I want to apply the specialities concept to the Literacy skill in the Dawnlands (my Mythras iron-age central Asian-inflected setting), but without simply having it be a repeat of the specialities of the Language skill. A simple repeat of the same specialities would just turn Literacy into a skill tax imposed on PCs. I also think it's pretty boring.
I also think we need to avoid the obvious extension of it, which is to separate the ability to interpret and decipher writing in a particular form into speech. I initially made this error and had five different alphabets, syllabaries, abugidas and pictograms, which Literacy would let you turn into something you then needed a Language skill to make sense of. I think this would increase referee cognitive load in planning and preparation, without adding much to the game.
You, my well-educated audience, may have already encountered the idea of "literacies" in contemporary educational theory. This is often used in the context of explaining various digital media competencies, but I think elements of this can be projected backwards in time, and laterally, for our purpose, to make the Literacy skill interesting and fun. To tip my hand, I want to expand the Literacy to cover a variety of hermeneutic practices, of which reading plain text on a page is only one example. Literacy now becomes the skill of interpreting symbol sets other than speech. I do want to be careful not to step too far into the domains of other skills and replacing the need for Customs, Culture, Lore or Art, but I think there are a few pieces that could fall under Literacy or one of these skills that we ought to bring under the Literacy skill.
NB: Along with allowing you to decipher the types of texts below, I think that in many cases Literacy should also cover producing examples of them.
Here's a brief list of ideas of interpretive practices that might be important to someone in a fantastical pseudo-ancient or pseudo-medieval setting.
1) Reading out loud
2) Codes and ciphers
3) Dreams, omens, oracles
4) Technical, mathematical, and scientific jargon and diagrams
5) Financial and legal records and accounts
6) Reading silently
7) Magical writing (or this may be a subset of #4)
8) Maps & calendars
A brief justification for each of these as ideas:
Reading out loud and reading silently are separate developments historically, as weird as it may seem to a modern person trained in doing both from a relatively young age. It seems like in the Western world, reading silently emerges shortly after monasticism, as part of the contemplative practices of monks. Until that point, so far as we can tell, people mostly read things aloud, even when they were reading for themselves. Breaking them up as specialties is a minor but fun idea with the effect of estranging the setting in a subtle way for players.
Codes and ciphers represents the ability to encipher and decipher texts written in codes and ciphers. It's handy and it doesn't cleanly fall under any other skill unless you make up a Lore speciality covering it. If you have "thieves guilds" or the like, you might want to make up a separate speciality for their specific codes, but I think the narrower this speciality, the less useful it is.
Dreams, omens, and oracles are in the representations we have from the ancient world almost always vague, riddle-like things that require expert interpretation, and dramatically much can turn on the ambiguous possibilities of an oracle or omen. I think this should also cover things like astrological charts, hexagrams from the I Ching, and the markings on the intestines of sheep. I think this is, like literacy in codes and ciphers, rapidly becomes less important or useful the more narrow it is (i.e. just interpreting dreams or just interpreting sheep intestines or just looking at chickens pecking grain out of a grid).
If you've ever tried to read an old mathematical or technical manuscript, you probably understand why this is distinct from one's familiarity with the scientific concept under discussion, or one's ability to read the plain text of the manuscript. For that matter, if you've ever seen two people quibble over what a blueprint means, you've probably had the same experience. Diagrams can be surprisingly ambiguous, especially if it's stylised so that particular design choices are intended to cover specific information rather than serve as a picture. It's also less relevant in an ancient or medieval setting, but I think reading graphs probably falls at least partly under this speciality as well. Whether you want to make a "high-falutin' writin'" speciality that combines this with the no doubt extremely similar problems of interpreting magical writings is your preference. I would separate them into two specialities mainly as a matter of personal taste.
Financial records and accounts remain a specialised form of literacy with entire certified professions dedicated to them (accountants, stockbrokers, etc.). Understanding them is distinct from mathematical knowledge per se (which I think is properly one or more Lore specialities). Historically, this type of writing precedes the others - records of debts and receipts are the oldest writing we can find evidence of. Legal records and documents, which are often tax records of some sort historically, are similarly obtuse and impenetrable even if one has a rough and ready sense of what the actual law applying to a situation is. You may want to roll these under the Commerce and Bureaucracy skill, respectively. Mythras doesn't have a forgery skill, and allowing this as a speciality allows you to make a forger, which I think is something PCs want to do often enough that it's worth having a special skill covering.
Maps and calendars are really two different types of literacy in real life (interpreting abstract spatial representations and abstract temporal relations), and understanding them were specialised skills historically. Thucydides found calendars in contemporary Athens so confusing that he simply invented his own method of tracking time in his historical work. How to calculate the exact date of Easter is a perennial dispute amongst the Christian sects even now. I'm not sure either kind of literacy is quite useful enough to be worth a speciality on its own, but together they're fairly handy, especially since having them as a Literacy speciality should allow a PC to produce them.
NB: I considering reading maps quite different than the Navigation skill, since the later covers going to places, and maps do all sorts of things other than guide you somewhere (here's a neat one that's useless for navigation).
Some of these might reasonably be Lore specialities instead of Literacy specialities. But, I think one thing to bear in mind if one is using the specialities system is that getting more than 5 specialities in a particular skill is a challenge because of the difficulty of acquiring skill ratings above 100%. So loading some potential Lore capabilities onto Literacy means that characters don't have to sacrifice one of their Lore specialities to get ahold of them, and can instead raise their Literacy skill (which is often surprisingly low).
Other than the ones listed above, I'm open to suggestions for other Literacy specialities.
Showing posts with label Runequest. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Runequest. Show all posts
Jan 26, 2018
Jan 8, 2018
The Disruptors' Plans
One of the great mysteries left to referees to decide on in Luther Arkwright campaigns is what the larger master plan of the Disruptors is. This is partly because the source material doesn't specify it, and partly so you can make it whatever you want it to be in your own campaigns. I did some thinking about it based on playing a bunch of Luther Arkwright and planning a bunch of one-shots, and wanted to lay out what I decided what I think makes sense in the sort of games I'm interested in running. The idea of all of the following is to give one ideas for Luther Arkwright plots that Valhalla agents can stop, in case that isn't apparent.
In broad strokes, I see the Disruptors are trying to collapse all of the infinite possibilities of the multiverse into one parallel, one where they are utterly triumphant and all-powerful. Once they have discovered this parallel, they will destroy all other parallels and become gods in the remaining universe.
To do this, they undertake several kinds of large-scale missions and campaigns.
1) Destroy parallels with a low-probability of becoming the "right" one, ideally after first harvesting all useful resources from them. This releases the psionic energy bound up in the parallel and distributes it back across the multiverse. These sorts of parallels are also probably the ones where they're doing their most strenuous and large-scale experimentation, like running genocidal eugenics programs on entire worlds to see if they can improve the rate at which psychics are born, or
2) Testing different historical developments to see which increases the probability of a parallel becoming their ideal-universe. This means both encouraging convergent developments that they know increase their possibility of success, while experimenting with new developments and new parallels to ensure they are not stuck in a local pseudo-stable maxima (that is, a course of development that seems to be progressing in the right direction but which ultimately turns out to plateau before success is reached).
3) Experimenting with the occasional high-risk, high-reward, parallel in case doing so pays off (parallels where aliens powerful to challenge them exist, parallels with lots of psionically-aware people, technologically advanced parallels sufficient to compete with them scientifically and militarily, etc.).
4) Infiltrating parallels where their enemies, potential competitors, or serious resistance to them is available, undermining the capacity of these forces to fight them by destabilising these parallels politically or otherwise, and eventually either destroying or isolating them from the multiverse.
To break these down further:
Destroying low-probability parallels
These operations first require an assessment of the situation culminating in an analysis of its probability of Disruptor success. After that, the Disruptors will attempt to strip the parallel of any useful resources, and neutralise or avoid any major threats to doing so. After that, the Disruptors must destroy the parallel, which means somehow causing the psionic energy that maintains its existence to disperse.
Dispersing the psionic energy can be done in a variety of ways. The first is to find some highly psionically active and powerful entity or object, perhaps a multiversal constant or a powerful spirit, and cause a psionic energy feedback loop that "explodes" the parallel. This might involve importing additional psionic energy from another parallel, or concentrating much of the psionic energy of a given parallel into a small area. The second option is to construct some device, or bring in some psionic entity, that will drain the parallel's psionic energy back into the multiverse. The device might operate according to impossible physical laws that the host parallel can't accommodate, or it might link two parallels and transfer the energy from one to the other. A third would be simply to kill every psionically active entity (every living thing) in a given parallel, and then simply wait for it to dissolve.
Utilising these parallels for the Disruptors probably falls into a couple of main methods. The first is grabbing or using any unique features of the parallel. Are there connections to more valuable parallels that can only be reached via this one? Technology from long-dead aliens? The second is running damaging and awful experiments. These are the sorts of parallels that are candidates for the Disruptors to use as vast eugenics farms to experiment with the birth rate of psionically active people, to test their most horrific and devastating weapons and tools on, and to examine the most dangerous unknown artifacts that they've recovered from the rest of the multiverse. The third is just straightforward economic exploitation - the enslavement of entire worlds to turn out the weapons of war for dominating the rest.
Valhalla is no doubt very interested in preserving these parallels, since they offer the least gain to the Disruptors' plans. Without the active interference of the Disruptors in exploiting and destroying them, these parallels get along just fine.
Converging and collapsing history
Boosting any given parallels chances of becoming the ideal-universe for the Disruptors probably take several forms. The first step is establishing whether the parallel is a good candidate for the ideal-universe. We know the Disruptors like powerful, hierarchical governments, preferably as few as possible, that they can take control of secretly. They also seem to prefer parallels where technological and scientific development can be made beholden to Disruptor influence. Worlds teeming with people, who produce a lot of psionic energy the Disruptors can utilise, are also ideal. The second is changing the world to better suit their needs. This means introducing various multiversal constants if they don't already exist, or aligning them with the ideal-form of each constant if they're slight deviations. It also means taking over the governments of the world. Chances are, the Disruptors also look for worlds with lots of psionic connections to other parallels that they can send psionic influence through. I figure there are probably "anchor" parallels that serve as the local node through which a series of parallels with minor deviations are connected (e.g. a bunch of worlds that are almost identical except for small quantum variations).
Once they have them under their control, the Disruptors are probably seeking to prevent them from deviating from developing into the ideal-universe. My basic assumption is that the Disruptors can't reliably see the future (except insofar as psionics allowed very limited precognition). So they don't know which one will pan out as the ideal, and have to constantly adjust and readjust their development in line with what they predict, but can't know, is the ideal course. Some will fail, of course - Valhalla or others will free them and drive the Disruptors out, asteroids will destroy others, and others will turn out to be pseudo-stable local maxima that will plateau rather than continue to develop into the ideal-universe.
I expect that ODIN, Valhalla's supercomputer, is pretty savvy to what these parallels look like, and can even guess how far along the Disruptors' plan is based on an in-depth study of its history. While these are the toughest nuts to crack, Valhalla gets the most gain when it manages to flip one of these from a high-probability parallel to a low-probability one, either by eliminating the Disruptors' control, or undermining their development and forcing them into pseudo-stable local maxima.
Experimenting with high-risk, high-reward parallels
These are parallels that are so unique or unusual that the chances of them becoming the ideal-universe are extremely low, but that can't be written off for all that. Worlds where the entire population is psionic, or powerful aliens friendly to the Disruptor cause are willing to trade unusual technology, or where technology is 10,000 years more advanced than our own world, or where some species other than humanity has dominated the planet. Depending on the multiversal savvy of the entities running these parallels and the resources they command, the Disruptors are probably more or less aggressive. Attacking an enemy who can chase you through the parallels with glowing clouds of mind force is stupid - trade or wary observation are more likely. On the other hand, even a galactic federation of energy beings can be conquered if you can simply retreat to another parallel and regroup safely whenever they start to make gains. Some worlds are also weird enough that the Disruptors probably have a small monitoring presence to continuously evaluate and nudge their development towards the ideal-universe, but little more.
This class also includes parallels like the one that Firefrost was found on, where the main interest is in some one thing that's super-powerful and is way more interesting and important than the rest of the parallel would be in its own right. In these cases, the Disruptors would only bother to get enough control to find and control that one thing, extract it to their home base, and then send a clean-up team to eliminate the parallel like any other low-probability parallel.
Some of these worlds will also be ones where a small group of Disruptors with a heterodox vision of the ideal-universe might be operating. You might have a small clique of knights and bishops who've taken control of a parallel (or at least a large part of it) and are using it to prove the superiority of their ideas versus the mainline Disruptor vision of development. If this parallel does well (by Disruptor standards) they'll be vindicated and rewarded, while if it deviates into a low-probability parallel or plateaus, they're liable to be punished for their heresy.
These are also the sorts of worlds that Valhalla is likely to send agents to for other reasons - trading with the aliens or super-intelligent chimpanzee empire, or whatever - who then stumble across Disruptor schemes. Or Valhalla agents might go on a variety of missions to deny the Disruptors whatever key resource they're drawing from this world.
Undermining the opposition
Parallels where the opposition to the Disruptors is organised and effective are no doubt their worst nightmare, with the absolute nadir for them being a parallel where the original aliens opposing them way back when succeeded without perishing. You probably see an escalation here, as the Disruptors go from identifying and analysing the opposition to adopting a plan to destroy them, and if that fails, seeking to destroy or isolate the parallel itself. 00-00-00, Valhalla's home parallel, is the most well-known of these in the Luther Arkwright universe, but we can assume there are others (heck, there's probably at least one more Valhalla out there).
Interestingly, it seems like a lot of parallels with alien contact and/or powerful psionics probably fall into this category. Disruptor control is probably highly contested, though they may have footprints in governments or other power centres that allow them to strike out at the opposition. In some of these worlds, the Disruptors will be trying to "flip" their enemies into allies, or at least neutralising them, perhaps by offering them resources they otherwise lack. In others, they may be trying to destabilise the mundane governments and institutions of the world to gin up chaos and destroy the support system that their opposition relies on to be effective.
Valhalla agents are no doubt assigned to get out there and form alliances with these groups, as well as to study their technologies and methods that make them so dangerous to the Disruptors. Once they are identified and alliances made, agents will no doubt have to occasionally go and help their allies fight off Disruptor plots to undermine or destroy their parallels.
Mixing and matching ideas from the above categories can help you put together a consistent and interesting set of Disruptor operations that either span several parallels or deeply engage with a single one.
In broad strokes, I see the Disruptors are trying to collapse all of the infinite possibilities of the multiverse into one parallel, one where they are utterly triumphant and all-powerful. Once they have discovered this parallel, they will destroy all other parallels and become gods in the remaining universe.
To do this, they undertake several kinds of large-scale missions and campaigns.
