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The Bomber is a weirdly specific archetype, given that its nearly sole analog in comics is Nitro, an obscure Captain Mar-Vell villain of near zero prominence at the time of Brave New World's writing. Even his role in Civil War is minor, mostly being relegated to tie-ins and barely appearing in the main book. Turns there's not that many stories that call for a self-exploding guy.
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May 31, 2016 15:14
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I suspect the direct inspiration is the dude from the New Universe stuff that forced Super-powered Reagan to reveal his powers on national TV to resist being exploded.
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May 31, 2016 15:19
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Werewolf: the Forsaken, Second Edition The Hisil, the Shadow, waits across the Gauntlet. Depending on where you cross, it can be very similar to the material world or very different. The thinner the Gauntlet in an area, the more they will tend to resemble each other. In the deep wilderness, far from humans, the Shadow is shaped only by the feelings of animals and the environment, while in the heart of a city, the crowds stir it into chaos. However, no matter where it is, the Shadow makes the inner nature of a place obvious. A hidden drug lab in the material is a festering hive of addiction spirits in Shadow. A burned-out and abandoned wreck in the woods might become a site of joy and imagination as the kids use it as a secret fort or playground. The Hisil remembers what is forgotten in the material. Demplished buildings stay until something happens flesh-side to replace them. Ancient forests, long since cut down, sprawl in Shadow, and remote regions host ancient spirits that can recall the world before the Sundering. To a novice traveler, the Shadow seems empty. Despite the spirits spawned by human activity, no spirit of humanity itself exists, anywhere. Roads, towns, cities, farms - all sorts of human creations are reflected, but no people. Where humans have not made enough spirits to push the nature spirits back, the Shadow feels wild and overgrown. A busy highway that has generated no new spirits might be a tiny, cracked road in Shadow. This lack of people, however, doesn't mean the Hisil is unpopulated - human travelers just often have trouble telling spirits from landscape at a distance, especially dormant spirits. Tree branches sway in response to the sleeping spirits' dreams. Animals watch visitors with eyes too intelligent for beasts. Rivers and lakes whisper to each other in First Tongue. To the Uratha, these spirits are obvious - given away by the scent of their Essence unless they deliberately hide. The Shadow has a hierarchy entirely unrelated to the material. All spirits belong to broad categories or collections, which the Forsaken name umia - a grouping of weather spirits, say, or animal spirits. Spirits of like nature gather together in ilthum, close-knit groups that only accept those they trust. The spirits of any given area form a court, with the more potent holding sway over the weaker. To a human or Wolf-Blooded packmate who enters Shadow, it is eerie and unnerving. Light is pale and thin, even at noon. Sounds echo and carry further than they should, and the sky is perpetually gray clouds that part only occasionally to reveal Luna or Helios hanging in the sky. The atmosphere always feels charged, like an oncoming storm. When the sky changes, it is dramatic - flash floods, dust devils, torrential rain and multicolored lightning. To the werewolf, however, the Hisil is like coming home. The Essence in their blood makes them feel alive and vital. The instinct to hunt and to run is intoxicating, as the wolf spirit within rises. Scents are stronger, they carry further. The spirit senses of the Uratha are interpreted as a sort of synesthesia, thanks to the varied nature of spirits as scent and taste. Werewolves can smell the euphoria on joy spirits, taste the anger in a murder spirit when they devour it. Experienced Ithaeur often advise that young Uratha avoid Shadow during daylight hours. The Uratha are children of the moon, and they hunt best at night. The demands of tending one's territory and the needs of Siskur-Dah, however, will eventually cause you to cross over under the light of Helios. The first thing to notice is that the Gauntlet is harder to cross by day, at least when entering Shadow. There is a current to the Gauntlet, pushing away from Hisil. Once in, experienced travelers will notice that the place seems subdued. Fewer active spirits, and those that reflect nocturnal beings are sluggish. Gaps in cloud cover are marked by great shafts of pale light - and where they touch, the gravity of Shadow increases, making you feel heavier. This grows stronger the higher up you are, but passes immediately once the clouds obscure the sun.  At night, the Hisil lives. Essence flows slightly more easily, dormant spirits twitch in their slip, and Luna casts her light into the dark. Werewolves enter Shadow at night to hunt, to bargain with spirits, to perform rites and to summon Lunes to increase their Renown. Their closest relatives, the wolf spirits, run in pack-like groups of their own in the wild places. Some Uratha join them, emulate the Firstborn or to shift their Harmony towards Spirit. While Helios drowns out all other powers in the Shadow sky by day, the sky of Shadow night is awash in color and light, More stars appear than human eyes can ever see in the material, decorating the void around Luna, while the Northern and Southern skies show the aurora constantly, casting Shadow in ever-changing color.  Humans shape and twist Shadow out of all proprotion. People dwell on pain and happiness, feel nostalgia, wonder about places they haven't been. The Shadow of a town or city is warped by the many viewpoints within it, birthing a horde of spirits that organize, loosely, into a collection of umia, ilthum and spirit courts. However, counter to many werewolves' expectations, it is the edges of human civlization that are most dangerous in the Hisil, not the centers. A city's heart is usually old enough to have established courts. The Shadow still changes far faster than the wilderness, sure, but the largest and most potent spirits are relatively stable, and easier to deal with than their more elemental cousins of the mountains and forests. Outbursts of strong emotion upset the order of things with new spirits, sure, but at least the spirits of buildings or roads understandh uman perspective. For a new suburb, however, the clearance of land may be the most traumatic change to happen in a thousand years. New builds and demolitions orphan spirits linked to the old landscape, often awakening them, and they take out their anger on those around them. Those that do not starve find alternative Essence sources, sometimes becoming twisted, hybrid spirits known as magath.  