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Halloween Jack posted:The two things I liked that came out of Essentials was the Controller Ranger and the Hexblade. But the Hexblade became a poster boy for how they didn't give two shits about supporting the online character builder anymore. (The Hexblade's key power, that let his implement manifest a magical sword, was something that the builder really couldn't handle.) The Essentials years also gave us the Monster Vaults and Reavers of Harkenwold, so it's not *all* bad. And I liked the Essentials Rules Compendium; it was nice to have a small, handy book that had all the important rules in it for DM reference. hectorgrey posted:This is where my biggest problem with 4e was - your class was pretty much entirely about your role in combat, rather than what you had learned to do. In 5e, being a fighter means that you're good with weapons - you might be a lightly armoured fighter who focuses on doing large amounts of damage with finesse weapons, or a heavily armoured fighter who focuses on hitting things in the face with two handed weapons, and making themselves enough of a threat to be worth focusing on, or even an archer who focuses on turning enemies into pincushions from distances outside of normal spellcasting range. Outside of combat, you could be good at many things - you could be from a Criminal background, making you the next best thing to a Rogue for dealing with locked doors and traps; your could be a Sage, and be really good at knowledge checks. With the right background, you could even be the face of the party. In 4e, being a fighter means that your job in combat is to stand there in heavy armour and be hit in the face, and your job outside of combat is to stand there and look mean or do the heavy lifting. I don't think even the biggest 4E fanperson on these boards would disagree that 4E fell down when it came to giving fighters noncombat utility, thanks to getting fewer skills and a crappy skill selection. 4E's implementation of Backgrounds did help in that area though. However, 4E did also provide options such as the tempest fighter for people who didn't want to just be Lunk McPlatemail, and I think 4E went farther than 5E does in making different combat styles and weapon types feel different. Yes, you still can't create a very good archer fighter in 4E unless you play a ranger and re-label it, but that's a well-worn argument. Selachian fucked around with this message at 20:11 on Jun 10, 2015 |
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Rifts Dimension Book 2: Phase World Part 12: United Worlds of Warlock & Splugorth Alright, so we’ve done the Federation and the Empire. Now we get to the space wizards.  Basically a bunch of elves figured out how to open rifts from one planet to another and used this to build a star kingdom without ever leaving the ground. One wonders a little while rifts Earth hasn’t figured this out, but then most of the nations that use magic professionally are either dinky or dominated by utter evil. The space elf king is named Silverlight, which is funny now but was just typically elfy back when this was written, and has ruled for several thousand years. The elves met a coalition calling themselves the Warlocks who were sadly not the band but a bunch of other wizards of varying stripe who puzzled out ways to make magic work with space. The elves and warlocks came to a friendly agreement and exchanged tricks, so everybody got rift drives and learned to follow ley lines in space.  insufficiently  even if warlockThis fragile alliance began expanding cautiously further into the space around them. They pretty much met the inevitable waiting doom and ran into the Splugorth, who started a nasty war and were proceeding to win it. The elves sent out a plea for help “through the ley lines” and...someone came. It was space dwarves in riveted iron ships with cannons that shot mini-rifts into enemy vessels. With their new  allies, the United Worlds of Warlock were able to toss the Splugorth back into smaller borders and drive out an intelligence entirely, and proceeded to adopt strays of all magical kinds, including a planet full of the supposedly super-rare True Atlanteans. As much as I am not a super-fan Tolkien In Space, this whole origin series fits reasonably well with the tropes it is following, obeys some Rifty class/race assumptions in the fiction without seeming dumb, and the description of the dwarven fleet is actually pretty cool. The current UWW is a fusion of a monarchy (the Elven High King and his “Star Chamber”  ), a bunch of techno-anarchists (“Warlock”) and a capitalist meritocracy (Dwarven Guilds). This required some maneuvering to create a workable governing body and they ended up with a Parliament. The Parliament has a lead Consul who has coincidentally been the Elven King Silverlight for the past one hundred elections because he is just a cool dude. Each member world gets two reps and how the world chooses them is up to that world.The UWW is very open to magic obviously, but they also use tech because they are not idiots and only a relatively small slice of any given population can actually enter a magical OCC. There isn’t much more rivalry than the occasional bit of trash talk. They trade freely with the Consortium, rattle sabers back at the Empire, and aid the Free World Council. Their major enemies are the Splugorth of course, pirates (everyone’s enemy) and the “Star Hives” to be described shortly. Major Worlds: Alfheim: Where the elfs come from. It’s full of universities and observatories and other pursuits of the mind. It’s also home to the Palace of Diamonds which is in fact literally covered with jewels and home to the Parliament. Tempest: A planet full of elementals. The Warlocks used this as a base planet since its natural violence made it a useful shooting ground and ready source of elementals to enslave into their giant trai--I mean, uh, a good place to study that stuff. The Smithy: Dwarf home planet, basically a forge world in the most literal way possible. New Midgard: This is that weird planet mentioned briefly in Pantheons and is ruled by the actual Asgardians and connects to the World Tree in a weird way. The actual pantheon doesn’t come by often, but it is connected to their realm and sells a crapton of magical stuff. A fairly brief writeup for these guys. Most of the magic stuff is in other books already, with a few bits here in this one and the sourcebook. For these relatively 'good' space nations, the government is always some kind of blandly described coalition among disparate entities, which I suppose is somewhat reasonable given travel times. However it would make sense then if the Empire and splugorth had trouble managing their own disparate little planets--but nope, evil is always doggedly loyal except for occasional rebellion.  Lastly for today, we’ll touch on the splugorth in space. Somehow I envision a big tentacled horror with bubble helmets around each horrible eye. The Splugorth space presence considerably smaller than the other star nations around it, and dwarfed completely by their rebelled-slave kreeghor. The UWW is 500 billion people, for instance. The splugorth have 80 billion. That is still a lot of people, and we get one of their usual percentile race breakdowns (20% Overlords, the gently caress?). They’re split into four “kingdoms” though they work together overall, plus the trading sector in Center. They’ve made several unsuccessful attempts to take Center, which is mysteriously well defended. Rifts would go to the wrong place, taking battle fleets into the heart of a sun, and so on. They ended up just paying rent and biding their time. The four splugorth space kingdoms are ruled by their individual absolutist intelligences and they’re not friends, but they hate others more than each other. We’re spared long loving writeups of how each one individually prefers torture or whatever. They’re villains, worse than the Empire, but not poised to take over everything.  The last section covers the Paradise Federation and “Other.” It’s a big galaxy and not fully inhabited a dozen times over from the sound of things, so there’s a lot of space and a lot of races. Despite describing the galaxies as being settled mostly at their peripheries in an easy-to-draw-a-map way, it also sounds a bit like some of these star nations are discontinuous. Anyway, the Paradise Federation is a very small alliance of worlds, just 26 total, 21 billion people total--that’s a pretty sparse population. The worlds are all big vacation spots catering to all manner of vice and indulgence. They have a relatively small permanent population as a result, and a large transient tourist population churning through constantly. All of these worlds are owned by the Paradise Foundation, a giant entertainment corporation, and all permanent citizens are employed by them. They make a lot of profit and so employ a lot of naruni guards to protect their special destinations. Since these are all giant company towns, the security is pretty tight. Crime is still common, but usually more “petty theft and grifting” rather than murder in the streets. Employees are on contract and have no recourse against mistreatment by management. Their salaries are supposed to be high, but it sounds like a pretty oppressive work situation, especially for the dishwashers and other low-level staff. Being a giant theme-park corporation, the Foundation wants to do business with everyone and avoid controversy. The CCW has caught on to the idea that maybe some of their “employees” are not employees at all, but trafficked, and tried to boycott their worlds. This is about as effective as a sieve in a situation with space and rift travel. Two members of the Paradise board are also members of the Naruni Enterprises board, no conflict of interest. Since we’re talking about giant sex-worlds (in oblique terms) we have to have a courtesan class right? Rifts, being the mature examination of sexuality that it is, gives us the Pleasurer RCC.  i am at least relieved the picture is of a male-ish being They are pleasurers because they can empathically feel what a customer desires and transform themselves to meet that desire. Then they also feel pleasure by giving pleasure. Yes, they went that route.  Pleasurers can go overboard with their seeking other’s pleasure thing though, goading victims into taking reckless chances and chasing their dragons further and further in pursuit of their own feedback. So yeah. Also, in boldface, Available as a player character. Subject to the approval of the game master. Of course.They have good attributes, as most of these alien races do. They’re SDC creatures so not difficult to eradicate should one hate “fun”. They are limited to shapeshifting into humanoid forms, at 70% +2% per level, which is better than a Rakshasa. They also have their natural empathy which is always on and costs no ISP. A very few can reverse the charge and feel pleasure from other’s pain, with predictable results. They also have a 60% chance of “losing themselves to emotion” when “emotions are very high” or a crowd gets caught up in a single emotion. This is not mechanically defined and so is either weird flavor text or totally crippling depending on how the GM runs it. They get some psionics, and most above 7th level get some rolls on the phobias and obsessions tables due to how feeding on others’ mind juice can warp one. Their skills are kind of crap, being entertainment-oriented, but that would probably be overlaid by an OCC template choice. Should one feel this is the best way one can spend one’s RP time. Aside from the Paradise folks, there’re a few other disparate bands that aren’t quite up to the level of being space nations but are still significant. The first is the Galactic Pirates. This isn’t really a “group” as such, more just “pirates exist basically everywhere and are a huge pain” sort of a statement. I am honestly glad there isn’t some “pirate guild” or something, we’ve had quite enough ubiquitous evil networks. There are also “Entity-Controlled Planets” which is basically anything under the ever-awkward heading of “Alien Intelligence.” demon lords, gods, or any other sort of extremely-powerful single entity that rules the place. A lot of these entities aren’t really up on all the modern technology but can still punch a starship out of orbit* so explorers tread with caution. *They can't actually, having looked at a lot of starship stats--oh, proper 'Gods' with their full MDC probably could but the damage output the starships are capable of is vastly greater. Gods have a lot of spell abilities which might affect the conflict but--well, we'll see later. Most demons or other lesser entities wouldn't have much chance. Also listed here are the Star Hives which exist somewhere outside the Three Galaxies. The hive spawn then invade from wherever the hell it is they are from, another dimension or the vast void between galaxies. These hives are each independent “nations” of a sort, with individual members shaped and bred to serve specific purposes for the community. They are basically Tyranids, yes, but with more directly insectoid forms and individual members who get separated from the hive sometimes show freedom of thought and individual personality that was suppressed by a controlling intelligence, rather than standing around and drooling like Tyranids without a synapse creature. There are rumors of a big super-hive floating around somewhere that has caused the frequency of raids to increase.  