1) Destroy parallels with a low-probability of becoming the "right" one, ideally after first harvesting all useful resources from them. This releases the psionic energy bound up in the parallel and distributes it back across the multiverse. These sorts of parallels are also probably the ones where they're doing their most strenuous and large-scale experimentation, like running genocidal eugenics programs on entire worlds to see if they can improve the rate at which psychics are born, or
2) Testing different historical developments to see which increases the probability of a parallel becoming their ideal-universe. This means both encouraging convergent developments that they know increase their possibility of success, while experimenting with new developments and new parallels to ensure they are not stuck in a local pseudo-stable maxima (that is, a course of development that seems to be progressing in the right direction but which ultimately turns out to plateau before success is reached).
3) Experimenting with the occasional high-risk, high-reward, parallel in case doing so pays off (parallels where aliens powerful to challenge them exist, parallels with lots of psionically-aware people, technologically advanced parallels sufficient to compete with them scientifically and militarily, etc.).
4) Infiltrating parallels where their enemies, potential competitors, or serious resistance to them is available, undermining the capacity of these forces to fight them by destabilising these parallels politically or otherwise, and eventually either destroying or isolating them from the multiverse.
To break these down further:
Destroying low-probability parallels
These operations first require an assessment of the situation culminating in an analysis of its probability of Disruptor success. After that, the Disruptors will attempt to strip the parallel of any useful resources, and neutralise or avoid any major threats to doing so. After that, the Disruptors must destroy the parallel, which means somehow causing the psionic energy that maintains its existence to disperse.
Dispersing the psionic energy can be done in a variety of ways. The first is to find some highly psionically active and powerful entity or object, perhaps a multiversal constant or a powerful spirit, and cause a psionic energy feedback loop that "explodes" the parallel. This might involve importing additional psionic energy from another parallel, or concentrating much of the psionic energy of a given parallel into a small area. The second option is to construct some device, or bring in some psionic entity, that will drain the parallel's psionic energy back into the multiverse. The device might operate according to impossible physical laws that the host parallel can't accommodate, or it might link two parallels and transfer the energy from one to the other. A third would be simply to kill every psionically active entity (every living thing) in a given parallel, and then simply wait for it to dissolve.
Utilising these parallels for the Disruptors probably falls into a couple of main methods. The first is grabbing or using any unique features of the parallel. Are there connections to more valuable parallels that can only be reached via this one? Technology from long-dead aliens? The second is running damaging and awful experiments. These are the sorts of parallels that are candidates for the Disruptors to use as vast eugenics farms to experiment with the birth rate of psionically active people, to test their most horrific and devastating weapons and tools on, and to examine the most dangerous unknown artifacts that they've recovered from the rest of the multiverse. The third is just straightforward economic exploitation - the enslavement of entire worlds to turn out the weapons of war for dominating the rest.
Valhalla is no doubt very interested in preserving these parallels, since they offer the least gain to the Disruptors' plans. Without the active interference of the Disruptors in exploiting and destroying them, these parallels get along just fine.
Converging and collapsing history
Boosting any given parallels chances of becoming the ideal-universe for the Disruptors probably take several forms. The first step is establishing whether the parallel is a good candidate for the ideal-universe. We know the Disruptors like powerful, hierarchical governments, preferably as few as possible, that they can take control of secretly. They also seem to prefer parallels where technological and scientific development can be made beholden to Disruptor influence. Worlds teeming with people, who produce a lot of psionic energy the Disruptors can utilise, are also ideal. The second is changing the world to better suit their needs. This means introducing various multiversal constants if they don't already exist, or aligning them with the ideal-form of each constant if they're slight deviations. It also means taking over the governments of the world. Chances are, the Disruptors also look for worlds with lots of psionic connections to other parallels that they can send psionic influence through. I figure there are probably "anchor" parallels that serve as the local node through which a series of parallels with minor deviations are connected (e.g. a bunch of worlds that are almost identical except for small quantum variations).
Once they have them under their control, the Disruptors are probably seeking to prevent them from deviating from developing into the ideal-universe. My basic assumption is that the Disruptors can't reliably see the future (except insofar as psionics allowed very limited precognition). So they don't know which one will pan out as the ideal, and have to constantly adjust and readjust their development in line with what they predict, but can't know, is the ideal course. Some will fail, of course - Valhalla or others will free them and drive the Disruptors out, asteroids will destroy others, and others will turn out to be pseudo-stable local maxima that will plateau rather than continue to develop into the ideal-universe.
I expect that ODIN, Valhalla's supercomputer, is pretty savvy to what these parallels look like, and can even guess how far along the Disruptors' plan is based on an in-depth study of its history. While these are the toughest nuts to crack, Valhalla gets the most gain when it manages to flip one of these from a high-probability parallel to a low-probability one, either by eliminating the Disruptors' control, or undermining their development and forcing them into pseudo-stable local maxima.
Experimenting with high-risk, high-reward parallels
These are parallels that are so unique or unusual that the chances of them becoming the ideal-universe are extremely low, but that can't be written off for all that. Worlds where the entire population is psionic, or powerful aliens friendly to the Disruptor cause are willing to trade unusual technology, or where technology is 10,000 years more advanced than our own world, or where some species other than humanity has dominated the planet. Depending on the multiversal savvy of the entities running these parallels and the resources they command, the Disruptors are probably more or less aggressive. Attacking an enemy who can chase you through the parallels with glowing clouds of mind force is stupid - trade or wary observation are more likely. On the other hand, even a galactic federation of energy beings can be conquered if you can simply retreat to another parallel and regroup safely whenever they start to make gains. Some worlds are also weird enough that the Disruptors probably have a small monitoring presence to continuously evaluate and nudge their development towards the ideal-universe, but little more.
This class also includes parallels like the one that Firefrost was found on, where the main interest is in some one thing that's super-powerful and is way more interesting and important than the rest of the parallel would be in its own right. In these cases, the Disruptors would only bother to get enough control to find and control that one thing, extract it to their home base, and then send a clean-up team to eliminate the parallel like any other low-probability parallel.
Some of these worlds will also be ones where a small group of Disruptors with a heterodox vision of the ideal-universe might be operating. You might have a small clique of knights and bishops who've taken control of a parallel (or at least a large part of it) and are using it to prove the superiority of their ideas versus the mainline Disruptor vision of development. If this parallel does well (by Disruptor standards) they'll be vindicated and rewarded, while if it deviates into a low-probability parallel or plateaus, they're liable to be punished for their heresy.
These are also the sorts of worlds that Valhalla is likely to send agents to for other reasons - trading with the aliens or super-intelligent chimpanzee empire, or whatever - who then stumble across Disruptor schemes. Or Valhalla agents might go on a variety of missions to deny the Disruptors whatever key resource they're drawing from this world.
Undermining the opposition
Parallels where the opposition to the Disruptors is organised and effective are no doubt their worst nightmare, with the absolute nadir for them being a parallel where the original aliens opposing them way back when succeeded without perishing. You probably see an escalation here, as the Disruptors go from identifying and analysing the opposition to adopting a plan to destroy them, and if that fails, seeking to destroy or isolate the parallel itself. 00-00-00, Valhalla's home parallel, is the most well-known of these in the Luther Arkwright universe, but we can assume there are others (heck, there's probably at least one more Valhalla out there).
Interestingly, it seems like a lot of parallels with alien contact and/or powerful psionics probably fall into this category. Disruptor control is probably highly contested, though they may have footprints in governments or other power centres that allow them to strike out at the opposition. In some of these worlds, the Disruptors will be trying to "flip" their enemies into allies, or at least neutralising them, perhaps by offering them resources they otherwise lack. In others, they may be trying to destabilise the mundane governments and institutions of the world to gin up chaos and destroy the support system that their opposition relies on to be effective.
Valhalla agents are no doubt assigned to get out there and form alliances with these groups, as well as to study their technologies and methods that make them so dangerous to the Disruptors. Once they are identified and alliances made, agents will no doubt have to occasionally go and help their allies fight off Disruptor plots to undermine or destroy their parallels.
Mixing and matching ideas from the above categories can help you put together a consistent and interesting set of Disruptor operations that either span several parallels or deeply engage with a single one.
Sep 17, 2017
A Few Notes on Combat Styles in Mythras
Combat styles in the Mythras family are left with relatively undefined scopes in the rules as written. Individual referees are left to figure out how many combat styles their setting will have; how many (and which) weapons any given combat style encompasses; and which the special trait(s) each style will have. Having now designed about twenty different combat styles for several different settings with very different feels, I'd like to share some of my impressions.
As an initial qualification, I'd mention that Luther Arkwright, the one published science fiction setting, breaks from a bunch of what I'm saying below, though it arrives as a similar set of conclusions about how combat styles should work nonetheless. I'm also leaving aside "Monster Styles" since they can be created off the cuff without consequence.
1) PCs will typically have between one and two combat styles right out the game, and the slow increase in skills in Mythras means that most will either stick with their original styles or pick up at most a third. I've never seen a PC with four or more combat styles, never even heard any one discuss the possibility as a realistic option for their character's development.
2) In my experience, the typical Mythras party has PCs all come from a shared cultural background, so you'll find that most of them share the same primary combat style. But, every other character in a typical party will have a career that allows them to access a second combat style (or in the case of Mythras Without Tears, will sacrifice a professional skill choice to gain access to a second combat style). Most of these PCs will want their second choice to be unique withing the party (unless one of the combat styles is particularly good). So when you're trying to judge how many combat styles you need for the party alone, use that as your baseline assumption.
3) Though they may not realise it at the start, most PCs will eventually want one of their two combat styles to have a fairly good ranged weapon (usually the short spear), at least one to let them use a shield, and at least one with the Mounted Combat trait (even if they don't need to invoke it all that often). The more they can layer these into a single style, the more desirable or necessary that style becomes.
NB: If you're a PC and you notice your enemies are using a combat style that has a trait other than Mounted Combat, try to get your enemies to jump onto their steeds (perhaps by fleeing on your own with them in hot pursuit) and then remind your referee about capping their combat styles with their Ride skill. You won't be popular, but you will be nigh-invulnerable to most stock enemies.
4) If there's a trait that rewards a bunch of PCs using the same combat style in tandem with one another (i.e. Shield Wall, or Formation Fighting) either everyone in the party will take it as their primary combat style or else it'll fail to reach the critical threshold of three PCs and be ignored / snubbed. If you're using careers, it's extremely unlikely that three PCs will get access to, and choose, the same secondary combat style through their careers, so you have to make it available at the Culture stage. In parties with multiple cultural backgrounds, don't expect people to take these combat styles.
5) The Mythras core has just under 60 weapons in it (counting shields), but most settings use a much smaller subset - I believe there's about 13 (counting shields) in Mythic Britain, and around 25 in Shores of Korantia's combat styles (with most of the variety in a small number styles that are less common). In the Dawnlands, I went for 12 - ten actual weapons, and two kinds of shields (I am considering adding another three of four, but haven't made up my mind).
A certain amount of doubling up on weapons between styles is good (since it allows a character not to have to carry a golf bag of swords), but you don't want too much overlap since that lowers people's willingness to take it as a second style without a further incentive. And that incentive might actually convince them to take the second style and ignore the first anyhow.
In practice, I find the ideal is about three weapons, especially if you're designing a lot of styles that count shields as one of those three. That lets PCs who take two combat styles use four offensive weapons, and at least one kind of shield, possibly two, without penalty. Three weapons also helps keep the style focused - with four weapons you tend to start asking yourself "What would the most common secondary sidearm for this person be?" a lot.
I also have a tendency to create a single combat style in a campaign that allows you to choose any two weapons you want. You gain in freedom of choice by losing that extra slot. This helps accommodate the folks who really, really, really want to wield a particular weapon that wouldn't otherwise be available.
6) There's a temptation that's indulged a lot to create near-identical combat styles differentiated by culture (usually with a slightly different sidearm or . Instead, I recommend picking the common types of soldier in your campaign setting, creating a combat style for each one, and then just reusing them across cultures to save time.
As an initial qualification, I'd mention that Luther Arkwright, the one published science fiction setting, breaks from a bunch of what I'm saying below, though it arrives as a similar set of conclusions about how combat styles should work nonetheless. I'm also leaving aside "Monster Styles" since they can be created off the cuff without consequence.
The Observations
1) PCs will typically have between one and two combat styles right out the game, and the slow increase in skills in Mythras means that most will either stick with their original styles or pick up at most a third. I've never seen a PC with four or more combat styles, never even heard any one discuss the possibility as a realistic option for their character's development.
2) In my experience, the typical Mythras party has PCs all come from a shared cultural background, so you'll find that most of them share the same primary combat style. But, every other character in a typical party will have a career that allows them to access a second combat style (or in the case of Mythras Without Tears, will sacrifice a professional skill choice to gain access to a second combat style). Most of these PCs will want their second choice to be unique withing the party (unless one of the combat styles is particularly good). So when you're trying to judge how many combat styles you need for the party alone, use that as your baseline assumption.
3) Though they may not realise it at the start, most PCs will eventually want one of their two combat styles to have a fairly good ranged weapon (usually the short spear), at least one to let them use a shield, and at least one with the Mounted Combat trait (even if they don't need to invoke it all that often). The more they can layer these into a single style, the more desirable or necessary that style becomes.
NB: If you're a PC and you notice your enemies are using a combat style that has a trait other than Mounted Combat, try to get your enemies to jump onto their steeds (perhaps by fleeing on your own with them in hot pursuit) and then remind your referee about capping their combat styles with their Ride skill. You won't be popular, but you will be nigh-invulnerable to most stock enemies.
4) If there's a trait that rewards a bunch of PCs using the same combat style in tandem with one another (i.e. Shield Wall, or Formation Fighting) either everyone in the party will take it as their primary combat style or else it'll fail to reach the critical threshold of three PCs and be ignored / snubbed. If you're using careers, it's extremely unlikely that three PCs will get access to, and choose, the same secondary combat style through their careers, so you have to make it available at the Culture stage. In parties with multiple cultural backgrounds, don't expect people to take these combat styles.
5) The Mythras core has just under 60 weapons in it (counting shields), but most settings use a much smaller subset - I believe there's about 13 (counting shields) in Mythic Britain, and around 25 in Shores of Korantia's combat styles (with most of the variety in a small number styles that are less common). In the Dawnlands, I went for 12 - ten actual weapons, and two kinds of shields (I am considering adding another three of four, but haven't made up my mind).
A certain amount of doubling up on weapons between styles is good (since it allows a character not to have to carry a golf bag of swords), but you don't want too much overlap since that lowers people's willingness to take it as a second style without a further incentive. And that incentive might actually convince them to take the second style and ignore the first anyhow.
In practice, I find the ideal is about three weapons, especially if you're designing a lot of styles that count shields as one of those three. That lets PCs who take two combat styles use four offensive weapons, and at least one kind of shield, possibly two, without penalty. Three weapons also helps keep the style focused - with four weapons you tend to start asking yourself "What would the most common secondary sidearm for this person be?" a lot.
