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Serf
May 5, 2011


unseenlibrarian posted:

Kinda gives me an FF Tactics vibe, with basic jobs, then slightly better ones, and then even better later.

This is an apt comparison. The Expert Paths give more powerful abilities while remaining kinda broad, and then the Master Paths are more specialized, with fewer abilities but those abilities are pretty drat sweet. Schwalb said one goal while making the game was that it would be simple to learn, with characters becoming more complex over time, and that players should get something new added to their toolkit with every level. I think SotDL hits that pretty well.

Also the Master Paths can get pretty insane. I don't want to spoil too much, but if you're into giant robots, this game has something for you on that front :ssh:

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Desiden
Mar 13, 2016

Mindless self indulgence is SRS BIZNS

Count Chocula posted:

Which is ironic, since The Damned, one of the first British punk bands, could easily be called 'gothic punk'. Or The Birthday Party, who were Australian but got big in the UK. oWoD kinda struck me as more Industrial than punk.

I think it was too. The time and place for the oWoD to get started, circa 91-92, is a sorta interesting place for relating to punk. The "classic" punk scene was already past its peak by then and was morphing into a variety of other niches. The oWoD relationship to it always felt to me like later fans recollecting an imagined past of what "authentic punk" was, with all the attendant rose tinted glasses. It wasn't homeless gutterpunks crashing in abandoned vans around LA, it was the idealized notion of what that life was "about".

Bieeanshee
Aug 21, 2000

Not keen on keening.


Grimey Drawer
I think GURPS Vampire tried to define it in a sidebar. Something about monolithic buildings hung with gargoyles, grey rain and squalor, and the sense that the world is going to Hell in a handbasket, and everyone is hanging grimly on for the ride.

Ratoslov
Feb 15, 2012

Now prepare yourselves! You're the guests of honor at the Greatest Kung Fu Cannibal BBQ Ever!

Bieeardo posted:

I think GURPS Vampire tried to define it in a sidebar. Something about monolithic buildings hung with gargoyles, grey rain and squalor, and the sense that the world is going to Hell in a handbasket, and everyone is hanging grimly on for the ride.

So just gargoyles, then.

Bieeanshee
Aug 21, 2000

Not keen on keening.


Grimey Drawer
I kept trying to sort out which clan the Penguin fell into.

Kurieg
Jul 19, 2012

RIP Lutri: 5/19/20-4/2/20
:blizz::gamefreak:

Desiden posted:

I think it was too. The time and place for the oWoD to get started, circa 91-92, is a sorta interesting place for relating to punk. The "classic" punk scene was already past its peak by then and was morphing into a variety of other niches. The oWoD relationship to it always felt to me like later fans recollecting an imagined past of what "authentic punk" was, with all the attendant rose tinted glasses. It wasn't homeless gutterpunks crashing in abandoned vans around LA, it was the idealized notion of what that life was "about".

Which always struck me as kind of odd, since Punk is usually about fighting the Man. Wheras in original Vampire and Mage you are the man, just a slightly lesser man fighting against someone who's even more the Man.

Original werewolf is it's own confusing kettle of fish where depending on the writer they couldn't decide if they were supposed to be fuzzy vampires, lupines, or ecoterrorists with absolutely zero foresight.


Bieeardo posted:

I kept trying to sort out which clan the Penguin fell into.

Movie Penguin is 100% Nosferatu.

Halloween Jack
Sep 12, 2003

La morte non ha sesso

Desiden posted:

I think it was too. The time and place for the oWoD to get started, circa 91-92, is a sorta interesting place for relating to punk. The "classic" punk scene was already past its peak by then and was morphing into a variety of other niches. The oWoD relationship to it always felt to me like later fans recollecting an imagined past of what "authentic punk" was, with all the attendant rose tinted glasses. It wasn't homeless gutterpunks crashing in abandoned vans around LA, it was the idealized notion of what that life was "about".
I don't know a lot about punk, but my impression (from watching The Decline of Western Civilization, everything I've heard about GG Allin, and some other stuff) is that while punk is today associated with leftist activism, in the late 70s a lot of it was just hosed up young people who had been failed by society and were spiraling into nihilism, Darby Crash being the prime example.

Edit: VVV I'm thinking more "wear a swastika and call people faggots because who life sucks and who gives a poo poo" than actual devoted Nazism.

Halloween Jack fucked around with this message at 20:22 on Jan 9, 2017

Robindaybird
Aug 21, 2007

Neat. Sweet. Petite.

Yea, there was a fair amount of Fascist/Nationalist elements in parts of the punk culture.

Evil Mastermind
Apr 28, 2008

The storm has a name... - Let's Read TORG


Part 15g: Fantastic Beasts, and also monsters

The next two chapters are The Folk, which is about the actual races of Aysle, and Creatures, which is your monster list.

The chapter on the Folk is just a list of the various races in Aysle, with the expected generic stat blocks for each. In keeping with bad fantasy tradition, humans are multicultural while everyone else is monocultural.

For humans, there's Ayslish (basic humans), Corsairs (pirate humans), Freetraders (economic humans), Barbarians (free range humans), Ice Nomads (cold free range humans), and Vikings (bearded fighty humans). Not really much to say here apart from pointing out the stupid 90's RPG need to stat up Bob Genericman on the off chance I really need to know what some nameless NPC's survival skill is. As it is you can tell they're stretched to fill in two paragraphs of every human subspecies.

The other races get more information, even though there's very few surprises to them.

Elves are (big surprise) "the most mysterious race in Aysle". They're really good at magic, make very light chainmail, and can live for centuries. In other words, they're elves.

The only real standout thing about elves is that they have "skin of a dark hue". I don't know if that means they're supposed to be drow-like, or if they're supposed to have a more Middle-Eastern cast to their skin. The art is in black and white so it really doesn't help you figure it out.


Of course she has a bow.

Dwarves are dwarves. You know the drill; miners, bad at magic, good at blacksmithing and engineering. As stated back in the beginning of the book, the Dwarves aren't so much atheists as a race that thinks the gods can bugger off due to the creators of the world leaving the job half-finished before wandering off to their next job. Because they're not as skill at magic as other races, they've been leading Aysle glacial technological advancement, and have adapted well to using Core Earth technology.


"Why don't they just make the whole thing from the black box?"

Giants are mostly assholes. Nobody likes them, they don't like anyone else. While they're not unknown in civilized Ayslish society (although they're still pretty rare), the majority of the race lives a tribal existence in the caverns of Lower Aysle. Most of the race backed Uthorion's invasion, and the few who didn't were ostricised by the other tribes. Giants on Core Earth have found work as bodyguards, mob enforcers, and football goalies.

Those are the "core races" of Aysle, but not the only ones. For instance, there's Half-folk, which is a catch-all term for beings like minotaurs, harpies, or centaurs. Half-folk have no rights in Ayslish society and are prime fodder for slavers.

Below the half-folk are Lesser Folk: trolls, goblins, ogres, and kobolds. Even moreso than the giants, lesser folk operate under a "might makes right" attitude, and as such love to prey on the weak and helpless. They're basically your fodder races.


And now we come to Creatures. And once again, we're retty much getting the Standard Fantasy Assortment here, but with Torg-ian twists.

Take, for example, dragons. There are a bunch of different types of dragons, and shockingly they're not color-coded like standard D&D dragons. Instead, they're elemental-based; fire, water, earth, air, metal, and plant. But while they're called "dragons", they're not actually called dragons.

What I mean is that (for instance), a water dragon isn't actually called a "water dragon" or a "sea serpent". It's called a "Draconis Aquatica". Not "Sea Dragon, a.k.a. Draconis Aquatica", just "Draconis Aquatica". Similarly, the cavern-dwelling earth dragons with metalic-looking scales are "Draconis Metallica". My personal favorite is the plant dragon, which is the Draconis Crotalaria.

...Those names are dumb. They're just dumb. I cannot think of a single reason why they chose this naming convention. I mean...even for Torg's constant "nobody talks like that"-isms, nobody talks like that. Can you imagine a knight saying "tread carefully through these woods; there are draconis crotalarias lurking about"? Or paniced townsfolk screaming "Look out! There's a draconis teutonica headed for our village!"?

It doesn't exactly roll off the tongue, is what I'm saying.


What's the plural of Draconis? Draconi? Draconises? Dratini?

To break down the six types: Draconis Teutonica (air) are winged serpents who don't really do anything, Draconis Aysle (fire) are four-clawed winged dragons and are Good and Honorable, Draconis Aquatica (water) are evil sea serpents, Draconis Metallica (metal) are treasure hoarders, Draconis Terra (earth) are wingless and don't really do anything except fight air dragons, and Draconis Crotalaria (plant) are basically 30-foot-long scaly druids.

Another monster type with a lot of oddly-named subtypes are Fairies. Fairies actually existed on Core Earth, but "gradually disappeared as the Tech axiom grew and the Magical axiom declined", which means that apparently magic was actually real at some point in Core Earth's history and everyone just forgot. Regardless, the arrival of Aysle's axioms have brought them back, and once again they line up to the same six elements as the dragons.

Faeries all look like what you'd imagine when I say "twinkly winged faries"; they're a few inches tall with thin bodies and wings. Cinlums (air) are assholes, Infernas (fire) light dark paths for travellers, Aqueates (water) sink ships, Soliums (earth) are good faries, Cypruim (metal) steal shiny things, and Celosia (plant) have the skill artist (flower arrangement) at 12.

The Fey are from Aylse proper, and even though they're also tied to the elements they're a lot more interesting and a lot more dangerous. And while each elemental type is named, for some reason only brownies (earth) get a stat block. Weird.

Anyway! From here on it's just short monster descriptions, so let's just plow on through.

Fomorians are a race of giants who have been corrupted by centuries of in-breeding. They're cannibals, really stupid, and very evil. Think the bad guys from a gone-on-too-long slasher franchise, only twice as tall.

Ghouls are your standard-issue flesh eating undead. Uthorion unleashed a lot of these things on England as part of the invasion, and unfortunately they're still kicking around the dark cornders of the realm.

Gorgons are medusas who turn people to stone.

quote:

the gorgon’s attack uses his or her willpower as the effect value, with a difficulty number of the target character’s Perception. If the target is actively avoiding the gorgon’s gaze, he or she must get a “setback” or a “player’s call” result on a trick to make the attack. The attack is consider a “one-on-many,” adding +2 to the difficulty of the trick attempt and +4 to the difficulty of the actual attack. (See the MultiAction Chart on page 45 of the Torg Rulebook.) Each wound level causes the victim’s body to solidify further, and reduces all Dexterity-related skills by two. After three wounds have been taken, the victim is completely turned to stone, and can be returned to flesh only if the gorgon is slain. This can be done by severing the head of the creature, or reflecting their gaze back at them. If less than three wounds, the victim’s DEX returns in 24 hours

Uthorion had his own gospog just like every other High Lord, although now that he's not in charge anymore they're not very common. There's only a handful of fifth-planting gospog left, although the other types still have decent numbers.

Second-planting gospog are dire wolves with hides of thick plant matter, and perfer to operate in packs. They are expert trackers, and their "skin" is covered in large thorns that make fighting them very difficult, especially when the pack is trying to tear you to shreds. Third planting gospog look about the same as the second-planting, only larger and with a pair of tentacles coming out their backs instead of thorns. Fourth-planting gospog are even larger (averaging about 8 meters long) and start to look more dragon-like. Fifth-planting gospog are 10-meter long wolf-dragons with acid breath.

