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Rifts World Book 14: New West: Part 18: "I'd like to address (again) a few burning questions which I'm asked by Rifts® and Mechanoids® fans all the time." Mechanoids... fans? Bandito Arms So, this is the arms manufacturing end of the Black Market, which in Rifts is turning out to use less as a generic term and more like another name for an organized crime group - at least in North America. It notes that the Coalition actively goes after Bandito Arms mainly because they often deal in stolen Coalition arms and have actively created knock-off versions of Coalition weapons. However, the Coalition hasn't found their central location, which as mentioned earlier, is good ol' Area 51. They also deal in a lot of good from other manufacturers, either bought in bulk, manufactured as knock-offs, or stolen, including rarer manufacturers like Triax or Naruni (at a huge mark-up). Once again, we get a finger-wagging by Siembieda for half a page about how lasers are silent), but I've already gone over this bit twice and I don't need to do it again. Check the review of Rifts World Book 8: Japan for an extended discussion of his odd claims. On to the guns! Though I don't reproduce all the weapon art, most of these are supposed to have a more Western look, which goes with all the fashionable spurs and leather vests. This book will have a lot of "mega-damage weapon designed to look like a real gun!" shenanigans going on.
Now conveniently numbered! Wow, had a lot to say compared to the usual weapons section because the guns are so poo poo this time around, mainly because kinetic weapons are usually punished uneccessarily (unless it's a boom gun) in this game. About the best you could do is outfit the party with BigBores and try and stunlock foes by bouncing them around, but given you're either going to be fighting A) a gang of human-sized foes or B) a big monster, it's not a particularly useful tactic. Could just be painted white with "generic" on them, really. Bandito Body Armor So, it notes that Bandito does knock-offs of old-style Coalition armor, which apparently has the Coalition in a tizzy. Kind of funny that the Coalition can't take them down given they managed to stop an entire multidimensional company from setting up arms trading in North America, but I guess the Bandito have favoritism armor the Naruni didn't. But they also make their own armor, listed below. I can't recall if I've previously mentioned, but now body armor has hit locations, which is advantageous for PCs looking to score sweet headshots, and also killer GMs looking to score sweet headshots. It's also bad news for PCs if your GM is using one of those random hit location charts, but good news if you're looking for an excuse to buy some new bionic limbs.
Left to right: Maverick, Vaqueros, Range Rider, Buffalo. Suddenly switching manufacturers, the Michiganeers at Northern Gun are trying to profit off the western craze with armor that has "a western or Spanish look".
So, it turns out that, as revealed in Japan, that the SAMAS is based on a pre-rifts design, which Bandito Arms unearthed at Area 51. For awhile, they didn't dare build any because they were afraid of the Coalition, and then... well, I guess they stopped being afraid. Almost everybody presumes they're knockoffs of Coalition SAMAS, and Bandito keeps their real source of the technology under wraps. However, the Coalition has responded by making the use or possession of a Bandito-designed SAMAS as a crime punishable by immediate execution. However, in the western territories far from the Coalition States, most people don't know or don't give a rat's rear end. However, sales have been tough because- Rifts World Book 14: New West posted:The main reasons sales are so low in the Western Wilderness is because most people don't know how to pilot power armor, can't afford the armor even if they could pilot them, and because the majority of people are into the retro-look and technology of the Old American West — the SAMAS are too "new fangled" or "Eastern flyin' junkpiles, you should try sellin' em to the Coalition States. I betcha they'd love em. ayup lemme spit into my spittoon and spin some yarns for you about how it's better to have just a lovely horse and the great outdoors than a murderous gunship killing all i see before me I tell you what for that sounds like chincy poo poo for a pussy city slicker who ain't man enough to poo poo in his own shorts and gently caress a horse oh wait i said too much durn SAMAS #6. Bandito "Sidewinder" SAMAS This is based on a SAMAS prototype called the "VT-SAMAS", where "VT" stands for "vectored thrust" which was cutting edge!... in the 19 loving 60s, but is still somehow a big deal with the 20 loving 70s. This is supposed to make it the super-agile dogfighter of the world of flying power armor, but given it loses a huge chunk of M.D.C., it's a bit of a joke. 10% extra chance to dodge doesn't balance out a 25% loss in M.D.C. Issues aside, it can jet around at 250 MPH, has mini-missiles, crappy lasers, and is supposed to carry either a Bandit 6000 Grenade Launcher (crap) or a C-40R rail gun (less crap). It gets a tiny bonus (+1 or +2) to initiative, parry, and dodge, and to get all that it requires that pilot have at least a physical endurance of 16 and a prowess of 15. And they also have to specifically have Elite Robot Combat: SAMAS - the basic robot combat skills won't do. Seriously. Basically Bandito Arms makes trash. Or rather, Siembieda writes bad mechanics that make Bandito Arms' technology trash. I guess if you don't have skulls, you don't get the love. SAMAS #7. Wild Weasel SAMAS Ah, I see they're using Vietnam-era military slang. Makes sense! So, this is supposed to a scout and perform electronic counter-measures to assist other SAMAS models. This does have actual mechanics where the pilot has to roll under their Weapon Systems or Electronic Counter-Measures skill for each missile fire, and if successful, the missile gets -7 to hit. However, you have to roll for each missile in a volley, so if somebody fires 16 missiles, you have to roll 16 times. Mind, one volley only uses one to-hit roll, so I guess that modifies that single roll? It's unclear, as many rules are in Rifts. It also gets a flat 2-out-of-3 chance to jam enemy transmissions, regardless of the pilot's actual skill level. It's the toughest SAMAS around, and jets around at 220 MPH, and in addition to missile interference and jamming, it can also give a targeting uplink bonus that gives up to 24 allies within 50 miles (?!) a small +1 bonus on initiative and dodges. It gets even better defensive bonuses than the Sidewinder with the same requirements for the pilot, plus the pilot has to have the following skills to operate the ECM suite: Basic Electronics, Weapon Systems, and Electronic Countermeasures. Alternately, instead of ECM, they can have Read Sensory Instruments and Radio: Scrambler. Oh, and the specific Robot Combat skill for SAMAS again. Okay, maybe the horse-loving cowboy had a point about this being too new-fangled for most folks - I'm not sure why Bandito focuses on models that even most trained SAMAS pilots won't be able to use! It's weird. It's noted that the Coalition would love the Wild Weasel if A) they knew about it and B) they could manage to get their hands on an intact one to reverse-engineer. Well, it's a "Story Note" that will be largely forgotten. Next: Free range cyborgs. Alien Rope Burn fucked around with this message at 17:28 on Jul 13, 2017 |
# ? Jul 13, 2017 17:18 |
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# ? Mar 28, 2024 20:29 |
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Warhammer Fantasy: Knights of the Grail Wine, food, and material culture: Important to being French Material culture in Bretonnia includes a hell of a lot of wine. Wine is everywhere in the country, to the extent that it's common to drink wine with nearly every meal whether noble or peasant. 'Like a bad wine' is a Bretonnian expression for 'Completely unexpected'; the quality of their vintages is such that Bretonnian wine is one of their major exports. Most people drink it watered down, of course, so that they don't go about life tipsy and so that a bottle will go further. Nobles and people celebrating festivals will sometimes drink unmixed wine, but this is usually reserved for feasts and special occasions. While there is very little bad wine in the country, vinters and connoisseurs compete ferociously to be the best. A bottle of high quality Bretonnian wine can go for over a hundred crowns up in the Empire, enough to feed several families for a year. Brandy is only drunk by the nobility and wealthy merchants, and you never water down brandy. Some of the finest Bretonnian brandies are so valued that one noble family's entire feudal obligation is delivering two of the best bottles to the king's personal reserve every year. Bretonnians take their alcohol really, really seriously. Except their beer. Bretonnian beer makes dwarves cry for the doom and folly of manlings everywhere. Asking an Imperial landlord if his brewer is Bretonnian is a good way to start a fight. Bretonnian food is also famous. The fields and pastures are rich and produce a wide variety of spices and herbs. Used moderately, they can make almost anything delicious. Used liberally, they can make a rotten meal palatable (though you'll still get food poisoning). Peasants have little access to meat, and their food tends to be dominated by vegetable, bread, fruit, and cheese dishes. Noble cuisine is dominated by a variety of meat courses; when a cow is slaughtered in the village, the meat usually goes to the knight as part of the village's feudal obligations. Similarly, while Bretonnian knights are foresworn from using missile weapons for war, hunting with spear and bow (or by falcon and hound) is considered fine practice for battle and a popular diversion all through the country's nobility. Venison, especially, is only permitted to nobles. Peasants caught poaching will be subject to all manner of punishments, and a crueler knight is within his rights to order the peasant ripped apart by his hunting hounds. Serving a meal to guests that one hunted oneself is considered an honor both to the guests and the knight's own