this is above the heading ‘killer beetle’ Individual species of Hive Spawn follow, starting with the Killer Beetle. These are well, giant beetles with mega-damage claws, made to protect hives. They’re mindless killing machines and can’t be used as PCs. As such they have a full stat range like all mindless things. Their body is mecha-tuff and they have psionic powers for busting invisibility and otherwise detecting intruders, plus psionic (rather than pheromonal) recognition of hive members. Their bite only does 5D6 MD though so they can be annoyingly whittled down, also take double damage from psionics due to having to always be on I guess. Vacuum Wasps actually have kind of a cool name and are living fighter ships that can travel at “super-sonic” speeds which is very helpful in space I am sure. They are usually mindless assault drones but they can break free of hive control and become independent, and thus are available as a PC option.  pre-Contents of Space Wasp's Stomach They get decent stats, a few hundred MDC, complicated vision modes and natural 3D6 + 1D6 per level energy blasts. A few useful psionics plus MDC claws and a relatively small selection of skills. No equipment section, but that’s actually deliberate this time. Kind of one-trick ponies since they don’t really have hands and can’t use most other equipment or magic, and probably can’t get many cybernetic systems designed for completely different species, but on the other hand you get to be a giant space wasp with laser eyes. Termite Engineers are next and they are also available as optional player characters. They secrete a glue-like substance and build stuff in the hive proper. They’re smart enough to understand what they’re building, and means they’re more likely to break free. Of course, once they do they face immense levels of space racism against killer bugs and often end up associating with scruffy-looking adventurers.  i like this guy’s arms-crossed ‘all is going according to plan’ posture They have fairly minimal MDC at 1D6x10 but they can make 10 MDC per level in chitin per round as a single melee action. That could be pretty handy for making cover. They can also use it as an entrapping attack and form it into fairly intricate shapes like manacles for prisoners but “cannot use it to repair body armor” for :reasons: They have decent skills for being a technical class, and might be amusing with their stupid glue tricks, certainly not madly overpowered. Suffer from the same equipment problems as the wasps though. Worker Ants just have a picture of an ant, I’ll skip it. They are...worker ants of the hive. They can’t be PCs, too dumb. 2D6X10 MDC, so they are capable of resistance but not invincible, and only do 3D6 a round. Intended for being mowed down by flamethrowers, clearly. The Hive Queens get a notation here because of course they do. They’re thousands of years old and count as alien intelligences with massive psionic controls over their legions of minions. They have 1D6x1000 MDC which is about what’s expected and they can’t dimensional teleport so they’re a boss that could be beaten. They have a bunch of psionics and fairly dangerous melee, but they’re nothing that a determined mechanized division couldn’t bring down.  Finally, we get the Dominators as a last entry in the ‘generic space-villains’ section here. These are ancient god-like beings whom some mistake for the First Race but 50,000 years ago they launched a genocidal war against everybody that reduced a lot of budding civilizations to rubble. The Dominators lost their own planet to a black hole projector, a lost weapon now. Until somebody finds Orion. The Dominators still exist in smaller numbers and occasionally come out to bother people.  i suppose the kirby space-gods gotta be somewhere Dominators are giant 30-foot bleached-white guys. They honestly look a bit like the prometheans, but a different color. They conquer stuff and make themselves petty warlords, or just wreck places because they’re mean I guess. They have super-high tech that they won’t share, but fortunately that mostly means “they won’t share with each other” either. They have more MDC than a Hive Queen at 2D4x1000 but they also lack the legions of loyal minions. They have some heavy resistance to psionics and take double damage from magic. They get special giant ships and special weapons like the Starsplitter, a giant hand to hand weapon (like an axe, pictured) and do Boom Gun damage in melee, or just shoot 4D6X10 energy bolts which is better than boom gun. Their nova gun “pistol” does either 2D6x10 or 1D4x100 (!) MDC. Lastly, they have “collector spheres” for their pervy slave-girl kidnapping needs, which form a 500 MDC bubble that takes 1/10th damage from energy attacks. Oh, and 1000 MDC armor as well. They can’t magically d-teleport but they can certainly rough things up pretty good. That’s kind of a long post but it’s done! Next we get to the Cosmo-Knights which is basically what this book has been giddily waiting to tell us about since page one.
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Jun 10, 2015 21:06
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I would just like to add that I picked up a battered copy of Nightbane and read through the character creation section. I've had fun using a Random Nightbane Generator in the past, so I thought I'd give it a shot. Holy poo poo, now I understand why most people reviewing Palladium games balk at going over the basics again. The organization is godawful. And I don't mean missing page numbers or cumbersome charts; Siembedia just cannot write a character creation overview. Every single topic (like attributes, hit points, skills, etc.) prompts a long, long tangent that includes all the special rules and circumstances surrounding it. It's bad enough that the system is as complicated as it is, but the basic character creation process is interrupted with the rules for encumbrance, throwing weapon ranges, weapon breakage, healing, rules for entering and recovering from a coma, optional damage rules, experience points, and insanity. And then you have to skip past the sections on skills, combat, and magic in order to finish creating your character, because the Nightbane R.C.C. and the associated tables comes after! I can't remember the last time a book was such a slog to read through. Selachian posted:Yes, you still can't create a very good archer fighter in 4E unless you play a ranger and re-label it, but that's a well-worn argument. I once had this long argument with a guy who kept whining that he wanted to play a lightly armored, dual-wielding fighter. No! Not a ranger, even thought that's exactly what he was asking to play! It has to say "Fighter" on his character sheet. Oh, and he wouldn't play a Tempest either, because that's a subclass. Every time I encounter one of these people, all I can think of is the time my brother threw a shrieking, door-slamming temper tantrum because he wanted to make tuna salad and we didn't have any tuna in the house, just this stupid poo poo called "Chicken of the Sea" whatever the gently caress that even is
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Jun 10, 2015 21:11
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Pope Guilty posted:You're going to dig Videomancers. I hope so :3 theironjef posted:Oh, Sprechenhaltestelle, where a wizard in a basement knows why you are around. And he knows what game you want - like Hockenbocken: Das Kockenblocken, the metaphysical game of mystery and intrigue about a group of sentient feathers living on a dancing chicken that is continually dodging eggs - or are the eggs dodging the chicken? Or are the eggs even real? What are eggs, anyways?! oriongates posted:The answer is always drug lich. As it should be. Why wasn't that in Urban Arcana? gradenko_2000 posted:Power sources were always a thing, they were just never formalized with such a term. Dunno about you, but I'm getting a "This should probably be an effects-based system, but we probably wouldn't sell as many splats if we gave the people official rules for building feats and powers."-vibe here... Count Chocula posted:And there's Dante's Devil Trigger! But you can't use Devil Trigger and the Quicksilver Style at the same time! Selachian posted:The Essentials years also gave us the Monster Vaults and Reavers of Harkenwold, so it's not *all* bad. And I liked the Essentials Rules Compendium; it was nice to have a small, handy book that had all the important rules in it for DM reference. Looking back, I'm wondering why it is so tempting to penalize some classes in either the combat or out-of-combat department. Why do fighters have to suck skill-wise? Why is it so hard for their 3.x iterations to not blow at Intimidation (which you'd think would be easy for mister Greatsword Murderface)? Why can't "I am the moon!" guy fight in his own unique way by telling his opponent "You can't hit me!"? Doresh fucked around with this message at 21:56 on Jun 10, 2015 |
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Jun 10, 2015 21:35
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LEVIATHAN: THE TEMPEST TANNINIM, Children of the Sinner-Devouring Tannin, Tannin the Unbending (or the Hanging Judges, the Sayers of the Law, the Dreddful Bloodline) "You think you’ve been pretty much invisible, don’t you? Well I’ve been keeping tabs on you since you showed up, and guess what: I am not amused. Now I’m not an unreasonable man. We can find a suitable arrangement, and we’ll stay here until we do. No, don’t get up. You’ll be more comfortable here on the floor." So Tannin is a being that doesn't have as clear an origin as the other Progenitors. The name has its roots in Hebrew mythology. It means "sea dragon" or can be used as an alternate name for the Biblical Leviathan. Either way, the demon Tannin is often conflated with Rahab (another sea monster, but more Egyptian in origin) and in modern Hebrew tannin means crocodile. That's pretty fitting for the Tanninim. Tanninim are aggressive in whatever they do, approaching their problems with clarity of thought and pure purpose. The rest of the Tribe tend to think of Tanninim as warriors on a good day and thugs on a bad one, taking and keeping control through violence. It's hard to change that image, but not all Tanninim in the Tribe want to. They're perfectly happy being judges. When you're a Tanninim, your chances of being a Leviathan are more of an inheritance thing than a genetic thing. The power favors direct descent in blood and gender; sons get their powers from fathers, daughters from mothers. Cousin Jimbo is not gonna get the chance to be a Leviathan because his second uncle Lawrence has the power. On top of that, parental favoritism also helps nudge the inheritance. It's very uncommon for someone to be born out of blind genetic luck with the propensity to become a Leviathan. Since becoming a Leviathan is a gift for a Tanninim, most of the time they manifest alone. Rarely you get two, and if that's the case there's a relationship of power and control between the two of them. Twin sisters who become Leviathans will have one of them become the dominant Leviathan through the nature of their powers and it's not always clear why. Maybe the older sister gets control because of age, maybe the younger does because they're more popular at school. What is clear is that a future Leviathan will pick up a physical trait or a tic familiar to the current Leviathan. The sisters' eyes shift from brown to green-heavy hazel