Green Men are human-tree hybrids, the details of the creation of which are thankfully not given. They attack travellers in the forests and drink their blood for some reason.

Griffins are giant predators that prefer to nest in mountains, but come down to more civilized areas to hunt prey for food, with "prey" generally being defined as "anything smaller than itself". 'Tis weak to fire!

Kraken are apparently native to Core Earth, a fact that is quickly glossed over as we learn that they've started setting up shop off the coast of Norway. They feed off anything unlucky enough to swim or sail past, and has actually been taking a large chunk out of the invading Viking forces because they're a much easier meal than a Core Earth naval vessel. Their main method of attack is to wrap their 100 meter long tentacles around a ship and squeeze until the ship shatters, then eating everyone that falls out.

Legend Apparitions are ghosts, kind of.

quote:

A legend apparition closely resembles a ghost, both in appearance and behavior. But unlike the classic restless spirit, the legend apparition is not an independent entity, but rather an illusion formed from the energy of the beliefs and superstitions and others.

An apparition will usually form in an area where a particularly hated and malevolent individual has recently died. The fears of local residents that the deceased will return as a ghost cause a legend apparition to take shape. It will possess the memories and characteristics of the person it resembles, which are impressed upon it by the minds of the people who caused it to appear, and will genuinely believe it is the ghost of a dead individual. Unable to attack physically, the legend apparition operates by frightening those around it using its intimidation as the effect value against a difficulty number of the target’s Mind.

Since it is not, destroying the body or the building it is haunting will prove ineffective in dispelling it. However, if proof of such an action can be shown to the apparition and the people it is tormenting, their belief that the “ghost” has been destroyed will cause the apparition to vanish.
That seems more Orrorshian than fantasy, but whatever.

Manes are...well, nobody's really sure what they are. They're small red-skinned humanoids that occupy the Land Between back in Aysle, and seem to have a rudimentary intelligence. At the same time, they don't seem to be capable of communicating with other species or each other, so they don't have anything even approaching a culture. They tend to keep to themselves and will avoid other species. That said, if someone makes the mistake of entering their territory they'll swarm them en massé.

Manticores are manticores, and are an analogy of mankind's effect on the environment.

quote:

According to legend, the manticore was originally a plant-eater, subsisting on the leafy vegetation that grew along the mountainsides. Then a Viking hunting party took to the hills, slaughtering many manticore and forcing others to flee. Cornered, one of the creatures lashed out at its pursuers, and so tasted flesh for the first time. Since that day, manticore have been man-killers, preferring to stalk at night and resisting all efforts to exterminate them.

Mimis are tiny blue humanoids that feed off the plants that grow in the cracks in rocks, and attack interlopers in swarms of 100 or more. Of course, this is Torg so they expect you to run the fight against 100 of these little assholes.



Revenants are the restless spirits of evil people. Never well-disposed to other people when they were alive, revenants see their new state as a way of really loving with people. On Core Earth, they're fond of the horror movie cliché of appearing in the middle of a dark road in front of a car, forcing the driver off the road to avoid an "accident". Since they're incapable of interacting with anything in a physical manner, they have to rely on jump scares to torment people. Which would work in-game if it was possible to do damage that way.



Skeletons were one of Uthorion's primary shock troops, basically because they don't feel pain, always follow orders, and are easy to mass-produce. Other than that they're really just a walking basic melee attack.

Spectral Knights were (back in the good old days) Lady Ardinay's six Knight Protectors, comprised of the best warrior from each house and led by Tolwyn of House Tankred. When Uthorion took over Ardinay's body, he summoned and bound demons to the Knight's physical bodies, trapping the knights' souls and forcing them to watch as the demons ran roughshot across the land in their bodies. Centuries of being helpless in their own bodies has not had a good effect on the Knights, and their souls have become Corrupt due to such long-term proximity to demons. When Tolwyn came back after spending centuries in the void, she killed her old body in order to stop it; that said, the remaining five Knights are still out there wreaking havoc in Uthorion's name.

Wendigo are actually from Lower Aysle, but carry the same basic origin as the Core Earth legend: they're people cursed by the gods for the sin of canibalism. Rumor has it they've started showing up in Norway, but it's not clear if they're starting to appear in the realm. If they are, that's a big problem for both sides because wendigos are basically giant clawed blenders who don't care about one side or the other; everyone's just food.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qQcNXitLAWE
Yeah, it's not from the book, but tell me you didn't hear that sound clip when you read that.

Wyverns are like dragons, but lamer. In Aysle, wyverns are really just giant snakes that spend two months hibernating before heading out to roll over, crush, and devour anyone they can catch before hibernating again. They're also apparently related to the Sarlac, because if you're swallowed whole by one it takes years to be fully digested, although once you die from shock or starvation I don't think you'd really care about how long it takes after that.


Oddly, they don't have any special "roll over and crush" or "swallow whole" attacks. Or anything, really. Kinda makes you wonder why they bothered.

Wotan and the Wild Hunt are an 80's Saturday morning cartoon my new indie punk rock cover band one of Uthorion's heavy weapons. Wotan and his pack of hunters are all powerful demons of various stripes and appearances. Wotan himself appears as a giant bare-chested man with an antlered helmet and a roiling thunderstorm around his shoulders, wielding a magic sword and an enchanted horn that increases the Toughness of his followers when blown. Wotan was a willing follower of Uthorion back when he was running things, but ever since Uthorion was ousted, Wotan has been operating on his own and attacking Ardinay's forces wherever he can. The souls of victims of the hunt are captured by the demons and are eventually transformed into demons themselves.

And...that's kinda it. These chapters are really just a collection of stat blocks with almost no art, so...sorry. At least we'll have more to talk about next time? :shobon:


NEXT TIME: Gear and characters

LatwPIAT
Jun 6, 2011

Kurieg posted:

Which always struck me as kind of odd, since Punk is usually about fighting the Man. Wheras in original Vampire and Mage you are the man, just a slightly lesser man fighting against someone who's even more the Man.

Well, again, the nihilistic and vaguely Objectivist American version of punk that's about rising above the sheeple and rejecting the authority of other people, both as a whole and as an institution (The Man), as opposed to the British version that had a stronger leftist anarchist/socialist component opposed to a much more specific The Man. Or just lots of disaffected youth with hope of a future getting big into nihilism, drug use, and latching onto anything that lets them get angry and violent.

Doresh
Jan 7, 2015

rumble in the bunghole posted:

E: the aesthetic of this game is primarily masks and dicks

Who doesn't love dick masks?

PurpleXVI
Oct 30, 2011

Spewing insults, pissing off all your neighbors, betraying your allies, backing out of treaties and accords, and generally screwing over the global environment?
ALL PART OF MY BRILLIANT STRATEGY!

Doresh posted:

Who doesn't love dick masks?

Dick shoes are superior and more historically accurate.

Kurieg
Jul 19, 2012

RIP Lutri: 5/19/20-4/2/20
:blizz::gamefreak:

LatwPIAT posted:

Well, again, the nihilistic and vaguely Objectivist American version of punk that's about rising above the sheeple and rejecting the authority of other people, both as a whole and as an institution (The Man), as opposed to the British version that had a stronger leftist anarchist/socialist component opposed to a much more specific The Man. Or just lots of disaffected youth with hope of a future getting big into nihilism, drug use, and latching onto anything that lets them get angry and violent.

Right but with Vampire the "Anarchs" and the Sabbat were more or less the villain factions until the later books came out. Except for the Brujah who were basically every single british punk rock stereotype distilled into a single spiked leather jacket wrapped around a spanish word against it's will.

The Sin of Onan
Oct 11, 2012

And below,
watched by eyes of steel
we dreamt

Evil Mastermind posted:


What's the plural of Draconis? Draconi? Draconises? Dratini?

Draconum. It's Latin, and actually even more stupid than you think, because they used the wrong grammatical case; they should have gone with draco ("[the] dragon"), but instead went with draconis ("of the dragon").

"Draconis Crotalaria," strictly translated, is "the rattle-pod plant of the dragon." The others make even less sense.

Serf
May 5, 2011


Shadow of the Demon Lord Part 8: The Paths of Faith and Power

Upon reaching level 3, you get to pick your Expert Path. These are grouped into four groups of four that are themed around the four Novice Paths. The book makes very clear that while you can follow your grouping and take up an Expert Path suggested by your Novice Path, you are not locked into this. Expert Paths have no prerequisites, and you can move into any of them that you want, so long as you can work it into the story.

A big part of being an Expert level character is your Objective. This is something you’d like to accomplish in your time as an Expert character, a goal to work towards while leveling up. The book provides a table for you to randomly roll on if you like, you can pick one of your own choice or make up something that suits your character. You share your objective with the GM, and they use it to guide the campaign, pushing you to accomplish your objective. I think this is a really useful tool for indicating what the player is interested in, and helping the GM tailor the game to their desires. A few example objectives are:

“A castle, tower, ship or some other kind of property.”
“To be remembered after I have left this world.”
“To make a friend from an enemy.”
“To prove to everyone that I am, in fact, a badass.”

The GM can use objectives to tie your group together, giving your objectives overlapping goals and creating adventures that help your group accomplish them together. Your friends help you accomplish your objective, and you in turn help them with theirs.

The game also provides rules for choosing a second Expert Path at level 7 instead of taking a Master Path.

I’m going to go over the Paths by the sections they’re broken down by. In the book they’re presented in alphabetical order, but I like presenting them in themes. I’m also not going to go over them in as much detail as I did in the Novice Path section. Wait until you see how many Master Paths there are to cover.

Paths of Faith



Cleric
The cleric is all about their holy symbol and things they can do with it. A symbol usually looks like the divine iconography of the cleric’s god, and they often decorate their armor with them but rely on a single symbol that they channel their magic through and also use to power a lot of their talents.

Level 3 Cleric
All level 3 characters get to add +1 to two Attributes. Clerics get more Health and Power, and they get another language or a religious profession. They discover more traditions or spells that are associated with their religion, and get Conviction, which allows them to make Will challenge rolls to resist frightening and horrifying effects with 1 boon. They also get Icon of Faith, which lets you choose one tradition you know, and all spells you cast with a holy symbol of your god give you 1 boon to cast them and the targets take 1 bane to resist.

Level 6 Cleric
A little more Health and magic, and you get Empowered Symbol, which means that any spell cast using Icon of Faith that heals or does damage heals or damages 1d6 more healing or damage.

Level 9 Master Cleric
Even more Health, Power and magic, and you get Divine Power, giving the benefits of Icon of Faith to any attack spell cast from any tradition associated with your religion.



Druid
You know them, you love them, the druid is the tree-hugging spellcaster of SotDL, but a little hardier and more outdoorsy than most casters. They have tons of flavor, with a first tier of powers that make the druids stand out from other Paths. While their spell selection is pretty limited, they make up for it with a few special powers that no one else can get.

Level 3 Druid
A little extra Health and Power and either another language or a religious or wilderness profession. You get to discover the Life, Nature or Primal traditions, or learn one spell from one of those traditions. You also get Druid Mysteries, which allows you to do all of the following:

  • Identify any animal or plant you see.
  • Know if water and food you see are safe to consume.
  • Accurately predict the weather up to 24 hours in advance if you’re outside and can see the sky.
  • Move at full Speed across difficult terrain created by natural features.
  • Leave tracks when moving across natural terrain only when you choose.
Level 6 Druid
A bump in Health and some more magic, and Tree Walker, allows you to teleport between trees within medium range of each other.

