, Spirit d6+, Arcane Background (Miracles), follower of Irori
Followers of Irori turn their minds inward, using their powers to affect perfection of the self. When this Edge is selected, and again at each new Rank achieved, the character may select one of his known powers. That power now affects only the character (if it could affect other targets before), but the character can manifest that power as a free action.

All-Seeing Eye
Requirements: Novice, Smarts d6+, Arcane Background (Magic or Miracles), Knowledge (Arcana) d6+, follower of Nethys
Nethys is the god of magic, and his followers determine rank among themselves by magical knowledge and ability. Characters with this Edge can use the detect arcana power at will with no cost. While doing so, their eyes scintillate with strange colors. Though there is no cost to use this ability, keeping it active still counts as maintaining a power for purposes of maintenance penalties.

Bravura
Requirements: Novice, Spirit d6+, Vigor d6+, follower of Cayden Cailean
The hearties that follow Cayden Cailean love fine drink and good company, and they are known for their bravery. Those with this Edge gain a +2 bonus on Guts checks, and even on a failed Guts check, they subtract –2 from the subsequent roll on the Fright table. Additionally, a Bravura gains +2 to Vigor rolls made to resist poison.

Crowning Glory
Requirements: Novice, Spirit d6+, Arcane Background (Miracles), follower of Iomedae
Iomedae is a goddess of crusades and honorable combat. As Aroden’s inheritor, she is popular among righteous (and self-righteous) humans. A character with this Edge can spend 1 Power Point as a free action to gain the Champion Edge until the start of his next turn; if he already possesses that Edge, he instead doubles the bonuses from it until the start of his next turn.

Dawnflower’s Dance
Requirements: Novice, Spirit d6+, Expression d6+, follower of Sarenrae
Sarenrae, frequently called “the Dawnflower” by her devoted followers, is a powerful goddess of redemption and healing. She represents the revealing light of the sun, and the healing power of forgiveness. Those that learn the steps of her holiest dance can cause their bodies to glow (as per the light power) at will with no cost. They can also cause any held weapon to burst into flames, adding +2 the weapon’s damage. These flames have little chance of setting a struck creature on fire, though this power can be used to light flammable materials with time and patience.

Forge Master
Requirements: Novice, Smarts d6+, Repair d6+, follower of Torag
Humans and dwarves alike worship Torag as the father of the forge, god of creation and craftsmanship. His faithful do their best to emulate his abilities. A character with this Edge adds +2 to his Repair rolls. With a raise, he halves the time normally required to fix something. This means that if a particular Repair job already states that a raise repairs it in half the time, this character could finish the job in one-quarter the time with a raise.

Grey Warden
Requirements: Novice, Spirit d6+, follower of Pharasma
Many folk fear Pharasma, the goddess of death, despite the fact that she is neither evil nor cruel. Her position as the judge of souls makes her important to nearly every religion, and the fact that she is neutral and nonjudgmental in all things makes her accepted among followers of nearly all other faiths.
Pharasma’s Grey Wardens are given license over life and death—they guard the living whose time has not yet come, and bring final peace to the dead that have not yet moved on. Within a radius equal to half the Grey Warden’s Spirit die, living creatures gain +2 to soak rolls and undead creatures suffer –2 to soak rolls. The Grey Warden can choose to apply or suppress this ability as a free action on his turn, but he cannot pick and choose which creatures within the area the modifier applies to.

Honest Effort
Requirements: Novice, Spirit d6+, Vigor d6+, follower of Erastil
As the god of farming, hunting, and trade, Erastil values little else above hard work and honest effort. Those with this Edge gain a +2 bonus to rolls made to avoid Fatigue, as well as +2 on Survival rolls made to find food and water in the wilderness.

Hungry Darkness
Requirements: Novice, Spirit d6+, follower of Zon-Kuthon
The Midnight Lord gives his most devout followers special influence over darkness and shadow. When a true believer in Zon-Kuthon fights in darkness, the darkness seems to come alive to fight with him. A character with this Edge gains a bonus on damage rolls equal to the current penalty his target is taking from lighting conditions. So, a character currently suffering a –2 penalty due to Dim lighting conditions would take +2 damage from attacks made by a character with this Edge. This does mean that creatures with low-light vision suffer less from this Edge than other targets. This only affects creatures suffering from actual darkness conditions, not effective ones, so blind characters are immune to the effects of this Edge.