household. Serving a meal of vegetables and bread as a noble host is a calculated and intentional insult to one's guests. Brets are also known for eating things other people don't much care for; boiling a frog alive and seasoning and eviscerating it at the table is considered good practice. Snails are fried in garlic and eaten from the shell. Bretonnians take great delight in introducing foreigners to these delicacies, both because uncultured foreign folk tend to scoff at them at first and also because most find them surprisingly decent once they try them. Bretonnian clothing is the same regardless of social class, differing mostly in finery and color rather than basic design. Men wear pants, boots, a shirt, and a cloak for weather or warmth. Cloaks are hooded by custom, but the hood is only to be used for poor weather. Otherwise it serves as a pocket. Knights wear their cloak over their armor, and so a noble wearing a patched and tattered cloak is claiming he is a knight who has seen combat and deserves to have it recognized. Faking battle damage to one's cloak is frowned upon in the extreme. The cloak is usually the best part of a peasant man's outfit, designed to cover over his old breeches and shirt and to make him look a little more respectable and wealthy than he would otherwise. Women wear dresses and skirts beneath the ever-present Bretonnian cloak, with the current noble fashion being one so short that it is mostly a scarf, with a dress that leaves the shoulders scandalously bare. Peasant women wear long cloaks like the men, needing to keep warm and keep off the elements. Bretonnian women always keep their hair covered; showing the hair of your head to anyone but your husband is a scandal. It's said that if a Bretonnian woman was surprised in the bath she'd use the towel to cover her head before anything else. Most Bretonnian women thus keep their hair short, to make it easier to hide it. Grail Damsels are, of course, the exception; their flowing locks are the subject of many romantic poems and as they are outside of society, they are immune to petty scandal. Next: Architecture! Night10194 fucked around with this message at 17:37 on Aug 4, 2017 |
# ? Jul 13, 2017 17:26 |
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Night10194 posted:I promised you wine in Warhammer Fantasy: Knights of the Grail In case you missed this at the bottom of the last page, your previous post made me think: Cythereal posted:Also makes me think Bretonnia might be, odd as it sounds, one of the easiest places in Warhammer Fantasy to be a gay woman. For a setting like this, what you've posted of Bretonnia so far does intrigue me. Could have a lot of fun with the woman pretending to be a man in a society as theatrical and fixated on appearances as this. Even letting her grow her hair long, and her companions attest that she's just one fancy guy.
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# ? Jul 13, 2017 17:38 |
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The reason I like Bretonnia is that nothing about the place is simple. The nobles oppress the hell out of the peasants, but they don't really realize they're doing it. They're socially isolated from the people who serve them. Similarly, the noble knights really are brave warriors who fight the worst monsters in the setting with zeal, and many take protecting their people very seriously. The peasants aren't just passive victims, either. Some of them take up the bow and become Herrimaults, so the forests are full of bands of Merry Men (many of which are women in disguise, some of whom are knights in disguise who are trying to fix problems they can't fix as knights!). Others find all kinds of ways to keep the noble knight away from the village with quests or resolving disputes among themselves so as to get on with surviving. Merchants wander around breaking the rules but paying 'fines' and 'gifts' that are necessary for the economy to function. Everyone is doing what they can to get by, plenty of people strain against and bend their social role, and there's all kinds of places to put a party of player characters who don't quite fit in but can pretend they do. It's similar to how the Empire is a messy hodge-podge of powerful individual provinces, religious strife, regional tradition, and many cultures, where the merchants are trying to buy the world from the nobles. Or how the people of Sylvania tolerate the Von Carsteins because they do a better job than the Von Draks before them or the Stirlanders after them. Places in Fantasy are allowed to be a mess and it gives them much more texture. Night10194 fucked around with this message at 17:46 on Jul 13, 2017 |
# ? Jul 13, 2017 17:44 |
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Yeah, I'm just immediately struck by the PC idea of a powerful, successful woman who wears her hair long, hunts monsters, pursues courtly love with other noblewomen and perhaps even marries one, and is awarded huge honors by liege and lady. But for the sake of saving face because such a person is such a shocking breach of social mores everyone attests that she's a man and she gets on with her life.
