We’ve had two wiki weeks since the last update. I’ll just bundle up all the updates here in one spot:
Sidekicks won two months running on Patreon, so there are four more sidekicks for your very low-power Psi-Wars games, or as allies to your PCs.
Other than the doctor, this covers pretty much all the relatively generic sidekicks I have.
Subscribestar chose animal companions in February. This makes me happy, because we finally have some proper bestial allies on the wiki, and I feel like the template I’ve set up to handle this will work well. I’ve focused exclusive on Dog-like aliens, which have their own page now.
(My plan is to follow the Generic Space Bestiary template, and treat look-alike critters as the same animal handling specialty)
I have more. It’s just a matter of getting around to them.
Finally, Subscribestar tied for March, so I broke the tie in favor of psychokinesis, as I’ve been messing with it a lot. I’ve been updating the major psi pages to remove the pure references to the book and replace them with enough reference material to make your character from the wiki exclusively, if necessary, but not so much as to replace the book. That is, I’ve tried to make it more convenient and consistent without violating copyright (I still want you to buy the books, and you still ultimately need them to know how these abilities work).
I’ve also added much expanded pyro- and cryokinesis to psychokinesis.
]]>Crimson is covered with an insidious thick red fog that gives the planet its name. It rises two miles above the planet's surface, sends most life into a helpless stupor, and corrodes machines from the inside. Just above the fog hovers massive machines kept aloft by powerful psionic flows emanating from the planet beneath. Strange gears four hundred meters across slowly turn in the red skies, while the factories attached to them use some unfathomable process to produce the most powerful psionic drugs in the grand cluster. Bolted onto these factories centuries later are a collection of homes and structures housing the modern population, a collection of native workers who can see the psionic flows emerging from below, occupying soldiers guarding the wealth of the planet, and doomed prisoners recovering from their exposure to the mist in the mines below.
On the surface itself, protected and isolated by the fog, is an alien ecology featuring forests of an organism shaped like coral and a host of small hardy creatures that thrive in the otherwise hostile fog. dotting this alien wilderness are the old ruins of vast cities made of smooth towers with mushroom tops, massive vents in the surface spewing out the fog, miserable mines where the enslaved criminals of the empire are forced to harvest exotic psionic drug predecessors, and the camps of the flappers, a hairless winged race with a great crests, long beaks, and a taste for human flesh.
Crimson was one of the most memorable worlds of my campaign Called From Exile, and I'm planning a campaign set entirely on it. It is visually memorable, hides immense secrets, and easily lends itself to intrigue, being isolated, hostile, and at the center of grand politics, all at the same time.
The thick red fog of crimson has an insidious effect on those it surrounds, and a defining effect on the planet. Every minute of full exposure, living creatures must roll vs. Will to avoid falling asleep. succeeding by 3 or less makes them merely drowsy. For each consecutive roll, a cumulative -1 is inflicted. Precautions can decrease the frequency of the roll:
The Cumulative penalty wears off at a rate of 1 per hour if completely out of the mist, or 1 per 2 hours if in a building or vehicle surrounded by the mist
Machines, meaning anything with moving or electronic parts that's not alive, must roll vs. HT every 10 minutes or receive a cumulative -1 to IQ, DX, HT, and rolls to use the machine. An AI may roll vs Will instead. This is caused by small red crystals that grow on moving and electronically sensitive parts. Precautions can also decrease the frequency of the roll:
Machines can have these crystals cleaned off of them: the time varies by the size of the machine, but five minutes per square yard of surface area is a good benchmark, minimum five minutes, and most machines have to be taken apart and put back together, which is going to take its own time.
The effect of the crimson mist is psionic, which is how it can form those crystals across seals and vacuum. The crystals have no value, and will slow sublimate over a a few days if removed from the mist
The Mist will also penetrate sealed buildings. After four hours, a small amount of mist will seep in, enough to stop the recovery from the cumulative penalty. This can be stopped by scrubbing the building clean (five minutes of scrubbing per four square yards of wall keeping out the mist). After 12 hours, the mist will make many small holes in the wall that it will move through .
The floating factories are somehow immune to these effects, even when storms blow the mists up high to where the factories levitate. However, the buildings bolted onto the factories are not immune, and storms on crimson, while mild in terms of wind force, can do a lot of damage to machines as the mist seeps in.
The Mist varies in thickness: at its thickest it inflicts -2 vision per yard, but -1 per yard is more typical, and even on the surface, -1 per 2 yards occurs regularly.
The Mist also blocks Psionics, adding a penalty equal to the vision penalty to any roll to use psionics at a distance.This is not effected by any distance modifiers placed on the psionic ability.
Mist Urchins, or Crimson Urchins, as they are known off-world, are named for their resemblance to sea urchins. They weigh about a quarter of a pound, and have small tube feet on their underside they use to cling to objects, and especially to people. Crimson urchins are famously "friendly", and will slowly move towards people at the speed of about 1 inch every five seconds. While they cannot see, they do have short-range echolocation. They are cultivated and kept by those on Crimson who foresee a need to brave the mists, and are highly effective at staving off the mist's insidious effects.
Keeping a crimson urchin requires a minimal source of food (they seem to eat anything) a hour-long exposure to the mists once a week, and contact with a psionic being for at least 15 minutes a day. Without these things, they suffer and slowly die over the course of a month. Despite this, they are tricky to breed, and market price for one is $2,000.
The typical Factory is about 500 meters tall, 700 meters wide, and 1000 meters long. Their exteriors, especially their upper exteriors, are covered in slowly moving gears, vanes, antenna, vents, and and cams. On their underside are all the structures added on, sometimes bolted, sometimes dangling. Their parts are often a dull bronze, though the exact alloys and colors show a bewildering variety. Each factory has dozens of levels, and can comfortably hold around 50,000 people.
As a general rule, the richest and most desirable parts of the factory are the closest to the top and to the center. The upper portion of the factory is mostly moving parts, precluding too much settlement, but once the gears stop moving, you enter the domain of the rich and powerful. usually in the center of each factory is grand artificially lit "main street" with the highest end shops, homes, and government buildings. As you move away from this center, out and down, you enter worse and worse locations, with the worst locations being those dangling from the bottom of the factory. These dangling structures usually house the miners recovering from the surface below. Most of the time they are out of the mist, but when the mist rises higher than usual, it will enter the bolted on structures and especially the dangling ones.
Travel within the factories is generally done on foot: its corridors are too narrow for anything else. Traveling between factories is done by repulsor craft when the mists are low, and they generally fly high so as to avoid unpleasant upwelling from the mists below.
The Sighted are the population of humans that run the factories of Crimson. A quirk of genetics combined with growing up on the planet grants them the psionic ability to see the flows coming up from the mists. Crimson's economy does not function without them, and they are given a fair amount of autonomy, running and directing the factories, selecting their own magistrates and maintaining an independent guard that enforces their laws, so long as the factories continue to produce the critical psionic drugs that the pinnacle empire needs to thrive.
The partnership between the sighted and the pinnacle empire is old, and its perhaps one of their most critical planets, but tensions between the two are rising, as the growing population of the Pinnacle ruling families begin to demand higher outputs and the sited find that their elevated status is limited to their own planet. Crimson is perhaps the most fragile part of the pinnacle's power structure, a unique cog that cannot be replaced and barely be controlled.
The Pinnacle Empire is ruled by the "Pinnacles", a group of families gifted with enormous psionic power. The unique drugs produced by crimson allow them to boost their powers, develop their talents, and most importantly, to reliably trigger psionic abilities in their youth.
While the Pinnacles allow the Sighted to run the factories, they maintain a heavy garrison in orbit and in isolated portions of the factory, an administrative staff who keep an eye on the sighted and who handle the administration of any off-worlders who might make it there, and a system of mines worked by hapless prisoners. The head imperial is referred to as a Viceroy, as they do not rule directly, and they are almost always a ranking pinnacle with well-developed psionic powers.
The miners are kept in crowded barracks underneath the factories. Living conditions are cramped, unsanitary, and often exposed to the mist. Prisoners are treated as mostly expendable. The guards consider merely guarding this place a punishment. They venture into naturally occurring caverns to harvest rare psionically active crystals that grow there. Flappers occasionally pick off miners to eat, and losses are generally fairly high. Most miners are promised that if they can survive for a given amount of time (usually five years), they will be let go, but prisoners rarely make it that long.On the surface of Crimson is a population of nomadic hunters known colloquially as the "Flappers". Those trying to be a little more formal about it call them the pterubus. Flappers are essentially humanoid pterosaurs, with long head crests, beaks, and wings made of skin stretched between their bodies and arms. Their skin is thick and wrinkled. Hunched postures make their eyes shorter than humans, though their crests often make them seem taller. Flappers are naturally immune to the effects of the mist. They are also hostile to outsiders and a large portion of them think that humans are delicious.
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Flappers live off of Crimson's native ecology, mostly hunting slow-moving animals protected by hard shells, sharp spines, and toxic flesh. They work hard to process these creatures and make them edible. They maintain that the
whole planet belongs to them: they especially dislike the sighted, who they
refer to as thieves. Both peoples claim to be descended from the people who
built the ruins on the surface, and they often attack each other on sight.
Flappers lay eggs, and refer to five directions instead of four. They seem to
have a sense much like the sighted, allowing them to perceive the psionic flows
emanating from the planet.
Their politics is very fragmented, with individual groups running their own idiosyncratic governments, and they are quite willing to go to war with each other. Typically, a band is led by a number of Flappers holding offices like "The Egg-Mother" or "The Story Keeper". The specific offices used vary from band to band, as does how they are selected, but the group is usually tight-knit and informal decision making is often validated by the leadership. Most bands have a few hundred individuals.
The Flappers have their own tales, where they claim that Crimson was always like this, and that the sighted came and drove them from their cities and oppressed them, but that in the end their sages released the mist ten times thicker than before, and drove the sighted from the surface.
The great cities still stand on the surface, smooth ceramic towers cloaked in red mist. All metals have corroded away, and the organics have been consumed. But there might be hints of what happened in there... hints of the civilization that built the floating factories and whose left-overs are powerful enough to be a strategic concern in the modern pinnacle empire...
Combat on crimson tends to occur at very short range. The factories are largely indoor facilities, and the mist both obscures vision and destroys weapons. The Sighted rely mostly on force shields, hyperdense superfine blades (+4 damage, armor divisor (5)) on swords and pole-arms, and unconsciousness nerve disruptors, used as both guns and grenades.
Flappers also use hyperdense superfine blades, but they generally use them on spears and polearms. As the mist will corrode even bow-strings, they tend to use thrown projectiles as their ranged weapons. They are heavily reliant on the mist to make up for their ranged deficits, but their storm callers are said to be able to control its upwelling and use it as weapon against their foes.
The Pinnacle empire has access to the hyperdense superfine blades as well. They typically try to draw melee troops from across the empire. They also make sure to have a number of psionically powerful champions on the planet. They also keep a number of fighters in orbit. The Pinnacles are unchallenged on the battlefields of crimson: the sighted usually fight back through sabotage, and the Flappers are reliant on their superior mobility and senses in the mist.
This article was unexpectedly long. Crimson was a very iconic location to run an adventure in, and I hope to run an adventure there again. There is a lot to do, despite having a pretty small population and effective area (its a planet, but you're going to spend time in very small areas, like the factories). My players vividly remember Crimson to this day. I hope you enjoyed reading about it, and I hope I get to run a game in it again.
My friend Douglas Cole over at Gaming Ballistic puts out amazing third-party products for my favorite game... GURPS.
His newest project is ending tomorrow. It funded in the first couple of hours on Backerkit Crowdfunding and has reached its one and only stretch goal... turning all the art and maps from black and white to full color.
"A Choose-Your-Own style adventure for the Dungeon Fantasy RPG. Four mercenary soldiers join the fight to overthrow the dark Overlord Saethor. Play it solo, as a tutorial, or a no-prep convention romp. Will you be Saethor’s Bane … or he yours?"
Authorial Highlights
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Authorial Highlights
Blog Highlights
Patreon Highlights
Miscellaneous Related News
The post Carpe Blogiem: Author, Patreon, and Blog Highlights – January 2023 appeared first on Ravens N' Pennies.
]]>Party roster:
Ben, half-ogre barbarian, 176 points (PC)
Doran Longbeard, dwarf warrior (knight), 202 points (PC)
Eleanor Bayley, human thief, 233 points (PC)
- Dagne Timar, human priestess of Metallys (cleric), 147 points (NPC Hireling)
Erizax Ofaris, human wizard, 232 points (PC)
Randall, human veteran (knight), 157 points (NPC)
Maximilian "Stout" Grupher III, goblin cleric of Ishtanna, 121 points (PC)
Merrill Tangled Tail, cat-folk martial artist, 139 points (PC)
Campaign Date: 6 December, Year 645 of the Vycenaean Empire.
------
With Ben and Stout looking for tracks of whomever passed by their camp the night before, the party found themselves ambushed by a group of armed humans, seemingly the same group as attacked them previously. Merrill ran to Ben's aid, and took an arrow to the leg from an unseen archer. Crippled and facing multiple swordsmen, Merrill surrendered. Outnumbered about 2-to-1, and with one of their number being threatened at sword-point, the other party members were forced to surrender as well.
We will see how this resolves in the next session...
Another important goal for me with this supplement was to update 3e material that has not yet been updated and was related to spirits.
GURPS Classic has a lot of great material and most of it is easily ported to 4e. GURPS Religion and GURPS Spirits are still very useful, even if some of the mechanics have to be reworked. GURPS Cabal, GURPS In Nomine, and GURPS Voodoo are all fascinating settings that have not yet been updated. I believe this is mostly because an update does not need to do a lot to cover mechanics and other things that may need an update. The settings themselves are still very useable. With no formal update for any of these on the announced horizon I wanted to see how much I could cover to make a prospective GM's workload easier.
GURPS Cabal, GURPS In Nomine, and GURPS Voodoo received an update to their magic systems and some powers in GURPS Thaumatology, GURPS Powers, GURPS Magic, and GURPS Basic.
Some spirit powers however still needed either an example build to show how to update or new modifiers to make them work. Some of this material was in other 4e material, especially Pyramid and GURPS Horror. But its scattered and can be hard to find, especially if you do not have the supplements. Even if you do the GURPS library is extensive and sometimes things are tough to find.
GURPS Template Toolkit 4: Spirits thus has a lot of new modifiers and explains ways to use existing abilities to emulate some of these effects. I also tried to grab some of the more interesting or difficult spirits to make sure the possible builds was versatile and compatible as possible with published material. Jumper gets a lot of love here that may be useful to a GURPS Cabal spirit.
For another example the Personal Power lens is basically an attribute list that lets you combine it with a spirit template or lens type and have a ready to go foe. Secondary attributes such as Dodge already included. I benchmarked these so that the Minor lens matches the small elementals in GURPS Dungeon Fantasy and the Elite lens matched the default Angel character in GURPS In Nominee.
Speaking of GURPS In Nomine I did not intend this to take the place of an update for that setting but I really like it and some of the concepts fit a broader narrative of spirits and folklore or fiction. So I put a few things in here. If the setting is updated they may get used or they may not, if someone wanting to run the setting using 4e rules wants to use them they can choose to use this or not. The goal was just to provide as much material to cover as large a variety as possible.
The Elite personal attribute Lense was benchmarked against GURPS In Nomine angels and demons, leaving rom for the archangels and princes to use the Paragon attribute level. Different racial templates could be used but my first choice would probably be Imbuing Spirit. This makes them normally insubstantial but they can either use powers or spells to affect the physical world or possess people.
Different Choirs and Bands would modify this, perhaps requiring a host be a Puppet to possess them or Alternate Form to create a Host. I wanted to add a bit to Alternate Form for such a host, including an enhancement to Alternate Identity but decided it was too specific for this supplement. Additional notes…
Awareness (Symphony) becomes Illuminated.
Each Choir or Band has their own Power and they also have Celestial or Infernal as appropriate. I didn’t set out to make powers for each Choir or Band but Traveler and Dream/Nightmare are obvious examples that could fit.
Word-Bound and Sacred Word! are obvious.
Add the desired magic system, GURPS Magic in 4e is almost the same as in 3e, though new options are available. And with that you can pretty much update your GURPS In Nomine to the current edition. Most powers are easy builds, a few require more work that I wish I could have done for this supplement.
]]>The radius lit in this table is lit with the officially recommended light level for indoor settings like bedrooms. I recommend using this as "no vision penalty"... though see the "nickpick" section for more details.
Radius | Time | Radius | Time |
1 yard | 2 days | 7 yards | 1 hour |
2 yards | 12 hours | 10 yards | 30 minutes |
3 yards | 5 hours | 15 yards | 15 minutes |
5 yards | 2 hours | 20 yards | 7.5 minutes |
x2 | x1/4 |
Time listed is for each 1000 KJ of energy. If you have Create Visible Light 3 [30] and thus have 9000 KJ of light, a 5 yard radius light can last for 2 hours * 9 = 18 hours.
If you're not interested in being sure why this works, or about environmental complications that might make your game more interesting, you can stop reading here and just use the table. If not...
So where do these numbers come from? The biggest issue was figuring out a conversion from Joules to Lumen-Seconds. "Lumen" is a measure of light, and its sort of unique. The best way I can describe a lumen is to say a 100-Watt equivalent bulb delivers 1600 of them. If you got one of the legit ones and not a cheap one.
And this lightbulb will do all of the rest of our work for us too. It delivers those 1600 lumens using under 16 watts of power, though not much under. So 1 Watt of power gives us 100 lumens-- and 1 Watt for 1 Second is one joule. So with an LED lightbulb, we can turn 1 joule into 100 lumens for a second, or into 1 lumen for 100 seconds.
So now we have lumens from joules, and we want to light a radius. Turns out there are official standards on how much light a given area needs. Using Gurps favorite measurement system, the measurement is the candle foot. You multiply your area in square feet by the recommended candle foot, and that's how many lumens you need. The recommended candle foot for living areas, bedrooms, and hallways is 20, so we can take the area of our radius, multiply by twenty candle foot, and that's the lumens we need.
Then we divide the lumens by 100 to get the watts of power, and divide our 1 million joules by our required watts to get the number of seconds our light lasts for.
So for a 1 yard radius we have about 3ft*3ft*pi = 28 square feet, and those 28 square feet require 28 sq ft * 20 candle foot = 560 lumens, and that requires 5.6 watts of energy, or 5.6 joules per second. our supply of 1 million joules will run out in 1,000,000/5.6 = 178,000 seconds. which is conveniently close to the 172,800 seconds in two days.
So this is not a perfect system, and I wouldn't be doing a good job if I didn't know where the weak spots in what I did are.
First, we based things on commercial LED bulbs. LEDs are not perfectly efficient, and in fact, I used a convenient middle of the road number of 100 lumens per watt. Its easy to get 120 lumens per watt commercially, and those aren't perfectly efficient either: people claim LEDs are 70% efficient, which might mean 180 lumens is correct. Wikipedia claims the maximum optimized (green) light source can produce 683 lumens per watt... without a reference, and I'm a comparative newbie to optics. So I went with 100 for ease of use.
Second, these numbers are based on point sources in indoor lighting, because that's what people light up the most often. Indoor spaces have the benefit of bounding light off of all their surfaces to create nice soft light that lights most things up from all directions. When you stick a 1600 lumen bulb in a room, all 1600 lumens bounce around that room, especially if you painted the walls white. This uses all the light and ensures somewhat uniform lighting.
Outside, or in a space larger than your light, you loose some of your light to the area outside. Worse, it doesn't bounce to light things up from behind, and you get stark shadows.in modern lighting, which mostly just plays with near-point sources, we use mirrors, lenses, shapes, and multiple light sources to try and deal with this. Of course, nothing in powers restricts us to using only point-sources. light could be created in a downward beam over the area, or could appear ambivalently evenly from within the lit area. That could look pretty strange... which is another way of saying it would look mystical or cool. Not entirely inappropriate for a "Power". Reasonable limitation on the power might be restricting the light to appear as a beam, point source, or ambient.
You may wish to impose lighting penalties just from the quality of the light, rather than the quantity. a sword fight in a searchlight beam at night may have a lot of light shining on it, but the shadows will be very harsh.
Third, 20 candle-foot is a little on the low side for lighting. Its equivalent to 200 Lux, which enhanced senses says is a -3 to vision rolls-- and then goes on to agree its typical for a living room. I don't usually run living rooms as -3 unless the lights have been intentionally dimmed. Lighting recommendations for normal areas generally range from 20-100, with high detail work areas occasionally getting a recommended value of 500 candle foot. Lighting for a stage also gets that recommendation.
While I don't think 200 LUX is worthy of a -3 penalty, perhaps I should increase the base lighting level to 50 candle-foot (500 LUX). That would drop the time by quite a bit. I'm not, because I'm hoping the efficiency error more or less cancels out. I might even in my games use an efficiency of 250 lumens per watt and an intensity of 50 candle-foot.
It's worth pointing out that 100,000 LUX (10,000 candlefoot) is the correct number for direct sun shining strait down with no clouds, and if you want to replicate that (it happens) you can get a 1 yard radius for 6 minutes, or a 10 yard radius for 3.5 seconds.
I made this to support a new campaign: we tried to play it about a year ago but the players wanted the magic system worked better... and here I am working the magic system. Create Light is a cool power (not just Create Visible Light, but all the things you can do with it), but I needed a better idea of what "Create Visible Light" could really do. I'm pleased with the result.
I'm happy to have this, and I've learned a lot. Light and Lighting is a complex topic, and I've only learned a little bit about it. If you have some way to improve this, let me know. I'm not running this game quite yet...
The spider on Grignok passes out. The spider on Tonfa Guy bites him, dropping him, and his breathing gets shallow. Honsou shoots the spider on Tonfa Guy, taking it down. Augustus casts Stop Bleeding on Tonfa Guy, stabilizing him.
A truly big spider takes a bite out of Grignok, paralyzing him. Felcanis wiggles out a little but cannot get free. Dénnos steps and burns webbing again. Honsou pulls out an arrow and aims. Augustus burns the webbing in front of Honsou.
The spider rears up and grapples Grignok. Felcanis wiggles free and steps back. Dénnos and Augustus keep burning webbing, while Honsou keeps aiming.
The spider starts dragging off Grignok. Felcanis steps and casts Sunbolt. Dénnos and Augustus burn more webbing. Honsou takes a step and then shoots the spider.
Felcanis steps and throws her Sunbolt, but misses, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing. Dénnos and Augustus keep up burning webbing, and Honsou readies his bow. The spider crushes Grignok with its forearms, then steps back.
Augustus drops his torch and pulls out his bow, and Honsou aims. Dénnos keeps burning webbing, while Felcanis steps back. The spider keeps moving back, and Augustus takes a parting shot. Honsou instead grabs Grignok, and they all go towards the opening. Once they have the sun on their faces, they heal up.
They start climbing down. Augustus takes off his gear and they lower it to the ground, then Tonfa Guy ties the rope around Augustus. Augustus starts going down, but he slips with the knot doing the same, and he lands on the ground, awake but hurting. Grignok, as a panther, climbs down, turns back into an orc, turns Augustus into a big log, heals the log, then turns Augustus back into a person, bewildering Bill, grazing by the tree. Then Tonfa Guy lowers Felcanis, who makes it down after some small mishaps. Both the Tonfa Guy and Honsou make it down, and they make camp there. Grignok gathers food, and Felcanis feeds herself with Create Food.
They wake up on a chilly morning, but nothing awful. The sky looks a bit cloudy. The set out slowly through the thick woods near the spiders' lair, but move faster once they get out of the thick woods just after noon.
In the late afternoon, Grignok points to a tree with curved branches in a copse of trees. "That one there is not right." The branches look almost sword-like, so Tonfa Guy walks away, and everyone else follows.
Felcanis makes camp that night, the first quarter of the moon. Felcanis again feeds herself with Create Food and Grignok gathers food.
In the middle of the night, the rain and winds pick up. Grignok, who is on watch, wakes up everyone. "Run! It's a twister!" Felcanis and Augustus get hurt from the debris, with Felcanis deaf for many minutes afterwards. They set up camp again under a lean-to, and get some more sleep.
The next morning is still wet, crappy, and cloudy, and they make it back to Bóllā in the middle of the morning.
]]>Ken Burnside is still working on the final round of textual edits, but it sounds as if he’ll be done with that sometime around the GAMA Trade Show this week. He and I have discussed the number and nature of his editorial requests, and aside from the tweaks I’ve already made it sounds as if I’ll be able to rip through the whole list in just a few hours. So the current guess is that he’ll have the final release draft in hand by about 9-10 March, after which he’ll be able to do his first print run and start shipping hardcopies. The e-book version should be available about then too, including rewards for my patrons. Further delays aren’t impossible – Ken is a one-man shop too, and he has a lot more on his plate than I do – but we’re certainly getting closer to release day.
Meanwhile, I was able to release a substantially revised version of the Human Destiny setting bible to my patrons as a reward, the first charged release I’ve made since April or May of last year. That’s still going to be my primary creative project over the next few months. I feel as if I’ve underestimated the amount of setting-bible work I need to do before I start writing new fiction in that universe, but I’m at least getting closer to the point where I’ll be confident.
Here’s the formal plan for March:
I’m betting on a charged release for my patrons this month, most likely some combination of new Human Destiny setting-bible material and a new Aminata Ndoye story. That all depends on whether my other commitments leave me enough time, as usual.
]]>What I first came up with was a 0% rather generic PM but my editor wanted it to be more specifically outlined and described. In doing so I came up with the Devotion PM which is similar to the Pact limitation used for priests as part of the Divine PM. Spirits are generally very focused or passionate about the things they care for or engage in vices or have other traits GURPS would call a mental disadvantage.
I created several new power groups, leaving a lot on the cutting room floor. The published version has 27 specific power groups, though a few are modified versions from other supplements. I also included a list of Power Modifiers I felt especially appropriate in other supplements, mostly GURPS Horror and GURPS Powers.
The Devotion PM can be applied to most of them and though it is a generic -10% the value can be adjusted based on the spirit and what disadvantages apply. The Trickster power has a specific example of this. I listed some ideas for most of the Powers, mostly the concept rather than a list though to save room. The explanation for the Devotion PM gives the structure and each power gives a guideline relevant to it.
For example the Traveler power could take Compulsive Behavior for never staying in one place too long, exploration, etc. Or perhaps a Sense of Duty to their rider for a winged steed. The Psychopomp power could take Sense of Duty to religious adherents, "Those who died in battle", or anything else appropriate to getting the recently deceased to where they need to go.
This month, Mike and Roger consider how to do character sheets right, and ponder the future of generic systems.
]]>This is my second supplement, both on the subject of spirits in GURPS. It is more crunchy than GURPS Powers Totem and Nature Spirits.
It is a collection of templates and lenses, making it a tough edit but useful for GMS to quickly put together spirits for their campaigns. However a big part of this book is also explaining how various traits work and apply in the context of a spirit. So it goes into explanation on many traits, hopefully clearing up some details and questions I have seen come up. Also adding quite a few new modifiers to current advantages.
Those modifiers like Preset for Jumper or Warp, Display for Clairsentience, a couple of goodies for Binding, and many more should be useful in campaigns not using spirits as well.
Some core advantages like Special Rapaport also get expanded options.
]]>Party roster:
Ben, half-ogre barbarian, 176 points (PC)
Doran Longbeard, dwarf warrior (knight), 202 points (PC)
Eleanor Bayley, human thief, 233 points (PC)
- Dagne Timar, human priestess of Metallys (cleric), 147 points (NPC Hireling)
Erizax Ofaris, human wizard, 232 points (PC)
Randall, human veteran (knight), 157 points (NPC)
Maximilian "Stout" Grupher III, goblin cleric of Ishtanna, 121 points (PC)
Merrill Tangled Tail, cat-folk martial artist, 139 points (PC)
Campaign Date: 5 and 6 December, Year 645 of the Vycenaean Empire.
------
Having driven off the kobolds and escaped* from the Misty Marsh** without loss of any party member, the group camped for the night. It was late and they were tired from their battle and then marching their way out of the mist without pausing to rest. Considering the fatigue level of some of the casters, they made slow going and they were fortunate that they were not attacked again before they escaped the Mist.
The campsite turned out to be not far enough away from the marsh that they weren't disturbed. An arrow flew into the camp at night, while Eleanor was on watch duty. This freaked her out, and she woke up several of the others, but no more arrows came and there was no sign of anyone outside the campsite. The arrow had a note tied to it, with a short message written in four different languages. Erizax was able to translate the High Vycenaean script, and Dagne the Ancient Te-Minoan cuneiform. One of the other two languages were Dwarvish, which Doran recognised but cannot read (most dwarves nowadays use a dialect of the common tongue for everyday use); the last language they did not identify. Dagne translated the cuneiform message as "You will not enter my domain again without permission. Next time you will bring tribute. This is a warning." The rest of the night was uneventful. The general consensus amongst the party members is that the message is from the "dragon", which some of them have seen flying in the area.
The next morning the party set off south, avoiding the Misty Marsh which seemed to stretch for miles on their left. Ben led the group through the hills, hoping to find evidence of the missing magician Turmion. From the top of a high hill, they could see the Old Forest in front of them to the south, the Misty Marsh to the east, and to the southeast between those two areas lay a few miles of wet moorland, dotted with occasional trees but devoid of the supernatural Mist for which the Marsh was named. From out of the mist Ben could see a large river winding southwards into the distance. More closely, the Greywash river could be glimpsed between the trees at the edge of the forest south of the hills.
As they pressed on, Ben found more and more evidence of human foot traffic in various directions, but much of it going north-south. He tracked these southwards, and they wended the party out of the hills, into the forest, and to the northern bank of the Greywash river. It looked to Ben as if this was a spot the bandits had used to cross with boats, but there was no boat on their side. Ben spotted what might have been a boat, camouflaged in the undergrowth on the opposite side of the river.
The party spent some time discussing various methods by which they might cross the river, but none of the group can swim, and the river was too wide, too deep and too fast, for them to be willing to risk it. Eventually they decided to head upstream along the northern bank of the river, in hopes of finding a ford or other crossing point. As they travelled west, the course of the river took them further into the trees, and the group opted to stick close to the bank rather than keep sight of the edge of the woods. As they were going along, Stout had the feeling of being watched, and he cautiously notified the party. Ben who was leading, saw a lone wolf in front, looking at him. He stopped and while the group debated what to do about this, the wolf disappeared into the trees. The party cautiously proceeded but there was no further sight of wolves.
With no sign of a crossing point and the day getting late, Ben looked for a good camping spot in the forest. He set up their tents, and Erizax again cast Mystic Mist to protect the campsite. During the night, Stout heard what he thought was a whispered voice, followed by a scrabbling of rocks. He waited in the mist as silently as he could, but Stout neither heard nor saw anything else. Then he awoke other party members quietly, and they mobilised to investigate, but there was no sight or sound of whatever had spoken. They went back to bed.
In the morning after breaking camp, the party left the cover of Erizax's magical mist, and Ben and Stout looked for signs of anyone passing through. While investigating, Stout reacted to a noise and looked up to see someone approaching with a sword raised! Stout shouted in alarm to warn the others.
We paused the session there, with a potential fight immanent...
---
* Narrowly. Very Narrowly. Both front line PCs were close to being dragged off by the kobolds*** and drowned.
** Not to be confused with Mystic Mist, a useful protective spell known by the party wizard.
*** Fantastic Dungeon Grappling at work. It doesn't matter if the members of a horde are individually both smaller and weaker than the average human - if enough of them can grab you at once, then it is very hard to escape without assistance.
]]>]]>
After doing Amethyst, the player was out of time and realised she wanted more spells so stuck “Not Elf” on the bottom and asked if I could adjust the character. I’ve given her a much better range of spells. The other character is pretty solid, though.
Game on!
]]>Party roster:
Ben, half-ogre barbarian, 177 points (PC)
Doran Longbeard, dwarf warrior (knight), 203 points (PC)
Eleanor Bayley, human thief, 233 points (PC)
- Dagne Timar, human priestess of Metallys (cleric), 147 points (NPC Hireling)
Erizax Ofaris, human wizard, 232 points (PC)
Randall, human veteran (knight), 157 points (NPC)
Maximilian "Stout" Grupher III, goblin cleric of Ishtanna, 121 points (PC)
Merrill Tangled Tail, cat-folk martial artist, 140 points (PC)
Campaign Date: 4 December, Year 645 of the Vycenaean Empire.
------
Diary of Merrill Tangled Tail:
*This page is smudged and stained with mud, the previous page illegible.*
It awful! Never, never again Merrill want to have this happen. There perils walking path of Master, yes yes, Merrill know this, but this... this too much. Perhaps Merrill feel better when clothes have dried and mud cleaned from fur, but it doubtful. Today was worst day in life of Merrill, and it not help being wet and cold all time. That only make thing worse, but that not worst thing.
Today Merrill nearly lose friends.
At first Merrill worried when creatures attack, which some friends now say were Kobold. But stone that hit hand only cause big bruise. That hurt, and still hurt, but nothing broken and it no more than annoyance. Stab to chest of Stout also not serious, so Dagne say, and Merrill very glad to hear that. But there not much Merrill could do when Kobold attack, except stand next to Randall and hope for best. Kobold they quick quick! And small. It worrying that Merrill could not hear Ben fighting, and there no more Kobolds flying away from hit. Now all Merrill see is Doran ten tails away or more and in trouble that big big. So many Kobold around Doran! But there no time to worry much, because Kobold attack group that stay together. Behind Merrill can hear Eleanor and Dagne and Stout fighting. They fight hard! From other side, Merrill hear Erizax say things nearly under breath that not encouraging. Why there no big fire yet? There always big fire when many enemy and Erizax worry. Eventually Merrill can hear fire begin, but it... sound wrong. Or is it Erizax Merrill can hear, that gasp in surprise and pain? It not good, no no.
Moment later, Dagne shout name of Ben, and Merrill see big group of Kobold grab Doran who drop axe and try to struggle for knife. It not possible, there too many Kobold holding onto arm and leg and hands. It at that moment Merrill feel strange sensation. It like anger, great anger, but it not hot like anger. It very cold. It as if something in Merrill decide to go away for while and wait for things better again. And something else in Merrill now directly behind eyes. When next staff hits Kobold trying to hurt Merrill, staff nearly fold Kobold in half. When Kobold try to hurt Randall or Erizax, same thing happen. It clear to Merrill that this anger, but it strange anger.
Anger remain cold as Merrill's feet even when Randall warn Merrill he stepping away close to Stout because fight turning rapidly. Dagne shouting for Ben, and it sound to Merrill's ears that these shouts of fear and near panic. It at that time Merrill see Kobolds drag away Doran.
Towards water.
Doran struggle, but Kobold they too many, have hold of too much Doran. It not grip of Little Moon Waxing, or even of Bright Moon Burning, but that not matter when there so many. There not so many near Merrill and friends now. And then Merrill hear Doran begin singing. They very close to water now... Kobold going to drown Doran the deep!
That when anger suddenly burn hot. Hot as hottest thing Merrill ever known, and Merrill's feet decide before Merrill's head have time to think. Merrill certain that he shouted something, but for moment it all red. Merrill see all things red, can feel heart thumping in chest, can feel ears laying flat and tail bristle. Briefly there much wet mud under toes, and then Merrill at edge of water. So close! Too far!
Kobold drowning Doran the deep!
There moment while Merrill leap that head screaming to stay away from water. But anger is hot thing, like forge, and legs in control, so Merrill leap from shore into water to close with Kobold. Flash of staff and one Kobold slip beneath water, but there many Kobold left, and they getting away! Getting away with friend Doran! They drowning friend Doran while they swim away from Merrill!
Water first at deep of ankle. Then knees. Then Merrill feel tail go beneath surface of water and all things slower. By time Merrill in water up to chest, it clear that there no hope. There no chance. Merrill not able to reach Doran!
There anger. There sadness. There... thing in Merrill that Merrill not understand, that feel like dragon uncoiling. And then Merrill let out fear and anger and frustration and all things. Merrill roar at Kobold that nearest.
Kobold freeze.
Rest of Kobold freeze for instant, then flee. But group of Kobold flee quick as quick can, and drop Doran to get away from Merrill.
Erizax come up to Merrill, and together we fish for Doran in deep water. As each moment pass, Merrill more sad.
Until suddenly something grab hold of Merrill's staff. With combined effort, Erizax and Merrill pull Doran back to shore. It impossible to write of relief! For long moments Merrill hug Doran and never want to let go ever. That scary! And Merrill never want have this happen again!
When returning to place where friends fought Kobold together, it clear Ben also saved from same fate of Doran. It such relief! That work of Eleanor and Dagne, and Merrill know Eleanor the swift enough now to know that Eleanor not happy. In fact, fairly certain Eleanor angry. When question come what next, it Eleanor and Merrill that reply at same time, to get away from swamp. It awful place!
On way back to place of camp, away from swamp yes yes, Merrill ask Erizax question of Big Moon Chasing. How mighty Termion? Erizax reply he not certain. So Merrill ask, how mighty Termion without magic? Mightier than Ben the mighty? Because Ben the mighty and Doran the deep nearly drowned by Kobold, and friends only live because they fight back to back. Termion mightier than all friends combined, by self, perhaps? To that Erizax reply that, no, Termion probably not that mighty. And so Merrill conclude it not likely that Termion in swamp, or even go in swamp if knowing of dangers.
And so Merrill say we never come back here again. Erizax say that not possible to promise, because never is very long time. Merrill say, we never come back here again.
Even with clothes dry and fur clean, and Merrill looking forward to curling up in little ball wrapped in warm soft blanket, there still hollow space in Merrill that certain to take long time to fill up again. Today Merrill nearly lose friends.
It awful.
We have two new players and the group is therefore potentially eight strong. This is too many for my preference but I didn’t want to turn away excited new players. For one session, yeah, I can totally run for more players… although I will have to limit the table for a more regular game. I’ve made sure there are three spare characters to offer a little choice.
