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BE just reminds me so heavily of Fading Suns that I think I'd just skip the BE system entirely and transplant the BE fluff to FS, if I wanted to run it.
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Aug 11, 2015 09:15
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Traveller posted:Burning Empires I really enjoyed your review! I haven't played Empires, but I've run Burning Wheel and had a lot of fun doing it. Empires seems like fun, but I think I'd run in to the same problem as I did with wheel, which is that only one or two players in my group had the inclination to try and figure out the rules and how to play, making it a lot of work to run. When people's beliefs and goals started to come into play, and a good duel of wits got going, the game that emerged from those rules was really exciting and suspenseful, I felt. Also , having fond memories of Asimov's Foundation novels, I enjoyed the allusions to it you pointed out in Empires. A Psychohistory skill got mentioned, though, and I don't think you've mentioned what that does in game. Would you mind elaborating?
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Aug 11, 2015 10:49
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so part of being a successful female pirate is wearing an idiotic bikini everywhere, while women in the armada only need to keep their tits out if they want to go places? e- also I'm glad the designers managed to sneak in one fully-sapient pauldron 
Nuns with Guns fucked around with this message at 11:59 on Aug 11, 2015 |
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Aug 11, 2015 11:55
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I couldn't tell if the Pirate Queen was wearing pants at first glance.
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Aug 11, 2015 12:38
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Count Chocula posted:My Art History professor taught us about DADA by leaping into class in Tristan Tzara's full costume yelling his sound poetry. I'll never forget it. Please review Dreamhounds of Paris. Can do. It may take a few days to clear time, but I'll leave the book out.
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Aug 11, 2015 12:59
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Green Intern posted:I couldn't tell if the Pirate Queen was wearing pants at first glance. Oh wow you're right she might be wearing pants! And i guess one of the pirate tokens is also not in a bikini top? I suppose the factions are equally booby then
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Aug 11, 2015 13:21
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Hedningen posted:
While the game seems to be actual fun, that's a lot of fanservice on the female sculpts. Also, "Lieutenant Lieutenant" and "Sergeant Shotgun" are terrible names. Is this how German players feel when they read bad German in Warhammer Fantasy? Tyndolionel posted:I really enjoyed your review! I haven't played Empires, but I've run Burning Wheel and had a lot of fun doing it. Empires seems like fun, but I think I'd run in to the same problem as I did with wheel, which is that only one or two players in my group had the inclination to try and figure out the rules and how to play, making it a lot of work to run. When people's beliefs and goals started to come into play, and a good duel of wits got going, the game that emerged from those rules was really exciting and suspenseful, I felt. Psychohistory is generally used for the Infection (big picture) mechanics. It's a Figure of Note skill in the Usurpation and Invasion phases, and can be rolled in Usurpation Assesses and Invasion Gambits.
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Aug 11, 2015 14:55
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Hedningen posted:I honestly can't remark about that element - I haven't read the original German rules, but unless there's been some serious work on the English version, I think it might come across in content more than tone. Oh well, maybe they settled for a North German dialect (at least from those northern regions that actually have one.) Traveller posted:While the game seems to be actual fun, that's a lot of fanservice on the female sculpts. Also, "Lieutenant Lieutenant" and "Sergeant Shotgun" are terrible names. Is this how German players feel when they read bad German in Warhammer Fantasy? Seeing how the most German faction me and my brothers are interested are the Vampire Counts (or whatever they're called now in this reboot), I only know that WFB loves using German names for towns and people, all of which sound fine unless our translation made some fixes. Now for some older replies: Foglet posted:I am somewhat looking forward to the English release of The Dark Eye 5e, if only to finally get a hold of the Aventuria setting. The word is that the crunchy part of tabletop Das Schwartze Auge is highly German as well. I would say the crunch is very German: The core mechanics are easy and straightforward, but then every edition finds ways to make everything needlessly complicated. You now the KISS principle? We have an (humorous) idiom that is the opposite of that. I sadly can't find a lot of sales numbers, but other wildly popular roleplaying games in Germany include Shadowrun and Pathfinder. We love our crunch. Bottom line: Hope they release as many books of the Encylopedia Aventurica (aka setting books) in English and adapt them to a more intuitive system. Like d6 Fantasy. Or Hero System. CommissarMega posted:Getting back to the Dark Eye, I think the Blackguards games are set in the world. The first game was a little meh, the second is very good, at least from where I'm standing. I think that might be because the developer Daedalic Entertainment deals mostly in point-and-click adventure games. Blackguards was their first RPG as far as I know. On the plus side, they know how to develop on a budget, which is important if you want to survive as a smaller German developer dealing in more niche stuff. On an unrelated note: Is it just me, or did WotC big "Now all the old stuff is available as pdfs again"-campaign not include the first set of Player's Handbook, GM Guide and Monster vault for 4th edition? That feels a bit odd. And I'm not interested in Essentials stuff.
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Aug 11, 2015 20:33
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Traveller posted:While the game seems to be actual fun, that's a lot of fanservice on the female sculpts. Also, "Lieutenant Lieutenant" and "Sergeant Shotgun" are terrible names. Is this how German players feel when they read bad German in Warhammer Fantasy? Yeah, I'm not gonna try and defend the sculpts here. While I've seen some folks make the defense that "Oh, it's meant to be silly and play with old genre conventions!", I've always found that a little weak - we don't really need more fanservice-sculpts on minis. Werner Klocke, while a talented sculptor, is still stuck in some of the 90s design trends for female minis and could use less fanservice-y sculpting. I'd say it's gotten a little better in recent years, as there's some variation in body types and there's less gratuitous cleavage, but the fact I even need to talk about this stuff shows that there's still a long way to go. Either way, time for a little more seafaring stupidity!  Part 5: Goblin Pirates Welcome back to this F&F of Freebooter's Fate! Last time, we talked about the noble Imperial Armada, and today, we'll be learning about the next crew: the disorganized, oppressed Goblin Pirates. As far as playstyle, the Goblin Pirates are all about weird gimmicks, swarm tactics, and hilarity. While they're goofy, there's a serious edge to their struggle as mentioned earlier in the review, goblins were seen as uncultured, savage barbarians with no culture of their own, able to learn only the simplest of tasks and requiring the guiding hand of those charitable humans willing to take them in. The goblins, on the other hand, were fast learners intelligent, albeit somewhat cowardly due to their small size and longed for freedom, eventually rebelling against their slavers and showing that they were as skilled as any human. In the fiction that leads off the chapter, we learn a bit about the history of Goblins in this world; discovered in the new land of Elsura, they were brought back as slaves, and it was seen as a status symbol for the nobility to keep them as slaves, in part because of their exotic nature and strange behavior. However, a rebellion spread throughout Leonera, and they soon stole ships, weapons, and started acting as pirates. The Cazador our viewpoint character, a sort of inquisitor for the Empire has captured one of these goblins pirates, and is about to torture him for more information, but his secret office is broken into by a swarm of goblins, looking to rescue their crew member. The arrogant Cazador is captured, and the goblins flee, successful in their mission to free their friend. Goblins all have shaky morale it's one of their universal traits. However, they see the value of strength in numbers, and so long as there are other goblins nearby, they gain a bonus to their morale. Leaders don't benefit from this, but they have some bonuses of their own. So, let's talk about the Leaders of the Goblin Pirates! Malo Gordab isn't a goblin. He's an orc, who washed up on the shore as a child and was raised by goblins. Far bigger and stronger than the goblins, he was a natural leader unfortunately, the normal intelligence of the goblins wasn't found in Malo, and he was often taken advantage of by those quicker-witted goblins around him. Still, they respect his strength, and he hopes to someday find out where orcs come from he reasons that, because goblins make more goblins, there must be other orcs out there somewhere to make more orcs.  