Level 9 Master Druid
Another jump in Health and Power, another spell, and Resist Elements, which means you take half damage from cold, lighting, thunder and fire.



Oracle
One of my favorite Paths in the game, the oracle is best described as a divine barbarian. By allowing supernatural entities to enter their bodies, the oracle gets enhanced combat prowess and access to divine wisdom and minor bits of prophecy. Doing this puts a strain on them though in the form of Insanity, which builds up each time they allow themselves to be possessed.

Level 3 Oracle
You get more Health and Power, plus another language or profession and you can either discover another tradition or learn a spell from one of your traditions. You also get Divine Ecstasy, which allows you to enter a state of possession for 1 minute, granting all the following bonuses:
  • Health +10.
  • You can’t be charmed, compelled or frightened.
  • You can’t gain Insanity.
  • You make all Intellect, Will, and Perception attack and challenge rolls with 1 boon.
When the effect ends you make a Will challenge roll and succeed or you gain 1 Insanity.

Level 6 Oracle
More Health and another spell, and you get Commune with the Gods, which lets you use Divine Ecstasy to ask up to three questions with yes or no answers and then make a Will roll with 1 bane. On a success the GM answers truthfully. If you fail, you gain 1 Insanity.

Level 9 Master Oracle
More Health and Power and you earn one more spell. Divine Ecstasy gets boosted by Avatar, which gives you the following additional effects:
  • Defense +1
  • You make all Defense and Agility attack and challenge rolls with 1 boon.
  • Your attacks deal 1d6 extra damage.


Paladin
Now we’re back in familiar territory. Paladins are holy warrior, crusaders for the gods, and they learn to channel magical energy through themselves to destroy their enemies, heal their allies and gain supernatural powers. Paladins can serve any of the gods, but lend themselves towards the more zealous faiths. The paladin is a very strong Expert Path with a wide range of powers that make them strong melee combatants and lets them keep their friends on their feet.

Level 3 Paladin
More Health and 1 point of Power, and you can either discover a tradition associated with your religion or learn a spell from a tradition you already know. You also get Divine Smite, which allows you to, on a successful attack with a weapon, expend a casting of a spell to deal an extra 1d6 damage per rank of the spell you expended. If the enemy is undead, demon, devil, spirit or fae you get another 1d6 on top of that. And you get Faith Healing, a support talent that lets you expend a casting of a spell while touching a creature to allow them to heal damage equal to half their Healing Rate or remove a poison or disease affliction.

Level 6 Paladin
A bit of Health and a new spell, and you get Divine Vigor, meaning you cannot be diseased or poisoned. You also get Sense Enemies, which allows you to spend an action to innately know the location of all enemies within medium range for 1 minute.

Level 9 Master Paladin
Some more Health and Power, another spell, and the Holy Radiance talent, which gives you the ability to summon a divine light that empowers your allies and weakens various kinds of supernatural foes.

Paths of Power



Artificer
Combining magic and engineering, the artificer is a versatile Path that can provide all kinds of useful gear to your party. Later on they can imbue items they create with spells and even create mechanical minions to help out.

Level 3 Artificer
You get the standard Attribute increase, as well as some Health and Power. You can either speak a new language or get a new academic profession, and either discover a new tradition or learn a spell. You get your core ability, Artificer’s Bag, which contains loose parts with a value equal to twice your party level in gold. You can spend an action, 1 minute, and use a toolkit to assemble those parts into any piece of gear in the game, with a value equal to or less than the amount of gold in the bag. You can make any number of these items so long as their total value isn’t more than your bag can have. Once you complete a rest, these items fall apart and their value is returned to the bag.

Level 6 Artificer
More Health and either another tradition or spell, and you get the Store Spell ability, which allows you to imbue a spell into any item created from your Artificer’s Bag. The spell is stored until expended or you rest, and anyone can use the spell without needing to meet the Power requirements.

Level 9 Master Artificer
You start off with Health, Power and either a tradition or a spell. You then get Mechanical Servants, a really cool talent that lets you make small constructs (statted in the bestiary). 1 gold gets you a servant, and you can spend another gold to make it fly. You can make as many servants as you have gold in your bag to support them, and they fall apart when you complete a rest.



Sorcerer
These guys aren’t like your standard D&D sorcerer. They are standard magic users who push themselves to their limits and drain energy from the environment itself to fuel their magic. They can accomplish amazing things, but that energy builds up inside them, and if they fail to contain it they explode, wreaking havoc on anyone nearby but leaving them unscathed.

Level 3 Sorcerer
Increase two Attributes by 1, gain a little Health and a point of Power, and discover a new tradition or learn a spell. You get Sorcery, which allows you to empower an attack spell, giving you 1 boon to the attack roll and the target 1 bane to resist. When you do this, you gain a point of strain. Sorcerous Strain is the other thing. You build up strain, and at the end of each round in which you gained strain, you make a Will challenge roll with a number of banes equal to your strain. If you fail, you explode with power, dealing 1d6 damage per point of your Power to everything within range. When this happens your strain is set to 0.

Level 6 Sorcerer
You get more Health, and either a new tradition or a spell, and access to Greater Sorcery. When you cast a spell you can take 1 strain to apply one of the following effects to the spell:
  • If the spell requires an attack roll you get 2 boons.
  • Creatures resisting the spell roll with 2 banes.
  • Increase the range of the spell by one step.
  • Double the spell’s area of effect.
  • If it deals damage, you deal 2d6 extra damage.
  • If it heals damage, you heal 2d6 extra damage.
Level 9 Master Sorcerer
A little more Health and a point of Power, and either a new tradition or a spell. And you get Sorcerous Blast, which lets you aim at a creature in medium range, reduce your strain by 1, and then make an Intellect or Will roll against their Agility. On a success, they take 2d6 damage.



Witch
The witch is an interesting Path that has very thematic powers with a dash of magic to expand their capabilities. They are magic users who learned their practices from the Fair Folk long ago, and witchcraft is handed down on an individual basis. Witches can be found anywhere, but typically live in secluded areas on the fringes of civilization and society, working as spirit healers and soothsayers for small villages.

Level 3 Witch
You get the standard Attribute increase, with some Health and Power. You can speak another language, add an academic profession of add a common/wilderness profession. You discover one tradition or learn a spell. You get the Witch Fire spell, which allows you to create a damaging ball of green fire that you can move around the battlefield and teleport to. The final talent at this level is Guidance, which lets you use a triggered action to give a creature that can see an understand you 2 boons on a challenge roll.

Level 6 Witch
At this level you get a Health increase, another tradition or spell, and the Flying Broom spell, which of course lets you expend a casting of a spell to make a broom into a flying vehicle. You can even take a passenger with you!

Level 9 Master Witch
Health and Power increases, and another tradition or spell. Additionally you get Lasting Bond, a talent gives you and a willing creature bonuses when you’re close to each other, and allows you to communicate across any distance with mirrors.


NWS for nudity and general grossitude

Wizard
A pretty close analogue to the D&D equivalent, the wizard has a little more flavor out of the box. They are versatile spellcasters who use big spellbooks called grimoires to expand their spellcasting capability even more than normal. With even more expanded magical powers later on, wizards are the most reliable and flexible spellcasters in the game.

Level 3 Wizard
You get your Attribute increases, as well as some Health and Power. You can speak another language or get an academic profession, and you discover a tradition or learn a spell. You also get your Grimoire, which is a book with any three spells of a rank you can cast inside it. While holding it, you can expend a casting of a spell to instead cast any spell from your grimoire with an equal or lower rank. When you learn a spell that is in your grimoire you can replace it with a new spell that you have the rank to cast.

Level 6 Wizard
More Health, and either a new tradition or a spell. You also get Spell Expertise, which gives you an extra casting of all rank 0 and 1 spells you know.

Level 9 Master Wizard
A little more Health and some Power, another tradition or one spell, and the Spell Mastery talent, which gives you 6 spell points. When you cast a spell, you can expend 1 + the spell’s rank in spell points to cast it without expending the casting. You regain all spell points when you complete a rest.

We're in a three way tie between Magician, Rogue and Priest on Queegol. Gimme some more votes and I'll get her statted out for the next post.

Next time: The Paths of Trickery and War!

Green Intern
Dec 29, 2008

Loon, Crazy and Laughable

Serf posted:






NWS for nudity and general grossitude

Really appreciating that the artwork for all three of these is some form of grotesque. Especially that wizard.

Kurieg
Jul 19, 2012

RIP Lutri: 5/19/20-4/2/20
:blizz::gamefreak:
Sorcerer, everything (but him) must burn.

Desiden
Mar 13, 2016

Mindless self indulgence is SRS BIZNS

Kurieg posted:

Right but with Vampire the "Anarchs" and the Sabbat were more or less the villain factions until the later books came out. Except for the Brujah who were basically every single british punk rock stereotype distilled into a single spiked leather jacket wrapped around a spanish word against it's will.

I dunno if I'd call the Anarchs the villains really. Its been a while since I read them, but my general feeling of them early on was they were supposed to be the righteous power "fight against the tyranny of the night" stuff. Of course, then the sabbat stole their schtick and did it more hardcore, and then revised really pushed the whole "all the sects are ideological hypocrites full of lovely self serving people", so they were lovely then along with everyone else.

Zomborgon
Feb 19, 2014

I don't even want to see what happens if you gain CHIM outside of a pre-coded system.

The Artificer is basically my current Exalted character, plus magic. It's pretty rad to just whip out random bits of metal and shove them together into a crossbow.

Could make for a great assassin, too.

unseenlibrarian
Jun 4, 2012

There's only one thing in the mountains that leaves a track like this. The creature of legend that roams the Timberline. My people named him Sasquatch. You call him... Bigfoot.

Desiden posted:

I dunno if I'd call the Anarchs the villains really. Its been a while since I read them, but my general feeling of them early on was they were supposed to be the righteous power "fight against the tyranny of the night" stuff. Of course, then the sabbat stole their schtick and did it more hardcore, and then revised really pushed the whole "all the sects are ideological hypocrites full of lovely self serving people", so they were lovely then along with everyone else.

There seemed to be a general vibe in 1E that PCs would eventually wise up and join the anarchs, from what I remember, yeah. It's just that playing Camarilla politics made for better LARPing.

Halloween Jack
Sep 12, 2003

La morte non ha sesso
Thing is, whether LARP or tabletop, the Camarilla actually gives you a structure of NPCs to give you adventures (and compel you to actually go do it), and a system of ranks to work your way up, etc. The Anarchs by comparison are a disintegrated mass that aren't really fleshed out in the corebook. If your group doesn't immediately get the vibe of Vampire, you can have the Prince order them to go do missions like like in D&D or many other games.

Count Chocula
Dec 25, 2011

WE HAVE TO CONTROL OUR ENVIRONMENT
IF YOU SEE ME POSTING OUTSIDE OF THE AUSPOL THREAD PLEASE TELL ME THAT I'M MISSED AND TO START POSTING AGAIN

Halloween Jack posted:

I don't know a lot about punk, but my impression (from watching The Decline of Western Civilization, everything I've heard about GG Allin, and some other stuff) is that while punk is today associated with leftist activism, in the late 70s a lot of it was just hosed up young people who had been failed by society and were spiraling into nihilism, Darby Crash being the prime example.

Edit: VVV I'm thinking more "wear a swastika and call people faggots because who life sucks and who gives a poo poo" than actual devoted Nazism.