Infernal Contract
Requirements: Novice, Smarts d6+, Arcane Background (Miracles), follower of Asmodeus
To Asmodeus, those that gain miracles from him already owe him their souls. Still, those with something else to bargain away sometimes wind up the recipient of his largesse. By spending 1 Power Point as a free action, the character with this Edge gains +2 Toughness until the start of his next turn. While using this Edge, the character flickers with dull black flames.

Inner Beauty
Requirements: Novice, Spirit d6+, Expression d6+, Charisma +2 or higher, follower of Shelyn
The faithful of Shelyn, the Eternal Rose, realize that true beauty comes from within. They must endeavor to create something of beauty every day, whether it is a work of art, dancing for strangers, or singing in public. These acts of harmonious creation make her most devoted followers almost impossible to rattle. A character with Inner Beauty adds half his Charisma bonus to rolls made to resist Intimidation and Taunt attempts.

Iron Lord
Requirements: Novice, Strength d6+, Vigor d6+, follower of Gorum
The faithful of Gorum prize battle for its own sake, and highly value the tools of war. Iron Lords gain a +2 bonus on Repair rolls made to create or repair weapons and armor. Additionally, they treat any armor they wear or weapons they carry as though they weighed half their actual weight.

Keymaker’s Blessing
Requirements: Novice, Spirit d6+, follower of Abadar
Called “Master of the First Vault” by his faithful, Abadar is the god of merchants and civilization, and he is frequently represented in conjunction with keys. Those with the Keymaker’s Blessing find many doors open for them. A character with this Edge gains a +2 bonus on Persuasion rolls, as well as a +2 bonus on Notice rolls made to discern lies.

Monstrous Visage
Requirements: Novice, Vigor d6+, Charisma –2 or lower, follower of Lamashtu
The followers of the Mother of Monsters are inevitably ugly, either on the inside or the outside (and frequently both). The most devout learn how to turn their deformity into strength, and how to hate all that is beautiful. A character with this Edge applies his Charisma penalty as a bonus on Intimidation rolls. Additionally, this character gains a +2 bonus on damage rolls against any target with a Charisma bonus.

Pallid Pact
Requirements: Novice, Spirit d6+, follower of Urgathoa
The goddess of gluttony, disease and undeath, Urgathoa is despised by most decent folk and embraced by the decadent and corrupt. Her priests must usually act in secret to avoid attention, but the physical excesses embraced by her faith inevitably reveal their presence. After taking this Edge, the character gains a +2 bonus on Vigor rolls made to avoid disease. Additionally, undead treat the character as one of their own; for less intelligent undead (like skeletons and zombies), this means that they will not attack the character unless specifically ordered to do so or unless the character attacks them first. The character gains +2 Charisma in regards to more intelligent undead creatures.

Poisoned Egg
Requirements: Novice, Arcane Background (Miracles), follower of Norgorber
The “Reaper of Reputation,” Norgorber is the god of secrets, greed and murder. Many assassin-priests serve this dire patron, and their ability to poison food with a touch is feared almost everywhere. By touching food or drink (or the container holding it), a character with this Edge can expend 2 Power Points and render it poisonous. Each use of this ability affects one meal’s worth of food or one cup’s worth of drink. Those that imbibe the tainted substance must attempt a Vigor roll at –2 or suffer a level of Fatigue; on a roll of 1 on the Vigor die (regardless of the Wild Die), the character instead suffers a wound.
It is traditional for priests to use this power on a boiled egg, thus the name.

Rough Beast
Requirements: Novice, Strength d6+, Berserker or know the berserker power, follower of Rovagug
Legend says that Rovagug was born to destroy the world, and his mad followers revel in the idea of destruction for its own sake. A character with this Edge gains a special while using the Berserker Edge; a spellcaster with this Edge instead grants this benefit to anyone he casts the berserker power on. While in a berserk fury, the beneficiary of this Edge can ace damage rolls on objects normally, and any creature that suffers damage from a melee attack by this creature must attempt a Strength check against the amount of damage dealt or be knocked prone.

Savored Sting
Requirements: Novice, Smarts d6+, Charisma +2 or higher, follower of Calistria
The goddess of trickery, lust and revenge, Calistria’s faithful are often sacred prostitutes or assassins—or both. A character with this Edge can apply his Charisma bonus to Taunt rolls. As firm believers in swift, hot-blooded vengeance, those with this Edge gain a +2 bonus on damage rolls against any target that has ever inflicted a wound on them.