Malo and Bajo. Go, tiny hat goblin! For abilities, Malo is an absolute monster in melee. While he's not particularly great at giving orders thanks to his slow wits, he makes up for it with his abilities as a fighter. Equipped with a pistol and a sword, he's got the classic pirate loadout, right down to his fancy hat, named Bajo. Bajo is a Specialist who is automatically hired along with Malo Gordab, costs no dubloons, and doesn't take up a specialist slot. He's a tiny goblin who hides in Malo Gordab's hat. Malo really likes Bajo, especially because Malo likes his nice hat, and he tends to react violently whenever anyone endangers either Bajo or his hat. As far as abilities, Bajo can come out of hiding to support Malo, getting placed next to him and providing a bonus in melee. He's pitifully weak utterly incapable of combat but generally, if Bajo is out, then that means Malo is in melee, which means there are more pressing matters at hand for the unlucky combatants. The other leader of the Goblin Pirates is Cap'n Ulgat, one of the oldest living goblins. Normally, when a pirate grows too old, they're cast out from command because they can't survive the rough life of a pirate. Not so for Ulgat he's so old that he can barely move, instead getting pushed around in a little boat with wheels on it that another goblin needs to maneuver around the battlefield. However, Ulgat's got a legend associated with him he's supposed to have a wondrous treasure, which he tricked Malo Gordab to obtain. The value of the treasure is so great that goblins are more than willing to serve him, in the hopes that they'll be the ones to finally get his treasure. That is, if the treasure actually exists no one's ever seen it, Ulgat denies that it exists, and the story came from a combination of rumor and Malo, who is so stupid he hasn't figured out that the cunning old goblin in the boat is the same as the young goblin who tricked him years ago.  Cap'n Ulgat is fairly weak in a melee, but he's got a rather impressive cannon mounted on his little cart. It can only fire in a straight line, but it reloads quickly and is comparable to some of the high-powered weapons of the Armada or the Pirates. His real strength lays in his ability to inspire and order around his crew the lure of his treasure buffs up goblins around Cap'n Ulgat, and he's got a good command radius. Goblin Specialists are a unique lot. There's a lot of varied abilities among them, and they tend to pay reference to media in a far more blatant fashion than a lot of the other crews. Moby Dugg is a feared Goblin pirate. Back in the day, he worked with the hairies - goblin slang for humans and is most well-known for his tangled history with the pirate Long John. The two worked together to steal a rather valuable treasure from the Imperial Armada, but Long John, drunk on rum, decided to betray Moby Dugg, tossing him in the sea. Dugg managed to take a chunk out of Long John's leg, but the boat was going too fast for him to catch up especially when the white shark had caught him. He lost his leg to the shark and washed up on an island, barely alive. From that day, he swore he'd catch the white shark that had taken his leg and Long John. The shark was easy enough he skinned it himself, and wears it to this day, but he's still waiting for his revenge against Long John, saving a bomb just for him.  The first of many stupid jokes and references. As far as abilities, Moby Dugg has a peg leg, which slows him down a bit, but is fairly tough for a goblin. He's armed with a pistol and a single bomb, which he can toss for some serious damage. While he's not the best melee combatant (few Goblins are, really), he's got his tricks. Revlugg was born a slave. His slave name was Pedro, and he was seen as nothing more than a witless drudge for high-society fops to feel sorry for. That is, until he was ordered to present a pair of guns to a trick shooter he'd seen guns before, but now that he was so close, he had to try it himself. After thoroughly disrupting a garden party and fleeing, he swore he'd become a renowned gunfighter, free from the hairies' slavery.  Revlugg has a lot of pistols, and is a fairly good shot with them. His peg leg hinders his movement a little bit, but as he's primarily interested in ranged combat, that's not too much of a hindrance for him. Momma Cebada was once a slave, starved and mistreated by the humans who kept her and her sister. Together, they lived in the kitchens of the estate in Ribalta, carefully watching the doctor and the cook, learning whatever they could and occasionally stealing medicine. When the rebellion hit, they led their fellow goblins on a flight from the estate, traveling through jungles and on boats, forever hungry, until they finally managed to find other free goblins. She hates when food is wasted, thanks to her memories of her time as a slave.  She's a decent fighter in a melee, but her movement is a little slow. Her real value, however, is her ability to heal the wounds of her fellow goblins. She also gains a bonus when her sister, Cucaracha, is on the field and still alive they've known each other for so long that neither one wants to embarrass themselves while their sister is watching. Cucaracha is Cebada's sister, and like her, she was interested in learning the art of the doctor who they secretly watched. Whereas Cebada was respected for her skills, Cucaracha is feared when the unrest broke out on the manor where they were kept as slaves, Cucaracha's man was killed by a human who was seeking to steal the meager possessions of the goblins. She poisoned the human, and has been a little unhinged ever since unlike the cowardly goblins, she's lost all fear thanks to her work with poison.  She's got access to throwing knives, and is a fairly competent combatant in both melee and at shorter range. While she doesn't have the goblin's usual shaky morale, she's also unwilling to take orders and doesn't gain the usual benefits that goblin pirates gain through numbers. All of her weapons are poisoned, and she can poison weapons for her allies. Like Momma Cebada, she gains a bonus if her sister is in the crew. Pegarata comes from a long line of expert goblin hunters, and he's a bitter disappointment to the rest of them. Rather than stay home, he decided to join one of the many pirate crews leaving Elsura in search of adventure, and he's loved the life so far. Especially because he can practice the age-old family trade on the rats in the ship. With his giant axe, he's feared by rat, goblin, and human boarder alike.  Kills rats dead, but still with a creepy smile. Pegarata, while fairly fragile, has a rather impressive axe. He's good with it, too one of the strongest melee combatants that the Goblin Pirates have, with the ability to knock over opponents. He's also drat good at catching rats he automatically succeeds at any test to catch or kill a rat, which is surprisingly useful in this game. Bolgod and Golotag are brothers, always hired as a team. They're best described as nasty, even by other goblns, as they love nothing more than injuring helpless enemies. Unfortunately for everyone currently living, the only thing they love more than that is explosives. Thanks to their remarkable skill with gunpowder, they've blown up everything from entire ships to small fortresses, and the sight of a pair of goblins giggling while a fizzing barrel rolls closer has led to whole new avenues of cursing being developed.  If it isn't obvious, their gimmick is exploding barrels. As far as statistics, they're identical, aside from Bologod being left-handed. While useless in a melee, they both come with a large barrel of gunpowder they can light and either roll or carry. It's highly unpredictable, can have a truly magnificent blast radius, and is practically suicide to use. Each brother gets a single keg, and they can do a lot of damage with them. Hueso Narg is a brilliant goblin. He's incredibly skilled with clockwork and other inventions, and he wears his greatest invention with pride into battle. The idea came to him when he was sitting on the beach, watching the shells of giant crabs wash up on the shore. He'd decided, then and there, that he'd build a suit of armor from one of these shells the pincers worked via clockwork, and the shell protecting him from his opponents. It took several expeditions and quite a few assistants for him to find an appropriately-sized crab, and long hours in the workshop reinforcing the armor, preparing the clockwork, and testing the machine, but it worked.  The one time I used him, my opponent wouldn't stop talking about attacking his weak spot for massive damage. Hueso Narg is slow, but heavily-armored and deadly in melee. He uses his clockwork-powered crab pincers to grab opponents, pummeling them to death with them, and the heavy crab shell makes him tougher than Malo. Goblin Deckhands are pretty basic. The Mariner comes with a pistol and a boathook they're professional, albeit cowardly, and they're used to working on ships. A Delero was born a slave, and they've been mistreated so badly that they're broken down inside. Despite having trouble learning blackpowder weapons, they're still aching to get revenge on the hairies, and the hard work they were forced to do means they've got some good muscles on 'em. Geezers are old goblins; they're smart, tougher than regular goblins, and are used to surviving despite the best efforts of the hairies. They're tougher than other types of goblin deckhand, and they've got a pistol for range and a sabre and shield for melee.   Generic goblin deckhands! How exciting! Goblin crews follow the same rules as Pirate crews for hiring. I mentioned earlier in the review that the role that the Goblins serve in the game standing in for slaves in the real world is a little hard to swallow, if only because it validates some of the rhetoric used for taking slaves in the first place by making them literal others to the humans, portraying them as crafty and having them mimic human culture while talking very little about their own culture and language. Still, I think I might be looking a little too deeply if someone has any thoughts about this, I'd love to hear if I'm just talking out my own rear end and reading too much into a minis game about pirates. Next up; the Brotherhood!