I’m recycling an old (and favourite) dungeon for the session. It’s a location that I had been thinking to include but hadn’t yet placed on the map. It was trivial to revisit the dungeon, tweak a couple of details, and get it ready. I discovered I already have a GURPS version of that location written up so I am just going to dive in.
The biggest question is the longer-term question: how do we draw the group from a couple of one-shots into maybe being a regular gaming group? For me, it’s a matter of continuing to offer the sessions, invite people to interact between sessions, and gently see where things end up. There’s no need to rush and letting things organically develop feels best.
Game on!
]]>The summer passed relatively uneventfully for our heroes. For Sylas, he spent time trying to avoid thinking about his heritage he had recently learned about. As such he focused himself on his guard duties and in turn becoming a better leader because of it. His swordsmanship skills also improved and unbeknownst to his friends, he learned a new spell from Bjark. On his one day off a week, he usually spent it painting. Luckily for him, Sorgusa is beautiful in the summer. Grainne, meanwhile, also worked on her painting, but couldn’t ever really focus herself to actually improve much. Regardless, there are a lot of pieces of driftwood that if you squint hard enough can imagine there being a seascape painted upon them. Hours were spent with Adarte renovating the temple, cleaning out the old giant rat’s nest, and cataloging the old scrolls that were found. She would often take her siblings in the afternoon swimming when they reached the point of driving their parents nuts. Most evenings were spent at one of the taverns, telling stories and hearing stories of visitors that would come through. More importantly, with her new fascination of mermaids, wrote a letter to Liliana in Paradise Cove.
Eldaria spent the rest of spring and early summer going to the strapalot patch encouraging it to grow and spending time with the farmsteads on the outskirts of Sorgusa being friendly with the farmers and herders. Many an evening was spent writing letters to her old goblin friend, Guuj’bo’tin, who with funds from Grainne made them a new bow. The bow was crafted to look like vines and leaves, but he enchanted it for his friend so that they would not miss. Many mornings, at least until the worst of the summer heat, was spent on the family fishing boat with her brother trying to convince him that they will be fine in Temparat, really convincing no one. El made sure all the nets were fixed, at least for the fall oyster harvest. A week or so before the end of summer, they made sure they had a new haircut.
The two boars, Carver and Currie were given the opportunity to be wild boars once again, but honestly they had learned to kind of like being around humans. Though the current human, Elzy, seemed to be nicer and let them roam and eat and did not make them do too much work. Plus he seemed to be able to talk to him. They found it weird, but why would they want to go back and be a normal boar. So over the summer, this human taught them a couple of new tricks, including being scruffleshroom hunters, which allowed the human Elzy to sell for shiny baubles for the rare moments when he needed to repair his clothes or to replace a pot. The boars would watch Elzy most mornings working on his sword work while munching on nuts and tubers they scrounged for. They remember the past humans swinging around similar objects, but they clearly didn’t look as skilled as Elzy did. For a few weeks, Carver and Currie had to fend for themselves, as Elzy and that flying creature went away. Apparently they were looking for someone named Marbin “Jack” Flyntella to have him keep an eye out for another human named Rynne that they met in one of the towns up north on the other side of the large lake. That was their first boat ride and though scary at first, they remember it now fondly. Still humans looking for other humans just sounded so complicated to Carver and Currie. Apparently one evening in town, they could hear that Elzy discussed the dealing of the not nice human Rynne with a much nicer human named Bjarke. Bjarke would always give a nice pile of vegetable scraps for them whenever Elzy would spend the evening getting very wobbly. The innkeeper seemed alarmed, because apparently only their human survived some disaster upon a large lake.
On a beautiful fall day, Savorat Huyn, one of the older students at the Arcane Order came into town on a wagon with two other students in tow. They learn over the course of the three days they stay in Sorgusa, that Savorat is a rising star in Weather Magic at the school, having already graduated in the Spring as member of the Order of the Gryphon. His Arcane Order of Temparat insignia brooch holding his cloak having had been embossed on the back with this creature. Sylas learned one afternoon when Savorat was invited to the keep for a proper luncheon with the Lady Mourava and few of the more prosperous members of Sorgusa, including Nuno and Carina, that his family owned the majority of the copper mines around Golan to the north. During that luncheon they always asked how his mother was doing, given that she ran the Golan Mining Company and is one of the wealthiest merchants in northern Tempore. What was left unsaid was that Savorat’s father left when his was a young lad and he feels like he has to prove himself to the world.
The other two students hailed from Vilhana one of the settlements along the road north of Sorgusa. These twins were the youngest of a minor silversmith family that Grainne’s parents have traded with in the past and some of their wares could be found at the newly re-named Hor’gh’s General Store. Their older brother is slated to inherit the family business, so perhaps it was by the will of the gods that the sisters both discovered they could cast magic. Though not the richest family in the region by jar, they were clearly are well off enough to send two children for proper magical training. Grainne immediately became infatuated with them, and completely missed that both of them could cast magic. They definitely bickered and got on each other’s nerves, but Eldaria was able to notice that their magic wasn’t very strong when separated, but got much stronger when they were together. Serafina, with blue and white hair, frequently would make small cubes of ice to cool her drinks down, while Aldina, would often use a small burst of flame to heat up her drinks to keep them from cooling down.
The reality of leaving this small town, perhaps permanently, finally hit home, as the heroes had just a couple of days left to pack up everything they would need in chests provided in the wagon. Clothes, weapons and armor, and the like were all hastily gathered and prepared. Elzy made sure to get some salted fish from Nuno’s Barrels and Salt, incase he would run into a bear along the way. He felt very unprepared the last time this happened. Eldaria went out on one last fishing trip with her brother Remy. He was very proud of her, and so was their mother, though she had a harder time expressing it. She tried to hold in tears when Eldaria got her last hug, but she didn’t succeed. Grainne’s family were sad to see her go, but also, it was time. More room in their small house for the rest of the family was desperately needed. Sylas, ended up letting a secret out of the bag to Eldaria that he can in fact cast magic, though he only knows a couple of spells. In his mind, especially with uncomfortable news about his heritage, if he’s using magic, he feels like he has failed.
The ride to Temparat was very uneventual, but it took almost four days by wagon as long the main road, it was about 125 miles from Sorgusa. And for those such as Grainne, and especially Eldaria who had never been to a big city, it felt huge. Elzy, though not particularly fond of cities, had docked in Temparat more than once during his time as a sailor. At least in port he was a sailor, others might have called him a pirate once he was upon the ocean waves.
As they approached the capital of Tempore, they first came to the outskirts known as The New City. The prosperity of the last 70 years or so has caused the city to grow and now the New City numbers at least 10,000 residents, many of whom can live almost their entire lives without entering the gates to the city proper. Once they entered through the main gates, they entered the Prosperous Fish District, passing by all the shops and markets selling any good imaginable. From there they could have turned left to the District of a Thousand Huts, but instead headed towards the District of the Sun and Waves. Here the Arcane Order campus resides among many temples and shrines, along with many noble or merchant family mansions. From the campus they can see the castle where Queen Fillappa resided, looming down upon the entire city. Towards the see they could see on an island just off shore the largest temple to Farlun in on the continent, the Temple of the Broken Waves.
Savorat led everyone, including the twins and heroes of our story to a tent where they could check in. From there they were, they were escorted by second year students to their respective dormitories. Sylas was shown to a suite, with rooms adjacent to Savorat. Though not exclusive to him, Sylas found out that he was also given a valet to aid him in any additional needs he might have. It was a weird, and slightly uncomfortable moment for Sylas who had not yet come to terms with his status in society as a knight of the realm. Grainne, meanwhile, was shown to where the majority of students reside, often in groups of two or three or if there are lots of students in a particular year, as many as four. She discovered that her roommates were going to be the twins (Serafina and Aldina). Elzy and Eldaria were shown to a relatively exclusive floor of the dormitory where those few students who focus on nature magic often reside. Even with Elzy and Eldaria, there were only seven students at that time, including those who are working on advanced degrees, residing on this floor. But both of them were amazed as they walked in and saw a forest on one end with a savannah between that and what looked like a rainforest on the far end of the large room. Coming towards them was a large black panther who as it approached turned into a woman. She introduced herself as Akosua and they realized that she was perhaps a Feral Human. Elzy quickly set up a hammock and felt at home immediately, as well as Harvee, Currie, and Carver. Eldaria just stared at everything in awe.
After a couple of days, allowing the students to set in and wander around, they are met by Professor Teo Braga, who has for 50 years taught the introduce to magic courses for all new students, to understand the structure of the school and to aid them in picking their electives, though for the first semester they only get to pick one. Sylas choose the Magic of Movement 101 with Professor Boreira, Elzy chose Beasts and How to Tame them 111, so he can perhaps learn how to control Vermin better. The Ice Scorpions still lingered as a bad memory. Eldaria was having a hard time choosing between Alchemy and Potions 101 or Culinary Magic 131.
The first week was a blur, but they did remember Professor Braga’s insistence on getting even a basic spell right. That first spell they learned was Diver’s Blessing on how to hold their breath. It wasn’t until the end of the week they were even allowed to cast the spell and dip their heads into giant cauldrons of water. They were surprised by one student they didn’t expect to see. Aline Flyntella. One could see a moment of jealousy in Aldina’s eye, as Aline mastered Diver’s Blessing faster than any other student.
]]>Fear Mailanka’s NPCs
Jose LusitaniusOne of my backers, Jose, has repeatedly asked me to talk about how I build combat NPCs in Psi-Wars, how I make them so dangerous, and why the fights, to him, feel as fun as they do. I’ve also had requests for other things, like designing NPCs for social, stealth or investigative interactions, “because everyone knows how to build combat NPCs,” but that’s evidently not true. So I wanted to start early on with some core concepts here, because if you understand these concepts, the rest of the stuff I discuss will make more sense.
The reason I got some pushback on writing tutorials for GURPS combat is most people who are here already know GURPS combat. The values involved are pretty straightforward, and when it comes to twinkery and pushing the system to its limits, there’s not that many surprises in GURPS if you know what you’re doing. While he hasn’t released a lot of content recently, a lot of the GURPS theory espoused by GURPS is Easy conforms to this model of gameplay.
GURPS combat theory goes something like this. First, consider defense. If you cannot get hit, you cannot get hurt, therefore Active Defense is more important than Damage Resistance and DX is more important than ST. You want to accumulate as many active defense bonuses as you can, so use a shield and get Acrobatics. However, this still leaves you vulnerable to Feint, so consider the Feint technique. Once you have all these things, maximize your skill for that sweet parry, feint and deceptive attack bonuses to actually hit your opponent. Damage is generally going to be “enough” so you don’t need to worry about it that much. Consider Weapon Master for more damage and more rapid strikes.
Based on this theory, it’s not that hard to develop a challenging opponent: just take more DX and/or weapon skill. Give your lethal, dangerous opponent enough skill to reliably penetrate the PC’s defenses, and there you go, you have an interesting, challenging fight. It’s not hard.
Of course, there’s more nuance to GURPS Combat than this. Peter Dell’Orto, the man who wrote GURPS Martial Arts and who specializes in Dungeon Fantasy on his blog the Dungeon Fantastic talks about some of this nuance in his patching the holes theory which is definitely worth a read. The point here is GURPS has a lot of “But actually” moments. Let me outline a few.
First, the notion that Active Defense is king assumes that your attacks are sufficient to harm your opponent. It is possible, if difficult, to gain enough defenses (high DR, High Pain Threshold, gobs of HP, etc) that you can brush off light attacks by certain sorts of opponents and afford to disregard defense entirely. This becomes dangerous if they attack the eyes, but you can get certain defenses against that too. If this happens, you need to broaden your character to have enough ST and a lethal enough of a weapon to meaningfully threaten your opponent.
Similarly, if your opponent is sufficiently strong and tough, it only takes one unlucky defense to get instantly killed by him. I’ve done a lot of theory-crafting on ogres lately, and they tend to exploit this strategy. Thus, you need some way to prevent “damage spikes.” Luck usually helps, but things like Flesh Wounds, or some minimal DR, or single use defenses, all help in mitigating this sort of problem.
Of course, there are other strategies to inflict horrendous damage on opponents, such as poison or a death touch. These pivot the game from “how much DR do you have?” to “Can you pass an HT roll?”
Speaking of which, there are lots of “attacks” that bypass active defense and turn into some sort of specific roll. Maledictions, Fear, Rapier Wit, influence, distraction all turn on attacking your opponents Will, and all the skill in the world is useless to defend you against these.
Psi-Wars tends to emphasize a lot of these “holes.” A DF character rarely has more than 3 or 4 DR and often have vulnerable eyes even if they do. Psi-Wars opponents can plausibly have more DR than you can overcome with common weapons, and a visor protecting their face and eyes, which can make the All-Out Attack a more plausible strategy. Maledictions are very common in Psi-Wars, which means Will is definitely not a dump stat. Minor house rules to things like Beats and Ruses make other attributes more viable when pitted against the supremacy of DX. And the prevalence of Psi makes for interesting emergence where some characters seek to get a discount by buying traits with a Psi or Divine limitation, while others punish that discount by taking Anti-Psi abilities or investing in Anti-Psi strategies
I love perks. I feel like perks are the distilled essence of GURPS, and that learning how they work and how to leverage them is essential to making really dynamic and interesting characters. There’s a reason they often get limited. And this ties not into optimal GURPS strategies for players, but ways of thinking about how GURPS works, and how to leverage that for interesting encounters.
A lot of people complain about how complicated and “finnicky” GURPS is, that you have massive skill lists and you have characters worth several hundred points and you need to account for each and every individual point. A lot of people want to simplify some of this, and while I can get on board with some of that (does Diagnosis really need to be separate from Physician?) I tend to feel that the complexity and finnicky nature of GURPS is why you play GURPS. If you want big, chunky, easy-to-grasp systems with duplo-style character creation blocks rather than teeny, tiny fine grain blocks that GURPS uses, there are plenty of systems to choose from. I’m not trying to demean those systems: I collect lots of RPGs and I regularly play those sorts of games and recommend them to others, nor am I trying to gatekeep here. I’m just saying that complaining about the finnicky nature of GURPS is like going to a seafood restaurant and ordering steak: you’re missing the point of why you’re here to begin with.
So why does this matter? A key element of GURPS, in my experience, is the leverage of fine detail. A good example of this is the limitation. An advantage like Altered Time Rate is a pretty big deal and game-changing, but that’s why it’s 100 points, and thus out of reach for most characters. But if we stop and think about limitations we can apply to Altered Time Rate, we can pull that cost down. We can say it’s only in Emergencies Only for -30%. We could make it Psionic for another -10%. We could say it costs 2 FP per second to use, for another -20%. And we might say it requires some sort of special device to focus this power, like a time piece you wear on your wrist, and this might be worth, I don’t know, -20%. This pulls the price down to a much more affordable 20 points, and suddenly it’s reasonable that your character could have that ability. But it also means that there’s a lot of things you can’t do with it, and lots of ways for people to undermine with it. You can’t use ATR to build an invention faster, or to get double the study time in. You have to have a large FP reserve to make good use of it in combat. Anti-Psi characters or drugs or technologies can hamper it, and if someone breaks your timepiece, it’s lost. And as you start to contemplate this, you begin to realize the reason it was 100 points wasn’t because 2 combat turns is so powerful, but because there were all these options that it made available to you that you didn’t care about, and also, that by creating opportunities for counterplay, you can pull the cost down. GURPS rewards you for thinking of your advantage in this fine grain way by making the power more affordable, and thus allowing you to leverage it under specific circumstances for a huge bonus.
Another example: Night Vision. For 2 points, you can have Night Vision 2, which is as good as +2 to hit under specific circumstances. If it’s bright out, you get nothing, and if it’s too dark, you start to run into the limits of what even your night vision can help with. But in torch light, twilight or under the moon, you have a serious advantage against your opponents. A good strategy for such a character is to pay those 2 points for Night Vision, and then find ways to leverage that night vision the best that you can. One example might be to simply try to only fight at night, but a more interesting strategy might be to invest in shadow spells, or the Obscure trait, to force darker circumstances on your opponents and thus always benefit from your +2. Of course, this costs even more points, but it also gives you more utility, and you can start to layer utility atop utility to create something that’s more than the whole of its parts.
This is one of the secrets of GURPS: if you’re willing to dive into the details and invest in small traits, or to shrink large traits smaller traits by making it more detailed, GURPS will handsomely reward you for your attention to detail. The perk exemplifies this. It’s a small trait; it must be so small that no GM will ever complain about you spending one point on it. It must be almost inconsequential. It cannot be entirely inconsequential, or it wouldn’t be worth a point. And it’s on this edge, this minimum consequentiality, that my cool combat NPCs turn.
The secret to an interesting combat character is using all this fine grain detail to find or exploit a hole that someone didn’t think of. Fun combat encounters tend to force a player to rethink and revisit their strategies and to innovate on the fly. A great encounter is not about curbstomping a player, or letting a player curbstomp an enemy, or even about having a nail-bitingly close contest. It’s about forcing your opponent to revisit and reconsider their own tactics as they engage in an novel and interesting encounter. The secret to creating such an encounter is leveraging the fine detail to exploit a hole the player had never considered, or had dismissed as too small or too inconsequential to matter.
Here’s an example that turns Fast-Draw into a more essential skill. Most players will tell you more than a point (maybe two) in Fast-Draw is a waste of your points. If we have a character with DX 13 (for example) and Combat Reflexes, 1 point in Fast-Draw will give us skill 14, and 2 points give us skill 15, which will work the vast majority of the time. We’re probably better with perks that improve the margin of our fast-draw rather than buying more Fast Draw. But consider the Dazzling Draw perk, from GURPS DF Denizens: Swashbucklers. When we draw a weapon, we get a free Feint roll using our Fast-Draw skill. Is this fair? Sure, you’re only going to draw once, and Fast-Draw isn’t even that important a skill, so it will be fairly limited. But what if we spent more points, say, 8 on our Fast-Draw and raised it to 17? And can we buy the Feint Technique on Fast-Draw? Sure. If the GM disagrees, well, we can get another perk. So now we have Feint (H) Fast-Draw [5]-21. Okay, but it’s still only once per fight, right? Well, what if we buy up the Reverse Grip technique, take the Quick Sheath perk, and bought Off-Hand Weapon Training and Dual Weapon Attack and insisted on the optional rule (with a perk, if necessary) that allows us to swap Attacks for Ready actions. This means every turn we can attack, we can draw our weapon and get a free feint and reverse grip the second weapon and sheathe it, in preparation for the next turn.
The astute among you will notice that, of course, you could already Feint with one of your Dual Weapon Attacks so this is just a Dual Weapon Feint+Attack with extra steps, but there are some edge advantages to this particular style. High fast draw lets you draw form awkward positions, or more easily win Fast-Draw contests. Being able to rapidly sheath all our weapons can free up our hands for other weapons, or for unarmed attacks, if we need to rapidly shift tactics. We can also pivot at any time to a fast-draw + free feint + dual weapon attack to really fully leverage that free feint + dual weapon attack benefit. The result is a weird, flavorful character who allows us to shift the tactics of the fight in such a way that a player will find surprising, even alarming, and allows you to change up the fight quite a bit with a unique form of flexibility most players would have dismissed.
I’m not saying this is a killer strategy that’s better than all the other strategies. It’s valuable is arguable compared to more straight-forward builds. It’s a gimmick, and while there are interesting arguments for it being useful in unique ways, I’m not convinced that this would be a great strategy for a PC. But for an NPC, none of that matters. What matters in the NPC fight is that suddenly players have to deal with constant feints from this highly dramatic opponent that puts a lot of pressure on a PC, and does odd things that the player doesn’t anticipate. I had a player ask for an option that let them oppose a weapon being readied or drawn as long as they were in close combat, which I found a fascinating request (and they pointed me to a scene from Twilight Samurai) as an example. This came from the fact that the character was primarily an unarmed fighter and wanted to keep the fight unarmed, but also came from observing a character who, while not focused on the strategy outlined above, was perfectly capable of doing it (they had combined the Mirror Stance of Swift with the fast draws of Serene), and so we’d get this oddball fight of a character trying to leverage these rapid and dangerous fast-draws while a second character tried to stick close to them and block those fast-draws while keeping their unarmed attack pressure on their opponent. It would create this very unique sort of fight where the game turned more on things like, I don’t know, deceptive fast draws, retreats, steps, fancy footwork and attempts to control the fight knowing that a slip up on either side could result in a sudden KO.
Rather than an unconventional tactic, we could leverage an unusual ability that creates unexpected circumstances that we might not have considered before. Psi, Communion and Sorcery are full of these options. I’ll call this particular strategy the “Blood Warrior” strategy, and note that it might make an interesting approach for Loroko.
First, we take some sort of “poisoned blood” ability. Any time your character is hurt, this triggers a short-ranged, cone spray of poisoned blood. It’s difficult to defend (being an area attack) and if your opponent is hit, the poison is a contact agent, so any contact is enough to trigger an HT roll or suffer some sort of affliction or toxic damage (or both!), which means you’re leveraging more of a contest of HT rather than worrying about bypassing active defense. It also means you benefit from being hurt. Let’s expand this further with some sort of limited regeneration, so being hurt doesn’t cause too much of a problem, perhaps some Vitality Reserves so we have more than enough to spare, and High Pain Threshold so taking this damage doesn’t cause us to death spiral. Now we’ve created a character who benefits from being hurt. I wouldn’t let people hit you willy-nilly, but ignoring an attack or two to trigger a spray, and then going to defensive while your poison does its work and your regen helps you recover. But we can expand this one step further. We can argue with the GM that blood spray creates puddles of blood on the ground. If the GM complains, we can take it as a perk: any time we take damage, it creates enough blood for one hex to count as “slippery ground.” Then we take Surefooted (Slippery). Now, any time you get hit, you’re also creating this difficult terrain that you can leverage against your opponent as well as perhaps inflicting this toxin on them from your blood.
Again, this isn’t necessarily the most powerful tactic. It’s also not cheap: a character with fast-regen, an innate attack that automatically triggers when he’s hurt, the other survival traits they’d need to survive the attacks, all built onto the foundation of a solid warrior is not going to be especially affordable, and it makes sense that an expensive character can be dangerous. And, of course, there’s nothing here that a savvy character couldn’t defeat. But it creates this set of stacking edges and advantages that, once again, dynamically changes the fight, where attacking the character is a calculated risk, especially if they can tank the hit for a lethal counter attack plus the blood spray, while creating an evocative, blood-soaked scene that makes it increasingly difficult to fight them.
A lot of the secret to my “dangerous” NPCs isn’t really so much that they’re highly optimized or cheap. After all, NPCs don’t care about point values. It’s that they leverage odd or unusual strategies in ways that force players to think in ways they don’t normally.
Okay, so we’ve established ways to create interesting strategies that will challenge a player and knock them out of their comfort zone. The next step is to integrate this strategy into a cohesive whole that tells a story about the character and explains how they got their power. In Psi-Wars, I’ve done a lot of the work for you with my martial arts, psionic powers, communion paths and oath magic from specific cults. I’ve laid out pieces of these strategies and then integrated them into a story that you can tell about your character: why does this character have these cool abilities, and what implications does it have for the rest of the character.
Recently, one of my Dhim players wanted to buy more Brawl and I forbade it. He had a Brawl 22, and when I asked him why, and his answer was “Because high skill means I can have more deceptive attacks, and I figured you wouldn’t let me buy Feint up to 26.” By contrast, Anastasia from Undercity Noir 2 has Force Sword 22. Why? Because she’s an Assassin (DX 15) Asrathi (+1 DX) who has trained as an Adept in the Graceful Form (Force Sword DX+6). She couldn’t be anything else.
I don’t actually object to high skill or crazy stats. Most GMs don’t. I object to arbitrary stat-building with no explanation; I object to bald-faced twinkery, I don’t object to cover and interesting twinkery. Be a twink, but entertain me with your twinkery.
This same idea applies to NPCs. The character I mentioned before, the one who combined Swift and Serene style, is Enzo Elegans, a Maradonian Templar who has reached adept level with three styles (he also knows Simple) and has several eugenic upgrades, and the result is an absolute monster, but it’s a reasonable monsters. Each crazy, over the top trait, like his Basic Speed of 8, or his Mental Strength of 20, or his crazy combinations of force sword tricks, are all grounded in who and what he is in a way that’s interesting to explore and discuss, as opposed to “There to beat the hell out of the PCs.” The blood warrior above could plausibly be a Loroko or Gaunt with a unique biology, or the servant of a Blood Witch. The crazy fast-draw wielder is harder to justify but it can naturally emerge from certain combinations of styles.
The point here is that by combining an unusual strategy that forces your players out of their comfort zone (not “it defeats them” but “it forces them to think outside their normal box lest they be defeated”), and also use that to tell an interesting story about the world, you’ll create fun and engaging encounters.
Of course, GURPS is hardly the only system to do this. D&D trades on these sorts of fights, and I learned a lot of this approach from running a lot of Exalted. The difference with GURPS is that GURPS players tend to expect this sort of fine-grained nonsense and deep design, and GURPS itself facilitates this fine-grain design pattern. I recommend leveraging it. Of course, look outside of GURPS for inspiration: the elemental auras of the Dragon-Blooded, the “I absolutely hit first” of Solar Exalted, the fancy regeneration of D&D trolls, the level theft of D&D wights, the weird martial arts ideas of Weapons of the Gods or Legends of the Wulin, anything can provide fodder for interesting strategies, and GURPS can support most of them.
]]>First and foremost, the partial draft once offered from that page has been taken down. The release draft is significantly different, and at this point I want to encourage people to pick up the actual book once it’s available. I’m not going to take down any of the original blog posts in which I posted a very rough draft of the design sequence – if anyone wants to page through those, they’re welcome to it.
Meanwhile, moving forward I intend to use the project’s page to offer long-term support for the book: a place to ask questions, a (hopefully well-maintained) errata list, and a place to collect any blog posts I make about new science or more detailed world-design techniques. There’s some possibility I’ll be looking to produce a second edition of the book in five or six years, and the rebuilt page will be a good place to collect material for that project.
In the meantime, if you haven’t seen it already, here’s a link to the Ad Astra Games catalog page for the book. Pre-orders are under way!
Meanwhile, here’s a link to the first (glowing!) review the book has received, from Amazing Stories.
]]>Blueshort ignored them. The Elf opened the sarcophagus. Only one of the PCs made it out alive.
What was particularly amusing to me was the circumstances leading up to Blueshort’s decision. In short, they were examining the chamber and the sarcophagus.
But Blueshort still opened the sarcophagus.
The good news is that creating three new 62 point characters was made easy by deploying Delvers To Grow from Gaming Ballistic. We did that in about 15 minutes, creating a Druid and two Wizards… although the player of Blueshort decided he wanted to be an Elf again, which slowed us a little.
There is the question of what happened to the bodies of the old characters. One was killed and died, failing the Health roll at -11 HP. But two were left unconscious and alone. The fourth character ran away, perhaps not quite screaming but certainly leaving their friends behind. This was the newest player showing they understood when to run.
I described one of them having an out of body experience, being taken down into the earth to a place of fire where there were monsters who tore at the flesh. The other player said he was happy if Blueshort died… but this one player would love to have Joseph Skyfell rescued. Perhaps his wizardly master will have a dream and send help. Who can say?
But the moral of the story? Don’t open the sarcophagus.
Game on!
]]>I am not posting details yet, though expect some designers notes after its out. However, I did want to get it out there. Its been a long road, about 4 years to get this out from pitch to publication. It was part of an earlier manuscript where I intended to do as bunch of stuff in one Powers style supplement. Looks like I pitched it June 2020 and it was awhile after that before the contract was approved and signed.
I am very happy with this supplement. Totem and Nature Spirits left a lot on the cutting room floor, the subject was simply too broad to include everything. I did the best I could to hit what I thought was the important highlights but so many totems were left out for space. However, with TT:Spirits I managed to get pretty much everything I wanted into it. I'll go over that in a bit more detail after publication.
I make pretty potent NPCs for my campaigns. I notice this in particular with Psi-Wars (hence my commentary on “But can you make a 1000 point NPC?”), but it’s been true of most settings I run. I cut my teeth on settings like Exalted and chambara games which draw heavily on the overwrought aesthetics of anime and comics and thus favor high octane one-v-one fights, and thus demand high power characters.
But I also run games whose style I term “Secret Agent Games” or sometimes “Strategic Games” rather than the more tactical games often used by D&D game masters and games inspired by them (of course, very veteran DMs, especiall OSR DMs, will note that what I describe as “secret agent play” very much applies to them, and the more “tactical” game is more of a 3e-ism, but I digress. I just want to forestall inevitable “but actually” comments that are perfectly legitimate).
The problem is that in a tactical game, you will use the cool NPCs you create for a fight. As the players progress from encounter to encounter, they will face each set of opponents, who will typically scale worse and worse with each encounter, giving the players a sense of what they will face as they move forward. This is good game design, because this escalation teaches the players what the encounters will look like going forward, and help teach them what they need to do, so the final boss encounter feels like a culmination of the previous encounters. To use a Psi-Wars example, if players fight the Empire, they might face a squad of imperial troopers, then they might face a lone, apprentice Imperial Knight, then they might face a full Imperial knight backed by a squad of Imperial Troopers. The first two encounters prepare them for the final encounter, and they have a sense of what they will face and what tactics they need to use to win. It feels fair and logical.
Strategic play, or “Secret Agent” play doesn’t work like that. In such a game, the faction exists and it has its dragons and forces, like the Imperial Troopers and the Imperial Knight, and likely a variety of other agents, such as a minister that commands these forces, a security agent that investigates intrusions, etc. The players may or may not fight against them. They might join them, they might negotiate with them, they might sneak up on them. The fact that the Empire has a dangerous imperial knight or a secret psychic agent or whatever is a factor in PC strategic calculations. An opposing faction that lacks a powerful champion and lethal forces tends to encourage the players to see a violent encounter with them, as this is more likely to result in success, while a faction who has the Psi-Wars equivalent of Darth Vader and elite Death Troopers at their disposal will tend to encourage negotiation or a stealthy approach, as a direct head-to-head confrontation will result in defeat. Thus, players need to know how dangerous an opposing faction is, and they generally don’t do it with a sequence of small, tactical encounters.
This creates the problem of the sheathed sword. The enemy opposition has their champion who is presumably highly lethal, but that lethality is contained and unused, because to use that lethality invites reprisal and ends the possibility of negotiation. But if that lethality is not advertised, the faction loses out on some of its negotiation leverage. More importantly, as a GM, you need to communicate that lethality to the players without necessarily having the character fight them, especially if the character is supposed to be so lethal. Thus, the point of this post: how do you communicate the lethality of an NPC without, you know, killing the PCS?
If nobody knows a faction champion is lethal, that faction loses a lot of leverage and encourages probing attacks that a faction would prefer to prevent. So, it is in their interest to spread stories of the lethality of their forces and champion. On the other hand, knowing the limits of their champion’s power, and the specific nature of their lethality, allows their opponents to better guard against them or plan ways to defeat the champion, which is not ideal. Thus, factions need to strike a balance between advertising the danger they pose, while also keeping the details of that lethality vague.
As a rule, then, I try to find ways to suggest to the players how dangerous an NPC is via gossip, rumor and legend. In Undercity Noir, for example, there are three major “champion” antagonists: the Crooked King, Shikari, and the Luca brothers. All three get whispered rumors about how dangerous they are. The Crooked King is a scion of an ancient Ranathim noble house and supposedly a sorcerer of some kind (likely using the Deep Engine, given its importance in Undercity Noir). The Luca brothers have very specific legends about them, that Lucian Luca died, and that Raitha Luca, his “street satemo brother” took him to the Gods of the Bloodsider Mythos and revived him, and now he is “immortal.”
Of course, these details are somewhat vague and don’t tell the players much, but when they attempt to kill Lucian Luca and he shrugs it off, the players aren’t exactly surprised of calling foul. Furthermore, when they confront the Crooked King, they tend to be nervous and cautious, as they should be, because he is intended as a dangerous opponent.
It’s possible that the player characters or their ally NPCs will have direct experience with the NPC in question. Perhaps the NPC is a former ally or former enemy. In Undercity Noir, Shikari is a bounty hunter, and has worked with a Ranathim NPC named Sheri Sutra, and any player who plays as a Bounty Hunter has the option of spending an Impulse Buy point to have worked with Shikari before. In the first run of Undercity Noir, one of the player characters came from the same noble house as the Crooked King and so was quite familiar with his capabilities. In these cases, the NPC can outline several specific tactics that the character uses, or the GM can explain those tactics to the PC. This is also a great use of a Contact.
NPCs should visually or otherwise thematically foreshadow their capabilities. Shikari wears a ceramic katana, has expensive cybernetic eyes, and a bespoke and impressive cybernetic sword arm. He’s also clearly a neo-rationalist who regularly recites neo-rational quotes. He’s clearly an intelligent fighter who specializes in melee combat and has augmented vision capabilities. Raitha Luca has two force swords, a sheared-away horn, and scars of combat. He’s clearly tough and dual wields force swords (and those who know anything about Psi-Wars force sword combat knows that implies one of two styles, and only one of those styles is heavily associated with Ranathim). In Ballad of the Blasted Lands, Kiribati carries his psi-sword in a sash similar to an iajutsu fighter, bears the iconography of Domen Khemet, the Ranathim Death Cult, on his robes, and had fiery red eyes and exudes faint steam when angered.
While we can’t tell everything about these characters from a single glance, we get a sense of what they might be capable of. We don’t know everything, but we have a sense. And, of course, like the “Spot the main character of an anime meme” all these extra, bespoke detail at least communicates to the player that this specific NPC is not going to be some nameless mook.
If you want to give players a preview of how lethal an NPC can be, just show them. A time-honored tradition of media of all sorts is to reveal a powerful boss-level character by having them murder some poor mook. In Undercity Noir, there are several murders that are implied to have been committed by the Crooked King, and this suggests certain specific capabilities. In Wanderers of Dhim, the first introduction the players had to Sora Castanya was when he ambushed a Krokuta slaver, tapped him with his staff and instantly knocked him unconscious.
If we want an NPC to be lethally dangerous, but we don’t want to instantly kill a PC, we can instead instantly kill an NPC. This underlines their lethality, and also gives the PCs a preview of what exactly they can do.
Of course, we can try to kill a PC, or at least imply that we could have. This works best for NPCs that can rapidly retreat after their attack, or attack in such a way that allows them to indicate that the attack could have been lethal without killing them. Thus, this works best with assassins.
Examples of this sort of attack include a sniper who narrowly misses a PC, a poisoner who puts a hallucinogenic in someone’s drink, or a trapper who traps a character’s bed with a non-lethal trap and a note. It’s usually best if the NPC can follow up the attack with some sort of communication that indicates who the NPC was. If an assassin snipes at a PC and barely misses (or hits something in their hand, such as clipping the head off a flower next to them, or cutting their tie, etc) and then calls them and makes a threat, that clearly indicates to the player not only the lethality of the NPC but which NPC it was, and suggests something about how that NPC thinks (some NPCs will then threaten the family, or others will express how impressed they are with a PC’s professionalism, or they might apologize for the attack and suggest it was a warning precisely because they don’t want to kill the PC, etc).
GURPS has a cinematic rule called the Imperial Marksmanship Academy, wherein the first volley of a ranged attack always misses the PCs. This prevents NPCs from ambushing and one-shotting PCs before the PCs have a chance to respond which, while realistic, isn’t especially fun. But it also indicates that the enemy is there and can reach out and touch the PCs, which immediately puts them on a more cautious footing.
Of course, you can just fight the PCs with the NPC. The NPC can begin to unleash all of their particular brand of lethality on the PCs and then, before they can finish the PCs, something interrupts them, and they have to retreat for some reason. This gives the players a chance to see how dangerous they are, gives them a sense of how they fight, and how best to defeat them. It also tends to make players itch for a rematch. In Undercity Noir, the PCs are confronted by the Luca brothers and the Bloodsiders fairly early on when they get caught in the crossfire of a spat with a second faction. The Bloodsiders aren’t specifically worried about the PCs, so after showing off their capabilities, they move on to finish their actual opponent.
You have to be careful with this approach. First, if what interrupts them is their defeat, then they don’t pose much of a threat. Ballad of the Blasted Lands has a Krokuta warlock who keeps capturing Lady Nentri and threatening to sacrifice her to his draconic god, only to be foiled again and again by the PCs (including Lady Nentri herself, who is a skilled escape artist). This makes him less of a dread menace and more a member of the goldfish poop gang.
You also have to be aware that PCs can and will kill an NPC given an opportunity. This means for such an encounter, you should be thinking why the NPC won’t just die right away. You should be thinking about that anyway, though, because if they risk death in an abbreviated encounter, they risk a very anti-climactic encounter in the final fight, so they should be very difficult to kill. Indeed, part of the point of this early interaction should be to get a sense of what won’t work to kill them, and thus what the PCs must do to kill them. Lucian Luca is immortal (after a fashion) and thus can safely walk up to the PCs and just tank all their hits.
In some cases, it can be okay to let your NPCs die to such encounters. In Wanderers of Dhim, the players just fought Domen Tarvagent (the other Ranathim death cult, the bad one), and killed quite a bit of their leadership, but the intention of that fight was the death of one of their priests (which will trigger some other events in the campaign) and an encounter with a Gaunt space knight noted as an “Apprentice” implying a much more powerful master who will use a similar style to his defeated apprentice (and given that, through crazy rolls, that apprentice held off three high powered Satemo for a good portion of the fight and grievously wounded one of them, man, do they live in dread of his master). And, of course, this cult is all about resurrection, so the deaths of the NPCs might only be the beginning.