or they both pick up the tic of covering their mouths when they smile. When the traits show up, it's common for their immediate ancestor Leviathan to take them under their wing and start training them, even before puberty. Puberty, by the way, isn't fun. The skin of the Tanninim starts itching and burning until they get a drink of water. Then a spray with the garden hose does the trick. Then they need to pack their skin with mud or take a long shower. Eventually, a Tanninim can only ward off this burning sensation by immersing themselves in naturally running water. The big benefit of an elder Tanninim is that they will teach the younger how to control and withstand these urges, giving them a code to live by and the will to enforce it. Eventually, a Tanninim will develop an iron will and control over their Wake and their urges. Puberty also affects the families of the Tanninim pretty heavily. Even with training and tutoring, puberty is a painful, nerve-wracking experience that puts the Leviathan on edge. Put the fact that the Tanninim will start trying to control and enforce his will on them and you have a fire waiting for the right spark. Lots of Tanninim will snap in the process of trying to hold their poo poo together, especially if they feel threatened by their families and they'll turn to violence in a heartbeat. The worst part is that violence is helpful for their development. When a family in the Tribe has a new Tanninim manifesting, a lot of them surrender to the coming storm and do their best to help their kid and do their best to clean up their messes. Imagine what it must be like for a wild Tanninim and how a pissed-off Leviathan would deal with the police being called by their own parents. Their Lahmasu are called Gibborim (Mighty). Most Gibborim are born or end up with the natural weaponry and tendencies towards predation that their kind have. They're armed to the teeth and most Tanninim families happily drill and train their Lahmasu towards upholding the rules of the family and enforcing them. They're often placed in families to help control and monitor them or used as guards for sacred sites. With the right training a Gibborim is a saltwater-fueled combat machine with terrifying precision and their Leviathans wouldn't have them any other way. Outside of puberty and your little brother being a Tribal commissar with fangs like bullets, Tanninim families suffer from problems. Psychologists should never try to analyze and help their families. Surgeons can't operate on their kids. Nobody ever told the Tanninim that they shouldn't bring the Inquisition through their own house. Families are small and healthy, and a small healthy family is easy to control. Tanninim families tend to be rigid and following of tradition, almost to a fundamentalist level, and some of this is due to the Tanninim's actual heartfelt desire to protect them. But sometimes the Tanninim forget what they're protecting against and go too far, or there's no war for them to fight anymore. Their cults follow the same tactic, often treated like a private militia or team. Their cults have weakness, doubt or defiance systematically drilled out and whoever survives and adapts is in the cult. Tanninim cultists are disciplined and will unfailingly enter the line of fire for their god to get the job done. The final result can be between a Delta Force team, the Khmer Rouge and the Stasi of East Germany, all depending on what kind of person the Tanninim is. Tanninim embody the Vestige of Predation, making every last one capable of a whole lot of deadly tricks and abilities. Their secondary Vestiges are Awareness, Might and Vitality, fitting for beings who excel in physical power as opposed to an Oceanid's own form of predation. The sin they embody, naturally, is Wrath. When outright violence helps you develop your godly powers and you're enforcing the law with tooth and claw, it's very easy to lose yourself in the carnage. The true form of a Tanninim is like someone slapped a dire template on an aquatic apex predator. They have wide, unblinking eyes and are often well-equipped with teeth, spurs, spines and claws. Look at most non-mammalian aquatic predators (and given their namesake, I'd say crocodiles) and imagine their form before the meteor hit and you have a pretty good picture of what a Tanninim truly looks like. Nothing about them shows any weakness. NEXT TIME: the final bloodline. Thalassans, Children of the Progenitor Thalassa.
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Jun 10, 2015 21:46
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Compacts and Conspiracies This was the first book not to be about a specific type of monster besides the Core. Instead, it focuses on the organizations that Hunters belong to. It begins quickly with Ashwood Abbey. Why would anyone join the Abbey? Well, it has benefits. The best alcohol, cigars and food you'll ever have, access to the best resorts and golf courses, the joys of the wealthy. But you probably had those already if you're being considered for the Abbey. Really, it's about if you're interesting. Sure, they have a rep as rapists and monsters, but for most of them, it's all about thrill. They have power - they want excitement. Boredom is the greatest enemy. Some cells fight it with parties, inviting monsters - friendly-like. No hunting, just consensual sex, sometimes public and sometimes not, drugs and lavish meals. Others go for a big charity gala followed by a midnight hunt of captive monsters in golf carts. Yet more just hang out with monsters and help them out occasionally. Others attack monsters, bother them a bit, then flee like hell for the thrill of escaping. Yes, it's often about hedonistic sex, but really, the point is to play with monsters like toys. Some people treat their toys well, others badly. Recruitment's rarely formal, but it does have a cost. There are dues, set by the local cell and club, but a thousand a month is usual, plus fees for golf course usage, weapons maintenance and parties. And, of course, there's the work - hiding bodies and so on - that you can't just leave to the servants. If you're the low man on the totem pole, that's your job. Oh, and there's no leaving the club. Sure, some of them use contracts - legally unenforcable, of course - but for most, if you're in, you're in for life. Period. The Abbey itself is run like a pyramid scheme - each club pays dues up the line to the club they got their charter from. What keeps it stable and not overrunning us all? Well, firstly, the cost, which is prohibitively expensive for most people. It's upwards of a hundred thousand to set up a club, if not more. Second, they don't advertise. The club is secret and exclusive by design - it's part of the elite privelege. If you just go around handing out licenses, well, someone's going to notice and take offense. Fatally. Generally you find three rough types of Abbey club. The Old World clubs are extremely exclusive, often populated mostly by the elderly, often accented, even if it's just New England. Pipes, leatherbound books, that kind of thing. The old money. They often have big, entangled families, and they often run things like an old-school gentleman's club, less about debauchery and more about hunting with the old boys. They're often rather snobbish towards other clubs. The New Blood clubs are the opposite - new money, CEOs and Wall Street types. They care more about your wallet than your ancestry, and for them, Ashwood Abbey's more of a country club - people between 30 and 60 who've earned their piece and are looking for the next big thing - monster hunting. And the third kind? The Rich Young Punks. These are your children of privelege, straight from the night club and the gossip column. Rock stars' kids, the Trumps, people too young to really be bored but too rich to be easily entertained. They're growing within the Abbey, and have muscled their way up the ranks with money - lots of it - and cunning. They're often as likely to be friendly to monsters as violent, at least until they get bored and decide bullets will be more entertaining. There's also a few cliques in Ashwood Abbey, and belonging to one now gives a free Specialty. The Competitors grant Intimidation (Boast), and they're in this as a game. The monsters are just the pieces, the wager. It's all about who can have the biggest boasts and not be called a liar. Book quote: "First one to knock up a shapeshifter - or get knocked up by one, miss - is the blue ribbon winner." (What, you thought that'd change?) It's all about what's newest, freshest and biggest, and who can do it first. They are often least devoted to actual hunting, as it's really all about oneupsmanship for them. Secretly, those who rise high enough in their ranks will learn of the great granddaddy of all competitions - the Black Royal Regatta, or Bee Double Arr. No boats involved - that's misdirection to throw off those who hear the name. Those who discover the truth are either invited or killed, and others get picked by the so-called Royal Council to participate. The goal is different every year - the Council names a target, usually an item of importance held by a known monster but sometimes just a specific monster's head - and whoever brings it in first gets a million dollars and a lot of status. The Pursuit get Stealth (Hide in Plain Sight), and they are the hidden world's gossip-mongers. They hunt out secrets and hidden information for the fun of it. They're like a smaller, more salacious Network Zero in that way, sharing snuff films and forbidden documents or setting up events to spy on some unsuspecting monster (or hunter) for days at a time, recording it all. They're actually one of the most useful groups in the Abbey as a result - not on purpose, of course, they're doing it for entertainment, but their secrets can be quite potent and dangerous. In secret, within the group is the Ring, a group of privileged hunters with a collection of bizarre artifacts and information - a strange video of the Kennedy assassination from a weird angle, shadowy photos of the Cheiron Board of Directors, stolen passages of Vlad Dracul's ritual texts. They are very dangerous because they know far too much about monsters and other hunters, and sometimes they'll even sell some of their collections in secret online auctions. The Libertines get Persuasion (Seduction). They're the ones with the rep as perverts and rapists. Perverts, yes, rapists, not always. They're more interested in wearing down social mores and norms, and tend to prefer willing partners. They take all the drugs, have all the sex, touch all the glowing artifacts to see what they do. Life is pleasure, and while pain can be part of that, it's usually consensual. Their view of hunting is rather different than most others', primarily about conquering ideas and preconceptions. They're a lot less likely to hurt a monster than to exploit its desires to get off. Several end up as ghouls or, quote, "brood mares to shapeshifters." More get weird addictions, like huffing whatever it is that circulates inside Frankensteins, trying to gently caress tentacle monsters or eating demonic food. Yeah, they can be thrilled by killing, but that's the minority. Secretly, one of their number was recently impregnated by a vampire. That's supposed to be impossible, but it happened. The woman - Bethany or Beth-Ann or something - is now a figure of great interest to them. However, while she's a Libertine, most of the others want to kill the child - it just wouldn't do for people to think that their habits could get them into that kind of unwanted trouble. There is an Endowment provided for Ashwood Abbey: the Bacchanal. It's the art of throwing a party. Once per arc, you can throw a giant-rear end party for up to (20*Bacchanal dots) people and get twice your dots as a pool to buy benefits. These benefits can be: Abbey Influence, providing a bonus to social rolls with other Abbey members. Famous Guests: Ensure the attendance of some specific famous people. Sphere of Influence: a bonus to social rolls with some specific group, like cops or advertising agents or supermodels. Supernatural Sway: That social bonus with some specific group of supernatural beings. Tactical Advantage: a bonus to a specific Tactic to be used at or immediately after the party due to pre-preparation. We also get rules for the Orgy, which is really just a dice roll to see how much of an rear end of yourself you make or don't make at a big party. Next time: It's a long, long night.