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Aug 11, 2015 21:19
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 Afterthought 12 is really just us saying thanks to everyone for letting us make two years of this stuff (we started August 9, 2013) and keeping us interested to keep going still. We also answer a bunch of insane questions.
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Aug 11, 2015 21:42
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Hedningen posted:Piratey Stuff I got the goblin and imperial starter sets years ago, and I still need to paint them. Thanks for reminding me.
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Aug 11, 2015 21:44
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I got your Brauner's soap reference. 
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Aug 11, 2015 21:49
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Green Intern posted:I got your Brauner's soap reference. I knew that wasn't super obscure. It's in Trader Joes!
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Aug 11, 2015 21:55
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I've only just started listening to System Mastery, but it's already making my commute much better. Thanks for that!
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Aug 12, 2015 04:29
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JackMann posted:I got the goblin and imperial starter sets years ago, and I still need to paint them. Thanks for reminding me. Then this has been successful in my eyes. They're fun minis to paint, even if the female models are easy to turn into Lovecraftian horrors, as demonstrated in the Uninspiration thread. Next post will be up tomorrow; had to finish up a terrain project, which is more interesting than correcting any mistakes in my write-up.
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Aug 12, 2015 07:15
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theironjef posted:
Happy birthday cheese dudes! You guys are much funnier than The Dollop
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Aug 12, 2015 10:14
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theironjef posted:
Listened last night on my drive. Pure gold, as usual. I would play the crap out of a fantasy airship bootleggers game. What's a good system? Duckman?
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Aug 12, 2015 13:46
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The Ryvah author tells me the RPG is being released on Amazon on the 25th of August. Unless someone else has called dibs, I intend to review it.
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Aug 12, 2015 21:23
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theironjef posted:
Congrats guys. Count me also mad about Duckman.
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Aug 12, 2015 21:51
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Thanks everyone! We're really happy to have been doing it this long and are currently on track for this week (AD&D 1st). Sorry about Duckman, but hey, it exists now! Also, no idea which system would be best to run the game of fantasy bootleg blimp smuggling, I'd probably just do it in 4e or Fate myself.
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Aug 12, 2015 21:56
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Welcome back to this F&F of Freebooter's Fate. Last time, we covered the goofy Goblin Pirates in all their swarmtacular glory. Today, we'll be looking at the Brotherhood, a group of shadowy, mask-wearing assassins. Part 6: The Brotherhood As far as playstyle, the Brotherhood is all about melee, surgical strikes, and having very powerful specialists. They've all got excellent mobility, they are exceedingly deadly in melee, and they have a ton of access to poison and some unique weapons. On the negative side, they're somewhat fragile and have little access to any ranged attack the Brotherhood, as fits their stealthy nature, refuse to use any gunpowder-based weapons. The story that starts off the chapter is less of a narrative and more of a description of the Brotherhood's goals and ideals. Far from being hired assassins, the Brotherhood is an idealistic organization fifty years before the game's current timeline, King Pelagio discovered the island of Leonera and set it as a shining jewel of the Empire. He was an idealistic ruler, who sought to bring universal freedom and enlightenment to the world. He died without leaving an heir, and since his death, rumors that his mistress, Tamina, bore him a son in secret have persisted. The Brotherhood exists to return the throne to him or so it's said. No one really knows how they started, who is in command, or even why they do what they do all that's known is that there's an organization that forcibly recruits citizens, undermines what they see as corruption, and leave more questions than answers. Obviously, there's not a lot of clear identities for characters in the Brotherhood. Hell, the organization itself doesn't know what it's doing half the time, as it's organized into cells. The goals are supposedly for enlightenment, freedom, and a new golden age, but they're so contradictory that it's hard to tell what they're doing. So, let's talk about the Leaders of the Brotherhood. The Master Assassin is known only by his mask, which changes at different times. He's described as taking part in the carnival of Puerto Alto, on the Night of the Red Death. A woman, preparing for an amorous interlude with a noble, catches sight of the masked assassin as he kills her intended lover, a man lobbying for political change. Catching up to him, she rips off his mask, only to reveal another mask beneath it. Obsessed, she looks for him every year, at the masked ball, eventually recruiting her to the Brotherhood.  As far as roles, the Master Assassin is a skilled leader which doesn't have much of an effect on the Brotherhood, most of whom can't take orders and a ridiculously powerful combatant. He's one of the few members of the Brotherhood with a ranged attack a crossbowpistol and all of his attacks are poisoned. However, his most notable ability is Shadowrun a charge that allows him to essentially teleport between pieces of scenery and get a bonus to his attack. In general, if you're not shadowrunning with the Master Assassin, you're not using him correctly. The Queen of Shadows is one of the few members of the Brotherhood who we learn the real name of she is Lady Guerina, who understands the dual nature of her ideals. She plays the society lady, but her real world is in the shadows, and the mask that she wears is her true face. In her introductory fiction, we see her prepare for a mission, leaving a ball to kill a foolish noble who is looking to leave Longfall, taking his business elsewhere and leaving his workers to starve. She's a ruthless killer, one who knows that anyone who ushers in a new age on tides of blood is doomed when their idealistic world is created, because they can't exist in it.  The little dude has no effect on her abilities, is never mentioned in the prose, and is just kinda "there". As far as abilities, she's a monster in melee, attacking with a pair of poisoned war fans. She's also got access to the usual leadership abilities which are, again, practically useless for the Brotherhood's pack of loners along with the ability to attack with the kiss of death, which renders her opponent helpless. Without any ranged abilities, she needs to be in melee to do any real damage, but she's a hell of a force once she gets there. Now, to the bread and butter of the Brotherhood their Specialists. A lot of them are fairly similar to one another, as there's a winning formula in their abilities, but there's some key differences depending on the models. Apagado, wearing the traditional bauta-and-tricorn of the Carnival, muses on the transience of life after killing a young woman, Allegra. He wonders what the point of this all is if the Brotherhood's mission is even the same one, whether these tasks have anything to do with what they've been doing. He wonders if he's hallucinated the entire Brotherhood, using it to justify his stalking and killing of random citizens. Finally breaking free of the scene when the young woman's brother comes upon her body, he heads off into the night, thinking deeply about everything he thinks he knows in gratuitous purple prose.  