You’ll need to also think about what pulls them away from the fight. Players might not be so willing to let the NPCs go. The NPCs can run away, of course, but that reduces the perception of power. The fight might be interrupted by a third party, such as the law, or you can remind the players of a more important objective. In Undercity Noir, the first fight with the Bloodsiders involves civilians who will die easily if caught in the crossfire, who the PCs have been hired to protect, and those NPCs are intent on running away, and thus the players’ job isn’t to fight the Bloodsiders, who aren’t interested in them anyway, but to get away. Thus, after Lucian Luca dampens their enthusiasm for combat by tanking their hits, most groups simply quit the field and leave the Bloodsiders to their slaughter of the second faction.
I love the Flesh Wound rules. If you’re going to include impulse buy rules at all, I highly recommend Flesh Wounds. Yes, it can drain some tension from a fight, but it also makes a fight survivable, especially in the “Death Interrupted” encounter. If the players fight a high tier opponent who regularly dismantles their defenses and inflicts lethal wounds that the players can flesh wound a way, and the players burn, for example, three impulse buy points to survive and escape the guy, believe me, the players won’t think of that guy as a pushover.
Flesh Wounds allow you to “kill” a PC over and over again, without actually killing them. They can see what tactics they use: beats, feints, rapid strikes, maledictions, trickery, poisons, etc. It can give them a sense of what they’ll need to change, do, or bring to defeat that character. It also shows them that the character could have killed them, and that they should take the character seriously. It punishes the player without eliminating their ability to play: rather than killing them, they only lose some impulse buy points, and an HP or two, but they still lose something they could have used for other purposes.
Of course, when it comes to the final confrontation, it also allows the players to survive those lethal hits and get some counter play in and maybe defeat them. This once more highlights the fact that you’ll need a way to keep the character from dying. Glass Cannons aren’t a great idea as a Boss NPC, because they’ll destroy the PC, who will then flesh wound it, retaliate, and kill the NPC. There needs to be some way for the NPC to tank a hit: great active defense levels, high DR, flesh wounds of their own, literal immortality, something. A good boss fight consists of both learning how to survive the boss’s attacks and how to defeat them with their retaliation. The Flesh Wound is meant to teach the first one, while Death Interrupted is meant to give hints at the second one. They work well in tandem.
So, you’ve built up this awesome boss tier NPC and during the final climactic confrontation, they feel like a nothing burger, what can you do about it? There’s a few ways this can happen: the NPC just rolls badly, the players figure out an ideal strategy, or they bypass the NPC entirely.
When it comes to bad rolls, you can, of course, fudge or use Impulse Buy points. This is not an ideal solution, though. A better option might be to think about, and foreshadow, things they can do about bad rolls. Luck is a well-accepted trick, and if you reveal the character using bespoke IP for specific purposes (such as flesh wounds), then it won’t feel like a cheat. Other options include magic, miracles, psychic powers, skills or technology that let them alleviate bad rolls. If they have the survivability they’re supposed to have, it won’t make much of a difference if the PCs get a few lucky shots. Lucian Luca can afford to critically fail a defense because he can totally tank a hit, and a sniper can afford to crit fail an attack because they’ll get lots more shots before their opponent can reach them.
When it comes to bypassing an NPC… that’s working as intended. The point of strategic play is to communicate to players the nature of an NPC precisely so they can make a risk assessment and decide if they want to deal with them. If the result of seeing an NPC in action is that they would rather negotiate a peace or bypass with stealth, or use trickery or seduction to pull the NPC away, then all your outlining of how dangerous they were worked, the PCs decided to exercise the better part of valor and not fight. I call it “the sheathed sword” for a reason. When the player characters meet an enemy faction boss, and his body guard reveals their sheathed sword, sane characters respond by settling down and seeking a non-violent solution rather than always resorting to violence. This is why strategic games concern themselves with multiple dimensions of conflict, rather than just being about violence alone. The players are choosing to engage in stealth or social gameplay rather than combat because they feel they cannot defeat (or don’t want to bother with) the champion NPC.
Having an ideal strategy to defeat an opponent is also “working as intended.” Presumably, if you gave a boss-level villain a weakpoint or some sort of clear vulnerability (such as, I dunno, asking the Bloodsider Gods to revoke Lucian Luca’s immortality) and then the players do precisely that, congratulations! You successfully communicated the nature of the NPC to the players, they successfully navigated whatever difficulties you put in place to safeguard that NPC, and then flawlessly executed their plan to defeat him. They are doubtless partying right now, and they should. You just ran a good encounter. Not all encounters need to be nail-biters.
Which brings me to a broader point: don’t fear an anti-climactic encounter. In one chambara film I watched, Zatoichi, they built up this dangerous yojimbo as a major threat, only to have Zatoichi one-shot him in the final confrontation, but that’s the nature of the medium. It was an iajutsu fight; that particular fight was probably going to always end in a single blow. Sometimes, like doesn’t line up like a film, and demanding that every encounter be utterly epic means they start to feel rather homogeneous. The point of bringing the randomness of dice into an encounter, and layering it atop the complexity of player choices and system interactions means you can never be entirely certain of what will happen, and that sometimes means what will happen will disappoint you or surprise you, but that’s the nature of RPGs. Some GMs have a hard time letting the dice lay where they fall, and we tend to want to fudge it, to get the encounter of our dreams. I have a hard time with it too, but when I let go and let the dice fall where they may, I tend to find I have a better, more memorable experience for it.
More importantly, the reason to play in a strategic “secret agent” sort of style is to have multiple dimensions of gameplay. You’re not playing a tactical game and thus your game has more going for it than just tactical gameplay. My games tend to have layers and layers of interactions going on: player characters are in love with certain NPCs, trying to solve particular mysteries and resolve particular political crises. The fight is only one component to the broader game, and a lot of times, the details of the fight are less important than the outcome. Great fights happen, sometimes, and they’re like those crazy tennis matches or amazing plays in a sport, but while highly entertaining and fun when they happen, I think it’s a mistake to try to force every fight to feel like that unless your game is entirely about fighting and I don’t run games like that, so I’m not especially qualified on what to do in such games.
I run a very specific sort of game, and the RPG world is a complex tapestry of variant styles of game, so doubtless some of you are going to find this entire article bewildering because it’s solving a problem that’s hardly ubiquitous in the gaming world. However, I’ve had several people express interest in my particular style, in understanding strategic “secret agent” play and how it differs from their more tactical gameplay model. In particular, I get a lot of questions about my “dangerous NPCs” and how I handle them. While this part isn’t specifically mentioned, I find it vital to any complex NPC combat design. Players need a context, a sense of the danger they face, and a way to grapple with whatever tactical riddle you place before them. So I thought I’d write an article on the concept. I hope, for those of you interested in this specific topic, that it helped.
]]>First, we flash back to some days before, when Lenny went to the better half of the party at Baron Rober Harrow’s. There, the Baron approached her and asked if she would entertain a traditional proposal of marriage, to build ties between their houses and to provide genetically-superior offspring. As was entirely proper, the proposal would involve spending several days touring Sirocco as a way of demonstrating the wealth and power of House Harrow, along with trading extensive medical and genetic files to demonstrate breeding compatibility, plus extensive negotiation of the specifics.
At this point, Lenny heard the voice of her House’s guardian angel, Bureynolds. He advised her to hear out the Baron’s offer. Making a gesture of religious respect, Lenny agreed to hear the Baron out, while reserving the right to consult her people, specifically including the Grand Matriarch of House Van Helsing Von Frankenstein, her great aunt Mothra. The Baron readily agreed.
For the next few days, Lenny was treated to a luxury tour of the sights of Sirocco from the decks of Baron Harrow’s antigravity sail-barge, from the low-lying “oceans”/hot springs where no human could survive long without technological support, to the rugged mountains where House Harrow mines extracted a wealth of rare minerals generated by Sirocco’s unique geology, to the high chaparral where huge herds of feral gheap covered the landscape from horizon to horizon. She was given the opportunity to review the Baron’s nephew’s files; Timmy the Goat-Bot declared the match to be an excellent one, with a high likelihood of strong progeny with a good chance of improved psionic potential.
On the last day of the tour, Lenny and Baron Harrow stepped into his inner sanctum, where he activated a cone of silence. He laid out his argument in favor of marriage. Both their Houses were underdogs, neither with the kind of pedigree that would make them attractive to the more powerful Houses. Alliance between the two could only make both stronger.
Furthermore, as a show of good faith, the Baron offered to give Lenny some important information, if only she were willing to swear to never reveal that he was the source of the information. After some waffling, she agreed. Baron Harrow presented her with a data cassette, explaining that it was the only record of the flight data of a House Tan-Shai ship entering Sirocco airspace. The Baron admitted to accepting a bribe from Tan-Shai to conceal this information; naturally, while concealing it, he had made this copy for himself. It showed that the Tan-Shai ship landed remarkably near La Poza Grande on the night of the big kidnapping. This had not been part of the agreement, and the insult had aroused his ire. However, he didn’t want to expose Tan-Shai publicly, both because of his sworn oath and because it might make him look bad in the eyes of Duke Vladimir Harrow, which would be a (genteel cough) career-limiting move. Having considered the situation, Baron Harrow had decided to hand the information over to Lenny, knowing she was involved in the investigation. If House Tan-Shai came to some misfortune due to Lenny’s quest for justice, that would suit Baron Harrow just fine.
Finally, the Baron offered a final teaser. If Lenny were to agree to his proposal, he would give her a package that had been entrusted to House Harrow many, many years before, by Lenny’s Great Grand Aunt Dixie. What it contained, is anyone’s guess.
Lenny took the Baron’s offering and agreed that she would get back to him after consulting with her people.
Having caught up to the rest of the party, we now turn our attention to the dream that Captain Dal and Suzal were sharing, much to their surprise. It was a familiar dream to Dal. They were chained and lying on a cold grate in a dark room, having just been taken as slaves. Suzal inquired as to what they could look forward to, and didn’t much care for the answer.
The door opened, casting a bright light over the prisoners. “There you are!” The clown girl danced happily into the room, freeing Suzal from their chains and putting a high-heeled boot to Captain Dal’s stomach. “Let’s get out of here and go have some fun!” She led a bemused Suzal from the room, where they saw that they were on Captain Dal’s ship, just newer, less beat up, less grimy, with different decor. The clown girl formally introduced herself as Mania while dancing down the corridor towards the control room.
There, she slung herself into the most comfortable chair and waved Suzal into the next-most. She started fiddling idly with the controls while talking. She claimed that she and Suzal were “exactly the same except total opposites” and that Suzal would eventually get tired of the petty concerns of “monkeys” in the same way that she had. She then offered a gift, but only if Suzal let her boop them. Suzal gravely accepted the offer, and the gentle boop.
Mania waved at a view screen, giving Suzal a peek into the future. They saw themselves reporting to their superiors in Shinjurai Intelligence, telling them about Etienne’s request for extraction from House Harrow territory. Their handler was very interested. Suzal was instructed to exfiltrate Etienne as requested, but instead of delivering him to Fang, they should redirect him into the hands of the agency for further exploitation.
Meanwhile, Captain Dal woke up from her nightmare because her cat was throwing a fit, staring into a corner, hissing and spitting with all his might. Dal soothed the cat, then, knowing she wasn’t getting any more rest this morning, went about her usual morning routine. In due course, this brought her to the ship’s control room… where she found Suzal, staring forward with glazed eyes, hands on the controls, apparently entering a hyperspace calculation. At her shout, Suzal snapped awake, confused. They made a note of the hyperspace coordinates before leaving.
It is the practice of our heroes to gather for breakfast at the Interstellar House of Pancakes, and so they did on this morning. As they ate, Davin’s attention was drawn to a nearby man wearing shabby clothes, gazing back at Davin with a beatific smile. He didn’t seem to be anyone special, but Davin felt a magnetic pull and feeling of trust towards the man. Davin left the group table to go speak with the stranger, who happily offered him a seat and introduced himself as Ken, a follower of the healing power of Communion. He said he had felt drawn towards our heroes, feeling that they might have a need for his help. Intrigued, Davin invited Ken back to meet the others.
While the others felt the same calming warmth of the Ken’s presence, they were less impressed by it. Particularly, Captain Dal was suspicious of some kind of sneaky mind control and gave Ken the cold shoulder. Ken asked if he could do any of them a service, offering to share a healing meditation. Lakota declined, claiming to not need the help of any hokey religions. Suzal asked if they could join a healing meditation, but Ken declined, claiming that what Suzal needed wasn’t a simple meditation, but a complete change of life-style; the road they were on now could only lead to destruction, both theirs and others’. Suzal was somewhat miffed at this rudeness.
Finally, our heroes told Ken to go about his business. He did, but left his comm code with Davin, in case he could be of service in the future. The others told Davin that the next time he wanted to bring crazy religious freaks to the breakfast table, don’t.
Our heroes checked their mail and set their agendas for the day. Davin received a somber letter from his parents, letting him know that his former commanding officer, Captain Kenth Dene, had caused Uncle Bob to be arrested for Politically Unsound Trading Practices: commerce with an unlicensed alien. Imperial trials are swift, and so Uncle Bob had been sentenced to life on the prison hell-planet of Balor IV. The only good news was that such a sentence would necessarily be short.
Lakota and Suzal were both called into the office: Lakota had been ordered to apprehend a first-time gheap rustler, and Suzal had to report upon his recent activities at a debriefing later that morning. Meanwhile, Ka Soh was contacted by Kai Black, a Shinjurai agent for bounty hunters. (Kai Black only ever wears white suits and sunglasses. He doesn’t speak Federation Common, so he uses a throat mike and universal translation system, with the end result that he seems to be badly dubbed. His business makes him wealthy enough to afford to be this eccentric.) Mr Black had a bounty for Ka Soh, to go into a mining camp in Some Wear Canyon and bring back one Robert Rando.
Figuring they might as well share the load, our heroes decided to work together to finish the day’s work. Davin mentioned the peril his uncle was in, asking if he could count on help with his problem if he helped the others with their problems. Lakota pointed out there was quite a bit of difference between capturing gheap rustlers versus sneaking in to the Empire to a hell planet to do a prison break. Though he feigned reluctance, Davin eventually agreed to come along.
Leaving Suzal behind to report to their boss, the others left to track down the gheap rustler. They knew his general location. Bofa obtained hover-bikes for those who needed them, and our heroes went tracking. Once in the area, it didn’t take long to find his trail, and in short order, our heroes caught sight of the man as he tried to lose them by running into a patch of thick cactus. There was some discussion about the permissibility of just shooting the man in the back, or possibly just shooting him in the foot to cripple him… which Lakota quickly quashed. If the bad guy started shooting, they could shoot back, but until then, only non-lethal attacks would be allowed.
Our heroes leaped into pursuit. Davin gunned his hover-bike, barely keeping control in the rough terrain. Lakota surged ahead, having handled terrain like this his entire life. Then Ka Soh, mounted on a living space-horse, took a decisive lead. He beat them all to the fleeing man, dropped the loop of his lariat over the man’s shoulders, and brought him to a halt.
Meanwhile, back at the spaceport, Suzal reported for debriefing. They gave a full account of their recent actions, but specifically did not mention their arrangement with Etienne. They were given a further assignment. The famous Shinjurai holo-star and influencer, Angelica Tenshi, had spent several weeks on Sirocco, filming a series on the planet and its exotic customs. Now, she had a desire to investigate this new musical phenomena she had heard about, the Asrathi synth-pop that seemed to be taking the Gwanyu nightlife by storm. Given the roughness of the Gwanyu dive bars and the sensitive nature of the assignment, Suzal’s superiors thought they would be the best choice to escort her on her investigation. They could pick her up at her hotel later in the evening.
By the afternoon, the others had made their way to the area of the mining camp where Ka Soh’s quarry was rumored to be hiding. Captain Dal got bored with hunting the most dangerous game and went back to the spaceport to check on her ship. The others approached the mining camp quietly, putting it under surveillance for some time.
What they saw, led them to expect an ambush. There were a couple of Dredgecat robots standing idly in the middle of camp, and many miners who didn’t seem to have real tasks to take care of, but who stood around staring towards the main approach to the camp while carrying heavy sledgehammers and the like. Seeing this, Harket immediately vanished, making their way to infiltrate the camp in disguise. Having had the foresight to anticipate ambush, Ka Soh had researched the terrain, and knew of a secret path around the back side of the camp, where they might ambush the ambushers. Taking pains to be stealthy, our heroes made their way around the camp.
Inside the camp, Harket approached his “fellow miners” and made conversation. Soon he had an idea of what was going on. The miners had heard that Ka Soh and a bunch of anti-mining activists had raided Hollis Vexx’s camp and destroyed the place out of some hatred of honest Maradonian mining, possibly motivated by the well-known Westerly prejudice again modern resource extraction. Hearing this, they had come up with a plan and a clever ruse: they would offer a bounty on one of their own, lure Ka Soh into camp, and beat him to within an inch of his life!
Of course, Harket’s wrist communicator had an open channel during this entire conversation, so the rest of our heroes heard the entire thing. The question was, what was their plan to deal with this ambush? Ka Soh suggested that they go riding in to camp, “a-whompin’ and a-whumpin’ every livin’ thing that moves within an inch of its life“, which was a plan that everybody could get behind.
After a bit of refinement of the plan, they decided to have Ka Soh circle back around and draw attention by riding up to the camp and announcing himself. He did so, and drew all eyes as he requested that they hand over his quarry and save themselves a lot of trouble. The miners responded with scorn, raising their weapons, and combat began.
Davin took a quick shot with his blaster carbine at the head-camera of one of the mining robots, missing entirely, drawing a disparaging comment from Lakota about Imperial training.
Lenny stepped out from her place of concealment, igniting her force sword as she approached a group of miners, calming advising them against trying anything with her. Confronted by an armed space knight, they dropped their weapons and raised their hands. A few knelt before her, bending the knee.
Harket threw off his disguise, turned his keytar up to 11, and cut lose with a short-range cone of sonic destruction aimed at the mining robots. The blast blew off chunks of armor, sending the robots staggering backwards, where they tripped over each other and fell in a heap.
Seeing their most powerful allies go down, facing overwhelming forces, the miners surrendered. Two of them grabbed Ka Soh’s target and hustled him forward to meet Sirocco justice.
From his position atop his mount, Ka Soh saw one of the miners trying to make a quiet getaway. Recognizing him as one of Hollis Vexx’s mind-controlled minions, Ka Soh chased after him. Once again, his smart-rope lariat settled around his target’s shoulders, and Ka Soh dragged the man back to camp.
Of course, since Ka Soh had captured his bounty, he was owed his money. The miners sadly started passing the hat. Ka Soh magnanimously waved the cash away; better that they pay Kai Black according to custom. Several of our heroes emphasized the importance of paying ones debts, before leaving.
Back at Gwanyu Spaceport, Suzal met Angelica Tenshi. She was wearing a gold lamé dress, which met with Harket’s approval. They went to see Harket perform. She spent the entire night talking to her robot holo-camera and interviewing people in the crowd. At one point, late in the evening, Captain Dal thought that she saw Tenshi change, just for a moment, into someone different, with a different hair style, hair color, and face… but she only caught a passing glimpse, and she chalked the whole thing up to drink.
To be continued…
Harket had to use Luck to make the Musical Instrument roll to use his special wide-angle attack, but then rolled a critical success on the attack, receiving maximum normal damage.
Standard award was 3 points. Cool Point went to Harket, for robot obliteration. Bonus point to Ka Soh, for suggesting a plan that gave the GM a laugh.
]]>Ken Burnside and I are working on a final editorial pass through the book, finding and stepping on the last few textual bugs. Last I heard, Ken thought he would be done with his piece of that sometime next week, after which I suspect it won’t take more than one or two evenings for me to make the necessary tweaks to the text and layout. At which point I generate two PDFs (full-color and greyscale) and send those over to Ken, and my editorial involvement with the project is done.
Ken is working to ensure that hardcopies will be back from the printer before the GAMA Trade Show in early March. He may be able to ship the first batch of hardcopy editions to the folks who are pre-ordering the book before then, otherwise it will probably be mid-March before that happens. E-book copies will likely be available to the general market about the same time. I should be able to distribute e-books to my patrons and play-testers before that, but I don’t have a firm date yet. Patience a little while longer, please.
With Architect of Worlds finished, I think my first new creative project is going to involve turning back to the Human Destiny setting.
My long-term plans for that setting have changed a bit. I have a couple of stories from that universe already published (“Pilgrimage” and “In the House of War”), but those have never sold very well for lack of advertising and word-of-mouth.
I think I may actually pull those stories back, do some setting redesign to match my more current thinking, and then start releasing fiction through a different avenue: the Royal Road website.
Royal Road tends to focus on so-called “progression” fiction – long-running serialized stories in which the protagonist gains in personal power and influence in the course of the narrative. It occurs to me that the story of my central character – Aminata Ndoye, the first human to become an officer in an alien interstellar service – would work pretty well as a (subtle) progression story. After all, she works her way upward in social status and rank throughout her career.
The nice thing about Royal Road is that it enables you to start building up an audience for your work, eventually working toward a paid-publication roll-out that’s likely to be more successful. We’ll see.
So the plan there is to rework the “setting bible” a bit, firm up the plan for a long-term narrative for Aminata’s story, rewrite the existing pieces to fit the new narrative, and start writing new fiction as well. Once I have a good chunk of Aminata’s early story down, I can start releasing that to Royal Road and attracting an audience for it. Patrons will, of course, get to see that new material as I get it laid out.
The new version of Human Destiny is also likely to tie into a tabletop RPG project, most likely using Chaosium’s Basic Roleplaying (BRP) system. In particular, the setting bible is likely to be framed as a BRP book that might get self-published in the long run.
There are also a couple of other settings I’m thinking about spending some time with, notably the Great Lands setting (high fantasy, related to my first published novel, The Curse of Steel) and the Fourth Millennium setting (historical fantasy, related to my unfinished novel, Twice-Crowned). These are likely to be back-burner items through February while I work on finishing Architect of Worlds and getting some material laid down for Human Destiny.
So here’s the formal plan for February:
I would estimate a 75% chance of a charged release for my patrons this month, most likely some combination of Human Destiny setting-bible material and a new Aminata Ndoye story. As usual, that’s more likely as I produce more than about 10,000 words of substantively new material, and becomes a near certainty as I approach 20,000 words. We’ll see how the month goes.
]]>So the base TL was 10, but access to most technology had to be purchased with "technology points". These didn't raise player's Tech Level so much as control what genre of science fiction they could buy gear from. I let them choose a ranged weapon class for free (lasers is a class, slug throwers is another, force beams is another), as well as a specifying what their typical comms/computer interface looked like. For most other PC-style gear, they needed to select options with technology points. This was a player decision, but it was about their home culture as much as it was about them.
Each player got 10 tech points, and could buy up to 5 extra tech points for [4] points each, or sell them back for [-1] point each. I think most players spent around 12 tech points.
This list is probably not comprehensive, but its close, and I told them if there was superscience or radical tech that they didn't see, to ask about it and I'd come up with a cost.
A few items deserve explanation: "Access to Infinity" was for psionic blades that ignored armor, Meson beams, or known space indestructible hulls. I wanted to charge a little extra for it, but I also wanted to encourage it and warn players it could show up in the game.
"Internet Competency" is really expensive. The reason for this was because I wanted someone able to function in a cyberpunk world to be special. Knock-off Jedi and Klingons really don't fit in information heavy worlds, and a lot of powerful sci-fi franchises just don't have an internet equivalent. We had one player take it, and he got to have the niche of computer nerd. There is a case for dropping it to (3), but I wouldn't go lower than that.
Reinforced Blades means blades that can stand up to a Force-blade or Ethereal blade. Usually this also means they're hyperdense. This was a fairly popular choice.
Here is the list we used:
I really like how this turned out. Maybe my players played along, or maybe it just turned out really well. They bought what they needed for their concept, and maybe added one or two more because the option looked cool or useful. We ended up with a lot of really divergent sci-fi concepts, which was really cool. Its not very often that you need to manage kitchen sink options for a campaign, but I really liked how this turned out, and I'll use it again in a heartbeat if I ever need it. I hope someone else finds it useful as well.
“Muster” has pointed me back towards my taste for the “wargaming way”. Of course, it is also the play that emerged prior to the publication of Dungeons & Dragons more than 50 years ago. I first explored it when I read Jon Peterson’s “Playing The World” and watched “Secrets of Blackmoor”.
To reiterate, the basics are focused on the Megadungeon concept and the core play cycle of exploring such vast underground locations. These are perhaps more a type of Mythic fantasy, cyclopean depths with treasure and monsters which test the mettle of the brave or foolish.
This approach strips the character down to a handful of mere numbers, equips the erstwhile pawn of the player with useful items, and sends him out to probably die. The style is big on player skill and group cooperation, low on characterisation and play-acting. It’s the way we played a lot when I was 10-18 years old.
I’m looking forward to delving back into the “wargaming way” and seeing what I can create powered by GURPS but utilising this older approach. I sense that there is space in my life for a rules-lite “Simple Dungeon GURPS“-type megadungeon running as an Open Table. Lighter that Dungeon Fantasy RPG, and lower points than most GURPS fans enjoy.
Game on!
]]>Why was it faster? Certainly, the combat with five Giant Rats we fought with Basic D&D a few weeks before had taken (much) less clock time than a similar fight with five Giant Rats using GURPS. What was going on?
I think the perception of speed around the table was the difference.
You see, GURPS has a 1-second turn in combat whereas D&D has a 10 second round. That means you get to do one thing that can take up to a second: move a few yards, make an attack, ready a weapon, you get the idea. In play, you get around the table quicker.
There’s no Initiative roll every turn. There’s just “it’s your turn now, what do you do?” Bam, make a decision, roll the dice, now it’s my turn. Once the students had played a couple of turns, things moved swiftly. The players would move their miniature, or roll to attack, or maybe move then attack. But it was done quickly.
I think the table felt faster because our perception of time is dependent on many factors, not just the objective sense of clock time. Engagement, the haste of decision-making, excitement between players, and the GM making sure you decide swiftly all skew the perception.
Certainly, I remember sitting playing D&D and waiting my turn. Waiting to roll my 1d20 and miss. Then waiting. Watching the monsters hit me and take my hit points. Waiting for my turn. Watching each player decide what to do, roll 1d20, miss. Waiting.
In GURPS, you get your turn and you roll… and then the monster attacks you so you need to roll to defend… and it’s the other player’s turns but you are needing to watch carefully because they made some decision that effects your turn. What do you do next?
It’s a pacing thing. GURPS feels faster at the table. That’s why the kids love it!
Game on!
]]>Party roster:
Ben, half-ogre barbarian, 177 points (PC)
Doran Longbeard, dwarf warrior (knight), 203 points (PC)
Eleanor Bayley, human thief, 233 points (PC)
- Dagne Timar, human priestess of Metallys (cleric), 147 points (NPC Hireling)
Erizax Ofaris, human wizard, 232 points (PC)
Randall, human veteran (knight), 157 points (NPC)
Maximilian "Stout" Grupher III, goblin cleric of Ishtanna, 121 points (PC)
Merrill Tangled Tail, cat-folk martial artist, 140 points (N/PC)
Campaign Date: 4 December, Year 645 of the Vycenaean Empire.
------
We entered this horrid place. Misty. Damp. Wet. All kinds of terrible things I do not enjoy. The one upside is that it is not an underground set of tunnels with goblins popping out from secret openings. I have my doubts we will find anything of value here. It's been a while since Turmion disappeared and it's a marsh. Or perhaps those are great for finding tracks in? I wouldn't know. Ben doesn't seem confident but when does he, really.
We finally found something. A bunch of misty figures that didn't react to being spoken to, at least not verbally. At some point they started to throw rocks at us which was certainly an uncomfortable situation. But not so much as they started to appear out of the mist. More. And more. And more. I don't have the luxury to look around but from the sounds of it there's more than enough for everyone.
They would have perhaps looked more friendly if they didn't sport spears. And even more so if they didn't swarm us and tried to bite at us. They might be small compared to us but that doesn't mean I want to be stabbed and even less bitten by these marshland creatures. Unfortunately one part of that nearly became a reality, though I am very glad that I've procured some armour, no matter how heavy it has been it saved me from getting hurt. That and Stout's divine protection. At this point I am less concerned about myself and more about the others that are still unarmoured.
There was a point in the fight where I heard the roar of fire suddenly appearing, Erizax's signature move I presumed, but as soon as the fire started the sound died out. I have no idea what happened behind my back but the lack of flames may very well be a real issue. I was under the impression that magic was a bad, bad idea in the marsh. Who knows, though. At this point even the worst ideas may very well be worth trying.
Dagne called out that Ben is down. I don't really have the time to be considerate towards him, but it's either a misunderstanding, or there's something far, far worse out there.. and I honestly have no idea how to deal with the latter. For now all I can do is keep jabbing my knife into these things as they come closer. Eventually they'll learn.
Surely…
- Eleanor
Just a quick note to let patrons and readers know how things are going.
Things are moving very quickly with respect to getting Architect of Worlds out the door. We have a book cover (see above), and Ken Burnside and I are doing our final editorial-and-layout-adjustments pass. I expect I’ll be handing a final-release draft off to Ken in no more than a few days, after which the book may be on the market in e-book format very quickly. I should have patron rewards ready to distribute almost immediately after that. Hardcopy will take longer, but that may be available for pre-order on the Ad Astra Games site fairly soon too.
I don’t have a tranche of new original fiction to release to patrons before the end of January, so this will probably be the last month in which there’s no charged release on Patreon. I may have a free reward to push out by tomorrow – a bit of fan-fiction I wrote a while back, which I obviously won’t be charging for. It will still serve as something to remind my patrons that I do actually write fiction from time to time!
Decent chance I’ll actually have a book review out shortly as well. I tripped over a book that’s surprisingly enjoyable, even though it breaks about every rule I have for “this is worth reading.” As I mentioned earlier, I’ll be serving as a judge for the Indie Ink awards for the next few months, but this one might get a quick review before I have to settle in and get working on that.
Otherwise, day job and university courses are keeping me at a dead run, but I’m somehow managing to keep ahead of it all. More news as we move into February.
]]>Here’s how I did it:
The trick is to add details as they play the character. For example, at the moment when this character wanted to climb a wall I asked, “Is this something your character is good at?” Yes meant we gave them the skill, wrote on the sheet, and I set a level. In this case it was DX.
The same for gear: “Do you think your character has anything useful here?” Eventually, in this session, the player gave me a description of the character so we wrote down a whole bunch of stuff: wearing leather (armour), carrying a shoulder bag, has some torches in the bag, has a money pouch, wears a bandana.
Quirks? Well, this time we wrote down, “Always bears a bandana [-1]”. We figured out they are left-handed but that’s a free detail in GURPS. Stating they are “Illiterate” gave us a useful Disadvantage though. Details arising from play, roughly eyeballed on to the sheet: “She dresses a bit like a pirate” was a nice one.
At the end of the session, I said I would go build the character in more detail – explained Character Points, said they start with 62 points (meaningless to the player at this stage, but honest) – and asked if there was anything to add.
“Are they more of a fighty pirate or a thiefy pirate?”
“Thiefy.”
“Great! See you next week!”
Game on!
]]>Party roster:
Ben, half-ogre barbarian, 177 points (PC)
Doran Longbeard, dwarf warrior (knight), 203 points (PC)
Eleanor Bayley, human thief, 233 points (PC)
- Dagne Timar, human priestess of Metallys (cleric), 147 points (NPC Hireling)
Erizax Ofaris, human wizard, 232 points (PC)
Randall, human veteran (knight), 157 points (NPC)
Maximilian "Stout" Grupher III, goblin cleric of Ishtanna, 121 points (PC)
Merrill Tangled Tail, cat-folk martial artist, 140 points (PC)
Campaign Date: 4 December, Year 645 of the Vycenaean Empire.
------
Diary of Merrill Tangled Tail:
It hard for Merrill to explain difference it make to sleep in warm tent. On way to Cribble, and on way to Titan's Hand with friends, Merrill used to sleeping in bush, or by road, or under tree. But friends much better prepared since Merrill meet them again at Cribble, and now Merrill getting used to sleeping in warm, comfortable tent. It true that Merrill rarely help to put up tent, or take down, but Merrill need to meditate to main balance of Chi, yes yes. And friends have made list of watchers who watch in night while others sleep, but Merrill is not on list, so Merrill may sleep undisturbed throughout night. That very kind! Merrill share tent with Eleanor the swift, Dagne the kind, and Stout. Dagne once offer to sleep between Merrill and Eleanor, but Eleanor say that not necessary, because Merrill is monk. That true, but Merrill not know why that important to where Merrill sleep. There times ways of humans still very strange.
But in night, Merrill notice that there spot next to Merrill that empty. That normal in night, when Eleanor watch in night, and Merrill usually take care to sleep half on empty spot to keep spot warm. But this night, spot remain empty for much much longer, and empty spot in danger of going cold. So Merrill do kind thing, and sleep across both spots. When Merrill wake, Eleanor asleep and Merrill rolled on side, so Merrill go outside to see if breakfast cooked.
There no breakfast. Normally it Eleanor who arrange for breakfast, and Eleanor asleep, so it take time for others to see who cook. It during time of no breakfast that Stout suddenly say, there people approaching camp. Quick as quick, everyone shaken awake, and ready for trouble. It not certain that people are trouble, but this is near place where master mage Termion go missing, so it wise to expect trouble, yes yes.
It also turn out people truly trouble. From glance Merrill get, they clearly bandits, and voice from distance call for friends to surrender and not be harmed. There many things Merrill not understand in this world, but when someone call to surrender and no harm will come, that usually mean they mean harm in first place. There no surprise, friends decide that instead of surrender, they fight. For first thing Merrill move to stand next to Erizax, and Erizax behind Doran and Ben, which good position when bandits come at Ben and Doran. Eleanor move to other side of campfire with crossbow, and look around. Then Randall, also looking around, call 'flank'. It sound serious, and Merrill quickest, so Merrill go with Randall to see to flank that is south. There bandits sneaking around south flank, and Merrill take shorter path over top of rock. Then Merrill stand on top of rock, clearly to surprise of bandit looking to surprise, and demand know why bandits attacking camp.
It at that time Doran and Ben charge toward bandits and attack, so Randall call for Merrill to stop talking. That good call, because at same moment something go flying past face of Merrill, from crossbow of bandit hiding on slope nearby. Fight is quick quick, and by time Merrill help Randall take care of one bandit and begin climbing slope to deal with crossbow bandit (who nearly shoot Merrill when reaching top of climb, but Merrill quick quick, like cat), leader of bandits fly away. It very strange, but it true, Merrill seen it with own eyes. And by time Merrill get to top of slope, crossbow bandit running away, and all other bandits still on feet do same.
It important to know why bandits attack, or who tell bandits to attack, so Merrill and Eleanor have same idea and run towards bandit that hurt but not dead. This first time Merrill have opportunity to repair Chi of injured person, and Stout... help. Merrill certain Stout mean well, but it clear little one go to very different temple, and instructions very confusing. But in end bandit alive, so that all well. So Eleanor and Merrill ask question of bandit, and other bandit who also not dead, why attack camp? In these things, Merrill like to think of self as reasonable. There no need to shout, or threaten. But it true, and Merrill say so, that other friends of Merrill probably not so forgiving. There no answer. There many questions, even if questions only questions of Big Moon, but there never answer. And Merrill think it odd that bandit smell of fish.
Since there nothing more Merrill can do, Merrill goes to meditate in tent. And when Merrill done with meditation, both bandits dead. It shame.
To Merrill and Eleanor, it seem, it likely that bandits also attack Termion and taken Termion away, so we say follow tracks of bandits. Other friends, they say go to Marsh, because that where Eleven say Termion gone. In end it decision of Erizax, because Termion is master of Erizax, and Erizax the wise decide in wisdom to go to Marsh.
Urgh. Merrill does not like this. Is going to get feet wet...
Hard Wired Island is a cyberpunk game published by Weird Age Games in 2020. It’s a beefy 400 page tome comparable in size to the Shadowrun or CP RED cores, but only about 25% of that is rules.
Hard Wired Island takes place in Grand Cross, an O’Neil Cylinder habitat orbiting Earth’s Lagrange 5 point, in the “distant future” of 2020. It was built according to an idealistic plan in the wake of terrible environmental and economic disasters on Earth, but is currently in the process of being co-opted and corrupted by the interests of ultra-rich corporations and elites. The way in which this is happening is described in very realistic detail throughout the book, which also talks a bit about what people do to fight back. PCs are usually expected to help in that fight, if not for moral reasons then because those billionaires cause constant economic shocks that threaten their survival. This is the main conflict in the setting.
Grand Cross has cybernetic implants, gene editing, fully sapient AI and androids. However its “global net” is still pretty much the internet of 2020. It’s even named “the internet”.
Every building in the station is wired for high-speed internet. The airwaves are serviced by cell carriers like the ones you know from the real world, and some of its wards even have free public wi-fi, though that tends to be poor quality because capitalism is the worst virus. The station is linked to Earth’s internet by satellites, with a 1.2-second lag there due to the physical distances involved. Most big services have station-local data centers to try and get around this, and there are some GC-native ones as well like HeoCities (website hosting) and Pulser (a Crosser social network).
Hackers are simply called hackers. Their equipment is collectively known as a Hacking Suite, and it can be anything from computers that wouldn’t look out of place here in the real world to some fancy cybernetic implant. Target systems tend to be private corporate intranets or other networks located on the station, and whether hacking is done remotely or on-site depends on the specific mission.
Most tests in Hard Wired Island use 2d6, with bonuses coming from one of the PC’s main stats/approaches (Cool, Clever, Tough, and Quick), from a skill specialty, from Augments (implants), and from Assets, which are special equipment. There are rules for rolling with advantage/disadvantage (add a d6 and drop the lowest/highest) or for Boosting rolls (add a d6, don’t drop anything). Criticals happen when two or more dice roll the same value.
The system for hacking is a mixture of the systems for stealth and social interaction. It has a set of specific actions associated with it, but also uses some actions from those other systems.