Except for Gangrel, Vampires are more glam punk. You've got David Bowie in The Hunger, Iggy Pop not being in Only Lovers Left Alive but associated with everyone in it, Lou Reed and Andy Warhol trying to be as vampiric as possible, Nick Cave who I actually saw summon a swarm of bats (or they already lived in the park but were attracted by the stage lights, but that's no fun).

Ever seen Velvet Goldmine? Ventrue and Toredor are your elegantly wasted 70s heroin addict rockstars and punks and No Wave singers (watch Blank Generation), Gangrel are your working class Henry Rollins Black Flag hardcore types, and Nosferatu are crust punks and the metalheads who actually play the game.

(Werewolves are either crust punks or Rage Against the Machine/Anti-Flag macho political rockers, oMage is prog but cool, and Changeling is Syd Barrett (who may have been abducted by fairies) and Stevie Nicks)).

But I tend to associate the supernatural with music, and vice versa.
In the words of terrible cult movie musical The Apple: “It’s a natural, natural, natural, natural desire… to meet an actual, actual, actual, actual vampire.”

Count Chocula fucked around with this message at 02:11 on Jan 10, 2017

Asehujiko
Apr 6, 2011

Polaris RPG(2016)
Part 5, Book 1, Chapter 1: The World of the Deep, section 1.2: Civilizations of the Deep


Almost done with the Hegemony, only their list of personalities and locations to go, starting with the personalities:
-The council of Patriarchs
A mysterious group that lives on top of the Kelvin Seamount, overlooking the Hegemony capital of Keryss. Nobody knows what they look like due to them permanently wearing masks and only communicating by hologram. Hinted at elsewhere in the book to be not quite human if you read between the lines. Who or what they are is probably in the Hegemony setting book for the first edition of Polaris RPG, which was released in 1996, only in France, only in French and never translated. If anybody is willing to track that one down, be my guest. The Patriarchs are considered divine avatars in the Hegemony's unnamed plurality religion.

-Grand Admiral Valastor
Newest Grand Admiral of the fleet and commander of the Artemis, the second Atlantis-class battle cruiser. Brilliant strategist, has seemingly no emotions and is a Patriach loyalist.

-High Admiral Viramis
Commander in chief of the Hegemony's armed forces and the Patriach's representative for day to day matters of ruling the Hegemony. May be either 69 years old or over a century and running on organs harvested from lower class citizen depending on who you ask. There's a big description of how he looks here which is somewhat superfluous because there's a picture of him on the previous page. He is always surrounded by several his own loyalists and probably a Patriarch spy or two. Also he is somehow a past war hero now despite the Hegemony being at peace for two centuries before his ascension?

-Admiral Alkard
Despite seemingly being lower in rank than Valastor, this 56 year old dude is a a great leader and in charge of the entire fleet. Never leaves Viramis' side, where he serves as personal advisor.

-Admiral Vira Our
Was the previous Grand Admiral commanding the Atlantis for 14 years, demoted after the ship ran aground during the Fuego Liberdad invasion. So apparently Grand Admiral is the rank for whoever commands one of the Hegemony's superships and the ranks both above and below it are called Admiral? That isn't confusing at all. 50 years of age and known as a (relative) moderate among the regime. It is rumoured that she is fertile but avoided being imprisoned in the breeding centers because of a connection to the High Admiral.

-Admiral Veer
Commander of the Hegemony's border troops and exploration units. Highly efficient and completely emotionless.

-Baroness Vilma Terrastet
Close friend to the High Admiral and owner of the largest passenger line in the world; Nova. This makes her the richest woman in the Hegemony. She is cunning, possessive, power hungry and barely looks 30 while actually being 45 years old. I think the book is trying to imply she also harvests poor people for organs but 30-45 is totally doable with regular make-up.

-Prince Vaughn Ebreaer
The head of the most powerful aristocratic family in the Hegemony. A reformist and opponent of the High Admiral, one of the very few people allowed to do so openly.

-Telma Tiltane
A rebel against the Hegemony's oppressive reproduction policies, she herself being an escapee from the breeding centers. A lot more popular among the general populace than anybody would admit when the Prism is around and the stream of new sympathizers joining her rebellion grows every day. She is also aware of the rift between the High Admiral and the Patriarchs and considers Viramis and his breeding centers to be illegitimate. Disappeared after a recent commando raid against one of her secret bases, nobody knows if she is captured, dead or in hiding.

So yes, just as we have three apocalypses for some reason, the internal conflict in the Hegemony also has a third faction that is hidden away three quarters into a list of which Serious Dude in Uniform commands what ship. With the Patriarchs requiring the GM to basically make up their entire backstory for them to use them in a game, I guess a faction who's main motivation is "let's not have the country be so fascist and mistreating it's own citizen please, tia" is an improvement because it's the first plot hook this the game that the players can actually do something with. To celebrate that, here's the official art for somebody who may or may not even be alive by the time the game takes place.


-Marquis Ovar Godter
The Hegemony's ambassador in Equinox. The book definitely said something about the Hegemony ambassador there getting murdered recently but this guy is written as if alive so maybe they have multiple of those as well? He is 58 years old and a famous pacifist but will a close friend to the High Admiral despite their opposed world views.

Hegemony Communities
Remember how the book said there were 20 major cities in the Hegemony two pages ago? Well now there's 15. The book still acts as if this is a conclusive list though so I guess the mysterious metaplot nonsense ate another 5 of them since it's last mention. The book gives them all that little stat block I showed a few updates back which I'll be truncating a bit because the bottom line on it never ever says anything useful about the station in question. The book also insists on giving you the exact depth for every station so you know if the various kinds of equipment that can be on your diving suit are capable of resisting the pressure at that depth. Yeah it's that kind of game.

Bermuda
Population: 1.000.000
Depth: -3.200 to -4.200 m
Fertile population: 60%
Mutant population: 1%
Bermuda is a tourist city where mutants are not allowed and will be arrested and deported if found. You might recall the Hegemony being generally ok with mutants last update. Well, not any more. Found here are many companies dealing in luxury goods and services, including Nova. This is also where the breeding centres are and there are guided tours showing the playgrounds with children happily playing, demonstrating that the Hegemony's reproduction policies are quite humane, contrary to the malicious rumours spread by Telma Tiltane's terrorist organisation. This fools absolutely no one. The Hegemony's tunnel network connects the city to Keryss, Clemt, Nox and Guamea.

Clemt
Population: 900.000
Depth: -600 to -3.200 m
Fertile population: 18%
Mutant population: 34%
Clemt is a large mining city extracting minerals from the Cayman and Puerto-Rican trenches. Oceanographer's note: These two locations are several hundreds of kilometers apart from each other, being located on opposites sides of Hispaniola. The mines reach a depth of 16.000 meters and because of this Clemt is in a constant war with the Burrowers and a large garrison of underground troops is permanently stationed here. Living conditions are poor and the mines are mainly staffed with prisoners, slaves and mutants. Again with the mutant discrimination that the society overview specifically said wasn't a thing in the Hegemony. Clemt's governor is afraid of saboteurs and spies so outsiders are not welcome. Perhaps he is right because there are rumours that the majority of the population is secretly part of rebel groups, the Black Sun Fellowship or the Brothers of the Deep. I'd be afraid too if wizard nazis bent on world domination formed a significant fraction of my decidedly unhappy population. the Brothers of the Deep I think is supposed to be the Fellowship of the Deep because the Brothers are never mentioned again in the book. Or maybe it's one of those things only explained in 20 year old paper only foreign language splatbooks never released outside their home country. Either way, Clemt has tunnels leading to Nox, Florea and Bermuda.

Crinea
Population: 850.000
Depth: -4.700 m
Fertile population: 11%
Mutant population: 19%
Crinea is a major producer of food and geothermal power. More interesting however is the nearby Kane fracture zone, a trench that was only 2.000 meters deep at the start of the century but has now sunken to a depth of 6.200 meters over a multiple square kilometer area and deeper trenches are expected to be found in the area. Oceanographer's note: It's already 6.200 meters deep in real life. A depth of 2.000 meters would actually make it stick up from the surrounding terrain by quite a margin. The collapse unearthed massive Cylast deposits, a Genetician depot and a flooded cave network in which archaeologists are said to have made world changing discoveries. Dead end metaplot reference count: 8.

Feora
Population: 260.000
Depth: -2.700 m
Fertile population: 18%
Mutant population: 8%
A farming town, similar to many other farming towns. Thanks, game. This is the most useful of all setting descriptions.

Florea
Population: 1.200.000
Depth: -200 to -1200 m
Fertile population: 36%
Mutant population: 12%
Florea is an industrial city with many corporate headquarters, factories and research stations. It is constantly under attack from Burrowers and it's garrison is large, not only to protect it from below but also it also houses many of the Hegemony's surface exploration units due to it's minimal depth. Further afield there are more hydroculture farms and the ruins of the pre-apocalypse surface civilizations, which are off-limits to civilians. It is supposedly built on the Blake Threshold which google tells me is not a place but a physics term for something to do with cavitation. The tunnel network here connects to Ozark and Clemt, with a third link to Bermuda under construction.

Guamea
Population: 1.400.000
Depth: -1.700 m
Fertile population: 18%
Mutant population: 20%
Nicknamed "little Equinox", Guamea is an industrial and mercantile city and hub for smugglers due to it's low SSAF presence. The Prism however has an unusually large amount of agents stationed here to root out heretics, spies and rebels. Wait, what, heretics? The Hegemony doesn't even have an official state religion, worship of the Polaris Effect and of marine mammals is widespread throughout all nations except the Polar Alliance. Either way, it's governor is a former corporate director focussed on developing the city commercially but word on the street is that the High Admiral will soon replace him with a military person.

Keryss
Population: 18 million
Depth: -5.200 to -5.700 m; hang on a second, this city was explicitly over a kilometer tall last time!
Fertile population: 43%
Mutant population: 6%
Keryss has a huge metropolitan area with a radius of over 120 nautical miles is the greatest city in the world. Except it's not, Azuria in the Coral Republic is half again as large. This is where the Patriarchs live, together with the Hegemony's largest shipyards, most aristocratic houses, corporate headquarters and government buildings. A great quantity of soldiers is always stationed at the capital because of Burrower attacks.Tunnels lead out to Bermuda, Ultar, Warton and Tanez.

Nox
Population: 950.000
Depth: -200 to -6.200 m
Fertile population: 4%
Mutant population: 48%
Nox is a mining city similar to Clemt but also houses a research station where dissidents and mutants are brought up to the surface without protection to study the effects on them. The authorities deny this but the rumours are persistent and the population is unhappy. The city is plagued by unidentified disease outbreaks and strange creatures escaping from laboratories. Whenever it is not under quarantine, tunnels connect it to Clemt and Guamea.

Ourgor
Population: 338.000
Depth: -3.700 m
Fertile population: 17%
Mutant population: 6%
A small frontier city, hosting a military base, geothermal power stations and a commercial hub. The SSAF presence is unobtrusive and the commerce and tourism focussed wards are relatively pleasant places to live. Tunnels connect it to Feora, Ultar and Equinox.

Ozark
Population: 900.000
Depth: -400 to -1700 m
Fertile population: 11%
Mutant population: 6%
Ozark is a hub of activity for both rebel and security forces and it's composition is quite similar to Florea. Florea is also it's only link to the tunnel network.