Song of the Spheres
Requirements: Novice, Spirit d6+, follower of Desna
By listening to the “song of the spheres,” the mystical harmony produced by the motion of the stars, one of Desna’s faithful can easily navigate from one place to another, as well as producing beautiful harmonies. This character gains +2 to music-based Expression rolls, and +2 to Survival rolls made to navigate or to avoid becoming lost.

Storm Warded
Requirements: Novice, Spirit d6+, follower of Gozreh
Many sailors worship Gozreh, god of wind and waves, as do many other individuals whose livelihood depends on the sea. Those with this Edge gain a +2 bonus to any roll to avoid harm from wind or water, including rolls to avoid Fatigue from extreme weather, Swimming rolls, and opposed rolls to resist arcane powers with wind, water or electricity trappings.

Savage Blogging

2009-01-13T10:29:00.000-08:00

As it turns out, it's a good time to restart my blog, since a lot of other Savage Worlds fans out there are working to put together a blog link exchange. I've been reading a lot of these already, but quite a few of them are new (and awesome) to me. If you have a Savage Worlds-oriented blog, pop over by Pinnacle's forums on this thread and post up about it. I've already included all the ones on that thread in my little sidebar widget, but I'm always up for adding more!

New Year, New Style

2009-01-13T09:54:00.000-08:00

It's been a whole year since the last time I posted in this blog, which means that it hasn't been everything I wanted it to be. Starting now, though, I'm restarting this blog with a little bit of a tighter focus, and will hopefully be updating it several times a week. From here on, I will be using this blog primarily to discuss my obsession with the Savage Worlds system (which was the last thing I talked about last year, strangely enough).

To lead off a little bit for anyone unfamiliar: Savage Worlds is the flagship line from Pinnacle, the people that brought us Deadlands and its post-apocalyptic sequel, Hell on Earth. Since then, they've scaled back their company size and produced a streamlined game system called Savage Worlds. This game has the fastest combat system that I've ever played and found satisfying. (Wushu and Don't Rest Your Head both have faster combat resolution, but they're both a little flat for my tastes.) The system is easy to learn, and while it has a few dice wobbles attached to its core mechanic, they're entirely worth ignoring.

Since last year, I've run several short games with Savage Worlds, including a convention game at last year's UKON and a semester-long game for the university gaming club called Industrial Revolutionaries, which was a steampunk game heavily based off Phil and Kaja Foglio's excellent webcomic, Girl Genius. My longest-running effort so far has been a Savage Worlds conversion of the old TORG setting, which you should go out and look up if you've never heard of it before.

Now that TORG is getting close to the end (a couple months off, anyway), I'm working on my next set of games. In the next few weeks, I'm going to be starting a SW conversion of the Pathfinder Chronicles campaign setting (originally for d20 by Paizo Publishing), a Supernatural-style modern horror game I'm calling Hunter Nation, and a SW conversion of Legend of the Five Rings. All in all, a pretty full plate. I'll be posting up various things for these games, as well as a bunch of other conversions and original campaigns I've been working on, in the coming weeks and months.

It's good to be back!

Busy, busy, busy

2008-01-07T21:16:00.000-08:00

Things have been really crazy the last few weeks. Between Xmas and New Year, I'm surprised I've had time to breathe, let alone write.

I've been geeking out over Savage Worlds: Explorer's Edition for the last couple of weeks, ever since I got it for Xmas. It's a very tight system, and my biggest complaint with it right now is that it uses money. My design philosophy is leaning away from money being important in most games and making it a story concern. Admittedly, there are games where counting your "phat lewt" can be fun, but that's not most of the games I run. For my players, penny-pinching and coin-counting are the slowest and least rewarding parts of the game.

Because of that, I've been thinking about an alternate money mechanic for SW, modeled slightly off the d20 Modern wealth system. Possibly just reducing everything to a "wealth roll" and have a Wealth statistic, like Charisma. A normal person's Wealth would be d6, with the Poverty Hindrance reducing it to d4, and the Rich Edge improving it to d8, with most purchase TNs being in the 2 to 8 range. It's an idea. I'm going to have to develop it before it's ready for public display, but it'll probably pass through here at some point.

Sign of the Zodiac

2007-11-27T02:00:00.000-08:00

A recent discussion on class roles and multiclassing versus no-multiclassing got me to thinking about the creation of a campaign world where multiclassing was discouraged (or even forbidden) in-game, not just by an arbitrary distinction of the rules. Something similar to this exists in the Rokugan campaign setting, where you can't multiclass into shugenja, because you either hear spirits or don't, and shugenja can't multiclass into samurai, because of ancient spiritual taboos.