In the city proper, the established courts of elder spirits preside over countless new-spawned Hursahim and Ensihim, born of the ever-changing resonance of humanity. Urban packs must keep track of spiritual politics, not just maintaining relations with the courts but tracking the growth of the lesser broods. The majority of urban spirits and most of their courts are from artificial umia - buildings, roads, vehicles. The most potent spirits are those of landmarks, with rarer spirits of famous roads or notable objects making up the rest. Cities built on or near famous natural features often include their spirit in the politics, if at a step removed from the other courts. The spirit of the Thames, for example, is aloof to the artificial umia of London, but all spirits of London know to avoid her anger. The real wildcards of urban Shadow are the conceptual spirits. Wise packs keep track of murders, disasters, terrorist threats and festivals, preparing for the inevitable upheavals they cause in Shadow. Even something as innocuous as a major concern or sporting event can keep you hunting for months after all the revelers have gone home, and Beijing, Athens and London are still dealing with the spirits left over by the Olympics. Despite humanity's resonance, however, the urban Shadow is not solely shaped by man even in the heart of the city. Parks, zoos, urban farms, botanical gardens and even animal research ceneters all provide enclaves of animal and plant resonance. The slow and wasting madness of imprisonment in badly kept zoos can breed potent spirits, while a famous park's spirit may be leader of a nature umia...but it's still more than able to dominate Shadow within its bounds. Rural Shadow, on the other hand, has a longer memory and a simpler nature. Rural spirits fit into cleaner umia and ilthum than their urban counterparts, and the courts may be centuries, even millenia old - sometimes older, in the most untouched places of the world. The resonance of animals and plantsi s less complex than that of humans, and rural spirits are more likely to look like the things they feed on than city spirits are. The combination of simplicity and old, potent spirits of natural features makes for simple courts. Might makes right, and there is a clear pecking order of power. This has its own challenges - the wild courts are often ruled by very old and very potent spirits, old enough to bear grudges for deeds of Uratha of ages past. The eldest remember the Sundering, if not always with anger. Father Wolf had enemies and friends alike, and the spirits of mountains or oceans could have been either. In the wilderness, the Hisil changes slowly, and spirits can hang on far past the features they represented. A forest burned or a lake dried up may still be present in Shadow. Distance is deceptive, as the simple views of animals conceive of their ranges as the entire world, and the Shadow stretches in response to this.  Next time: Hunting Grounds
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May 31, 2016 16:31
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Alien Rope Burn posted:The Bomber is a weirdly specific archetype, given that its nearly sole analog in comics is Nitro, an obscure Captain Mar-Vell villain of near zero prominence at the time of Brave New World's writing.
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May 31, 2016 16:31
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It's nice to be reminded of why I got into White Wolf in the first place after reading about Beast. 
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May 31, 2016 16:36
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Werewolf: the Forsaken, Second Edition The Shadow is full of beautiful, powerful and dangerous places. For example: The Places-That-Aren't. In most places, the Shadow is roughly analagous to the material world. If it'd take three hours to cross a forest, it'll take three hours to cross that forest in Shadow. If a location is seen as larger or more important than it actually is, howevever, it will grow in Shadow - and if two places are thought of as close, the distance between them shrinks. These are, usually, minor details to use to your advantage. The Places-That-Aren't, however, are places that bend distance out of all semblance of the material. A murderer's basement may be 500 square feet...but in Shadow, it is a warehouse-sized space, full of gore and the spirits of pain and blood attracted to its resonance. Some of these Places-That-Aren't are entire apocryphal - if enough people hear there's a mysterious island or that a building on the edge of town has a secret nuclear bunker, the Shadow may include those places even if they never actually existed in the material. These places make excellent fortified locations - both for Uratha and for spirits looking for a place of safety. Many potent spirits that desire privacy live within them, and Cahalith tell tales of the Ilusahim living in vast palaces that have no physical reflection and can be reached only by secret ways. Shoals are caused by upheavals in Shadow, so terrible that they injure its very fabric and disrupt its connection to material resonance. This forms a wasteland of emptiness - a shoal. Within a shoal, listless spirits inhabit a colorless, fragile landscape. Travelers feel their emotion draining away the longer they stay, until at least they cannot muster the will to leave and the shoal claims one more victim. Brave packs will trick prey into the shoals as part of the hunt, driving them like an animal to quicksand, and trust in their own will to let them enter, kill and leave without being trapped. Glades are parts of the world so blessed that their Shadow reflections are idyllic, peaceful and harmonoous, full of the resonance of growth, healing and friendship. Glades are very rare, and prized by packs that claim them. Within a Glade, the sky is always empty, allowing the light of Luna or Helios to shine through, and violence seems unthinkable - even Kuruth is but a memory. Many packs try to make Glades, but causing the needed changes to the matieral world to have somewhere become known as an oasis of peace is very difficult, so it rarely works. Wounds are shoals so damaged that the Hisil ruptures, opening gateways to...somewhre else. They form in the midst of tortured landscapes, and fill with the worst, most negative and destructive spirits. Wounds open at the sites of atrocities, at places of prolonged cruelty, suffering and hatred. Gulags, torture chambers, sites of genocide. Spirits of pain, hatred, violence and just about any other malevolent concept flock to the Wounds, but the resonance the flows from them is not of the material. Spirits of any kind that feed from a Wound become tainted, twisted, violent. They are overcome by the negative energy within. Packs avoid Wounds unless they need to go to them, to hunt a spirit lairing within or to try to heal the Wounds by changing the material world. Barrens form when the Gauntlet grows unnaturally thick, choking the Shadow of Essence, or when the Shadow is so scoured of Essence by devastation - often the rampage of an idigam or the presence of an Ilusah - that it results in a spiritual desert. Barrens contain only faint traces of Essence at their edges, forcing spirits to flee or starve. Indeed, they are so dead that even using Gifts is not easy. Some Barrens heal over time, slowly. A few packs have even succeeded in weakening the Gauntlet and using rare rites to flood the Shadow with Essence, jumpstarting the healing process at great cost to themselves. In Shadow, a Barren is bleached, sterile, bare and without spirits. In the material world, animals flee and plants wither, while humans living the area feel passionless and apathetic.  So, some useful terms now!
