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Rigged Death Trap posted:Except not No, Catherine was the smart and highly effective one who oversaw a period of adroit diplomacy and prosperity for Russia while boinking a considerable succession of strapping young men.
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Aug 21, 2017 22:14
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Cythereal posted:No, Catherine was the smart and highly effective one who oversaw a period of adroit diplomacy and prosperity for Russia while boinking a considerable succession of strapping young men. And a Horse? or was that a different Tsar?
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Aug 21, 2017 22:36
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The horse thing is believed to have been popular slander without any actual backing to it, IIRC.
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Aug 21, 2017 22:40
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Kurieg posted:And a Horse? or was that a different Tsar? That was popular press of the day in western Europe making poo poo up about a reigning foreign empress (the horror!) who was popular (gasp!), successful (oh my!), and openly promiscuous (just not right!). Now if you're talking about horsemen, many of Catherine's lovers were cavalry officers. But no, Catherine never hosed a horse despite urban legends to the contrary.
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Aug 21, 2017 22:41
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Horrible Lurkbeast posted:An immortal avenging polar bear should be cannon in every campaign. I, too, enjoyed Iorek Byrnison and feel Panserbjorn should be in many, many more games.
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Aug 22, 2017 02:19
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 To Kill A King Or "I Know Writers Who Use Subtext And They're Cowards." Continuing DW's habit of using real places, Tucumcari Mountain is a real mesa out in New Mexico. A town exists outside of the mesa and they've painted a big ol' T on the side of it. Fun fact: Radiator Springs in Cars is based on Tucumcari. Anyway you may be wondering how we've ended up here when the last adventure had A-Team raiding an abandoned military base protected by an indestructible military robot. To explain that, we have to rewind a little bit. After the fall, the Clean Water Clan of merchants took over the mesa (I'm not referring to it as a mountain, it's a mesa) and built it into a fortress. Tucumcari became the biggest trade city on the west side of the Wei Shan (Rocky Mountains) and flourished wildly. Unfortunately, when any city gets too big out in the wasteland, it attracts attackers. The Clan and their allies were driven from Tucumcari by the Bei Man, a tribe of people who style themselves as the true heirs to America. Lead by the warlord Uncle Sam, they took Tucumcari as part of their claimed birthright due to it being an American landmark. The idea was to use the mesa town as a stronghold against the Brotherhood of Radiation and the NuChurch. And while it was a hard-won victory, it wasn't enough to stop the expansion of the Brotherhood and Church. The Bei Man are losing their land and unable to utilize Tucumcari like the Clan did and Uncle Sam is afraid of the defeat of his people. So the Bei Man are weakened, but they're not out of the fight yet, still clinging to their American ideals of freedom and self determination. The NuChurch and its NuPope is the biggest threat to their way of life, especially with how the NuPope has subjugated all of the North and created a forced-homogenous army of Beastmen, Mutants, Ghouls and Humans who fight for the NuPope and his robot army. And the sinister NuPope is scheming to have Uncle Sam killed for one big reason: out in the Bei Man lands, beneath the town of Newhome, is something the NuPope believes could be used to rebuild civilization under his glorious vision of forced subjugation and mandatory religious equality. Killing Uncle Sam will cause the Bei Man tribes to collapse and fight over who'll take the reins so the NuPope's army can just roll into town and seize what he wants.  Side note: this entire module chain is based on one of the books written by Dominic Covey called "Burning Lands". If you've heard of the book (how) you can...play along with the book you like. Yay. I'm including snippets of the book that this book provides.  Anyway that doesn't really explain why A-Team is involved in any of those. They've been captured by the Bei Man. The official justifications for why your party is involved are:
 It's recommended that this song be played for environment: Luang Prabang by Dave Van Ronk, or something familiar to emulate the oral musical tradition of the Bei Man. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_w5JlDn9WCw     The robed figure is Mouse, a psychic "witch" trained by the Mothers of Fate to harness inner psychic powers (a DC 15 Knowledge: Twisted Earth check will reveal this). Uncle Sam uses her as an advisor, a seer and an assassin-deterrent. The Mothers send their young daughters to the courts of warlords and kings to cement alliances and...[sighs] sometimes serve as wives because of course. This is because the Mothers don't have a lot of numbers to defend themselves. In reality, Mouse is...not any of this.  Uncle Sam offers A-Team a cold beer and explains why he had them captured. He knows of their prowess and he wants their help solving a problem. The problem in question is that he suspects there to be a spy in the court who wants to kill him. He points at a map that depicts the Jia Lang and land around it and how their holdings are diminishing. During this celebration of Thanksgiving, he fears an assassination attempt from the Brotherhood, the NuChurch, the Clan or the Midway Merchants. He has protection in the form of Mouse (who remains silent unless poked) but doesn't feel like he can trust his own men to protect him physically. So to this end, here is A-Team and here is a job.  