At the same time, I was considering some of my old campaign concepts, specifically a campaign where the starsign of your birth literally determined your destiny. After all, in a fantasy world, anything can be true with the right background and setup; you just need some level of consistency. The fact that astrology is hokey and fake is meaningless in a world where the stars are living gods that influence heroic destinies for their own reasons.

To this end, I introduce "Signs of the Zodiac," a campaign seed that uses the twelve signs of the Western zodiac as the model for the base classes. While I'm using d20 as the default here, this could pretty easily be adapted to other games; Exalted already has Sidereals, and a "different Exalted" could have Zodiacals instead. In this post, I'm just putting down my ideas for each class, its general abilities and tendencies, and some sample powers. If people show some interest, I'll try to develop it further (with any outside input that looks good, of course).

Basic Concepts

People with heroic souls are those with Signs. While everyone is influenced by their birth Sign to some degree, individuals with heroic souls (i.e., player characters and major NPCs) actually gain special powers from their Sign. These powers must be trained to gain their full effectiveness, but they begin to develop unbidden at puberty (or sooner for some prodigies). Academies and training schools exist to help the Startouched gain full control over their powers, and many Startouched go on to become great heroes or terrible villains.

Multiclassing is possible, in a very limited fashion. Your highest-level Sign must be your birth Sign, and you cannot take a Sign that is more than two steps removed from your birth Sign. So you could be Virgo 7/Cancer 6, if you were born a Virgo, but not Virgo 7/Cancer 7 or a Virgo/Gemini.

The Signs of the Zodiac

Aries: The Ram
The master of warfare and strategy, Aries offers its followers melee combat prowess unmatched by any lesser warrior. Any weapon is deadly in the hands of an Aries, and every bit of terrain a key element to victory. An Aries thrives in situations that require courage, leadership and strength, though their aggressive nature sometimes leads them into rash or impulsive action.
Class Features: Aries are consummate fighters. They get a bunch of melee-oriented attack abilities, like maneuvers from Bo9S. They're focused on offense, and don't get much in the way of defense.

Taurus: The Bull
Resourceful and dependable, the Taurus is the epitome of defensive combat just as the Aries is the epitome of aggressive combat. A Taurus masters her own body to become tough and stable beyond the ability of others to move or harm her. Because of their desire for stability and forethought, however, a Taurus can often seem dull, argumentative or conservative to others.
Class Features: Taurus are all about defense, defense, defense. Their class abilities allow them to avoid negative status conditions, take hits for friends, and exhaust enemies.

Gemini: The Twins
The Gemini is a dualistic individual, on the one hand adaptable and articulate, and on the other fickle and insensitive. A Gemini’s abilities focus on interaction and the ability to become what others seek to see and hear. Cunning diplomats and moving speakers, a Gemini’s greatest flaw is his inability to be his own person—a Gemini ever mirrors others.
Class Features: A Gemini is like a mimic from the Final Fantasy games. They're good at monkey-see, monkey-do, and at "faking it." They have a bunch of social interaction abilities as their basic stuff, and then can imitate skills, feats and weapon proficiencies. They're best at mimicking other party members, but can "mimic" people they've seen before too.

Cancer: The Crab
Cancer is generous and devoted, capable of offering healing and care to others even at greatest cost to herself. Visionaries, teachers and lawgivers, the sign of Cancer lends itself to those that place the good of others over their own well-being. Unlike Taurus, who seeks to defend their physical selves, Cancer protects their rights and souls. Their devotion can easily turn to zealotry, however, and Cancer can seem controlling or even domineering at times.
Class Features: Cancer's primary abilities revolve around healing wounds, protecting people from negative energy-type effects, and maybe harming the undead. They're like non-religious clerics. They can probably choose to accept status ailments in place of their friends.

Leo: The Lion
Ambitious and independent, but ultimately noble, a Leo finds his truest calling as a leader of men. From magistrate to king, a Leo is born to greatness. Perhaps because of this regal bearing and their aristocratic calling, Leos also have a reputation for being overbearing and luxurious, without any concept of the value of money. A Leo does not request—he demands, and expects to be heard.
Class Features: Like Nobles from SWSE - powers focused around getting people to listen to them, pushing people around, and intimidating others with their sheer presence. Leos can compel others to obey them, even against their will, and they can become so fearsome that enemies flee from them in terror or become allies.