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Jun 10, 2015 22:46
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Actually, I had no problem with the tempest fighter; that's the main reason I didn't mention two weapon fighting (which I prefer 5e's handling of anyway). As to a Ranger being a Fighter with a bow, I'd say that that depends on just how easy it is to create a Ranger with absolutely no scouting or hunting related utility powers. I no longer have access to the books, so I couldn't say one way or the other there. That said, lightly armoured swashbuckler? Sure, a Rogue could theoretically do it, but then you're playing an archetype that usually goes for one on one fights using a class that's designed to flank people - and again, I'm not sure how easy it would be to take utilities or paragon paths that aren't based around being a criminal of some description. That said, while I prefer 5e to 4e (even for playing non-caster characters), it is by no means my favourite game, or even my favourite edition of D&D (which is still BECMI, in spite of it being the fourth edition of D&D I came across). I actually prefer Runequest 6 to any of them - everything is skill based, and even the most powerful mage can die from a single crossbow bolt to the chest...
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Jun 10, 2015 22:55
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If you're trying to play a character who does one on one fights without the party's help, 4e may just not be the game for you. It's built around party interdependence.
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Jun 10, 2015 22:57
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Mors Rattus posted:We also get rules for the Orgy, which is really just a dice roll to see how much of an rear end of yourself you make or don't make at a big party. "...excuse me, I need to go use the bathroom." "What, was it something I said?" "You do know that Mr. Green married that shapeshifter he met at the Vernal Equinox, right?" "Ugh. Disgusting." "Dad, you're embarrassing me."
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Jun 10, 2015 23:08
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Regarding the Famous Guests portion of the Bacchanal, how famous can you get here? Is it famous within Hunter circles, or can you throw a bunch of points into this and have Taylor Swift show up at your werewolf sodomy orgy?
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Jun 10, 2015 23:25
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Anyone with Fame dots, so...yes, you can have Taylor Swift show up at Werewolf Orgy Boston 2015.
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Jun 10, 2015 23:28
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Obama and/or Putin for Ghost loving Blood Orgy 2K15.
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Jun 10, 2015 23:32
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Mors Rattus posted:If you're trying to play a character who does one on one fights without the party's help, 4e may just not be the game for you. It's built around party interdependence. I believe I already mentioned that. Like I also mentioned above, it does group combat really, really well. The thing is, there will never be a perfect game because game design is a series of tradeoffs. Increased balance requires decreased flexibility, for example, and there will never be a universally agreed ratio between the two. I personally prefer something around the 60:40 - 70:30 range in favour of flexibility; others disagree and who am I to tell them that the fun they're having is wrong?
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Jun 10, 2015 23:42
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Crasical posted:Except for Ashwood Abbey. They're sorta more tolerable if seriously cut back on the rape and torture but I seriously would like to see the pitch for a coven of Abbey hunters who fit the bill of 'Whole-hearted good guys'. You can leave Ashwood as 'bored, rich thrill-seekers' but leave out the rape and murder. They're like rich kids who shoplift or deal drugs or go urban exploring. They've had a privileged life and now they want so excitement. So they shoot up vampire blood, smoke up spirits, go camping with werewolves and slumming with Slashers. YMMV, but from my point of view that makes them more sympathetic than The Long Night or half the other Pacts. Think art school kids slumming it. And leave in the evil version of the Abbey since they make such good villians. PantsOptional posted:Obama and/or Putin for Ghost loving Blood Orgy 2K15. Putin has hung out with Stephen Seagal and crazy biker rallies and posed shirtless with bears. A werewolf blood orgy would probably boost his popularity. Assuming they were good Russian wolves. Or werebears. Count Chocula fucked around with this message at 00:33 on Jun 11, 2015 |
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Jun 11, 2015 00:29
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I like the idea of having some of the Ashwood hunters being sincerely interested in the supernatural and wanting to protect mankind from it. They had parents that made them work at soup kitchens a few times a year, they give clothes to charity. They're still rich and privileged and they don't really understand how that affects how they deal with other people and end up looking like insincere jackasses when they unironically say "well some of my friends are mages". That doesn't mean that their efforts to get vampire blood for some ghouls they know are suffering aren't sincere, though, or that it diminishes their efforts to clean up that quarry that was tainted by the Wasteland. Their hearts are in the right place. They just gotta get over themselves and be more than rich thrill-seekers.
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Jun 11, 2015 00:35
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Why? Some of the other good guy pacts are religious fundamentalists, repentant Nazis, and the bloodline of Lucifer. 'Rich thrill-seekers' don't sound so bad. Annoying, but not bad. Though if you want to go the redemption route, pair them with The Union (the best, most underrated Pact).
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Jun 11, 2015 00:52
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Compacts and Conspiracies The Long Night come in many varieties of Christian. You get survivalists, conservatives, social liberals, violent youth ministers, elderly academics, all sorts. As a result, they're rather divided. Their cells may operate individually or come together as small armies. They're a loose confederation, and they don't need to agree with each other. All they need to do is share information and resources. What binds them, though? Easy: eschatology. The world is ending, and that's a good thing. The world is sinful, wayward. It is damned. Christ will remake the world as a better place. It's a great thing! Not that they agree on the specifics, but that's a general agreement. Right now is the Tribulation, the literal long night of persecution for the faithful. The Rapture isn't coming, not yet. Christ will not come until the faithful prove themselves against the dark, opening a path for His return. The Long Night will open that path, and that's when the Rapture comes. The Long Night aren't afraid of the End Times - they want them. They're watching for the sins, because those mean they're winning. What signs are those? Well, the Rapture is not shown by trouble - that's a sign of the Tribulation. Wars, famine and plague are signs of the world breaking. They want to see signs that the Tribulation is ending. That means an Antichrist - a liar claiming to be the savior, but so far, no dice. They've tried to fit Kim Jong-Il and Osama Bin Laden into that mold, but it's never worked. They don't fit the profile. Miracles are required - real ones, not just a face on toast or something. Cures of blindness, resurrections, that kind of thing. White animals that can't be slaughtered. There's also numerology to consider - mostly the number seven, though three, four and twelve are also prevalent, so that can lead to conflicting signs. Angels showing up is also a thing. The Long Night know that doesn't mean glowing men and women with halos, though - they're expecting fiery wheels, many eyes and many mouths. Which does mean that alien horrors might be mistaken for angels. Oops.  I love this sidebar unironically. Always do this. There are doctrines in the Long Night. The Hopeless get Survival (Trauma), and that's because often, they've had to. They are the ex-ghouls, the addicts and alcoholics, the formerly possessed. They have been abused by the world, themselves or monsters. They are here for salvation, for themselves and others, but they often accept that they are damned. It's not a healthy belief or group, but they are functional. They have nothing to lose, after all. A secret group of them has gathered out in the Badlands, calling themselves the Army of Sinners. They scare even the other Long Nighters, and that's because they are suicide bombers. They have nothing to live for, so they want to maximize the damage they deal to evil. They load up with guns and bombs and go in shooting. Then they hit the button. They're focusing on monsters, not people...but bystanders absolutely are in danger. It's inevitable. The Faithful get Athletics (Feats of Strength). They believe they are ordained by God to be soldiers, and they are driven by blind, zealous faith. They're typically more conservative than the rest of the compact, though not universally. They read the newspapers for the signs, watch the skies. Their inner strength comes from faith - a miraculous, brilliant faith. It's kind of a self-fulfilling prophecy - they're not strong because of God, but because they train themselves to be stronger for God. Secretly? They're everywhere. They've infiltrated government, business and entertainment. They push an agenda: furthering the Apocalypse. They want it to come, and when the time is right, they will use their influence to push back the dark and usher in the end of the world. Even some of their own would be disturbed to learn this. The Merciful get Socialize (Questioning). They want to save the monsters. God was wrathful, sure, but Jesus was a manifestation of His love, and He changed with the New Testament. They don't want to harm monsters, by their definition, anyway. Most want to convert monsters or even cure them of their conditions. Within them is a secret group, the Lion's Den. They have a goal that would appall others - they wnat to become monsters. They want this because they believe they are so righteous that they can walk right into the lion's den but not be eaten, that they can infiltrate these monsters but keep their mission and righteousness. The Long Night Endowment is the Prayer. It's not supernatural, but it can seem to be. Their faith brings them strength, you see. At the dawn of each day, provided they prayed before sleeping, they get (Prayer dots) Prayer Points. Prayer Points can be spent to gain Willpower, or transfer Willpower from themselves to other hunters - not creating those ones, mind you - or you can ignore wound penalties for a turn, or you can use them to resist mental domination for a turn, increasing their resistance. Your prayers before sleep must last a full hour to get your Prayer Points. We get some side rules on using mercy and empathy to to draw information out of monsters, and some talk about deprogramming people of magical control. It also talks about the possibility of curing monsters of being monsters - but it should be hard, if you decide it's possible, and you shouldn't force it on PCs unless they want it. Next time: Loyalists.