So, chargen! Up to step 5, a werewolf is made as per any normal human. Step five is where you add the Forsaken template. First, you choose your Auspice. You get a free dot in one of the Auspice's skills (which can't take you over 5 dots), and a dot in the Auspice's Renown. You should also note the Auspice's innate power and Hunter's Aspect. From there, you choose your Tribe, or be a Ghost Wolf. Members of a Tribe get a dot in the Tribe's Renown and should note their Tribal Gifts. Ghost Wolves do not get anything. (Do not play a Ghost Wolf; there are literally no advantages to doing so.) From here, you then get a dot of Renown to put in any Renown of your choice, but you cannot start with a Renown higher than 2. Rather than a Virtue and Vice, werewolves get a Blood archetype, which reflects their behavior and identity on the hunt, when claws are out, and a Bone archetype, which reflects their sense of self-identity, who they are behind the anger and the instinct. More on those later. Each Uratha also has two Touchstones, things that pull them between spiritual and physical and help them balance the two extremes. More on those later, as well. Last, werewolves have Gifts. Gifts are not taught - they are literally given. You start with a dot in the Moon Gift reflecting your Auspice, and a facet of two Shadow Gifts from your tribe or auspice. If you have two dots in your Auspice renown, you get the second dot of that Moon Gift; otherwise, you get a facet of a Wolf Gift. You can't take a facet from a Gift you have no dots in Renown for. Note: Ghost Wolves only get one Shadow Gift. Because again, don't play Ghost Wolves. Also, every werewolf begins play with two dots of rites. More on Gifts and Rites later. Werewolves can spend 5 merit points to raise their Primal Urge (their power stat) by 1. You can also spend up to five dots of Merits, 1 for 1, to get more dots of Rites. Every werewolf also gets a free dot of Totem and the Language (First Tongue) merit free. Handy! Rather than Integrity. werewolves have Harmopny. It starts at 7. More on this later. After all the PCs are made, you also get to design the pack. More on that later. Next time: Blood and Bone
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May 31, 2016 17:30
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Kavak posted:It's nice to be reminded of why I got into White Wolf in the first place after reading about Beast. Now people will get into White Wolf because they read Beast! 
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May 31, 2016 17:37
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Daeren posted:In the first edition, it was actually a sucker's game to ever go full wolfman, because going Dalu and using a giant gun/weapon was far more effective and came without the downside of uncontrollable berserker rage. Dalu is still the most effective form for combat. Weapons and armour are where it's at in 2e. Don't get me wrong, Gauru is a wrecking ball, but in a rumble between a Dalu with a silver axe vs a Gauru I would bet on the Dalu every time. It's weird - Gauru is supposed to be the war form for fighting the mightiest opponents and other werewolves but actually it's ideally suited for killing hordes of shitters whereas Dalu is the form mechanically specialised for alpha-striking dangerous opponents.
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May 31, 2016 18:37
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Kavak posted:It's nice to be reminded of why I got out of White Wolf in the first place after reading about Beast.
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May 31, 2016 18:41
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Mors Rattus posted:The intended use of Poser is to give you a model so you can draw a real picture. It's on the drat packaging! B-b-but it's so easy! unseenlibrarian posted:Weirdly, none of the DC characters called "The Human Bomb" actually explode. They just make anything they touch with bare skin blow up. At least this gets around the question whether or not the character is immortal.
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May 31, 2016 19:46
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I have to say I love everything about the Siskur-Dah, what it means for Werewolf society is huge, and provides a tentpole to hang the tribes, and indeed the entire game, around. Also it's so gutturally satisfying to say out loud.
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May 31, 2016 19:58
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Doodmons posted:Dalu is still the most effective form for combat. Weapons and armour are where it's at in 2e. Don't get me wrong, Gauru is a wrecking ball, but in a rumble between a Dalu with a silver axe vs a Gauru I would bet on the Dalu every time. It's weird - Gauru is supposed to be the war form for fighting the mightiest opponents and other werewolves but actually it's ideally suited for killing hordes of shitters whereas Dalu is the form mechanically specialised for alpha-striking dangerous opponents. This is due to bad playtesting, IIRC. The developers only had like one group of playetesters and didn't find the problem of how hard it is for two werewolves in Gauru form to kill each other without somebody else to tip the scales. Also, werewolves are basically impossible to kill reliably without silver. Which is good- you're not supposed to be killing each other and naturally the only thing that can reliably do it is taboo, but then they had the Blood Talons be based around hunting werewolves. How are they supposed to kill their prey without playing dirty as hell or using silver?
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May 31, 2016 20:17
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Kavak posted:This is due to bad playtesting, IIRC. The developers only had like one group of playetesters and didn't find the problem of how hard it is for two werewolves in Gauru form to kill each other without somebody else to tip the scales. Harry the prey, separate it, and bring it down with numbers? Hunting is a pack activity, after all.
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May 31, 2016 20:27
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Roland Jones posted:Harry the prey, separate it, and bring it down with numbers? Hunting is a pack activity, after all. True enough. The problem was more that the dynamic was not intentional.