Virgo: The Virgin
Purity is the watchword of the Virgo. Not just physical purity but spiritual purity as well. Not all Virgos are literal virgins, but even at their worst they seem virginal. A Virgo values innocence and justice, and is willing to pursue truth and moral uprightness to almost any extreme. Their modesty and discretion can make them seem prudish and perfectionists to those who have lower standards of excellence.
Class Features: I see Virgos as being like D&D paladins. Evil ones could exist; they'd be like neat-freak villains (think Darken Rahl or Bijomaru Mogami) who seem nicer than they really are until it's too late, or moralistic zealots who smash every "evil" creature they meet without mercy. They can cleanse people of spiritual ailments and smite corrupted beings (like demons and undead),

Libra: The Scales
The sign of the Libra is one of the most valued in the Zodiac. With its penchant for balance and moderation, and talents that lend themselves to fairness and equality, Libras are judges, peacemakers and builders. Unlike the Gemini, who is skilled at copying another’s viewpoint and mimicking it, a Libra excels at actually understanding both sides of complex issues and finding ways to balance them. Some see Libras as easily swayed thanks to their willingness to shift views, however.
Class Features: Like the half-moon caste in Werewolf, or the Eclipse caste from Exalted, Libras are about seeing both sides of an argument and rendering fair judgment. They could gain other Signs' class abilities permanently, and seal pacts and oaths to make them spiritually binding. A Libra would be good at "reaching balance," such as by ameliorating or negating status effects on himself.

Scorpio: The Scorpion
Secretive and intense, a Scorpio revels in mystery and enigma. They understand that knowledge is the truest currency—and that the fewer people who know a given thing, the more valuable it becomes. Their innate talents lend toward being spies, thieves and infiltrators, and some Scorpios take their assets a step further to become assassins. Even friendly Scorpios hide things from their loved ones, and their inner passions often drive them to become manipulative or cruel.
Class Features: Rogues, through and through. A Scorpio would be a master of the sneak attack, uncovering hidden truths, and convincing people to say more than they really want to. Leos are Intimidate, Geminis are Diplomacy, and Scorpios are Bluff. Scorpios would also be really good at concealing themselves from perception, physically and mentally.

Sagittarius: The Archer
Born with an eagle eye and a steady hand, a Sagittarius is a master of archery almost before he can walk. Freedom-loving and idealistic, the Sagittarius hopes that someday every person will embrace his broad-minded philosophy. At his best, a Sagittarius is open and honest, accepting of others, while at his worst he is impulsive, tactless and rebellious without good cause.
Class Features: Their Sign is called "the archer," for crying out loud! What do you think they do? ^_^ A Sagittarius is preternaturally good with ranged weapons, eventually able to threaten bigger and bigger areas around them with ranged attacks. They would also be good at throwing off bindings, both physical and mystical.

Capricorn: The Sea-Goat
With their birth sign so closely resembling the traditional emblems of devils, it is no wonder that Capricorns are regarded with mistrust and suspicion. A Scorpio might stab you in the back, but she would do it in a moment of passion—a cold, ambitious Capricorn would do it with perfect calculation, having decided your doom months beforehand. A Capricorn’s mystical powers make them no less strange and terrible to others, but their hard-working and serious natures make them reliable allies to anyone willing to associate with them.
Class Features: I'm thinking "warlock" here - weird, sinister magical powers that make other more than a little nervous. You would never know if your Capricorn buddy really likes you, or is sizing you up for a pine box. Their powers are all about dissecting the soul and neatly rending the body, but they can also shrug off emotion-affecting abilities. They have emotions to affect, but they're really good at suppressing them.

Aquarius: The Water-Bearer
The Aquarius looks into the depths of the human mind, seeking meaning in the pursuit of the intellectual. The urn held by Aquarius in myth does not hold only water, but the very water of life—the urn is the receptacle of all knowledge. Though somewhat detached because of their intellectual pursuits, an Aquarius is friendly and progressive in his personal life. He seeks knowledge not just for its own sake, but to share it with others and improve their lives by doing so. Their erratic pursuit of esoteric learning can make them eccentric and self-centered, though.
Class Features: Traditional wizard type here. They learn magic and mysticism as their primary class abilities, and they're wise sages seeking knowledge of the universe. Maybe some abilities relating to knowing things they never learned by tapping into the "wisdom of the stars" or somesuch.