Hackers begin each hacking attempt in a state called “Ghost”, meaning they haven’t been detected by the target system’s security. They also begin with three chances to avoid getting caught. Every time a hacker needs to do something that requires a die roll, they might get caught if that test fails, and must spend a chance in order to avoid that. If they fail a roll after running out of chances, they’re discovered and their physical location is traced. Security is on its way, but the hacker can still disconnect and try to run. A hacker can try a Cover Your Tracks action to restore lost chances, but that’s also a roll so it might backfire.
Target networks have two stats: a Network Level that determines the basic difficulty of all tests made against it, and a Mood that describes the strictness of its security procedures and how willing it is to let you do things. Hacking is mostly about improving the network’s Mood towards you. Friendly networks are helpful, giving Advantage for data searches within then. Indifferent networks neither help nor hinder. Hostile networks assume everyone is an intruder until they can prove otherwise.
Most networks start out Indifferent, and their mood can be improved to Friendly through hacking actions, or degrade to Hostile by failures. Hostile networks can’t have their mood improved except by gaining admin access. This can be done by succeeding at a number of rolls equal to its Network Level, but it’s not strictly necessary to accomplish your goals. Admin access on a network makes it Friendly, and prevents its mood from lowering. Doing anything in there becomes almost trivial and you only need to maintain Ghost if someone intelligent is monitoring the network (like another admin or an AI).
There’s no deadly ice here, and no cybercombat at all. Getting discovered and traced is usually enough of a threat here, since those armed goons will kill you just as dead, and the heightened state of alertness from the target will also complicate your teammates’ lives.
Hard Wired Island tries to abstract the extensive planning sessions players of other games engage in with a resource named “Prep”. Before the mission itself you use actions to gather both Individual and Group Prep, and you spend those points during missions to use your Assets or acquire new ones on the spot.
We do have a sample hacker here, the ever adorable Maru. Her Hacking Suite is built into her cybereyes but she still operates it with a keyboard. She will be going with the team on this one, which might mean leaving that keyboard behind but won’t affect her effectiveness.
We will once again go with three separate target networks here. The office network is level 5 and Friendly to access from the inside; the security network used by the guards is Indifferent and level 6; and the isolated server is Hostile and level 7.
If the first two detect intrusion they grow Hostile, trace Maru’s location, and notify both the guards and the police. If the secret server detects intrusion it will destroy itself in a very messy and noisy fashion, drawing guard attention. This counts as a mission failure for our purposes, since the team will spend the rest of the run trying to leave the office without the evidence they came here to collect. As these are separate networks they have separate Ghost counters.
For the first time in our series we’ll have to concern ourselves with stuff that happens before the mission itself. Let’s make an Individual Prep roll for Maru. She’s getting her software in order before the run, at her hacker den. We roll 2d6 + Clever + Hacking + Hacker’s Den against a difficulty of 7, and get a 11. Since this is the first Prep roll we’re making, Maru gains 1 automatic Prep, and an extra 1 Prep for beating the difficulty by 4. She takes part in Group Prep later, and let’s say they agree to leave 1 of those points for her use.
Now for the actual run. As always, the rest of the team manages to bullshit the receptionist and make into the office posing as a repair crew. Maru locks herself into a stall in the ladies’ room and begins.
The security network isn’t advertising itself, so I rule Maru needs a Search roll to find it. Her bonus here is +3 from Clever and +2 from Hacking; the difficulty is 11 (the network’s level + 5). She succeeds with 13.
Since there’s a lot she must do in this net, we spend 1 of her 3 Prep to activate the Data Bomb program Asset, which gives her Advantage on her next three rolls here.
I rule that opening the door and turning off the camera each require an Operate roll. From what I see in the rules this seems to use the Drone specialty instead of Hacking. Maru doesn’t have that, so she’s rolling only 2d6+3 from her Clever. Thankfully, the Data Bomb still gives her Advantage on these rolls. She succeeds at both rolls with a 12 and a 11, precisely because of that Advantage.
Maru and her team move to the records room, and find the secret server. She jacks into it and begins searching for the data. The difficulties here are all 12 from the Network Level. Maru spends another Prep to activate the Ghost Protocol program, giving her Advantage on her next Hacking roll and an extra Ghost chance. These rolls do use her Hacking specialty.
Advantage once again lets her succeed with a 14. I think succeeding at this lets her take the data? Let’s be cruel instead and ask for a Spoof roll to download the data without authorization. This is a Hostile server after all. No more advantage here, but she still gets a 13.
The team leaves the records room and Maru connects to the security wifi to open the exit door. She still has one roll with Advantage remaining from her use of Data Bomb, and succeeds on the Spoof roll with a 13.
With the way out secured, she searches the office network for the money. No roll needed to locate it, it’s Friendly and advertising itself to people inside the office premises. A Search with Advantage lets her find the money with a roll of 11 versus the network’s lower difficulty of 10.
She has no advantage for the Spoof roll to transfer the money elsewhere, but she still succeeds with a 11.
Mission accomplished! Time elapsed: around 15 minutes.
Hard Wired Island feels more complex than Neon City Overdrive in its presentation, but the hacking sequence here was about as fast. This was in part due to good rolls all through the run, but a failure here would have had less impact than in my Neon City run. There, a failed roll would have meant cybercombat, a system I didn’t get to try at all. Here it would have meant an extra roll or two as I lost one of my Ghost points and retried the test. Perhaps I’d have spent another action or two recovering those points as well.
Keeping it to about one roll per Thing You Do seems to be key to keeping hacking brief.
]]>Finishing up this setting series, we’ll go over the city stats of Whistleleaf, and cover campaign frames & adventure seeds.
Population: 56,574 (Search +2)
Physical and Magical Environment
Terrain: Woodlands, Island/Beach, Fresh-Water Lake
Appearance: Average (+0)
Hygiene: +0
Normal Mana (Common Enchantment)
Culture and Economy
Language: English
Literacy: Native
TL: 8
Wealth: Comfortable
Status: -2 to 5
Political Environment
Government: Representative Democracy, Municipality
CR: 3 (Corruption -2)
Military Resources: $1,470,924
Defence Bonus: +5
Notes: Spots of higher and lower Mana occur all throughout the city, along with places of power, anti-magic zones and other variations in the magical environment. South Pine State Park very close-by and considered part of the city. Fresh-water lake with rivers on eastern side of city. Highway goes close by, next to city, easy to get on and off it. Monsters, occultists, magicians and supernatural phenomena are secretly a major subculture and important covert element in its underpinnings, magical stuff has an underground grey market. Crime and corruption is common, but not widely known.
So now we know the Whistleleaf setting, what kind of campaigns can we run in it?
Cops
PCs are police officers (including SWAT, park rangers, FBI agents and highway troopers if the GM wants to change up the basic premise a little) working a beat in Whistleleaf. They may or may not start the campaign aware of The Scene, but they will probably stumble upon elements of it eventually. Standard themes of the Cop campaign is corruption, cover-ups, fraying tension between the responsibility to the public and the demands of the job, political conflicts intruding upon the police department, and rising conflicts in the criminal underworld (and the PCs may be involved in any of it). How much The Scene and supernatural elements is a factor in the campaign depends on what duties exactly the PCs have; park rangers will encounter monsters more often than SWAT, FBI agents may instead focus on serials killers and organised crime than magicians, beat cops could stumble into members of The Scene more than highway troopers.
Criminals or Occultists
On the other side of the law, the PCs could be career criminals (thieves, bikers, assassins, etc.) and/or independent Clued-In (magicians or at least people with the right knowledge). The major theme of this campaign is the long struggle to rising to the top of their chosen underworld without getting busted or dead. Mundane criminals won’t start the campaign aware of the supernatural, but they should eventually brush up against magic and monsters in the course of their quest for illicit profit. Occultists will be mostly interacting with other occultists but it is assumed that they will eventually commit crimes or otherwise cross paths with outlaws as part of their schemes for power and supremacy.
Cult
A more focused spin on the Occultist campaign, in this frame, the PCs are Clued-In members of a supernatural cult. They will probably start the campaign as magicians (perhaps all of them knowing the Cult Secrets Magical Style) and probably knowing about at least one type of monster (that they may serve). The major difference with a Cult campaign to the more standard Scene campaign is that the PCs will start both belonging to an occult organisation that issues them missions AND has a big goal handed down to them (“Claim the Holy Grail for our Master!” “Open the way to the Summerlands!” “Purge the unclean heretics!”) that they all share. Political manoeuvring, ideological motivations and the agendas of higher beings become more important in Cult campaigns compared to normal Scene adventures. The GM and players should start with deciding on their cult’s goal, leadership, membership demographics, their public face or cover, internal politics/ideology, ceremonies, uniforms/colours, slogans/pass-phrases, symbols/logos and so on. Even if their PCs had no in-character hand in creating any of that, having the gaming group design the cult’s details helps get everyone invested in playing the campaign.
Magical Bloodline
The PCs are all members (by marriage or adoption or sworn retainer-ship, if nothing else) of a single Whistleleaf family of magicians, their lives intermingled with ongoing drama attached to the bloodline. Every PC should probably start the campaign knowing the family’s signature magic (wherever that’s a Ritual Book or a Magical Style), and pick how they fit into the family tree (youngest son, devoted butler, married to oldest daughter, father of youngest generation, life-long adviser, adopted daughter of grandmother, second cousin, etc.). The GM and players should work together before the campaign proper to design the family’s general dynamics (are they united or taking sides between two brothers in conflict?), their history (who first discovered or stole their family’s magic? Which country did they immigrate from?), general resources (any places of power they control? Family business?), enemies or rivals (does another magician family want them all dead?), current problems (has a vampire declared vendetta against them? Are they cursed? Out of money?), notable NPC family members (their grandfather is dying and really abusive, young Louis is a rebel and troublemaker, Uncle Alfred is the Black Sheep, we feed the madwoman in the attic but we do not talk about her) and other interesting details that fuel the drama. Serious campaigns may take after The Godfather, Succession, gothic horror and soap operas. Sillier campaigns may take after Arrested Development, Charmed, sitcoms and soap operas.
Ordinary Folks in the Wrong Place at the Wrong Time
The campaign frame requiring the least work from the players, the PCs are just plain residents of Whistleleaf who stumbled into the supernatural by accident one day. The GM throws them in the deep end, trying to survive monster attacks and occultist plots, ignorant of the greater picture. Maybe someone in The Scene figures they could make an useful tool, or are a liability that must be disposed of. If they manage to get out alive, they could use their experiences as a jumping off point, slowly peeling the curtain back and discovering more and more of the hidden world around them.
Secret Government Agents or General Monster Hunters
The high-powered option, the PCs are Taskforce Silver Torch agents or monster hunters of the professional stripe given in the Monster Hunter book line. They start knowing plenty about The Scene and the supernatural, and now get involved in it all for their reasons or because this is their secret government job. They’ll mostly oppose elements of The Scene, foiling occultist plots and killing non-humans. I recommend Delta Green, The X-Files and Men in Black as inspirations for Taskforce Silver Torch campaigns. More general Monster Hunter campaigns are covered by the same titled GURPS books and GURPS Horror, with many rich inspirations listed for the genre. The relevant campaign types given in Monster Hunters are Extermination For Sale (they are local independent Clued-In selling their expertise against bad guys), Local Guardians (similar to the last type but more benevolent and less sleazy in tone, perhaps they are Ordinary Folks who survived their encounter with the supernatural and took up a duty as protectors), Research Grant (obviously The Dana Project are a perfect fit, but Corporate fixers from below can also work), Shadow Wars (magicians and psychics aside, there’s also monster underworlds) and Strike Team (common for Taskforce Silver Torch but this type can apply for Clued-In with Patrons or sufficiently big organisations).
Corporate
Referring to the Firm and Right Hand Men campaign frames discussed in Thaumatology: Urban Magics pages 51 and 52, the corporate campaign has the PCs work in the private sector (or a very wealthy/powerful private individual) and also be Clued-In. Their company/big boss wishes to secretly exploit the supernatural for profit/social advantage (maybe a megalomaniac big boss wants to gain immortality), and the PCs are in charge of making that happen on behalf of their employer. Their adventures typically revolve around missions of corporate espionage, investigation into mysterious events, arranging cover-ups, and finding the right angle to benefit from proceedings.
Monsters
The PCs are all monsters (rather than just magicians) secretly existing in the shadow of society. The Scene is their main point of contact with larger humanity. Their adventures typically involve covering up proof of their existence, doing what is necessary to survive, warring with other monsters over territory or grudges, and dodging attempts on their lives by monster hunters. Relevant touchstones include The World of Darkness, Forever Night, Anita Blake, Jack Fleming, Angel, etc. Another type of Monster Hunters campaign (Shadow Wars) usually features all Inhuman PCs, too.
Here are some ideas for individual adventures set in Whistleleaf.
Adventure Seed: Grand Theft Auto
This adventure is for campaigns where the PCs are criminals with the right skills. The protagonists are hired to do a black bag job; stealing 20 cars in 20 days. Their employer gives them a list; some of the cars are just “one of this particular make and model” that can be boosted anywhere, but others on the list are specific customised vehicles that are owned by VIPS (these specific car thefts may be revenge on the owners by the client). Stealing cars requires not just breaking in (roll Lockpicking) and hot-wiring (Mechanic (Automobile) is what you need), but also disabling the security systems (roll Electronics Repair (Security) for this task) and driving them to a drop point (a covert garage in a dockyard mechanical shop) without getting caught and losing any pursuers. A good twist is to have a stolen car turn out to have some sort of troublesome stuff (a briefcase full of state secrets, a baby, huge stash of drugs, magical artefact) in it (and not noticed) when the thief drives away with it. When the thief finally realises he has bitten off more than he can chew, the car’s owner and others will be already hunting for him. The GM should prepare memorable specific scenes for standout cars that the PCs will be stealing, detailing what will make the theft tricky (security systems, guards, locations, details about the owners, etc.) and what gives the target car personality (paint-job, interior, decorations, vanity license plate, flaws, etc.). Is it a bait car set up by the cops? IS it kept in a reinforced garage? Is a DJ keeping all of her sound system in the target van while a beach party is going on? Is the car already stolen and an APB put out for beat cops to look for it? Is it in transit on a ferry? Is it cursed or haunted? Is a homing beacon hidden within the driver’s seat? Is it wired to blow? Perhaps a target car is being stolen by a rival gang for completely unrelated reasons at the same time as the PCs’ attempt. Perhaps one target car is already wrecked, either at the bottom of a river or rusting away in a scrapyard. It’s an obscure model that only had a few hundred made or has a particular short run customisation option/paint job, making a fake very tricky to pull off. Another twist could be a target car is on display in a museum, part of a parade visiting town, or similar high profile location.
(The Pyramid 4/2 article “Highway Stars” and Pyramid 3/40 pages 17-20 has details and stats for many different vehicles that could come in handy for this adventure. Details on strange automobiles are also touched upon in Boardroom and Curia: Tomorrow Rides pages 6-8.)
Adventure Seed: The Riot Action
This adventure is for PCs of any type or genre. The city experiences a night of sudden street violence. Homes and businesses are attacked by arsonists, many people are brutally beaten, even more are sent to jail on charges, at least one important individual is found murdered for unknown reasons in the aftermath of the chaos. The PCs start out in the middle of the chaos that night, beset by random threats, before they are left to pick up the pieces tomorrow morning. This is a great way to introduce a shakeup (something important got destroyed by the riot or was stolen by unknown hooligans during it) or a source of conflict (one faction suffered a significant setback from the riot).
END OF THE WHISTLELEAF CITY SETTING
I hope you enjoyed this series!
]]>My problem is that I do not easily fit into any of these tribes. My personal preferences lie outside the mainstream, certainly, but also they cross the streams in a way that some say is dangerous, or at least “Bad Wrong Fun”.
Firstly, I don’t much like the assumptions I find about roleplaying games. Secondly, having encountered the proselytes for each tribe, I don’t much enjoy the tone of discourse – which is increasingly simply shouting to one’s own tribe about how bad every other tribe behaves.
But putting all of that aside, the biggest problem for me is that I enjoy more than one stream of roleplaying. Certainly, I have a preference for what was once proudly called ‘simulationism’ before it got branded as a fool’s errand.
But even within that label, I find myself with three types of simulation: the Regular kind, the Wargaming kind, and the Otherworld-immersed kind.
This is my label for the “regular kind of game” which has grown out of Dungeons & Dragons roots but remains focused on simulation. It’s the kind of game that my own Fellmyr represents: there are faux-medieval towns and cities, village adventurers, ancient places filled with untold treasures, and monsters to protect them.
This is the Modernic Fantasy that I’ve discussed with Daniel Jones but perhaps dialled back towards the TSR days of Dungeons & Dragons, inspired as my own Fellmyr has been by Basic D&D (1983), aka BECMI. It’s not concerned with historicity or even great depth in the World, but rather the simulation is sought in the relatively grounded rules.
This type of game contains dungeons, certainly, but also urban adventures and wilderness expeditions. In my version, the player’s agency is paramount and the role of the GM is in designing and generating the World to challenge the choices of player characters. Rules are visible and characters can be deeply drawn.
Recent discovery of Eero Tuovinen’s “Muster” pointed me back towards this taste that I hold, that of the “wargaming way”. Of course, it is also the play that emerged prior to the publication of Dungeons & Dragons more than 50 years ago. I first explored it when I read Jon Peterson’s “Playing The World” and watched “Secrets of Blackmoor”.
Speaking of this way, the basics are focused on the Megadungeon concept and the core play cycle of exploring such vast underground locations. These are perhaps more a type of Mythic fantasy, cyclopean depths with treasure and monsters which test the mettle of the brave or foolish.
This approach strips the character down to a handful of mere numbers, equips the erstwhile pawn of the player with useful items, and sends him out to probably die. The style is big on player skill and group cooperation, low on characterisation and play-acting.
There is (often) an appeal to D&D originalism here which I find jarring but the basic idea – of a deeply fantastic underground realm wherein fortune can be found – is simulated with the barest set of rules and the Referee is subject to the ideal of the group being challenged as they pursue their own agenda.
The main distinction is that the wargame roots of D&D are emphasised, usually in opposition to what is seen as upstart attempts to turn D&D into a story-telling activity. For my tastes, this dials the play towards the tabletop wargame roots in my own experience – especially the hex-and-chit games I enjoyed with my father.
Thus, I like to play a wargaming simulation with miniatures or tokens on a battle map. Preferably that’s a hex map, although I love 2D terrain and 3D terrain even more because of the visual and tactile appeal. My detour in this type of roleplaying game is through the way of more detail in the combat rules because it’s a wargame first and foremost.
Thanks are owed to Daniel Jones from Primaeval Fantasy for the terminology and methodology for playing in a more Otherworld-immersed style. That is to say, where fantasy realism and the World itself are paramount.
The goal in this kind of game is to immerse oneself in both the character and the World played within. You seek to marry the perspective of the character with your own. This means you need a deeply believable and realistic simulation of both character and World.
Gone is the Modernic fantasy of D&D, swept away by the lowering of the power curve and the desire to emulate pre-Modern assumptions and patterns of thought. This is escapism dialled towards the imagination, away from power-fantasy towards the desire to feel and experience the Otherworld.
Methods of play include moving the rules behind the GM screen, even taking character sheets out of the view of players. They have the description only, plus their naturalistic understanding of regular physics. Discovery of the magical and spiritual truths of the World must be done through play.
To me, this is the higher form of play because it places the imagination – what we experience in our minds – at the pinnacle of the game’s purpose. Higher not in hierarchy but in importance to me because while I love a good battle, and I can have fun in the regular realms, what I deeply desire is the Otherworld-immersed game.
But that said, I enjoy all three in roughly even measure. There is bleed-through from the Otherworld-immersed game, certainly, in that I can no longer stomach the gonzo and unjustified mish-mash some players enjoy. I desire simulation, not cool stories nor neat little rules.
All of which is to say that I am moving towards providing three fantasies, all powered by variants of the same game rules, each with a different emphasis.
At one end stands the Open Table Megadungeon and the other end is rooted the Otherworld-immersed Dedicated Table. Between is Fellmyr, that Regular Simulation which can open a doorway in-between.
Which says little about my offer for Science-Fiction gaming nor for Modern-world adventure, except to say that it will probably be simulationist and informed by these three styles here outlined.
I don’t think you have to choose one tribe and sit inside it. I believe that travelling between the camps opens up more opportunities for play, exploration, experimentation, and playfulness. I certainly don’t want to spend time fighting over my hobby or being denigrated for my harmless tastes.
Game on!
]]>The question was exploring the opportunity in shifting between the classic tropes of Basic D&D (1983) and the freedom that playing with GURPS (via Dungeon Fantasy RPG) offers. It asks me to consider if I want to hold on to those tropes in the longer term.
Alongside this question there has been some thought and desire to move forward with creating the lower-fantasy, lower-powered, primaeval and mythic fantasy world that I have discussed on many occasions with Daniel Jones.
Atop all of this has been a growing awareness of pre-Enlightenment symbolism, largely through an exploration of ancient and medieval Christian sources plus reading translations of Russian fairy tales.
All of which is lifting towards the idea of an intersectionality in my gaming worlds, something which I have previously discussed in terms of the offer GURPS makes as a truly generic universal roleplaying game.
That is to say that I think the answer the the first question is, “Yes, and”.
Yes, I think moving away from the core tropes of classic D&D-esque fantasy is an inevitability. And also I have these ideas on how that transformation is likely to be informed by the creation of new worlds with a mythic, faerie-infused flavour.
I can see there being portals between worlds. Through those portals, both physical within the landscape of the world and symbolic through the ideas that get shared, Fellmyr will come under the spell of the Otherworld.
I sense that this will end up being a goodspell, a blessing upon all my games. A discovering of the imaginary world that inhabits my own heart and soul. An expression and sharing of who I am at a deeply spiritual and symbolic level.
That thought makes me smile.
Game on!
]]>Prices on Heads
People both in The Scene and out of it are willing to pay good money to have someone else murdered. Typical bounties are $300,000 to $500,000 on a single target who is moderately important and hard to get to, but that price can go higher or lower depending on just how much the client wants the death, how hard it would be to kill the target without getting arrested or losing your own life in the process, and how much the client wants the assassin to keep his mouth shut. Mob bosses, for instance, can fetch millions while contracts on mere mid-level drug dealers are only $10,000.
And it is not just criminals who are wanted dead for money. Business rivals, blackmailers, inconvenient spouses, crusaders against corruption (whistle-blowers, journalists, honesty cops, even judges) and even monsters can end up with bounties on their heads. Plenty of monster hunters in The Scene work for pay, either exterminating threats or for the purpose of collecting samples. (Monster corpses are rich in magical materials that magicians can use, The Dana Project mentioned in a previous post is interested in studying monsters both dead and captured alive.)
Nor is it only career criminals who put out hits. Occultists are more than happy to pay for an assassination.
Currently, the person with the biggest bounty on their head in Whistleleaf is Jake Tanner, the boss of a robbery gang who masterminded a heist that stole a drug shipment and killed five members of The Deathless Knives Biker Gang. The Deathless Knives have responded by promising $1,000,000 to the person who eliminates him.
Mysteries in Whistleleaf
For both single adventures and entire campaign frames, a great starting point is getting the PCs involved with a mystery. The standby mystery is a missing person’s case, of course. If a lot of people are going missing in an area, that makes it even more ominous. A more overtly dramatic mystery is an unnatural phenomenon presenting itself. This supernatural happening can be twisted mana, stumbling across an artefact which is surrounded by dark forces and dogged by strange events (suspicious strangers lurking around, blackouts, weird dreams, illnesses without apparent cause, etc.), an object or location causing chaotic supernatural effects (temporary physical or mental Disadvantages inflicted without apparent reason, phantom pains, distracting afflictions, auditory and visual illusions/hallucinations, brief transformations of both people or objects, sudden changes in weather, etc.) upon anyone interacting with it, intrusions (of ghosts, spirits, alternate timelines or whatever) from the twilight or astral plane manifesting, magical portals to a pocket dimension or “dark world” (ala Carcosa or Silent Hill), and so on. Less obviously supernatural (or even wrongly assumed to be supernatural) is the famed haunted mansion, which PCs may investigate either to rescue a missing person last seen going there, look for a rumoured treasure hidden within, record an expedition as content for a youtube or podcast show, or because a clue in another mystery pointed towards the location. Previous posts in this project series have also introduced a serial killer operating in Whistleleaf, and the PCs may stumble across the scene of another murder – and thus begins their crusade to bring him to justice.
Artefacts
A campaign set in Whistleleaf may have all sorts of MacGuffins and unique magic items to chase after. Let’s check them out!
The Key to The City (Thaumatology: Urban Magics page 40) is a palm-sized faux-key (its teeth are too broad to even fit in a lock, let alone unlock anything) made of steel on a thin metal necklace chain. The artefact is kept in a triple-locked (each lock has a -4 Lockpicking modifier) metal container (DR 10, HP 9, 6.5 lbs.), a tracking device (as per Personal Cellular Beacon, see High-Tech page 210) hidden inside the case’s leather interior. The container itself is hidden away somewhere heavily guarded, such as a bank vault or a museum’s exhibit storage. The artefact has the magical power to open any lock in Whistleleaf, reshaping itself to fit any keyhole size, resisted only by an opposing spell in a quick contest (the artefact has Power-16).
The Mind Palace is a magical location accessed by walking through a hidden door in a secluded (perhaps uninhabited) mansion’s upper floor. The location is a pocket dimension, appearing to be a series of rooms that are filled with distinctive objects arranged on display stands or shelves. Examining and handling the objects helps magically trigger memories, giving a +4 bonus to IQ rolls for Eidetic Memory. Walking through the location can also allow you to access the memories of other people who have used this location, effectively Racial Memory (Active) where “race” is other people who have been here, the roll is IQ+2 for people you’ve personally met and only IQ for people you haven’t, the penalty to this roll depends on time (long-distance modifiers from B241 but with “years” in place of “miles”, no penalty for memories six weeks old or less).
The Spring of Healing is a remote body of magical water emerging out of an underground aquifer (it’s a karst spring) in the woods, off the beaten trail within South Pine State Park. Bathing in the waters of the spring gives +2 to any HT roll to resist or recover from injury, illness or poison. Drinking the water gives +4 against ingested poisons and illnesses of the digestive or unitary systems. This benefit only applies to conditions the visitor is currently suffering from. The water loses its magical properties if removed from the spring after 1 hour.
New Book: The Profane Logbook
Another Ritual Book in the setting, but not readily available to the PCs and currently in the hands of a dark magician (who may or may not be an antagonist in the campaign), is a legendary grimoire The Profane Logbook. The Book weighs 12 pounds and is worth at least $4000 on the grey market, although it is not for sale. The Book’s contents are a record of horrid experiments with the supernatural and instructions for ghastly rituals. This first edition legendary quality Book is worth a +2 bonus to casting the rituals it teaches if it is read by the magician while doing so, and improvement of its Book skill, Ritual Techniques and Ritual Magic (Books) skill by studying the Book counts as intensive training (every hour of study counts as two hours of learning). Written in English. Author unknown.
Doom (Default -8)
Blood of the Innocent (Default -8, Pyramid 3/13 page 32)
Rotting Death (Default -8, Pyramid 3/13 pages 32-33)
The Wild Hunt (Default -7, Pyramid 3/13 page 35)
Night Terrors (Default -5)
Command the Bodies of the Dead (Default -7)
Summon the Unspeakable (Default -4)
Evil Eye (Default -7)
Unnatural Appetites (Default -4, Pyramid 3/43 page 18)
Dark Rebirth (Default -5, Pyramid 3/43 page 18)
TO BE CONTINUED
]]>DFRPG quantifies characters in a much more detailed and granular fashion. Their 1st Level D&D characters were transferred over as 62 points in GURPS, with 8 points of “experience” because they have played for about 12 weeks previously.
One example: the Wizard’s player loved having a dozen spells including “Fireball”, being able to cast whenever and just paying with Fatigue Points. Another: the player of the Elf enjoyed having a good mix of spells, skills, and interesting advantages.
They fought Giant Rats and it was scary! They also beat the Giant Rats, blasting one with the Fireball, slicing up two more, and making the rest run. But they also got a beating – they learned to give ground by using Retreat when defending; a couple of them got bitten badly.
Most of all, everyone was highly engaged at the table. Yes, we used a battlemap and the paper miniatures but the kids loved this! They could move their character around, see the action, and the one second turn kept everyone’s attention.
All in all, they want to keep playing with DFRPG – one of the lads was talking about how much more quickly combat ran… which is odd to me because the fight took longer in terms of clock-time. What I think he meant was that the turn around the table was faster.
Glad they enjoyed it!
Game on!
]]>This is the stuff that I enjoy most about how the core 3d6 roll-low mechanism of GURPS works: characters have their skills rated to meet their supposed expertise but the modifiers assume that +0 is an “adventuring task”. Everyday stuff gives a chunky bonus to that roll of the dice.
It’s a great approach because it means that a character without training – and therefore using the skill’s default value – can still attempt and often succeed at mundane stuff.
For example, the untrained school teacher might have Teaching at the default of IQ-5. Looking at the typical teacher as being perhaps above-average with an IQ 11, they are still in with a shout on a typical task, netting a +4 or +5 to offset that default.
All of this feels about right. It’s a fair simulation of my experience: when I am under pressure, training and skill counts a great deal, but under routine conditions anyone can probably muddle through with a little luck. Let’s not forget that rolling an 11 or less on 3d6 happens 62.5% of the time.
Boosting your skill value to an 11 seems to be a pretty good bet. Recently, a friend suggested that any long-term character would be well-advised to have HT 11 as a hedge against dying and I can see the reason.
According to the GURPS books, having a skill of 11 is the place of “most skills, including hobbies, secondary job skills of volunteers, and primary skills of draftees.” (HTBAGGM, page 12).
Here’s to rolling an 11. I know I managed it today.
Game on!
]]>Party roster:
Ben, half-ogre barbarian, 177 points (PC)
Doran Longbeard, dwarf warrior (knight), 203 points (PC)
Eleanor Bayley, human thief, 233 points (PC)
- Dagne Timar, human priestess of Metallys (cleric), 147 points (NPC Hireling)
Erizax Ofaris, human wizard, 232 points (PC)
Randall, human veteran (knight), 157 points (NPC)
Maximilian "Stout" Grupher III, goblin cleric of Ishtanna, 121 points (PC)
Merrill Tangled Tail, cat-folk martial artist, 140 points (PC)
Campaign Dates: 28 November to 3 December, Year 645 of the Vycenaean Empire.
------
Diary of Merrill Tangled Tail:
*This entry is written on a page half torn out of the diary, with at least one preceding page missing.*
After finding cave of Troll and treasure of Troll in cave, friends return to Cribble. It take longer than walking to north of lake, because everyone moving slow slow. In end, Merrill decide to keep broken staff and try to find skilled master of woodworking later. Merrill very certain that Merrill will have to explain what means Kintsugi, but it worth it. Of mistakes lessons are learned, yes yes, and there no master that Merrill know of that not made mistakes in life.
Perhaps Master Lomarr... but that impossible to say.
Still, Merrill certain that it possible to save staff, and one day look back proudly on unique pattern of Wabi Sabi. One mistake not end of path. That too is lesson to learn.
However, this mean that Merrill now carrying broken staff and staff that used to belong to Erizax, and much coin, which heavy. So much coin that it not fit in coin pouch. Erizax offer to carry all coins Merrill could not carry in pouch, but Eleanor say that perhaps Merrill should carry coins in backpack, and scoop up coins that fell out of pouch. That very kind. But Merrill also concerned... this more coin than Merrill ever before carry.
Slowest of all for while is Stout, who carrying head of Troll. Merrill not certain why, but also see no reason to ask Stout to leave head. It late evening when friends arrive back in Cribble, and there crowd of villagers waiting. They seen friends walk along shore of lake, and want know what happen. Then they see head of Troll, and know what happen. Friends and Merrill invited into Inn with no name, and ask about how Troll defeated. Merrill about to tell tale when Erizax quickly whisper to Merrill to not let villagers know that Erizax is mage. This little bit difficult, so Merrill need to change what Merrill going to say, and so tale that Merrill told... not entirely truthful. It good tale, of that Merrill is certain, but it not truth. It shock Merrill to see how easy it is to not tell truth when it convenient, and Merrill meditate and sleep badly that night.
Before sleeping, Merrill ask Eleanor if perhaps Eleanor would do Merrill honour of going up hills and meet Master Sillis. It important, Merrill think, that when student leaves Master, Master know in which company student leaves. And Merrill certain Sillis approve of Eleanor, yes yes!
It not to be. When Merrill wake up early, after bad night of no dream, Erizax already awake and urge Merrill it important friends go to Mere first thing in morning. This seem very serious, and Merrill ask Erizax how important it to Erizax to go find master. After all, Merrill never remember Erizax speaking of master except perhaps in passing word, but it very clear immediately that Erizax more worried about master than Merrill first thought. This serious as dark moon!
So when morning come, Merrill speak with Eleanor and change plans. Eleanor not mind sudden change, and begin organising food for trek to Mere. In end, friends receive much much food for trail, although there no special food for Merrill as Merrill know well, and there even fishing gear for Ben, with spare in case of breaking. This put smile on face of Merrill. People of Cribble always friendly and generous, yes yes, and Merrill suggest to Haldor that perhaps he name Inn with no name. Merrill suggest name 'The Troll's Head'. Perhaps when next Merrill come to Cribble, there new sign outside of inn...
It take several days to cross Strider Barrens, but Ben always certain of way and direction. In truth, Merrill very impressed with Ben, and how Ben find way so easily across terrain that to Merrill all look the same. Ben even find comfortable places to build camp when to eyes of Merrill there nothing around but flat land, rock, and dry grass. It uncanny! Merrill only wish that Ben more confident of own skills, and Merrill decide to be guiding master to Ben. Not for skill, because skill no problem for Ben, but for confidence. Merrill know that Ben think of self as stupid and fit only to stand in front of enemy and hit hard with axe. But Merrill know better. Ben smart and kind, and these things Merrill going help Ben express, yes yes!
There small commotion in morning when close to Mere. Eleanor yell at Doran that, next time Doran on watch and hear people sneak around camp, Doran wake others. True, Erizax in some way protecting camp with spell, but Merrill not know which. Merrill only know Merrill sleeping very well in warm tent.
To Merrill, Mere look much like Cribble, if bit smaller. That not mean there less people, but people smaller. Merrill seen few halflings before in Temple and Bridgegate, but this first time Merrill seeing entire village of halflings. In truth, it make Merrill smile. Halflings very happy people, happy as Merrill, and usually have good food. Good food and happy people, these two things that bring Merrill joy.
People waiting for friends not halflings but humans. One is Squire, other is scribe, other other is... bodyguard of Squire? Merrill not certain, but it certainly appear this way. Squire look at friends and seem confused. Confused or disappointed. It sound to Merrill that Squire expecting Erizax come alone. That curious.
This where Merrill confess that Merrill sometimes appear more weary of world than truly true. But Merrill used to listening, and hearing, and pondering. And then Squire ask Erizax to follow to house of Squire, where Squire speak to Erizax. Alone. That moment Merrill remember that friends spoken before of other mage that go missing in Mere. And that other mage missing in Mere was apprentice of mage that now missing, who named Termion. That very curious to Merrill. Squire also very anxious disappearance of Termion remain secret.
After short while, Erizax leave house and lead friends to house of Master Termion. It that moment, Merrill ask question. Merrill used to asking questions, that purpose of Path of Two Moons. But Merrill learn on Path of Ten Tigers, that while it important to know Why, How, and What... but it also important to know When. So Merrill ask question when out of shot of ear of Squire.
Why Squire send messenger to Erizax in Bridgegate, when Baron to who village belong much much closer?
Erizax not know answer.
Merrill can tell that Eleanor understand weight of question. If Squire truly worry about Termion, why send messenger far far away when there more help close by? Why ask for third mage to come to place where two mages already missing? Why expect third mage to come alone?
These questions that go around mind of Merrill when friends arrive at house of Master Termion, which is nice little house against side of much bigger tower. Friends wonder What and Where, sometimes even How, and Erizax cast many many spell to see with eyes that not in head through closed door and other side of wall. Merrill knock on door of tower, but get no answer. Ben look through window, and say Ben certain that window been forced open before.
It short matter to open window, and there short discussion about going into house of Termion or not, because Termion not like visitors. Question of If not usually important on either Path of Two Moons or Path of Ten Tigers, so Merrill slip in through window while discussion taking place, followed swiftly by Eleanor the Swift.
There we find that it almost certain Termion truly missing. Merrill certain Termion not taken from house, since no key on inside of lock, and certain as certain that Termion not intended to stay away this long, because there food in pantry that spoiled. When cheese at point of making more cheese, it sure sign someone been away for some time. There also small statue on ground by chair, and Erizax tell us not to touch. Then Erizax climb in through window, and touch small statue, speaking word which Merrill never before heard and knows not how to write down.
Statue then grow into tall being who introduce self as Eleven. It appear Eleven sort of guardian to Termion, but Termion not take Eleven with when last Termion leave house. Erizax ask if Termion go to swamp to gather herbs and Eleven say that yes, this Eleven remember Termion saying. Then Eleven ask if Termion in trouble, then insist Eleven go with friends. Unfortunately Eleven not able to remain awake for long, so Erizax turn Eleven back into statue and take statue with.
Before leaving for swamp, where Eleven warn magic not work, Eleanor want replenish stock of food for everyone. Merrill happy to find that special spices and incense available in Mere, so Merrill can eat again without worry about not having food at end of week. Then Erizax go speak with elderly halfling, and Merrill decide it time to meet locals. Elderly Halfling called Groak, and Groak very happy to speak to Merrill. Merrill also very happy to speak to Groak and drink together. Normally Merrill drink milk, and in truth Merrill not do well with alcohol, but there no harm in small beer. Of Groak, Merrill learn many many interesting things about village. Groak tell Merrill that whole village concerned for Termion, because it Termion who defend village from bandits and raiders, usually with much fire. It so effective, village never needed soldiers, or protection from anyone except Termion. Groak also say that village pay taxes to Baron, via Squire, who work for Duke. There many thing Groak say that make Merrill nod, and smile, and think.