Rauxe
Population: 500.000
Depth: -1.200 m
Fertile population: 6%
Mutant population: 37%
Rauxe is a military border fortress that watches over the Panama Passage. It is a major fleet base but also has several mines of a depth up to 8.000 meters. The entire city is under martial law and the entire passage is covered by a network of detection stations and automated gun turrets. It is notably not connected to the tunnel system.

Tanez
Population: 375.000
Depth: -3.200 to -4.700 m
Fertile population: 18%
Mutant population: 4%
Tanez is a closed city. Officially it's main activities are agriculture and energy generation but a major military research base is rumoured to be here. The population here is given more personal space than elsewhere within the Hegemony, making permits to move here a desirable but hard to obtain commodity. Outsiders are closely watched.

Ultar
Population: 750.000
Depth: -4.960 m
Fertile population: 8%
Mutant population: 25%
Ultar is the main source of food and geothermal power for the Hegemony. Several outlying stations have recently made strange observations of movement around their farms. After a series of intense quakes, one of the stations reported being under attack from things crawling out of a fissure along the Mid-Atlantic Ridge. The station was completely destroyed before a fleet could be mobilized to investigate. The tunnels connect Ultar to Feora and Keryss.

Warton
Population: 1.000.000
Depth: -100 to -400 m
Fertile population: 23%
Mutant population: 17%
Warton is one of the Hegemony's beautiful cities. I guess I'll have to take the book's word for it because the city is the focus of the most intense Burrower attacks in all the Hegemony and it's proximity to the surface leads to frequent damage from surface phenomena. It is a major financial and industrial hub although it lacks any metal processing facilities. A massive construction project is under way to cover the city in massive domes like Keryss to protect it from the effects of the surface. It's governor is a moderate who supports free speech but the Prism are omnipresent as a major network supporting Telma Tiltane's rebellion is said to hide here. The only tunnel connection here goes to Keryss.

Yucata
Population: 600.000
Depth: -250 m
Fertile population: 12%
Mutant population: 10%
Yucata is an industrial city with little to no amenities or luxuries in the Gulf of Mexico. It's population mainly consists of slaves and penal workers. It is not connected to the tunnel network.

Next time: Finally something other than the Hegemony; the Red League

Evil Mastermind
Apr 28, 2008

The storm has a name... - Let's Read TORG


Part 15h: Arms & Equipment Guide; Player's Options

Here we are at the end of the Aysle book. Thank the lord.

The next chapter is about Equipment, and really most of this chapter isn't anything you haven't seen a million times before in every other fantasy RPG ever made. This is a longsword, here's a mace, here's your ten overly-similar types of mundane armor, yadda yadda yadda.

This chapter does have a bunch of enchanted items listed, but since this is a 90's RPG it's mostly weapons and armor. There are basic +X armor and weapons, as well as your more traditional special items. But the problem is that some of this stuff is poorly mechanically defined, again probably because of the ol' "I know what I meant when I wrote it" problem.

For example, an Infernas Sword can apparently shoot conjured fireballs from the tip...but it doesn't say how. Does the sword cast the fireball spell? If so, what's its skill level? What happens if there's backlash? How many times can I do that? Are there charges? No idea, because all the description says is that it can shoot conjured fireballs from the tip.

Likewise, the Cyprium Metal Armor says it's "extremely effective against missile and melee weapons". Ignoring the fact that most weapons fall into one of those two categories, there's no numerical bonus or anything against certain types of attacks. From a rules standpoint, it's just armor.

Or take the Aqueate Armor:

quote:

Literally a battle-suit made of solidified water, aqueate armor is constructed using both the water faeries’ water spray spell and the cinlum weather control spell. The aqueates provide the liquid, and the cinlum’s manipulate the air pressure and temperature so as to contain it around the wearer’s body. Each suit must be built around a specific warrior’s body, and can only be used once, falling back to the ground as water once it is removed. While worn, the water circulates, actively deflecting any melee or missile weapon it is attacked with. It is, however, vulnerable to attack by cyprium weapons, which contain electric charges. The other drawback is that the suit is heavy and causes the wearer to move more slowly, so reduce all Dexterity-related skills by one when wearing it. There has also been one recorded incident of a Draconis Teutonica using its arctic air weapon to freeze the armor solid.

It is extremely expensive to purchase a suit of aqueate armor, because it is difficult to get the two races to cooperate on its construction.
Not only do we get more of Torg's magic-as-physics in there (Why do you have to explain that the spell controls air pressure? It's magic! It just works!), we run into another problem: nowhere in the book are we really told how to make enchanted items outside of designing spells. Does this mean that if I know the water spray and weather control spells, I can just make this armor? That'd be nice, because the armor's expensive as hell, especially for something that falls apart the first time you take it off.

What's more, there's no mechanical backing to the notes that it's vulnerable to lightning attacks. It's just fluff that a GM may or may not remember to use.

Not that it matters, because all the magic armors are actually mechanically worse than mundane leather armor. Leather armor provides +2 Toughness to a max of 20 for 800 coins, whereas all the magic armors give +2 Toughness with a max of 17 for over 15,000 coins.

Or take the Climate Cloak, which is "imbuded with an alteration/folk spell" that protects the wearer from extreme heat and cold. Which spell? What are its specifics? Hell if I know, it's just an unnamed alteration/folk spell.

Now yes, I know that back in the 90's we had the same deal going on in D&D, where magic items weren't supposed to be made by the PCs but were instead doled out as rewards by the GM. That being said, given how almost everything else with the magic system has a long-rear end design process that's intended for the players to use, it's very conspicuous by its absence.

Magic weapons don't fare much better. Again, all the magic weapons have the same exact stats (+6 damage, max damage value 21). Yeah, they're supposed to have spells built in, but the rules are (surprise, surprise) ridiculously vague. What's more, all the magic swords have the same exact stats as a broadsword; the only advantage is theoretically being able to cast a spell through them, and even then I don't know if you need the spellcasting skills or not and quite frankly at this point I'm not going back to the magic chapter to check how that worked again.

The next chapter covers Character Creation, and the minor yet annoying ways it's different than normal character creation. There's two main differences:

First, as stated before, when an Aysle character takes a magic skill as their tag skill, they get 12 point in which to buy knowledges, not to mention the stuff they get from their birth sign.

Second, and more complicated, is what happens if you want to play an elf or giant.

If I may quote the book for a moment, "[g]iants and elves are, by nature, more magical than other creatures", which means that they have higher stat caps than humans and dwarves, who are of course just short humans. This is done by the mandatory purchase of enhancement points in packs of three; these points are then used to increase your stats (and the associated stat maximums) by one point each. Giants can only put these points in Strength or Toughness, whereas elves can put the point in any stat but Toughness. Elven or giant characters are required to buy at least one of these packages.

Now, it's possible for this to get pretty unbalancing, especially early on. Characters are normally built on 66 stat points, and it's possible to buy two or three packs at character creation and get a pretty significant stat boost.

For reference, here's the normal Aysle stat caps:
pre:
DEXTERITY 14
STRENGTH 15
TOUGHNESS 15
PERCEPTION 14
MIND 14
CHARISMA 13
SPIRIT 13
If I'm making a giant character, I start with my normal 66 points and for the sake of example put 8's in everything (remember, 9 is average), then split the remaining ten points between Strength and Toughness. I can take two enhancement packs to get six points, which I then put in my Strength and Toughness.
pre:
DEXTERITY 8
STRENGTH 13
TOUGHNESS 13
PERCEPTION 8
MIND 8
CHARISMA 8
SPIRIT 8
That's pretty good for a starting fighty-type character...but now I have to pay the cost.

In order to keep those higher stats, I have two options:
1) Pay out one Possibility per package per adventure.
2) Give one of my other stats a much lower cap per package.

So I can either have to constantly pay out two possibilities per adventure (screw that), or reduce the cap of two of my other stats. Elves have to take a stat cap of 7, whereas giants have to put in a stat cap of 7 for the first attribute and 6 for the rest. I can mix-and-match so with two packages I could just cap one stat and pay an adventure cost for the other, but why bother.

So I'll make my Charisma max out at 7, and my Spirit max out at 6. Of course, now I have to put those extra three stat points somewhere...
pre:
DEXTERITY 8
STRENGTH 14
TOUGHNESS 15
PERCEPTION 8
MIND 8
CHARISMA 7
SPIRIT 6
There we go! Nice and balanced!

So what happens if you choose the adventure cost and can't pay it? Well, if that happens, or you disconnect, then you lose all your enhancement points and your stats drop to their normal levels (i.e., what they'd be without the enhancement points). If you disconnected, then you have to make re-connection rolls for each of your enhancement packages in addition to making the re-connection roll for yourself. Until you make all these rolls, your stats stay at the normal-person levels and you're still considered disconnected.

If you're disconnected for more than a day, or you can't pay out the adventure cost at all, then you catch the "wasting disease", and at that point you're kinda hosed. You immediately take a permanent, irreducible point of shock damage each week, until either you're cured, you reconnect, or your shock damage matches your Toughness, at which point you enter a coma. While in a coma, you keep taking shock damage until you hit twice your Toughness, at which point you die.

quote:

To be healed, an ord must return to Elveim or Lower Aysle (depending on his race) and find a cleric to cure him. A Possibility-rated character can do the same, or can attempt to earn enough Possibilities over the course of the next adventure to pay the adventure cost and thus dispel the disease and the shock damage and regain his enhancements.

Payment must be of the cumulative adventure cost. In other words, if an elven character with two packages has been without their benefits for two adventures, he must pay four Possibilities to regain them rather than simply two.
By the way, the book makes no mention that I could find as to whether or not Ardinay is allowing civilian traffic along the bridges to Aysle. If PCs have to go back there to get healed, I really hope she is.

Oh, and if a giant's Strength drops below 10? They're not strong enough to easily walk around due to their size, and have to make rolls just to get around.

And you know what the best part of all that is? We're coming up to realm books that have other non-human racial options for PCs, and guess how many of them have to deal with this bullshit?

That's right: none of them!

Oy.

Anyway, all that's left are the character templates. The World Book from the core had a pretty limited list of options:


The Barbarian Warrior is puzzled by these strange changes that have swept across Aysle, as well as Ardinay's sudden change of heart. Not that he sided with Uthorion; he's just in it for the joy of battle and the ability to explore new lands. Still, better to be fighting with the good guys, right? He starts with generic fighter gear and his tag skill is melee weapons, of course.


The Curious Mage has studied magic all her life while managing avoiding being conscripted into Uthorion-as-Ardinay's forces. When the Core Earth invasion happened, she felt the sudden shift in magical energies as Aysle's reality poured down the bridge. Now that Ardinay seems to be on the side of good once again, she's heading down to the realm to study how magic works on the edges of the stelae zones. Her tag skill is alteration magic, but she left her money pouch back in Aysle.


The Paladin is...well...okay, she's just straight-up Starter Kit Tolwyn. Seriously, she has the same sent-through-time backstory and everything. No, I don't know why they used the same background as their Mary Sue instead of something else apart from the fact that the core set had templates for all the main characters from the novels. Anyway, she starts with a "worn copy of The Dark Knight (not the novelization of the movie since it wasn't out yet so I dunno what it's supposed to be apart from a Batman reference) and her tag skill is faith.