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Jun 11, 2015 01:02
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hectorgrey posted:Actually, I had no problem with the tempest fighter; that's the main reason I didn't mention two weapon fighting (which I prefer 5e's handling of anyway). As to a Ranger being a Fighter with a bow, I'd say that that depends on just how easy it is to create a Ranger with absolutely no scouting or hunting related utility powers. I no longer have access to the books, so I couldn't say one way or the other there. That said, lightly armoured swashbuckler? Sure, a Rogue could theoretically do it, but then you're playing an archetype that usually goes for one on one fights using a class that's designed to flank people - and again, I'm not sure how easy it would be to take utilities or paragon paths that aren't based around being a criminal of some description. And there's where the wrong headedness of this whole debate and how often "fighter" classes suck comes from: if your definition of a Fighter is someone who is capable at fighting to the exclusion of literally every other potential skill, then that class has to be the literal King of gently caress Mountain when it comes to fighting anything and everything or he's going to feel terrible. Edit: Oh yeah, clarification, your is more general than specific to you hector. And either way, no vitriol or anything just a statement of what that issue boils down to.
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Jun 11, 2015 01:06
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Count Chocula posted:Why? Some of the other good guy pacts are religious fundamentalists, repentant Nazis, and the bloodline of Lucifer. 'Rich thrill-seekers' don't sound so bad. Annoying, but not bad. Though if you want to go the redemption route, pair them with The Union (the best, most underrated Pact).
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Jun 11, 2015 02:27
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LornMarkus posted:And there's where the wrong headedness of this whole debate and how often "fighter" classes suck comes from: if your definition of a Fighter is someone who is capable at fighting to the exclusion of literally every other potential skill, then that class has to be the literal King of gently caress Mountain when it comes to fighting anything and everything or he's going to feel terrible. To be fair, I never said to the exclusion of all else. Let's say I want to play a game in a feudal Japanese style setting (or a traveller from those lands in a Western fantasy setting) - the longbow would be a weapon of the nobility. There would be many samurai who were good archers, poets, diplomats and politicians, rather than being hunters or scouts. Warlord would probably give me some of the skills I'd want and does allow me to take both melee and ranged powers without requiring that I dual wield melee weapons, but comes with the problem of needing to play a leader role in combat when what I had in mind was more of a striker. Warlord/Ranger Hybrid might be a better pick. Either way, I need either multiple books (minimum three (PHB, the MP that introduced ranged Warlords and the PHB that introduced Hybrid Classes); preferably four or five) or a software utility (because gently caress the web based silverlight one - that thing was loving terrible) that used to have a monthly subscription to get the character genned. In 5e, meanwhile, I build a fighter with 16 dexterity, 14 strength, 12 constitution, 10 intelligence, 8 wisdom and 14 charisma (+1 dexterity and charisma from being human, using the standard array) with the noble background and the archery style - wears medium armour (use feat to get +3 from dex to AC) and carries a longbow and a longsword (reflavoured as a katana). Not necessarily optimal for a high combat campaign, but he'll pull his weight and can do the job of a party face if no one else wants it. Everything I need is in the PHB (and if I'm willing to forego feats, in a free pdf), and takes ten to fifteen minutes with a pen and a sheet of paper.
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Jun 11, 2015 02:42
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Compacts and Conspiracies tried to rehab the Abbey a bit, particularly by spending a good chunk of page space talking about the Old World and New Blood clubs. Up to you if it succeeded. Compacts and Conspiracies The Loyalists of Thule are scholars. Strength is great, sure, but they focus on information above all. When they hunt, they use traps, manipulation and as much information as they can possibly get. Some say they play it so safe - but why? Well, part of it is because they've messed up. Everyone in the Loyalists has hosed up or is related to someone who did. They messed with the occult, and bad things happened, and now they have to repay that debt. Maybe Grandpa was part of the Thule Gesellschaft. Maybe you awakened an ancient vampire to get a favor and let the thing loose. Someone has to pay for these mistakes. The Loyalists keep an eye out for fuckups like that - they know it so often has a human origin, which they will find. And when they do, they have one demand: pay your debts. Take responsibility. You can't just let something loose and walk away. The Loyalists are not Nazis. They hate that people sometimes think they are, that it was their origin. They hate fascism and authoritarianism, they reject any form of racism and discrimination. The problem is, there's Nazis out there. Neo-Nazi movements pop up, and for some reason a lot of monsters seem to latch onto the Nazi 'brand' of sorts as a way to control people or to call up old evils. That is the greatest foe the Loyalists have. Any time they find a Nazi, they fight. Even if they're just humans. Usually, with humans, they'll go the legal route and use the system to bring them down. It doesn't always work, and when it doesn't, vioience is an old, familiar answer. The Loyalists hunt secrets. Metaphorically, they call this searching for Thule - discovering lost truths and potent secrets. It's not easy, and it means they need tools. Weapons. Most Loyalists keep a library of books and occult implements of all kinds - ouija boards, incense, tarot cards, anything stolen from monsters - plus practical tools like shovels and glass cutters. Usually they'll own one small weapon, too. But not all of them stop at a metaphor and a book. Some literally do search for Thule, claiming that the ghosts of Thule's giants are still around if you can find one, and that they have great secrets. Sometimes, both types of Loyalist will use magical rituals to solve problems - but always carefully, hesitantly. They know the price of loving up with magic. The Three Old Men of Munich don't really run the Loyalists - the compact basically runs itself. They just watch, collect and disseminate information. And hate each other, and most of the world. They were young once, in 1933, and now they're all at least 90 years old. They know that each of them is guilty, and so they hate each other. Their names are Otto Lanz, Christoph Dahmer and Alois Steiger. They can be mentors, but it's never pleasant for anyone involved. They have secret retainers throughout the compact, collecting information for them. The old men determine if it's worth distributing, when they will pass it to those who need to know, or if it is worth burying, in which case they lock it in their great vault, Das Archiv. The Scholar faction of the loyalists get a Research specialty for either Academics or Occult. They are mostly academics who focus on a slow, steady pace. They know it's best to understand their foes thoroughly, and they may seem passive...but that's only until you realize that sometimes they have to blow up walls and kill zombies just to get to old scrolls. Usually, they aren't a cell to themselves, but a part of one, always keeping their affiliations secret. Their biggest secret is that they know too much and keep a lot to themselves. The knowledge they have is dangerous, and giving it away freely would be like handing guns to children. They know where ancient vampires are buried, how to summon elder demons. They have maps to ancient Thule, archaeological finds from Atlantis - but anyone could put those to terrible use. So they guard these secrets. From everyone. The Penitents get Firearms (Pistol). They're an unofficial club, really. You want in, you get a pistol. A Nazi pistol. It's a reminder that the gun killed people - Americans, Jews, the French, anyone in the way. You hold a simple and terrible weapon, and you must use it for good now. Penitents, unlike Scholars, form whole cells. They are still academics, but are rather more violent about it. They're not content to help others - they want to fix things themselves. The real secret they have? Those guns...well, some of them are haunted. Not just by one ghost, but legions. A Nazi got his head blown off holding it? A Roma was shot in the head with it? An American soldier killed? Their voices are in the gun. They wqant release. They remind you of your guilt. And sometimes, they drive you mad. The Advance get Persuasion (Leadership). Thy're a small, but growing core - not well-liked by other Loyalists. They are proactive, almost cocky, in how they resolve their debts. They feel that they must lead the fight, and often are self-madel eaders. Unfortunately, they're trying to lead a group of self-loathing scholars who have little interest in being leaders. It opens you to error, after all, and is what got the original Thule Society into the Nazi mess. Everyone thinks that, secretly, some of the Advance are neo-nazis. They're not. They're just as anti-fascist as everyone else, if not moreso due to defensiveness. What they want is to remake the Loyalists into a legitimate occult society, the go-to organization for the occult, and not secret, either. They want to tell people their secrets, which can put them at odds with the rest of the compact. The Loyalist endowment is Unearthed Secrets. The Loyalists share their information between themselves with little infighting or paranoia. The more you share, the more you get told. At the start of each arc, you can gain a number of important 'secrets' about the monsters or other hunters equal to your dots in Unearthed Secrets. Also, it functions as the Contacts merit for occultists. So, what else do they get? The Rmoahals. Rmoahals are the ghosts of the giants of Thule, a sub-race of Atlantean descendents or competitors. Their tombs are well-hidden and mostly underground, in ancient catacombs lined with elaborate and complex traps. No one knows who trapped the tombs. The ghosts also sleep, and to awaken one, you must sacrifice a magical item - in Hunter terms, a Relic of three or more dots. The ghosts are much like any ghost in some ways - they have the same powers, and are anchored by their tombs and treasures. But they're immense, twice the size of a man. Their flash is pale and sickly, often blue or yellow. Their eyes are blind with cataracts, but they have a third, clear eye in the middle of their forehead, which never sotps moving. They are naked and have genitals of both sexes. Their mouths are a tangle of barbed fangs, and their tongues are marked in strange and ancient symbols. Also, they're insane, or perhaps hyper-sane, or differently sane. They speak in song and tongues and animal cries, but they understand anything. Speaking to them will damage your sanity, at least a little, and leave you detached and unbalanced. Why would you ever talk to one? Well, first, they were said to conjure the physical world into being by the power of Logos, the word. By singing or speaking, they could create things. Their ghosts rtain this power. If you need something, even a person, living or dead, they can conjure it by speaking it s name. It's real, permanent and flawless. No curse, no catch. Second, that extends to conjuring information. Instead of asking for an object, you can ask a single question, and the Rmoahal will answer you with a scroll or an inscribed stone or even an audio casstte. No matter what, you only get one request. Any more and it will kill you. Very violently. Next time: We are the Network.