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# ? Jul 13, 2017 17:48 |
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Cythereal posted:For a setting like this, what you've posted of Bretonnia so far does intrigue me. Could have a lot of fun with the woman pretending to be a man in a society as theatrical and fixated on appearances as this. Even letting her grow her hair long, and her companions attest that she's just one fancy guy. This is literally one of the example characters.
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# ? Jul 13, 2017 17:51 |
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Also it comes up later but if you get caught being a woman dressing and fighting as a man the punishment by law is that you're sent on a punitive quest. Normally this would be something like 'Go fight the Red Duke but do it in women's dress with a knife' (I met that character as Wil, she was one of the Red Duke's students, who he'd made a Blood Dragon for being willing to come before him and challenge him unarmed and unarmored) but it could be anything. Your punishment for adventuring could just be 'go on more adventures'.
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# ? Jul 13, 2017 17:52 |
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Cythereal posted:Yeah, I'm just immediately struck by the PC idea of a powerful, successful woman who wears her hair long, hunts monsters, pursues courtly love with other noblewomen and perhaps even marries one, and is awarded huge honors by liege and lady. But for the sake of saving face because such a person is such a shocking breach of social mores everyone attests that she's a man and she gets on with her life. I see what you're going for, but I think it would amount to much ado about nothing.
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# ? Jul 13, 2017 17:52 |
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Honestly it'd make a pretty hilarious plot arc. A party of people caught being who they aren't supposed to be who keep getting sent on dramatic suicide missions and succeeding, leading to wide acclaim and fortune while still being officially condemned. Like some kind of crazy medieval French A-Team.
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# ? Jul 13, 2017 17:54 |
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Subjunctive posted:I see what you're going for, but I think it would amount to much ado about nothing. Yeah, but it could be fun[ny] to play. Personally, I'd be all behind inventing a guillotine in Bretonnia and getting started on the Reign of Terror. wiegieman posted:This is literally one of the example characters. Oh, nice.
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# ? Jul 13, 2017 17:54 |
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Cythereal posted:Yeah, but it could be fun[ny] to play. Personally, I'd be all behind inventing a guillotine in Bretonnia and getting started on the Reign of Terror. Sorry, I was making a Shakespeare joke that didn't land.
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# ? Jul 13, 2017 17:55 |
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Somewhere a copy of Monstrous Regiment is sweating profusely.
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# ? Jul 13, 2017 17:58 |
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Basically the only way Bretonnia can function is that everyone has agreed that, regardless of what is actually true, everyone is just going to assume everyone is what they seem to be at face value. It doesn't matter if you are obviously a woman - you're wearing pants and armor and that means you are a knight and therefore a man and no one will ever question this unless forced to do so.
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# ? Jul 13, 2017 18:04 |
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Kurieg posted:Somewhere a copy of Monstrous Regiment is sweating profusely. I scrolled down just to make this reference. And giggle at the Shakespeare joke.
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# ? Jul 13, 2017 18:04 |
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Bretonnia also seem like one of the better places for transmen too for the same reason as it is for Lesbians.
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# ? Jul 13, 2017 18:14 |
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Robindaybird posted:Bretonnia also seem like one of the better places for transmen too for the same reason as it is for Lesbians. We actually had a Bret Knight transman in one of the games I played in. Abel (originally Astrid) was not a woman pretending to be a man, even if he did not have words to describe exactly how he felt about it. We also never actually found out his biological gender in character. He was fantastic. Especially whenever he'd leave our little party of mercenaries and go among other nobles and suddenly go from an awkward, brave young french knight to incredibly suave and charming like someone was turning on a light.
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# ? Jul 13, 2017 18:18 |
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A female identifing guy who adventures would need SOOOO many outfits.
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# ? Jul 13, 2017 18:19 |
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Horrible Lurkbeast posted:A female identifing guy who adventures would need SOOOO many outfits. That's what baggage trains are for. Night10194 posted:Honestly it'd make a pretty hilarious plot arc. A party of people caught being who they aren't supposed to be who keep getting sent on dramatic suicide missions and succeeding, leading to wide acclaim and fortune while still being officially condemned. Like some kind of crazy medieval French A-Team. I would play this game. The saviors of Bretonnia are a woman, a peasant, a flamboyantly gay man, a Strigoi, and a halfling. And for the love of the King and the Lady, they are all proper noblemen who epitomize chivalry and the virtues of the land, got it?!