I also have a tendency to create a single combat style in a campaign that allows you to choose any two weapons you want. You gain in freedom of choice by losing that extra slot. This helps accommodate the folks who really, really, really want to wield a particular weapon that wouldn't otherwise be available.
6) There's a temptation that's indulged a lot to create near-identical combat styles differentiated by culture (usually with a slightly different sidearm or . Instead, I recommend picking the common types of soldier in your campaign setting, creating a combat style for each one, and then just reusing them across cultures to save time.
The Conclusions
Combat styles tend to work best when they have about three weapons per style. You should assume that at least every other character in a typical party is going to want a unique combat style. If you want a style that synergises when multiple characters have it, make it a cultural style rather than a specialty style you get access to through a career. Mounted Combat is an inobviously excellent and useful trait, so having it in a couple of styles is a good idea.Aug 31, 2017
(Re)Introducing the Dawnlands
Over the nearly ten years (since 2008!) that I've been designing and running the Dawnlands, a lot has changed. I thought I'd take the opportunity to reintroduce the setting to new readers of my blog. It's shifted from a D&D 4e setting to an Openquest setting to one run by Mythras. And for folks who've been following it since the old RPGsite thread, a lot of names have changed, and many of the original D&Disms have been stripped out or altered significantly. Rather than make people dig through five year old blog posts, here's a brief introduction to where the Dawnlands is nowadays.
The Dawnlands is a psychedelic mythic fantasy setting built atop a layer of social realism and very loosely inspired by the historical khaganates of Western and Central Asia. Literary inspirations include Milorad Pavic's Dictionary of the Khazars; the Secret History of the Mongols; Constantine Porphyrogenitus' De Administrando Imperio; Chabon's Gentlemen of the Road; Calvino's Invisible Cities; Borges' short stories and many others. The archetypal Dawnlands story is something like getting cursed for bringing a crappy gift to your cousin's wedding, and having to go take magic mushrooms so your ancestors can guide you to the lost grave of a cannibal-wizard guarded by creatures made of his solidified spite so you can steal the crown he's buried with and bring it back as a better wedding gift to get uncursed.
The Dawnlands is an area about the size of Oregon (about 250,000 square kilometres) with six main cultural groups and two cities, with an overall population of about 2.5 million sentient beings.
The main species are:
Habiru - Canine-headed men broken up into racial groups based on what type of dog. The Kartakalli coming from the north are Habiru (with white-furred wolf heads), but a jackal-headed and a grey-furred wolf type are both indigenous to the Dawnlands. Originally, these were hobgoblins, orcs, and gnolls.
Humanity - There are three main racial groups, the Kads, the Qurun, and the Weykulni. Neighbouring groups present as visitors include the Salt Men, the Men of Rhuap, the Goguriz, and the Men of the Three Towns. In the original version of the Dawnlands, Kads were humans, the Qurun were elves, and the Weykulni were orcs.
Urum - Scaly-skinned humanoids with weird eyes about a metre and a half high. There are several subvarieties, with the most important being the Nethom, a distinct phenotype who rule the southern city-state of Durona. Most Urum live in Durona, in the Orthocracy of Kaddish, or amongst the Forest Dreamers. In the original Dawnlands, the Urum were halflings, goblins, kobolds and the like. Nethom were originally dwarves.
Voidmen - A refugee population from the southern Kingdom of Falling Stars that rules alongside the Nethom in Durona. Dark-skinned with eyes that appear to be empty fields dotted with stars. They live much longer than anyone else (centuries).
The main cultural groups are:
Duronans (pop. 500,000) - A rich society of highly stratified castes with Nethom and Voidmen at the top as zamindars and thakars, and a vast ryot and slave population underneath them. They are busy establishing colonies throughout the south-west Dawnlands, and trying to stave off a slave rebellion. They worship those of their ancestors who have attained divinity and live amongst the stars. Durona was originally called "Dwer Tor" in earlier materials.
Forest Dreamers (pop. 200,000) - A recently-formed theocratic confederation located in the great western rainforest known as the "Forest of Dreams". They worship the Hivehome, the great insect-spirits of the dream world. They are trying to drive out the Duronan slavers. They are split into tribal factions aligned with different temples of the same cult.
Kartakalli (pop. 50,000) - Monotheistic Habiru invaders from the north who worship the god of winter. They toppled the Kingdom of Weykuln and are picking over its bones. The cruelest and most fanatical members of a much more sophisticated society. In the original Dawnlands these guys didn't have a name, so I eventually got around to giving them one.
Orthocracy of Kaddish (pop. 1.2 million) - Once High Kaddish, the paramount state of the Dawnlands, the Orthocracy is now merely its largest mess. An incredible font of magic, technology, culture, but with no real government, it staggers from crisis to crisis somehow managing to survive. Even the vilest gods are acceptable to worship in lawless Kaddish. It possesses the unique magic of "soulforging", which allows it to create new species and transform existing ones.
The Plains Nomads (pop. 150,000) - The king-makers of the Dawnlands, who roam the highland plains of the Dawnlands. There are two main confederations or khanates, each of which despises the others. The Hill People are the descendants of a ruined civilisation known as the Cities of Night, conquered by High Kaddish. The Kadiz were once the ruling landowners of High Kaddish until they were driven out in a revolution. Both groups worship the Storm Bulls and the Wolves of the Earth, ancient gods of the plains.
The Weykulni (pop. 400,000) - Once a proud state controlling the northern mountain passes into the Dawnlands. Now, a series of squabbling nobles slowly being picked off by the Kartakalli as they dispute who should be king. Peasants are fleeing the valley-refuges and great castles of the Weykulni magnates as their armies march against one another. The priesthood of the God of Gates are being hunted down by Kartakalli assassins. Much like the Kartakalli, these folks originally didn't have names, but I was referring to them enough via circumlocutions that I eventually just gave them one.
More to come some other time.
The Dawnlands is a psychedelic mythic fantasy setting built atop a layer of social realism and very loosely inspired by the historical khaganates of Western and Central Asia. Literary inspirations include Milorad Pavic's Dictionary of the Khazars; the Secret History of the Mongols; Constantine Porphyrogenitus' De Administrando Imperio; Chabon's Gentlemen of the Road; Calvino's Invisible Cities; Borges' short stories and many others. The archetypal Dawnlands story is something like getting cursed for bringing a crappy gift to your cousin's wedding, and having to go take magic mushrooms so your ancestors can guide you to the lost grave of a cannibal-wizard guarded by creatures made of his solidified spite so you can steal the crown he's buried with and bring it back as a better wedding gift to get uncursed.
The Dawnlands is an area about the size of Oregon (about 250,000 square kilometres) with six main cultural groups and two cities, with an overall population of about 2.5 million sentient beings.
The main species are:
Habiru - Canine-headed men broken up into racial groups based on what type of dog. The Kartakalli coming from the north are Habiru (with white-furred wolf heads), but a jackal-headed and a grey-furred wolf type are both indigenous to the Dawnlands. Originally, these were hobgoblins, orcs, and gnolls.
Humanity - There are three main racial groups, the Kads, the Qurun, and the Weykulni. Neighbouring groups present as visitors include the Salt Men, the Men of Rhuap, the Goguriz, and the Men of the Three Towns. In the original version of the Dawnlands, Kads were humans, the Qurun were elves, and the Weykulni were orcs.
Urum - Scaly-skinned humanoids with weird eyes about a metre and a half high. There are several subvarieties, with the most important being the Nethom, a distinct phenotype who rule the southern city-state of Durona. Most Urum live in Durona, in the Orthocracy of Kaddish, or amongst the Forest Dreamers. In the original Dawnlands, the Urum were halflings, goblins, kobolds and the like. Nethom were originally dwarves.
Voidmen - A refugee population from the southern Kingdom of Falling Stars that rules alongside the Nethom in Durona. Dark-skinned with eyes that appear to be empty fields dotted with stars. They live much longer than anyone else (centuries).
The main cultural groups are:
Duronans (pop. 500,000) - A rich society of highly stratified castes with Nethom and Voidmen at the top as zamindars and thakars, and a vast ryot and slave population underneath them. They are busy establishing colonies throughout the south-west Dawnlands, and trying to stave off a slave rebellion. They worship those of their ancestors who have attained divinity and live amongst the stars. Durona was originally called "Dwer Tor" in earlier materials.
Forest Dreamers (pop. 200,000) - A recently-formed theocratic confederation located in the great western rainforest known as the "Forest of Dreams". They worship the Hivehome, the great insect-spirits of the dream world. They are trying to drive out the Duronan slavers. They are split into tribal factions aligned with different temples of the same cult.
Kartakalli (pop. 50,000) - Monotheistic Habiru invaders from the north who worship the god of winter. They toppled the Kingdom of Weykuln and are picking over its bones. The cruelest and most fanatical members of a much more sophisticated society. In the original Dawnlands these guys didn't have a name, so I eventually got around to giving them one.
Orthocracy of Kaddish (pop. 1.2 million) - Once High Kaddish, the paramount state of the Dawnlands, the Orthocracy is now merely its largest mess. An incredible font of magic, technology, culture, but with no real government, it staggers from crisis to crisis somehow managing to survive. Even the vilest gods are acceptable to worship in lawless Kaddish. It possesses the unique magic of "soulforging", which allows it to create new species and transform existing ones.
The Plains Nomads (pop. 150,000) - The king-makers of the Dawnlands, who roam the highland plains of the Dawnlands. There are two main confederations or khanates, each of which despises the others. The Hill People are the descendants of a ruined civilisation known as the Cities of Night, conquered by High Kaddish. The Kadiz were once the ruling landowners of High Kaddish until they were driven out in a revolution. Both groups worship the Storm Bulls and the Wolves of the Earth, ancient gods of the plains.
The Weykulni (pop. 400,000) - Once a proud state controlling the northern mountain passes into the Dawnlands. Now, a series of squabbling nobles slowly being picked off by the Kartakalli as they dispute who should be king. Peasants are fleeing the valley-refuges and great castles of the Weykulni magnates as their armies march against one another. The priesthood of the God of Gates are being hunted down by Kartakalli assassins. Much like the Kartakalli, these folks originally didn't have names, but I was referring to them enough via circumlocutions that I eventually just gave them one.
More to come some other time.
Aug 29, 2017
Mythras Without Tears II
I've been fiddling and experimenting with the character generation system for Mythras since writing this post, and here's what I've decided to use for skills in Dawnlands games. To me, this combines the ideal amount of customisation with speed and ease. I'm also including some passion house rules that make them easier to calculate (and slightly lower on average) than the stock rules.
Starting PCs pick seven standard skills, seven professional skills, and one combat style. They can swap out one professional skill choice to get a second combat style choice. They get 350 points, and can spend up to 45 points on any skill, adding 1% per point spent. They also add +40% to their Native Tongue and Customs skills.
Starting PCs also pick three passions. The first passion has an initial rating of POWx5, the second has an initial rating of POWx4, and the third's initial rating is POWx3. Skill points may also be spent increasing passions as if they were skills. PCs may also swap out one professional skill choice for a fourth passion, which has an initial rating of POWx5.
Art, Culture, Craft, Languages, Literacy, Lore, and Musicianship each have a number of specialties. Customs is the equivalent of Culture for a character's home culture, and Native Tongue is the equivalent of Languages for a character's home culture, but Customs and Native Tongue are distinguished by not having specialties. A character with these skills has a number of specialties equal to 1/5th the skill. Characters test their specialties at full. Outside their specialties, any tests with the skill are at least one grade harder.
One side effect of these passion rules is that most spellcasters are going to start off a little obsessive. I consider this a feature, not a bug.
Starting PCs pick seven standard skills, seven professional skills, and one combat style. They can swap out one professional skill choice to get a second combat style choice. They get 350 points, and can spend up to 45 points on any skill, adding 1% per point spent. They also add +40% to their Native Tongue and Customs skills.
Starting PCs also pick three passions. The first passion has an initial rating of POWx5, the second has an initial rating of POWx4, and the third's initial rating is POWx3. Skill points may also be spent increasing passions as if they were skills. PCs may also swap out one professional skill choice for a fourth passion, which has an initial rating of POWx5.
Art, Culture, Craft, Languages, Literacy, Lore, and Musicianship each have a number of specialties. Customs is the equivalent of Culture for a character's home culture, and Native Tongue is the equivalent of Languages for a character's home culture, but Customs and Native Tongue are distinguished by not having specialties. A character with these skills has a number of specialties equal to 1/5th the skill. Characters test their specialties at full. Outside their specialties, any tests with the skill are at least one grade harder.
One side effect of these passion rules is that most spellcasters are going to start off a little obsessive. I consider this a feature, not a bug.
Aug 15, 2017
Teamwork Rules for Mythras
I had always thought that the rules I'm about to outline were actually part of the core rules for Mythras, but it turns out that they weren't and I'd only imagined that they were (or else Loz and I couldn't find them when we glanced through the rules). I used these rules at Lozcon this weekend (Lawrence Whitaker's weekend roleplaying convention held annually at his home) and they were a hit. In hindsight, they're a simpler version of the teamwork rules I came up with for Openquest.
Whenever characters want to assist one another (i.e. they are all searching a room together; or two smiths working on the same project), they designate a lead. The lead is usually the group member with the highest skill. The lead is the character who will make the roll. The lead may have up to three assistants. Each assistant must have a score of at least 25% in the relevant skill. Each assistant reduces the difficulty grade of the roll by one. If the lead fails or fumbles, both the lead and the assistants suffer the consequences of failing.
This tends to simplify perception and sneaking rolls tremendously.
Whenever characters want to assist one another (i.e. they are all searching a room together; or two smiths working on the same project), they designate a lead. The lead is usually the group member with the highest skill. The lead is the character who will make the roll. The lead may have up to three assistants. Each assistant must have a score of at least 25% in the relevant skill. Each assistant reduces the difficulty grade of the roll by one. If the lead fails or fumbles, both the lead and the assistants suffer the consequences of failing.
This tends to simplify perception and sneaking rolls tremendously.
Jul 30, 2017
Simplifying Religion in Mythras
Religious organisations in Mythras theoretically have up to five levels of membership: lay member, initiate, acolyte, priest, and high priest. Three of these are spell-casting categories as well: initiate, acolyte, and priest. All theism spells are categorised as one of these three levels, and the level categorisation is based on the spell, not on the religion. The different levels of membership control the size of your "devotion pool" which is the number of magic points out of your total pool of magic points that you can devote to casting theistic miracles, which each miracle taking up 1 MP from the devotional pool (e.g. an initiate with 12 POW can devote three magic points to their devotional pool, allowing them to cast three miracles).
This adds an extra layer of complexity when you're designing religions, as you have to keep track of the level of the spell when you're putting together their spell lists, otherwise you run the risk of accidentally creating a religion in which initiates or priests or whoever don't gain access to new spells with their initiations. Considering the limited suggested number of available miracles per cult (up to 1d6+3 total per cult in a high magic campaign), this becomes especially difficult.