And of course the realm book added a bunch more:


The Dwarf Engineer was taken by House Vareth slavers when he was a child, and was put to work repairing basic farm tools. When the invasion happened, the House Vareth slaves managed to organize a rebellion while the House's leaders were focused on the new cosm. Stowing away on a Vareth supply cart, he came to Core Earth, where he discovered an uncanny knack with all this new technology. He starts with a toolbox, a digital watch, and a .44 Magnum. His tag skill is science


The Dwarf Tunnel Runner's family has always fought. They were involved with the War of the Giants, the War of the Crowns, and defended the dwarven tunnels from intruding monsters. Unfortunately, all that skill and experience didn't mean a thing when House Vareth attacked from within. Avoiding the slavers, she began organizing geurilla raids on Vareth's holdings. The fight eventually went over the maelstrom bridges, where she found something that really swung the odds in her favor: automatic rifles. She starts with a ton of weapons (including a can of mace), and her tag skill is fire combat.


The Elf Mage has spent centuries studying in Elveim, until there was no more the world could teach him. Fortutiously, shortly after reaching that point the invasion happened and he saw a new world that would (hopefully) have more to teach him. But seeing as how the realm is just rediscovering magic, it might be more the other way around. He starts with the standard-issue wizard robe, staff, and grimoire, and his tag skill is conjuration magic.


The Elf Monk is unusual in that he chose not to remain neutral in the war between Light and Dark, whereas most elves are waiting it out. He's part of a group of priests of Estar that have traveled down to the realm to travel the land and aid Ardinay's forces. He's slowly coming around to the idea that maybe the idea that the elves shouldn't have been getting involved for centuries is kinda dumb. His tag skill is faith.


The Giant Bruiser is a real good fella. He was part of the initial invasion force, his tribe sent down into Glasgow to take it for "Ardinay". But during the intial confusion, he got separated from the rest of his tribe. Lucky for him, he ran into a real friendly guy who was willing to give you food and a place to sleep in exchange for doing some armbreaking, which he had no problem with. Then a rival giant clan came in, killed his buddy, and left him for dead. Now it's time for a little payback, capeesh? He starts with a rifle, a racing form, and a nice suit. His tag skill is unarmed combat, and he starts with a point of corruption. He also has a whopping nine enhancement points, and as such has an adventure cost of 3.


The Giant Preistess in very unique in terms of giants: she's actually curious about the other Ayslish races and wants to understand them. Of course, given the reputation of the giants that's a lot easier said than done. In an attempt to balance her violent nature with the needs of other races, she became a cleric of Ugrol, one of the gods of balance. She saw the invasion as a chance to meet even more new people, but once she got there she realized that her comrades were succumbing to their darker natures and that it was up to her to stop them. Her tag skill is focus.


The Human Knight is from House Tancred because every good guy knoight is from frigging House Tancred. And there's really not much to say here. You know the drill; dedicated to honor, fighting the good fight, loyal to Tolwyn, etc. He starts with a standard fighter loadout (sword, bow, armor) and some wheellock pistols. His tag skill is melee weapons and he starts with a point of honor.


The Priest of Dunad watched helplessly as Ardinay turned her back on the ways of honor and drive the world into darkness, but wasn't able to do anything due to the ruling Houses only caring about their own needs. She remained loyal to the god of honor, and when Ardinay entered the realm and ended the invasion, she saw a chance for honor to prevail. And this time, she can do something to help. Her tag skill is focus.


The Street Thief is from Core Earth, but was transformed by the axiom wash. Before the invasion, she was basically a self-serving professional thief. When Aysle invaded, however, she started facing competition that could pick locks by snapping their fingers and security systems that shot fireballs. But hey, the challenge just makes it more fun, right? She starts with a dark outfit, lockpicks, and a cockney accent.

quote:

“Cor! It’s a Lockrite! Didn’t think no one used those anymore. Give me room, I’ll have it open in a tick.”
Her tag skill is stealth, and she starts with a point of corruption


The Viking came for the conquest, and stayed for the redemption. As part of Ardinay's initial invasion force, he was okay with the whole run-roughshod-over-new-lands thing, but then Ardinay had her change of heart, and his leader Thorfinn changed and became more bloodthirsty and hostile towards Ardinay. He knew something was up, but being unable to confront Thorfinn directly, he sought out new allies to help him discover what happened to his leader. He starts with the generic furs-axe-horned helmet as befits a fantasy viking, and his tag skill is melee weapons.


For some reason, the art in the later Torg books got very anime.


Now that we've covered the "current state" of Aysle, what does the future hold for the realm of high fantasy?

Ardinay and Uthorion spend most of the early parts of the invasion in a deadlock. Ardinay won't use the Darkness Device since she knows what'll happen, and while Uthorion is still a threat he's no good without someone like the Gaunt Man telling him what to do. More than anything Uthorion wants to get the Darkness Device to abandon Ardinay and support him again.

Uthorion's early goal is to do enough evil deeds to get Drakacanus to bond with him again, but the Darkness Device doesn't want anything to do with him now that it can see what a useless idiot he is. In a bid for more power, Uthorion eventually ends up discarding Thorfinn's body and placing himself in the body of a Draconis Teutonica (god that still sounds dumb) just before a battle with some Storm Knights. And while that wasn't a bad idea, Uthorion didn't take into account that piloting a dragon body is a bit different than his normal meatsuits and got his rear end handed to him again.

Meanwhile, the Darkness Device had been scouting new High Lord candidates; even though it had a half-dozen candidates (Wotan being among them), the one it ended up going with was "The Warrior of the Dark", a duplicate of Tolwyn created through dark sorcery.

In just over a year, the Warrior of the Dark leads an army across the realm, converting most of the ream to Dark stelae zones and reinvigorating the remnants of Uthorion's army. This has the further problem of creating vast food shortages throughout Aylse, since Dark zones can't grow food in the numbers needed to support an army, let alone the whole realm. The Warrior ends up making a business deal with 3327 for food and weapons to support her troops. She also begins slowly expanding into Cyberpapacy territory to further cut Malraux off from the rest of the world. Once she has her power base established, she puts constant pressure on the Oxford hardpoint, forcing Ardinay's forces to defend it to the detriment of protecting the rest of the realm.

During this time, Uthorion keeps his head low, constantly trying and failing to earn Drakacanus's favor once again since he can't put together a decent plan to save his life. Eventually, the Gaunt Man returns, and sends Uthorion on a mission to the dead cosm Kantovia, which you may remember was one of the Gaunt Man's first conquests. When Uthorion arrives and announces who he is, he is attacked by hundreds of P-rated werewolves. And since he was too stupid to run and instead tried to fight back, he was slowly and unceremoniously ripped to shreds.


Pretend I photoshopped this to say "Uthorion" instead of "Beavis".

As for what happens to Ardinay and the Warrior of the Dark (and Tolwyn of House Tankred), that all ties into the major overarcing metaplot and is all irredemably dumb as hell. But we'll save that for when we eventually get to War's End; all you need to know for now is that of course Tolwyn marshalls the armies of Good and leads them to victory and saves the realm and single handedly defeats the Warrior of the Dark and everybody loves her. On the plus side, the PCs get to stand around and watch her do all that without being able to get involved!

And with that out of the way, we are finally done with Aysle.

loving finally.

--

God, I hate this book.

Seriously, this is my least favorite of all the cosm books, probably in all the game line, because so much of it is either writer wank for a setting that's not as interesting as they seem to think it is, or is ridiculous mechanics that don't add anything to the game itself.

More than anything else, it's just dull. I can't bring myself to care about the houses or the layout of Aylse itself or any of it. Yeah, there's a good idea or two in there, but it's buried in so much generic fantasy BS you can't bring yourself to care.

And as is always with these kinds of things, there's such promise there. The whole idea of a good leader constantly trying to resist corruption to solve all her problems while the previous evil overlord is bodyhopping around? That's some good stuff! The whole "good and evil are quantifiable things in the setting and the world swings between them piecemeal" could have some really cool ramifications. But no, once again the writers are so focused on the details only they care about they completely miss stuff that other people would be interested in. Hell, Uthorion is a close second to Barruk Kaah as the series' main whipping boy.

As for the magic stuff...Christ, there is no reason to make your spell creation system that complicated. I know that this was the era before we really started thinking about what rules really meant and designing for the players and such, but come on. It manages to be both way too detailed and too vague at the same time. It's just not fun, and at the end of the day games need to be fun. That's kind of the point.

But regardless, we're done with it now, so all that remains out of the core invading realities is the whipping boy of the whole shebang, which we'll get to...

NEXT TIME: The realm that time (and the players) forgot!

Zereth
Jul 9, 2003



Evil Mastermind posted:

The storm has a name... - Let's Read TORG
Now yes, I know that back in the 90's we had the same deal going on in D&D, where magic items weren't supposed to be made by the PCs but were instead doled out as rewards by the GM. That being said, given how almost everything else with the magic system has a long-rear end design process that's intended for the players to use, it's very conspicuous by its absence.
Hey, in D&D's defense, it almost never did poo poo like "This sword shoots fireballs! How powerful? :iiam:"

So Torg is actually even worse off than D&D here.

Young Freud
Nov 26, 2006

Evil Mastermind posted:


For some reason, the art in the later Torg books got very anime.

TORG was really big in Japan and lot of the art used in the Japanese edition ended up getting used in the revised editions.

Doresh
Jan 7, 2015

Green Intern posted:

Really appreciating that the artwork for all three of these is some form of grotesque. Especially that wizard.

I like the orc(?) witch. Classic, yet cool. The druid also looks pretty badass.

And the Sorcerer looks very fun for a gish build, especially onces that are anime-themed.

Young Freud posted:

TORG was really big in Japan and lot of the art used in the Japanese edition ended up getting used in the revised editions.

Torg is the better Sword Art Online.

Evil Mastermind
Apr 28, 2008

Young Freud posted:

TORG was really big in Japan and lot of the art used in the Japanese edition ended up getting used in the revised editions.
I was wondering what that was about. I thought it was a situation like they had with the covers for a lot of the adventures & later supplements, where they were just using any old art for a few bucks.

Doresh posted:

Torg is the better Sword Art Online.
Yikes.

Young Freud
Nov 26, 2006

Evil Mastermind posted:

I was wondering what that was about. I thought it was a situation like they had with the covers for a lot of the adventures & later supplements, where they were just using any old art for a few bucks.

WEG managed to get the original core books out and it seemed to gather a following. I'm not sure past the covers how much of the interior art changed, but it looks like, given what we've seen from Revised & Expanded, they had a different art direction.










A dojinshi circle ended up slowly releasing unofficial translations of some of the other sourcebooks throughout the late '90s and early 2000s and even running TORG conventions up until then. The same circle I believe even released unofficial cosms sourcebooks like one for the anime Code Geass.



Interestingly, it also seem to spawn it's own rip-off in Japan, called Chaos Flare. A bunch of the writers of that game worked on the localization of TORG during the '90s and the realms are both taken from TORG and various anime with the serial numbers scratched off, although their version of Nippon Tech apparently is 'MERICA gently caress YEAH!

Mors Rattus
Oct 25, 2007

FATAL & Friends
Walls of Text
#1 Builder
2014-2018

Well, if you want to swap national stereotypes...

Desiden
Mar 13, 2016

Mindless self indulgence is SRS BIZNS

unseenlibrarian posted:

There seemed to be a general vibe in 1E that PCs would eventually wise up and join the anarchs, from what I remember, yeah. It's just that playing Camarilla politics made for better LARPing.