The team are mixed on the notion of protecting Uncle Sam. He is a grandiose warlord who cultivates the image of an all-American king from his beard to his beer belly (a sure sign of Bei Man heritage). He does his best to be noble, kind, charitable, brave and wise, but he's also impulsive and brash and entitled...and kinda racist.   Regardless of his attitude against...most of A-Team....the money and the prestige is good. Plus who else can say they got to celebrate the Bei Man holiday of Thanksgiving? THANKSGIVING  Thanksgiving is the time when all of the tribal leaders come together to give thanks to their fearless leader. It's a grand display of spectacle and revelry with Bei Man tribes from all across the desert coming to Tucumcari to celebrate. The leaders at this event are:
I've Heard of Overlap Between Thanksgiving and Christmas But This Is Ridiculous Boren and Karos present Sam with persimmon wine grown from his valley farms, a gift that pleases Sam quite a bit. He insists that it be served with dinner and anyone drinking it can make a Knowledge check to realize that it's not what he claims it to be. The wine is actually from the NuChurch's vineyards in Utah, provided by the NuChurch to be tribute because the NuChurch has basically usurped all of Boren's farmlands and he can't go emptyhanded. Lee presents a chest full of corium pieces with a wide grin and is immediately shocked when Sam kicks the chest over. Instead of thanks, Lee receives an angry rant from his king about how the Bunyan Boys are dishonorable for daring to trade with the Clean Water Clans. Lee pulls back, sullen and unhappy. Starr and the Free present five Carrion Raptors to be cooked for the Thanksgiving feast as the main course. They also have a large supply of fermented goat milk for everyone to get drunk on but that's not part of the tribute. Sam is more than happy to have the raptor meat for dinner. Gomez and the Us present a dozen gleaming guns and is also greeted with anger. He chews Gomez out for his raiding and goes so far as to demand that Gomez apologize to him in front of everyone. Gomez doesn't, instead yelling at Sam that maybe if he did his job and ruled they wouldn't have to turn to raiding to support their tribes. This enrages Sam and eventually Gomez pulls back to allow the room to cool off. Lastly, Nanok approaches the throne and apologizes that he has no gift to offer his king but a continued pledge of loyalty. The entire court goes quiet at this because oh man if Sam yelled at them for their gifts, surely Nanok is going to get in trouble. Well, Lee and Gomez aren't happy when Sam graciously accepts Nanok's gift saying that this is all a true American could ask for. Starr is also angry because she feels personally one-upped by this and everyone is also rather annoyed that Sam is letting the white guy get away with coming empty-handed. To defuse tension, Sam orders the raptors to be cooked and for a traditional game of Headball to be played. Loosely based on football, headball is a game where Bei Man tribesmen kick around the severed head of a worthy foe, thrown or carried or kicked or batted or baton'd or clubbed into the goal of the other team. It's bloody, it's violent, it's a Bei Man classic sport that lightens the mood. The headball game is meant to give the PCs some time to explore the gathering and spy on the leaders. Of note is Karos exploring the once-lush gardens of the city and how he comes across the entrance to the old Water Vaults where the Clan once kept their water, brushing aside enough rubble to open the entrance but maintaining innocence if he's caught doing that.  Things heat up when the raptor meat starts getting passed around; the Free break out the fermented goat hooch and Boren's wine. The Free start getting pretty drat drunk and eventually Lakko gets so pissed-drunk he picks a fight with a member of the Brave. The PCs should try to subdue Lakko so that things don't get much worse. Use these stats for Lakko:  Once headball is over, here comes the Test of Skill and Loyalty. Sam takes a serving girl and puts an apple on her head, commanding the tribal leaders to hit the apple off her head to prove their worth. Complication: a lot of them are angry and everyone's been drinking pretty heavily. Boren is the only one exempt from this game. Starr and Nanok are the first to go, with Starr using a pistol and Nanok using a throwing axe. The environment between the two of them is incredibly hostile with both tribes goading each other on while the other goes. Starr has a few misses but manages to get it on the fourth go despite how much her aim wobbles. Nanok, on the other hand, is so sloshed he clearly can't aim straight. If A-Team wants to intervene they can but they'll be seen as dishonorable for doing it. Once Nanok misses the apple (and the girl, thankfully) twice, everyone makes him sit down because he's clearly too drunk to be throwing axes. Lee goes next with a pistol, hand shaking from the drink but focused on the goal, casually hitting the apple on the first go and bragging about how it ain't no thing. Then Sam stands up and says "alright, let's up the ante then" and puts an apple on his head. What Sam is doing is trying to goad Lee into proving he's the assassin. In reality, Lee definitely isn't and despite being mad at his king he's terrified of hitting him (Sense Motive check to realize this). If the PCs don't intervene, Lee manages to make the shot and lets out a sigh of relief as the entire crowd applauds him and Sam softens a bit at the display of loyalty (and also fear). Then Starr pushes Nanok a little too far for being too drunk to throw an axe and Nanok throws a wild punch at Starr. A fight breaks out between the Free and the Brave and Sam tries to put an end to it by getting between the two brawling tribesmen. The PCs can choose to not intervene; if they don't, Boren drags Sam out from between them to keep him safe and the bodyguards from each tribe lay into each other as their leaders brawl with knives and axes and deadly weapons. And unfortunately this is when Boren makes his move.  