Having created my fair share of cults and played a fair deal of Runequest 6, I'd make the following observations:
1) Most of the published campaign worlds don't actually follow the listed guidelines. Mythic Britain uses a totally different system for Christianity that offers 4 miracles per interceding saint you invoke (with some overlap between saints), and has ten or twelve saints in the corebook. The Taskan Empire and Shores of Korantia have different cults offer between 3 and 19 miracles each, depending on the power and prominence of the cult. Classic Fantasy uses some other system entirely that involves three ranks of spells and limits the number you have access to by INT and your level. Monster Island is the one rulebook-following exception, which grants three initiate spells, two acolyte spells, and one priest spell per cult. Some of the top-tier miracles priests get access to are a bit shit tho' (one is "Rain of Fish").
2) Some progression or development is necessary to keep PCs committed to cults. If they can just dip in casually, become an initiate, and learn every possible spell (or at least all the good ones) right off the bat, they're not incentivised to engage further with the cult. Keeping the really good stuff for higher levels of initiation gives PCs something to work toward, so any proposed simplification or solution needs to keep at least two levels of access to spells, and possibly more.
3) I used to think it was feasible to run games where any individual PC might belong to many cults, but after playing RQ6 for a while, I think because of the slow acquisition of new skills and the way devotion pools work, most PCs are going to belong to 1-2 theist cults maximum (and probably one of those will be as just a lay member). That's assuming you even open up the possibility of characters becoming priests if they don't start with access to theist magic (this is something the rules-as-written discourage, but that, once again, is widely ignored in practice). So, if we assume that most PCs are going to belong to 1-2 cults, and probably only one as more than a lay member, a certain amount of depth should be available so they can feel like they're progressing through it.
To simplify the process of creating a religion, my proposal is fairly simple, and really represents a rationalisation of what I see people doing online when they homebrew cults. That is simply to calculate the level of membership required to gain access to a spell on the basis of each religion, rather than the spell. So initiates of one solar religion, acolytes of another, and priests of a third each gain access to say, Sunspear at different levels of membership. This allows greater customisation of each religion, and I'm surprised it's not the default.
This adds an extra layer of complexity when you're designing religions, as you have to keep track of the level of the spell when you're putting together their spell lists, otherwise you run the risk of accidentally creating a religion in which initiates or priests or whoever don't gain access to new spells with their initiations. Considering the limited suggested number of available miracles per cult (up to 1d6+3 total per cult in a high magic campaign), this becomes especially difficult.
Having created my fair share of cults and played a fair deal of Runequest 6, I'd make the following observations:
1) Most of the published campaign worlds don't actually follow the listed guidelines. Mythic Britain uses a totally different system for Christianity that offers 4 miracles per interceding saint you invoke (with some overlap between saints), and has ten or twelve saints in the corebook. The Taskan Empire and Shores of Korantia have different cults offer between 3 and 19 miracles each, depending on the power and prominence of the cult. Classic Fantasy uses some other system entirely that involves three ranks of spells and limits the number you have access to by INT and your level. Monster Island is the one rulebook-following exception, which grants three initiate spells, two acolyte spells, and one priest spell per cult. Some of the top-tier miracles priests get access to are a bit shit tho' (one is "Rain of Fish").
2) Some progression or development is necessary to keep PCs committed to cults. If they can just dip in casually, become an initiate, and learn every possible spell (or at least all the good ones) right off the bat, they're not incentivised to engage further with the cult. Keeping the really good stuff for higher levels of initiation gives PCs something to work toward, so any proposed simplification or solution needs to keep at least two levels of access to spells, and possibly more.
3) I used to think it was feasible to run games where any individual PC might belong to many cults, but after playing RQ6 for a while, I think because of the slow acquisition of new skills and the way devotion pools work, most PCs are going to belong to 1-2 theist cults maximum (and probably one of those will be as just a lay member). That's assuming you even open up the possibility of characters becoming priests if they don't start with access to theist magic (this is something the rules-as-written discourage, but that, once again, is widely ignored in practice). So, if we assume that most PCs are going to belong to 1-2 cults, and probably only one as more than a lay member, a certain amount of depth should be available so they can feel like they're progressing through it.
To simplify the process of creating a religion, my proposal is fairly simple, and really represents a rationalisation of what I see people doing online when they homebrew cults. That is simply to calculate the level of membership required to gain access to a spell on the basis of each religion, rather than the spell. So initiates of one solar religion, acolytes of another, and priests of a third each gain access to say, Sunspear at different levels of membership. This allows greater customisation of each religion, and I'm surprised it's not the default.
Jul 25, 2017
Mythras Without Tears
Creating characters in Mythras is reasonably complicated, especially since one must go through three separate steps to spend skill points, each of which has different restrictions. I won't be using the rules below rules for character generation for the pre-generated characters I'm putting together for the scenario I'll be running at LozCon, but I may use them for Runequest / Mythras character generation in the next campaign I run.
Instead of selecting a culture, career, and spending bonus points, you select seven standard skills, seven professional skills and up to two combat styles (not counting Unarmed). You must spend at least five skill points improving each of the fourteen to sixteen skills, and may spend up to 45 points improving them. This produces characters who are almost identical to regular Mythras characters but without all the substeps. Theoretically, characters could end up knowing two kinds of advanced magic (sorcery and theism, say, or even just two schools of sorcery), which I'm personally fine with. If you're not, simply impose a limit on how many kinds of magic a single person may know.
The restrictions of the substeps theoretically force you to spend points to ensure your character has a basic competency at things their culture values, but in practice, I don't think dumping five skill points into standard skills you've already got a basic ranking in accomplishes that. What it does do is force you waste about 20% or so of the points you got from your cultural background on skills you don't want more than a basic ranking in anyhow. At least by choosing the standard skills, you'll be able to make sure they're all ones that match your character concept.
Personally, I think I'd all up to +50 to be added, to encourage a slightly higher degree of specialisation, but keep the overall size of the pool (350 points) identical.
Some people no doubt find the culture and career process helpful for shaping their character concepts, and I recommend people who do so use the method in the rules as written, but I often find them at least as much a hindrance to realising a character concept as a help personally.
Instead of selecting a culture, career, and spending bonus points, you select seven standard skills, seven professional skills and up to two combat styles (not counting Unarmed). You must spend at least five skill points improving each of the fourteen to sixteen skills, and may spend up to 45 points improving them. This produces characters who are almost identical to regular Mythras characters but without all the substeps. Theoretically, characters could end up knowing two kinds of advanced magic (sorcery and theism, say, or even just two schools of sorcery), which I'm personally fine with. If you're not, simply impose a limit on how many kinds of magic a single person may know.
The restrictions of the substeps theoretically force you to spend points to ensure your character has a basic competency at things their culture values, but in practice, I don't think dumping five skill points into standard skills you've already got a basic ranking in accomplishes that. What it does do is force you waste about 20% or so of the points you got from your cultural background on skills you don't want more than a basic ranking in anyhow. At least by choosing the standard skills, you'll be able to make sure they're all ones that match your character concept.
Personally, I think I'd all up to +50 to be added, to encourage a slightly higher degree of specialisation, but keep the overall size of the pool (350 points) identical.
Some people no doubt find the culture and career process helpful for shaping their character concepts, and I recommend people who do so use the method in the rules as written, but I often find them at least as much a hindrance to realising a character concept as a help personally.
Jul 24, 2017
Language and Lore Skills House Rules for Mythras
I've played a lot of Mythras and Runequest 6 over the years (and Mongoose Runequest 2 and Legend - it's all the same game under different labels, and I've been playing it off and on since 2010). In the current version of the rules, it's difficult for characters to either have a lot of lore skills or to know a lot of languages. It's even more difficult to play a character who both knows a lot of languages and has a lot of scholarly knowledge because of the way character creation works, where you end up having limited slots for professional skills.
As someone who likes to play scholars in settings with lots of languages, I wanted to make this a bit less demanding on the fairly limited pool of skill points starting characters have. So I use the following rules for each skill:
There's no longer separate Lore:Whatever or Language: Whatever skills, except for Native Tongue. Instead, there's just Lore, Native Tongue, and Language. Lore and Language are both professional skills, and swap in during character creation whenever the originals do. Characters pick a number of specialties equal to 1/20th of their skill rating in the relevant skill (round down). For Lore these are areas of study and knowledge, for Language they're languages you know (other than your native language, where in Mythras you receive an automatic 40% bonus to make its role as a skill-capping skill that sets a limit for other skills easier to bear). For the purposes of skill rolls and caps, you use the single rating of the skill whenever you're dealing with an area of specialty.
e.g You have a Lore of 60% so you choose three areas of specialty. For your badass Kadiz gnostic, these are Dreams, Geomancy and Spirits. Whenever you need to make a Lore role involving those subjects, or use your Lore skill as an augment, you base it off the 60%.
This means starting characters will typically have 0 to 3 specialties in each skill, depending on their level of specialisation. A character made using the stock rules could have a similar range, but would have to spend three times the skill points to get this level, and would probably have to choose either language or lore skills instead of being able to do both. The net effect of this will be to make multicultural parties easier, and to allow characters to be knowledgeable without sacrificing all of their skills points to be so.
On a related note, Mythras and Runequest 6 don't actually explain what to do when someone attempts to test a professional skill they lack (if it does do so, it's not mentioned in the index under the entry for "Professional Skills", and it's not in either the skills chapter or the character creation section. The training rules imply you can't test without having opened access the skill, since it costs 3 experience rolls to "get a basic grounding" which I interpret as being able to get access at the level of the sum of the two relevant stats (i.e. it costs 3 experience rolls to develop Literacy at Int x 2 if you don't start with it as a skill).
With that in mind, I tend to favour not allowing rolls relevant to professional skills a character lacks. Even if one did allow them at severe penalties (i.e. one adapted the rules in the Combat section for using weapons outside those allowed by the Combat Styles you're trained in so as to apply to other skills), since you're only using a low base to begin with, you're almost never going to succeed.
On a second related note, I've debated making a similar change as I did for Language and Lore for combat styles, but I think this is a more radical change and needs to be tested and played around with before I implement it, since access to combat styles is much more strictly controlled than access to lore and language skills (starting characters still typically start with 1-3 combat styles, as this system would also be likely to produce).
I'm going to be running the Dawnlands at LozCon this summer (April 12-April 14, 2017) and these will be the rules I'm using for it. I just generated eight pregen characters in a row for a one-shot scenario I'll be running, one that involves a multicultural party, so I think it'll be a good test.
As someone who likes to play scholars in settings with lots of languages, I wanted to make this a bit less demanding on the fairly limited pool of skill points starting characters have. So I use the following rules for each skill:
There's no longer separate Lore:Whatever or Language: Whatever skills, except for Native Tongue. Instead, there's just Lore, Native Tongue, and Language. Lore and Language are both professional skills, and swap in during character creation whenever the originals do. Characters pick a number of specialties equal to 1/20th of their skill rating in the relevant skill (round down). For Lore these are areas of study and knowledge, for Language they're languages you know (other than your native language, where in Mythras you receive an automatic 40% bonus to make its role as a skill-capping skill that sets a limit for other skills easier to bear). For the purposes of skill rolls and caps, you use the single rating of the skill whenever you're dealing with an area of specialty.
e.g You have a Lore of 60% so you choose three areas of specialty. For your badass Kadiz gnostic, these are Dreams, Geomancy and Spirits. Whenever you need to make a Lore role involving those subjects, or use your Lore skill as an augment, you base it off the 60%.
This means starting characters will typically have 0 to 3 specialties in each skill, depending on their level of specialisation. A character made using the stock rules could have a similar range, but would have to spend three times the skill points to get this level, and would probably have to choose either language or lore skills instead of being able to do both. The net effect of this will be to make multicultural parties easier, and to allow characters to be knowledgeable without sacrificing all of their skills points to be so.
On a related note, Mythras and Runequest 6 don't actually explain what to do when someone attempts to test a professional skill they lack (if it does do so, it's not mentioned in the index under the entry for "Professional Skills", and it's not in either the skills chapter or the character creation section. The training rules imply you can't test without having opened access the skill, since it costs 3 experience rolls to "get a basic grounding" which I interpret as being able to get access at the level of the sum of the two relevant stats (i.e. it costs 3 experience rolls to develop Literacy at Int x 2 if you don't start with it as a skill).
With that in mind, I tend to favour not allowing rolls relevant to professional skills a character lacks. Even if one did allow them at severe penalties (i.e. one adapted the rules in the Combat section for using weapons outside those allowed by the Combat Styles you're trained in so as to apply to other skills), since you're only using a low base to begin with, you're almost never going to succeed.
On a second related note, I've debated making a similar change as I did for Language and Lore for combat styles, but I think this is a more radical change and needs to be tested and played around with before I implement it, since access to combat styles is much more strictly controlled than access to lore and language skills (starting characters still typically start with 1-3 combat styles, as this system would also be likely to produce).
I'm going to be running the Dawnlands at LozCon this summer (April 12-April 14, 2017) and these will be the rules I'm using for it. I just generated eight pregen characters in a row for a one-shot scenario I'll be running, one that involves a multicultural party, so I think it'll be a good test.
Aug 26, 2016
Openquest House Rule Retrospective
Back in early 2012, when I was gearing up for an Openquest campaign set in the Dawnlands, I came up with a bunch of house rules for Openquest. I thought it would be useful to go through them and pick which ones I wanted to keep. I thought I'd do a bit of retrospective on these, having playtested them and run a successful campaign using them.
My weapon and armour creation system for Openquest, with the rules for calculating ENC. In hindsight, I should use these to pregenerate a weapon and armour list rather than hoping to do it on the fly. It also needs something to determine when a weapon gets the flex, set or range qualities, and I need to rewrite the set weapon rules so they're more relevant and useful. This ruleset has a tendency to generate swords as dealing 1d6 damage, rather than the typical 1d8. Specifically, "longer than a metre" should become "longer than 60cm" (two feet, in moon units).
My teamwork rules. These work well. My experience was that the most confusing part was collaboration, where PCs are rolling different skills. The difficulty wasn't mechanical, it came from trying to explain how their alternate skill was relevant. There were just a number of times the PCs wanted to do it and couldn't figure out how to have it make sense in the world. I don't think this is a problem with the rules though, the PCs just needed to get into the right head-space.
My new major wound table worked well. I learnt that one piece of information I should keep at hand about PCs (along with their Evade, Persistence and Resilience scores) was their major wound threshold.
My overland travel tracker is straightforward, and was the beginning of the line of thought that brought me to my procedure for exploring the wilderness in Swords and Wizardry. It could probably use an update and freshening based on the intervening years of development. For people who don't want the complexity, it's a simple way to determine how far the PCs move in a day, and what they run into.