He's the basic model of the Brotherhood Assassin poisoned daggers, stealthy, good movement, and better at sneaky attacks than a straight-up fight. Trucco is stalking Blanche Pascal, seeing her as a symptom and symbol of the rebellion against the restoration of the true crown to Pelagio's bastard heir. He nearly manages to get her, before taking a knife to the side. Unfortunately for Pascal, he is so devoted to the mission that he continues following her, thinking of himself as a great hero.  Identical to Apagado, except for having access to throwing knives and a little less strength than him, he's a good addition to a Brotherhood crew. Bonaccia sees herself as a dancer, announcing the return of the true heir of Pelagio to Longfall, a world where she will not be needed. It's all melodramatic and poetic and twisted, just like the other two nearly identical people before her.  That ruff is pretty great. She's slightly weaker than Apagado and Trucco, but she's more skilled in combat. I really wish I had more to say, but they're really close to each other. Fith'Aarch the Spider is where things start to get interesting. We started with the idealists, and now we're getting to the folks that work for the Brotherhood because they're too unhinged to work with anyone else. Fith'aarch loves poison he loves it a lot. Most of his backstory is him talking about how much he loves it in this little vignette, he's working on assassinating someone, not because he is necessary for their Great Work, but because the man had the temerity to survive being poisoned by him before. A creepy bastard, he evaluates everything in terms of how good it is as a poison, and considers anyone who creates antidotes as a conspirator against his one true love poison.  That mask is just so drat goofy. His gimmick is, obviously, poisoned weapons. He's got access to throwing knives, along with a heavy dagger for melee, but his real advantage is his frankly ridiculous speed, along with his ability to easily clamber over obstacles and an increased defense against ranged attacks. Romerto the Strangler is unique among the Brotherhood in that he doesn't wear a mask. That's because he's never left any witnesses alive to know that he works for them. The only one who knows anything about Romerto is an unnamed female friend of his, who sees him as a man out of time. Once, he would have been a noble knight on the battlefield, a hero to the people. In Longfall, he's a serial killer, strangling victims for his own pleasure and killing those targets that the Brotherhood gives to him. The man that this woman is telling the story to also learns why this woman is betraying Romerto's secret because he's already on the way to kill him, and that's the only time she's allowed to ease her burden.  Surprisingly enough, he has no ability to actually strangle anyone. Romerto is a tough bastard slower than most of the Brotherhood and without their usual sneakiness, he instead has serious brute force on his side. He uses a warhammer and a meteor hammer, which has the ability to hold targets in place and set them up for his deadly warhammer, and he's got some serious strength behind his blows. Miedo a Morir is perhaps my favorite Brotherhood specialist. The stilt dancer is known mainly in tavern legend, and his story is told by a drunken pirate, looking to get some cups of rum from his listeners. He tells the story of how he and his crew were chasing a few goblins into an alleyway, when the stilt dancer came upon them, fearsome long-beaked mask on his face, wielding a scythe and seeming to be the spectre of death himself. Before the pirate could think, his two friends were already dead, and he was running away one of the few men to ever survive an attack from him.  I loving love this mini, even if it's a bit of a nightmare to assemble. His gimmick is incredibly fast movement that ignores terrain, along with the game's first instance of forcing morale tests whenever he attacks. He's a little fragile, but then again, he's a ridiculous stilt-walking assassin dressed like death. Bella Cigna is one of the few members of the Brotherhood who gets an actual character history. A former circus trapeze artist along with her husband, Adamo, they were known as the King and Queen of the air, famed for their skills. At night, they spied for the Brotherhood, using their acrobatic skills to help peacefully steer the city of Longfall to a brighter future. By day, they lived as artists, carefree and joyful. That is, until her husband's untimely death unwilling to accept his fall as an accident, she knew that it had to have been sabotage, and since then, she abandoned her peaceful life and joined in on the killing, her idealist hope for a brighter tomorrow dying with her husband. Now, all she wants to do is kill as many of those who oppose the future that she once hoped she could share with her husband, having seen the true value of human life.  She's a fast-moving climber, somewhat fragile, but with access to ranged attacks and difficult to hit at range herself. She's also one of the few Brotherhood models who can take orders, which makes her even more useful as an accompaniment to the crew's leader. The Deckhands of the Brotherhood are fairly basic. Coscritti are the raw recruits untrained in the arts of stealth, still learning the duality of the mask. They're useful in melee, but are mostly there to help fill out your crew list and support them where necessary. Harlequins are a valuable asset to them they are performers, moving around in broad daylight and accepted by the people, because no one suspects that a mask can have two meanings; the mark of a performer and the symbol of the Brotherhood. They're fast, have access to throwing knives, and are hard to hit at range.  Deckhands! Harlequin is on the left, Coscritti is on the right. The Brotherhood's crew construction is a little different than other crews while they still have to hire a Leader and at least one Deckhand, they can hire two Specialists for every Deckhand they hire. Other than that, they follow the same rules for hiring Deckhands as the Pirates and the Goblin Pirates you can hire more than one of the same type, but you need to hire a different type as well. While the chapter is dripping in melodramatic prose, the text takes a bit of a tongue-in-cheek approach; while the Brotherhood is idealistic, it seems that no one really knows what they're idealistic about, and it's entirely possible that the entire story is a fake, invented to make people more willing to accept that they're in a shadowy organization of assassins. Next time, we'll talk about Mercenaries, who can be hired by the various crews but aren't available as a crew themselves, along with some of the scenarios of Freebooter's Fate.
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Aug 12, 2015 23:19
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theironjef posted:Thanks everyone! We're really happy to have been doing it this long and are currently on track for this week (AD&D 1st). Sorry about Duckman, but hey, it exists now! Your next review is AD&D 1st Edition?! I mean, GJ because I first got into System Mastery with the D&D Basic episode and loved it, but goddamn AD&D is a dense book.