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May 31, 2016 20:29
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unseenlibrarian posted:I suspect the direct inspiration is the dude from the New Universe stuff that forced Super-powered Reagan to reveal his powers on national TV to resist being exploded. Quite possibly, though presuming somebody has read late-era New Universe books is always a stretch.
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May 31, 2016 20:33
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I'm loving the First Tongue terms. They have enough internal consistency that they seem at least a little like parts of a real language, and are fun enough to say that I think players would have fun learning them
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May 31, 2016 20:37
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Like I said, there's actually a formula for First Tongue. Most of the terms are Sumerian words that are in some way related to the thing (there's a spirit in 1e, Little Road Tyrant, whose name translated to Red-Yellow-Green because it was a stoplight spirit) and then those words are run backwards through Grimm's Law, which is a thing on linguistic development. E: I've done it myself a few times when writing spirit speech at people who don't understand it in games, and you genuinely do end up with a hell of a lot of H's.
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May 31, 2016 20:40
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I've never really been a fan of excessive jargon in books, especially in Werewolf and Mage. All I can imagine running this game is explaining the First Tongue to players and 1) Having it never used, or 2)Used excessively to the point where it all sounds like we're speaking Klingon.
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May 31, 2016 20:43
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Simian_Prime posted:I've never really been a fan of excessive jargon in books, especially in Werewolf and Mage. All I can imagine running this game is explaining the First Tongue to players and 1) Having it never used, or 2)Used excessively to the point where it all sounds like we're speaking Klingon. You have a problem with that, p'tak?  I think they should go all out and make a First Tongue dictionary- for all the crazy/stupid RPG supplements out there I don't think anyone's ever made their own language.
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May 31, 2016 20:48
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One thing they haven't' done, which I did like with W:TA, is go whole hog on the Glyphic Language, the Silver Record was really neat and I'm pretty sure I still have a Wolfdings.ttf somewhere on my computer. Though that might be because even though the Get of Fenris tribal symbol makes perfect sense when you understand the glyphs and what they mean, it sorta looks like a swastika if you squint.
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May 31, 2016 20:51
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Kurieg posted:Though that might be because even though the Get of Fenris tribal symbol makes perfect sense when you understand the glyphs and what they mean, it sorta looks like a swastika if you squint. I think that was the original intention.
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May 31, 2016 20:59
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Simian_Prime posted:I've never really been a fan of excessive jargon in books, especially in Werewolf and Mage. All I can imagine running this game is explaining the First Tongue to players and 1) Having it never used, or 2)Used excessively to the point where it all sounds like we're speaking Klingon.
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May 31, 2016 21:00
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Kavak posted:I think that was the original intention. Unfortunately, loving Rein-Hagen. Though I absolutely adore the progression of the Tribal Symbol of the Warders of Man-->Tetrasomians-->Iron Riders-->Glass Walkers.
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May 31, 2016 21:11
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In-universe slang is difficult to get right (or maybe it's just easy to get wrong). But when it's good, it definitely adds to a game. The slang in Unknown Armies, such as it is, is pretty good because it's believable that this "Occult Underground" made up of drifters, dropouts, no-hopers, and nutjobs. On the other hand, it's a big red flag when one of these Dark Modern Urban Fantasy expects me to believe that vampire gangbangers talk at each other in pseudo-Latin or words like, Idunno, "Empyrean" or "Reverie."
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May 31, 2016 21:19
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Kavak posted:You have a problem with that, p'tak? Experience BIJ!!!  All jokes aside, I just tend to find that too much jargon confuses players and removes their interest in the game. EDIT: Agreed, UA does probably the best job of any occult horror RPG at Simian_Prime fucked around with this message at 21:25 on May 31, 2016 |
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May 31, 2016 21:22
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Halloween Jack posted:On the other hand, it's a big red flag when one of these Dark Modern Urban Fantasy expects me to believe that vampire gangbangers talk at each other in pseudo-Latin or words like, Idunno, "Empyrean" or "Reverie." https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iXpxnxAL62A&t=7s
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May 31, 2016 21:35
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"When Masquerade Met Requiem: The Sketch!" 
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May 31, 2016 21:41
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Simian_Prime posted:I've never really been a fan of excessive jargon in books, especially in Werewolf and Mage. All I can imagine running this game is explaining the First Tongue to players and 1) Having it never used, or 2)Used excessively to the point where it all sounds like we're speaking Klingon. I would kickstart the hell out of TlhIngan: Batlh aka Klingon: The Honor. I think.
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May 31, 2016 22:15
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And then you have the opposite problem of trying to make casual slang, and it ends up being cumbersome ("Roadside" - For Better or Worse's attempt to avoid dating the strip by slang), or too neat/pat and it does not sound natural.
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May 31, 2016 22:22
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unseenlibrarian posted:Weirdly, none of the DC characters called "The Human Bomb" actually explode. They just make anything they touch with bare skin blow up. There is actually now one version of Human Bomb that does explode now. He appeared in Grant Morrison's Multiversity and his powers essentially allowed him to convert and store any damage to himself (not caused by his own explosions) into an explosion. This is displayed by intentionally getting captured and getting tortured so as to store as much potential destructive energy as possible
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May 31, 2016 22:59
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Kavak posted:This is due to bad playtesting, IIRC. The developers only had like one group of playetesters and didn't find the problem of how hard it is for two werewolves in Gauru form to kill each other without somebody else to tip the scales. Gauru vs Gauru having a hard time killing each other is entirely deliberate to prevent 1-vs-1 match-ups, and to encourage Roland Jones posted:Harry the prey, separate it, and bring it down with numbers? Hunting is a pack activity, after all. as a tactic. Werewolves are hunters, not fighters. Silver weapons are a game-changer, but Dalu's not the best way to use them. Gauru can wield'em just as well as Dalu, and has better healing if you're taking damage from anything other than silver. Re: Blood Talons, playing dirty and using silver are both very much their deal (and an Elodoth can argue "People don't murder the People" doesn't include the Pure anyway). You can't just go out and be a badass and hope to kill a werewolf. You have to use every advantage you've got..