My mounted combat rules work well and don't really need to be changed. They're a straightforward improvement over the baseline Openquest rules (fewer numbers change, but more options open up). I hate the "Riding is your skill cap when riding" rule in Runequest, since it basically turns Riding into a skill tax.
The movement, called shot and "free hand" rules here all work well. I would keep them unchanged. I did allow characters with a free hand to initiate grapples using them, which occasionally gave things a MMA feel as characters would hack at one another with swords and then suddenly lock up into a grapple and resolve the fight through that.
Competence bands are basically just a procedure for doing what plenty of other referees in Basic Rolepaying games do anyhow. They work and are simple to use in play.
Abolishing attribute differences between species worked fine, though occasionally people wanted some slight distinction between their jackal-headed brutes and their elvish archers. I think what might work well here is to grant each species a single distinguishing trait that is not merely an attribute difference or percentile bonus to skills, but rather allows you to use one skill in a way no one else can - dogmen can bite with unarmed for extra damage, dwarves can use Perception to see when it's totally dark, etc.
Advanced plunder ratings didn't work well at all. The system was too complicated to easily parse, and involved making numerous decisions about what a create did or didn't have that merely added an extra layer of adjudication. The options for modifying this are either treasure generation tables with types, similar to old school D&D, or to simplify it drastically down to the two most important factors - what loot does the monster have, and how valuable is its body as loot? I should write something about this, but I now use a simpler system where every monster is ranked from A to F in terms of its loot, and then has either a + or - for how valuable its body (or body bits) are. +A would be a dragon or demigod, a creature that both has a horde, and is priceless when it's knackered, while a F- is a creature with nothing whose body is near-worthless. If you want to encode a bit more information in the notation, you can shift the + or - to either side based on whether the loot is in its lair (on the Left side for Lair) or on its person (the right side) as I did above.
Abolishing spell ranks didn't give me the results I wanted. I had a few PCs with high POWs who were able to pull off extremely high spell ranks very early in their careers, which made them disproportionately powerful in whatever campaign they appeared in. I think the correct solution for what I want is to expand the rules for divine magic (which I ported over from MRQ2 / RQ6) and use the tens digit of your relevant skill to determine the spell's magnitude. The 5 IP for new spells was good though, and I'd stick with it. It gave each PC a few signature spells they used over and over again, which also reduced the amount of player skill and attention required to manage spells, especially buffs.
Abolishing the common magic skill is the one that I still haven't made up my mind about. Some players really struggle with wrapping their heads around using other skills, and some love it. The rules themselves work fine, it's mainly an issue of playstyle. I think I'm going to keep on using this, but I expect it to play differently if I adopt the above-mentioned rule about spell ranks. So you'll use the tens-digit of whatever skill you use, instead of Battle Magic Casting. I also think I'm going to ask PCs to pick 1-3 skills off a small list that are the skills they use to cast magic ahead of time to help them get a clearer idea of how their own personal style of magic works. When I initially playtested these rules, I let PCs pick whatever skill they wanted in any given situation, but this meant a lot of people trying to use "abstract" skills like Perception and Influence and Language (Own) because they saw these as requiring the least amount of preparation and effort compared to Natural Lore or Craft. There was also the occasional attempt to piggyback battle magic spells on other spellcasting skills, like Sorcery or Religion (Own), though I discouraged this whenever it occurred. I think locking PCs down to a handful of prechosen skills will encourage them to more clearly conceive of how their character cast spells, which should avoid most of the problems. If that doesn't work, I'll probably just make Language (True Names) [a Language (Other) skill for everyone) the skill one rolls.
Anyhow, I plan to continue to experiment with new rules and variations, though it's been a bit since I've run an Openquest campaign.
My weapon and armour creation system for Openquest, with the rules for calculating ENC. In hindsight, I should use these to pregenerate a weapon and armour list rather than hoping to do it on the fly. It also needs something to determine when a weapon gets the flex, set or range qualities, and I need to rewrite the set weapon rules so they're more relevant and useful. This ruleset has a tendency to generate swords as dealing 1d6 damage, rather than the typical 1d8. Specifically, "longer than a metre" should become "longer than 60cm" (two feet, in moon units).
My teamwork rules. These work well. My experience was that the most confusing part was collaboration, where PCs are rolling different skills. The difficulty wasn't mechanical, it came from trying to explain how their alternate skill was relevant. There were just a number of times the PCs wanted to do it and couldn't figure out how to have it make sense in the world. I don't think this is a problem with the rules though, the PCs just needed to get into the right head-space.
My new major wound table worked well. I learnt that one piece of information I should keep at hand about PCs (along with their Evade, Persistence and Resilience scores) was their major wound threshold.
My overland travel tracker is straightforward, and was the beginning of the line of thought that brought me to my procedure for exploring the wilderness in Swords and Wizardry. It could probably use an update and freshening based on the intervening years of development. For people who don't want the complexity, it's a simple way to determine how far the PCs move in a day, and what they run into.
My mounted combat rules work well and don't really need to be changed. They're a straightforward improvement over the baseline Openquest rules (fewer numbers change, but more options open up). I hate the "Riding is your skill cap when riding" rule in Runequest, since it basically turns Riding into a skill tax.
The movement, called shot and "free hand" rules here all work well. I would keep them unchanged. I did allow characters with a free hand to initiate grapples using them, which occasionally gave things a MMA feel as characters would hack at one another with swords and then suddenly lock up into a grapple and resolve the fight through that.
Competence bands are basically just a procedure for doing what plenty of other referees in Basic Rolepaying games do anyhow. They work and are simple to use in play.
Abolishing attribute differences between species worked fine, though occasionally people wanted some slight distinction between their jackal-headed brutes and their elvish archers. I think what might work well here is to grant each species a single distinguishing trait that is not merely an attribute difference or percentile bonus to skills, but rather allows you to use one skill in a way no one else can - dogmen can bite with unarmed for extra damage, dwarves can use Perception to see when it's totally dark, etc.
Advanced plunder ratings didn't work well at all. The system was too complicated to easily parse, and involved making numerous decisions about what a create did or didn't have that merely added an extra layer of adjudication. The options for modifying this are either treasure generation tables with types, similar to old school D&D, or to simplify it drastically down to the two most important factors - what loot does the monster have, and how valuable is its body as loot? I should write something about this, but I now use a simpler system where every monster is ranked from A to F in terms of its loot, and then has either a + or - for how valuable its body (or body bits) are. +A would be a dragon or demigod, a creature that both has a horde, and is priceless when it's knackered, while a F- is a creature with nothing whose body is near-worthless. If you want to encode a bit more information in the notation, you can shift the + or - to either side based on whether the loot is in its lair (on the Left side for Lair) or on its person (the right side) as I did above.
Abolishing spell ranks didn't give me the results I wanted. I had a few PCs with high POWs who were able to pull off extremely high spell ranks very early in their careers, which made them disproportionately powerful in whatever campaign they appeared in. I think the correct solution for what I want is to expand the rules for divine magic (which I ported over from MRQ2 / RQ6) and use the tens digit of your relevant skill to determine the spell's magnitude. The 5 IP for new spells was good though, and I'd stick with it. It gave each PC a few signature spells they used over and over again, which also reduced the amount of player skill and attention required to manage spells, especially buffs.
Abolishing the common magic skill is the one that I still haven't made up my mind about. Some players really struggle with wrapping their heads around using other skills, and some love it. The rules themselves work fine, it's mainly an issue of playstyle. I think I'm going to keep on using this, but I expect it to play differently if I adopt the above-mentioned rule about spell ranks. So you'll use the tens-digit of whatever skill you use, instead of Battle Magic Casting. I also think I'm going to ask PCs to pick 1-3 skills off a small list that are the skills they use to cast magic ahead of time to help them get a clearer idea of how their own personal style of magic works. When I initially playtested these rules, I let PCs pick whatever skill they wanted in any given situation, but this meant a lot of people trying to use "abstract" skills like Perception and Influence and Language (Own) because they saw these as requiring the least amount of preparation and effort compared to Natural Lore or Craft. There was also the occasional attempt to piggyback battle magic spells on other spellcasting skills, like Sorcery or Religion (Own), though I discouraged this whenever it occurred. I think locking PCs down to a handful of prechosen skills will encourage them to more clearly conceive of how their character cast spells, which should avoid most of the problems. If that doesn't work, I'll probably just make Language (True Names) [a Language (Other) skill for everyone) the skill one rolls.
Anyhow, I plan to continue to experiment with new rules and variations, though it's been a bit since I've run an Openquest campaign.
Dec 9, 2015
The Dawnlands are Back / Dooms
I'm going to be converting the Dawnlands over to Runequest 6 from Openquest. My plan is to run a third complete (fourth total) campaign set in the Dawnlands sometime in the next year or so. I've been playing in Lawrence Whitaker's Mythic Britain campaign now for a little over a year and Legend / RQ6 has always been one of my favourite systems, with only the challenge of teaching it to new players holding me back from doing more with it. Here's a bit about cursing the people who killed you using the passion system from Runequest 6.
Dooms
Anyone with a passion rated higher than 100% may, upon dying, choose to utter a doom - a curse or prophecy on or about the subject of their passion. The doom must be made in the round the person expires, and must consist of a few short sentences, with a total length in words of 10% of the passion's rating (so a 100% passion allows 10 or fewer words). The character must be able to speak aloud.
Upon making the doom, the character checks against their passion. On a critical failure, the doom is realised only as a cruel joke of fate on the curse-giver. On a failure, the doom has no effect. On a success, the doom takes effect until the next dusk or dawn, whichever comes first. On a critical success, the doom becomes permanent until the character's body is buried or cremated with suitable ceremonial pomp to appease their spirit (requiring either Customs or Exhort), or a shrine, idol, totem or other marker is erected to honour them (such a marker must be Consecrated as per the spell by a priest of the same religion as the character). Dooms come into effect immediately.
Dooms make all skill rolls directly related to avoiding them one step harder, while all skill rolls directly related to bringing them to fruition are made one step easier. If the dooming character includes an end-condition to the curse, all skill rolls are either two steps harder or easier, as appropriate. Characters are not automatically aware of dooms.
e.g. Torun Half-Nose is stabbed to death by Hafek the Unwise. As he gargles out his last breath, he curses "My children will avenge me!", rolls his passion [Love (Children) 115%)] and gets a critical success. Torun's children will then find all skill rolls related to avenging their father to be one step easier, while Hafek finds any rolls to resist them will be one step harder.
e.g. Bjan the Wolf-Eater returns from campaigning to find a Kaddish warband (the Locusts) has destroyed his kraal, slain his family and friends, and plundered his village. He commits ritual suicide out of shame, cursing the destroyers of his line "Kaddish will bleed until the mountains are ground to dust" and rolls his Hate (Kaddish) 130% passion. Bjan critically fumbles, and so a Kaddish herbalist investigating the healing properties of a rare clay in the northern mountains suddenly finds it makes the perfect addition to bandages to encourage clotting (or at least her Lore roll to identify this property is two steps easier).
Some Extant Dooms in the Dawnlands
"The Kaddish will never know peace" - made by the (now) Lich-King of Dlak upon his death during the destruction of Dlak (Affects all rolls to directly drag the Orthocracy into a war, or to start a riot in Kaddish)
"I will be slain three times, and three times resurrected" - Tegon, the Maimed Lord, vampire near-god (Directly affects all rolls to ritually resurrect him or to prevent this from happening)
"My children will feast on the graves of the optimates" - Mainos, halfling Broken Chain martyr (Affects all rolls to prevent revolutionary sentiment from growing amongst the Dwer helots and slaves)
Dooms
Anyone with a passion rated higher than 100% may, upon dying, choose to utter a doom - a curse or prophecy on or about the subject of their passion. The doom must be made in the round the person expires, and must consist of a few short sentences, with a total length in words of 10% of the passion's rating (so a 100% passion allows 10 or fewer words). The character must be able to speak aloud.
Upon making the doom, the character checks against their passion. On a critical failure, the doom is realised only as a cruel joke of fate on the curse-giver. On a failure, the doom has no effect. On a success, the doom takes effect until the next dusk or dawn, whichever comes first. On a critical success, the doom becomes permanent until the character's body is buried or cremated with suitable ceremonial pomp to appease their spirit (requiring either Customs or Exhort), or a shrine, idol, totem or other marker is erected to honour them (such a marker must be Consecrated as per the spell by a priest of the same religion as the character). Dooms come into effect immediately.
Dooms make all skill rolls directly related to avoiding them one step harder, while all skill rolls directly related to bringing them to fruition are made one step easier. If the dooming character includes an end-condition to the curse, all skill rolls are either two steps harder or easier, as appropriate. Characters are not automatically aware of dooms.
e.g. Torun Half-Nose is stabbed to death by Hafek the Unwise. As he gargles out his last breath, he curses "My children will avenge me!", rolls his passion [Love (Children) 115%)] and gets a critical success. Torun's children will then find all skill rolls related to avenging their father to be one step easier, while Hafek finds any rolls to resist them will be one step harder.
e.g. Bjan the Wolf-Eater returns from campaigning to find a Kaddish warband (the Locusts) has destroyed his kraal, slain his family and friends, and plundered his village. He commits ritual suicide out of shame, cursing the destroyers of his line "Kaddish will bleed until the mountains are ground to dust" and rolls his Hate (Kaddish) 130% passion. Bjan critically fumbles, and so a Kaddish herbalist investigating the healing properties of a rare clay in the northern mountains suddenly finds it makes the perfect addition to bandages to encourage clotting (or at least her Lore roll to identify this property is two steps easier).
Some Extant Dooms in the Dawnlands
"The Kaddish will never know peace" - made by the (now) Lich-King of Dlak upon his death during the destruction of Dlak (Affects all rolls to directly drag the Orthocracy into a war, or to start a riot in Kaddish)
"I will be slain three times, and three times resurrected" - Tegon, the Maimed Lord, vampire near-god (Directly affects all rolls to ritually resurrect him or to prevent this from happening)
"My children will feast on the graves of the optimates" - Mainos, halfling Broken Chain martyr (Affects all rolls to prevent revolutionary sentiment from growing amongst the Dwer helots and slaves)
Jun 18, 2015
Fast Crit Resolution in BRP
Calculating whether a particular roll is a critical success in Basic Roleplaying and its derivatives (Runequest, Openquest, etc.) is probably the most time consuming part of resolving a roll. Depending on the version, one needs to figure out what 10%, or sometimes 20%, of one's skill score is and then whether the roll comes under that number. While one can precalculate the number, the actual skill score frequently changes due to bonuses and penalties, which also change one's critical threshold.
I propose that adapting the method of resolving critical successes from the Harn system would allow one to resolve these rolls more rapidly. I'm surprised this hasn't become a core part of the BRP system's resolution. Harn's system is also percentile based, and you achieve critical successes 20% of the time, but the system can be easily adapted to the 10% threshold I prefer.
The rule:
If a roll succeeds, and the ones digit on the roll is a "5", the roll is a critical success.