Pisces: The Fishes
With a sign that governs both beauty and health, a Pisces almost literally glows with attractive well-being. Where a Cancer would heal wounds, and a Virgo would heal spirits, a Pisces wipes away disease and pain. As well, their focus on appearance lends itself easily to the manipulation of appearance—illusion and reality mix freely for a Pisces. Sometimes impractical and even escapist in their fantasies, a Pisces is sensitive, creative and artistic. “Enchanting” applies to a Pisces in every sense of the word.
Class Features: Illusionists and enchanters. Pisces can cure diseases and poisons, but they also are adept at bending people's perceptions, or bending their emotions and minds. An advanced Pisces can also shapechange, or maybe change the shapes of others.

***

Well, that's what I've got so far.

Monte Cook's World of Darkness: Wraiths

2007-11-14T01:29:00.000-08:00

I've been kind of obsessed with Monte Cook's World of Darkness since it came out. It's probably my favorite purchase from this most recent GenCon, and a lot of my recent design thought has been based around it. It hasn't yet won the place of love and devotion that Monte's other game, Arcana Evolved, hold for me, or the charm of Mutants & Masterminds, but it's got a lot of interesting concepts and cool mechanics.
One of the earliest things I started working on was a conversion for wraiths into MCWoD.
I thought I'd post that up here so that it's a little more accessible for people.

WRAITHS

When the Iconnu invaded our reality, they chose to make war upon humankind by using the souls of our dead against us. The stalwart strength of humanity in fighting back against this threat has been a thorn in their side since the Intrusion—but even more surprising has been the resistance they found in the dead themselves.

The Underworld is the ultimate destination of all human souls, good and evil. In this shadow-filled realm, only the strongest-willed souls retain their identity and memory, with the rest becoming shades and faceless ghosts. These strong-willed spirits, called wraiths, created their own society in the Underworld, building a realm that existed as a shadowy reflection of the mortal world. At the peak of this society sat the king of the dead, a being called Charon, and his advisors.

Charon saw it as his duty to ferry shades and other weak-willed ghosts across the River of Death, which would erase the last vestiges of their personality and return them to the ocean of souls from which humans were drawn. For many long millennia, he fulfilled this duty admirably, showing wisdom and strength to the wraiths that chose to exist under his rule. Many were discontent with Charon’s leadership, however, and these renegade wraiths formed their own scattered societies throughout the Underworld, some resembling the hells of various religions or other afterlife constructs. The renegades even stooped to kidnapping shades and wraiths newly arrived in the Underworld to indoctrinate or use them for their own purposes.

Though it pained him to do so, Charon was forced to create soldiers to oppose the renegades and enforce his rule. The rank-and-file soldiers were called legionnaires, and the elite were known as reapers. Over the course of history, the numbers of these soldiers swelled and fell, depending on the number (and attitude) of the renegades.

Despite their experience and power, Charon’s legions were powerless in the face of the Intrusion. At the moment the Iconnu invaded the world, the Underworld suffered a powerful storm of souls, a maelstrom unlike anything it had ever experienced. In the wake of this maelstrom, thousands of souls were snatched up into the black winds, thousands more were destroyed utterly, and entire swaths of the Underworld vanished. When it had passed, the Underworld was full of more shades than at any point in its history, and many of them had turned malevolent and violent. These evil shades became known as specters. Worse still, Charon and his most powerful advisors had vanished in the storm, leaving the Underworld in chaos.

A few industrious wraiths, renegades and legionnaires alike, investigated the cause of the destruction and uncovered the truth of the Iconnu, as well as the fact that many souls had been smuggled out of the Underworld for use as weapons by the Iconnu. The Intrusion had caused the River of Death to flow the wrong way, giving the inhabitants of the Underworld passage back to the mortal one. Those caught up in the river’s flow lost all memory of their time in the Underworld, however, much as they would have lost all mortal memory had they traveled down it in the other direction.

Eager to aid their living friends and relatives, or simply to protect the world in general, hundreds of wraiths chose to make the journey up the River of Death back to the mortal world. Because their wills were so much stronger than those stolen by the Iconnu, they did not lose their memories of the Underworld, but they did find themselves greatly diminished in personal experience and ability. Many wraiths also came back to the mortal world simply to have another chance at life, or to drink deep of the passions of the living. Whatever their motivation, more wraiths come back to the sunlit lands with every passing day, and the barrier between the living and the dead thins further.

Hit Die: d8

Hit Dice at 1st Level: 4d8 (+4 × Con modifier)

Skill Points: 4 + Int modifier

Feats: A wraith begins play with two feats.

Ability Increase: You gain a +1 bonus to a single ability score of your choice. If you like, you can choose an ability that already gains a bonus because you’re a wraith (see below).

Movement: A wraith has a movement speed of 30 feet.