When discussion over, and Merrill bid good day and bright moons to Groak with promises to share more drinks when Merrill return, Merrill have many things to ponder. Of many things that Merrill ponders, it seem most likely to Merrill that it in best interest of Baron that Termion never found. So when friends walk out of village and are on road, Merrill share this thought with friends. It seem that for first time friends consider that this possibly not simple case of old mage that get lost in swamp when gathering herbs. It when friends ponder this, that Stout whisper to Eleanor, and then to Merrill, that friends being followed.
So Eleanor and Merrill wander back towards village, together and without seeming care, so that if someone need to speak to Merrill, they can speak to Merrill without being seen in village. But it take while before it clear we being followed by sneak sneak, and with transparent ruse Merrill corner sneak behind bush.
Immediately Merrill sorry about it, because sneak sneak is small halfling child. So Merrill squat down and speak pleasantly to child, who seem terrified of Merrill, until Merrill realise child more terrified of punishment by whoever sent little one. So Merrill let little one go, and promised little one that Merrill not angry one bit. Eleanor follow little one, but by time Merrill arrive in village, Eleanor tell Merrill that it not worth pursuing. Eleanor refuse to tell Merrill where little one go to, and Merrill know better than try to change mind of Eleanor. It more simple to change path of moons in heavens.
So Merrill and Eleanor walk back to friends and continue on way...
This very curious place, with mystery that mysterious. But if Merrill ever find out anyone in village threaten or punish child for being caught, then Merrill swear by Light of Bright Moons and Claws of Ten Tigers, that someone soon be very sorry.
Party roster:
Ben, half-ogre barbarian, 177 points (PC)
Doran Longbeard, dwarf warrior (knight), 203 points (PC)
Eleanor Bayley, human thief, 233 points (PC)
- Dagne Timar, human priestess of Metallys (cleric), 147 points (NPC Hireling)
Erizax Ofaris, human wizard, 232 points (PC)
Randall, human veteran (knight), 157 points (NPC)
Maximilian "Stout" Grupher III, goblin cleric of Ishtanna, 121 points (PC)
Merrill Tangled Tail, cat-folk martial artist, 140 points (PC)
Campaign Date: 27 November, Year 645 of the Vycenaean Empire.
------
Diary of Merrill Tangled Tail:
There many things that bring Merrill joy. Warm spot by fire, good food, bright day with no rain, sparring with skilled opponent, speaking of things, listening to others, help where Merrill can... Many many things, yes yes. But still, Merrill certain greatest joy in long long time is seeing friends again.
It been many days since Merrill become student of Master Sillis. Lately, it seem to Merrill that Master Sillis hinting more and more strongly that perhaps it time Merrill leave again. Of this, Merrill not entirely certain, but certain as certain can be that perhaps slight hints given. Scratch also not getting friendlier to Merrill, no matter how much Merrill try be friendly, and perhaps Merrill too sensitive to tense mood. So when Merrill walked down to Cribble to clear head early in early morning, for moment Merrill not certain if not seeing things. It true Merrill hope that friends come to Cribble before snows melt, but it impossible to know if letter sent to Eleanor the Swift arrive swiftly. Or at all. But when Merrill walk into inn with no name, there friends! For moment Merrill so uncertain, that Merrill go back out and come in again, to make certain. Friends still there!
Many many things need saying in short moment of time, and all things said after Merrill give each friend hug, including new friend who very small and shaped like Goblin. Friends say, little goblin is Stout, but has longer name. Merrill never meet goblin before with long name and good manners, so Merrill call new friend Stout as new friend request.
Then Eleanor take Merrill outside to speak of other things, important things, and things Merrill need know that happen since Merrill leave Bridgegate. Merrill and Eleanor still speaking of things when messenger arrive on horse, looking for Erizax. There brief confusion about who sent messenger with message, or which message messenger need say, until Erizax tell messenger he not go anywhere until messenger pass message and say who sent message with messenger. Finally messenger say that messenger and message sent by Squire of Mere, and that master of Erizax missing, but messenger told specifically not to pass message to avoid panic. This seem strange to Merrill, but Merrill not know if this normal for messages sent by Squires. Erizax thank messenger and sent messenger on way with message to Squire.
When all ready, friends go hunt for Troll to north of lake. This exciting! Merrill like village of Cribble much much. It small, it not complicated, it full of people who live lives that not complicated and want lives to remain that way. Merrill was hoping to convince friends to go hunt Troll, but now they come to Cribble to hunt Troll anyway, thanks to letter Merrill sent to Eleanor.
It perhaps strange, but Merrill feel that Eleanor... still swift, yes yes, but also guiding friends on correct path. That not new, but it first time Merrill feel it strongly, and Merrill certain Eleanor found new path to walk. This good. Very good, yes yes.
As friends walk and talk, Merrill listen. Friends say much friends not aware they saying, but there things Merrill write down on slate in mind. Of thing Merrill remember clearly, it seem Ben very very much want go fishing, seeing lake so clear and pure, but Ben not have equipment to fish. This little odd to Merrill, because friends arrive yesterday, in village of people who fish.
Late night, Merrill meditate in peace after eating good good food. Eleanor kind enough to bring special food for Merrill from Bridgegate, with new backpack and belt for potions for Merrill also. It heavy, but they gifts. Merrill not complain about weight of gifts, that way of spoiled kitten, not way of master. Still, Merrill happy when it time to make camp and set down burdens. There brief discussion about watches, and who in which tent, and if necessary to put camp further towards lake to be safe from Troll. Merrill point out that Troll known to attack boats who come too close to shore, so putting camp on shore of lake probably not great defense.
When Merrill done meditating, it time to crawl into tent and sleep. Merrill certain there was talk of which tent Merrill supposed to sleep in, but Merrill not listening at time, and so find nearest warm tent and go to sleep. There no shriek in darkness or complaint, so Merrill probably in correct tent. Mrrr, warm. This much better than when Merrill sleep in bush on way to Cribble.
In morning, Ben find track of Troll. This very exciting, yes yes! It mean Troll near, and if Troll near, then soon it time to deal with Troll. Ben lead friends to follow tracks, and tracks lead through narrow space between rocks into beautiful basin with tiered rock terraces and lake in middle that shine like diamond in morning light. Merrill first to admit Merrill not too fond of swimming in water, but even to Merrill lake look beautiful.
Merrill admits now to being distracted by beauty of lake. There discussion about who go where, and Eleanor trying to get attention of Merrill and Erizax and Doran. But at same moment, Troll appear. To surprise of Merrill, Troll not coming out of cave, but suddenly on top rim of basin, eating what Merrill believe is breakfast. Certainly Troll chewing on bone of sort, holding axe in other hand, and demand know what people doing near lake of Troll. Merrill say that friends looking for Troll. Troll then say that friends need pay toll. This unexpected, so Merrill ask how large is toll?
There response from Troll, but it interrupted by Erizax waving hands and making ball of fire appear on head of staff. Troll not like this, throws away bone, and jump down with axe ready.
Quick as quick, Merrill run toward Troll. Ben on wrong side of basin, Doran not quick as Merrill, Stout too little to fight Troll, and Erizax much much too close to Troll for safety. So Merrill feel it duty to protect friends and delay Troll until Ben arrive to deal with Troll.
It only when Troll very close that Merrill realise how big is Troll. Bigger than Ben. To Merrill it seem, Troll as big as mountain. Angry mountain. Merrill still skidding into place on treacherous loose rock of ledge when Merrill realise mistake. But is Merrill not on path of master? Is Merrill not quick as quick? Is Merrill not skilled? And, this important, is Merrill now not also student of way of Ten Tigers?
So Merrill gather chi, and roar at Troll for first time. It good roar! Merrill told, roar of chi root opponent to spot, and Merrill confident in skill of roaring Kiai.
But Troll not impressed, and take swing at Merrill with very very large axe.
In reflex, Merrill put new staff between self and axe. And with splintering crack, staff break in half. Staff that was gift of Eleanor when Merrill being on path of master, staff that defeated Scratch, staff that fought Master Sillis... staff that Merrill planning to carry for rest of life. Broken.
Moons, but this bad bad!
“We are children of our landscape. It dictates behaviour and even thought in the measure in which we are responsive to it.” – Lawrence Durrell, Justine (New York: Dutton, 1957), p. 41.
Let’s take a tour through Whistleleaf City’s hot spots.
Lake Piquetta, Siskiyou River and Crescent River
As touched on earlier, Whistleleaf City is on the eastern shore of a large freshwater lake (Lake Piquetta) connected to a river snaking north-east (Crescent River) and a river flowing south (Siskiyou River). The lake has several islands in the middle of it, two are relatively large (500 yards from end to end) with forested hills, most are small (25 yards from end to end) pieces of land. The city docks allow ships travelling across the lake and along the rivers as part of tourism, trade and travel. There is at least one monster lair hidden somewhere on one of the larger islands, and monsters may be living in or around the lake waters. There are houseboats and luxury yachts out on the lake all year round. (And PCs may have confrontations and meetings on such watercraft with the important NPCs who own them.)
There are many large but cosy cottages situated along the shores of the lake, usually serving as a summer home for wealthy families and secluded retreats for successful artists, a few are safe-houses for criminals, secret agents and occultists. The secluded lakeside cottages have amenities for comfort, a gazebo, an enclosed deck, an artesian well for drinking water, a small dock with boathouse, motion sensor lights to scare off wild animals and expose would-be burglars, unimpressive external doors and windows (although perhaps the resident has spent money upgrading their toughness for extra security), average quality alarm systems and locks (unless the resident is particularly concerned about intruders or threats), and perhaps a stash of hunting rifles and shotguns kept inside by paranoid residents. It takes 1d-2 (minimum 1) hours for emergency services like police and ambulances to response and arrive at a lakeside cottage unless the cottage is on the west shore, close to Whistleleaf City proper. A cottage’s neighbour may be 2-5 miles away via the roads. (The D20 Modern supplement Critical Locations has a map for a typical lakeside cottage, I highly recommend checking it out if you can.)
The Gate of Thoth
A huge point of interest for the occult underground once known, The Gate of Thoth is a magical portal allowing time-travel. The Gate of Thoth is located in the depths of a cave in a remote forested hill, about 6.75 miles from the city limits of Whistleleaf. No nature trails lead to the cave and no map marks it as a point of interest, finding it on purpose would require knowledge of magic and probably spellcasting. (Certain obscure old books of arcane lore forgotten by time might allude to it being in the area.) The signs of something intensely unnatural are subtle but someone who knows what to look for (animals frightened of the area, weird smells in the air, strange dreams when sleeping nearby, etc.) might pick up on it.
The Gate of Thoth is a faintly humming block-like monolith of pure inky black energy that’s about twice as wide as a person and 150% higher than a person’s height. Stepping into the solid black energy causes you to travel through time (but not space). The other side of the journey has an identical energy monolith for travelling back, the spatial location of the Gate’s endpoint is the same as its start point. (The GM decides which point in the timeline The Gate leads to, this point can change to another time at any point the GM likes.)
One useful default assumption is that the Gate’s destination starts out as “5 years earlier than the current date” – this makes for a nice not-too-wild bit of time travel to ease everybody into when the campaign begins. The GM can manage “5 years ago” with less hassle than more dramatic time travel. Only when tossing a curveball or raising the stakes is needed, will the Gate’s destination change to further back in time and allow some real chaos to happen.
It is assumed (when the campaign begins) that no-one, even in The Scene, knows of The Gate yet or that it was discovered only recently. Because a huge war will break out in The Scene when the Gate becomes more widely known. The GM may let the PCs be the first ones to discover it, so they can have the pleasure of having to defend it from all comers for the rest of the campaign.
Places of Power
As noted on Thaumatology page 128, there exists secret magically resonant ritual spaces that give bonuses to casting spells. Despite what Thaumatology suggests, places of power do not NEED to have a history of being used for magic to have a bonus, it’s possible that a place of power may simply be magically charged by otherworldly energy flows unrelated to its history (such a bonus may never decay as long as the ley line infrastructure holds), and give a big bonus to rituals despite never having one spell cast there. What is true no matter what, though, is that places of power are usually already jealously claimed by occultists and Scene factions.
In Whistleleaf City, most places of power are at the +1 and +2 bonus level. These relatively common ritual spaces number about 40 to 55 in all of Whistleleaf, and half of them are claimed by individuals and groups powerful enough to keep them (the rest are either unknown or too public to maintain as a personal resource). There are places of power worth a +3 bonus, but they are much rarer (20 in the entire city at most), and ALL of them are “owned” by serious players in The Scene who have secured them for their use only. There are only 5 to 10 places of power worth a +4 bonus, and the majority (4 out of 5) of those are firmly claimed by the most lucky or powerful players in The Scene. The rest are unknown to anyone, which is why they aren’t taken already. There are no +5 places of power in Whistleleaf City. Not yet, anyway. If some great shift in the otherworldly energies did create such a wonder, it would cause havoc from the ensuing gold rush in The Scene alone.
The most infamous (either claimed or too public to use) locations of magical potency in Whistleleaf City are a white gazebo in a city park (+1 bonus), a set of improvised shrines for crash victims by the side of the highway (+1 bonus), a powerline pole festooned with many old shoes (+1 bonus), a colourful graffiti mural depicting the story of Pinochino (+1 bonus), a clearing with a view of a cliff on a state park nature trail (+2 bonus), a fairy ring of mushrooms in the state park (+1 bonus most of the time, but rises to +3 on certain moonlit nights), an ancient tree tourist attraction in the state park (+2 bonus), an old quarry site turned into a swimming pool (+2 bonus), an atrium in an art museum (+2 bonus), an abandoned gravel pit filled with rainwater at a countryside farmhouse (+2 bonus), a large cave not open to the public due to dangers (+3 bonus, monsters probably lurk within), the sub basement of the municipal hall of records (+3 bonus), the top of a skyscraper downtown (+3 bonus), the strangely-decorated backyard of a mansion (+3 bonus), and the food court of a dying mall (+1 bonus).
Anti-Magic and No Mana Zones
There are locations in Whistleleaf City where magic does not work to some extent, either due to intentional sabotage by magicians or by natural disruptions in the local mana. Please note that anti-magic zones and no mana zones differ in how they work – the former aggressively dispels magic both already in progress (including enchanted items and pre-cast ritual charms) and attempts to cast new spells, while the later simply stops new spells being cast (thus rituals charms already prepared are not affected) and permanent enchantments do not function in the zone. Both types of locations negatively affect creatures that are dependent on mana.
These locations are just as important to The Scene as places of power – occultists know that such locations offer protection against magical attack and repel certain monsters. Any known anti-magic or no mana zone becomes another resource to control and thus fight over. The GM can assume that there are 20 to 35 no mana zones and 15 anti-magic zones in Whistleleaf City, spread out thinly, and only a third of them in total have been discovered by people in The Scene. Notable locations of such areas are a street intersection where an unsolved triple murder took place (no mana), a small obscure alcohol shop owned and run by a local family (no mana), the basement of a house where a kidnapped child died of starvation (no mana), the large parking lot of a condemned strip mall (anti-magic), a vacant lot that’s been illegally used as a trash pile (anti-magic), an empty middle class residential house that got gutted by fire (no mana), a convention center (no mana), a roadside diner by the highway (no mana), a big shut-down factory in an industrial district (anti-magic), a hospital that has been possessed by a powerful and twisted spirit (anti-magic), and the lobby of an office skyscraper (anti-magic).
Monster Lairs
There are places in Whistleleaf taken over by multiple monsters (typically a pack of 10 to 30 depending on the habits and demographics of the monsters, rare monsters may be only be 5 to a lair) that use as defensible living quarters. Most of these lairs are not entered by humans much (perhaps located 2 to 5 miles outside city limits), hard to get into from outside, feature an emergency exit not easily discovered from the outside, sturdy enough to resist destruction by arson attempts, and spacious enough for every monster to not feel hemmed in by their fellows (assume about 3 average-sized rooms of area per monster). Sapient monsters (vampires, for example) might set up security systems including traps to deter intruders, and monsters that resemble humans (again, vampires) can allow themselves to lair in more ordinary and well-trafficked places. Most lairs are dark (since most monsters have better night vision than humans) and can have any number of supernatural features.
Whistleleaf City has lairs hidden in a series of underground crypts in a cemetery, a cave on a lake island, a mansion in the hills, a closed down cineplex and a roadside motel (monsters lurk both inside the motel’s guts and in the surrounding wilderness).
Hideout: Bomb Shelter
Located ten miles outside the limits of Whistleleaf City and built during the Cold War, this well-stocked bomb shelter has been claimed by a gang of career criminals or a cabal of occultists. The shelter is buried under dozens of feet of dirt, constructed with concrete and steel, designed to keep its occupants alive for a year under conditions of degrading comfort. It is currently outfitted with a year’s worth of non-perishable food, a complete set of survivalist tools and supplies, an external power source (hooked up to the state’s electrical grid) in addition to the on-site generator (with a big fuel stockpile), a steel vault door entrance that locks from the inside, surveillance cameras (the feed viewed via the TV in the shelter) both inside and out, the squatter’s armoury of guns and ammo, an indoor swimming pool, a library, a workshop (an alchemy lab or ritual space if occultists occupy the place), a lounge with television, a recreation room, a dining room, an exercise room, bathrooms, a greenhouse, bedrooms, kitchen and storage spaces for all the items needed to support it all.
(The D20 Modern supplement Critical Locations has a map of bomb shelter with details, I recommend seeking it out.)
The bomb shelter is helpful as a free-floating element that can be introduced as events proceed. If the PCs need to confront bad guys during the course of the campaign, have them figure out the enemy is using this bomb shelter as a hideout.
R.T. Burns Truck Stop
A key point along the highway, right by an exit into Whistleleaf, this commercial facility is made up of refuelling stations, parking spots, food eateries and other services for motorists and truckers hauling freight. People pulling can enjoy 5 different convenience stores, a food court, showers, vehicle washers, two motels, a small video arcade, a movie theatre and retail stores. R.T. Burns is a chain franchise well-known across America, and the place is sufficiently respectable, clean and safe (no biker gangs or prostitutes at this truck stop, for instance) to reflect that. However, the roads and wilderness that surround the truck stop might just be beset with lurking criminals and monsters waiting on would-be victims to leave the bright spot and fall into their clutches. The truck stop makes for a good meeting place if there’s a traveller or out-of-city shipment in play. The PCs can go here to receive a package, hand off a shipment, talk to a newcomer or track down someone trying to flee Whistleleaf.
Whistleleaf Landmarks
The city has stand-out locations that locals use as touchstones – “We’ll meet up later at the [obvious and well-known landmark] and discuss what we find.”
Paradise Donuts, for example, is a beloved local baked treats shop know for quirky designs of donuts. It has the iconic giant strawberry-iced with sprinkles doughnut sculpture on top, extensively visible from down the street. The interior is coloured brightly and cleanly. A large rotating cast of local teens and young college students work at Paradise Donuts, both at the counter and baking in the back.
There is a statue in a park made of sheet metal, so angular like an F-117. It is a crow about 10′ tall eating French fries. Its official name (“As the Crow Freedom Fries”) is little known among even locals, everyone just calls it “the steel bird”. The small square park is just outside city hall, the government bureaucrats taking coffee breaks on the metal benches and relaxing under trees. The statue is in the middle of the park, the brick pathways all converging on it.
The Oony Otter Is a lakeside restaurant with a reasonably eclectic menu, catering to the university crowd. The name derives from a local urban legend about an otter (or a series of otters– the legend originated in the 1980s) which has been sighted in or around the lake, and to which highly strange attributes are ascribed, though with extreme inconsistency. In one story, the otter might be abnormally huge; in another, it is seen levitating through a cemetery. Purported YouTube videos of the otter’s paranormal antics have recently given this peculiar local mascot wider exposure. The restaurant, which opened in 1994, was originally dubbed “The Spoony Otter,” but part of the neon sign burned out during a storm and remained unrepaired long enough for the altered name to catch on. The walls are decorated with vivid murals of the otter in its various guises, and there is a sculpture by a local artist out in front, which is routinely dressed up for local holidays and festivals.
South Pine State Park
Whistleleaf City’s biggest feature is a large stretch of forested hills managed by the Oregon government and promoted as a tourist attraction. It features full RV hook-up sites, tent camp sites, flush toilets, showers, a RV dump station, picnic areas, an amphitheatre, playgrounds and a park host. The South Pine State Park is about 4 miles away from Whistleleaf’s city limits, adjacent to the highway.
Naturally, there is all sorts of unnatural wonders and dangers hidden within the State Park (previous posts have detailed some of them). Just one example; the state park has runic symbols in the patterns of its major trails. The runes could used for any of the following purposes (and players may narrow down the possibilities or even precisely determine the actual goal with a good knowledge skill roll); giving bonuses to a specific ritual, giving penalties to all rituals, driving away monsters, keeping an certain undead magician asleep in his grave, allowing the dead to manifest as ghosts, causing death and destruction, powering a major magical artefact like a battery, hiding the existence of a major magical location like a wizard’s tower from anyone not powerful enough to see through the mind-controlling illusion, and any other plot device the GM thinks up.
TO BE CONTINUED
]]>So, I’ve done it a little differently this time. Before I would pick one or two of the top results and wikify them, but now I think I’m going to take the top Patreon choice and the top SubscribeStar choice and wikify both. Why the difference? Because Subscribers don’t vote as much because there’s few of them, they can’t see what the Patrons are voting on, and they get a sense that they don’t matter. So now, their voice is weighted equal to the Patrons. Not entirely fair, but it seems more workable that way. At least this way, everyone gets what they want (and they usually tend to align anyway).
The top choice for Patrons was Psychometabolism, and it’s up. I might change how I handle rare powers, because they seem rather difficult to find or navigate to, and so most people don’t even realize they exist. But I’ll leave that for another time.
The top SubscribeStar choice was Heavy Weapons, so the Special Weapons and Heavy Weapons have been added to the Weapons page. There’s some little changes that may still need to be made, but at least the core of the material is there.
Finally, as a bonus, I’ve added House Korenno. They’re not especially important, which is why they’re important. I wanted to have a house that highlighted what a minor house might look like, because I notice most people treat my houses as “important” but still want to add some minor house or two, and House Korenno will help guide them through that process.
That’s all the major updates for the wiki this month. See you again for wiki week next month!
]]>Here, I share the Faster-Than-Light system, which is key to making the setting work, and the broad brushstrokes of "The Grand Cluster"
There are untold trillions of people in existence, and untold millions of communities, separated by space and time, small islands of civilization in a vast void. Traveling by conventional means between stars is a stupendous effort taking at least a generation to accomplish, and is likely to leave the travelers more isolated than before they started.
The Moment Drive connects these places. At specific places and times, or "moments", the drive allows worlds to visit each other. These moments come more or less frequently for various worlds. Some worlds are tightly bound, able to send ships back and forth every hour or so. Others are connected only rarely, such as the mysterious planet Leviathan, which has a single connection only once every two years. Other communities have no connection, and develop isolated from the influence of the greater universe. These connections are only somewhat stable, changing their behavior through the ages.
Using the moment drive requires a moment star drive, a pilot with some sort of psionic sensitivity, and the time and location to be right. The moment drive will then take any ship with an active drive in the right moment (time and place) to the new location. Moments tend to be near settlements of some sort, usually in orbit around a planet, and only taking a few hours of maneuvering to enter once in space... though exceptions exist.
Worlds reliably connected to each other are called clusters. How easy it is to travel through a cluster is called its “tightness”. Large clusters are typically made from a number of smaller but tighter clusters. Political entities are usually confined to a cluster. Worlds in a cluster often have similar culture and technology, but not always, and the looser and newer the cluster, the less similar neighboring worlds will be.
My game was set in the Grand Cluster, which includes multiple empires and probably stretches farther than any one person has traveled. Humans and human derived people are by far the most common form of intelligent life. The Grand cluster, has many smaller, tighter, clusters in it.
As you can probably guess from the fact that I'm sharing this, I really liked the system. A few things I noticed:
I like the moment drive, and I like the Grand Cluster. In fact I'm revisiting it because I anticipate running another game in that setting. I hope find it useful in your games and when you think about how you will set up your FTL. Happy Gaming!
The cat hears something behind him and suddenly three spiders dart into the light. Tonfa Guy moves towards the nearest spider. Honsou lets loose an arrow that goes past two spiders. Augustus and Dénnos burn webbing. Grignok starts to move warily towards the battle, but gets stuck in webbing.
Two spiders step back, and the third at the fore runs behind them. Tonfa Guy moves towards them but gets stuck in the webbing. Augustus and Dénnos keep burning webbing, while Felcanis steps in webbing that ensnares her. Grignok, however, gets free.
Tonfa Guy wiggles out a little, but only a little, while Honsou steps backwards. Augustus burns the webbing where Honsou was, and Dénnos burns more webbing. Felcanis breaks free of webbing, only to step into more webbing that ensnares her. Grignok keeps prowling towards the spiders.
Tonfa Guy gets free of the webbing and steps. Augustus and Dénnos keep burning webbing. Grignok smells where the spiders are, while Felcanis gets free of the webbing tangling her and steps towards a burned spot.
Augustus and Dénnos burn even more webbing. Tonfa Guy runs forward, mostly through burnt webbing, then switches from his long knife to one of his throwing knives. Augustus steps and casts Might 1 on Tonfa Guy, and the night might of Nemmagós makes the spell even mightier than Augustus tried. Grignok moves along the wall towards the spiders, while Felcanis steps aside. This gives Honsou a clear shot and he takes it, but the spider steps away from his arrow.
Honsou pulls out another arrow while the Tonfa Guy moves forward. Dénnos burns more webbing while Augustus moves over burnt webbing to do the same. Felcanis steps, as does Grignok before he pounces on a spider. However, he misses and falls to the ground.
Two of the three spiders try to Grignok, though neither wounds him. The third moves towards him. Grignok claws through the spider that missed his body, killing it. Augustus and Dénnos keep burning webbing while Felcanis fires up a Sunbolt.
The two spiders still standing bite Grignok in the face, stunning him. Honsou moves up, while Augustus and Dénnos burn more webbing. Felcanis aims for one of the spiders biting the face of the cat.
The spiders step back. Tonfa Guy moves forward and gets stuck. Honsou aims at a spider while Felcanis lobs her Sunbolt at it, but misses. As always, Augustus and Dénnos burn webbing.
Again the spiders step back. Tonfa Guy wiggles out a web but gets stuck as he steps again. Honsou keeps aiming. Augustus and Dénnos burn more webbing. Grignok comes to his wits while Felcanis gets stuck as she moves forward.
The big spiders pounce on Tonfa Guy's face, wounding him. Honsou shoots at a spider, but misses everyone. Grignok starts to stand, Felcanis tries to wiggle out but cannot, while Dénnos and Augustus burn webbing. Tonfa Guy grabs at the leg of one of the spiders, but it wiggles free.
The other bites Tonfa Guy in the face, paralyzing him. Honsou drops his arrow as he tries to pull it out. Augustus casts Major Healing on Tonfa Guy from a short gap away. Grignok stands, steps back, and gets stuck, while Felcanis just stays stuck, unable to wiggle free. Dénnos, as always, burns some webbing.
One spider bites Tonfa Guy while the other tries to bite Grignok but cannot get through his fur. Honsou aims at the spider that tried to bite Grignok, while Grignok claws the spider that bit Tonfa Guy, wounding it greatly. Augustus steps and casts Might on Felcanis, who breaks free, steps, and gets stuck again. And Dénnos, yet again, burns webbing.
]]>“I don’t care which way the wind blows — only that I get to feel the breeze.” – The Reformer of Reputations, Fallen London
Here are some independent NPCs that may involve themselves in the campaign’s events on their initiative and maybe randomly.
“Sweet Tea” Marcus Freeman
True Crime Podcaster and Youtuber, age 25.
A local e-celebrity of Whisteleaf and semi-popular entertainer, “Sweet Tea” Freeman has made a tidy career of making videos and podcast episodes on the internet about infamous crimes and criminals. His usual angle is travelling all over the city and the surrounding region to gather information and report on mysterious happenings and illegal misdeeds. In Whistleleaf, this has caused him to rub up against both mundane bad guys, police annoyed by his poking around and plotting occultists of The Scene. He can turn up in the campaign as a background extra (reporting on the recent shenanigans of the players), someone who could expose The Scene (thus requiring the PCs to step in and stop his efforts), approaching the PCs for an interview, asking the PCs for help with an investigation (launching an adventure), or being pursued as a target by hostile elements (and thus needing the PCs to protect him).
Marcus is a lucky young African-American man with a bright mind, an easy charm and a hunger for digging up dirt. He carries around his recording equipment in a neat but colourful satchel while on a hunt for content. He has a full media recording and editing rig at home.
Harold Cage
Head of the Loggers Union, age 47.
Harold Cage is the leader of the logging company workers’ union, representing the people working at the logging camps and the offices against the company executives. He often butts heads against the wealthy owners over matters of workplace safety, conditions, pay rates and HR decisions. If he becomes too much of a pain in the side of the logging company executives, they may decide to try something underhanded or even illegal to force him out. They won’t resort to murder even after some failures or if the threat to their bottom line is extreme, but they won’t shirk from blackmail, frame-ups or having thugs beat him into the hospital. If any of them knows about The Scene, using magic to oust Harold Cage would seem an optimal solution.
Cage is a middle-aged and weathered but canny man of unremarkable appearance. He may be involved in any number of corrupt dealings or trying to expose the criminal activities of his rivals/bosses. His most likely introduction into the campaign’s plot will follow something dramatic and horrific happening to the workers at the logging camps. Alternatively, he may be a monster in disguise, manipulating the union for his own sinister purpose.
Relevant Traits (if he’s just what he appears to be): Sense of Duty (Loggers’ Union); Wealth (Comfortable); Ally Group (Blue Collar Workers); Charisma 2; Administration-15; Law (Labor)-14; Politics-14; Diplomacy-14; Public Speaking-14; Detect Lies-14; Psychology-14; Streetwise-12. Quirks: Decisive, Overestimates his skill at poker, Bad posture, Thinks middle management types are untrustworthy.
Sally Kincaid
Local Radio Host, age 33.
Sally Kincaid is the host of “What’s Happening?”, a popular commercial radio station show based in Whistleleaf City, broadcast via the KBCL station on 104.7 FM. The show covers local news, takes calls from listeners, plays music, advertises local businesses and entertains with colour commentary and guest interviews. She often sends the call out for people who have witnessed notable events to give their personal accounts on air, which can help put the pieces together on a mystery (sometimes, dangerously so) and co-ordinate local community efforts. If the PCs are involved in candestine schemes, Kincaid will be an unwelcome intrusion as she and her assistants gather information, pry into records and generally dig up what the PCs hope to bury. And the PCs can’t just eliminate her, she’s too famous. Trying to discredit her or put her on a wild goose chase will be harder than it first appears, too.
Sally Kincaid is a charming and intelligent woman whose plain appearance is mostly seen in bland promotional images, but her voice is much better known and loved by Whistleleaf citizens. She lives in a well-regarded gated community suburb with her husband and works at a high-end downtown radio station. She is a hard woman to get to, in other words.
Relevant Traits: Reputation (beloved show-woman, +3, in Whistleleaf, recognized on 10 or less); Charisma 2; Voice; Research-13; Public Speaking-15; Area Knowledge (City)-15; Current Affairs (Headlines)-15; Writing-13. Quirks: Favorite brand of specific fancy perfume, Shopaholic when it comes to fine chocolates, Territorial about her spouse, Dislikes being called a liar.
“Violet Malone”
Amnesiac Alchemist, age unknown (early 30s?).
This woman woke up in an abandoned cabin a few hours from Whistleleaf, covered with blood (not her own) and with no memory of her past or her identity. She does retain her mastery of alchemy, but she does not know where or how she learned such things. She does know quite a bit of general supernatural lore and the ways of The Scene, but no-one she has encountered knows her personally. She is not yet sure if she wants to find out about her past and cure her amnesia. She has not gone to the police for answers or even hired a private investigator, she suspects that she wants to avoid attracting attention from the proper authorities, especially in her current vulnerable state. She has built up a shallow cover identity as “Violet Malone” and has carved out a living space off the grid, working as an alchemist. Trouble has a way of finding her, especially magical and monstrous trouble.
The woman calling herself Violent Malone is a tanned woman with red hair and blue eyes. She has an excellent (+2 bonus) alchemy laboratory set up in a hideout.
Here are 3 possibilities (not counting what a given GM may decide on their own) of her true identity (none of which is reflected on her character sheet as they are effectively secret Traits); she’s an alchemist who discovered a magical method of agelessness but it was flawed and wiped most of her memory in exchange for sustaining her youth, she was “born from a wish” and is a completely artificial lifeform created by magic just a few days before she “woke up” in that abandoned house, she’s actually the long-lost bastard daughter of an incredibly important old money aristocrat who wiped her memories in order to discard her after she outlived her usefulness.
Brad West
Bus Driver, age 40.
An overlooked everyman at first glance, Brad West has a boring day-job driving a public transportation bus around on a city-wide route. Few people ever discover that he is more than meets the eye; he’s Clued-In to The Scene, he is skilled at all sorts of underhanded tasks, he knows the basics of all kinds of forbidden knowledge. He often butts into other people’s business, especially if it’s right in the middle of the action. He really likes to get involved in The Scene and cause havoc with a timely interference. This is quite foolish. He may help or hinder the PCs on a whim, probably without the PCs even seeing him coming. Tracking him down and confronting him may be unexpectedly hard, even dangerous. (Brad West knows where the monsters are lurking and where jealous occultists are feuding, it is child’s play to lure pursuers into a trap or a crossfire.)
Brad West is a dull-looking middle-aged pale man with brown hair and eyes, in a standard light blue-grey public bus driver uniform.
TO BE CONTINUED
]]>Don’t forget to breathe
The Nameless Monk, Forbidden KingdomAlright, the Keleni Breathing post is out and available to all Fellow Travelers ($3+) on both Patreon and SubscribeStar. Thank you for your patience! I wanted to discuss some design notes and hype it up a bit. I hope you enjoy using it as much as I enjoyed writing it up.
Some additional notes on the breathing styles. Most martial artists in the Psi-Wars setting will probably study “external” styles first and foremost, so I would treat Keleni styles as advanced topics. They are worked examples of what “Trained by a Master” looks like in Psi-Wars. Second, I wouldn’t treat these like a menu, where characters go through a kung fu brochure, pick out the one they want, and then trundle off to that specific mountain temple to learn that specific style. I would treat them as scattered pieces of lore. There may be many Keleni monks who know the Keleni Breathing foundation, but few who know any of the more advanced concepts. If a deeper tradition exists, it’s likely the only one on the world. Some of the styles might not be known, or may be in the process of being discovered, or perhaps there is a mixed tradition, such as one style as a more advanced option to another style. You can just toss it in as a one-off power up on a scary NPC (to quote one of my players from Dhim “That’s one pissed off gelgathim“), or you can make it central to a kung fu-oriented campaign. The styles are designed to interact and you can mix and match, though a character with a couple of martial arts styles and a deep study of two Keleni breathing styles will easily run you 500 to 700 points. These are advanced characters!
Deciding where and how to use such styles can say a lot about the setting and its traditions. In my campaigns, I have Rage-Breathing available in the Stygian Veil, taught by a captured Keleni masters to some fighters who have converted to True Communion in the Pit, including one Terahastro, an elite pitfighter and former gangster. The rebellion on Covenant is led by a Prophet and has all sorts of fun factors, but they almost certainly have a Keleni Breathing master somewhere, though probably not a member of the rebellion (yet?). They either know Mountain Breathing or Celestial Breathing, possibly both as a single tradition. Dream-Breathing is probably known to the Dark Vigil chapter on Samsara, which they use with the power granted to them by their psychoactive tattoos. But these are just suggestions. You can decide how and where you want to use them. They are, after all, powerful kung fu secrets. While I’ve not required any “secrets” perks, it might be valid to treat certain power-ups as rare enough to require a perk to learn them.
In any case, enjoy, and thank you as always for supporting this project.
]]>Nothing happens that evening. Grignok leads them through the woods, getting thicker with each step. After a couple of hours, they find a bunch of bones from some kind of big animal, bigger than Bill. Felcanis tries to figure out what killed it. She cannot, though she realizes it has been dead awhile, and can still see some dried blood on nearby rocks. The skeleton is still intact. Grignok has no idea what kind of animals these are. Big quadruped of some kind.
They make it to the tree about midday. Dénnos looks up. "So, is that the nest? Good gravy!"
Grignok nods. "We went up there before, we can get up there again."
Felcanis tries to climb, gets midway up, then gets back down, as falling is almost assuredly fatal at this level. She makes it down safely. All others slowly make it to the top.
Now, up there, there is a woven wall of webbing They see where Mateo had burned a hole, and it has been webbed-over. Grignok casts Shapeshifting (Panther), then they rest about a half-hour before Grignok's nose leads them to where the smell of weird spidery stuff is greatest. Two branches split here, showing a hidden gap about 3 yards wide in the solid walls of webbing around the tree. Unlike most of the woven wall, this spot of the web is not sticky; dust and leaves are on the floor, making a path. It narrows inside, and after a few yards, the floor starts to get sticky again.
Grignok-cat points out the floor. For all anyone can tell, the kitty is probing at the floor. It's all sticky ahead when they look for a dusty path. Grignok finds the walls sticky. Honsou can lights a torch and starts burning the webbing
The webbing burns slowly. After burning a few yards of webbing, Honsou is amazed to see an ogre-like being with a spider's head and two bulbous black eyes. It has two long, slender arms that end in claws.