This speeds things up by removing a process of calculation and replacing it with simple recognition. Choosing the "5" digit has the same effect as the already existing rounding rules for critical thresholds.
For a 20% critical success threshold, the two digits should be "5" and "0".
I propose that adapting the method of resolving critical successes from the Harn system would allow one to resolve these rolls more rapidly. I'm surprised this hasn't become a core part of the BRP system's resolution. Harn's system is also percentile based, and you achieve critical successes 20% of the time, but the system can be easily adapted to the 10% threshold I prefer.
The rule:
If a roll succeeds, and the ones digit on the roll is a "5", the roll is a critical success.
This speeds things up by removing a process of calculation and replacing it with simple recognition. Choosing the "5" digit has the same effect as the already existing rounding rules for critical thresholds.
For a 20% critical success threshold, the two digits should be "5" and "0".
Apr 15, 2013
Your Body is a Temple to the Black Vermin Gods Pt. 3
Part 1 is here.
Part 2 is here.
Putting Things Inside Yourself
Concoctions
Concoctions differ from mere potions in that they are intended to have a permanent effect by transforming the inner functions of the person. All concoctions are made using Lore (Alchemy), and require a Resilience test from the drinker. Critical failure on the Resilience roll leads to horrible, immediate death; failure results in 1d10 damage that cannot be stopped by magic; success results in no effect whatsoever; on a critical success the concoction works and the drinker experiences whatever effect it is intended to have.
The King of Poisons
An edible black sludge made from the mashed remains of a murder gnome that has eaten a snake that has eaten a rat that has eaten a spider that has eaten a scorpion that has eaten at least ten fire ants. The drinker becomes immune to all poisons, and is considered to have passed any test involving poison with a critical success. Their fingernails turn black. Most common in the Orthocracy and Dwer Tor.
Quicksilver of Longevity
A silvery fluid injected up the nose and into the brain. The recipient stops aging for twenty years and their nose drips silver mucus for the rest of their life. May be used multiple times, but only in sequence. Orthocrats are the most common users of this concoction.
Smoke of Changing Gender
The ground-up gonads of ten different sentient creatures of the desired sex mixed with jimson weed and other herbs and then smoked. The smoker changes sex permanently into the desired sex (usually accompanied by visions of a woman in white performing the changes). Using the magically-potent gonads of sorcerers allows the smoker to change genders with merely an ordinary success.
Coals of Clear Fate
Hot coals made from the sacred wood of the Dreaming Tree set aflame by lava. Must burn to ash while on the tongue, then the recipient must swallow the ash. Grants three visions of how the recipient could die, each one further along in life but more horrible. Recipient must choose one, and will die of it, but cannot be killed prior to that situation. The visions are often vague about some of the critical details. Often used by warriors of the Forest People.
Red Glass Powder
Made by pulverising the vitrified blood of Eternal Night. Must be inhaled. Inhaler gains +25% to all skill rolls at night-time. Pretenders to the Throne of Night must use this concoction publicly to prove their mettle.
Parasites & Symbionts
Purple Literacy Worm
Purple Literacy Worms enter the skull through the nose or ear, and sever the optic nerve before replacing it with themselves. The effect is to render their hosts literate in all languages, though the worm cannot supply meaning or break ciphers. The worm is affected by all conditions that affect the host's body, but must resist separately. The host may survive a poison that kills the worm, or the worm may be magically confused while the host resists. Two outcomes are most likely: The worm either starts eating through the material around it (the host's brain), causing a major wound and the loss of 1d6 INT, or the worm detachs from the back of the eye and the host is blinded until it reattaches. Persistence 25%, Resilience 25%
Whispering Liver
A blackish, intelligent, demonic fluke that replaces the liver of the host and renders them immune to the effects of alcohol or other poisons. Whispering livers talk to their hosts, though most of the advice they offer is bad. The give the host jaundice when they feel they are being ignored. Whispering livers are caught by drinking from unfiltered water and reproduce by provoking the host to vomit a wriggling mass of juveniles into the nearest water source.
Horror Ants
Horror Ants come from the dream world. Once in the Dawnlands, they attempt to build portals to allow more Horror Ants in. Horror Ants' bite requires a Persistence test to resist. Otherwise, the victim is charmed to want to help the ants, who take up residence in their throat and create a certain amount of droning and vocal fry whenever the host speaks. The ants can be killed by eating noxious peppers, drinking poisons, electrical shocks, or by spells specifically targeting them. Disobeying the ants requires a Persistence test: failure causes the victim to collapse and begin screaming as they are filled with terrifying hallucinations. Horror ants are a common vermin in the dream world and tend to slip through portals to it left open too long.
Foot Rats
A soulforged rat species found in the Orthocracy, mated pairs of Foot Rats gnaw off the feet of hosts while they sleep, injecting a soporific anesthetic to complete this task unnoticed and dealing 1d8 damage in the process. They then graft themselves onto the stumps. Foot Rats double the speed a host can walk at, but they are fidgety, and if the host goes more than an hour or so without walking anywhere (for example, if they are trying to sit by a camp fire or read a book), the rats will take it upon themselves to start moving around. The rats sleep for four to six hours at a time, as they please.
Part 2 is here.
Putting Things Inside Yourself
Concoctions
Concoctions differ from mere potions in that they are intended to have a permanent effect by transforming the inner functions of the person. All concoctions are made using Lore (Alchemy), and require a Resilience test from the drinker. Critical failure on the Resilience roll leads to horrible, immediate death; failure results in 1d10 damage that cannot be stopped by magic; success results in no effect whatsoever; on a critical success the concoction works and the drinker experiences whatever effect it is intended to have.
The King of Poisons
An edible black sludge made from the mashed remains of a murder gnome that has eaten a snake that has eaten a rat that has eaten a spider that has eaten a scorpion that has eaten at least ten fire ants. The drinker becomes immune to all poisons, and is considered to have passed any test involving poison with a critical success. Their fingernails turn black. Most common in the Orthocracy and Dwer Tor.
Quicksilver of Longevity
A silvery fluid injected up the nose and into the brain. The recipient stops aging for twenty years and their nose drips silver mucus for the rest of their life. May be used multiple times, but only in sequence. Orthocrats are the most common users of this concoction.
Smoke of Changing Gender
The ground-up gonads of ten different sentient creatures of the desired sex mixed with jimson weed and other herbs and then smoked. The smoker changes sex permanently into the desired sex (usually accompanied by visions of a woman in white performing the changes). Using the magically-potent gonads of sorcerers allows the smoker to change genders with merely an ordinary success.
Coals of Clear Fate
Hot coals made from the sacred wood of the Dreaming Tree set aflame by lava. Must burn to ash while on the tongue, then the recipient must swallow the ash. Grants three visions of how the recipient could die, each one further along in life but more horrible. Recipient must choose one, and will die of it, but cannot be killed prior to that situation. The visions are often vague about some of the critical details. Often used by warriors of the Forest People.
Red Glass Powder
Made by pulverising the vitrified blood of Eternal Night. Must be inhaled. Inhaler gains +25% to all skill rolls at night-time. Pretenders to the Throne of Night must use this concoction publicly to prove their mettle.
Parasites & Symbionts
Purple Literacy Worm
Purple Literacy Worms enter the skull through the nose or ear, and sever the optic nerve before replacing it with themselves. The effect is to render their hosts literate in all languages, though the worm cannot supply meaning or break ciphers. The worm is affected by all conditions that affect the host's body, but must resist separately. The host may survive a poison that kills the worm, or the worm may be magically confused while the host resists. Two outcomes are most likely: The worm either starts eating through the material around it (the host's brain), causing a major wound and the loss of 1d6 INT, or the worm detachs from the back of the eye and the host is blinded until it reattaches. Persistence 25%, Resilience 25%
Whispering Liver
A blackish, intelligent, demonic fluke that replaces the liver of the host and renders them immune to the effects of alcohol or other poisons. Whispering livers talk to their hosts, though most of the advice they offer is bad. The give the host jaundice when they feel they are being ignored. Whispering livers are caught by drinking from unfiltered water and reproduce by provoking the host to vomit a wriggling mass of juveniles into the nearest water source.
Horror Ants
Horror Ants come from the dream world. Once in the Dawnlands, they attempt to build portals to allow more Horror Ants in. Horror Ants' bite requires a Persistence test to resist. Otherwise, the victim is charmed to want to help the ants, who take up residence in their throat and create a certain amount of droning and vocal fry whenever the host speaks. The ants can be killed by eating noxious peppers, drinking poisons, electrical shocks, or by spells specifically targeting them. Disobeying the ants requires a Persistence test: failure causes the victim to collapse and begin screaming as they are filled with terrifying hallucinations. Horror ants are a common vermin in the dream world and tend to slip through portals to it left open too long.
Foot Rats
A soulforged rat species found in the Orthocracy, mated pairs of Foot Rats gnaw off the feet of hosts while they sleep, injecting a soporific anesthetic to complete this task unnoticed and dealing 1d8 damage in the process. They then graft themselves onto the stumps. Foot Rats double the speed a host can walk at, but they are fidgety, and if the host goes more than an hour or so without walking anywhere (for example, if they are trying to sit by a camp fire or read a book), the rats will take it upon themselves to start moving around. The rats sleep for four to six hours at a time, as they please.
Mar 30, 2013
Your Body is a Temple to the Black Vermin Gods Pt. 2
Part 1 is here.
More ways to alter your body:
Cutting Pieces Of Yourself Off
Amputation
Amputated limbs may be turned into familiars by the person they were once part of. All that is required is either the Pet spell (from RQ6) or the Call Spirit spell (from OQ). For the duration of the spell, the limb will be animated and may be commanded to perform any task the caster requires. The body part will continue to decay, but so long as it remains intact, it may reanimated repeatedly.
Amputated hands and feet are also preferred containers for charms, magic point stores, etc. and may be turned into such using the normal rules for their creation.
Blinding
Ritual removal of the eyes can grant Witchsight / Second Sight as per the appropriate spell (depending on whether one is using RQ6 Folk Magic or OQ Battle Magic). The ritual requires the surgeon to have the appropriate spell and achieve a critical success on a Healing test. The ritual can be performed on someone whose eyes have already been removed - it is the elaborate pattern of scars and modifications that carry the spell.
Members of the thaumaturge caste in Dwer Tor often ritually blind themselves as part of an ascetic withdrawal from the concerns of the polis. This is most commonly done late in life, as a form of retirement. Murder gnomes in the Orthocracy usually blind one family member to help them find souls to consume.
Castration
Ritual removal of the testes will transform them into Magic Point Stores (as per the spell) capable of holding a number of Magic Points equal to 1/3rd of the donor's POW at the time of removal. The donor's POW score is not affected. The ovaries can be used in the same way, but the greater danger and difficulty of extracting them makes this less common. The ritual requires the surgeon to test both Sorcery and Healing successfully, and one of the two tests must be a critical success.
Removal of the testes is a reasonably common, though not ubiquitous, condition of admission to schools of sorcery in the Orthocracy of Kaddish. It is fairly uncommon for anyone else, though the Kadiz and Hill People do castrate some war captives as a form of non-magical ritual humiliation.
Circumcision
Priests who are circumcised may spend 8 hours meditating to regain a single spell they have cast, once per day. Circumcising someone is a Healing test and can be done by anyone.
Ritual circumcision is not practiced in the contemporary Dawnlands, but was extremely common among the priests of the Children of Night, who retain this power in undeath.
Grafts
Grafting is the process whereby a limb or organ from one being is attached or implanted magically on or into a second being. There are two main reasons to graft a body part onto someone: To recover from a Major Wound that damaged or removed a body party; or to replace a body part with one that grants powers or attribute increases.
If you are using the normal Openquest Battle Magic rules: A Heal spell at Magnitude 6 can be used to graft on a body part on. The body part being grafted on must replace a missing or damaged body part (it must have either taken a Major Wound or have been surgically removed).
Using my house rules (which include using RQ 6 Folk Magic): The grafter must know both the Heal Folk Magic spell and have the Healing skill. They must cast the Heal spell using the Healing skill and score a critical success on the Healing test to successfully graft the part on. The location must either have taken a major wound or the body part must have been surgically removed.
Surgical removal of limbs requires a Healing skill test. On a failure, the patient loses half their current HP (enough to cause a Major Wound). If they are not at full HP, this may kill them. On a successful test, they lose 1/4 (one quarter) of their current HP. Either way, the limb is removed.
Grafting body parts on has two effects. If the location was suffering a major wound, the character recovers from the Major Wound, replacing any lost attributes, skills, etc. once they have healed to full HP.
The second effect is that the person gains some feature of the new body part. Determine what the body part was and apply the following rules:
Limbs: Take 1/4 of the STR, DEX and SIZ scores of the recipient and the body part's donor and compare the their respective attributes. If 1/4 of any of the donor's score is higher than 1/4 of the recipient's respective score, then increase the appropriate attribute by the difference. If 1/4 of any the recipient's score is higher than 1/4 of the donor's respective score, then decrease the appropriate attribute by the difference.
If the donor had a special touch-based power, or a claw attack, these may be gained by the recipient.
Organs: A character can modify any one attribute by grafting on an appropriate organ. 1/4 of the recipient's attribute is compared to 1/4 of the donor's respective attribute. If the recipient's attribute is higher, then reduce it by the difference between the two quartered scores. If it's lower, then increase it by the same amount. Only one attribute may be changed at a time by organ replacement.
If the creature had an organ associated with a special attack or power associated with a body part (e.g. a Medusa's gaze attack; a cockatrice's beak), then replacing the recipient's organ with the appropriate donor organ grants that power.
Grafts are a relatively common way of dealing with severed limbs. The Kaddish use organ grafting more than other cultures do.
More ways to alter your body:
Cutting Pieces Of Yourself Off
Amputation
Amputated limbs may be turned into familiars by the person they were once part of. All that is required is either the Pet spell (from RQ6) or the Call Spirit spell (from OQ). For the duration of the spell, the limb will be animated and may be commanded to perform any task the caster requires. The body part will continue to decay, but so long as it remains intact, it may reanimated repeatedly.
Amputated hands and feet are also preferred containers for charms, magic point stores, etc. and may be turned into such using the normal rules for their creation.
Blinding
Ritual removal of the eyes can grant Witchsight / Second Sight as per the appropriate spell (depending on whether one is using RQ6 Folk Magic or OQ Battle Magic). The ritual requires the surgeon to have the appropriate spell and achieve a critical success on a Healing test. The ritual can be performed on someone whose eyes have already been removed - it is the elaborate pattern of scars and modifications that carry the spell.
Members of the thaumaturge caste in Dwer Tor often ritually blind themselves as part of an ascetic withdrawal from the concerns of the polis. This is most commonly done late in life, as a form of retirement. Murder gnomes in the Orthocracy usually blind one family member to help them find souls to consume.