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Jun 11, 2015 03:04
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Halloween Jack posted:Holy poo poo, now I understand why most people reviewing Palladium games balk at going over the basics again. The organization is godawful. And I don't mean missing page numbers or cumbersome charts; Siembedia just cannot write a character creation overview. I'm amazed at their utter inability to organize a book. Like, the second edition of the Robotech RPG starts with descriptions and statblocks for the Invid (the main villains, for those less familiar) without explaining much about the setting or rules or character creation or anything. Why would you start with the part most players least need to read? It's downright bizarre. I talked to the author about it and he had no idea what had happened other than Kevin probably just included it at the start because it was the first stuff written for the book, so it was the first stuff put in. Naturally!
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Jun 11, 2015 04:26
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It helps to remind that for the majority of Palladium's run, and definitely when those books were written, Siembieda was doing editing by cutting and pasting. As in like, with a knife, and paste, because his equipment was just that old and he had no interest in learning about those newfangled "computer" things.  It really explains so much about the editing and the layouts.
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Jun 11, 2015 05:53
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Mors Rattus posted:So, what else do they get? The Rmoahals. Rmoahals are the ghosts of the giants of Thule, a sub-race of Atlantean descendents or competitors. Their tombs are well-hidden and mostly underground, in ancient catacombs lined with elaborate and complex traps. No one knows who trapped the tombs. The ghosts also sleep, and to awaken one, you must sacrifice a magical item - in Hunter terms, a Relic of three or more dots. The ghosts are much like any ghost in some ways - they have the same powers, and are anchored by their tombs and treasures. But they're immense, twice the size of a man. Their flash is pale and sickly, often blue or yellow. Their eyes are blind with cataracts, but they have a third, clear eye in the middle of their forehead, which never sotps moving. They are naked and have genitals of both sexes. Their mouths are a tangle of barbed fangs, and their tongues are marked in strange and ancient symbols. Also, they're insane, or perhaps hyper-sane, or differently sane. They speak in song and tongues and animal cries, but they understand anything. Speaking to them will damage your sanity, at least a little, and leave you detached and unbalanced. Why would you ever talk to one? Well, first, they were said to conjure the physical world into being by the power of Logos, the word. By singing or speaking, they could create things. Their ghosts rtain this power. If you need something, even a person, living or dead, they can conjure it by speaking it s name. It's real, permanent and flawless. No curse, no catch. Second, that extends to conjuring information. Instead of asking for an object, you can ask a single question, and the Rmoahal will answer you with a scroll or an inscribed stone or even an audio casstte. No matter what, you only get one request. Any more and it will kill you. Very violently. I know that the Rmoahals are something originally from the insane ramblings of Theosophy, but the Hunter interpretation of them that keeps popping up in the supplements is really cool. Do they ever get mentioned in Mummy or any other splatbook?
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Jun 11, 2015 06:00
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Asimo posted:It helps to remind that for the majority of Palladium's run, and definitely when those books were written, Siembieda was doing editing by cutting and pasting. As in like, with a knife, and paste, because his equipment was just that old and he had no interest in learning about those newfangled "computer" things. Yeah, my memory is fuzzy, but the new edition of Robotech was either the first to be put together by computer or the last to be put together by hand. I forget which.
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Jun 11, 2015 06:04
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Alien Rope Burn posted:Yeah, my memory is fuzzy, but the new edition of Robotech was either the first to be put together by computer or the last to be put together by hand. I forget which. I can't recall either. I no longer have that book, but I think the typesetting was at least consistent, so I'd assume it was done on a computer. Perhaps CroatianAlzheimers might clue us in, since that's supposedly one of the Palladium books he worked on.
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Jun 11, 2015 06:09
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Spiderfist Island posted:I know that the Rmoahals are something originally from the insane ramblings of Theosophy, but the Hunter interpretation of them that keeps popping up in the supplements is really cool. Do they ever get mentioned in Mummy or any other splatbook? They come up in nMage, actually. They're mentioned a couple times in connection with Atlantis, and there's a Legacy--an extreme subsect of Magedom--that works towards becoming them. I no longer have my Mage books so I'm real fuzzy on the details. Lemme see if I can look it up. edit: Can't find it listed in any of the usual suspects and Google was no help. The more I try to remember, the more I think they weren't a fully detailed Legacy--just mentioned in passing in a book. They were a Left-Hand Legacy, not really meant for PC play. They sought to physically turn themselves into rmoahals--giants, blue skin, hermaphroditic--and IIRC they used sacrifice to help achieve it. There were also ties to Nazism I believe; something to do with Pure Aryanism also being tied to ancient Atlantic ideals like the rmoahals. Everything Counts fucked around with this message at 06:23 on Jun 11, 2015 |
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Jun 11, 2015 06:09
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pkfan2004 posted:LEVIATHAN: THE TEMPEST Leviathan is interesting, it's so Reverse Promethean that you'd have a hard time convincing me that wasn't the intent. pkfan2004 posted:BAHAMUTANS This does kind of show how much effort actual OPP writers put into their lexicons in comparison though. Bahamutans?!? "Behemoths" was right there you FUCKS, you SHITS
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Jun 11, 2015 06:51
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Some of the names are not the best for the classes, yeah. A lot of them are kinda clunky. Speaking of! LEVIATHAN: THE TEMPEST THALASSANS, Children of Island-Breaking Thalassa, Mighty-Armed Thalassa (or the Krabs Dynasty, Gold Rock Lobsters, Hoy Small Fries) "Can I put a value on godhood? Can I estimate the worship of men and the adoration of children? Can I put a price on the heritage of the heavens? Hell yes I can. Everything I have, everything my heritage gives me, has been taken from another. I am a tick, sucking at the blood of society. The only redeeming feature, the only one, is that all of it was given freely." In Greek mythology, Thalassa was a primordial sea goddess, the daughter of the primordial gods of air and day. She gave birth to Aphrodite (courtesy of the blood from Uranus' groin), the Telchines (boys with flipper-hands and the heads of dogs, awesome metallurgists) and Halia (a name that belongs to a lot of mythological figures and really nothing good happens to her). So because her mutant monster babies are good at working with metal, her Leviathan equivalent's kids love gold. Seriously, they love gold. All Thalassans have a love for mercantile endeavors, working the system to their advantage and amassing wealth and material pleasures. Thalassa's big racket was taking sacrifices of money and gold from sailors in exchange for a safe passage. Some of her kids have the same idea. Puberty for a Thalassan is like having a vote in a meritocracy. You need a bare minimum amount of blood to qualify for the change and high concentration doesn't matter. What does matter is everyone's opinion of you. Being loved, being respected, being looked fondly of, as long as you have a good reputation your blood has the power of the Tribe. If your family line keeps enough of a popularity streak, it condenses into a critical mass of potential and a new Leviathan is born. It's like an election where only the popular vote counts, and your vote is proportional to your reputation. Thalassan Leviathans manifest alone because the process of manifesting drains all the mystical potency of every family member with Thalassan genes around them. Puberty for Thalassans is a test they must endure. The Leviathan-to-be is weighed down by water and the weight of history, crushing them and pushing them in any direction. This isn't a metaphor, their bodies feel heavier and they move slower. On top of that are the hallucinations. While the Tanninim have an unstoppable desire for water, Thalassan's can't look at a glass of it without seeing into the depths of the Primordial Seas, full of alien life. A Thalassan has to find another source of liquid nourishment until the hallucinations go away, or persevere and drink. Thalassans differ from the other bloodlines inasmuch as they can actually fail puberty or come out different. The others don't have that chance, except for a Nu who gets lost to water. As the hallucinations and pressure from water and tides get worse, the Leviathan has a choice. Steel your body and mind, endure and swim against the tide and you become a Leviathan. Only a Thalassan with the strength to resist and endure is worthy. Get swept away by it and madness or an incomplete puberty await you. The final choice is to hold onto something and anchor yourself through the storm. Your anchor can just be stubborn resistance, a loved one or an external course of direction. Survive by holding on to your anchor until the waters crest and recede and you have a chance to become a Lahmasu or if you're very lucky you'll stay human. Resisting the waves like that, though, is a dangerous affair. A lot of people who resist the call of the ocean end up returning to shore with mental damage. Families of Thalassans take two forms. First, they can have a buttload of children like a Dagonite family, playing the numbers . Large Thalassan families have fertility but not hardiness; like other bloodlines, there are many dead ends on the family tree. Most families with light Leviathan blood and a strong mortal presence take this route. Second, they can have small, tight families, healthy and enduring but generally with only one child. They expect great things from this only child and they will put all their eggs in one basket, pushing them to achieve it. Most families in the Tribe or with heavy Leviathan blood will go that route. You can't have both with a Thalassan family. Their Lahmasu are called Hemitheos (Greek term for "half-god", used to refer to a dead mortal who was lauded as a hero of the gods after death). Hemitheos get the strength and drive of their ancestors and most of them really are like Greek demigods. They have power and will but not always subtlety and sometimes they're just plain brutes. Thalassans love their Lahamasu dearly, though, and will sing endlessly in praise. It's like hearing about that cousin who became a doctor every weekend when you call your mom. Thalassan cults are like big businesses and corporations, with the Leviathan at the top. They push for unity and cooperation to keep the good times rolling and to keep out infighting to stay successful. When times are good and the Leviathan can give out favor and goods, they're good. When times are bad, cultists grab and hoard what they can or backstab each other for their god's affection. Thalassans favor the Vestige of Might. They may stand firm like a Bahamutan, and they're strong like one, but they can use that strength better than a behemoth can. It's all about the right amount of finesse. Their secondary Vestiges are Elements, Fecundity and Vitality. The sin they embody is Greed. Money is good, pleasure is better, just hold onto it all with two hands. The true form of Thalassans is a mélange of things that live between the shore and the water. You get a lot of crab influence, a lot of lobster, creatures with shells and strong exoskeletons. They take after the creatures of the tide pools and a lot of them have tentacles or claws. Claws are pretty good for pinching pennies. So, where to from here? In my eagerness to share, I forgot that there are actual mechanical benefits to joining the schools. NEXT TIME I'll do a quick school recap for each of them, include the skills and cosmetic changes they get and include those little blurbs about how they view the other schools/supernatural creatures/mortals. Then we'll see where to go from there. I'm planning to go in order as it comes up on the wiki, but I'm not done yet. Not by a long shot.