BAB: +3 (medium)

Defense: +2 (as Awakened)

Fort: +1 (poor)

Ref: +1 (poor)

Will: +4 (good)

Wraith Core Abilities

Wraiths gain a +2 bonus to Wisdom and Charisma.

Corpus: A wraith is not a creature of flesh and blood, but an undead spirit comprised of will and a substance called ectoplasm. The wraith’s self-image from life and manner of death reflect on this ectoplasmic form, creating a “body” called the corpus. This corpus is vulnerable to dissolution, possibly destroying the wraith (see below), but it is somewhat harder to damage than a normal human body in some ways.

First of all, a wraith’s natural form is partially incorporeal and nearly invisible, making it difficult to strike the wraith in the first place. Any physical attack targeting the wraith has a 50 percent chance of missing the wraith completely unless the attack is magical in nature. While supernatural beings can vaguely see wraiths, this only allows them to determine the wraith’s combat square; the combination of their partial incorporeality and concealment still gives the miss chance listed above (except to vampires, see below).

Second, wraiths react to critical hits in the same way as vampires and demons; instead of suffering Constitution damage, they are stunned. A wraith still suffers damage normally from impacts and falls. Wraiths cannot walk through walls without special effort.

When a wraith suffers hit point damage, he can choose for his corpus to become completely immaterial for up to a number of rounds equal to 1 + his Constitution modifier (minimum 1 round). During this time, the wraith is completely unaffected by physical attacks, and even those generated by magic have a 50 percent chance to miss. As well, the wraith can pass unimpeded through solid objects.

A wraith’s corpus form isn’t all fun and games, though; see below for drawbacks.

Lifesight: Wraiths see the energy of the living and the dead all around them. Such things are clearer to them than reality in some ways. A wraith observing a being automatically knows if it is living, dead, undead (such as a vampire), or unliving (like a golem or a demon). When viewing a living or undead creature, the wraith knows how many Hit Dice it has in relation to the wraith’s own (less by 2 or more, within 2 less to 2 more, or more than 2 more), as well as if the creature is currently suffering from any diseases, poisons or reduction in Constitution. Finally, the wraith can estimate the amount of hit points remaining to the creature (full, more than half, less than half, less than one quarter, less than 0).

Darkvision: Wraiths can see normally in the dark, though areas that lack real light appear illuminated in a murky and distorted glow to them, making it impossible to discern colors.

Pathos: A wraith’s powers flow from his emotions and his connection to the world of the living. See below for more information on Pathos and its uses.

Wraith Weaknesses

Corpus: A wraith’s corpus is a hindrance when attempting to interact with living beings. In their natural state, wraiths are completely invisible to mortals, and visible only as a vague outline to most supernatural beings (except vampires). (A wraith is also inaudible to mortals, and audible to supernatural beings only as a whisper.) With concentration, a wraith can make himself clearly visible (and audible) to others, but this tends to be a strain. Also, a wraith normally has only a 50 percent chance to have any physical, non-magical attack he makes strike an animate target. While totally incorporeal, the wraith is as incapable of affecting physical objects and creatures as they are of affecting him.

Wraiths are nearly incapable of affecting physical objects. They can strike at creatures because of the animating spirit within them, but inanimate objects are effectively invulnerable to a wraith without using Arcanoi. A wraith that becomes fully immaterial can pass through solid objects, but even at his most solid he cannot affect them. Physical attacks only have a chance to hurt wraiths because they disrupt their ectoplasmic matrix too suddenly for the wraith to cope with.

Just like living beings, wraiths have a dying threshold that represents their corpus slowly dissolving under the weight of damage. Unlike living creatures, who can be stabilized while dying with a successful Heal check, a wraith reduced to his dying threshold becomes immaterial on instinct. During this time, the wraith slips into the Gauntlet, where he remains until he stabilizes on his own, is stabilized by a creature occupying the Gauntlet (or otherwise able to affect things in it) using the Heal skill, or dissipates. Dissipating in this manner triggers a harrowing (see below).

Vampires: Vampires and wraiths have a mutual weakness in one another. Since vampires are the souls of the dead installed in new bodies, they possess a special solidity to wraiths. A vampire is never incorporeal to a wraith, and vice-versa; they are always mutually solid to one another and vampires can see and hear wraiths clearly. A vampire’s unarmed attacks can always strike a wraith, and a wraith’s unarmed attacks or attacks with ghostly weapons can damage a vampire normally. Vampires see wraiths clearly, and cannot actually tell them apart from living beings without effort (DC 25 Spot check, or the scent ability).