Castration
Ritual removal of the testes will transform them into Magic Point Stores (as per the spell) capable of holding a number of Magic Points equal to 1/3rd of the donor's POW at the time of removal. The donor's POW score is not affected. The ovaries can be used in the same way, but the greater danger and difficulty of extracting them makes this less common. The ritual requires the surgeon to test both Sorcery and Healing successfully, and one of the two tests must be a critical success.
Removal of the testes is a reasonably common, though not ubiquitous, condition of admission to schools of sorcery in the Orthocracy of Kaddish. It is fairly uncommon for anyone else, though the Kadiz and Hill People do castrate some war captives as a form of non-magical ritual humiliation.
Circumcision
Priests who are circumcised may spend 8 hours meditating to regain a single spell they have cast, once per day. Circumcising someone is a Healing test and can be done by anyone.
Ritual circumcision is not practiced in the contemporary Dawnlands, but was extremely common among the priests of the Children of Night, who retain this power in undeath.
Grafts
Grafting is the process whereby a limb or organ from one being is attached or implanted magically on or into a second being. There are two main reasons to graft a body part onto someone: To recover from a Major Wound that damaged or removed a body party; or to replace a body part with one that grants powers or attribute increases.
If you are using the normal Openquest Battle Magic rules: A Heal spell at Magnitude 6 can be used to graft on a body part on. The body part being grafted on must replace a missing or damaged body part (it must have either taken a Major Wound or have been surgically removed).
Using my house rules (which include using RQ 6 Folk Magic): The grafter must know both the Heal Folk Magic spell and have the Healing skill. They must cast the Heal spell using the Healing skill and score a critical success on the Healing test to successfully graft the part on. The location must either have taken a major wound or the body part must have been surgically removed.
Surgical removal of limbs requires a Healing skill test. On a failure, the patient loses half their current HP (enough to cause a Major Wound). If they are not at full HP, this may kill them. On a successful test, they lose 1/4 (one quarter) of their current HP. Either way, the limb is removed.
Grafting body parts on has two effects. If the location was suffering a major wound, the character recovers from the Major Wound, replacing any lost attributes, skills, etc. once they have healed to full HP.
The second effect is that the person gains some feature of the new body part. Determine what the body part was and apply the following rules:
Limbs: Take 1/4 of the STR, DEX and SIZ scores of the recipient and the body part's donor and compare the their respective attributes. If 1/4 of any of the donor's score is higher than 1/4 of the recipient's respective score, then increase the appropriate attribute by the difference. If 1/4 of any the recipient's score is higher than 1/4 of the donor's respective score, then decrease the appropriate attribute by the difference.
If the donor had a special touch-based power, or a claw attack, these may be gained by the recipient.
Organs: A character can modify any one attribute by grafting on an appropriate organ. 1/4 of the recipient's attribute is compared to 1/4 of the donor's respective attribute. If the recipient's attribute is higher, then reduce it by the difference between the two quartered scores. If it's lower, then increase it by the same amount. Only one attribute may be changed at a time by organ replacement.
If the creature had an organ associated with a special attack or power associated with a body part (e.g. a Medusa's gaze attack; a cockatrice's beak), then replacing the recipient's organ with the appropriate donor organ grants that power.
Grafts are a relatively common way of dealing with severed limbs. The Kaddish use organ grafting more than other cultures do.
Mar 28, 2013
Your Body is a Temple to the Black Vermin Gods Pt 1.
A couple of players in the Dawnlands game have remarked that there's a cyberpunk or transhumanist feel to it because of the relentless modification of the PCs' bodies. Two died and came back as undead last session, one with silver wiring for the nerves that were smashed in by a stone altar hurled by a golden golem, and the other with mercury blood that replaced the blood he'd lost when the altar shattered and lacerated him. I don't know why I like body modification as a theme in my rpgs (I have no piercings or tattoos in real life), but here are some of the kinds of modifications PCs can have:
General rules
All body markings require an artist with Craft (Skin Artist) to make a test. Receiving a body marking is a painful, often dangerous, process in the Dawnlands, and the recipient of one takes an amount of damage equal to the relevant factor when it is applied. The factor will be described in each entry. This damage cannot be blocked by armour or magic, and must be healed naturally. On a failed test, only the damage is inflicted, and no benefit is gained. This damage can cause major wounds. All body markings require the recipient to invest a number of improvement rolls equal to half the factor.
Spell tattoos may be used to hold folk / common / battle magic spells, with each tattoo of at least hand size holding one (and only one) spell. Spell tattoos may be of any magnitude. The artist creating the tattoo must know the spell at the correct magnitude. The spell counts as permanently active, and has the recipient as the target for any effect. If for some reason the spell effect would end due to a condition, it is suppressed so long as the condition holds then reactivates as soon as the condition is gone. Spell tattoos require the recipient to invest a number of Magic Points equal to the spell's magnitude which are not recovered unless the spell tattoo is removed.
Body Markings
There are four kinds of permanent marks on the body that can be made to have supernatural effects: Tattoos, Moko, Weals and Brands. PCs may pierce any body part they so please. This is a common way to hold charms and magic point stores, but is not itself magical.
General rules
All body markings require an artist with Craft (Skin Artist) to make a test. Receiving a body marking is a painful, often dangerous, process in the Dawnlands, and the recipient of one takes an amount of damage equal to the relevant factor when it is applied. The factor will be described in each entry. This damage cannot be blocked by armour or magic, and must be healed naturally. On a failed test, only the damage is inflicted, and no benefit is gained. This damage can cause major wounds. All body markings require the recipient to invest a number of improvement rolls equal to half the factor.
Tattoos (Factor: Spell Magnitude)
Spell tattoos may be used to hold folk / common / battle magic spells, with each tattoo of at least hand size holding one (and only one) spell. Spell tattoos may be of any magnitude. The artist creating the tattoo must know the spell at the correct magnitude. The spell counts as permanently active, and has the recipient as the target for any effect. If for some reason the spell effect would end due to a condition, it is suppressed so long as the condition holds then reactivates as soon as the condition is gone. Spell tattoos require the recipient to invest a number of Magic Points equal to the spell's magnitude which are not recovered unless the spell tattoo is removed.
Spell tattoos are common to all cultures in the Dawnlands. In Dwer Tor they are mainly used to control slaves and shunned by the upper classes.
Moko (Factor: Converted MP)
Moko are tattooed scars done by chiseling grooves into the skin and filling them with pigment. They convert maximum Magic Points into maximum Hit Points permanently at a ratio of 1 to 1. Any number of Magic Points may be converted, though a person with 0 MP still falls unconscious. The recipient does not automatically receive HP and must recover them by resting.
Weykulni and Forest People are the most common users of moko, especially their warriors.
Weals (Factor: Converted HP)
Weals are bulging scars, often caused by the insertion of foreign material (including pigmented particulate) into open wounds. Weals convert maximum Hit Points into maximum Magic Points permanently at a ratio of 1 to 1, as the inverse of moko. A person may have a higher maximum Magic Point total than their POW using this method.
The Kaddish use weals more than anyone else does.
Brands (Factor: Spirit Armour Points)
Brands here refer to scar designs caused by burning. Magical brands grant armour points in spirit combat (only). A person may have up to 6 points of armour against such attacks. Branding deals twice the normal damage receiving a body marking does.
Part 2 is here.
Part 2 is here.
Sep 3, 2012
[Dawnlands] Katalictors
Katalictors are created from deformed, simple and maimed children in the Orthocracy of Kaddish. Any child who survives to the age of seven with such a condition or injury is taken from their guardians and tithed to the Soulforgers. The Soulforgers reshape the child into a katalictor, a pale, inhumanly perfect simulacrum of a human. Katalictors serve as agents, companions, concubines, assassins, and assistants to the Soulforgers, who are themselves forbidden to leave the city. Each katalictor is made by a single Soulforger, which creates minor variations between their appearances, but the pale skin, unusual features, exquisite clothing and air of menace and grace mark them out as a class apart from the regular Kaddish. They are fully conscious and aware, and most are extremely grateful to the Soulforgers
Katalictors are Competence 4 antagonists. They may receive further modifications than those listed below depending on the importance of their task to the Soulforgers and the experience and trustworthiness of the katalictor in question. Common modifications include fangs, the ability to breathe underwater, a voice that compels obedience hypnotically and a bewitching scent that causes them to be highly sexually attractive. There are three broad kinds of specialties they tend to have, warriors, ambassadors and thinkers.
Warriors have Athletics, Close Combat, Dodge, and Resilience as specialties and are weak on Influence.
Ambassadors have Influence, Perception, Performance and Persistence, as specialties and are weak on Close Combat.
Thinkers have Natural Lore, Perception, Lore (Any One), and Sorcery Casting as specialties, and are weak on Influence. Thinkers typically know 3 sorcery spells.
Ambassadors have Influence, Perception, Performance and Persistence, as specialties and are weak on Close Combat.
Thinkers have Natural Lore, Perception, Lore (Any One), and Sorcery Casting as specialties, and are weak on Influence. Thinkers typically know 3 sorcery spells.
All katalictors regenerate quickly enough that only attacks that deal major wounds affect them. Otherwise, the blow is ignored.
Katalictors usually have 14 HP.
Jun 30, 2012
Religions of the Dawnlands: The God of Gates
The God of Gates
The God of Gates is a popular god in both Kaddish and the petty kingdoms of the northern plains. He is the deity of protection, of travel, of medicine, of lies and telling the truth, of overcoming obstacles, of beginnings and endings, of cleverness, of tricks, secrets and mysteries; the patron of fools, children, criminals, wanderers, exiles, doctors, architects and those who make their living by their wits and intelligence. He is a powerful god, and somewhat untrustworthy like all the old gods. No one has ever coherently explained where he fits in the myth cycle of Eternal Night and the Dawnmen, except that he appears, already ancient and well-known, at the parley with Moon, where he gives the Dawnmen a gift that leads to the loss of their names.
His icons are a beggar in tatterdemalion bearing a ring of keys; a ring made of swimming fish; three vertical lines of equal length with a horizontal line through them. His true name is every sound that can be made by sentient beings, all spoken at once. Many claim the writing that covers the mountain called "Dawntongue" is his name completely written out. He is called the Gentle God, the Humble God, and the Clever God by his priests and the God of Gates by everyone else.
The Gate Cults
His church was once powerful in Weykuln, but since the fall of that kingdom, it has been dispersed, with the largest and most powerful sect existing in the Orthocracy under the leadership of Versullus Halia Terminus. The God of Gates is one of the few gods other than the divine heroes and the Hard-Faced Mother whose worship is permitted in Dwer Tor, and a small number of ecclesia maintain shrines to him. The hobgoblin petty kings who conquered Weykuln have continued to seek his favour to strengthen their bastions.
All of these sects are engaged in a constant, murderous intrigue against one another for inscrutable reasons. They are forbidden to use their magic to directly kill one another, or to summon augermen against one another, but everything else is fair game. Occasionally two sects will band together to take down a powerful rival, but such alliances usually collapse, ideally only after the completion of their mutual goal.
Worshippers
The God of Gates is widely propitiated. His temples and priests are most common in the petty kingdoms of the northern Dawnlands and in the Orthocracy, though there is a single large temple complex in Dwer Tor.
Type of Cult
Great Deity - The God of Gates is a popular folk deity, and even devout members of other religions will whisper a prayer his way.
Cult Skills
Deception, Engineering, Mechanisms, Religion (God of Gates)
Worshipper Duties
Priests:
Lay:
Battle Magic
All
Divine Magic
All Common Spells plus Call Augerman, Divine Heal, Illusion, Shield
Special Benefits and Notes
When battle magic and divine spells taught by this cult have a cost in gold ducats in the rules, the cost must be replaced by a number of keys equal to the number of ducats. Each key must be to a different lock or gate from any other key used in the ritual. The keys may be used by another priest to cast a spell, but the caster can never use them again.
The Find spell included in this cult's common spells is Find (Path) and allows a priest of the God of Gates to find the nearest traversable pathway to where they wish to go.
Priests of this religion do not receive ally spirits. The Summon (Otherworldly Creature) spell summons Augermen.
There are only two levels in this cult, lay follower and priest. To become a priest, a lay follower must spend 5 IP and have Religion (Gate Cult) at 75% or better. They must be accepted by the priests of a temple as a peer (which often requires a task or favour).
Religious clothing varies from order to order, but all incorporate a ring of keys that is constantly being exhausted and replenished.
The God of Gates does not have a specific holy day. Priests may return to a temple or shrine and recover their spells whenever they wish.
Augermen
Also known as Door-Spirits, augermen are the servants of the God of Gates. They are capable of shape-changing as needed, but their "true" form is a lean grey humanoid without gender whose face is a featureless mass of honeycombed orifices and with six, unnaturally long fingers on each hand, each one ending in a long claw. Their only clothing is a belt of jangling keys of all types. Despite their terrifying appearance, augermen are not malignant except when ordered to be by their master. Augermen possess many powers. They can step through a doorway into any other doorway. They can find a way into and out of even the most tightly sealed location. They can create portals in time and space with a flick of their claws (this is how they defend themselves, sending their attackers careening off to far away lands and worlds) and they can pass through barriers that would bar any other traveller. They are capable of bringing others with them if convinced to do so.
Augermen have a relatively straightforward method of summoning and obtaining services from, though they are almost impossible to bind. One requires a container with an extremely complex lock that one does not know how to open. This cannot be simply a mechanical lock that one does not know how to pick, but the actual mechanism of the lock must include a puzzle or challenge, preferably inobvious. The container contains the payment for the augerman, usually a key of some sort (more valuable locations are preferred). Placed under the light of the full moon, it may attract nearby augermen (there aren't many, but they get around), who will come to open it and take the treasure inside. If the lock was sufficiently challenging, they will offer to perform a single service for the summoner. Augermen will not destroy the container in the process, as they consider this shameful.
In the rare case that the augermen cannot open the box for some reason, they will begin bargaining with the summoner, offering more and greater services in exchange for the secret of how to open the box. The high priest of the God of Gates in Kaddish, Versullus Halia Terminus, occasionally uses this to reinforce his power over the cult of the God of Gates and the augermen. Past examples of unopenable chests have included a solid block of glass with the key to the city granary inside, feeding the key to the outer glacier wall of Kalak-Who-Blinds' palace to a worm which then cocooned itself, and injecting the chemical mixture required to unseal the Tomb of Mestinves the Wyrm (which turned out to be poisonous) into the bloodstream of a slave.
The God of Gates is a popular god in both Kaddish and the petty kingdoms of the northern plains. He is the deity of protection, of travel, of medicine, of lies and telling the truth, of overcoming obstacles, of beginnings and endings, of cleverness, of tricks, secrets and mysteries; the patron of fools, children, criminals, wanderers, exiles, doctors, architects and those who make their living by their wits and intelligence. He is a powerful god, and somewhat untrustworthy like all the old gods. No one has ever coherently explained where he fits in the myth cycle of Eternal Night and the Dawnmen, except that he appears, already ancient and well-known, at the parley with Moon, where he gives the Dawnmen a gift that leads to the loss of their names.