Halloween Jack posted:

Thing is, whether LARP or tabletop, the Camarilla actually gives you a structure of NPCs to give you adventures (and compel you to actually go do it), and a system of ranks to work your way up, etc. The Anarchs by comparison are a disintegrated mass that aren't really fleshed out in the corebook. If your group doesn't immediately get the vibe of Vampire, you can have the Prince order them to go do missions like like in D&D or many other games.

Both true things, I think. I always felt like the anarchs got the short end throughout VtM's lifespan. They had no real definition in the beginning, but at least for a very short time before the sabbat PG, they were a distinct voice from the death cult boogeymen. Then the PG happened and the sabbat suddenly had "freedom" as their core tenet, plus they had been like the first anarchs before it was cool and had developed special-do-not-copy Sabbat only powers and rites. So the anarchs started looking essentially like posers who weren't willing to full on rebel.

Of course, then the writers more or less just went along with treating them as an afterthought, which cemented it. They didn't get their own player's guide until what, revised era? And even then (as well as before), they never really got a distinct schtick the way the Cam and Sabbat did. I think the anarch PG finally gave them a few unique powers, but for most of the line it was just "make a cam vampire and give him a leather jacket". The Anarch Free State, which could have been a chance to try to get some sort of distinct theme going for them, basically just used watered down cam equivalents like "barons" as essentially princes over typically smaller areas of turf. Plus then most of the activity in the area was the anarchs getting their asses kicked by Kuei-Jin and other factions.

If I were going to redo the core setting of VtM...well, I'd do a lot of things that would most likely make it not look like VtM much at all. But for recognizeable things, I'd definitely push to have the anarchs be a distinct sect with their own territory, and make the sabbat distinctly more alien and less all preaching vampire freedom. I think the game would have benefitted a lot from 3 active sects.

Evil Mastermind
Apr 28, 2008

Man, those covers are so much better than the ones we got.

Doresh
Jan 7, 2015
Those Japanes covers are neat. I especially dig the ninja and the Cyberpapacy soldiers.

Mors Rattus posted:

Well, if you want to swap national stereotypes...

Hope there are some business suits with stars and stripes on them.

And man, Chaos Flare sounds like it wants to be Super Robot Wars, except with stuff besides the robots. Also lots of pseudo-philosophic nonsense lingo derived from Judeo-Christian mythology and Gnosticism, cause ya gotta have that NGE factor.

Kurieg
Jul 19, 2012

RIP Lutri: 5/19/20-4/2/20
:blizz::gamefreak:

The guy in the middle looks 100% "Welp i failed my possibility roll now I've got c'thulhu face, whatya gonna do?"

Evil Mastermind
Apr 28, 2008

Kurieg posted:

The guy in the middle looks 100% "Welp i failed my possibility roll now I've got c'thulhu face, whatya gonna do?"
Oh you loving wait until we get to the Tharkold book. That guy's practically Chris Pratt by that world's standards.

Imagine the future shown in the Terminator movies, but written by Clive Barker.

Halloween Jack
Sep 12, 2003

La morte non ha sesso

Desiden posted:

Both true things, I think. I always felt like the anarchs got the short end throughout VtM's lifespan. They had no real definition in the beginning, but at least for a very short time before the sabbat PG, they were a distinct voice from the death cult boogeymen. Then the PG happened and the sabbat suddenly had "freedom" as their core tenet, plus they had been like the first anarchs before it was cool and had developed special-do-not-copy Sabbat only powers and rites. So the anarchs started looking essentially like posers who weren't willing to full on rebel.

Of course, then the writers more or less just went along with treating them as an afterthought, which cemented it. They didn't get their own player's guide until what, revised era? And even then (as well as before), they never really got a distinct schtick the way the Cam and Sabbat did. I think the anarch PG finally gave them a few unique powers, but for most of the line it was just "make a cam vampire and give him a leather jacket". The Anarch Free State, which could have been a chance to try to get some sort of distinct theme going for them, basically just used watered down cam equivalents like "barons" as essentially princes over typically smaller areas of turf. Plus then most of the activity in the area was the anarchs getting their asses kicked by Kuei-Jin and other factions.

If I were going to redo the core setting of VtM...well, I'd do a lot of things that would most likely make it not look like VtM much at all. But for recognizeable things, I'd definitely push to have the anarchs be a distinct sect with their own territory, and make the sabbat distinctly more alien and less all preaching vampire freedom. I think the game would have benefitted a lot from 3 active sects.
Another big problem with the Anarchs is that later in the setting's lifespan, it turns out that the Antediluvians are real, they're coming back, they have agents everywhere, their servants are infiltrating both major factions, and only certain powerful elders have any semblance of a plan to stop them. It's impossible to make a case for communism in a world where there really is a Jewish-Bolshevik conspiracy that wants to destroy the world as you know it.

The Vampire: Bloodlines video game, which is set in the Anarch Free State, actual does a much better take on this. The ancient vampire all the factions are worried about really is just some Assyrian mummy. It's a bogeyman that catalyzes what is fundamentally a political conflict between the Camarilla, Anarchs, Sabbat, Kuei-Jin, and other minor antagonists.

Evil Mastermind posted:

Oh you loving wait until we get to the Tharkold book. That guy's practically Chris Pratt by that world's standards.

Imagine the future shown in the Terminator movies, but written by Clive Barker.
Totally looking forward to Tharkold.

Halloween Jack fucked around with this message at 19:36 on Jan 10, 2017

Evil Mastermind
Apr 28, 2008

Oh man, holy poo poo.

So the next realm is going to be the Living Land, and while looking for pictures of Kaah, I stumbled across this: some people apparently RPing as Kaah, Ardinay, and 3327 on Twitter. There's nothing really huge there (at least, as far as I can tell from Google Translate, but still, that's pretty drat funny.

Halloween Jack posted:

Totally looking forward to Tharkold.
That's going to be the one I do right after Living Land.

Alien Rope Burn
Dec 5, 2004

I wanna be a saikyo HERO!

Desiden posted:

Both true things, I think. I always felt like the anarchs got the short end throughout VtM's lifespan. They had no real definition in the beginning, but at least for a very short time before the sabbat PG, they were a distinct voice from the death cult boogeymen. Then the PG happened and the sabbat suddenly had "freedom" as their core tenet, plus they had been like the first anarchs before it was cool and had developed special-do-not-copy Sabbat only powers and rites. So the anarchs started looking essentially like posers who weren't willing to full on rebel.

Nah, V:tM 2e got The Anarch's Cookbook. It was mostly just talking poo poo for 80+ pages, mind, with a bunch of weird optional rules for things like organizational conflict I don't believe were referenced again. I remember it well, though, due to surviving as a simultaneous Camarilla primogen and Anarch leader for over a year in LARP and carrying that thing around a lot. (Being Malkavian buys you a lot of wiggle room.)

Belatedly, since I was on vacation, I don't think Dirty Secrets of the Black Hand wasn't so much the anomaly people often think of it is as, but more of the culmination of the train of bullshit that was the Sabbat faction from the start. The Sabbat faction upended the very notions of the game from very early on, with elements like supernatural body horror diseases and fighting demon worshippers and cursed chainsaws that pushed the game closer to splatterpunk super-anti-heroes. Things like ghost cities and time vampires was really more upping the ante into pure nonsense from where it was, which was already mostly nonsense.

Night10194
Feb 13, 2012

We'll start,
like many good things,
with a bear.

Wait, the Sabbat weren't part of Masquerade from the very beginning?

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Evil Mastermind
Apr 28, 2008

The storm has a name... - Let's Read TORG


Part 16a: The Living Land



A group of survivors carefully picks its way through a New York skyscraper that has been destroyed by and is help up by giant vines and trees. They're looking for food and trying not to be heard by the velociraptor pack hunting outside.

A survival colony deep in the new jungles of Canada defends itself from an attack by fanatical lizardmen. The attackers revel both in the pain on their victims and in the pain they feel as their bodies are shredded by gunfire.

A supply convoy travels slowly along an overgrown path in an attempt to support a survivor colony. Vines the thickness of a man's arm wrap themselves around the vehicles, leaving them vulnerable to the dinosaurs seeking easy prey. The few vehicles that reach the colony will discover that the people there have seen the light of Lalana...and they want to spread the word.

This is no longer the world of men, of technology. This is the world of savagery, of nature run rampant. The land is alive...and it hates you.

A Land Forgotten By Time

Out of all the invading realities, the one most different from Core Earth is the one known as Takta Ker, which literally translates to "Living Land". Takta Ker is almost completely covered by jungle, throughout which roils the Deep Mist; the ever-present dense fog that hides everything. Giant reptiles and beasts roam the land, as it is a world without what we would think of as "civilization". There is currently only one intelligent race on this world: the lizardfolk that call themselves edeinos, worshipers of the goddess Lanala.


An edeinos

Lanala is the central figure of edeinos society, the goddess at the center of the world that grants everything life. The worship of Lanala is the worship of life itself, and to honor Lanala, the edeinos refuse to use tools made of stone, animal parts, or dead plants. These things are all considered "dead things", and are anathema to Lanala. The use of dead things mark you as dead yourself, and as an abomination in Her eyes. It is the duty of all followers of Lanala to destroy these heretics by any means.

It is this belief that, centuries ago, united the innumerable edeinos tribes to wipe out Takta Ker's only other intelligent race; the insectile ustanah. The ustanah were an artistic race, and were just begining to develop an understanding of engineering when when the edeinos sought to bring them the word of Lanala.

When the ustanah politely refused, they were wiped off the face of Takta Ker and their works destroyed. After all, if the ustanah were willing to embrace death, the edeinos saw no reason to deny it to them.

You see, while Lanala is the goddess of life, she is herself unable to experience it directly. Instead, she feels what her followers feel, senses what they sense. Therefore, it is the duty of every edeinos to experience as much life as possible for her. Every sensation, good or bad, is done for her.

The feeling of breeze on your skin is a prayer to Lanala. The reflection of sunlight on a dewey leaf is a prayer to Lanala. The beating of your heart as you hunt your prey is a prayer to Lanala.

The jolt of shock up your arm as your weapon plunges deep into your enemy's body is a prayer to Lanala. The feeling of your own blood spraying as a vicious claw rips into your body is a prayer to Lanala.

And the edeinos are very, very, religious.

quote:

During their war with the ustanahs, the edeinas saw that the tools the ustanahs used could be advantageous. But they were forbidden from creating such things as the ustanah had created them, for such creation involved using items that were dead. They asked Lanala for guidance, and through prayer the goddess granted them liVing plants that would grow in useful ways, thus simulating dead tools.

The war with the ustanahs greatly increased the complexity of edeinos culture, through contact with a new social structure. They transformed from a scattered, unorganized people who depended mostly on the family unit for shelter, to a society with standard religious prayers and a large tribal infrastructure. For the first 500 years after the end ofthe ustanah war, the tribes were separate and frequently at war with each other (for no purpose other than to experience the intensity of combat).
And then, one day, a young edeinos warrior by the name of Baruk Kaah discovered a strange thing that was from "beyond Lanala". It called itself Rec Pakken...which, in Kaah's language, meant "Darkness Device".

Driven by the strange dead-yet-not-dead thing, Kaah began uniting tribe under his own banner. Those who did not follow were sacrificed, those who did were rewarded by being able to kill the dissenters. It took several decades for Kaah to marshall his forces, but once he did he created his first maelstrom bridge and, armed with a an army of fanatics, conqured his first reality.

For years afterward, Kaah traveled across the multiverse, bringing the word of Lanala to new cosms. With each victory, his army only grew, and as his army grew each subsequent victory became easier.