Tonfa Guy shoots the ettercap but misses, and the ettercap shoots webbing at Honsou!
Grignok moves towards Honsou, and Dénnos moves behind Grignok. Tonfa Guy whips out his knife and moves into position, but gets stuck on the webbing. The ettercap lobs its web at the nearby Tonfa Guy, who dodges.
Grignok moves into the webbing but doesn't get stuck. Dénnos is for some reason being brave, at least a bit, and carries the rear. Tonfa Guy tries to break free, and wiggles out a little, but is still stuck. Honsou shoots the ettercap, but misses. The ettercap lobs a web at Grignok, who steps aside, and the webbing goes flying past Dénnos.
Grignok steps towards the ettercap, but gets stuck in the webbing. Dénnos pulls out a torch. Tonfa Guy gets himself out of the webbing and he steps back to stand next to Dénnos. Honsou whips out an arrow and shoots the ettercap, who steps aside. The ettercap lobs its web at Honsou and steps back, and the webbing binds Honsou.
The panther tries to break free but does not. Dénnos lights a torch. Tonfa Guy gets out his knife. Honsou tries to get out but does not get out. The ettercap lobs his web at the Grignok, who dodges before breaking free and stepping forward.
Dénnos burns some webbing. Tonfa Guy steps back. Honsou tries to break free but again fails. The ettercap throws a web at Grignok, but it hits the wall. Grignok pounces at the ettercap, but it steps aside, and he lands right beside it.
Dénnos burns more webbing. Honsou wiggles a little out of the webbing, but still has it on him. The ettercap steps back. Grignok swipes a claw at the ettercap, but just misses
The sage steps and burns yet another hex, and the Tonfa Guy steps. Honsou keeps struggling against the webbing. The ettercap steps back again. Grignok steps and tries to claw the ettercap, but cannot touch it.
Dénnos burns even more webbing. The Tonfa Guy sheathes his tonfa and whips out his knife. Honsou cannot get out of the webbing. The ettercap steps back. Grignok steps and again tries to claw the ettercap, but cannot touch it.
Dénnos keeps burning webbing. The Tonfa Guy gets his knife out and starts to cut the webbing on Honsou. The ettercap steps back. Grignok steps and again tries to claw the ettercap, but cannot touch it, and Dénnos steps and burns more webbing.
The Tonfa Guy cuts the webbing off Honsou, who readies his bow. The ettercap turns a little and moves farther.
Grignok steps, still doesn't see anything, and Dénnos burns more webbing. The Tonfa Guy steps up and points at Honsou's coin purse as soon as he is freed from the webbing. Everybody but Grignok can see the ettercap fleeing through the gloaming. Grignok's whiskers sense the ettercap and pounces on the ettercap's back, clawing it and grappling it.
Dénnos keeps burning webbing while the Tonfa Guy steps back and keeps looking at Honsou's pouches. The ettercap tries to break free. It wiggles a little but still grappled. Grignok claws the ettercap again, but it still struggles onward while Dénnos again burns webbing.
Honsou sees the Tonfa Guy making a move on his pouches. The ettercap wiggles out, but Grignok keeps clawing it from behind, dropping it so it oozes fluid all over the place.
After this, they wait almost an hour and a half.
Augustus is wandering through the woods, trying to learn how to be an alchemist or herbalist. The priest/druid telling him to do this has told him that a rare fungus grows from the bodies of those killed by giant spiders and he has to gather it, so therefore he went to Bóllā, hit by giant spiders, and is wandering through the woods from there.
Augustus makes it to a spot in the woods where there are ropes of spider webbing. He makes it to a tree with a big throng of spider webs about a hundred feet up in it, and there is an elf woman, obviously a cleric of Saundīvós from her rainment, standing at the base of it, kinda looking up. This, of course, is Felcanis.
Augustus and Felcanis banter about the fungus and Felcanis's inability to climb.
Augustus asks, "Why do you wanna climb a tree into a hive of giant spiders?"
Felcanis says, "To kill them?"
Augustus grabs some sticky webbing and starts to try to climb the tree, and Felcanis tells Augustus not to go up there! Someone drops Felcanis's rope to bring her up. She ties the rope around her, and Grignok pulls her up with his teeth.
Honsou grabs the rope, then goes down to meet Augustus. Honsou ties the rope around Augustus before climbing up himself, then Grignok pulls up Augustus.
Augustus looks around the bones in the den and cannot find the fungus. He realizes these bones have bite marks on them. Weird bite marks, not human. It could be the ettercap or it could be a giant spider. Who knows? Maybe the ettercap shared a snack with the giant spider.
Grignok moves into the darkness to the left of where they came into the den, as they hear a little din from there. Honsou steps out, then gets stuck. Augustus readies a torch. Dénnos burns some webbing. Felcanis pulls out her mace, which speaks ettercap.
Honsou wiggles out a little, but is still grappled, while Grignok keeps waiting. Felcanis moves to the edge of the burnt webbing. Dénnos steps and burns more webbing. Honsou tries to get out of the webbing but cannot. Felcanis moves but gets stuck in the webbing. After a short struggle, Augustus burns away the webbing on Honsou as Dénnos burns the webbing on the ground.
Grignok moves, but gets stuck. Felcanis tries to get out, and Dénnos burns the webbing to free her. Honsou steps and readies his bow. The Tonfa Guy sees the creature at the edge of the light and swings, giving the ettercap a good whack, knocking it down.
Felcanis moves but again gets stuck in the webbing. Augustus moves towards Felcanis. Dénnos steps and burns more webbing. Honsou steps. The Tonfa Guy swings at the downed ettercap. It tries to stop the blow with its claws, but instead the blow lands, and the ettercap passes out.
]]>Finally, we always gotta have an evil style, the one stolen from the heroes, the one the elders of the style never want to talk about, the forbidden dark side that the desperate hero embraces and doesn’t realize turns him into the villain until too late.
Or, at least, it’s how I originally conceived of Rage-Breathing. It evolved considerably, and became perhaps the most detailed and my personal favorite (though, man, the amount of work it took). It’s certainly a style that Ranathim (and Krokuta and even humans) can use better than Keleni, but it’s not that Keleni don’t have a lot of bottled rage. It’s not evil, really, it’s about tapping into something primal, instinctive, and dangerous to push ones body to the brink. If Celestial Breathing owes a debt to Dragon Ball Z and this entire thing to Demon Slayers, Rage Breathing draws from Kengan Ashura (though it does borrow one concept from Dragon Ball Super that we will touch on).
Rage Breathing is built around the heart chakra (probably more intensely than any other style is built around a chakra) and is inspired by the element of fire, hence my fire demon picture there. It’s also a rather involved style, so let’s dive in.
In Kengan Ashura, whenever pressed into a corner, Tokita Ohma would take out an “advance,” taxing his body intensely to gain an advantage in battle. Is there a mechanic that can represent this in GURPS? Yes, the Dark Contract. Dark magicians can “borrow” fatigue for their spells at the cost of some sort of corruption of some kind. Obviously, we can offer the same option to Keleni Breathers. In place of worrying about boosting FP the normal way, we just borrow against some risk of corruption.
The problem with the corruption mechanics is that you guys hate them. Again and again, when I’ve seen players get the option to take fatigue in exchange for corruption, you’ve demured. Why? Because you hate to lose character points. So instead I shifted to sicknesses, and that became much more acceptable, and I get it. I can floor your character for a few sessions but your character remains yours. So instead of becoming addicted to it, or becoming warped by your power, what happens to your character?
Well, the same thing that happens to Ohma: Heart troubles. We’ll come back to that.
Yeah yeah, I know, it’s not the best name. If you have a better, I’m all ears. But you get it, right? You understand. Let me explain anyway.
A time-honored shonen trope is the hero flipping out, a berserk state of great power and lethality and, of course, great catharsis. The hero unlocks some hidden power with their rage. This is the core premise of “Rage-Breathing.” The idea here is that civilized, sapient beings have somehow self-domesticated and repressed our instincts, in the same way that dogs have, but in the heart of every dog, if pushed too far, is a wolf. In the same way, we, at the pinnacle of the brutal, eons-long Darwinian contest for survival, are heirs to profound, animalistic power that we suppress to be civilized. Rage-Breathing unlocks this berserk state where the character become heightened in every way, pushing themselves to the limit.
I treated this like a suped-up Biobooster from GURPS Bio-Tech, with a few caveats. First, you have to perform a Will roll to get yourself in this state: meditation can work: you have to clear your mind and push yourself into a trance-like state. I’ve also added some notes on certain traits that improve it, and how certain races respond to this, because this is fundamentally a biological trait: it’s about getting your heart racing, adrenaline flowing, disregarding the safety limiters your mind places upon you. Certain races, like the Hm or the Gaunt, just can’t do this. Other races, like Ranathim or Krokuta or Nehudi, are more passionate or closer to their inner beast than others. And certain drugs or cybernetics will interfere with the process. I have an entire discussion of this one specific modifier, its rules, its limits and ways you can tweak it.
But Bio-Booster uses the Cardiac Arrest limitation which the GURPS community seems to hate. I don’t blame them. So what did I replace it with? I didn’t! I fixed Cardiac Arrest. But I’ll get back to that.
If you recognize the term “Ultra-Instinct,” it’s from Dragon Ball Super, where it’s called Autonomous Ultra-Instinct. The actual premise is this: that the fighter’s body acts on its own accord. The arm moves because it knows where it needs to be, not because the mind tells it where to go. This allows for blinding reaction speeds. It’s also a real thing. There is something called an alpha state, or so I heard it called when I was in school, where you cease to think your way through your actions, but simply act. The martial artist doesn’t stop and think “Hmm, oh, he’s open! I should attack there!” He doesn’t have time! He must strike without thought; tactics must be engrained into his muscles and nerves because the fighter that thinks is the fighter that loses. This is the same concept, ramped up to 11.
I thought about creating some sort of Altered Time Rate, where your second action was autonomous, where the GM described what it did, provided it was reasonably combat efficient. But it felt like useless sophistry. The character isn’t thinking about their second action, but let the player think about it. Realistically, if a player succeeds at a Dodge roll, it’s not because their character thought about it and decided to dodge, it’s because they automatically did so. This is the same thing.
More ATR? You know you love it. Obviously, the joy of any GURPS game is getting access to the faintest (and cheapest) taste of breaking the action economy. It’s only one level… right?
All of these, the Advance, the Ultra-Instincts, the Action without Thought, all turn on the idea of some sort of Cardiac Arrest. The problem with Cardiac Arrest is it kills your character, so you just roll up a new one. Either you take it and then inevitably lose your character, or you take it and dare the GM to take your extremely plot relevant character away from you just because you borked a single roll. The core idea of a failed roll costs FP is fine, even great, but the bulk of the value comes from that risk of death, and death is a problem, because either you just play a new character (no problem to you) or the GM fudges the roll (no problem to you) so it’s sort of a “fake limitation.”
But what if it really inconvenienced you instead? The disease solution to Corruption can apply here too. It’s such a great result, because it lets players more readily borrow fatigue points and when they screw their roll, the GM can apply meaningful, and controllable, consequences. Why not do the same for Cardiac Arrest. Sure, NPCs might suddenly die, but I think it’s more interesting and meaningful if this manifested as “Corruption” instead, a “wound to the heart” that could trigger some hospital time and some weakness that the character had to overcome for a few critical sessions before returning to normal. That’s a more valid sort of problem that a player will actually need to confront, rather than just ball up their character and make a new one, and the GM is less afraid to let the dice fall where they may and inflict these consequences on a player.
So, yes, this style comes with four new Heart Diseases representing everything from minor, trivial twinges of pain to Heart Disease that will put you on your back and let your Keleni girlfriend flutter over you and seek out a healer to restore your heart after you foolishly insisted on using this terribly dangerous style (to save her from the depredations of an evil Slaver warlord, of course).
The complete totality of Rage Breathing consists, effectively, of four levels of mastery (counting the Keleni Breathing Foundation and treating Action without Thought as a mastery level), one exercise, and 4 moves and two moves for a total of about 135 points. At peak power, a Rage Breathing master should have +5 fatigue, the ability to “borrow” fatigue against the risk of heart damage, +2 Will, Power Blow, Mind Block, Kiai, a +5 to resist heart attacks (and +2 to resist death) and, most critically, Ultra-Instincts that grant 10 points of Heroic Reserves, +8 Striking and Lifting ST, +2 Basic Speed, and two maneuvers per turn. In practice, the two maneuvers will translate to +4 to attack (All-Out Attack) and +2 to Defense on top of the +2 to Dodge from the improved Basic Speed, making it comparable to the rough +4 DX granted by other Breathing Forms. They might access a new 50 point psionic ability during times of intense stress.
The Rage Breathing Form synergizes with both Mountain Breathing and Dream-Breathing. Mountain Breathing’s Fit and Very Fit and improved FP offer opportunities for better enduring the stresses of the Rage Breathing Form. Dream-Breathing offers Psychometabolism which boosts HT, and regeneration, both of which will help the character recover from stresses to their heart. With Incandescent Psionic Fury, the Dream-Breathing Form’s Autohypnosis might help the character master their newfound psionic power. Only the Celestial Breathing Form really struggles with the Rage Breathing Form, as the violence inherent in it risks violating the tenets of True Communion, but if the character can balance those concerns, the Primordial Expertise offers some useful synergy with the many chi skills the character has!
]]>Celestial Breathing when it came to Chakras, I based it on the idea of the “Crown” chakra, though inspired by the idea of “air” element, I thought about connecting it to the throat chakra, and the singing of hymns and such, but I think in the end the crowning chakra makes the most sense, as that’s associated with ones connection to the universe, which neatly captures what Communion is.
The Simple Form and Keleni breathing have a lot in common; I had to do a lot of work back and forth to make sure everything lined up. One concept I knew I wanted brought over was the Mind-Body Connection, which is the name I gave a perk that allows meditative energy, the energy reserves that True Communion users can build up by meditating, for physical extra effort. It’s just a perk (which I think is fair) but it’s the sort of perk I like the most: permission to do something really cool and interesting. It unlocks potentially huge reserves of energy, though it’s energy the character has fairly built up.
What’s the first thing you can think of when it comes to a Communion Miracle for Kung Fu? That’s right! Primordial Expertise (Chi Talent)! Why not use Communion itself to gain a +3 to all chi skills? The only downside to this is it’s pretty expensive, so you need a relatively high level of Communion to access it as a prayer. It’s also something much more interesting after you’ve accumulated several different chi skills, which makes Celestial Breathing something of a capstone style which is a theme we’ll see again and again.
Oh, that wasn’t the first miracle you thought of. You thought of Blessed (Heroic Feats) which is buried in Dark Communion under the Path of the Rebellious Beast. Why can’t True Communion have that? Oh it’s because… uh, you know what? Here ya go! Have +2d ST, +1d DX and +1d HT. Go nuts!
But we’re running into a problem. The point of Keleni Breathing is to have lots and lots of FP. What are we spending this FP on in Celestial Breathing? Miracles are just Miracles. Well, what if we let this one form of blessed have some sort of extra effort? I can think of two: boosting the results (though with an eye towards balance, I’ve capped it at the best possible result you could get with the listed dice, so +6 DX, which is what you care about, isn’t it?) and extending the duration. I actually worked out the math, and if you just replace some of the reduced duration limitations with Cost Fatigue, you get a really long duration, especially if you also have to roll. I’d rather just let you “maintain” the miracle for a bit longer with a roll and more (and more and more) fatigue. I think that’s worth it, and it grants a value to having all of those gobs of FP you’ve saved up.
Oh, you were hoping for Super Saiyan, weren’t you? Perhaps the Keleni activates every last bit of its hyperoxygenated blood, and burns with so much internal energy their hair glows and floats up and about them and their bioluminescence blazes like the sun, and you know, you know, their enemies are screwed. Ever since I’ve introduced the Avatar State in Psi-Wars, maybe you’ve wanted to see a badass version of it that. You want to see a Keleni (or a Templar or whatever) become the incarnation of Communion’s justice.
Well, the Avatar of the Righteous Crusader and the Avatar of the Nameless Hero are no slouches, but here you go: a more direct butt kicking avatar. This combines the two effects above, so you get a bonus to all Chi skills and you get the boost from Heroic Feats for the duration of the Avatar State on top of the Avatar State bonuses.
What’s all this “Sacred Warrior” I’m talking about? Well, we have some unique miracles (more than I’m discussing here), and a unique avatar state, so clearly we have a new path, right?
Well, maybe. That’s going to be a contentious topic. Some people will go “No,” you have the 12 paths, and this is clearly a variation of one path, in the same way the Domen Tarvagant version of the Path of Death is a unique take on that path. This is clearly the Righteous Crusader with more kung fu, or the Nameless Hero, but with less anonymity, or maybe the Exiled Master, but much more direct in action, and we have some unique miracles and that’s the only difference.
This is actually my default stance. This is how Celestial Breathing works: it grants access to a few new specific miracles and some supporting skills and abilities. But some of you will say “A new path makes way more sense.” So I’ve included it! Some new milestones, some new symbols and a way of handling the style if you want to treat it as a new path. Where it fits within the True Communion faith is a little sketchier. Is it an orthodox secret? Is it the legacy of Isa the Exile? I don’t know, that’s up to you.
This probably seems really short, like there’s just not that much detail in it. I’m blurring over quite a bit here, and a lot of the structure is pretty self-explanatory if you understand Communion. But let’s finish with the Limits of Power entry I have for this style.
The complete totality of Celestial Breathing consists, effectively, of four levels of mastery (counting the Keleni Breathing Foundation), and two moves for a total of about 105 points. At peak power, a Celestial Breathing master should have +5 fatigue and whatever they have built up with their meditation pool, Communion 7, four learned prayers, Precognitive Denfense and Flying Leap. Communion 7 is deceptively broad and powerful, as they can use it to access miracles like Confidence, Armor of Communion or Moment of Truth. With their Learned Miracles, they can see visions of future battles (or get sudden warnings of impending attack), they gain an average of +7 ST, +4 DX and +4 HT (though they can max these out at +12 ST, +6 DX and +6 HT); this bonus lasts for ~10 seconds, but if they need to, they can push the bonuses longer. They can also gain a +3 to any and all “Chi” skills. By default, this only benefits Precognitive Defense, Flying Leap and Breath Control for Celestial Breathing practitioners, but it integrates well with other styles. Unfortunately, they can only use one of their prayers at a time, but if they can trigger the Greater Avatar of the Sacred Champion, they gain all of the benefits of the miracle set, plus the additional benefits of being in an Avatar state!
The Celestial Breathing Form synergizes with both Mountain Breathing and Dream-Breathing. Mountain Breathing has abundant Chi skills all of which could benefit from Celestial Breathing’s Primordial Expertise. Dream-Breathing only has Psychometabolism, but Dream-Breathing requires access to Psychometabolism to gain its most powerful abilities, and access to Communion can unlock access to all psionic powers, including Psychometabolism. Only Rage Breathing really lacks any synergy, as the sort of behavior encouraged by Rage Breathing may risk the pacts and required behavior to maintain a connection with True Communion, though if the character can balance both, Rage Breathing has some Chi skills that could benefit from the Sacred Champion’s Primordial Expertise, and while in the Greater Avatar of the Sacred Form, the Compulsive Brawling skill could arguably trigger the Instinctive Rage bonus on Ultra-Instinct.
]]>This continues the breathing styles post from yesterday, a focus on four variants of Keleni internal martial arts. Today, we’ll look at the second, which was actually the first I ever created long before Keleni breathing was even a thing. It’s my least favorite of the styles, and the one I struggled the most to name. It’s not that it’s a bad style, it’s just “a worked example of psychometabolism” which is fine, and very valuable, but I’m not sure what makes it especially unique compared to any other style that teaches psychometabolism. It’s not a bad style, it’s just that I personally wish it had a little more sizzle.
Back when I first outlined the Templars, I described “Sacred Body Mastery” which was a study of psychometabolism. It was always something I wanted to explore and emphasize. Obviously, Templars would be able to study their psychic power, often at the feet of Keleni, and become faster, tougher, stronger and heal faster. And Ranathim, who also have access to psychometabolism, should be able to do the same. Sounds a lot like the premise behind Keleni Breathing styles, no? So there had to be a psychometablism in the breathing styles.
Symbolically, Dream Breathing integrates the “Third Eye” Chakra, of course. The other styles are “Earth, Air and Fire” based, so Dream Breathing probably gets Water by default, which does fit the sort of self-control aspect and the shifting of internal energies as well.
Where Mountain Breathing buffs all of your FP in general, clearly a psychic-focused breathing method will focus on energy reserves. As I understand Breath Control it doubles the recovery rate of all FP expenditures. I’m not sure if that means it will double the recovery of ER, but I’m not sure it matters. The character has far more energy (roughly 20) to use on psychic extra effort and techniques and they’ll recover at least some of it twice as fast.
One of the Undercity Noir players has Autohypnosis (and a variety of hypnosis abilities) and that’s made me finally stop and confront what I want out of Authohypnosis, and I think I finally now: in Psi-Wars, Autohypnosis is the cinematic version of the Deep Trance technique, which means the two should be equivalent. Anything you can do with a Deep Trance (boosting your psi) you can do with Autohypnosis and vice versa (you can Deep Trance to resist pain). The difference is that Autohypnosis can be done quickly (I like Martial Arts’ suggestion of replacing the time required with the Flying Leap) rules, and it should require either a Perk or TBAM (or weapon master, etc). Don’t worry, UN player, you’ll get the buffs, but none of the nerfs.
This is a central feature of Dream Breathing: the character enters a deep trance in a few seconds and uses this heightened state to buff their psychometabolism rolls, which matters because, as we’ll see, extra effort is what this style is really about.
I’ve also introduced a new variation of Dramatic Death. This one can only be used once per day (that might seem an odd specification, but you’ll understand in a second) and it lasts the normal 1d+1 seconds, but if you heal yourself above the threshold that triggered your death you get to live. In short, this is Unkillable 1 with Limited Use and Reduced Duration brought low enough to make it -100% and then treated as a perk. Obviously, this works best if you have some healing magic that can bring you back to fighting form, otherwise it’s just an odd version of Dramatic Death.
Obviously, the core of a psychometabolic style is psychometabolism which gives you a bonus to HT roll. But let’s talk about some of the other things you can do: Weirding Reflex gives you +1 DX, and regeneration gives you the ability to heal 1 HP per hour. Okay, cool.
But let me line up for you what this style is really aiming to do: you have 20 FP in some form or another and a good +4 or so on your psychometabolic skill via your autotrance. The point of a Keleni Breathing style is to give you something to spend all that FP on, and that’s Weirding Reflex and Psychometabolic Regeneration. For 6 FP and a -4 Will-based Psychometabolism roll to get +4 DX with Weirding Reflex, and 4 FP and -4 Will to trigger Extreme regeneration (with a cost).
Like I said, it’s not a bad style. Nobody is going to turn their nose up at the ability to get a +4 DX and a limited form of Extreme Regen for the next minute. That’s a nightmarish character! It’s just the route I tend to imagine most psychometabolists tend to go.
This is a concept I keep touching on, but it’s probably worth highlighting. Psychometabolism replaces Body Control if you have it. Body Control can be used in place of HT rolls for a variety of things. Masters of Dream Breathing can substitute Will for HT when using Psychometabolism, which means you replace a lot of HT rolls with your Will. Given that most Space Knights and Mystics have far more Will than HT, this vastly improves their survivability. Granted, there’s a lot of steps to get there: you have to be psychic, you have to study this one particular psychic ability that you either naturally have access to or you have Communion, you need to raise this VH skill to a solid level, and then you need this perk that requires you to have TBAM to access it. But when you’re done, you’ve got a 15 to 18 or less to survive or stay conscious.
The complete totality of Dream-Breathing consists of three levels of mastery (counting the Keleni Breathing Foundation), two exercises and three moves for a total of about 125 points. At peak power, a Dream-Breathing master should have +5 fatigue, +5 Energy reserves and can double the recovery of his fatigue through Breath Control. They gain Psychometabolism 5 with Inner Healing 2 as an alternative ability, and Wierding Reflex 1, for a total of +5 HT and +1 DX. These values seem unimpressive, but if you make use of Extra Effort (and the Autohypnotic bonuses to Psychometabolism), they can rapidly improve and the Dream-Breathing master has fatigue to spare! When operating at full capacity, the Dream-Breathing Master can have up to +10 HT, +4 DX and can regenerate up to 10 HP per second, if pressed. Alternatively, they can get +4 Basic Speed (thus +4 Move and +4 Dodge) or gain improved High Pain Threshold. They can also funcationally replace HT rolls with Will rolls. The Dream-Breathing Form has little in the way of improved damage, though characters can explore other options on their own to improve DR or ST if they wish, just not as part of the style. The Psychometabolism of the Dream-Breathing Form offers a great deal of flexibility.
The Dream-Breathing Form synergizes with both the Celestial Breathing Form and the Rage Breathing form. Celestial Breathing offers access to Communion, which allows anyone to learn any psionic ability, including Psychometabolism. The bonus it grants to Chi skills also applies to Psychometabolism, which is a substitute for Body Control. Rage Breathing benefits from the greatly improves HT to stabilize the heart after excess use and Chakra Regeneration can be used to heal any damage caused to the heart by Ultra Instincts.
]]>I tend to believe that having a power structure adds a lot to a GURPS game. Players want to know what they can buy, and want to have goals to build their characters to. GURPS has these, but in more of a general sense: yes, you can buy Trained By a Master or Enhanced Time Sense or another level of Karate or Power-Blow, but players seek variety and things that feel exciting and grounded in the setting. Sometimes they want very unique elements, like DR that that requires focus to maintain, or super luck under very specific circumstances. Players can design this with their GM, but this can be a long drawn process; if the players design it themselves, they risk looking “twinky.” By having a pre-defined set of interesting powers, players can find inspiration in the power set, and freely take “twinky” powers that are GM approved and feel very clever when they build (GM-pre-approved) combos of interesting powers and explore the power sets you designed.
I’ve wanted a power-set like this for ages. When True Communion first dropped, it came with “Sacred Body Mastery,” a psychometabolism style designed to help Templars be generically better fighters, and was one of the special techniques of the Dark Vigil chapter. I’ve not done a lot of focus on these non-combat styles and, today, we’ll fix that.
I had intended for this post to be the release post, but it turned into a preview post instead, because this is taking forever to write. The full release will come once the previews are out.
I like anime and kung fu films. Some of the RPGs that shaped Psi-Wars, in addition to GURPS, include Exalted and Weapons of the Gods, which wear their anime/kung fu origins on their sleeves, and with the sheer number of styles Psi-Wars has gained, you can easily run a kung fu campaign if you wanted.
But most of what we call “martial arts” would be described as external martial arts by some communities, certainly by works like Legends of the Wulin. Styles like the Serenity Form, the Simple Form or Sasona Samalle describe how you fight. They cover specific techniques and combat strategies meant to defeat a foe: You feint so, you attack thus, and in this situation, wait a second and then attack, etc. According to some martial traditions, this is only half of a proper martial art.
The other half is building a solid foundation from which to attack. It focuses on things like core strength, fitness, breathing, calming the mind, etc. Perhaps the character just works out a lot, but they can also “cultivate chi” or study esoteric techniques that don’t directly attack a foe or defend against an attack, but improve their ability to attack or defend. The Simple Form has some elements of this, teaching the character to improve their fitness or to widen the options with which they can fight, rather than just directly improving fighting itself. I makes it a very unusual style, and I can definitely see why its fans like it.
If there was any one culture in Psi-Wars that would produce an internal style, it would be Keleni (runner up would probably be the Shinjurai). They would love nothing more than to spend ages meditating on a mountain top, building their strength and knowledge for a fight, without actually fighting. They’re also intended as the default choice for a kung fu master. We expect Templars to seek out Keleni masters in remote swamps or on mountain tops. Originally, this was to gain enlightenment (represented by True Communion traits), but the Templars also learned “Sacred Body Mastery” from the Keleni. It was a concept I wanted to revisit.
Well, I was watching Demon Slayer, pictured above, and something occurred to me: Keleni would probably be champions of a breathing style, since they can hold their breath for 25 times as long as everyone else. That’s interesting. Can we use that as the basis for a concept of vastly improved FP and Breath Control? That seemed reasonable. But what would they do with all of that FP?
Demon Slayers had another suggestion. The styles portrayed in that anime, while it focuses on breathing, are more external than internal: what differentiates a Water Breather from a Fire Breather is what combat moves they use, not the foundation from which they fight. This makes them more resemble the fighting styles of Weapons of the Gods. But I was particularly intrigued by how all the styles were subsets of one ancient “master” style.
I liked the idea and wanted to explore a similar concept: one style from which several sub-styles sprang, similar to how Lithian gladiatorial combat works. I originally intended for those who mastered all (or at least several) of the styles to have access to an ur-style at the very pinnacle of combat expertise. In practice, though, I found you’re talking about a character with hundreds of points invested in being badass, and the level of power they would have would be utterly shocking, the sort of character who could go toe-to-toe with most super-heroes and priced accordingly. I still like the idea, but I think we’ll put it on pause for now. I did keep the idea of combining breathing styles, though.
So what styles would we want? Well, if we borrowed from Demon Slayers, we’d have elemental styles, but I couldn’t figure out how to make that work. But I could work out origin based styles: A “martial” style, a “psionic” style, a “divine” style, and obviously we’d need some sort of evil, forbidden style, because Keleni never get to keep anything to themselves and some Ranathim would clearly steal from their style and make some dark mirror of the style, right? Obviously. Then we dig around and grab some fluff about chakras and merdians and give them some additional fluff. And so, the four Keleni styles were born:
They turned out to be more “exercises” than “moves.” The idea is you learn big, chunky packages, rather than a collection of smaller moves. They do have some smaller moves, but that was never the focus. Each individual style will run you about 100-125 points. A master of one style, while also mastering a single martial art style will easily run you 150-200 points, which means Psi-Wars character with one of these set ups would probably be 450-500 points, and we start to glimpse what “epic” psi-wars characters might look like.
This was the “martial” style of the four, and inspired by the “root” chakra. I named it Mountain Breathing as I expected you’d find it often on Covenant, and that practitioners of it might go up to the tops of the mountains to practice breathing in the thinner air. The “root” chakra is also associated with earth, so also the mountain.
One of the core elements of Mountain-Breathing is gaining extreme levels of fitness. The point is to just be naturally fitter through lots of exercise. But something really bugs me about Very Fit: it halves the fatigue cost of things you really don’t care about, and does nothing to halve the fatigue you care about. You want to have the cost of Power Blow or Extra Effort, neither of which you can, because Very Fit is intended to do things like let you run twice as far or fight twice as long (unless that fighting fatigue comes from Extra Effort, which is what everyone remembers, and everyone forgets the post-combat fatigue).
I think I finally cracked it: Secondary Fatigue. The idea is it’s a Limited Energy Reserve that applies only to extra effort and things like Power-Blow, anything physical that Very Fit doesn’t already halve (so not running or the like), but you can only spend fatigue from that pool to equal the fatigue spent from your own normal pool. So if you have 10/10 and 5/5, you can spend nothing off of your secondary pool. If you spend 1 point on extra effort this turn (9/10 and 5/5) you can spend 1 point off of the secondary pool the next turn (9/10 and 4/5). Of course, if you spend like a bunch of fatigue off of your primary pool (5/10) you can spend that much off your secondary pool at your leisure. It sounds complicated, but I think it’s pretty simple: you can spend off of one and then off of the other.
Each level is a perk, and the max is half your own fatigue. The net result is you pay a little extra, but you can effectively halve your FP expenditure on things like Extra Effort. So, now we have a Keleni with gobs of FP and also spending only half of it on their extra effort. Nice!
Keleni breathing styles draw inspiration from a lot of sources, but one really underrated source we’ll see a lot of will be Kengan Ashura (it looks terrible, but it’s amazing). One of Tokita’s tricks is to “control the flow of power” or “redirection” techniques. These are mostly just Judo techniques, which can be handled with Judo Throws, Judo Parries, counter attacks, disruption strikes, trips, and Sensitivity (Sensitivity in particular).
But I wanted to explore a more direct way of representing this. I had an original idea that didn’t pan out and I didn’t realize it until I was writing this very post. So it’s had a slight change. First, I wanted to have a sort of “banked deceptive attack” concept, and this went through a lot of incarnations. I thought this might be worth a perk each, but if we account for the fact that Setup Attacks already exist all we’re really doing is buying the opportunity to delay a Setup Attack’s penalty with some specific limitations. In particular, I argue for a max of a delay of -3. I had wanted to set it up for -1 per turn max, but I think in practice, most people will just setup attack and then use it immediately; there’s not that much utility in “banking” setup attacks except it gives you a little extra room to maneuver. People will point out this lets you “stack” a setup attack on a setup attack but this is already possible, it just makes it little more flexible, and I doubt players are going to want to spend 3 turns building up that penalty; they’ll just do something like bank, feint, setup, attack. I think if you were to try this in a normal game, a -1 per turn might work if you also had a +1 evaluate per turn and liked slow fights; Psi-Wars goes faster and allows an instant +3 with evaluate, so why not an instant -3 banked deceptive attack?
Second, I had an idea for a scaling Higher Purpose like Killing Frenzy that was tied to the banked deceptive attack. I’ve discarded this (no counterplay) in favor of a single Higher Purpose that grants a bonus if your opponent Retreats or uses Extra Effort. This makes it much more interesting because you have this responsive bonus that your opponent can make focused decisions on, and punishes the most common means of vastly increasing your defense. It’s not a huge amount of punishment, but enough to make an opponent hesitate to retreat when they would normally be more eager to do so.
If we add Sensitivity, we get a decent power-up that allows the character to better control the fight: they can more cleverly build setup attacks, benefit from their opponent’s retreats and access the Sensitivity Bonus. While I’m not sure it’s all strictly necessary to represent Takita Ohma’s clever little trick, it feels more interesting than just Sensitivity.
I noticed that I had Second Wind as an Extra Effort option (I’ve been thinking about Extra Effort a lot lately, for obvious reasons). It’s an option to spend FP to heal HP found in GURPS Action. I thought about it, and then removed it, then added it back via this style. Here’s my logic: most people don’t know this exists and don’t use it. It’s also not particularly well written. Can you use it to fully heal? Or are you limited to one point of damage? So I wrote a more detailed one: if you can use First Aid to recover from it, you can spend 1 FP to recover 1 HP. That’s not much but it adds up, and is totally worth a perk as a special option. It’s comparable to Blood Healing.
Not unique to Mountain Breathing, but a concept I came across both in Dragon Ball Super and Kengan Ashura: Image Training. The idea is you spend a hour or so visualizing a coming fight, and that teaches you what you need to win. That sounds like Visualization, doesn’t it? There are even rules in Powers on how to use it for combat, by reducing the time taken. However, to really fit the version I imagine, it would require a Preparation Required limitation, and would only prepare for one specific fight (You could Image Train for your fight against that Imperial Knight, but then you couldn’t trigger your Visualize when some unrelated space pirates attacked you). I think I added a Higher Purpose trait that grants a +1 to fight against anyone you visualized against, so like Combat Flow, you can get a long term +1 for a single fight, given you prepared for it.
It seemed like a great ability to give any Keleni breathing form, so I gave it to all of them. They do love to meditate on coming fights.
Every style was going to have its chi skills. These require Trained by a Master, and the benefits of that is learning Chi skills. I just needed a structure to hang that on. And, man, Perfect Balance is a great advantage. It’s just so expensive! Those 15 points give you perfect balance, of course, but it’s soo expensive for what you get. And what I really want is the +1 climbing, piloting, acrobatics and +4 light walk and flying leap. Of course, we can use the Skill Bonuses only -60%. Is this legal? Well, the primary purpose of Perfect Balance is… the perfect balance. It’s not the skill bonuses, which are pretty incidental, even if they’re really good. So, sure, we’ll try it. Of course, being able to upgrade to a full Perfect Balance later is nice. I love the idea of Keleni martial artists meditating balanced in a precarious position.
I thought a great deal about the limits of how much power you could get from a given style. In particular, I wanted each style to offer about +4 or so to DX or attack rolls once you had it fully mastered. That sounds really powerful, but for 100 points I’d expect that. And, of course, lots of fatigue and options on things to do with fatigue. So each style has a “Limits of Power” post which notes what I expect out of the style, and how it interacts with other styles. This is the one for Mountain Breathing.
The complete totality of Mountain Breathing consists of three levels of mastery (counting the Keleni Breathing Foundation), two exercises and three moves for a total of about 125 points. At peak power, a Mountain Breathing master should have +10 fatigue (typically 20+ fatigue) and they both recover this fatigue twice as fast and lose it half speed, and can even get “halve” the cost of their extra effort in combat options for the first 10 uses. A master of the Mountain Form will recover all 20 fatigue in 20 minutes (in the Last Gasp they will recover 10 fatigue in about 2 and a half hours). They get to make two different extra effort options in both offense and defenses per turn. Combat Flow gives them a maximum of +3 to combat rolls in situational bonuses and the ability to surge in an extra -3 deceptive attacks on their foe. They excel at Chi skills, but mostly with a focus on maneuverability and awareness. Mountain Breathing lacks powerful damage dealing abilities: while they get greater flexibility in combat and they excel at landing a blow when it matters, the effectiveness of that blow won’t get as much of a benefit from this form as it will from other forms.
Mountain Breathing synergizes very well with Celestial Breathing, which provides a boost to the Chi skills of Mountain Breathing and can compensate somewhat for the low damage. Rage Breathing offers additional damage and better defensive options, and the HT bonuses from Mountain Breathing’s fitness helps to avoid heart trouble. Only Dream-Breathing lacks any really interesting synergies with Mountain Breathing.
]]>This week has been the Pacifist Crush update to Psi-Wars. This combined numerous ideas that have been floating around in my mind for awhile now, and over the holidays I paused the rest of my work to advance this. This came in part because I’m introducing a high powered Keleni character and some Templars in my Dhim campaign and I needed some stats and one thing led to another and here we are with a pile of Keleni updates.