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Jun 11, 2015 08:36
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Wizards Presents: Races and Classes Part 1 Choosing the Iconic Races - Richard Baker quote:We decided very early in the process that we wanted character race to play a more important part in describing your character. In earlier editions, your character’s race was something that you chose at a single decision point during character creation. Your race pick bestowed a whole collection of static, unchanging benefits at 1st level (many of which were useless clutter on your character sheet), and never really “grew” with your character. A 20th-level dwarf had the exact same amount of racial characteristics as a 1st-level dwarf—and during the nineteen intervening levels, the overall importance of that long-ago race selection had diminished to a tiny portion of the character concept. It goes to describe how the idea of feats that only specific races could choose was borrowed from The Forgetten Realms and Eberron Campaign Settings to further allow your racial selection to remain relevant all the way to higher levels. And then a comparison of designing races from 3rd Edition to 4th Edition: quote:A small problem that handcuffed our design in 3rd Edition was the lack of “space” for ability bonuses and special benefits. Because the races in the Player’s Handbook were all balanced against each other, we couldn’t add new races in later products that had significantly better ability modifiers or benefits, because they’d obsolete the core races of the game. The patch we used in 3rd Edition was the notion of level adjustment (more on that later), but with the new game we have a new opportunity to address this problem. Character races now offer a “net positive” on ability score modifiers, so there’s more room for new character races to stand. By the end of 3rd Edition's run, Baker counts that there was a total of 135 possible player races, so this 4th Edition team had to sit down and cull the list down to what they felt were the most evocative and interesting ones. They toyed with the idea of including a "talking animal" race, especially in the wake of the popularity of the Narnia movies, but had to can the idea because the mechanical design would probably be too difficult and players might regard it as a bad joke. It was out of that discussion though that lead them down to Dragonborn: 3rd Edition already had multiple varieties of "a dragon man", so they thought of combining them all into a single distinct character race with an interesting backstory and a mechanical niche. As well, the Dragonborn was a sort of commitment (or perhaps one might say token) to introduce a new race into the mix, instead of the first crop of races all being ones that had been created before. Tieflings were included because they were one of the most popular of the "second-string" races during the 2nd and 3rd Editions, and because they were a good natural fit for the new Warlock race. It was also during this period that the Halfling was axed: quote:For example, halflings were simply too small in 3rd Edition. You could create a halfling who weighed as little as 30 pounds. That’s like a human toddler, not a heroic adventurer. Halflings also lacked a real place of their own in the world; elves had forests, dwarves had mountains, but halflings didn’t really live anywhere. Humans - Matthew Sernett  quote:The 3rd Edition Player’s Handbook describes humans as “the most adaptable, flexible, and ambitious people among the common races” and human adventurers as “the most daring and ambitious members of an audacious, daring, and ambitious race.” When considering their role in 4th Edition, that seemed great. It’s the same way that humans are portrayed in other works of science fiction and fantasy from Star Trek to Lord of the Rings, and people have a tendency to think of humanity that way in the real world. Yet an aspect of that description bugged us: It’s all positive. Sernett then goes on to describe not so much that all humans are corrupt, but that they like to take roads that are paved with good intentions: sometimes it works, and other times it leads down to where that saying says it leads. Humans are ambitious, and that makes them capable of great things, but that ambition can also take the form of a hunger for power. Humans are brave, but bravery can also lead to rash and irresponsible actions. Humans are adaptable, but that adaptability can take on a darker shade when it means people can warp morality into rationalization. Corruption means that the traits humans possess are both their "staunchest ally and most dangerous enemy" There's also a sidebar from artist William O'Connor about the visual design of humans in 4th Edition: "The candle that burns twice as bright, only burns half as long". Because humans are so short-lived relative to the rest of the other races, human aesthetics are reckless, scavenged and asymmetrical - they don't really care if their boots, gloves or armor aren't matching, because they too busy going all Carpe Diem! on everything for it to matter. Similarly, humans use a lot of representational art such as tattoos, heraldry, crests and standards because they haven't quite reached the sophistication and maturity that has allowed, say, dwarves and elves, to pursue and develop abstract art.  Finally, there's a couple of paragraphs from Logan Bonner on designing the mechanical benefits for humans. It was tricky because all the other races are "humans, but ...", which then leaves you hanging on how the humans actually distinguish themselves. Bonner says they mostly just inherited the 3E design: their attribute bonuses are generic, and they get one free feat - this means they're not really specialized towards one class or role, but at the same time it's never a bad idea for a human to be in any class or role, which suits their theme of adaptability. By the final PHB, the final human bonus was a +1 to defenses, but here Bonner describes it as: quote:Humans are our most resilient race. Though they don’t have more hit points or higher defenses, they recover from damage and conditions more quickly than other races can. Humans are all about dramatic action and dramatic recovery. Many of these benefits come from racial feats. Legend of the Dragonborn - James Wyatt  Note: there's actually a lot of words on every race's chapter about their in-universe origin and other backstory. I'm mostly skipping it as out-of-scope from what I'm trying to relate in this read-through. quote:Dragons are such an iconic monster of fantasy that we named the game after them. Until now, though, playing a dragon meant either using a lot of variant rules (as in the 2nd Edition Council of Wyrms campaign setting) or taking on a hefty level adjustment to play either a dragon or a half-dragon. Designing the [Dragonborn's] Visual Look - Stacy Longstreet  quote:Everyone agreed that this should be a really cool race that everyone would want to play. Yet everyone had different ideas about what it should look like: How much should it resemble a dragon versus how much should it resemble a human? There were lots of discussions and we started with trying to make the head unique by creating a blending of human and dragon. It became very apparent that this had been tried before. We quickly determined that we needed to go in the other direction and work with a more draconic head on a humanoid body. Finally, Gwendolyn Kestrel weighs in that it was very much a deliberate decision that they wanted players to be able to play as dragons/a dragon-like race from the very beginning of this edition because of the power and majesty built up with their name over the years of the fantasy genre. Dwarves - Matt Sernett  quote:When we designed the 4th Edition of the D&D game, we knew we needed to improve how the game handled special kinds of vision. Out of the three 3rd Edition core rulebooks, only humans, halflings, and lizardfolk need a light to see normally at night. Every other creature possesses some special sight that allows it to see in dim light or even in darkness. That seemed a little crazy, and when we thought about it, the inequality of special vision also complicated the game. To play appropriately, the DM has to describe the big dark room one way for the drow (who has darkvision 120 feet), one way for the dwarf (who has darkvision 60 feet), another way for the elf (who has low-light vision), and still another for the human holding the torch. And there’s one more problem with many creatures having darkvision: The PCs don’t get to see the scenery in caves or large dungeon rooms. Besides the gameplay-based change, what stood out to me is that this statement also includes how the lore of the universe reacts to it: Dwarves don't have darkvision anymore, and at the same time the world's internal logic has the dwarves putting up lanterns and sunroofs in their fortresses. Chris Sims then sets up the racial tension between Dwarves and Orcs: simply having them both live in the mountains would cause conflict out of competition for resources, but then there's also "the two peoples' diametrically opposed world views": the Dwarves gather and build while the Orcs scavenge and destroy; the Dwarves and dutiful and industrious while orcs are "treacherous and lazy". The Orcs don't see a point to establishing large and strong permanent shelter nor engaging in agriculture or mining when they can just take stuff from the Dwarves, while the Dwarves have been pillaged by the Orcs so often that they regard them as nothing more than murderers, thieves and despoilers. And then he has this to say about their mechanical design: quote:In the evolution of the D&D game, dwarves have changed little. They’ve always had a clear place and role. In the new edition, the dwarf is a model for how races can be flavorful and still have clear mechanics. Sims then goes on to talk about how they decided to change Dwarves (or some clans of Dwarves) from a fully underground race to a part-surface-dwelling race. It meshes well with how they only have low-light vision: now they need to have their keeps and forts partly aboveground so that sunlight can illuminate the inner halls during the day. As well, it allows the depiction of large dwarven settlements as covering hills or being built into the sides of cliffs or running alongside a mountain instead of just being a large door covering a hole in the ground. Finally, it allows the dwarves to engage in agriculture and raise livestock without having to invent some special grain or special underground-dwelling cow. In Praise of Dwarf Women - Rob Heinsoo  quote:Back in the early days, back before D&D first became Advanced . . . The Eladrin: Why Fey and Feywild? - James Wyatt  quote:D&D is emphatically not the game of fairy-tale fantasy. D&D is a game about slaying horrible monsters, not a game about traipsing off through fairy rings and interacting with the little people. Not really much to say here, as this section was mostly about the Eladrin's lore and not much about their mechanical design. The earlier comment about how the Eladrin's teleport remains relevant up to the final level is probably the most relevant. Next up: Elves, Halflings, Tieflings, other races, and fixing level adjustment
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Jun 11, 2015 14:30