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Aug 13, 2015 04:35
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Part 7: Mercenaries, Scenarios, and Closing Thoughts Welcome back to this F&F of Freebooter's Fate, the pirate-y skirmish game that I just keep posting about. Last time, you heard about the overly flowery and idealistic Brotherhood, so now we'll cover the various mercenaries and the game's scenarios, as well as some closing thoughts. Now, Mercenaries work a little differently from the rest of the models in Freebooter's Fate. With the publication of the first book, there was no possibility of fielding a mercenary-only crew. Instead, every mercenary is a Specialist that can be hired by another crew. Every crew can hire up to two mercenaries except for the Brotherhood, who can only hire one and they take up a Specialist slot when hired. Lobo is a tough bastard. He's been a soldier of fortune for his entire life, and knows that it's not the romantic vision of gold and glory that the stories point it out to be. He's a natural cynic, which happens when a young orphan boy named Enrico requests that Lobo takes him under his wing. After failing to dissuade the young lad and determining that any orphan who can survive the slums in Longfall is probably a tough customer he has his new apprentice.  Lobo is a hard-hitting melee specialist, tough as nails and wielding a heavy warhammer. He's also got his loyal aide, Enrico, who will attack anyone who Lobo throws off balance with his flurry of blows. He's a good addition to any crew that needs a heavy hitter, although he will not fight for the Imperial Armada. Brahyn is an angry, angry woman. A highland lass with an enormous sword, her introductory fiction shows that she's a fan of drinkin', fightin', and teachin' scunners not to mess with a lady's lunch, beating the hell out of several Brotherhood assassins who manage to inadvertently spill her lunch.  Okay, the pants are a little much. She's another hard-hitting melee fighter, with no ranged capabilities but an incredibly huge two-handed sword with the highest strength in the game. She can also perform a flurry of blows in melee, getting an extra attack. She will not fight for the Brotherhood or the Goblin Pirates. El Curandero is an overly-melodramatic poet who supports his work through mercenary work, specializing in acting as a battlefield surgeon. Beginning life as a blacksmith's apprentice, he thought the work unworthy of him and ran off to become a poet, writing about the ills of modern society. As he's not a particularly skilled poet nor one who anyone bothers to notice he finds himself drawn further and further into his work as a surgeon.  While rather weak in combat, he provides access to healing skills in battle. He won't fight for the Goblin Pirates, because he still has some self-respect. Lindo Guapo is a man of mystery he's supposedly the only man to ever leave the Brotherhood and live. No one knows if it's true and Lindo certainly won't say anything but the mask he wears at his belt, as well as the skills he practices, are enough to convince anyone that the rumors about him are true. If he did manage to leave the Brotherhood, no one knows how and no one's willing to ask, either.  He's an excellent shot with his crossbow-pistol, and can handle himself in melee fairly well, but lacks the poison of the Brotherhood, so he's essentially a light version of their assassin specialists. He also moves very quickly, an advantage for the slower crews who need someone with decent range and good skill at range. He obviously won't fight for the Brotherhood. Buscar is an iconoclast he's fiercely independent, seeing himself as the master of his own fate. The only injustice is when someone tries to tell him what to do. He's a fan of private law, and tends to enforce it for anyone who's willing to pay him. Not much else to say, really.  I kinda like the dynamic movement here. He's a skilled crossbow user, with some capability in melee. His other standout feature is his ability to climb well. He won't fight for the Imperial Armada. Now that you've heard about the various mercenaries, let's talk about the last chapter - scenarios. While simply having two crews fight each other can be fun, the real entertainment in this game is in scenarios, which are presented at the end of each book. There's also a few tips about setting up a table including the suggestion that, for a truly immersive experience, you should open up a jar of pickled herring and place it under the table to simulate the smell of fishy brine that, by law, accompanies all pirate media. Freebooter's Fate is a terrain-dense game; line-of-sight needs to be blocked to make sure that the board isn't just a series of firing lanes. Six to ten pieces are recommended, with players alternating the placement of terrain on the board. Certain crews even allow for an extra piece to be placed after the board is set up only Brotherhood right now, but that'll be expanded later on. The scenarios for the game are fairly simple to start with later books add in mini-campaigns and suggestions for setting up linked scenarios in an attempt to create a narrative for the game, but there's not too much in the first book; mostly basic scenarios, but they're a big part of the flavor of the game. In general, you're looking to earn Glory Points, the game's term for victory points usually, this is a combination of killing/panicking enemies and accomplishing scenario goals. The Feud is your basic crew-fighting-crew scenario; justified in the typical Freebooter's Fate fashion by implying no one really knows why they're fighting. To quote the text; Freebooter's Fate 96 posted:Oh well, anyway, they're all drink-sodden bastards who deserve a good whacking. Also, they have gold and rum and we've got our Vanesa's engagement do coming up. The Treasure Hunt is a classic of the pirate genre there's hidden treasure somewhere on the field, but someone else has stumbled on it at the same time. Even worse, whoever hid it had a sense of humor and a love of traps, so there's a few spare chests that have nothing other than incredibly painful traps in 'em. Victory is determined by getting the real treasure back to your deployment zone as well as managing to survive the deadly traps. For Rum and Glory, follows the traditional attacker-and-defender formula from most skirmish game. However, the goal isn't violence it's delivering casks of rum. One side starts out with several barrels of rum, and the other side hired by a group of teetotalers, no doubt has to destroy the rum before it can be delivered to the tavern on the board. Glory points come from delivering the rum successfully, or for the attacker for destroying or stealing the casks of rum. To Arms! is a clever little scenario everyone starts out deployed in the center of the board, and the goal is to take out some of your opponent's miniatures while getting all of yours to a designated assembly point. Of particular note is the random nature of deployment; using face-down paper slips, all models are deployed randomly, so you don't know who is where when you start the game. It's a quite fun scenario, and one of the ones I use to demonstrate the game to newer players, as it shows the balance between achieving objectives and attacking your opponent. The Hunt for Rats in October, shows the game's sense of humor with a series of puns regarding that classic piece of media. A number of rat tokens are placed on the board, and both sides need to find and catch the drat things to get the bounty from the city. It's chaotic and ridiculous perfect for a game of pirates. There's typically a lot of scrambling to get rats, violent confrontation, and entertaining chaos. The final scenario from the first book is Stranded, another classic bit of pirate media. Both crews start on opposite sides of a beach. In the center, there's the only boat off of this desolate island. The goal is to escape with your leader and as much of your crew as possible, while stopping your opponent from doing the same. The excellent rules for shoving people come into play here. To sum things up, Freebooter's Fate is far from a perfect game, but it's one with a lot of charm and excellent balance. Relatively cheap to get into, and with some gorgeous miniatures, if you've got a chance to look into it, give it a shot. The rulebooks are fantastic I can hardly tell they weren't written by a native English speaker, given how well the pirate theme shines through with some very good art (that I haven't been showcasing because I don't have a working scanner.) Werner Klocke makes some beautiful minis, barring his tendency towards excessively cleavagey women. Things that it does really well:
Things it could do better:
Well, that's all for Freebooter's Fate. If anyone is interested, I could continue on and do the next book in the series, Deep Jungle, which introduces a new crew, the Amazons, as well as some new mechanics, an advancing storyline, and quite a few new scenarios. Thanks for reading, and I'm glad I was finally able to finish one of these properly.
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Aug 13, 2015 22:07
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Humbug Scoolbus posted:Play Harn
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Aug 13, 2015 22:23
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Hedningen posted:
Do it please.
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Aug 14, 2015 00:29
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Halloween Jack posted:I just pulled out Harnmaster 3e and rolled up a character for fun, and holy poo poo, you're not kidding. The whole thing is based on Norman England, so you will very likely roll up a serf who has no reason or ability to adventure anywhere. Now, break out the HarnManor rules and start growing and harvesting crops with your hardy band of newly-rolled serfs. 
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Aug 14, 2015 05:44
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FMguru posted:More Anglo-Saxon than Norman England IMHO - peep the Kingdom conquered by the not-Vikings in the far north. Fantasy Farming Simulator 1999! Incredible.
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Aug 14, 2015 05:47
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gradenko_2000 posted:Fantasy Farming Simulator 1999!
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Aug 14, 2015 05:57
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gradenko_2000 posted:Fantasy Farming Simulator 1999! Oooh, now I remember that a month ago, there was a talk in this thread about rural role-playing and how Ryytama's farmer class wasn't up to much as far as agriculture was concerned. Wikipedia posted:HβrnMaster Core was seen by some as an oversimplification of the original. Some fans appreciated the change as it made play move faster at the expense of realism. Others preferred the realism of the original. Original author N. Robin Crossby responded with the even more detailed HβrnMaster Gold. Also the first ever published adventure was titled 100 Bushels of Rye. ...Now I might need to know more.
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Aug 14, 2015 06:06
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FMguru posted:Harn completely loving owns, and I'm not saying that ironically. Oh yeah I mean I've literally and unironically been in a spot where "huh I need to set this in a farm, but how big is a middle-age-esque fantasy farm plot?" I just handwaved it at the time because it ultimately didn't matter, but if I was preparing something ahead of the session it would've been nice to have something concrete to go on, y'know?
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Aug 14, 2015 06:15
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I need this game in my life
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Aug 14, 2015 06:16
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gradenko_2000 posted:Oh yeah I mean I've literally and unironically been in a spot where "huh I need to set this in a farm, but how big is a middle-age-esque fantasy farm plot?" Same here. That thing is giving me a fat, pink, immersion boner.