His icons are a beggar in tatterdemalion bearing a ring of keys; a ring made of swimming fish; three vertical lines of equal length with a horizontal line through them. His true name is every sound that can be made by sentient beings, all spoken at once. Many claim the writing that covers the mountain called "Dawntongue" is his name completely written out. He is called the Gentle God, the Humble God, and the Clever God by his priests and the God of Gates by everyone else.
The Gate Cults
His church was once powerful in Weykuln, but since the fall of that kingdom, it has been dispersed, with the largest and most powerful sect existing in the Orthocracy under the leadership of Versullus Halia Terminus. The God of Gates is one of the few gods other than the divine heroes and the Hard-Faced Mother whose worship is permitted in Dwer Tor, and a small number of ecclesia maintain shrines to him. The hobgoblin petty kings who conquered Weykuln have continued to seek his favour to strengthen their bastions.
All of these sects are engaged in a constant, murderous intrigue against one another for inscrutable reasons. They are forbidden to use their magic to directly kill one another, or to summon augermen against one another, but everything else is fair game. Occasionally two sects will band together to take down a powerful rival, but such alliances usually collapse, ideally only after the completion of their mutual goal.
Worshippers
The God of Gates is widely propitiated. His temples and priests are most common in the petty kingdoms of the northern Dawnlands and in the Orthocracy, though there is a single large temple complex in Dwer Tor.
Type of Cult
Great Deity - The God of Gates is a popular folk deity, and even devout members of other religions will whisper a prayer his way.
Cult Skills
Deception, Engineering, Mechanisms, Religion (God of Gates)
Worshipper Duties
Priests:
Lay:
Battle Magic
All
Divine Magic
All Common Spells plus Call Augerman, Divine Heal, Illusion, Shield
Special Benefits and Notes
When battle magic and divine spells taught by this cult have a cost in gold ducats in the rules, the cost must be replaced by a number of keys equal to the number of ducats. Each key must be to a different lock or gate from any other key used in the ritual. The keys may be used by another priest to cast a spell, but the caster can never use them again.
The Find spell included in this cult's common spells is Find (Path) and allows a priest of the God of Gates to find the nearest traversable pathway to where they wish to go.
Priests of this religion do not receive ally spirits. The Summon (Otherworldly Creature) spell summons Augermen.
There are only two levels in this cult, lay follower and priest. To become a priest, a lay follower must spend 5 IP and have Religion (Gate Cult) at 75% or better. They must be accepted by the priests of a temple as a peer (which often requires a task or favour).
Religious clothing varies from order to order, but all incorporate a ring of keys that is constantly being exhausted and replenished.
The God of Gates does not have a specific holy day. Priests may return to a temple or shrine and recover their spells whenever they wish.
Augermen
Also known as Door-Spirits, augermen are the servants of the God of Gates. They are capable of shape-changing as needed, but their "true" form is a lean grey humanoid without gender whose face is a featureless mass of honeycombed orifices and with six, unnaturally long fingers on each hand, each one ending in a long claw. Their only clothing is a belt of jangling keys of all types. Despite their terrifying appearance, augermen are not malignant except when ordered to be by their master. Augermen possess many powers. They can step through a doorway into any other doorway. They can find a way into and out of even the most tightly sealed location. They can create portals in time and space with a flick of their claws (this is how they defend themselves, sending their attackers careening off to far away lands and worlds) and they can pass through barriers that would bar any other traveller. They are capable of bringing others with them if convinced to do so.
Augermen have a relatively straightforward method of summoning and obtaining services from, though they are almost impossible to bind. One requires a container with an extremely complex lock that one does not know how to open. This cannot be simply a mechanical lock that one does not know how to pick, but the actual mechanism of the lock must include a puzzle or challenge, preferably inobvious. The container contains the payment for the augerman, usually a key of some sort (more valuable locations are preferred). Placed under the light of the full moon, it may attract nearby augermen (there aren't many, but they get around), who will come to open it and take the treasure inside. If the lock was sufficiently challenging, they will offer to perform a single service for the summoner. Augermen will not destroy the container in the process, as they consider this shameful.
In the rare case that the augermen cannot open the box for some reason, they will begin bargaining with the summoner, offering more and greater services in exchange for the secret of how to open the box. The high priest of the God of Gates in Kaddish, Versullus Halia Terminus, occasionally uses this to reinforce his power over the cult of the God of Gates and the augermen. Past examples of unopenable chests have included a solid block of glass with the key to the city granary inside, feeding the key to the outer glacier wall of Kalak-Who-Blinds' palace to a worm which then cocooned itself, and injecting the chemical mixture required to unseal the Tomb of Mestinves the Wyrm (which turned out to be poisonous) into the bloodstream of a slave.
Jun 24, 2012
[Review] The Age of Shadow
The Age of Shadow is mostly identical to stock Openquest (including large chunks of reprinted text), so I'm mainly going to be discussing the differences. The differences include: a sample of play, character creation, barter value, some minor clean-ups and clarifications in the combat chapter, some changes to the spellcasting systems available, slightly different character improvement rules, and the bestiary.
In reverse order:
The bestiary's formatting is superior to stock Openquest's. It compresses more information more usefully than stock Openquest monster profiles, and its formatting should be adopted or improved upon in Openquest 2nd edition. It contains 15 monster types, with three stat profiles for each (lesser, common and greater) plus an animal list that looks like it came from stock Openquest. The monster types are mostly staples - beastmen, vampires, barbarians, sorcerers (it's nice to see some human antagonists written up), demons, etc. It also has a list of animals statted up, though this appears shorter than the list in stock Openquest.
I like the horde rules, which simply codify what happens already when you run a large number of antagonists. I don't like the Fear rules. 10 of the 15 monster types in the bestiary have the Fearsome special rules apply to them. You make a Persistence test when you first encounter the creature (and RAW appear to test for each creature, not even each type), and then depending upon whether you passed or failed, critically succeeded or fumbled, you cross reference your result with the Fearsome rating of the creature to determine the result, which includes penalties, fleeing, passing out, etc.
I would have preferred only one kind of Fearsome, and to have its effects be to make a Persistence test when a group of creatures with at least one Fearsome member is encountered. Fumble and you pass out, fail and you flee until you can't see any Fearsome monsters, pass and you stand your ground, and critical and you force the Fearsome creature to make its own Persistence test against you as if you were Fearsome (A creature that expects you to flee before it suddenly freezes up in shock when you seem not only unaffected but actually ready to take it on).
The character improvement rules grant 2 x 1d4% to skills, or 2d4% to one skill, instead of the flat +5% to one skill that Openquest does. The average gain is the same, but there's more variance. I don't know how I feel about this idea, since the problem I've had with the 5% gain from spending an improvement point is the rapidity of improvement, which I don't see this affecting. I'd be curious about the reasoning behind it.
And no, you still can't improve SIZ.
The spellcasting systems basically remove divine magic and make it harder to cast sorcery and innate magic aka battle magic from stock Openquest. You have to spend background points during character creation to be able to cast spells. Sorcery is basically stock sorcery with a corruption mechanic - fumble and you gain a point of corruption, get more corruption than your POW, and you become a evil NPC. You also tend to know fewer spells than a sorcerer will in stock Openquest.
The goal of these rules is to encourage low levels of magic, as part of creating a low fantasy feel. I'm not totally convinced this is possible in any game with PC spellcasting and defined spells. This is a larger discussion than this review can accommodate, and it's not a problem unique to Age of Shadow by any means, but I think that what people mostly want when they say they want "low fantasy" or "rare magic" is for magical spell effects to feel less like a form of technology. This means: less reliable, less safe, less defined, and to create a sense of awe and wonder at both its operation and its means. IRL, the essence of "magical thinking" in the developed Western world is the elision of means by which something is accomplished. Any game that defines and explains magic's operations will have magic that is more technological than "magical".
Anyhow, corruption triggers extremely rarely, and sorcerers are characters who will have high POW scores or who will spend improvement points to get high POW scores as rapidly as they can. I'm not sure how much of a threat corruption would actually be, except over extremely long play. As well, the only mechanical effect is to lose the character, which is a type of effect I hate (especially since I have played, and will play again in future, evil characters). I don't think this represents corruption very well - there's no gradations, just a threshold that if you cross, you lose the character.
The combat chapter has some minor rewrites, particularly around moving (He basically shows the action-move-reaction schematic a little more clearly). There are no differences in the rules, but I think this chapter reads easier than stock Openquest does, and I commend Kristian Richards for caring enough to clarify some of these minor issues.
Age of Shadows does not use money. Instead, all objects are assigned a barter value. BV is basically a virtual monetary system. I think this works as a transitional step to representing a non-monetary economy, but it's a virtual monetary economy, not truly a moneyless one. The end result is that you'll carry around physical treasure with a certain BV rather than a small cargo container worth of coins. For some people, this is far enough away from money to get across the Tolkienesque feel. Personally, I'd prefer something more radical.
Also, the gear list is the same boring OGL list as every other fantasy game these days. I've complained about this before.
Character creation is similar to stock Openquest except that it now includes elves, dwarves, and some "background points" (Humans get 3, Dwarves 2, Elves 1) that allow them to boost skills or cast magic, etc. Elves and Dwarves get some fiddly modifiers as powers, and can cast spells. Background points are spent like improvement points, or to allow humans to know and cast spells. I wanted to like and praise this stuff, but I mostly find it bloodless and confusing. As many of my readers recall, I abolished all attribute differences and most special powers that different species / sub-species had. While perhaps not suitable for a Tolkienesque world like Age of Shadows, I would suggest that attribute variances are the wrong way to handle this, as are powers that are merely +25% to this situation. I've come to prefer treating species abilities are unique features that don't add mechanical benefits directly, but that allow them to do something or use a skill or other ability in a way that no one else can.
Overall, I think it's worth downloading Age of Shadows, but I would hold off on buying it. The main selling point is the new formatting for the monster stats, which I encourage the rest of the Openquest community to adopt and use.
In reverse order:
The bestiary's formatting is superior to stock Openquest's. It compresses more information more usefully than stock Openquest monster profiles, and its formatting should be adopted or improved upon in Openquest 2nd edition. It contains 15 monster types, with three stat profiles for each (lesser, common and greater) plus an animal list that looks like it came from stock Openquest. The monster types are mostly staples - beastmen, vampires, barbarians, sorcerers (it's nice to see some human antagonists written up), demons, etc. It also has a list of animals statted up, though this appears shorter than the list in stock Openquest.
I like the horde rules, which simply codify what happens already when you run a large number of antagonists. I don't like the Fear rules. 10 of the 15 monster types in the bestiary have the Fearsome special rules apply to them. You make a Persistence test when you first encounter the creature (and RAW appear to test for each creature, not even each type), and then depending upon whether you passed or failed, critically succeeded or fumbled, you cross reference your result with the Fearsome rating of the creature to determine the result, which includes penalties, fleeing, passing out, etc.
I would have preferred only one kind of Fearsome, and to have its effects be to make a Persistence test when a group of creatures with at least one Fearsome member is encountered. Fumble and you pass out, fail and you flee until you can't see any Fearsome monsters, pass and you stand your ground, and critical and you force the Fearsome creature to make its own Persistence test against you as if you were Fearsome (A creature that expects you to flee before it suddenly freezes up in shock when you seem not only unaffected but actually ready to take it on).
The character improvement rules grant 2 x 1d4% to skills, or 2d4% to one skill, instead of the flat +5% to one skill that Openquest does. The average gain is the same, but there's more variance. I don't know how I feel about this idea, since the problem I've had with the 5% gain from spending an improvement point is the rapidity of improvement, which I don't see this affecting. I'd be curious about the reasoning behind it.
And no, you still can't improve SIZ.
The spellcasting systems basically remove divine magic and make it harder to cast sorcery and innate magic aka battle magic from stock Openquest. You have to spend background points during character creation to be able to cast spells. Sorcery is basically stock sorcery with a corruption mechanic - fumble and you gain a point of corruption, get more corruption than your POW, and you become a evil NPC. You also tend to know fewer spells than a sorcerer will in stock Openquest.
The goal of these rules is to encourage low levels of magic, as part of creating a low fantasy feel. I'm not totally convinced this is possible in any game with PC spellcasting and defined spells. This is a larger discussion than this review can accommodate, and it's not a problem unique to Age of Shadow by any means, but I think that what people mostly want when they say they want "low fantasy" or "rare magic" is for magical spell effects to feel less like a form of technology. This means: less reliable, less safe, less defined, and to create a sense of awe and wonder at both its operation and its means. IRL, the essence of "magical thinking" in the developed Western world is the elision of means by which something is accomplished. Any game that defines and explains magic's operations will have magic that is more technological than "magical".
Anyhow, corruption triggers extremely rarely, and sorcerers are characters who will have high POW scores or who will spend improvement points to get high POW scores as rapidly as they can. I'm not sure how much of a threat corruption would actually be, except over extremely long play. As well, the only mechanical effect is to lose the character, which is a type of effect I hate (especially since I have played, and will play again in future, evil characters). I don't think this represents corruption very well - there's no gradations, just a threshold that if you cross, you lose the character.
The combat chapter has some minor rewrites, particularly around moving (He basically shows the action-move-reaction schematic a little more clearly). There are no differences in the rules, but I think this chapter reads easier than stock Openquest does, and I commend Kristian Richards for caring enough to clarify some of these minor issues.
Age of Shadows does not use money. Instead, all objects are assigned a barter value. BV is basically a virtual monetary system. I think this works as a transitional step to representing a non-monetary economy, but it's a virtual monetary economy, not truly a moneyless one. The end result is that you'll carry around physical treasure with a certain BV rather than a small cargo container worth of coins. For some people, this is far enough away from money to get across the Tolkienesque feel. Personally, I'd prefer something more radical.
Also, the gear list is the same boring OGL list as every other fantasy game these days. I've complained about this before.
Character creation is similar to stock Openquest except that it now includes elves, dwarves, and some "background points" (Humans get 3, Dwarves 2, Elves 1) that allow them to boost skills or cast magic, etc. Elves and Dwarves get some fiddly modifiers as powers, and can cast spells. Background points are spent like improvement points, or to allow humans to know and cast spells. I wanted to like and praise this stuff, but I mostly find it bloodless and confusing. As many of my readers recall, I abolished all attribute differences and most special powers that different species / sub-species had. While perhaps not suitable for a Tolkienesque world like Age of Shadows, I would suggest that attribute variances are the wrong way to handle this, as are powers that are merely +25% to this situation. I've come to prefer treating species abilities are unique features that don't add mechanical benefits directly, but that allow them to do something or use a skill or other ability in a way that no one else can.
Overall, I think it's worth downloading Age of Shadows, but I would hold off on buying it. The main selling point is the new formatting for the monster stats, which I encourage the rest of the Openquest community to adopt and use.
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