Let me begin with a quick overview of what’s publicly available and why, and then we’ll jump into the update you’re really waiting for: Keleni Breathing Styles. This post is getting too long, though, so that will be its own post.
I love Ishin Denshin from Pyramid #3/69 and I knew I wanted to integrate it into Psi-Wars, and I did so as Sasona Samalle (Kelen for “Mind Heart”) back in Iteration 6 before the new Martial Arts upgrade structure. I’ve wanted to introduce it back into the new structure for awhile, but I struggled with its inclusion of not one but two psionic abilities, as those get expensive fast. Maelstrom form showed me the way, though, and I borrowed the concept. The result is now available on the wiki.
I also integrated it into the Space Knight. Of the three “martial artists” they make the most sense. I had thought for awhile they might be Warriors and part of the reason I designed Warriors was as a spot for Keleni stickfighters, but it turns out they really don’t care about damage.
I’ve had some complaints about how violent it is. A lot of this comes from Ishin Denshin, and I’ve debated how true to the original I want to be. I definitely want to keep kicks (because you can kick while using a staff) and rapid strikes: just because Keleni are nice doesn’t mean they can’t fight or that they’ll fight gently. That said, I may change things in the future; someone pointed out a face strike is a better fight-ender for a pacifist than a throat strike, so I may well change that in the future. But in the meantime, we finally have Sasona Samalle up on the wiki!
I’ve updated the True Communion page to have Blessings, the ability to grant an advantage to someone else. I noticed as I worked on Sorcery that Divine Favor had none of these, and I found that quite odd. Isn’t bestowing buffs on people the thing we’d expect a cleric to do? In particular, I pondered what Templar teams might look like. Of course, we’ll have the space knight templar who fights, but we might expect their more theologically inclined to companion to buff them. So why didn’t we have any?
So I added some. I only added them to True Communion, though, because Dark Communion is selfish and would never give someone else power. Broken Communion is self-hating, of course, and destructive, and so would actively harm others, but it already has effects that do this.
It’s only a handful, but it already changes the dynamic quite a bit, and provides a template for adding your own variations of the miracle, if you want, I don’t know, the Blessing of the Tao of Communion or something.
I have a prototype Mystic template for the Communion Monk. I’m not entirely happy with it and I might revise it. In particular, I’m not done with the estoric style. The structure is all in place, it’s all the writing around and around and around it that’s taking time. And there’s how best to handle Virtues as well. I had hoped to drop it this week, but I’ll let it lie fallow for a little longer unless you guys are okay with a flawed version. Maybe I should just drop it anyway; better something than nothing.
]]>“Men make it such a point of honour to be fit for business that they forget to examine whether business is fit for a man.” – George Savile, Marquess of Halifax, “Moral Thoughts and Reflections,” Complete Works (Oxford:1912), p. 231.
Big money-spinners are prime targets for schemers both in The Scene and out of it. A typical conflict can grow out of two or more factions feuding with each other over who gets to take the biggest cut of the profits.
Graf-Sano Metropolitan Bank
This two-story gleaming smoked-glass modern building is owned by a very wealthy local. The bank’s staff are all normal humans ignorant of the occult, the place has 30 white collar employees, it hires 8 security guards (half that are patrolling when banking hours are over) which are modelled as Generic NPCs, assume 15-25 customers are in the bank during normal work hours. The main features of the bank that are relevant to adventures are the safety deposit boxes and the vault. (Any sort of treasure or MacGuffin can be stored inside them.)
Tellers are protected by bulletproof glass in an enclosed area accessed via security desks. Every teller desk has a panic button under the counter for the silent alarm. Response time from the police is rapid, only 1d minutes. Security cameras are in almost every room, the feed going directly to the security centre and backed-up to the network mainframe. The vault door is extra heavy (and the surrounding wall is reinforced), locked with extremely secure systems, and carefully guarded. Roll down gates with excellent locks are also installed and used by the security staff to foil robberies. Other internal doors are less sturdy and their locks are easier to bypass, but they still boast decent quality on both fronts. The external doors are even weaker, but they don’t really need to be, as any further intrusion into important parts of the bank are more secure. A standard trick for dealing with armed robbers is slipping an exploding dye pack into bags of money being stolen.
(There is an useful map of a large metropolitan bank in the D20 Modern book Critical Locations, I recommend using it if you can get a hold of that book.)
December Trucking Company
The highway that goes by Whistleleaf City is a major trade route reaching all across the state and beyond. Hauling freight up and down those midnight roads and across the state borders is the business of December Trucking Company, which hires 2500 local people, makes a lot of profit and thus wields a lot of clout as a respectable “job creator”. (About 25 of those employees are involved with The Scene on some level, perhaps using their job as a cover for some sinister activity.) The business is owned by a local millionaire investor, it is operated day-to-day by a completely mundane board of directors. (None of the company’s leadership are be Clued-In about the occult, even if any of them are crooked.) The trucks used by the company have the same stats as per the 2 ½-Ton Truck on B464, drivers have the skill Driving (Heavy Wheeled) at a level of 12-14. Truckers can be involved in smuggling (both in and out of Whistleleaf), hired by criminals to transport illegal cargo. They might traffic drugs, human beings, magical artefacts or bootleg sportswear merchandise. Busting one trucker making a criminal delivery can provide a major lead to a wider conspiracy or crime network. The company’s office and depot, where the cargo is loaded, unloaded and stored in a warehouse, is located in an industrial district near the edge of city limits.
Carlyle Logging Co.
One of Whistleleaf’s most controversial and prominent businesses, Carlyle Logging Company is owned by the powerful Carlyle family and employs 15000 people living in Whistleleaf. It is constantly struggling with the city’s government, the state government regulations and the loggers’ union over its business practices, taxes and profits. (If anyone ever managed to fully open the books on the company’s internal workings, it could land a bunch of rich people in hot water,) The company’s board of directors handle running the business from the top-down, reporting to the Carlyles on matters of crisis or notable successes. None of the company’s leadership know anything about magic or monsters. That being said, the workers on the ground have brushed up against the unnatural during the course of their job; there are plenty of monsters who lurk in the woods and have decided that the loggers make for easy prey. Not many have survived their encounters, or figured out what exactly they were attacked by, but the stories are still whispered in the blue collar bars.
(GMs who have the Action 5: Dictionary of Danger book can reference the “R is for Resource Extraction” section for logging sites.)
The Julian Hotel
This 5-story hotel with attached restaurant, 2 ballrooms, gift shop, mail room and kitchen is a 4-star establishment catering to the richest visitors to Whistleleaf, located in the heart of the upscale central business district. The security system is state-of-the-art, surveillance cameras watch over all the entrances and most areas. The lobby has 4 desk clerks, 6 bellhops and 4 plain-clothes security (stat as Security Guard Generic NPC) working alongside the concierge and manager around the front desk. The lobby’s restaurant has chefs, hostesses, waiters, and bus boys attending to diners. There is ATMs, decorative fountains and marble sculptures in the lobby. Elevators and stairs allow guests to go to their rooms after check-in.
Although none of the staff are involved with The Scene or even mundane illegal activity, it is certainly possible a guest of the hotel could be checking in as they prepare to play a part in a conspiracy or crime.
(There is an useful map of a hotel lobby with fancy restaurant in the D20 Modern book Critical Locations, I recommend using it if you can get a hold of that book.)
River Cruises
Whistleleaf City’s nearby freshwater fronts are Lake Piquetta, Siskiyou River and Crescent River. Aside from the usual trading shipments by boat done through these waterways, locals have set up successful tourist businesses in the form of voyages up and down the rivers and around the lake, shoving off and stopping back at the Whistleleaf docks. Most river cruise businesses are owned by members of the Whistleleaf upper crust, some are done by small time middle class. The bigger cruises offer features like fully stocked bars, music concerts, restaurants and gambling. The river cruise boats carry from 10 to 100 passengers per outing depending on the exact cruise line. A Whistleleaf river cruise costs $300 to $400 per person per night. A given cruise may be on the water for 30 minutes to a full day. It is a popular leisure activity for the Whistleleaf up-and-coming (Wealth from Comfortable to Very Wealthy), so anyone trying to arrange a meeting with a mid-level mover-and-shaker should take a look at them. Any monsters lurking in the lake or on a nearby island might decide to attack a river cruise for various reasons.
Club Peppermint
Separate from the river cruises, another freshwater-borne notable business is Club Peppermint, an upscale nightclub based on a watercraft (the ship itself is named the S.S. Berry) doing shore excursions. The ship docks at Whistleleaf and takes patrons on at late afternoon, shoves off at about 8 PM, goes out onto the lake for the night, and returns to port at about 2 AM. The business has 2 smaller boats bringing patrons to and from the nightclub while the S.S. Berry itself is off-shore. Entrance is moderately exclusive, requiring not just a door fee but also a pat down (with metal detectors) by bouncers and “meeting standards” (the right Contact, Ally or Status 1+). The business is owned and managed by a rich but shady Whistleleaf local who has connections to The Scene and a few criminal enterprises. (At least some of the club’s security staff are magicians working for them.) The overall atmosphere and flavour of the club is a cutting edge and sleek modern establishment with the latest music played loud and fast, lots of drinking and discrete Scene machinations (powerful occultists often hold meetings at Club Peppermint) going on in the background. The fresh air and quiet dark nature out on the lake at night just makes the club’s liveliness stick out that much more.
The S.S. Berry is a small cruiseferry vessel that’s been lightly customised for nighttime entertainment. Club Peppermint features a central dance floor (with full music system and stage for a band), a bar serving alcoholic drinks, restrooms, a private meeting room, a manager’s office and other standard amenities seen in nightclubs. The entire venue is 2000 square feet big, allowing for a maximum of about 1200 patrons when the club is open.
The staff and regulars of Club Peppermint can be modelled with the templates found in Encounters: The Harrowed-Hearts Club pages 7-10, and the Generic NPCs for Security Guards, Occultists/Magicians and Crooks given in a previous blog post.
TO BE CONTINUED
]]>In the meantime, here is an updated map of the cursed silver mine, as completed by Erizax.
2016: Dungeon Grappling. My first project. Broke even but I did it on time, on budget.
2017: Lost Hall of Tyr. Meh.
2018: Dragon Heresy, Hall of Judgment, LHoT 2nd Edition. Lost a lot of money deliberately on Dragon Heresy, but this started my GURPS 3PP journey.
2019: Citadel at Nordvorn (good), Four Perilous Journeys (good), Nordlond Sagas (not good). Expanding into TFT. Nordlond Sagas cost me most if not all of the profits on Nordvorn and 4PJ. Fulfillment took a long time.
2020: More Perilous Journeys. Very late. Very much the only project done in 2020. Got laid off that year too. COVID lockdowns. Excruciating. Lowest point. But decided to make a go of being a full-time publisher.
2021: Rebound. Character Collections for TFT. Delvers to Grow. Tower of the Moon for TFT, Backerkit-only before Backerkit Crowdfunding was even a thing. Bestiary for DFRPG. Record revenue, not record profit … but produced a lot of great TFT/GURPSy stuff.
2022: Till Death Do Us Part (TFT) was good. Over 500 backers. Tested and failed Brazilian Market with Combate Epico em Masmorras with only 129 backers. Old-School Solos did 803 backers and kept me afloat through most of 2023. I also ended with Nightmare Fuel for the DFRPG, trying to build off of the Bestiary. That didn’t work. The books were great, but Backerkit Crowdfunding as a first attempt didn’t go well, and the full-color books were expensive. Probably broke even on that one.
So things were starting to get rocky already, but I had One Big Thing in 2022. I also changed up how I pay myself, stringing out profits into a “salary” that allows a good project to keep me going for a long time. That’s more or less what happened in 2022 with BSA, and it kept me going through the first six months of 2023…
So the long and the short of it was I had very big, very unrealized plans in 2023. They did not come to pass.
First task of 2023: Fulfill Nightmare Fuel. Cards, VTT, and three books. That took a while. Best Supporting Actors had mostly in-hand art and was a conversion of the Character Collections to OSE. That did fewer than 400 backers, but had a very nice profit margin. Sedra ran very, very late – over a quarter. I had to pull in Artifacts, which only did 425 backers … not really enough for a full-color book to do well. Follow with Sedra for TFT, and another sub-500 project. Needed to finish with something so I elected to do an OSE version of Sedra, which got 220 backers.
Overall, I did not feel like a game publisher with 50 books to my credit. Because of how expenses and revenue fall, Tax Year 2023 will show a break-even or small loss; success from 2022 and BSA (not a great result, but higher margin because it already existed) kept me fed in 2023, but that’s all.
I have already made the decision to go big or go home this year. The Big News is that I am nearly done with a playable rules book for the Mission X RPG, which shall finally put some Ballistics in Gaming Ballistic. The characters book shall be next, and that’s going to be a bit of a slog but I know what I have to do.
But … that’s not something I can launch tomorrow, though I will need to get my preview out for a long time to start with a bang.
Some thoughts, then:
I have a lot of Nordlond for Dungeon Fantasy RPG. I think it would do very well moved over to TFT, OSE, maybe Shadowdark, and re-starting support for Dragon Heresy, perhaps.
The Infinite Archipelago concept still appeals to me, and I’d like to place Nordlond into it. Porting over to TFT, OSE, Shadowdark … easy enough. Redraw the map lines as islands a bit, take the cultures that haven’t yet been explored and break them into their own areas for folks to write about.
But what I really want to do is break up the existing giant “oh, there’s more adventure off the map” land mass for DFRPG Nordlond and Dragon Heresy Torengar into that same concept. I think that opens up a lot of fun for having more Viking and inter-human conflict in the setting, with no King and happy little Viking country, but rather allied-or-not high lords. The existing setting material would not change much, surprisingly. All of my efforts were basically focused on a single river (the Jotunnain) plus everything north of the Wodenain (the river that goes from Isfjall, from Hall of Judgment, to the Sea at Raven’s Bay and the town of Leira).
So making that the southern border of a Nordlond Island, keeping a bunch of the Dragongrounds as-is, and poof, Island. Some other areas mentioned in lore and alluded to like the Broken Coast can be island of themselves. The Veiddarlond? Can stay. Of course it can stay.
But that would allow co-development of smaller adventuring areas, and folks can use the Infinite Archipelago concept.
These ports would be time consuming but probably pretty good for me, as it would serve as an outstanding expansion in my potential market reach. I need to look more at Shadowdark, but that system and TFT seem alike in kind: fairly gritty, fairly flat progression systems where the kind of resource bloat you have to see in OSE/5E based games, with XP for gold and/or geometric experience requirements.
I’ve already got one manuscript in hand for a GM’d adventure from David Pulver called Sea Hag’s Wrath, which I will probably work into various systems right away as soon as I put OSE Sedra to bed.
We have plans to work through the year – but at a relatively slow pace – on another solo adventure and the Elazar companion island to Sedra. Releasing these sequentially or even PDF-only and then Kickstart a print run for them late in the year might work out.
I had a few meanderings with folks on a totally-not-China and totally-not-Japan new setting, but one fell through and the other is maybe “hmmm” more than a plan.
So there will be at least three new TFT books in 2024. Those will migrate to OSE/Shadowdark almost certainly.
Sedra and Elazar contain (now) five solo adventures and several GM’d scenarios. They are a rich land with their own culture and ideas. There’s no reason I cannot port these from TFT to the DFRPG … but all the artwork for the TFT stuff is in Black and White/Greyscale. I’d need to see very successful projects in order to colorize them.
Do folks feel color is mandatory for the DFRPG line? I have been adamant about it in the affirmative … but allowing projects to start B/W and grow into full color via a stretch goal process would not be too bad, were the goals set right.
I have a bunch of ideas here. Bringing some new templates into currency. Lots and lots more packages, many of them more tailored to NPCs than PCs. Epic Upgrades that lean hard on the powers infrastructure used for Holy Abilities to allow a lot more character growth past 250-400 points, where “I’ve taken all the packages in the core book” starts to happen. Lenses/multi-templates.
But let’s face it: Delvers to Grow has proved it meets its mission of fast character generation and a fantastic on-ramp for newcomers. But it didn’t break 500 folks when it launched, and sequels tend not to overperform the original. I may wind up releasing this bit by bit on paid-Patreon, and see what happens.
Character Collections was a pretty good product for TFT; less so by far for OSE. Would people be interested in more characters and NPCs ready-made for the Dungeon Fantasy RPG?
Branch out to innkeepers, pirates, townsfolk, and the like?
A giant batch of pre-gens to get folks going quickly? Varying in points from 50 (or fewer) to 500?
These would likely start black and white, but could grow to color and would certainly be drag-and-drop into Foundry, because that sort of time-saver appeals to me.
I’ve got some systemless flavor stuff: Let us Rejoice (festivals in RPGs), something in process on in a similar vein for actual churches, and some ready-to-use inns and taverns. A micro-setting with no system called Two Warring Houses that sets up a fun complicated factional thing on opposite sides of a fertile river junction.
Finally, short, portable encounters or situations you can drop in to most games, in the 8-12 page range (probably either 8, 12, or 16 – the 4-page thing is important for print). This might be one big encounter and a bunch of little ones (a la the seeds in Hall of Judgment, with random tables).
I have two years or more of work I could do. I think some of it would be really fun. I’m committed to Mission X this year, but I need to “feed” Gaming Ballistic in the meantime.
So tell me: what of the above excites you? What do you want to see more of? What do you want me to NOT do that I’ve mentioned above?
In any case: I wanted to ask, because I need to have a bit more basis to keep me going in 2024, and I want to kick the year off right.
The post Planning for 2024… appeared first on Gaming Ballistic.
]]>The police in Whistleleaf City follow the general standards, powers and limitations that all police forces in Oregon have. They are adequately funded and trained for their public roles, but low morale and corruption is a (rarely acknowledged) problem for them. A very small minority of the cops have any clue about magic, monsters or The Scene (even the city’s police chief is ignorant of the occult), but they are still a major force to be reckoned with. Even monsters tend to think twice about harming an officer of the law, as such cases tend to trigger a swift and merciless response from plenty of determined and armed men looking for payback.
Park Ranger Luke Rice
Keeping an Eye Out, age 34.
Luke Rice works as a patrolling warden of state park near Whistleleaf City. He’s been on the job for 8 years and has managed to figure out the existence of the supernatural at work, especially the reality of monsters lurking within the park. He does not know much about magic, he knows even less about The Scene, but he has managed to dig up enough facts on monsters that he now hunts them with decent amounts of success. He keeps what he knows and does a secret from his superiors, family (he’s married with 1 daughter), friends, colleagues and tourists, of course. He does not want to cause a panic, get branded a madman or attract attention from any OTHER monsters that may be lurking in the city. Ranger Luke is a talented and mature man with light brown skin, canny brown eyes, a bushy mustache and wavy short brown hair. He keeps his ranger uniform and other belongings well-maintained. He keeps all sorts of “non-standard” miscellaneous gear hidden in his car, his house and his workplace. Just in case his “secondary duties” come to the fore-front.
Detective Martin “The Chuckwagon” Ives
Playing the Game, age 45.
Martin Ives, nicknamed “The Chuckwagon” by his disrespectful partner, is a homicide detective working in Whistleleaf City’s biggest precinct. He takes bribes, lets the wealthy and connected taint investigations, and enjoys the fruits of his corruption. Detective Ives learned the truth about The Scene a decade ago and it has not changed much about his outlook. Martin has long ago decided he cared more about his own profit and position in the system than about morality, truth and doing the job right. He is fully committed to serving the powers that be in hope of a reward, which dictates how he does his work. The Scene just gave him new and different powerful people to be bribed by. Over the course of his career, he has buried murder cases, lost evidence and let influential perps off the hook. His star has risen in accordance with his venal servitude. His “friends” under the table include a well-off criminal magician who helps him out with stuff from time to time. Detective Ives is a pasty and slightly withered man with unkempt red hair and suspicious green eyes.
Special Agent Sarah Bates
Federal Bloodhound, age 36.
The top federal agent in Whistleleaf is Sarah Bates, a talented veteran professional investigator on the trail of a serious bad guy. She is very driven when it comes to her job and a methodical straight shooter with good training in all aspects of her duties. She is a neatly dressed and serious-looking African-American woman with black hair cut short and intense hazel eyes.
The GM decides what actual case Special Agent Bates is currently investigating; it could be a serial killer, local police corruption, an organised crime syndicate trafficking illegal merchandise across state borders, a foreign spy ring or any felony of state/nation-wide impact that’s mundane (on the surface, at least). She currently has had no contact with the supernatural and does not believe it exists, but her current investigation might just lead her straight into the jaws of something from the other side. (As a particularly nasty move by the GM, she may be investigating what the PCs have done, or have them brought in for questioning if she has reason to suspect them.)
Detective Duane Pullman
Undercover Cop, age 36.
The Whistleleaf PD has an officer working undercover, close to where The Scene is operating.
His description and character sheet were already detailed at https://tabletoprpg333.home.blog/2022/04/10/the-kings-head-tavern-pt-3/
Taskforce Silver Torch
Taskforce Silver Torch is a secret federal government agency assigned to investigate and suppress the occult. Due to its severe and sensitive jurisdiction, it has no official sanction and the agency must operate completely “black.” The agents of Taskforce Silver Torch are disavowed, must work under a cover story (usually “a classified JTTF”), can’t legally take advantage of most official resources available to federal agents, and cannot reveal what they know or do to proper oversight. From the outside looking in, they’re more espionage than law enforcement.
They are the “Men in Black”, so to speak. Most people in The Scene assume that the government is aware of the supernatural on some level, but they have no idea how many within their ranks are in on the secret or how they are responding to it. They certainly do not know anything of the anti-occult agency charged with researching, covering-up and eliminating supernatural elements within the US. Most agents can be modelled via the Man-in-Black Generic NPC, but there are taskforce support operatives who know and can provide magic (or/and psionics if available) and genuine occult knowledge to the agents in the field. Taskforce Silver Torch has plenty of resources to bring to bear for their mission; unlicensed firearms, unconstitutional surveillance outposts, stolen cars, illicitly obtained blackmail material, confiscated contraband and brutally recruited informants. They have several secret hideouts with on-site prison cells, handy for studying captured monsters and magicians. They may even have limited access to illegal top secret mad science gadgets (like the stuff in Psi-Tech, for example) for use in their work.
TO BE CONTINUED
]]>Noin Dal and Keif Lakota shared nightmares of being herded, along with others, weaponless and defenseless, by masked and armored space knights, until they found themselves cornered atop the haunted rocks. There, they were cut down by the attackers force swords. Both awoke at the fall of the death blow, shaken.
Of course, Dal already suffers from nightmares from her years as a slave to Captain Senkried, so she actually found herself enjoying the change of pace. As she prepared to get into the sonic shower, she caught a glimpse of movement from the corner of her eye. It looked like a mangled walking corpse coming at her aggressively, but when she flinched away and looked, nothing was there. Whatever it was, it gave her quite a start.
Our heroes make a practice of gathering for breakfast, at the Intergalactic House of Pancakes, where they discuss their tasks for the coming day. This time, some of Dal’s crew came along.
When Harket arrived at the IHoP, he was approached by a being that he had seen before around the Sirocco music scene: a member of the same species as Keif Lakota and synth-harmonic player named Waaktaar Savoy. Waaktaar explained that he and his band had a gig later that evening at a club called the Mangled Puppy in Gwanyu Spaceport. The Puppy was a favorite hang-out of the Sirocco Specters. Waaktaar had noticed Harket’s popularity among the Specters, and wondered if he would like to sit in and play keytar with them? Encouraged by the rest of the party – workaholic Lakota even agreed to take time off to enjoy the evening – Harket agreed.
At breakfast, Dal’s Ranathim first mate, Revalis, bluntly pointed out that Captain Dal and Marshal Lakota both looked like crap. They reluctantly admitted to having slept poorly from bad dreams. Pondering on this, Revalis mentioned that back home in the Umbral Rim, if one of his people suffered from “riding the night mare”, they went and got assistance from some spiritual authority, who fixed them right up. He wondered if “atheist humans” had some equivalent?
(The religions of the Umbral Realm tend towards overwrought ecstasy cults with very demonstrative rituals. To Revalis’ eyes, even human snake-handlers or Pentecostals speaking in tongues seem rather mild in their faith. Thus, his opinion that all humans are more-or-less atheists.)
The newly-hired cabin boy, Young Thomas, a local, protested at this characterization. He claimed that his folks went to an upstanding Communion temple. They were strong believers, not atheists! He was promptly told to keep his opinions to himself.
Dogged pursuer Marshal Lakota brought the conversation back to the mission. He wanted to go to the local lock-up and interrogate the cult leader they had captured in the previous session. More specifically, he wanted to take Suzal, for intimidation, and Harket, for social skills, and have them interrogate him.
They were both game, so after breakfast, the three heroes went to the nearby office of Gwanyu Security Services. Lakota impressed the desk sergeant with his authentic Rim Marshal dust and star beast leather cowboy boots, and got permission to speak to “Matkesus”, the cult leader.
Or, as he was known on his identification, Tom Johnson. Matkesus was some made-up Lithian name, meaning something like “Conquering Kangaroo”. Clearly, he was hoping to tap into that Umbral Rim mystique. According to the file from his intake, Tom had been a local boy who got into a certain amount of small-time trouble when he was younger, but then he fell into extremist religious practices and went off the grid. Apparently, he had turned towards a career as a cult leader.
While they waited for the prisoner to be brought out, Lakota was approached by Deputy Ella Garcia of Gwanyu Security Services. She explained that she had heard about his current case and had quietly been investigating it herself, going through local records. Having compiled a dossier of Lady Palia’s movements in the days leading up to her disappearance, she had recognized that Palia had been positively located in the mining town of Tabasco. While La Poza Grande had been the next stop on her itinerary, it was conceivable that she had never made it that far. Perhaps it would be worthwhile to look around Tabasco? Lakota took the data chip she offered and tipped his hat in thanks.
When our three heroes were allowed in to an interrogation chamber with Matkasus, they started their interview with Suzal playing an eerie “bad cop”; they found a sight-line where only Matkasus could see, and pulled out the first part of their custom hyperdense rocket-spear, so he could see that they were armed. Once he had noted that, Suzal lurked in the deepest shadow in the room, exuding otherworldly menace.
Then they switched to Harket’s “good cop”. Lakota introduced the lamé-wearing synth-rock star to the cult leader, and the two had a very productive conversation.
It all started as a grift, Matkasus explained, a cult-con to provide money with little effort. Then, he had fallen in with the clown-girl. She had real magic. She talked him into darker and darker practices. She had been the real leader of the cult, whispering in his ear and leading him down a dark path. Her name? Mania.
When asked about the night that the Original Creed had helped kidnap the people of La Poza Grande, Matkasus explained that it had been a three-way deal brokered by Mania. The cult took the bulk of the victims for their rituals, while a selected few were diverted to a small starship, and Mania pocketed a fair sum of money. He didn’t have the know-how to really identify the ship, but he was able to tell that it was built in the Maradonian style, the kind of thing that would be favored by the interstellar aristocracy. This was consistent with the marks our heroes had found at the site.
Meanwhile, back at Captain Dal’s ship, Davin took a holo-blaster bolt to the chest, as he and Revalis were playing at holo-dueling. The first mate again brought up his question about what spiritual services might be available on a human-dominated planet like Sirocco. He was concerned about his captain, and, to some extent, the human marshal. Davin offered up the classic human options of expensive therapy or cheap liquor.
Mid-morning, the interrogation team returned to the others, bearing fresh intelligence. They discussed returning to La Poza Grande to check out the suspected landing site again, but chose to check out Tabasco first. They loaded up in one of the shuttles, and with Captain Dal at the wheel, they flew across the high chapparal into the nearby mountains.
The mining village of Tabasco was located at a high altitude in rough terrain characterized by towering spires of rock. Landing fields, even for a shuttle, were in short supply. They were forced to land the shuttle about a half-mile from the village and walk the rest of the way, a task that most of our heroes were not really prepared for.
Despite our heroes’ general lack of hiking experience, they made it to Tabasco without significant trouble. The miners were happy to see new faces, and quite ready to answer questions.
Had they seen Lady Palia? Oh, indeed. She came in with a small entourage, only two guards. She had asked all kinds of questions about the labor conditions and how hard was House Harrow squeezing them. Then for a couple of days, nobody saw her. Her guards said she was feeling “indisposed” and keeping to her rooms. Then, a couple of days after that, the guards checked out and left.
Did they have any idea where the guards might have gone? Well, come to think of it, they had seen the guards drinking with Hollis Vexx the last few nights they were in town.
Hollis Vexx? A curmudgeonly old man who ran a wildcat mining operation further up in the mountains. The people of Tabasco disagreed whether he was more “coot” or “codger”, but agreed it was one of the two. They gave our heroes directions on how to get to Vexx’s camp, showed them a grainy holo-vid of the man, and wished them good luck.
After another two mile hike, most everybody aside from Davin and Suzal, who’ve been through basic training, was feeling the burn. As they approached the camp, they saw a crowd of burly men going about their business, all with dopey grins. All, that is, except for Hollis Vexx, who stood in the middle of camp with a sour expression.
When challenged, Lakota showed his badge and explained their mission: they wanted to question a couple of Maradonian ex-guardsmen who might be in this camp. Looking around, Lakota indicated two men, identifying them as the guards in question. The two men started to cheerfully agree, yes, they were who he was looking for… then Vexx waved a hand and hushed them. “Got a warrant?” he asked.
“Do I need a warrant?” Lakota retorted.
Vexx waved his hand. “Ok, ok, I see where this is going. Let me explain. I was born a poor Maradonian child…” He then went on to tell a long-winded story.
As a young man, he said, he had made a study of the local rock aphids. These are uncommon creatures found in some mountainous regions of Sirocco. They are known for their foul tempers and their strange alien physiology. They eat metal-rich ores, which they locate using their natural psionic abilities to find what they desire. Vexx had developed a process by which one could, at great personal risk, “milk” the rock aphids to gather their “honey”, which could then be further distilled into a substance that could enhance psionic abilities, helpful in clearing visions and finding hidden things.
This was great, Vexx continued, except for the rock aphids’ temper and their ability to chew even decent armor to shreds. They were easily provoked. It was dangerous to harvest the honey. Luckily, Vexx had a secret advantage. “I’ve always had this uncanny ability to change folks’ minds,” he said.
Ominous music. Noin Dal visibly jumped and glared at Vexx. Could he mean… mind control?
Both Harket and Suzal felt the warning of approaching danger and murmured a warning to the others. Our heroes heard the faint sound of marching feet, coming from the far side of the camp, from another canyon. Tension mounted. Our heroes put their hands on their weapons. Several miners hefted weighty tools.
As if oblivious, Hollis Vexx carried on with his tale. He would go into the nearby camps, he said, and “talk people into” seeing the joys of harvesting rock aphid honey for him, at a very low rate of pay. (All the miners happily nodded to each other. A few high-fived.) The operation had been running smoothly for some time, now. Long enough to gather and distill a fine batch of the seeing-drug. And today was the day that he would sell that batch to his new patron and retired from this dried-out husk of a planet.
At this point, the source of the marching sounds came into view. It was a large group of combat androids, followed by a smaller group of light Imperial infantry, followed by a cloaked and masked figure in dark clothes. Davin gasped; an Imperial Knight! Trailing that group, standing far back, Captain Dal noticed a group of civilians that included her old tormentor, Captain Senkried. She went for her guns. Combat began.
Lakota made it a priority to shoot Hollis Vexx’s jaw, to keep him from issuing any weird mind-controller orders, then started mowing down androids. (As he would later put it in his official report: “I shot a man’s face off so he couldn’t get into my brain meats.”) Davin and Harket started doing the same to Imperial troopers. Dal threw everything she had at Senkried, but wasn’t able to connect. Suzal drew their spear from its extradimensional hammer-space and sprinted across the battlefield, arrow-straight, headed for the Imperial Knight.
For her part, the Imperial Knight drew one force sword in her right hand… a second force sword in her left hand… and a third force sword with an invisible psychokinetic hand. While she struck a defensive posture, the third force sword hurtled across the battlefield to meet Suzal.
Badly wounded, but still standing, Hollis Vexx turned to stagger away from the fray, motioning for his followers to escort him.
One of the people near Senkried turned to her, saying “This isn’t our fight, First Mate Senkried. Time to return to the ship.” They turned and ran back the way they had come, dodging occasional blaster fire. (The man’s name wasn’t mentioned, but he showed up in the credits as Captain Midrid Dorf. Having no ship because somebody stole it! she’s been forced to take work henching for Captain Dorf. Sad state of affairs, really.)
As Suzal continued their heroic charge, the others continued their efforts to clean out the Imperial forces without injuring any of the innocent miners. Dal fired at Senkried, then shot the retreating Vexx in the back. Vexx staggered and fell into the arms of his loyal followers, who quickly hustled him off the field of battle.
Harket demonstrated his skill with his custom keytar/sonic weapon, unleashing a wave of sonic energy that destroyed the Knight’s flying force sword and one of the robots, badly injured one of the troopers, and forced the Knight to acrobatically retreat out of the area of effect. She glared at him quickly before flinging her left-hand force sword towards Suzal’s direction. It entered close combat, barely missing the alien ninja.
Just as the last of the mooks were being cleaned up, Suzal ducked under the force sword and kept running directly at the Knight, exposing their back in an effort to get to the heart of the matter. Literally, as it happened. Suzal summoned up a tremendous effort, enhancing their “touch telekinesis” to wildly superhuman levels, re-doubling that strength with Power Blow, firing off their hyperdense spear’s rocket booster, and landing an earth-shaking blow to the Knight’s heart. The spear went through both the front and back of her armored chest plate. Dust was raised in a six-foot radius. Suzal stood perfectly still for a moment, then there was a short shower of blood.
“You, uh, you ok there, big guy?” Harket asked. Suzal recovered with icy self-control and got back to the job.
Captain Dorf and Senkried escaped; our heroes heard the sound of a nearby shuttle taking off. Most of the miners had made off with Hollis Vexx, shielding him with their own bodies. The two mind-controlled guards stayed behind to surrender, in a bid to prevent pursuit.
When questioned, they claimed that Lady Palia had ordered them to cover for her absence while she snuck away from Tabasco to spend time with her secret beau. They admitted this was poor security practice, but protested that they had no choice, they had to follow orders. They didn’t know exactly who the secret beau might be.
That night, after dropping off the prisoners and the dead with the appropriate agencies, our heroes spent the evening at the Mangled Puppy, and a good time was had by all. Harket stole the show with his singing.
Afterwards, Suzal logged on to Stratagem to check their armies before bed. They found a private message waiting for them, a message from their new friend Etienne. After some game-related pleasantries, Etienne got to the heart of the matter: “I don’t know exactly what it is that you do, but I can tell that you’re an experienced interstellar operator. You are more sophisticated in the ways of the galaxy than I, who have never been off the planet I was born on. I am asking for your help. I need to smuggle myself, plus one, off Sirocco without anyone knowing.”
Suzal pondered for a moment, then responded with an affirmative.
To be continued…
Suzal’s disbelief in the supernatural has been tested. They bought off their Delusion, and replaced it with a Quirk-level dislike of the supernatural. With a built-in denial that anything they are doing is uncanny at all.
Ka Soh and Lenny’s player were both out sick this time, which is why they did not appear. They were probably off getting their force swords polished or something.
It has been established that only Davin is taking advantage of a free bunk on Captain Dal’s ship. Dal, of course, has a cabin on her ship. Suzal has long-term lodgings at the spaceport and a per diem. Harket has a dingy apartment. Lakota sleeps in a spare cell at whatever town he’s staying in, if nothing better offers itself.
Noin Dal’s shower hallucination provoked a Fright Check, which was easily passed. “This is because we failed that Will roll, isn’t it?” Yes, yes, it is.
“Harket” and “Waaktaar” are both references. I swear, the player started it.
For clarity, since this came up during the game as something that was unclear: while Mania did seem to recognize Suzal and the word “sibling” was thrown around, and while she does have a rather extreme fashion sense, she is also clearly human. She is not a nine-foot-tall weird alien. Suzal’s species’ many and various genders do not map onto human gender identities, while Mania presents herself very clearly as a clown-girl. Weirder things are afoot.
I’m trying to remind the players that they have access to Impulse Buy points, so I gave everybody one for the session. A couple got spent. They’re all getting used to the idea of using their Luck, probably because they all have it, and they all keep reminding each other that they have it. A combination of the two went into Suzal’s super-strength, towards the end, there.
Standard award was 3 points. Cool Point went to Suzal, for a heroic charge across the entire battlefield to land a devastating blow on the Imperial Knight.
]]>At the moment, I am only a few days away from being ready to hand Architect of Worlds off to my publisher at Ad Astra Games. Last night I reached the end of the draft in this final editorial-art direction-layout pass. That doesn’t mean I’m finished just yet, but I can now do things like resolve the last “p. XX” references, build a Table of Contents, and so on. I’m guessing I may be ready to send the production PDF files over to Ken Burnside by the end of next week.
Now, the rest of my life is uncommonly busy at the moment.
My day job is as an instructional designer and instructor; I do research, write course materials, and occasionally teach. At the moment we’re about to begin a pilot offering for the biggest single course I’ve ever designed . . . and we plan to pilot two more courses after that, stretching through most of 2024, courses I haven’t even started on yet. Let’s just say I’m likely to be putting in a lot of hours on evenings and weekends over most of the coming year.
Meanwhile, I’m also working toward a second bachelor’s degree, and eventually my first graduate degree, with a plan to complete the course of study about the time I’m ready to retire from my day job. So far my coursework has been almost entirely review, but it does take up some time. For example, this weekend I’m working through some material I hadn’t had time to stay caught up on throughout the month of December.