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Aug 14, 2015 06:43
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Foglet posted:Also the first ever published adventure was titled 100 Bushels of Rye. Holy gently caress. I remember seeing its cover in ads back in the day.
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Aug 14, 2015 06:56
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Just to keep sharp (and because writing out everything for Deep Jungle is a bit of a pain), might as well explain another facet of Freebooter's Fate with a discussion of a mini-expansion of sorts - equipment cards. Freebooter's Fate: Equipment Because this game loves the use of cards to help manage special elements and all of that, a mini-expansion, released after Deep Jungle, was designed to help provide more options and customization to crews. This greatly helps one of the earlier criticisms of the game; while there's a slow release schedule, equipment cards help to provide variation for crews and give more customization for players. Released in dual-language German/English, the cards provide additional equipment that modify the characteristics and traits for your crew. (I know, it sounds like ad copy, but it's the best explanation I've got for it.) The basic rules for extra equipment are simple; no more than three pieces on a character, no more than one large/Rare item per character, and only one copy of each Rare item per crew. Additionally, some items require that a character has certain equipment to use it - a Pre-Fragmented bullet, for example, is only useful to someone who already has a blackpowder weapon. They generally grant traits, add to characteristics, or allow for some truly miraculous events to occur. There are a few notable bits of equipment to mention here.
Part of the reason I'm discussing this is because it shows one of the strengths of the system - in true German format, all of the dubloon values for traits and characteristics are tied into a sort of formula, which you can catch glimpses of when examining the equipment cards and comparing various models. There are "standard human/goblin" values for most traits, with some variation given for training and other elements, which can be determined through careful comparison of cards. It's a neat glimpse into the design process behind the models, as well as methods of further customizing the game beyond the basic listed stats. There's also another element to this; because of the slow pace of releases, a lot of additional information and abilities exist that aren't mentioned in any of the released books. There's a lot of neat supplementary stuff out there that hasn't been collected into books yet; for example, the East Leoneran Trading Company box set, or Mercenary Starter, only has its rules available in the box set. While this can be a little frustrating for those of us who like to know rules from books, there's an advantage to it - they can continuously release models in between book releases, similar to how Warmahordes manages their release schedule. It's a good way to keep up the release pace, especially if miniatures are designed before the rules are. Seeing as Freebooter Miniatures started as a company that only sculpted miniatures, it makes complete sense - they're more interested in the artistic aspect for a lot of these minis, and the rules can come second. It also reinforces the nature of the game as one that's meant to be somewhat casual - while it's quite well-balanced, they're not looking to run major tournaments or do anything more than have people enjoy playing with some minis. So, next time, I'll cover Deep Jungle, which introduces the Amazon crew and tightens the already-impressive rules regarding terrain. EDIT: Found some of the concept art used in the sculpting of the minis. Apparently, Lydia Schuchmann, who's done work for Pathfinder, among other things, did the concept art for my favorite mini, Mieido a Morir. 
Hedningen fucked around with this message at 07:19 on Aug 14, 2015 |
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Aug 14, 2015 07:04
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Temporarily blind an opponent. Only poseurs use anything other than the stuff you find on the ground.
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A BRIEF LOOK AT HARN Harn is two things: 1) Harnworld the setting - a Britain-sized island with a bunch of little Kingdoms and nomadic tribes, roughly corresponding to Britain in the Dark Ages and Anglo-Saxon, with sketchy details of the rest of the planet. 2) Harnmaster the RPG system - an early-1980s effort at a "realistic" fantasy game (from the era of RuneQuest and RoleMaster and Chivalry & Sorcery) that actually pretty much succeeds at what it does. Both date from around 1980 and have been continually developed and in print ever since then (mostly though Canadian game publisher Columbia Games). Their products are known for their extremely high-quality maps, low page counts, lack of unnecessary fluff, and startlingly high prices. My favorite description of Harn is by comparison to Glorantha. You know how Glorantha was created by a person and fleshed out by people who were obsessed with mythology and anthropology and shamanism and all that, and it shows in the setting? Well, Harn is like that, except it was created by a bunch of people who took their Medieval Studies classes in college very very seriously. Harnworld An island off the coast of a big not-Europe continent, Harn is occupied by nine kingdoms. There are three good-guy kingdoms (a big one on the south coast full of Game of Thrones intrigue, a medium sized one in the west that borders powerful enemies, and a small isolated one in the east that's just the right size for a band of player characters to have a big impact upon), three bad-guy kingdoms (the north features a kingdom recently enslaved by not-Vikings, the west has a genuinely Evil kingdom and a deacadent remnant of a previous big Republic), and three other-guy kingdoms (dwarf mountain, elf forest, and the mysterious island of low-key wizards that some people suspect actually run everything). The space between these kingdoms are filled with more than twenty different barbarian tribes, nests full of the well-done Orc analogues (known as Gargun), and mysterious sites full of humming psionic monoliths that float in midair (leftover from a mysterious precursor sci-fi civilization known as the Earthmasters). There is a magic system (focusing on six elemental realms of power - air, earth, water, fire, metal, and spirit), and there is a pantheon of ten gods (which, by total coincidence, slot into all nine of the classic AD&D alignments, doubling up in the middle with both "we must preserve the balance" neutrality and "who cares? I'm hungry" neutrality represented). That last god is the god of beasts and weird monsters, and he actually lives in a pool in the middle of Harn, and all kinds of weird critters wander out of his realm into the rest of Harn - which is how you end up having interesting monsters that make no ecological or evolutionary sense for your players to fight. One other nice thing about the religions is that each god has lots of sects and orders and militant organizations and internal politics, which is something not usually seen in early-80s D&D-style worlds. Products include a general world-setting set, modules for all nine of the kingdoms, rules supplements for the main features (religion, magic, manors, ships, etc.), more detailed looks at some cities/castles/interesting sites, and a handful of prepack adventure modules. Most are systemless, designed to be used with your favorite RPG system, and the internet is full of conversion rules to let you use GURPS or D20 or RuneQuest or whatever to play in Harn. Harn also has a really dedicated and friendly online community, much bigger and deeper than Harn's tiny niche presence would suggest. The actual modules are full of detailed descriptions of the various feudal kingdoms and realms, including every detail you might care to know about anything. How thick are the castle walls? What shops are there in town? Who are the Dukes and Earls and how do they relate to the King? I'm no expert but the whole thing comes across as though a bunch of Medieval Studies majors went through each paragraph with a fine-tooth comb and made sure everything made sense. Every plot of land has the right number of peasants working it. Someone calculated the flow of trade and the taxes and determined how many soldiers a region could support. The full panoply of medieval organization is represented here - guilds, monopolies, charters, magnates, sub-infeudation, enfeoffments, church lands, trade routes, and on and on. One of my big complaints that I bring up a lot in Grognards.TXT is about most "realistic" "simulationist" RPGs being terrible because the "realism" is usually just some nerd's ill-informed best guess as to what things cost or how combat works. This is absolutely not the case in Harn. Here's a chunk of the seafaring trade rules from the ship supplement:  From this, we know that approaching the port of Cherafir in a 40-foot ship we will pay 50 pence to dock there (half due on arrival, half paid on departure) and 40p per day to stay docked there (or 8p a day to float at anchor in the bay). The local longshoremen can unload 14 tuns of goods per day (at a cost of 6 farthings/tun) or the crew can unload it at half that rate. There's a large Pilot's Guildhouse and Seaman's Hall for our officers and crew to stay in (at 1-2p per person per night). We will pay a 15% hawking fee (i.e. tax) to sell our cargo, and a whopping 3% of the value of the cargo per month to store it in a local warehouse (one month minimum). Yikes, this isn't a cheap place to do business. The local shipyard has 8 full-time employees and charges 35% more than book value for repairs or modifications. The work is rated at an ML of 75, which is a three-star rating; competent, but not brilliant. High tides are at 3am and 3pm, so if we want to depart in daylight we will have to leave between 2pm and 6pm (or 2am-6am if the moon is out - and yes, there are calendar charts showing the moon phases). That's just an example of the kind of detail you find all throughout Harn products. See that HarnManor clip above for another example. Here are some maps of Harn, from Google Images. An artistic rendering of the continent (shrunk for tables; click to embiggen):  Here's a closeup of the actual map:  I can't find a good-quality image of the whole map, which is a pity, as it's beautiful. They've recently starting re-doing their maps (with modern CAD/GIS systems) and they look like this now:  Two other things about the Harn product line. - First, there's almost no fluff in any of the products. Most of the core modules are succinct, clear, and to the point - communicating a ton of usable game-world information in a minimum of space. This is why Harn fans are willing to pay ridiculous per-page rates for Harn books and PDFs - there's more good, relevant information in a ten-page Harn article than in some 96-page D20 or Pathfinder book. - Second, Harn has the single best treatment of metaplot in any RPG I've ever seen. The game details the world exactly as it is in the year 720, full of history and important characters and plot hooks and unstable situations. And then it promises that it will never say anything about what happens in year 721 or any later year - a promise that's been kept for almost 35 years. Brilliant. I'll have a very brief overview of the HarnMaster RPG system up in the next little while (short description: someone looked at RuneQuest, said "that's a good start", and built something even more detailed and realistic and chart-heavy. And wonder of wonders, it works). I'll answer any questions anyone has about the setting, with the disclaimer that I'm much more of a casual fan and admirer of it than any kind of expert.