The Gauntlet: Wraiths are vulnerable to attack by creatures within the Gauntlet, which includes spirits serving the Iconnu and some werewolves. In return, wraiths can interact with such beings as though they were mutually solid.

Harrowing: When a wraith’s corpus is dissipated through hit point damage, all that remains behind is the wraith’s will to survive. This powerful will allowed the wraith to transcend death and return to the mortal plane in the first place, but the destruction of the corpus tests that resolve to its breaking point. A dissipated wraith is drawn through the Gauntlet and back into the Underworld, where he relives his most painful life experiences as his psyche attempts to rebuild his shattered corpus.

The wraith must attempt a DC 25 Will saving throw; on a successful save, the wraith loses a level of experience permanently and returns to the mortal world in 1d4 days, near the spot he was destroyed, at 1 hit point and full Pathos. On a failed save, the wraith loses an additional level and must attempt the saving throw again; this continues until the wraith succeeds at the save or fails enough saving throws to be reduced to 0 levels. A wraith reduced to 0 levels in this fashion is permanently destroyed.

WRAITH FEATURES

Arcanoi: Arcanoi (singular Arcanos) are special powers available only to wraiths—the ability to travel swiftly between one place and another through the lands of the dead, wails that turn the mortal heart to terror, manipulating objects by will, and other abilities. Arcanoi work like feats, and many of them are powered by Pathos, the emotional and spiritual energy that charges wraiths.

PATHOS

As spirits of the dead, one might expect wraiths to be drab and pathetic. In truth, wraiths are spirits of great energy and passion compared to those that remain in the Underworld, though still somewhat subdued compared to their living selves. A wraith’s power flows from his emotions, and from the emotions of those around them.

Maximum Pathos: A wraith can store Pathos equal to 10 plus his Constitution modifier; if he gains excess Pathos, it is wasted.

Starting Pathos: Wraiths start with their maximum amount of Pathos (10 + Con modifier).

Pathos per Round: Wraiths can spend one Pathos per round, no matter what effect they want to achieve. A wraith can take the Ghostly Vigor Arcanos to improve this rate.

Wraiths can use Pathos for several effects.

Activate Arcanos

Some Arcanoi require Pathos; others do not. See each Arcanoi’s description to see if the Arcanos uses Pathos, and how much.

Become Incorporeal

Rather than suffering damage to achieve their full incorporeality, wraiths may spend one point of Pathos to become completely immaterial for a number of rounds equal to 1 plus their Constitution modifier (minimum 0). The wraith may choose to prematurely end this duration.

Heal Corpus

Spending one Pathos heals the wraith of 5 hit points of damage or one point of ability damage. Spending two points of Pathos can heal the wraith of one point of ability drain. Wraiths can spend Pathos for these effects even while unconscious or dying.

Manifest

A wraith can become clearly visible to a supernatural being, or dimly visible to a mortal, by spending one point of Pathos. This causes the wraith to become visible (and audible) for a number of minutes equal to his level.

Regaining Pathos

A wraith automatically regains one point of Pathos per day if his corpus is not damaged. A damaged wraith does not regenerate Pathos in this fashion.

If a wraith spends at least one minute aiding a dying mortal peacefully meet his end, he regains one point of Pathos from the effort. Should the mortal not wish to move beyond this world, the wraith may need to convince him to do so (possibly requiring a Diplomacy check or roleplaying). A mortal that rises again as a ghost or other undead grants the wraith no Pathos.

A wraith that destroys a vampire gains one Pathos for doing so, plus an additional Pathos for every four full experience levels of the destroyed vampire. Part of a wraith’s duty is sending the escaped or stolen souls of vampires back to the Underworld, and fulfilling this duty is emotionally satisfying.

Surviving a harrowing allows a wraith to recover his total maximum of Pathos all at once, though few wraiths consider the loss of a level a suitable price for this benefit.

New Design and Development Blog

2007-11-13T18:09:00.001-08:00

Since all the cool kids in the gaming industry are doing it now, I figured that I should start up my own design and development blog. This little space on the internet will take up my commentary on my games at home, the work I'm doing in the industry, my trials and travails as a freelancer, and the random ideas for games and game-related projects that come into my head. Hopefully, this will turn out to be a useful web space and not fall into some sort of ugly obsolescence.

Right now, I'm sitting at home and relaxing, putting together the notes for the next system update for my homebrew. I'll try to put up some of the work for it later tonight while I'm on the job. Really, this post exists mainly to inaugurate my shiny new blog. Woo!