So that’s the background noise that’s going to stay consistent, even while I put (the first edition of) Architect of Worlds on its final glide-path to release. Still, once those PDFs are out the door, a big slot will open up on my calendar for new forms of creative work. How completely I’ll be able to pivot in the month of January remains to be seen, but by the end of the month I hope to at least get started on some new creative work.
What’s that going to involve? At the moment, I think I’m going to get back to working on my more-or-less-hard-SF universe, under the working title of The Human Destiny. Which will involve some combination of:
I’m not going to try to build a formal task list, as I’ve done in previous “planning for the coming month” posts. Things are too much in a state of flux at the moment. It’s safe to say that January 2024 will involve two major themes: (1) finishing Architect of Worlds at last and putting it in the hands of my publisher; and (2) pivoting to resume work on the Human Destiny setting. Exactly where I stand on 31 January will inform the more structured planning messages for February 2024 and onward.
For my patrons: There may be a charged release at the end of this month, for the first time in quite a while. It depends on whether I can produce enough new or substantially revised Human Destiny material to justify that. You can probably count on charged releases resuming on a more-or-less regular monthly basis by February 2024.
]]>“If you’re ready for a game of vast conspiracies and sleepless nights, a game in which your obsessions give you strength and great power comes with great corruption…then read on.” – Unknown Armies 3e
The occultists, magicians and supernatural beings active in Whistleleaf City are mostly unknown even to large parts of the government and big business (with the exceptions detailed here and in future posts). Assume The Scene counts as either One Mixed Underworld (Clued-In humans and most monsters get along well enough to form an intermingled subculture with some internal conflicts and factionalism) or Separate Underworlds (Clued-In humans and all individual “types” of monsters are in a cold war against one another, some monster types are too small in number and independent to have a society of their own, every subculture has subgroups pursuing their own agenda) for the purposes of the setting’s social milieu. (Note: the default unnatural threat for this setting is assumed to be monsters from fantasy and folklore, but sci-fi monsters like aliens, black bio-tech experiments and brain parasites are also perfectly valid to use here.) Some monsters are newcomers to the region while others predate the arrival of the Europeans. If psionics exists in this setting, magicians and psis may count as separate underworlds who are rivals or are unaware of each other.
Some of Whistleleaf City’s local TV weather forecasters are actually weather wizards (they have the Ritual Technique Weatherworking, Thaumatology pages 156-157); the few in the know (or have superstitiously noted that parties where the forecasters get invited to never get rained out) make sure they always get invited to their outdoor events (or in winter, any events). Unfortunately some of the wizards don’t get along with each other. And some of the ordinary forecasters are baffled about why their forecasts sometimes go wrong (“there was no way a rainstorm should have happened”).
Clued-In humans often go to trouble to pretend to be completely normal people in public, of course, keeping the dark secrets of magic, alchemy and other strangeness confined to basements, attics, hideouts and secret rooms. Getting publicly exposed as a magician or anything else can mean getting hunted down by monsters and other Clued-In as a threat to “the racket” – losing a Secret and gaining a nasty Enemy. This goes double for monsters masquerading as mundane humans.
Magician Bloodlines
Notable factions within The Scene include or are completely made up of families who have a handed-down-parent-to-child tradition of learning Rituals from a single Book (one that was written or discovered by a great-great grandparent). Most such families currently number about 9-15 people who have the Book skill and Ritual techniques across main branch descendants, cousins, in-laws, adopted prodigies and trusted servants. There are another 6-10 more members of the family who do not know the magic (no points in Ritual Magic skill) for whatever reason but nevertheless have the wider secret knowledge (typically Occultism and Current Affairs (Supernatural) skills) to be Clued-In. Any other family members are ignorant of The Scene but probably loyal enough to keep their mouth shut about family matters to outsiders. A family involved in The Scene may instead or also know Alchemy and elixir recipes. Many families established in The Scene are outwardly respected (Status 1+) and boast mundane resources like good sized town houses and perhaps a country cabin or two (Wealth is Comfortable or higher with levels of Independent Income). Assume there are about 8 different magician families of this type active in Whistleleaf City currently. Any given bloodline has cultivated their own jealously guarded secret magical assets like places of power (bonuses to rituals), golems, quality grimoires (bonuses to rituals), alliances with monsters (deals with demons are traditional), artefacts with powers, libraries of forbidden lore and stockpiles of symbolic materials/ingredients. Individual family members have the Occultist/Magician stats to start, with more Traits added in by the GM to fit their story role. A given magician family can have their own internal squabbles but will try to put up an united front against outsiders, especially rival occultist families and lower class independent magicians. Their motives are typically unremarkable ambitions (more money, more power, kill the people who wronged us, get our patriarch out of prison) even if their methods are supernatural – but the GM is always free to have THIS family desire something completely bizarre and esoteric. (Feed 100 souls to the demon! Night that never ends! Open a gate to an alternate universe!) Leadership of an occult bloodline is typically in the hands of the eldest members, a single patriarch/matriarch (who may even be dead and a ghost giving orders from beyond the grave), or a hotshot youngster golden child with a strong personality who managed to make it big with success in business, political connections, the elders’ blessing and magical talent.
Magic Shops
People who are buying and selling authentically supernatural stuff maintain a cover as a mundane store or venue. The Current Affairs (Supernatural) skill or an appropriate Contact can locate one. The selection of goods and services for sale at these secret shops might include all the things listed in previous posts (https://tabletoprpg333.home.blog/2022/04/04/the-kings-head-tavern-pt-1/) and (https://tabletoprpg333.home.blog/2022/03/06/npc-bernard-woods/) under the headings “The Grey Market” and “Inventory and Services” respectively. The fronts for the three biggest magic shops in Whistleleaf are a bookshop My Best Sellers, a pawnshop Instant Exchange Pawnbrokers, and a bowling alley Super Bowl Arcade. General stats on the fly for the people running these shops and the Clued-In customers are best represented as Occultist/Magician Generic NPCs (see previous post).
My Best Sellers is a cosy book shop with a pleasant atmosphere next to a street-side cafe. The shop is owned by Jade Sullivan, a charming middle-aged woman with a well-known love of history, art, languages and literature. Her 23-year-old son, her best friend and a few local teenagers also work at the store, helping her out. The shop’s shelves are filled with unremarkable books of all sorts of topics and genres both fiction and non-fiction. None of the shop’s internal and external doors are particularly tough or well-locked, the alarm system is nothing special. Surveillance cameras are placed both inside and out on the street, as this shop is located in a middle-class standard shopping district. The shop’s cash register has only a couple hundred dollars in it at most times. There is a chalkboard out front listing the newest releases and recently obtained used books. Talking to Jade, dropping the right code phrases for being “in the know” and expressing a desire to buy “specialist textbooks” gets you in business. The shop is rumoured to have “the stuff” in the back room but that is wrong. Really, the owner keeps her occult inventory stored in a secure vault hidden out in the countryside. When a customer puts in an order (and is vetted to be an “honest buyer with cash on hand”), she makes the trip out to the vault under cover of darkness to retrieve the item/s being bought so the customer can pick up the purchase later at an agreed-upon item and place. Trying to rob or harm Jade Sullivan is a very bad idea; she has strong roots in the community and she has even stronger magical power to bring to bear. Her son Jeremy is a tough scrapper with a few unlicensed firearms hidden in his car and apartment.
Instant Exchange Pawnbroker is a shady operation in the heart of a declining neighbourhood. The staff in charge of this place ask few questions about acquired items. The high ticket items on sale are either obviously mediocre quality or probably stolen. Local cops are paid off to not pry into the legal status of what’s on the shelves or how the store keeps the money rolling in. The store has secure metal doors both inside and out, locked with good security systems, surveillance cameras keeping watch over the place. All the occult stuff is kept in a safe, hidden behind a concealed door in the backroom. Buying or selling supernatural items is done only with an appointment in advance and with the exchange going down in the shop’s office, armed goons watching over the deal. The store has 6 employees working there, all of them Clued-In. The pawnbroker who owns the store is a scummy opportunist by the name of Virgil Bowman. Half of the pawnshop’s staff are Crook Generic NPCs of the Dealer or Grifter subtype with some Occultist Traits like the Current Affairs (Supernatural) skill. Virgil is a Magician specialising in Alchemy, he usually carries elixirs for personal use on his person. There’s a loaded shotgun kept under the dealer’s counter, another loaded shotgun is hidden in the employee’s lounge, all the staff carry small pistols in ankle holsters or discrete shoulder holsters, they all wear light concealed kevlar vests. They probably won’t call 9-1-1.
Super Bowl Arcade is a cheap family-friendly hangout with a snack bar, 2 pool tables and some pinball machines, open late enough for night owls (it starts selling beer past 9 PM). The alley’s personnel is only a cashier, 2 snack bar clerks, 3 mechanics for maintaining the machines, the owner who handles all the business numbers and 5 cleaners. It features 5 lanes for games of bowling (shoes and balls easily rented at the alley). The doors and security systems are all average for a legitimate business in the entertainment district. The only occult underground business operating here is one of the snack bar clerks, the 18-year-old Isabella Bigtree, selling common Alchemical elixirs on the side. She does not brew the elixirs herself, she just takes the orders and makes the exchanges, her supplier is top secret. She has aligned herself with a local street gang, who have a small bunch of their number regularly hang out at the Arcade during her shift for her protection. Isabelle’s stats are a Clued-In But No Magic Occultist specialising in social skills and with a Beautiful Appearance and an Ally Group of very minor power.
Carrie Soap
Nosy Fortune Teller, age 25.
One of the more harmless members of the occult underground, Carrie Soap is a gentle-mannered and matronly-dressed woman working as a fortune teller in an out-of-the-way little shop at the edges of a minor shopping district. She has legitimate supernatural powers of divination (she may be a psychic with ESP and Telepathy if you’re using Psionics, otherwise she’s a magician as per the Relevant Traits given below) and uses them to help people in exchange for a fee. She is not known much even within The Scene, but she has turned up on the fringes of “interesting” local events and mysteries, sometimes talking to the cops or people more directly involved in the strangeness. Her actual motive for this she keeps to herself, she is somewhat foolishly attracted to solving mysteries and learning more about the world around her, to the point of using her powers to secretly read minds just to satisfy a whim. That said, Carrie really is a goodhearted person who means no harm to anyone, even if she is just begging for trouble. She may approach PCs in the middle of adventures to help or investigate (perhaps when she is not wanted), or a PC looking for help may end up at her shop. Carrie Soap is a plain faced but spry young woman with raven black hair and bright green eyes, she wears a royal purple with gold trim “mystic” outfit when she is behind the counter at her shop.
Relevant Traits: Photographic Memory; Empathy; Secret (Magician/Psychic); Curious (12); Pacifism (Cannot Harm Innocents); Current Affairs (Supernatural)-14; Fortune-Telling (Tarot)-14; Occultism-14; Magery 3; Ritual Magic (Books)-17; Book (Secrets of the LVXII Painting)-16; Ritual Technique (Vision of Luck)-16; Ritual Technique (Scry)-14; Ritual Technique (Read Thoughts)-14; Ritual Technique (History)-15. If she is psychic, replace all ritual magic traits with the Fortune-Teller (Psis page 24), Visions of Past and Future (Psis page 24) and Eavesdropper (Psis page 31) psionics packages.
Louis Appleby
Vigilante and Blackmailer, age 25.
On the surface, Louis Appleby is a bitter and down-on-his-luck electrician, but that is his cover for his double life as a freelance street magician with a dubious agenda. Not that he isn’t actually bitter, he just acts on that bitterness in secret and scummy ways that few can anticipate. His main personal project, you see, is using the ritual Whispered Secrets to covertly learn the dark secrets of his clientele while on the job (he takes things belonging to the client from the job-site so he can cast the ritual on them when he “takes a break” or “has to go fetch a tool left behind at the office”). Once that is done, he uses the pilfered information to anonymously blackmail his victims (he has a burner e-mail account, voice scrambler and spare cell phone for exactly these purposes), either shaking them down for cash (he wants it delivered in an envelope to a dead drop) or force them to commit an act of sabotage or violence against someone Louis hates (typically a corrupt public figure or a criminal who escaped justice). He justifies the cash extortion as “The revolution doesn’t pay for itself.” The vigilante acts are Louis’ main interest, though. If he can get close enough to a target all by himself, he’ll simply use the Whispered Secrets ritual directly against them, gather whatever physical proof of the bad stuff he can get (not always easy, he often has blackmailed cutouts do legwork for this) and just anonymously tip off the cops and/or press to the dark secret himself with a mysterious package from an unidentified source. If the attempt to expose the target does not work, Louis will escalate by burning a blackmail victim to commit arson or a drive-by shooting. Louis will use other rituals he knows less frequently. Despite his talent for magic, he is mostly unaware of the rest of the occult underground – this could end up being his fatal flaw, if his “crusade for justice” steps on the wrong toes. Louis Appleby is a tall and tough African-American man with a shaggy black haircut (with some dyed blonde highlights) and hard brown eyes. His blue collar clothes are never very stylish, but they all wash easily and last long. He keeps a set of good quality lockpicks and sabotage tools hidden in his work kit for subtle thievery. His voice is a low baritone, often stand-offish.
Relevant Traits: Callous; Secret (Magician, Blackmailer); Magery 3; Ritual Magic (Books)-15; Book (The One Thousand Eyes)-15; Ritual Technique (Whispered Secrets)-15; Ritual Technique (What the Statue Saw)-12; Ritual Technique (Treasure)-13; Ritual Technique (Scry)-13; Electrician-13; Filch-13; Stealth-13; Observation-14; Acting-13; Diplomacy-13; Intimidation-14; Lockpicking-13; Holdout-13.
The Dana Project
The city’s local university has a few classes not in the official catalogue, along with a few professors and adjuncts who teach those as well as more mundane classes (old money from some of the established magical families ensures this). In addition to these magic lessons, a small selection of staff and students (a total of 20 to 30 individuals, all with magic and/or psionics) are also secretly conducting unsanctioned studies into occult topics under the codename of The Dana Project. The Dana Project recruits anyone involved in The Scene it can for help, a risky endeavour. As suggested by Horror pages 33-34, an entire campaign frame and united group of player-characters may be composed of academics and their assistants having adventures by researching supernatural mysteries. The Dana Project is quickly becoming its own small faction in the occult underground, with most other factions and all monsters seeing it as a potential threat that they can’t quite stamp out completely.
The Fabric Institute
If psychic powers exist in this setting, then one of the occult underground factions is The Fabric Institute, a collective of psis banding together to study their powers in secret, their cover being a boring and dead-end miniature department of a bio-tech firm. The Fabric Institute is made up of 20 psis (most with a background in science and academia) and 35 “friendlies” (people who are not psis but are trusted to assist and let in on the secret). The leadership consists of 5 founding members, all psis, who direct policy and research from the top-down, leeching off funds from the greater bio-tech firm thanks to a careful mind controlling of the investors and CEO. A psionic member of the Institute can be modelled as a Parapsychologist (Psis pages 16-17), a Mythbuster (Psis pages 15-16), an Investigator (Psis pages 13-14) or an Experiment (Psis pages 12-13). It is entirely possible that the Institute’s research into psionics and the supernatural are not ethical, legal or sane. The Institute is currently unaware of the monsters and magic, and (being technically scientists) are highly sceptical of such conspiracy nonsense. They just know that their psychic experiments occasionally get weird readings and they’re trying to nail down the cause. The rest of The Scene is probably ignorant of them, too, although the Institute’s goal of gathering hard data on unnatural phenomenon will likely earn them lots of powerful enemies once it becomes known.
Underground Fighting Ring
The Scene has its own twist on the standard criminal enterprise of unregulated fights between people or animals; captive monsters battling it out for the gambling crowd.
This is not an easy thing to set up, as the monsters must be both taken alive (most monster hunters definitely prefer dead) and then kept in a suitable holding cell until it is time for them to enter the ring. The organisers of the fights pay heft sums to daring monster hunters for quarries and have built amazing exotic prisons for their contenders. It’s all worth it to sell a show that is one of a kind, plenty of wealthy thrill-seekers pay huge amounts to both attend and gamble on the outcome. The “contenders” in the ring are usually some kind of undead, werewolf or cryptids (so the gang has plenty of silver bullets and firestarters), but the gang has been known to throw captured people (such as gamblers who couldn’t pay their debts or snooping investigators) into the ring as well. Sometimes, the humans have a fighting chance, armed with decent weapons or knowledge of magic. Other times, they are simply snacks for the serious fighters, set up to die for the crowd’s amusements.
The gang running the fights is 25 men strong (not counting their allies outside the gang and the hired help they boss around to keep the facilities clean and secure), and they all have Current Affairs (Supernatural) skill-15, good armour, good weapons (consider Loadouts: Monster Hunters for equipment suggestions), and the training to use them. Model them as worthy combatants such as in the vein of the Tough Guy (Monster Hunters 4: Sidekicks page 16) or Slayer (Horror page 43) template with a few added criminal skills. About 5 to 8 of them ALSO have supernatural powers like Ritual Book Magic and Alchemy that helps with the capture and containment of monsters. They pay big bribes to the cops for both helpful information and to stymie investigations.
Their leader is Michael Tully, a veteran occultist and dangerous career criminal. He has a taste for various vices but he stays on top of them…and keeps a tight grip on his subordinates with his naturally threatening presence. He is a very imposing and physically powerful tanned man with old scars, brown hair and blue eyes.
Cult: The Golden Fire Society
The Golden Fire Society is an occult philosophy fraternity dedicated to, meeting in secret and pursuing an esoteric hidden agenda with authentic ceremonial magic. The cult informs its members that it serves the will of a dragon in exchange for the power of magic and wealth. The higher the member of the cult, the more of the truth about the dragon he is allowed to know. The dragon probably does exist in some way, but it may not fit the creature of legend that common folklore and mythology claims dragons are. (Whatever the truth about the dragon, it is happy to stay in the shadows for now and let The Golden Fire Society do its dirty work.) The actual day-to-day activity of the cult is a mixture of occult underground gang warfare (assassinations, claiming places of power, stealing artefacts, etc.) and mundane jockeying for wealth and status (sponsoring public works, bribing politicians, arranging marriages, playing the stock market, etc.), all of which is backed up with the cult’s signature spells (see below). Their most common meetings are for worshipping the dragon, a ceremony that might just be entirely non-magical and for the sake of building up “team spirit” in members.
The cult currently has 35 full members, all of them initiated into the magical style (see below) and capable of ceremonial spells. They have about 50 to 75 more hapless dupes, mercenaries and miscellaneous servants to enforce their will and are ignorant of their true masters or the actual agenda being served. The leadership is a small council of the 5 most powerful members (who receive magical messages directly from the dragon itself), who issue orders to the lower ranks and plan spell-casting operations at various key points. Members of the cult do not have tattoos, uniform robes or heraldry to signal their membership, but instead rely upon code-words, passwords and secret handshakes.
Members of the cult may be modelled by taking the usual Cultist or Occultist stats (from the previous post on Generic NPCs) and adding the Cult Secrets Magical Style (including selections from its Optional Traits) from Magical Styles: Horror Magic pages 5-7 on top of the generic stat block. It’s believed no members of this cult have attained a Rank higher than Master (Cult Rank 3). If anyone has actually gotten higher in both Rank and magical power, they are keeping it a secret from even their own fellow cultists. The high ranking socially powerful leaders should be modelled after the Cult Leader NPC from Horror: The Madness Dossier page 32 with the added Cult Secret Magic Style stuff replacing some of the traits applicable to the Madness Dossier setting.
Cult: The Church of The Final Rest
This covert organisation has a seemingly benevolent, respected and wealthy Protestant church as its front. Behind closed doors, however, 10 of the church’s staff are really unhinged servants and worshippers of a Lich (Magic page 160). The cultists range from simple church accountants to at least one of the pastors. The cult’s ideology believes that an apocalypse of undead will soon rise from the shadows and overcome the world we know now – everything from vampires to ghosts to hordes of zombies will swarm the living and either devour them or reduce humanity to a faded shell of what it is now (perhaps enslaved by vampires). Half of the cultists actively WANT this apocalypse to come about, the other half simply think it is inevitable but survivable. All of them aim to survive the coming end of the world by embracing dark magicks – in this case, they have all been learning The Onyx Path magic style (Thaumatology Magical Styles pages 34-36) from their Lich master. The Church seeks out occult lore on the undead and occasionally tries to locate undead “in the wild” so that they may studied. So far, they’ve found nothing but dry holes. The Lich in charge of the cult might be misleading their devoted pupils as to the true purpose of these efforts, and have a completely different hidden agenda of its own.
Stat the cultists of The Church of The Final Rest as Magicians or Cultists but add all the Required Traits of The Onyx Path Style (most cultists have few of the Optional Traits given). None of the 10 cultists have yet learned enough magic to reach a level beyond Shadowkeeper, the Third Circle. Plenty of the cultists have Status 1+ and Wealth (Comfortable or higher). The Lich leader is a more powerful spellcaster, it has made it all the way to the Sixth Circle of the style, Immortal. The Lich makes their lair in a secure and hidden crypt below the church building.
Secret Society: The Eye Biters
The largest cabal of occultists in The Scene is a rather diverse and troubled coalition calling itself The Eye Biters, its membership numbering 60. The cabal has mad scientists (you can model this as magical Gadgeteers or Weird Science producing metatronic generators or superscience tech), magicians (of any system), alchemists, sages and monster hunters in its ranks (if psionics are used, there’s also psis in the cabal), all of them mostly united by their desire to smack down any occultists not in their club and grow in supernatural power.
The closest thing the secret society has to a leadership is a rogue’s gallery of “big dogs”, the 7 most powerful occultists currently in Whistleleaf. The big dogs agree with each other on enough things and command enough respect and fear that their orders will be obeyed, giving The Eye Biters sufficient direction and cohesion that the secret society has claimed the most territory and resources of all the occult underground factions. For now, the membership is mostly satisfied with the big dogs, as the cabal is ascendant despite not making many inroads into the mundane halls of power (politics, religion, big business, etc.) or expanding their territory beyond Whistleleaf. The Eye Biters have their own logo (used sparingly) depicting a stylised eye within a set of jagged jaws, their own “uniform colors” (navy blue with silver lines/trim) and their own identifying passwords. 5 of the cabal’s members (none of them a big dog, but all of them are decently powerful) have been corrupted by a demon and are now looking to corrupt others as a sort of fifth column within the cabal. 10 of the members are actively plotting to supplant a big dog as a leading figure in various ways from subtle assassination to stealing magical assets. 3 of the membership are undercover agents for a top secret government anti-occult taskforce, trying to bring The Eye Biters down from the inside.
One of the big dogs calling shots within The Eye Biters is an accomplished magician known by his nickname “Flywheel.” Flywheel has been a major player in The Scene for 10 years and his cover identity is a reporter working for a local newspaper (it’s a fake name). He is a 200-point magician whose current interest is Theo-Necromancy (see Pyramid 3/105 pages 22-27). Very few in The Scene know much about him other than his direct underlings (who are in awe of him), but his reputation is solid (+4 amongst The Scene, known on 12 or less) and the ripples of his deeds have left marks on Whistleleaf’s underbelly.
Monsters and Supernatural Entities
Whistleleaf City is haunted by several different types of non-human and not-quite-human beings. Some of them are big enough in number and perhaps organised enough that they can pose a threat even to magicians and SWAT teams. Monster lairs can be found in and around Whistleleaf, in locations like a cemetery, an island in the lake, a hill cave in the state park, and an abandoned house in a bad neighbourhood.
Many urban legends of Americana could have some truth to them, but the truth behind such may not match exactly what the campfire tales and internet gossip say. Cryptids include all sorts of urban legends like albino alligators in the sewers, Bigfoot, Thunderbirds, Slide-rock Bolters, Hodag, Gumberoo, Ogopogo, a sea serpent in the lake, Tree Octopuses and other strange fearsome critters. They are not any community, because they are as intelligent as animals or simply live rare independent existences.
There are no more than 30 to 50 vampires active in Whistleleaf City when the campaign starts. This number probably won’t go much higher, as vampires do not usually create more of their kind if they can help it. (Depending on the campaign’s needs, the vampire racial template used can be from Horror, Fantasy, Monster Hunters or other book.) They are vicious rivals of magicians in political games and supernatural conflicts. Vampires do not get along very well with each other, but they hate the other factions in The Scene more. The biggest nest of vampires (about 15) is in a large apartment block in a blue collar neighbourhood, subtly converted into a hideout safe from the sun (the utility guts of the building make for an excellently dark place for coffins) and a feeding corral (the human apartment residents were taken captive).
If the campaign uses Mummies as a monster active in the setting, there is only one such awakened intelligent undead in Whistleleaf, except for any Mummy PCs. That Mummy will be an independent operator in The Scene trying to build a power base in both the mundane sphere and the underground with their supernatural powers, facing pushback from other power players. This does not count as a community for obvious reasons. The Mummy has claimed a highly secure mansion in the hills as his lair, as well as a cover as an eccentric reclusive millionaire.
Liches are possible, but very rare. If no PCs are Liches, there’s only one active in Whistleleaf at the moment, in fact. (See The Church of The Final Rest above.) Thus, they’re too few in number to be an underworld.
Ghosts are very common, one of the most encountered supernatural beings in Whistleleaf. Zombies are also a typical undead creature, usually animated by magicians for some unholy purpose. These undead do not have a power faction of their own, of course.
Demons are believed to not be the same creature described by religious dogma (occultists do not put much stock in any religion) but they are certainly evil and dangerous. (Angels do not seem to exist or show up in Whistleleaf.) They are motivated to either corrupt people into sinful actions because they seem to feed off that or destroy humanity as best as they can in some kind of genocide crusade. Naturally, they have few friends, all other monsters oppose them and occultists see them as risky tools to be magically dominated at best. Hell does not exist in any form, so the occultists hope, the true origin and nature of demons remains unconfirmed. They do not count as a community because every demon prefers to manipulate mortals as pawns or stay completely alone in their endeavors rather than team up with each other. A demon can show up anywhere in Whistleleaf, maintaining lairs and operations in industrial districts, middle class suburbs, dockyard warehouses, upscale gated communities, lonely abandoned buildings, caves in the woods and lakeside tourist hotels.
Werewolves (other lycanthropes might exist as a minority) have formed their own community. There are 70 to 100 such shape-shifters currently living in Whistleleaf City, their transformation abilities come from either deliberate magic or a magical contagious disease that’s partially out of their control (both categories exist simulataneously). Werewolves of the second category have found themselves involuntarily shape-shifting in response to stress (public humiliation, threats to life and limb, feeling hemmed in by a crowd, etc.) rather than the full moon or other nightly event. Werewolves on the whole are mostly motivated by their close-knit community ties, which includes some entrenched grudges against certain specific occultists and vampires in general. Conflicts between werewolves do happen, though, just not for very long or to the extent of causing many deaths. Werewolf packs have settled into the more remote lower class neighbourhoods and the nature trail tourist attractions of Whistleleaf, close to the wilderness.
Spirits within the setting are magical mostly intangible constructs birthed from deliberate magic and natural spontaneous outbursts of otherworldly energies metastasising into an intelligence. This category of supernatural entity includes faeries of any kind. Most spirits other than faeries are independent beings ruling over their own discreet patches of territory (like a single river or city block), not a community. (See Fantasy pages 30-31 for a general discussion of spirits.) Faeries are much more political, coming from an otherworldly plane and having their own social order. The other factions in the occult underground are neutral towards them, but can easily be made hostile if the faeries annoy them or have something (like a magical resource) they want. The faerie court operates out of a wealthy neighbourhood, hidden by strong illusion magic.
TO BE CONTINUED
]]>The Gaming Ballistic sale features 19 different DFRPG and fantasy-adjacent products. PDF-only products and bundles are 50% off. Those containing physical product are 25% off. The sale ends tonight at 10pm Central.
For those concerned with such things, SJ wrote a Daily Illuminator noting that the material produced for the DFPRG from GB is “official” material, and both he and Kromm consider it that way. So while it’s third-party, it’s not home-brew and it does get looked at and discussed with Sean (Kromm) to ensure coherence with the rest of the line.
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]]>There are things that I wish someone had told me when I first started out being a gamemaster. Stuff you only get told by someone who knows (assuming you listen) or things which you learn at the school of hard knocks. Occasionally, you can read about them if some wise and learned master (*cough*) writes them down, but most of the time it’s the first two. So here we go – ten things you should know
No. Seriously. You don’t. If you do you’re going to just get burnt out and that’ll end the campaign – probably in a spectacularly terrible way. No, what you do is take notes. You ask the players questions between games. then you prepare for what they’re going to do. Unless your players are jerks or uninterested they WILL tell you what they want next session. Count on it. Prepare for it. Delve into the needs as you’ve been told and go from there.
“Bad roleplaying is better than no roleplaying.” The hell it is. If you have a toxic player who always does their own thing, never works with the rest of the players, and is constantly at battle with the gamemaster punt that muthertrucker into the void and move on. But “Christopher, they’re my friend!” Well…that does complicate things and at the same time it doesn’t. Don’t play with them. Tell them their behavior will not tolerated – but you can still be friends. Losing your entire gaming group because of one person is not worth it.
“Théoden King Stands Alone” “No, not alone.” Your players are a resource to be used whenever you need them. A good group will happily help the GM in whatever way they need. Set up the table? Sure. Write up some NPCs. They’re down. The best players can even be roped into sounding boards for plot and it still not affect the game. Get at least one of these players and preferably make your entire group like this.
When your players come up with a cool idea don’t shoot them down. Don’t get miffed. My dude, get riffed. Riff right the hell off of what they are doing. Let them be right. Toss your idea out if theirs is better. Who cares who thought of it the only thing that shoulder matter is everyone is having fun, the game is running smooth, and there is much awesome at the table.
This is important to. Get at least one person who is a GM as a “TTRPG confidant”. Someone you can talk to about player woes, scheduling problems, plots, and more. Cultivate that relationship. Being a GM is not a zero sum game. You are not competing with other GMs (unless you’re being paid for it and that’s a whole other thing.) They are your allies and you should treat them as such.
Memorize everything. Then forget everything. I know. Zen. But seriously. Know the system so you can infer rules on the fly then ignore the system when it causes consternation and not joy. You don’t need to use everything. You just don’t. That said do make sure your players are fully aware of what rules are in force. Nothing breeds contempt at a table faster than the players expecting rules they’re not going to get.
It’s not you vs. the players. It’s you and the players. You’re not some deranged god playing with the lives of paper men. You’re the Admin for the Operating System for the players’ toons. That’s it. You don’t (and shouldn’t) need to be a jerk to them. You’re not toughening them up. You’re not giving them “realism”. You’re not giving them quality time. You’re just being a donkeybutt. Don’t be a donkeybutt.
Presenting a challenge to the players is part of the game. But you don’t have to do it every game. And if you feel like you do you might be ignoring rule 7. When you start to enjoy their suffering you must realize you’ve turned to the Dark Side and eventually that’s gonna lead you to be thrown down an airshaft or something. Of course, some gamers thrive on this sort of thing so this one is more like a guideline than a hard and fast rule.
There was a guy (no, I’m not linking to it) who contended that Theater of the Mind was the only way to play RPGS]s and everything else was lesser/other. That mindset can $%&! right off. The truth (as I have found it) is somewhere in between. “Big” combats should be mapped, everything else can be Theater of the Mind. And you’ll figure out what combination that is for your players. They may want all combat to be mapped. They might want it all to be abstract. The point here is what works for you works for you.
Sometimes players view NPCs as if they were not important or otherwise not needed except when you need to sell stuff, get stuff, etc. This could be further from the truth. NPCs are valuable GM commodity they anchor the game setting to the players and in turn the GM. They are a line of communication, a dialogue, a comm channel for the GM to give the players information in an in-game way. Abuse of these comms should be met with swift and somewhat hostile disdain. Some players like abusing NPCs. See Rule #2. A good group of NPCs the PCs can talk to is a godsend. Their roles are clearly defined and what they can do for the PCs as well as who they are as beings within the game. NPCs are important. Nuff said. The GMPC is a different problem that deserve its own post because what I have to say is contentious. Essentially, if the PCs want an NPC to hang out with and share in there adventures let it happen. It’s a good thing. Anything to make more ties from the players to the GM or world.
And that’s ten things I wish I knew when I was an up and coming gamemaster. Lot of long nights and annoying arguments could have been spared if I did. Now you know them. Go forth and game, my children.
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]]>This character is the GURPS version of a pre-gen character for a Viking-themed one-shot I'm planning on running soon. He was first created as an OSE character, now he is GURPSified!
Æsbiorn Ljotsson, the Bear, is a drunk, wildman who often finds himself in trouble and Drængr Thar always gets him out.
"You grew up with Drængr Thar and he always called you friend, no matter what trouble you found yourself in. He was ready to bail you out, stand by your side, and now that he is in trouble, you know that you must finally repay your debt and bring him back home."
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]]>Alexis Harris. She is a 22 year old getting her start in the field of archeology. She dreams of being a treasure hunter, but for now, just biding her time working on whatever dig site she can get involved with. She loves reading and practicing yoga. She has some self defense martial arts training and her grandpa showed her how to handle a pistol when she was young, though she hopes she doesn't have to use one.
2023 was . . . kind of a rough year for me and my family. Things seemed to be moving along smoothly until mid-June, at which point a series of minor disasters struck.
First, my basement apartment and workspace flooded. We had to pack everything up and move it into storage, repair some of the plumbing, tear up and repair the house’s foundation, install a new drainage system and sump pump, put in new carpet and drywall, and finally move everything back in. Along the way we replaced the water heater. Then the house’s HVAC system went on the fritz, and we ended up replacing the furnace and air conditioning equipment. Then we discovered that we had an infestation of mice, which led to us having the insulation in the attic torn out and replaced – which also caused yet another outbreak of flooding, when the work crew broke open the sprinkler lines up there. Still more drywall repair and painting, although at least we saved the carpets that time, and the exterminators picked up the costs.
By my count, I spent somewhere between 40% and 50% of my annual salary on home repairs this year. Fortunately we had the financial reserves to call upon, but that still hurt. We’re probably not going to get back to our earlier savings state until sometime next year. Assuming I’m still employed by 2025.
Meanwhile, about the time we were wrestling with all of that, I decided to start on a second university degree. As of right now, I’m aiming for a new BSc in Natural Sciences from the Open University in the UK, with a plan to earn a graduate degree in astronomy or space science by the time I retire. All of which entails a fairly healthy commitment of time. Back in August and September that didn’t seem unreasonable . . .
. . . but then, in the September-October timeframe, the biggest course-development project of my entire public-service career came down firmly upon my shoulders, a commitment that’s suddenly pushing everything else aside and probably will throughout 2024.
Well. My time-management and stress-management skills, such as they are, are being sorely tested at the moment. There hasn’t been much relief throughout the second half of 2023, and I don’t anticipate getting to relax much until very late in the new year.
Still, I’ve survived the slings and arrows so far. I’ve even managed to get some good creative work done. I had hoped to have Architect of Worlds completely finished by now, but I can’t complain about that project’s status. As of this moment, the book is finished in final draft, and I’m putting the finishing touches on art selection and layout. I fully expect to have a complete production draft ready within a week or so. Which is a good thing, because Architect now has a publisher. It’s close to a certainty that the book will be on sale through Ad Astra Games and DriveThruRPG no later than March 2024.
I also got another dozen or so book reviews done, and I seem to be attracting a small reputation as a reviewer. I’m apparently going to be serving as a judge for an indie-press writer’s award in the coming year, which should be interesting.
Meanwhile, traffic to this blog remains steady, and I have about twice as many patrons as I did this time last year. Thanks to all of you for your support!
Once Architect is out the door, that means I’ll be free for the first time in over a year to think about other creative projects. I think 2024 is going to be the year I pivot back to writing fiction, with an eye to self-publishing as much of it as possible.
Previous ventures in that direction haven’t been terribly successful – I’ve got a novel and a couple of smaller pieces out there, but they’ve sold very poorly. After quite a bit of thought, I’ve come to the conclusion that my approach was just flat-out incorrect.
To be a successful indie author, you need to take on a lot of roles – editor, art director, communications director, marketing guru. If you don’t have the time, energy, or skill for any of those tasks, you have to hire someone else to do them for you. I’ve been very reluctant to do that in the past, because it sometimes seems as if the entire self-publishing industry is one enormous vanity press. If anyone out there was making money on the basis of my self-published work, it certainly wasn’t me. My editor made money, Amazon and Meta made money, Adobe and Tafi made money, I made not a dime. The only money coming my way was from Patreon.
Okay, time to embrace the reality. I’m going to get back to writing fiction, but I’m going to apply some new techniques for building an audience. I’m also going to bite the bullet and set up a reasonable budget for editing, art, and promotion for each new novel or collection I decide to self-publish. Still going to avoid the worst vanity presses out there, but that doesn’t mean I can’t benefit from professional help. Which may mean that I never get much past “writing as an expensive hobby,” but at least I’ll be able to get my work in front of more people. Who knows, the lightning may strike.
Most likely candidates for new fiction include work set in a re-imagined Human Destiny setting, and the novel Twice-Crowned and its adjacent Fourth Millennium setting. Both of which may also give rise to my next tabletop gaming projects as well. Human Destiny is a decent candidate for that – Ken Burnside, the fellow who will be publishing Architect of Worlds, has already expressed some interest.
The top ten posts for 2023 turned out to be:
The high-traffic posts seemed to be a mix of Architect of Worlds material, general world-building notes, discussion of possible future tabletop-game projects, and status reports about the year’s setbacks. Not unexpected.
So those are my objectives for the coming year: get Architect of Worlds out the door at last, pivot back to writing fiction on a regular basis, and experiment with new ways to get my work in front of interested eyeballs. All while keeping my day job happy, studying for my university courses, and hopefully finding a little time to unwind here and there.
Not expecting any boredom, that’s for sure. With any luck my health, the state of my finances, and the political climate in the country I have to live in will all stay favorable.
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