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Jun 1, 2016 00:20
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That section on the Shadow is fantastic, I'm glad the Werewolf book goes into such depth about painting a picture of what the place looks and feels like. It reminds me of the Mysterious World chapter in Mage 2E. The 6 Urban/Rural Spirits sidebars are really helpful for any game. I feel like that's the in-depth explanation of the Shadow that's been missing from other games I've played that have to cut it to a page or two of general description for space. e: I'm guessing there's not much overlap between the Uratha who would call someone an Urghir and those who'd say Uzahah. This is fun!
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Jun 1, 2016 00:40
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 Planescape: Planes of Chaos - Travelogue, part 3 Twitching Orlando of the Madhouse posted:Stop fighting the wind. It’s bigger than you. Pandemonium has three hazards that both travellers and natives need to deal with: noise, insanity, and darkness. The noise is the most noticeable part. In most places, it’s deafening. Even in the few ‘quiet’ parts it never goes away The locals will know which routes will minimize noise, but the one thing no one can avoid is the madness. If you stay in Pandemonium too long, you go mad. There are ways to manage the insanity, but it’s impossible to explain until you’ve already gone batty. Finally, there are no natural light sources in Pandemonium. In fact, one layer even drains light. Thanks to the constant winds, torches are unusable, so a sod either needs a fancy lantern or a magic light source.  Once you figure out how to deal with these issues, Pandemonium actually has a surprising amount to offer. It’s mostly ignored in the Blood War and no fiend race makes its home here, so it’s probably the most accessible of the Lower Planes. Those that do live here are frequently exiles from other places in the multiverse, making it something of a second-tier Carceri. These unfortunates have formed communities, and a few are even receptive to visitors. Most are not, so the prudent thing is to be polite but always ready for a fight. All four layers manage to distinguish themselves, which I got to hand to the writers since I imagine it’d be easy to just put down “caves....more caves...etc”. The first layer, Pandemous is the base-line Pandemonium experience. The second layer, Cocytus, not only manages to turn the noise level up to eleven, but it appears that the tunnels and caverns have been artificially carved from the rock. Normally you’d only notice this if, say, a dwarf tried using his or her tunnel sense abilities. But at a site called Harmonica in Cocytus, the artificial nature is unmistakeable. The Harmonica is a cavern 10 miles in diameter, filled with hundreds of giant columns on every surface. Since gravity on this layer is always to the nearest surface, even the columns on the “ceiling” are accessible. Between the columns are hundreds of tunnels that serve as entrances to the site.Each column is miles high, some reaching to the epicenter of the site, is pierced with holes, and has a cyclopean stairway winding around it. There are numerous rumors as to what purpose the site served, and just as many rumors as to magical boons (or curses) one might receive if you reach the very center of the Harmonica. No one has been able to confirm these rumors, as between the oversized steps, the hurricane winds that can blow in the cavern (and come blasting through a hole in the column), and being unable to see if a given column actually goes all the way to the center, it wouldn’t be surprising if a Greek Power assigns some cross-trader to the task as a form of punishment.  The third layer, Phlegethon, has a single gravity direction as opposed to the other layers. So there are cave formations here like those on a Prime Material Plane. Not that you’d notice, because the rock here actually absorbs light, making it even darker than the rest of Pandemonium. In spite of this, Phlegethon is home to the town of Windglum. The majority of the burg’s inhabitants don’t like outsiders, but they will direct visitors to the one place they are welcome, The Scaly Dog Inn. The place used to be a shithole, but it’s recently come under new management that has greatly increased the quality of service and the size of the Inn. The new owner, Hagas Grimcrack, is mad like everyone else on the plane, but he manages to keep it from showing. The inn itself is actually 3 buildings on a 3-way corner that are connected on the second floor. Overall, the inn is a perfect spot for adventurers to set off from.  Wilfin Stabile, ruler of Windglum posted:Welcome to Windglum. When will you be leaving? The sad saps that have been forced into Pandemonium are collectively known as the Banished. Some of these folks have decided that the best response to getting pushed around by the Multiverse is to start pushing back. These bashers have formed a sect known as The Dispossessed (Exiles, Chippers). The Dispossessed help those that have been pushed aside by life and get payback against those that have wronged them. They’re common in Pandemonium and Carceri, but have been slowly trickling into Sigil (since The Cage is frequently the home of their targets). There are no requirements to join save having been kicked out on your rear end at one point. The Dispossessed naturally align with Fated, Indeps, Anarchists and Signers (despite them not fostering allies, or at least admitting to such), while the Harmonium finds them particularly antagonizing. Dispossessed get some pretty nice benefits. They get +1 to all saving throws against mental attacks, and get to roll twice to hit and take the best roll when making an attack. Their drawback is they have a -2 to their reaction rolls for all non-members.  Agnossus of the Dispossessed posted:Who do you think you’re talking to? You wanna take this outside? The last page on Pandemonium talks about the last layer, Agathion. This layer is air pockets surrounded by solid rocks. Deities and other powerful beings use this layer to imprison creatures or store away a powerful magical artifact. Since no one lives on this layer, descriptions come from sacred texts and the rare expedition to get ahold of artifacts that someone of immense power decided was best forgotten about. As you can imagine, these expeditions don’t go well. One famous example is given of a wizard named Shekelor that wanted to take on the Lady of Pain and set off to Agathion to find an artifact that might be the key to his plan. He disappears with a bunch of tough adventures for a year, and then after being assumed dead, Shekelor popped out of a portal in the Civic Hall, shouted “THE SPIDERS!” and exploded.  