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# ? Jul 13, 2017 18:54 |
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Also, if I am recalling right, there is exactly one reason a Bretonnian man might dress up as a woman. Bretonnia doesn't have wizards - only witches and sorceresses.
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# ? Jul 13, 2017 19:06 |
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When there's monsters to slay and justice to be done, you can't be picky about who's wearing the pants.
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# ? Jul 13, 2017 19:23 |
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Warhammer Fantasy: Knights of the Grail Giles d'Breton, the Sigmar of Bretonnia (or as they'd say in Bretonnia, Sigmar, the Giles d'Breton of the Empire) Ages ago, the ancestors of the Bretonnians, the Bretoni, came to the land of Bretonnia shortly after most of the elves had abandoned it when they lost their colonies to the dwarves. This in a war the elves had started by shaving the beard of a dwarven ambassador when he came to ask them why elves were attacking dwarven merchants (the elves attacking them were the other side of an elven civil war the elves didn't want to admit was happening). Elves are idiots. The Bretoni were skilled horsemen and used their talents as plains nomads to drive the greenskins off of the ruins of the old elven colonies. They set up there, and began to build sedentary towns and do agriculture. They also attempted to penetrate the wood of the Athel Loren, but when expeditions only produced a few insane survivors, they quickly backed off. When Sigmar sent ambassadors to ask the Bretoni to join his empire, they refused and continued to keep to themselves, refusing to bow to a foreigner. Without the aid of the dwarves, they didn't gain the sudden boost in metallurgy and technology that the Empire did, and began to struggle to hold on against the tide of orcs and goblins that always sought to retake their lands. Chaos and Undead joined in, whittling away at the original twenty tribes of Bretoni. The orcs continued to overrun the Bretoni. They simply didn't have the equipment, numbers, or strength to deal with the seemingly limitless green tide, even without undead and norse raiders pecking at their heels. Every tribe that tried to face these foes alone was crushed. Into this came Giles d'Breton, the young duke of Bastonne, the center-most region of the country. Having slain a dragon and fought hard for his people, he was famous enough to attract other tribal lords to his banner, convincing them to unite in the face of the greenskins to try to relieve their neighbors. As Giles of Bastonne, Landuin of Mousillon (known to many as the greatest knight in Bretonnian history), and his great friend Thierulf of Lyonesse made their way to try to relieve the western realm of Bordeleaux, they came upon something that would change Bretonnia's history forever. While the three lords planned the battle to come, they saw a vision of a beautiful woman standing in a nearby lake, untouched by its waters. She walked across its surface to the three companions and held forth a golden cup, spilling with light. She offered it to them to drink, and when Giles and the companions did so, they found themselves empowered beyond their wildest dreams. As the Lady implored them to go under her sign and conquer, Giles' banner changed from that of a dragon to the visage of the Lady, and thus were made the first of the Grail Companions. The epics of Giles d' Breton speak of twelve great battles fought over the next two years, where he slowly accumulated the other lords of the land who yet lived, the Lady choosing great knights to become his Companions as they battled every conceivable foe to make Bretonnia safe at last. Warriors who drank of the Lady's great gained the ability to strike at spirits and devils as though they wielded magic weapons, no matter what they carried, as well as unnaturally long life and physical strength. Grail Knights are, to this day, literally superhuman. By the time the fourteen original Grail Companions had been gathered, none of the monsters plaguing their land could stand against them. Having made their country safe by unity, they turned and swore their allegiance as dukes to their new King, Giles d' Breton, as the Lady of the Lake herself placed the crown on his head. Then, strangely, while he was sweeping some of the last orcs from his lands, Giles was struck down by an unseen assailant, shot with an arrow out of nowhere. They say he was shot by a minion of the Warboss he was challenging, but for a single missile to drop the great Uniter? It's one of the setting's little mysteries. As he lay dying, he was born away across the surface of a nearby lake, to be with his Lady, and supposedly told his people he would return when their need was greatest. This left the problem of succession. Some wanted Louis, Giles' son, to be crowned king as was the norm of the time for passing on titles. Others argued that if the Grail made men more than men, only one who had supped from the Grail could be king. Louis responded by declaring he would seek it himself, then, and proceeded to go on the first ever Errantry Tour, then to be the first to take up the great Quest, wandering the land in search of visions of the Lady and heroic deeds to do. When he returned, now known as Louis the Rash for his restless and daring life, he shined with the light of the Grail and drew up the accords of Chivalry, to set down how future knights should progress their journey. It was Louis who hammered out the original codes of conduct in war and peace for the Knights of Bretonnia, as well as the periods of proving and the rites of questing for the Grail. He was crowned the second King, and Bretonnia was truly a nation. Next: Errantry Wars, Mousillon's Downfall, and Undead Night10194 fucked around with this message at 17:38 on Aug 4, 2017 |
# ? Jul 13, 2017 19:24 |
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Has there been someone crazy enough to say "gently caress this society, I'm off to the lands of Chaos to kill heathens. Bitches"?