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Aug 14, 2015 07:47
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That's a hell of a pitch, and I like it. If you're going to go full grog, might as well take it from people who are experts in the field.
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Aug 14, 2015 08:12
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gradenko_2000 posted:Oh yeah I mean I've literally and unironically been in a spot where "huh I need to set this in a farm, but how big is a middle-age-esque fantasy farm plot?"
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Aug 14, 2015 08:17
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I'm... not usually a fan of the hardcore realism thing, but this is charming me by how the realism seems to be REALLY REALLY ACCURATE and not just "WE NEED MORE MATHS TO SHOW HOW SERIOUS WE ARE."
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Aug 14, 2015 08:57
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Unknown Armies: Postmodern Magick Adept Rundown, part 1 Okay, so here is the Postmodern Magick sourcebook. It's important to keep in mind that this actually predates the 2nd edition corebook (the one I've been reviewing so far) so there's a fair amount of redundant information that I'll be skipping over...we're mainly here for more weird adept schools. I'll brush over a few of the other interesting items here and there, but for the most part I'll be skipping stuff that's redundant or contradictory. Rituals The rituals in Postmodern Magick are a very different breed from the ones in the 2nd edition rulebook. The second edition rituals tend to be lengthy and impractical but rarely involve tasks or ingredients that are too onerous to option and the results tend to range from "mostly useless" to "useful but low-key". Rituals in postmodern magick are significantly more dramatic, both in the way that they're performed and the effects they can have. These are actually kind of strange because the minor rituals range from moderately useful (like the purifying bath) to the extremely helpful (medicine bag and portal glyph) but the significant rituals are basically too complicated for too little benefit to actually be worth using at all (with the exception of Recorded for Posterity). Crystal Courage: This spell "stores" fear in a halite crystal. It'll drain one Failed Notch from you the meter linked to your Fear passion (it doesn't work on other meters) and stores it...you can even unleash it later by touching someone with the crystal and saying the proper nonsense words (inflicting a Rank-5 Stress test). Although theoretically this is an easy way to remove otherwise difficult to deal with Failed notches the procedures involved may take some preparation...involving drawing a pentagram in linden and silver oak ash mixed with cat's blood on a maple hardwood floor during the night of a new moon. But hey, if you've got all that stuff ready anyway it's still easier than trying to get help from a therapist while you avoid letting him know about your "hobbies" in the Occult Underground. Other downside...the emotion stored in the crystal tends to attract astral beings such as parasites or demons. Medicine Bag: This ritual is an epideromancer's best friend. It's relatively easy to put together...you need a mutilated action figure head, a week-old bit of roadkill and a ball purchased from someone who has played a game with it (amusingly, this means that somewhere in the occult underground someone makes a bit of cash on the side playing ping-pong and selling the balls). The one ingredient that'll be a challenge is a pill stolen from a pharmacy (completely unseen). Tough, but by no means impossible. Most of the bag's benefits are minor: lower blood pressure, cholesterol, immunity to the common cold. Other diseases run their course 25% faster and there's even a 10% chance of indefinite remission for terminal illnesses. Obviously for many people those previous benefits could potentially be priceless...but from a PC perspective the big benefit is +2 wound points healed every day. Like I said, a big deal for the epideromancer. Downside, you've got to wear the bag 23 hours every day to have it work and it looses its power if it is ever opened (so no going through airport security with it). Portal Glyph One of the rare "immediate" rituals that takes practically no time. Mark a door in some way (easiest would be to do something like draw or scratch an X or something similar on the surface) and then whisper "Qui Sum?" (who am I?) before closing it. This makes anyone pursuing you automatically ignore the door and search elsewhere even in situations where the door would be the only possible hiding place or route you might have taken. This fades within ten minutes. Probably one of the most powerful rituals for the effort it takes in the book. Purifying Bath: This bath requires water from seven seas. It doesn't have to be the seven seas, it can be any seven bodies called seas (such as the dead sea). This might actually disqualify the Oceans...but it depends on the interpretation and how pedantic your GM wants to be. Next you've got to mix in aloe oil, lambs blood, rowan ashes, strawberry wine, iron filings, tarnished silver, powdered garnets and basil. After washing and sitting in the water for at least an hour you have to towel off with a towel woven from a mix of black sheep and black goat wool that is exactly as long as you are tall. Wrap your head in the towel completely and fall asleep for 33 minutes. The list seems intimidating but the only thing that would actually be all that difficult to obtain would be the towel itself and that is reusable (so long as its never used by anyone else). The benefits are a "cleansing" of the aura which can do things like dislodge astral parasites, conceal magickal abilities (so long as you don't use them) or remove curses such as the pornomancer blast. Taste of Ashes: Get a handful of the victim's feces, burn them and add some of the ashes to food that will be fed to the victim. This makes whatever the victim eats and drinks have the taste and consistency of coal ashes. It's a pretty horrifying curse and the only cure is to burn a three course meal, mix it with your own feces and then eat it...but if you've got access to your victim's food and poo poo to begin with you could probably torture them in easier ways. Cartesian Curse: This is the first Significant ritual and it really shows how blatant these are compared to the rituals you find in the UA core book. Of course, its almost impossible to perform, requiring three of the following: non-entities eye (tough since their bodies vanish when unobserved), a quart of blood from a lycanthrope, the brain of an adept, the heart of an Avatar, the breath of a ghost, the spittle of an unspeakable servant, or the pinky of a golem. These ingredients (and several others) must be used as part of an elaborate ritual (including animal sacrifice and a mile long hike with a burning torch). The result is an egg which is only effective if broken on bare skin...anyone touched by the goop inside is affected by the curse. Those affected only exist so long as they are thinking of themselves...essentially they've got to constantly remind themselves that they are real (often by inserting references to themselves into their dialogue or staring at mirrors). If they stop thinking about themselves then they will disappear for (100- Soul) minutes, although you can double this with additional minor charges (if you've got a healthy number of minor charges this can quickly get very dramatic: 10 minor charges will cause an ordinary (soul 50) person to phase out for a bit over a month at a time). The victims perceive the time they spend phased out as being trapped in a void of nothingness and will likely quickly go insane from Self, Isolation, Helplessness and Unnatural stress checks. Each day that passes reduces the phase period by 1/2 and once it goes below a second the curse is broken. It's certainly nasty...but I would just shoot the bastard at that point. Hex: Another significant ritual that just isn't worth the time...it requires your target's blood, the bile of a prisoner, bones of a dog and crows feathers and a sheet that has covered a dead woman. Then a 10 day ritual dancing barefoot on broken glass and jagged rocks. The result is a -5% shift to all off the target's skills linked to one stat (except their obsession skill). The effect lasts for one month, plus an extra month for each additional significant charge invested in the ritual. Not very impressive to say the least, hopefully the minor inconvenience your target suffers is worth it to you while you walk around on crutches after dancing on spikes 10 days in a row.  