The last plane in the Travelogue is Ysgard, land of the murderhobos. All three layers of Ysgard are floating landbergs on rivers of fire, but how they are arranged is what makes them different. On the first layer (which shares the Plane’s name), the topside is magic-Scandinavia, but the bottoms are on fire. The second layer, Muspelheim, the fiery side is facing upward. The landbergs of Nidavellir, the third layer, are packed closely together, forming shifting caves and tunnels. Ysgard is the most violent of the Upper Planes. The petitioners, when slain in battle, return to life the next day, and they take advantage of this to fight constantly and with everyone they meet. They just assume whoever they fight also just comes back. Luckily, Ysgard is pretty sparsely populated. The weather is as wild and violent as the petitioners, which makes travel between Landbergs very difficult.   The intro to Ysgard assumes you’ll be spending most of your time on the first layer, which makes sense because that’s where most of the major attractions are. The Norse pantheon dominates Ysgard, maintaining four different realms (Alfheim, Asgard, Jotunheim and Vanaheim), where the Powers have great feasts whenever they’re not fighting. The Norse pretty much set the spell key system on the Plane. A spellcaster needs to utilize runes and sometimes kennings, which are word-plays that call ships “sea-steads” and eagles “vultures of battle”. The travelogue comments, “The Ysgardians may all act like warriors, but scratch the surface of a warrior and find a failed poet.” The Fated have a big presence on Ysgard, and own a headquarters styled after the norse named Rowan’s Hall (or Heartless Hall), which is rumored to have a conduit leading to the Norns in the Outland. Ysgard is also home to herds of Bariaur. Bariaur don’t like staying in one place because a few petitioners will attack them unprovoked (forgetting they don’t get reborn every day). This also prompts them to shoot first, ask questions later when approached by strangers. Finally there are a couple of Powers here unrelated to the Norse Pantheon. Most of them are Moon Deities that hang out in a realm named Gates of the Moon (this includes Selune, Bast, Artemis, etc). The realm is connection to the Infinite Staircase, and is periodically connected to the River Oceanus. Aside from Moon Powers, this realm is home to flying snake-women named Lillendi and good-aligned were-beasts. The trunk of Yggdrasil, the World Ash, is located on Ysgard, and is one of the most extensive Planar Highways in the setting. The tree is home to a species of intelligent squirrels known as Ratatosk. The Ratatosk supposedly know where every branch of Yggdrasil leads, even the one secretly connected to the rafters of the Carpenter’s Guild in Sigil (other stories say it leads to the gallows). Despite being intelligent, Ratatosk are still squirrels, so if you feed one they’ll follow you forever. Hiring a Ratatosk as a guide is recommended, because the branches of Yggdrasil are miles long and not every branch has a portal at its end. A huge ecosystem of creatures both mundane and magical spend their entire lives on Yggdrasil. The most legendary of these is the dragon Nidhogg, which guards/eats the roots which connect to Hel’s realm in Nifleheim, the second layer of the Grey Wastes. Yggdrasil also connects to Loki’s Hall in Pandemonium, the Norn’s realm in the Outlands, and every Prime world the Norse Powers have worshippers. Yggdrasil even connects to places with no obvious relation to the Norse, including the Pinwheel in Limbo, and other branches are connected to the Beastlands and the realm of Arvandor. Many would like to control the exit points of these branch, but unfortunately the branches shifts in the Astral, causing the portals to shift about. Using Yggdrasil doesn’t actually involve climbing. Instead, gravity always points towards the center of the branch you are on...unless you are approaching a portal. Near a portal, gravity switches to slowly match the gravity on the other side. This results in careless travellers either getting to their destination a lot sooner, or falling into the Astral Plane. If that happens, it’s possible for his or her companions to mount a rescue by tying off a rope and jumping after them, although the rescuer enters the Astral at not quite the same spot. Finally, travellers should bear in mind that since the branches shift from place to place, getting back to Yggdrasil may involve climbing a different tree than the one you came down.  Tisk the Ratatosk posted:Down the tree is easy; back up is hard. Ysgard is home to a sect that is the polar opposite of the Fated, The Ring-Givers (Bargainers, Beggars). Ring-Givers practice aestheticism. They believe that if you give away everything you have, the Multiverse will give what you need back. Through poverty, they claim, a cutter will receive their hearts desires. Thanks to the nature of the setting, this philosophy actually works. Ring-Givers are most prevalent in Ysgard and Limbo, but they are slowly gaining popularity across the Planes of Chaos, even The Abyss. Bards and Tieflings there give gifts to Tanar’ri which allows them to make pacts the Tanar’ri will stick to. As you might expect, the Fated hate the Bargainers. Takers will try to peel Ring-Givers, who are always happy to hand their stuff over, but the Fated always pay for it in the end. On the other hand, Beggars are allied with the Sensates and Ciphers. Anyone can join the Ring-Givers, although lawful and evil Beggars are rarer. The benefit of being a Ring-Giver is that anyone who accepts a gift from a Ring-Giver is obliged to them. This works out to a +1 to +4 on reaction rolls with the receiver of the gift, and can claim favours. On the flip side, Ring-Givers don’t own anything. They can still receive stuff, but they have to give it away ultimately. Evil Ring-Givers use their gift-giving as a pretext to get what they really want out of others.  