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Compacts and Conspiracies Network Zero are on the cusp of something really big. I mean, it makes sense, right? Privacy is dead. Cameras everywhere, wiretaps let you listen in on cell phones even when the phone isn't in use, nothing stays deleted. The All-Seeing Eye is everywhere - and it's not just the government or big business that can use it. The Secret Frequency understand that. Monsters live in the shadows, but in the modern world, those are very small. EVery new CCTV system, cell phone and satellite shrinks them. Some monters hide deeper, but many can't, or underestimate how curious people really are. The Network is happy to exploit that idea. They just want to get the message out: Monsters are real. In the old days - that is, ten, fifteen years ago - it was a lot harder. Getting the message out was ragtag. You have to go out, shoot footage with a crappy camera, transmit the footage somehow - ad dialup's poo poo for uploads. Maybe you broke into a public access station or bought airtime. Audience was small, either way. Quality was poo poo. And just getting the footage there could be deadly. But now? You go out with a handicam that fits in the palm of your hand. Full HD, GPS, geotagging every video. If you use a smartphone, a little bit less quality but you can upload it immediately. A high quality or interesting video might have an audience of thousands. If they each link it to three others, or tweet about it to whatever their audience is, it goes viral. That's just this year. What happens next year? Five years from now? Not that the Network is always top of the food chain, mind you. The monsters are catchup up, too. Sure, vampires are stagnant, but a few have realized they need younger vampires who understand computers, and many vampiric havens are now protected by cell scramblers. Plus, tech's still no good off the grid. A werewolf in the middle of the Badlands means the old model, still, where you have to get the footage and survive to broadcast it. The Network's big weapon is communication. It's disorganized, with little in the way of joining. Post something online that could be weird and you're in. Maybe you use Zero Channel - it's one of the big ones, a YouTube channel which is actually a source of some argument. I mean, YouTube, really? That's amateurish and their Terms of Service about ownership are weird. Plus, only one user moderates it: Colt45, whom no one has ever met. To his credit, he has a 24-hour turnaround at worst, which makes some wonder if he's just a bot. And then there's the Panoptic Cons, a subgrouping of the Army of Truth, that want to shove the message into people's faces, often with elaborate stunts. They hack networks, cell phones, public WiFi, even the TVs at big box stores to display their stuff. They break into homes and business to leave behind DVDs or USB keys containing video and audio. The idea there is that the victim finds the stuff, disseminates it and is the one who ends up targeted by any angry monsters. Or gets recruited into the Network, either-or. Hell, sometimes they even set up projector traps - a handheld or concealed projector tied to a tripwire so that anyone who trips it gets a facefull of monster recording. And...well, you know numbers stations? Shortwave radio, you get tones, frequencies, numbers and so on in a loop? Some of those are, in fact, ciphers sent out for active spies and terrorist groups. And some of them are communications from monsters or aliens. And a very small number are Network Zero communications channels - not to show the world, but to send coded messages to field hunters. Often they direct people to areas of supernatural activity for recording, with the cells getting a key that helps decipher the code. Decryption of the code without the key is very difficult, and by the time you crack it, the event's probably over already. Some NetZo numbers stations are run by known operators, but others are a mystery.  Cool, no? The Record Keepers are one of the bigger crews in Network Zero, and they get Computer (Multimedia). They aren't really big picture guys. They go out, capture video of the supernatural, and maybe do some work to disseminate it. Maybe not, though - often that's left to the Army of Truth. Mostly they just put their videos up on the net and are happy. If you get big enough in their community, you'll start to hear about the Zero Registry, a sort of online database tracking mosnter sightings, with a lot of data. Truth is, it's a wiki, and if you get big enough, get enough views and status? You get a password and edit access. The army of truth get either Firearms (Rifle) or Firearms (Shotgun), and they call themselves an army because they go armed. Long guns are easy enough to get without much paper trail, unlike pistols. They head out with the material the rest of the compact collects and show it by any means possible. If that means taking over a TV station at gunpoint, well, so be it. They used to be more peaceful, but they are a particularly apocalyptic group, and as long as the message gets out, well, that's what's important right now. They have secret caches - not the kind of caches of cameras and cell phones and coded USBs that most NetZo guys have, but weapons caches. Big ones. No one really expects Network Zero to be dangerous, but rumor has it that the Army of Truth might have anything from smallpox vials to a Soviet-era dirty bomb. That's true. These are people with access, people very good at lying to get into places. They've stolen some very dangerous weapons and are looking for more, so that when the poo poo hits the fan, they will have the tools needed to secure the airwaves. The Secret Keepers get Intimidation (Keep Quiet). They're people who learned something they shouldn't have, and they want to keep that information hidden. Free exchange of supernatural evidence is dangerous, it pisses off the monsters and makes them go to ground. The Secret Keepers will threaten and steal if they have to, but they never destroy what they hide. They hoard it. Waiting for the right time, see. They think that time is soon, it's coming. They don't want a slow drip of information, but a bomb of it - something so large it can't be denied. The hard part is getting that bomb made before the rest of the Network gets too sick of them. Secretly, they often work with other hunter groups more than the rest of the Network - you know, the guys who also want to keep secrets from getting out. For example, some of them work with Task Force: VALKYRIE. The NetZo Endowment is All-Seeing Eye. For every dfot you get, you have access to one normally private information stream, within reason - maybe local ATM cameras, stop light cams, the CCTV at a local company, whatever. You can access it whenever you have an internet-capable device that can view the video. You cannot use this to get into supernaturally-held systems, though, like a vampire haven's CCTV network. Every time you connect to a stream this way, though, the GM rolls a die. If it comes up 1, you get caught and lose access to that stream. You get half the XP used to buy that dot back, but now you're on the radar and are down a dot. The bonus material is that NetZo is really on the verge of becoming a full-blown conspiracy. They're global, clandestine and pioneers of the New Media. The main things they need are organization and operations. Conspiracies have leaders, 99% of the time. They're top down. Someone will have to run the show. Their operations will need to be picked up - their own satellite, maybe, to piggyback on all kinds of transmissions. They'll need more people, too. And they'll need a more potent Endowment. Which the game provides. Monster Media, specifically. Each dot of Monster Media lets you upgrade one specific piece of technology so that it can capture and ID a monster in its true, exposed form. Like, maybe your cell phone can capture ghosts as diaphonous and hazy spirits, or werewolves as people with bright, glowing yellow eyes. Or maybe your button mic can pick up ghost voices and let you hear them even when others can't. Next time: No mysteries.
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Jun 11, 2015 15:15
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You know, I get why they went with what they went with with dwarven women, but in my 13th Age campaign their cleric uses her flowing, luxurious, beautifully tended beard as a source of divine power and threats to it are what kept her from becoming a half-demon abomination and pulled her back from darkness. That player loves her beard. Also, I can't help but cringe any time I see someone described as 'racially treacherous and lazy'.
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Jun 11, 2015 16:22
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Not a hill I'm willing to die on, but 'dwarven women have (shorter) beards' is one of the things that's always stuck with me from the Basic Set. I always thought it was neat: halflings have hairy feet, dwarves have hairy faces, just another way they veer off from the human defaults.
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Jun 11, 2015 17:23
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Everything Counts posted:They come up in nMage, actually. They're mentioned a couple times in connection with Atlantis, and there's a Legacy--an extreme subsect of Magedom--that works towards becoming them. I no longer have my Mage books so I'm real fuzzy on the details. Lemme see if I can look it up. You're thinking of the Daksha, and yes, they were fully detailed as a normal Legacy, albeit one that's getting really, really close to being declared Left-Handed because of the Nazism thing, as well as being insufferably smug asshats. You're mostly right, but it's primarily yoga they use, and the transformation is slightly more subtle (ie, their skin remains at its original color, there's not much you can do disguise hermaphrodism).
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Jun 11, 2015 17:38
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Also their third eye, for some reason, shows up on the back of their heads.
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Jun 11, 2015 17:40
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Bieeardo posted:Not a hill I'm willing to die on, but 'dwarven women have (shorter) beards' is one of the things that's always stuck with me from the Basic Set. I always thought it was neat: halflings have hairy feet, dwarves have hairy faces, just another way they veer off from the human defaults. Rat Queens has dwarf women with beards. Rat Queens is the best. Ergo, by the transitive property, bearded dwarf women are the best. This logic is flawless.
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Jun 11, 2015 17:40
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Bieeardo posted:Not a hill I'm willing to die on, but 'dwarven women have (shorter) beards' is one of the things that's always stuck with me from the Basic Set. I always thought it was neat: halflings have hairy feet, dwarves have hairy faces, just another way they veer off from the human defaults.  I mean, this was how she imagined her PC looking. Her idea was that all dwarves cultivate a soft, well-cared for beard and care deeply for their hair, men and women alike. Dagny the recovering demon cultist is awesome.
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Jun 11, 2015 17:42
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GimpInBlack posted:Rat Queens is the best. This is a hill I'm willing to die on. drat straight it is. And Night10194, that pic is awesome. 
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Jun 11, 2015 17:46
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GimpInBlack posted:Rat Queens has dwarf women with beards. Violet shaved her beard off as an act of rebellion and refuses to drink beer. She uses a designer sword, but only ironically. Now she's planning to grow her beard out again because now that beard shaving is trendy and popular, it doesn't mean anything anymore. Rat Queens: The loving best.
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Jun 11, 2015 17:46
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I wish I could find the piece from Nanny Ogg's Cookbook of the dwarven kids with their cute stubble. e: found it. 
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Jun 11, 2015 17:51
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