Just sitting here grinding my tongues...if you know what I mean. The Pentecost Ritual This ritual requires mass murder (or at least mutilation). You need 12 whole tongues from people who speak at least 20 separate languages between them (and each must be at least fluent in two languages) and the languages have to include Hindi, Arabic, English and Mandarin. The tongues must all be fresh when the ritual is used but don't have to come from a living subject. you could technically get away with just a bit of corpse mutilation but given that the tongues can't be frozen and can't be more than a week old with refrigeration it's unlikely you'll find 12 polyglots dying of unrelated causes within a week of one another. Put the tongues in a bowl and mash them together with a wooden mortar in the shape of an owl's head. The tongues must be stirred for 24 hours without pause and every two hours you have to add a minor charge and a pint of your own blood...that works out to 12 pints which is more than most people have in their bodies. During this time you've got to read aloud from a dictionary in alphabetical order (fortunately this does not have to be done by the person stirring the tongues). Both the reader and the stirrer can "trade off" with other participants, provided the activity continues, but the blood has to be provided all from the same person. At the end of the period you need to burn any unread pages on a silver platter blessed by any priest of any religion. Oh, and none of the tongues can come from someone born on a sunday. The final product is, at least, impressive. It's a potion that, when drunk allows you to be understood by any human being regardless of language, dialect or phrasing. Everyone will not only understand what you're trying to say (not just what you actually say, preventing any possibility of misunderstanding) but they also understand it in the most sympathetic fashion. This grants a +25% shift to any Soul skills used (I think the implication is any social-based Soul skills, but as written it would also improve things like Aura Sight, Adept skills and Avatar skills as well). You can amplify your voice with speakers or megaphones but recordings or transmissions ruin the effect. The effect ends once you stop talking for more than 5 seconds...and that's not the downside. The catch is that at the end of the effect you lose any and all communication skills for the same amount of time you spent speaking. This includes all forms of communication: reading, sign language and even body language or the meaning of pictures or pictograms. Same goes for attempts you make to communicate. Obviously this'll involve Self and Isolation checks. ...okay, look. I know elaborate and complex rituals are evocative and interesting and part of the setting but at some point they just become a waste of word count. This ritual is just so complex, difficult and dangerous for such minimal benefit and even if you manage to pull it off the downsides ensure that there's almost no circumstances where the effect would actually be all that useful. To be clear, in order for this ritual to be at all worthwhile you've got to figure out some circumstance where it's extremely important that someone have a clear and persuasive but totally one-sided speech in person after which they can immediately leave without speaking to anyone. You then need to make sure that you've got the time and resources to find 12 polyglots who were not born on a Sunday with the appropriate arrangement of languages. Then you have to kill them and harvest their tongues without being caught and within a week arrange for helpers (because lets face it, without helpers you're not doing any of this crap for 24 hours) to perform an elaborate 24 hour ceremony without mistakes (which will ruin everything). Hopefully you've been draining and storing pints of your own blood for at least a few months ahead of time because the ritual calls for more blood than a human body typically holds. The net result...+25% to a skill. Impressive..ish but hardly worth the time, effort and murder involved. If this was just a rumor or a mention in some sort of fiction it might be one thing...but did we really need a whole page devoted to this ritual? I'd much rather have a couple of shorter but more interesting or practical rituals (even a ritual that isn't conventionally useful but just shorter would be nice). Anyway, rant over. Recorded For Posterity: This spell is more interesting and practical. It requires a pair of VHS tapes, sealed in a metal box and then ignited and then submerged in salt water overnight (make sure the tapes can survive this inside the box). The next day you record an image of yourself on the tapes. The scene must be candlelit but have enough light to see you and it must have a soundtrack (provided during filming or in post). In order for them to have an effect they must be played on a loop on a TV of at least 19". While the tapes are being played and so long as you look more or less like "yourself" on the tape (same clothing, same haircut, etc) then you are protected from any magick that would change or damage your body directly. This would stop most magick blasts except for those that involve indirect damage (like the dipsomancer) or immaterial damage (like the Pornomancer). This only lasts while you're in the presence of the tapes and only as long as they're playing (you can rewind one tape while the other plays). Each tape is good for 10 plays. This ritual is much more user-friendly, having several obvious applications (want to feel a bit safer when meeting with the Freak for negotiations? set this up and he won't be able to hit you with any epideromancer mojo) and giving ideas for interesting characters or events (a paranoid Duke who lives his entire life in the same room as a set of tapes of himself constantly playing). Ritual of Union: This ritual is another big one...mark a specific region (very specific measurements are provided) with chalk and symbols. This "arena" is then entered by two participants who must be nude and eschewing all foreign material: glasses, piercings, etc. Even things like pacemakers or fillings will ruin it (killing both participants). They speak a ritual set of phrases and run headfirst into one another. The inscriptions explode in blue flames and both participants combine into a single mass. things get goopy while the two engage in a battle of wills. The loser is consumed. The winner can choose which body will "reappear" (keeping his own or taking the losers). This is an opposed Soul roll (matched beats any non-matched success). The winner can steal skills from the loser but must make Self checks per skill with increasing difficulty depending on the stat the skill is attached to. This means taking more than one or two skills is a good recipe for insanity or getting really Hardened. The victor can also take a skill called "Memories of [Loser]" with a 10% rating per rank of a Self check you need to make for it (so a 70% skill would be a rank 7 check). Double matched failures lead to the creation of a creature called The Fused, which is basically the worst of the two character's body and speed but the sum of their wound points. What's worse it has the best of the Soul and Mind scores and all the skills (including adept skills...allowing it potentially to have access to two schools of magick). Although I find it questionable whether or not there'd be many characters willing to risk the ritual, it does serve as a handy plot device for creating an extremely dangerous boss-monster.  If you think we're bad, wait until you see the Carnals Next update we'll get into adept magick with the Amoramancer and Annihilomancer.
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Aug 14, 2015 09:50
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I may rag on Harn, but by god I respect it. When I said it was THE Peasant/ simulator I was not kidding in the slightest. I was at the GENCON where it was first released and it produced the same 'Holy poo poo!' reactions then as it does now. Robin Crossby is a mad genius. The only other game I've really seen with anything close to the same actual research is Blue Planet which was designed by Marine Biologists and does an underwater ecosystem better than anything.
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Aug 14, 2015 10:04
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