I’m putting the favour power on it’s own because it bears special mention. Once per level, a Ring-Giver can claim a favour from an NPC no more powerful than twice the Bargainers level in HD. So take the Agathinon from the Compendium. He has 8 HD, so a Ring-Giver of level 4 or higher can get a favour from them. One of the Agathinon’s abilities is to turn into any magical item. So at level 4, which many campaigns start at because levels 1-3 are really terrible in 2nd edition, a Good-aligned Beggar can get a Holy Avenger or Staff of the Magi or any piece of gear below Artifact. At level 11, she can get a favour from a Solar. At level 17, you can force a favour out of the Abyssal Lord Pazrael. Factol Ingwe of the Ring-Givers posted:Give and others will give to you. I think this is hands down the most powerful Faction/Sect ability so far presented. Of course, this comes with the usual DM discretion caveats, but at worse if you’re unsure of how much your DM will permit then play a Convert Ring-Giver. One idea I have for a campaign is for all my players to play as Ring-Givers and just do away with all inventory management. There’s a short section on the High Groves of Alfheim. The grove is a strand of giant sequoias with platforms connected by rope bridges. There’s a bunch of elves here, and they have public parties as well as private parties that they’ll kill you dead if you interrupt. There are two great festivals here for the spring and autumn equinox, which attract all the elves of Ysgard. The spring festival honors Freya, while the fall festival is for Frey.  The travelogue has one of the Norse Power’s great hall: Briedablik, or “Broad Splendor”. This hall belongs to Baldur, the Norse god of Beauty and Charisma, and this section is pretty special. To understand why, you have to go back to late eighties and early nineties and read how TSR described goddesses of love and/or beauty, their temples and their priesthoods. It was all cheesecake, describing the deity and followers as vain and obsessed with sex, an abundance of bathing, and equating the charisma stat with sexiness. This was especially bad for TSR’s fictional gods like Sune or Hanali. The dumbest instance I know of was a piece of fiction where a cleric of Sune loses his spells because he got a scar on his face. Briedabik has all those same tropes, except the deity in question is a man. I can imagine that at least a few nerd  -fears were triggered from this, and I am glad of it. If the players and DM can accept the Fabio-vikings of Baldur’s hall, there’s an adventure hook for solving a dwarven murder mystery. The final entry for Ysgard (and the Travelogue) is the Infinite Staircase. The Staircase leads to every city in the Multiverse, but the best known landing is in the Gates of the Moon. Legend is that if you climb the stairs long enough you will find your heart’s desire. The bad news is that the Infinite Staircase is, well, infinite. It also doesn’t just go one direction, but sprawls out in every direction, and travellers can walk on both sides of the stairs. The doors themselves require solving riddles and puzzles to solve from Lillends. It’s not a good idea to offend them, as they’ll knock you off the staircase. The stairway doesn’t have a uniform style, and the style is sometimes a clue to where the landing leads (if the passage is dark, it’s said to lead to a nightmare city).  Lillend Selenia of the Moon Gates posted:The truth is only visible under moonlight. Next Time: GM’s Guide Intro-I may need to re-read the campaign box
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Jun 1, 2016 00:46
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Ring-Givers rock. I appreciate the fact that the current factol got the job because just as he got started scheming to take control of the faction, the previous factol retired and gave it to him.
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Jun 1, 2016 00:55
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I remember that the Forsaken 1e game I played had a lot of Dalu wielding magic weapons, as we felt that the other Merits available to us mostly weren't as good.
Halloween Jack fucked around with this message at 02:04 on Jun 1, 2016 |
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Jun 1, 2016 01:15
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Werewolf: the Forsaken, Second Edition Blood and Bone replace Virtue and Vice for werewolves. Blood is the chaos, the frenzy that consumes you on the hunt, the instinct that drives you to kill. Bone is who you are, your conscious identity, the person behind the fur and the fury. When you make a clear bad decision in the heat of the moment in accord with your Blood, you get 1 Willpower. When you submit to Kuruth or call a hunt on a whim in accordance with your Blood, you regain all Willpower. When you force down your rage and do something you know is fundamentally true in accordance with your Bone, you get 1 Willpower. When you stand your ground and let your rational self interfere with the hunt or cause conflict in the pack, you regain all Willpower. In both cases, the Willpower is from a reinforced sense of identity that supports you, either by instinct or sense of self. I'll be honest - I don't like Blood and Bone. I don't believe they add anything that Virtue and Vice weren't already doing, and often better. But hey, it is what it is. Example Blood archetypes:
Example Bone archetypes:
Touchstones are the things you want but cannot have. An Uratha walks a fine line between flesh and spirit, and some things they just can't have unless they fall off that line. Their nature pulls away from the material and spiritual simultaneously, and the unending tug of war leaves them feeling they don't belong anywhere. A physical Touchstone keeps you from slipping too far from humanity. It could be a person, a place, a thing, an idea...but to give it the attention you feel it deserves, you'd have to give up your spirit side. A spiritual touchstone is a spirit, totem, locus or philosophy that draws you closer to the Hisil, but devoting yourself to it entirely would leave you a hermit. Touchstones aren't formally recognized in character - it's not an IC term. It's abstract, but werewolves do know that their important relationships are anchors for their Harmony, and will talk about the people and things important to them. Mechanically, Touchstones help resist breaking points. If you have a physical Touchstone, you get +2 to all rolls to resist Harmony loss from breaking points towards Spirit. If you have a spiritual Touchstone, you get +2 to any rolls to resist Harmony gain from breaking points towards Flesh. However, with Harmony 8+, you lose access to any spiritual Touchstones, and with Harmony 2-, you lose access to any physical Touchstones. If a Tocuhstone is lost somehow, you fall one level of Harmony away from the side it represents - if your physical Touchstone dies, say, or your spiritual Touchstone fades. You can replace a Touchstone, but it's a breaking point in the other direction to do so, as the effort taxes your balance. Any time you reinforce a bond to one of your Touchstones, however, you regain 1 Willpower. The interaction should be meaningful, but the GM is told to err on the side of allowance. If you put your life or pack on the line to defend a relationship with a Touchstone, you regain all Willpower. Example Touchstones:
Now that your PCs are ready, it's time to make the pack and tie them together. You figure out your Touchstones, decide how the PCs relate to each other. You make the pack in tiers - first the Uratha, then the Wolf-bloods, then the humans that don't really grasp the full nature of what they're part of, and then the totem. During this process, keep the totem in mind - it's a concept that should bring the pack together, so it might come up at any time, after all. First, Uratha. You made 'em already. Now, introduce them to the rest of the group. Give their name, auspice, tribe, some personal specialties, anything the others might know and how you think they relate to the pack. Ask qeustions about the others, bring up potential hooks. Go around the table and build at least one connection per character. When it's your turn, you propose any connection, superficial or deep. You go back and forth a few times with who you're trying to connect to, see how they feel about it. Build up the story. If anyone doesn't like something added, they can veto it and propose a replacement. This is a collaborative process. Everyone should have at least one tie to another character, and they don't all hve to be positive...but you're going to want about 2:1 positive to negative ratio, so the pack doesn't immediately fall to infighting. That done, it's time to make the Wolf-Blooded. They know they're part of the pack and they share your wolf blood. They have strong roles to play, which they are aware of. The game suggests one per Uratha, but you can make more if you want, as long as they all have a distinct role. These are supporting cast Wolf-Bloods - if you want one to be your main PC, there will be rules in the appendix for it. Anyway, you go around the table and get ideas for the Wolf-Bloods. Not everyone needs to make one, but everyone should contribute to the discussion. Supporting Wolf-Bloods have two Aspirations, one of which must relate directly to their orle in the pack and the other helps define them personally. Wolf-Bloods have a Virtue and Vice, like normal humans. All of them also have a Tell, a supernatural trait that marks them as different from other humans. More on these much later. Wolf-Bloods are also immune to Lunacy. Wolf-Bloods get five dots of Merits, but supporting Wolf-Bloods cannot have more than 1 dot in Totem. Attributes are assigned normally, 5/4/3, but for skills, they just get 15 dots, assigned however you see fit. Finally, we have the human periphery. They're pack, but aren't quite aware that they are, or that Uratha exist. They're the friends, family, coworkers and others that fall under your protection. You can and should make between one and three each. They're bit players, mostly. They can be elevated in play, sure, but they're mostly there to define the setting and expand the pack. They are far simpler than other characters. They have one Aspiration reflecting their role in the pack, and then three dicepools. They do not have Attributes or Skills - rather, you pick three actions, like Deal Drugs, Dirty Fighting or Ride. You assign five dice to one, four to a second and three to the third. Any other actions are at 2 dice. All supporting periphery pack have 2 Willpower. Unless you decide this is everyone in the pack, more can show up later on, as a note. All this done, it's time to make the totem. The totem helps define the pakc, give it purpose and identity. It's effectively a member with a highly specific role: it helps hunt in Shadow. In return, the pack always has the Resonant condition for it. You come up with your concept for the totem. It has one Aspiration, which acts as an Aspiration for any pack member to use and get Beats from. It has a ban and a bane, like any spirit. The pack must uphold its ban. Any member that breaks it once gains the Ban condition. If they break it again while they have that condition, they lose all dots in Totem. The ban should be something logical for the spirit. Then, you add up the total dots of Totem the entire pack has, including any Wolf-Bloods. The number tells you how much benefit the totem can give to the pack. 1-8 points means it has 1 XP worth of benefit. 9-14, 3 XP. 15-20, 5 XP. 21+, 10 XP. You take this pool of XP and use it to buy traits - merits, skill specialties, skill or attribute dots. Every member of the pack, including human and Wolf-Blooded members, gain all of the traits bought. If they already had them, they get a similar merit or skill specialty instead. If they would be taken over their normal limits...well, werewolves and wolf-bloods can go one dot over those limits, and humans get 8-again on any rolls involving the trait instead. Once the benefits are ready, you stat up the totem. It is statted as a spirit, but its total Attribute dots are equal to the total number of Totem dots for the entire pack, and its maximum Essence is the lower of its tottal Totem points or the max Essence for the Rank its attribute total gives it. It gets one dot of Influence per Rank as normal, and starts with one Numen, plus one per four Totem points. Next time: Primal Urge
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Jun 1, 2016 01:22
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Halloween Jack posted:In-universe slang is difficult to get right (or maybe it's just easy to get wrong). But when it's good, it definitely adds to a game. The slang in Unknown Armies, such as it is, is pretty good because it's believable that this "Occult Underground" made up of drifters, dropouts, no-hopers, and nutjobs. I've heard a bit of Planescape slang in Australia, but I think they both come from cockney and pirate slang.
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Jun 1, 2016 03:15
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Count Chocula posted:I've heard a bit of Planescape slang in Australia, but I think they both come from cockney and pirate slang. Nah, Planescape was so popular in Australia that it crept into pop culture, funny enough. Ettin can back me up on this.
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Jun 1, 2016 03:20
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Simian_Prime posted:I've never really been a fan of excessive jargon in books, especially in Werewolf and Mage. All I can imagine running this game is explaining the First Tongue to players and 1) Having it never used, or 2)Used excessively to the point where it all sounds like we're speaking Klingon. Werewolves are pretty Klingon, with all that 'honor' nonsense. I like the Spirit World, though - it's the best part of the game.
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Jun 1, 2016 03:25
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Dark Eras is pretty good so far. And, as an added benefit, this is not the book that has Reconstruction-era Beast.
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Jun 1, 2016 03:53
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