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# ? Jul 13, 2017 19:25 |
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Horrible Lurkbeast posted:Has there been someone crazy enough to say "gently caress this society, I'm off to the lands of Chaos to kill heathens. Bitches"? I mean, in a racist way, the Crusades. Like, I'm not saying it's right, but from their perspective.
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# ? Jul 13, 2017 19:26 |
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Horrible Lurkbeast posted:Has there been someone crazy enough to say "gently caress this society, I'm off to the lands of Chaos to kill heathens. Bitches"? Yes. In either direction, actually. Either 'I'm gonna go fight the hell out of Chaos' or 'I'm off to go where the Gods don't give a poo poo what nationality, gender, or species I am and will give me terrifying hell armor regardless if I prove myself'. Chaos feeds on injustice, which is one of the more interesting bits about it in Tome of Corruption.
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# ? Jul 13, 2017 19:27 |
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So the rulers of the old world feed the gods of Chaos just as well as 40k's Imperium? That's a very delicious irony. Any good stories I can read about people abandoning the sane lands to fight chaos?
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# ? Jul 13, 2017 19:36 |
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It's more...if you try to fight Chaos solely by killing it, you're going to fail. If you burn down entire villages to get one cult, you just create people who want to kill you for murdering their friends and family. Those people are more likely to listen to Chaos. When you oppress your people, they're more likely to listen to things that whisper they have a way to get rid of you. Similarly, debauched nobles and wealthy folk who lose their sense of consequence are more likely to blunder into doing something really stupid that ends in tentacles. This is why, say, Shallya and Verena (healing/mercy and justice/wisdom) are just as important in stopping the Dark Gods as all the warrior Gods. Up until the lovely end times story, what differentiated Fantasy from 40k was that it felt like people had a really good chance of winning. Yes, the world is a mess and full of problems. Yes, you have terrible nobles and vampires all over. But between technology and the real possibility of society figuring out that injustice was one of the things feeding evil, and without the full on idiocy of the Imperium, they looked like they had a good shot at making it over the hump. Night10194 fucked around with this message at 19:41 on Jul 13, 2017 |
# ? Jul 13, 2017 19:39 |
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It's not as if there isn't an entire faction of Chaos that is like 'yes, please, come run at me and fight me, this is exactly the point of what I do, getting people to do that because all conflict is good'.
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# ? Jul 13, 2017 19:41 |
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Night10194 posted:Up until the lovely end times story, what differentiated Fantasy from 40k was that it felt like people had a really good chance of winning. Yes, the world is a mess and full of problems. Yes, you have terrible nobles and vampires all over. But between technology and the real possibility of society figuring out that injustice was one of the things feeding evil, and without the full on idiocy of the Imperium, they looked like they had a good shot at making it over the hump. And you have the lizardmen and slann busy working on the problem at its source. They might not know exactly what they're doing, but they've got a pretty decent shot at cutting off Chaos at the roots.
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# ? Jul 13, 2017 19:45 |
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The Lizardmen are the sanest, most helpful people in the setting. They just get on poorly with most humans because the humans keep trying to steal their gold (which they need for reasons related to the specific but unexplained instructions of the Old Ones) rather than being happy with the pearls they consider worthless, or because humans just keep trying to kill them for looking weird. They were and are the best hope of the world, even with most of their leadership dead and no ability to birth new ones. And they've managed to fight a holding action mostly successfully against the undead and Chaos for millennia, to say nothing of having the trump card against the Skaven in the form of a giant snake god that really, really likes eating rats.
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# ? Jul 13, 2017 19:52 |
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Who also isn't supposed to be a God. There is no God named Sotek. Except he's obviously there, ever since that one skink came up with him. Possibly a hint as to what Gods are, possibly not. Now, if only the lizardmen hadn't ruined the dwarves' empire and caused the first of their many apocalypses by trying to declare war on continental drift.