The Attack Originally the secret serviceman in charge of protecting Sam, he was released when the Bei Man took Tucumcari so he could form his own fiefdom. Boren's homestead was formed in a valley in the Rocky Mountains and he and his servants raised horses and grew crops for the Bei Man, living a comfortable life...until the NuChurch moved in with missionaries asking permission to make camp on a mesa above his valley. He agreed, hesitant but not really able to say no lest the Church attack the Bei Man under pretenses of being dishonorable, putting on the airs of a gracious host for a year. But then the missionaries' activities started eating into the water and food of the area, and Boren took two of his sons up to the mesa to see what the hell was going on. What he didn't expect was that the missionaries had built a fort on the mesa and were excavating abandoned pre-Fall ruins beneath the ground. He retreated when he and his sons were chased by zealots...but then one of his sons fell from his horse and was bitten by a rattle charmer. Surrounded and with his son injured, Boren surrendered and accepted healing care by the Church's bishop, a man named Ossum. The deal ended up being "we'll save your son but if you don't kill your king for us, he dies".  So this brings us to now with Boren in the throne room with his king and the PCs. Boren can either be A: committed to this mission but gives Sam a sword so it's a honorable duel instead of an assassination, B: morally conflicted, drawing his sword but able to be taken down by A-Team/talked down by A-Team or C: originally committed but deciding he can't do it. Unfortunately, if Boren is stopped, the other assassin kicks into gear: Boren's son Karos. Karos Borensson was named after a man Boren respected who died in the siege of Tucumcari. The younger of the sons who accompanied Boren up to the mesa, Karos was actually tortured to death by the NuChurch's inquisitors. This would've immediately ruined Boren as an assassin, but lucky for them Ossum has uncovered a defunct android facility and used its technology to replicate Karos. This Karos acts and looks just like a young teen would but is really a killer robot whose main directive is to kill Sam in case Boren can't do it. He doesn't talk much and his cloak covers all of the tools of the trade the NuChurch have given him.   So when A-Team talks down Boren, Karos switches into killer robot mode and starts trying to shoot Sam, retreating when the bullets and arrows and beatings of A-Team damage the robotic son. He turns invisible (but still can be seen because he's moving and all shimmery) immediately flees for the escape route he's created for himself: the Water Vaults, his act of innocent exploration actually an intentional work of excavation to provide a secret escape route so he can return to the NuChurch. The android flees across Tucumcari and A-Team follows, deep into the darkness of the Water Vaults.  THE WATER VAULTS  Because we can't have a module without a gentle hint of dungeon. The Water Vaults were originally where the Clean Water Clan kept their product, but the Bei Man have largely emptied the reserves with excessive consumption. Making things worse is that a monster has inhabited the Vaults and the Bei Man have just abandoned it totally, leaving it sealed up. The NuChurch programmed Karos to defend himself (he's not expendable in the slightest) and they determined that the abandoned Vaults would be the best escape route. The monster got in somehow so there's gotta be a way out. They never bothered exploring the Vaults but hey, we built a robot, it can take a monster, right?  Karos flees into this hole and A-Team follows him deeper into the abandoned area.  The stairs lead down into the crystal cisterns, a place where the Clan used to hide women and children and important Clan figures in times of war. Now it's abandoned save for a chorus of distant, eerie croaks.  The cave was originally half full and fed by waterfalls that have since dried up. The machinery used to ferry the water up still remains and what little water is left is soiled with poop (Knowledge: Mutant Lore to realize it's Underling poop). In the shallows of one pool is an abandoned iron chest marked with a * requiring a DC 20 Search check. The iron chest was left behind by fleeing Clan merchants and the Bei Man never found it. Inside is a gigantic haul of corium (12,500 pieces!) that the Bei Man will want for themselves. If A-Team wants to keep all of it, they'll have to smuggle it out somehow.  Each cave was meant to be a further hiding place for the family of the Clan's Mandarin and his family. Now it's home to 11 Underlings, mutants that live in dark caves and are commonly slaves of the Sandmen. These Underlings have a master further into the Vault and actually came here with him when their master fled their old town because trade dried up and they couldn't prey on people. 1d4 Underlings are in each cave and they'll mostly just hide unless their master tries to force them to help him. Fighting the Underlings has a one in six change of them having 40 CP worth of trinket loot only fit for selling.   