It wasn't long before Kaah came to the attention of the Gaunt Man. An alliance was quickly formed, allowing Kaah to bring the will of Lanala to another dead world.

And so, on Core Earth, during the first game of the 1990 World Series, with the President of the United States in attendance, Baruk Kaah dropped a maelstrom bridge directly onto Shae Statium and sent thousands of his warriors and beasts swarming into New York City. As technology failed around humanity, his forces spread through the streets in a wave that stopped for nothing. A second bridge soon followed in California, and a third in Canada. There was no warning, no way to fight back. In less than a week, Baruk Kaah had overwritten the reality of a sizeable chunk of the North America continent. Yes, others would soon follow around the world, but none of them had the savagery of that inital attack.

The invasion had begun in earnest, and Kaah reveled in the hunt.


Baruk Kaah, High Lord of the Living Land

Make no mistake: Baruk Kaah is a monster.

Technically speaking, Kaah is unqiue among the edeinos because he possesses something the other edeinos do not: vanity. While the rest of his people think in terms of what is good for the tribe as a whole, Kaah is only out for himself. For centuries he's led the edeinos as their Saar, and despite his actions (as we'll see coming up), he is utterly devoted to Lanala. But everything he does is filtered through the idea that only he is worthy of power. All of his followers are there for no other reason than to support him. Anyone who opposes him is a sacrifice to his glory and the glory of Lanala.

In fact, he is so devoted to Lanala, he's convinced that it is his destiny to become her true lover. Not just a follower of her ways, but an equal...or superior. Only he is worthy of her true love, and once he gains enough power he will ascend to godhood and take her as his own. It is his destiny, for no other being in the multiverse is as devoted to her as Baruk Kaah himself.

Kaah's Darkness Device, Rec Pakken, told Kaah about the legend of the Torg, and that by getting enough Possibility energy Kaah could ascend to godhood as Torg. This goal has driven his entire campaign of multiversal conquest, and has resulted in both sweeping victories and crushing defeats. Kaah's general battle strategy tends to boil down to "throw troops at it, choke the rivers with either their dead or our dead, probably both." It's be surprisingly effective due to the Living Land's very low technology axiom and some of its World Laws, which make the use of technology almost impossible.

Baruk Kaah's long-term goal is one single point: become Torg so he can claim Lanala as his lover. That's it. Everything he does is to either further that goal, or to set up his final "gift" to Lanala.

You see, once he becomes Torg, Kaah will spread the reality of the Living Land across the face of Core Earth. Once everyone is converted to his reality, he'll pull back the stelae zones and watch as everyone is killed by the lack of Possibility energy needed to survive a second transformation. This mass painful sacrifice of billions will be his ultimate gift to Lanala: a truly unique experience that nobody but the great Baruk Kaah could create for her.

With such a gift to her glory, how could Lanala refuse his love?

Because he's so focused on his insane goal, he's also unique in that he's set himself up as someone with something to lose. Again, normal edeinos society is based around the tribe, not the individual. Because Kaah only cares about his own goals, he'll ask for (and accept) help from anyone he thinks will give him an edge. Needless to say, this will bite him on the rear end later.

He's also begun embracing the use of technology, which is strictly forbidden by his religion. But again, because he's the one doing it he feels it's okay. That said, he keeps the use of dead things secret from his followers solely because he knows it'd cause problems for his position if he didn't. He's set up a small cult in secret to explore the options Core Earth's technology gives him.

Lanala's Love of Life

Before we go any further, we need to discuss the Lanala and her religion, because it is central to edeinos society.

The religion of the edeinos is called Keta Kalles, and its only divine figure is Lanala. As stated before, Lanala is the giver of all life, and her worship involves feeling sensations on her behalf. Any sensation, good or bad, is important to the edeinos because it's the only way their goddess can experience the world. As a result, Keta Kalles really doesn't have many taboos apart from the use of "dead things".

"Dead things" is a very general term, but one that's easy to understand: anything that isn't alive. The use of dead things is forbidden in Keta Kalles, because in doing so you're turning your back on Lanala's gifts. So pulling branches off a tree to build a basic shelter is forbidden, feeding off the corpse of a beast is forbidden, even just picking up a rock and bashing something with it is forbidden.

Likewise, those who do not follow Lanala are considered "dead". And while the edeinos will try to convert non-believers, they don't see much of a problem with killing them since they're refusing to accept Lanala's gift. That's not to say they won't go out of their way to kill heretics (for the most part), it's just that they have no real problem with it.

The priests of Keta Kalles are known as Jakatts, and they're generally in positions of power. They understand the importance of intense sensations to their goddess, and the key word here is "intense". While the thrill of hunting prey through the jungle is loved by Lanala, so is the sensation of having a broken leg. edeinos won't actively hurt themselves to provide sensations for Lanala, but when they are wounded they embrace the pain, drawing a sort of repture from it. After all, pain is a reminder you're alive, right?

This is why Kaah's army is so frightening. They're not just religious fanatics, they're religious fanatics who don't care about any wounds they suffer in battle. edeinos warriors won't stop fighting until they die; in fact it's not uncommon for a warrior to enter a frenzy and fight harder while being riddled with bullets. Win or lose, everything they do in battle is a prayer to Lanala.



As we always do, let's take a quick look at the Living Land's axioms and World Laws.

Magic axiom: 0 Magic simply does not exist in the Living Land. Period. Any use of magic at all is a contradiction. It's interesting to note that this is the only reality that has an axiom level of 0 in anything.

Social axiom: 7 The most complex social unit in the Living Land, and in fact the central social unit, is the tribe. In fact, the needs of the tribe will override the needs of your immediate family. The Living Land is a very dangerous place with a high mortality rate, so people think in terms of protecting the clan as a whole rather than just one family in the clan. The low social axiom is also the reason for Kaah's dedication to swarm tactics and why the US military had such a difficult time fighting back: the concept of a military structure doesn't exist at this level. The idea that your small group has to follow the orders of that one guy, who in turn is part of a different group who has to follow the orders of a third guy, and so on up the command chain, is impossible at this axiom level. The standard edeinos battle strategy is to basically just have everyone rush and work yourself into a frenzy, and the human soldiers couldn't adapt in time.

Spiritual axiom: 24 The Living Land has the highest Spiritual axiom out of every invading reality. The religion of Keta Kalles pervades every aspect of edeinos society, and the high axiom level means that most of them are capable of performing miracles even if they're not Jakatts.

Technolgical: 7 This...is where we hit a bit of a problem.

I talked about this before, but the Tech axiom doesn't line up with the way the Living Land is presented. This is what's possible at Tech axiom 7 according to the Revised Edition core rulebook:

quote:

Metal is first smelted, tools may be made from first copper and then later from alloys like bronze. Metal hand axes and daggers are state of the art weapons.

Bows are possible, but only with enough punch for small game. Potter’s wheel appears, plow speeds agriculture. Glass, cloth, wine, beer invented. Seaworthy ships are possible but still musclepowered. Oil lamps invented. Kiln-fired bricks used in buildings.
However, as we've already seen, none of these things can exist in edeinos society. Metal is a dead thing, so that's out, which cuts off most basic tool use. Likewise, they wouldn't live in a brick house because (again) that's a dead thing. At best the tech level should be 1 ("Natural objects such as rocks and sticks may be used as very simple tools. Fire can be domesticated but not created."), but I guess the writers didn't want to have a realm with two really low axioms.

Anyway, let's look at the World Laws. They're a little different from the Laws of other realities, in that they're more special mechanics that happen in the Living Land rather than explaining why things are they way they are.

First is The Deep Mist. The Deep Mist is a thick smoky fog that covers most of Takta Ker and that Kaah has brought to his realm on Core Earth. The Mist pervades everything, and alters the weather patterns of the realm so it's always hot and humid. On a clear day, the Mist restricts vision to about 30 meters, and prevents you from really seeing details past 10 meters. If it's cloudy, then the vision limit is 20 meters. At night, you need a strong light source to see beyond 10 meters; past that the Mist diffuses the light too much to see. In addition, Kaah has used his Darkness Device to make the Mist screw with methods of navigation. You can't navigate by the stars, use a compass, or (presumably; they weren't invented yet) use a GPS signal to find your way around. The edeinos get around this through the use of miracles, but you're probably not that lucky.

Second is Lanala's Love of Life. This law states that anything that is dead decays at a vastly accelerated rate. Any living thing that dies in the Living Land will completely decompose within 24 hours; if it was dead before it entered the realm (such as, say, food), then it rots even faster; food prepared more than a week in advance will rot in about 40 seconds, although if it's packaged then the "timer" doesn't start until the package is opened. This makes survival a very moment-to-moment deal, because whatever you kill (or prepare) you need to eat right away. On top of that, using raw materials like wood is impractical because it would rot away too quickly to be of any long-term use.

Lastly, there's the Law of Lost Valuables. This Law states that possessions will not stay in your...uh, possession long. The claws of an attacking creature will slash open your backpack, sending your survival gear into swampy water. You'll drop items when trying to cross rivers, things will vanish from your camp during the night, and so on. This isn't so much a World Law (although it's listed as such in the Revised Corebook) as a way for the GM to screw with players.

Putting this all together, we get one of the most hostile realms on the map. Everything, everything in this world sees you as a sacrifice, a heretic, or food. You can't trust your senses, you can't trust your gear, you probably can't even trust your friends. Survival of the fittest, and all that. Monsters abound just beyond your sight, hunting you, tasting your fear, waiting to chase you down and revel in your bloody death.

...did you just hear a twig snap?

--
This is a very disappointing book.

But not disappointing in the sense of "I don't like it", but disappointing in the sense of how much of it is wasted potential.

Like, go back and re-read that stuff I wrote about Kaah's long term goals. Pretty nasty, right? I mean, Baruk Kaah is lizard Ghengiz Kahn with a side order of religion fanaticism. His "military strategy" always boils down to sending in thousands of fanatical troops to overwhelm the opposition because he has thousands of fanatical troops available to him at any given moment.

Guess what. That gets forgotten by the game line almost immediately. As has come up before, Kaah became the series' whipping boy; almost immediately after the start of the invasion he loses Sacramento to 3327, then he loses about half his overall territory, and things just keep going downhill from there. Eventually he manages to drat near erase himself from reality, but we'll get to that whole metaplot nonsense later.

Compounding the problem is that the writers really had no idea what players were supposed to do in the Living Land. The only real "adventure" they ever presented was realm running: driving trucks of supplies to survivor colonies in the jungle who either won't or can't leave and are trying to eke out a living. Which is fine the first time...but when that's all the writers can think of to do in their own setting, you know you're in trouble. As it is the Living Land barely makes an appearance in published adventures.

I mean, at the risk of bragging, I'm doing a better job presenting the Living Land than any of the official material did.

A large part of the problem, too, is that the Living Land just isn't as well designed as the rest of the realms. Because it wasn't popular, the writers did fewer things with it, and when the writers did fewer things with it it became less popular. It's so bad, I can't even find a picture of Kaah in any of the books. In fact, rather than fixing the Living Land once they realized the problems with it, the writers supplanted it with a whole new realm!

Hell, the remnants of the United States and Canada almost get more page space in the Living Land sourcebook than the Living Land does. Figure that out.


NEXT TIME: Welcome to the jungle, it gets worse here every day.

Evil Mastermind fucked around with this message at 22:10 on Feb 6, 2017

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