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# ? Jul 13, 2017 19:55 |
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To be fair they pretty much won that war.
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# ? Jul 13, 2017 19:56 |
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But at the cost of crippling a source of stability in the world.
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# ? Jul 13, 2017 19:58 |
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And doing it for pretty much no reason except that they're a cargo cult of their old masters who don't really know what they're doing anymore. And who knows what their old masters even wanted of the world? E: Which gets at another thing I like about Fantasy: It has the sense to leave some of this stuff up to the reader. I'm sure some would make the Old Ones benevolent creators who just like making things. Others might make them dicks. Two people will have different answers as to if Athel Loren is running Bretonnia entirely through the Fae Enchantress crowning kings, or what the hell Sotek really is or what's going on in that drat forest. There's enough weirdness to fill in your own stuff without being as undefined as 40k. Hell, even the degree to which the lizards know what they're doing is up to the reader. They're not going to tell you. Night10194 fucked around with this message at 20:04 on Jul 13, 2017 |
# ? Jul 13, 2017 19:59 |
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I'm still on the side of my scaly buddies. They are good dudes who have dinosaurs and do good things with them.
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# ? Jul 13, 2017 20:04 |
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A lot of the Bretonnia/Lady of the Lake confusion comes from there being two continuities. There's the end times where the Lady was actually an elven god all along who was collecting worthy mortals for use in the next world, and the old continuity where Ladrielle was an entirely separate goddess who was the patron of Bretonnia and a good friend of Ariel's.
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# ? Jul 13, 2017 21:06 |
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Mors Rattus posted:Also, if I am recalling right, there is exactly one reason a Bretonnian man might dress up as a woman. Before I had ever heard of Bretonnia (in Warhammer I mean), I had just such an idea for a story about a young man whose mother was a witch that was rather irked she'd had nothing but boys who grew up to be wandering knights, so she dressed him like a girl and made him a witch because their society simply didn't do wizards or warlocks. Clearly I need to take another crack at that story but Bretonnia makes it playable. marshmallow creep fucked around with this message at 23:05 on Jul 13, 2017 |
# ? Jul 13, 2017 23:02 |
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Look up 'Lord Fanny.'
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# ? Jul 14, 2017 00:48 |
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We've moved past it, but I always liked this bit of flavor:
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# ? Jul 14, 2017 00:51 |
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Hostile V posted:Anyway, the 24th century was a century of horrific war for mankind. We had left Earth to form colonies and invent amazing new technologies, but chaos and greed and decay permeated the Imperial government and lead to a century of war between nations of Earth and the colonies. Millions were killed by starvation and warfare, countries were left crippled by destroyed infrastructure and every war was fought with either nuclear, biological or chemical weapons (sometimes all three). By the time the year 2400 rolls around, some countries are absolutely sick of constant war and the armistices that accomplish nothing before collapsing. This lead to the creation of the Unification Movement. So the world was consumed with war, and a utopian internationalist movement somehow rose up, seized control of all major armies and governments and dismantled them, removing all their agents from power. But this was a bad thing, because the new One World Government was basically every paranoid fantasy about the Liberal Agenda. I mean I know this is a low-budget, low-effort, ill-considered background written to setup up what the authors really wanted to focus on, and is probably overwritten even at 4 pages. But it still has me doubting that the authors are pleasant people. As for the mechanics, I think the game's goals would be better served by a rules light-ish system grounded in psychological horror, like Cold City, with the addition of some combat crunch. Because it's OK to want filthy storygaming and tactical combat in the same game.
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# ? Jul 14, 2017 01:03 |
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# ? Mar 28, 2024 20:29 |
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As someone who has generally had enough exposure to really, really awful right-wing thriller fiction that generally has a hypercompetent yet woefully foolish and stupidly doodooheaded Liberal Menace as the main enemy, you are absolutely correct. The main issue I have with backing that line of thinking up is that this is such a small company and a general search of authors says their RPG careers are generally over; their small indie company based on the back of d20 is now on life support and they never made it big, they never really made it out past 2012 to share their terrible opinions openly and in a more public forum or on social media. That being said. There is still plenty in the text of this whole shebang that I don't really need a a smoking gun, I just have a lot of weird stereotypes and awful attempts to shock and scare and be adult and mature that I can very easily point at being the authors' stances. And oh yes I definitely agree because I guarantee you'll hate the psychological horror mechanics.
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# ? Jul 14, 2017 01:38 |