This is where the exit to the Water Vaults are. This is also where the Sandman Chieftain known as Shurkal lives along with his pet mutant, The Beast.  Karos ran face-first into the Beast and was torn to shreds. Shurkal is an oddity amongst Sandmen, being willing to take slaves instead of just murdering and eating captives and would often maul them and use them as live bait to capture more travelers. Before abandoning his old home and his old tribe, Shurkal found the Beast and tore off his ears and cut off his tongue before torturing him into going from a dimwitted mutant into a crazed killing machine. His microcephalic head is encased in a riveted mask and his body is covered in bone spurs and muscle and scars.   The fight is complicated in that Shurkal will, instead of fighting, make Intimidate checks to force the Underlings to join the fight, summoning 1d4 for each successful check. If the Beast is killed first, then they'll all just come out since the thing that ate and tortured them is gone. So, naturally, A-Team focuses all of their attacks on the Sandman controlling the hulking mutant and the Beast flees out into the desert and the Underlings remain hidden until A-Team kills them all. Ultimately the spoils of the fight are five doses of Neversleep, Karos' drained power beltpack, a box of 14 9mm rounds, six Christmas ornaments made out of petrified popcorn (only usable as projectiles for a sling) and a pouch of 26 scorpion stingers, the currency of Shurkal's old town (worth 1 CP each). If this was a one-off mission, Uncle Sam would give them goods and money befitting their level (this is meant for level 4-5 parties, A-Team is level 5). Killing the Underlings also nets a smaller gift. The final gift is the freedom to pass through the lands of the Bei Man with no further issues, officially protected by the word of their king. However, we're gonna get in here good and deep into this entire module chain because it's based on a book written by the creators. So we're gonna run this poo poo into the ground and this happens:  Questioning Boren after the attempt/questioning him as he lays dying leads to the following info:  And unfortunately Mouse has been listening in on the proceeding, having been fired by Sam for her failure to actually be psychic. Actually employed by a sinister employer, Mouse jots this info down and flees in the night to deliver it. Come morning, Sam is enraged to find her gone, deputizes A-Team as his new permanent bodyguards and sends A-Team to find her and follow her because that leads us into our next module, a little story called MOUSETRAP. So NEXT TIME we go back to the end of Abandon All Hope to finish Chapter 5 of Oblivion and what actually happened at Charybdis. Vox Valentine fucked around with this message at 14:12 on Aug 22, 2017 |
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Aug 22, 2017 03:46
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I don't know what in D4C is happening here but thank you for linking that song. You're a loving hero.
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Aug 22, 2017 04:14
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Warhammer Fantasy: Realm of the Ice Queen. Gettin' real sick of every country usin' its own calender, hams More than any other human nation in Warhams, Kislev's history revolves around battle. This is for a couple reasons. First, the various sane people of Kislev weren't united by an inspiring speech or an outside threat, they were united by force of arms as one faction proved dominant. Secondly, someone or something is always, always attacking Kislev. It isn't just minor raiders or nuisances like the Empire and its Beastmen, or Bretonnia and its constant skirmishes with orcs. Kislevites call it the 'Spring Driving', when the various marauder tribes and Norse send young warriors out to prove themselves and kill for the gods, and often assemble actual armies with over-ambitious goals of destroying all of Kislev. These are a people that respond to 'I AM LORD OF THE END TIMES, KNOW ME AND DESPAIR' with 'You're early this year.' There were originally many tribes on the steppe, before they began to come together and form larger kingdoms and armies. While the names of many of the original horse tribes have not survived the roll of millennia, many of their small traditions and tribal spirits have. In the time of Sigmar, the largest tribes were the Ungol and Dolgan, and the smaller Roppsmenn. The Dolgan were the weaker of the two major tribes, looked upon as unclean because their Gods and Spirits were far, far too close to the dark gods of Chaos. The Ungol, meanwhile, had their own tribal gods that were safer and more seemly, but lived much like their Kurgan neighbors over to the northeast in the great Eastern Steppe. They rode their horses, grazed their cattle, raised their families, and fought among one another from the saddle, as well as raiding the smaller Roppsmenn, the favorite punching bag of both Ungol and Dolgan. What caused things to change was the first great migration into their lands. You see, there was some southern warlord named Sigmar who had won his battles among his people, but some had refused to follow him. So to avoid kinslaying, he drove them north into the lands that he and his people thought were unlivable, which would be modern Kislev. The Ungol suddenly had a migrating host of Norsii tribal warriors attacking their pastureland to settle, and the tribes united to battle them and drive them off. They succeeded, driving them further to the north and west into modern Norsca, but were greatly impressed with the bravery of their enemies and built a great cairn to honor the original leader of the Norsii, who had fought them fiercely. Fresh off the heels of seeing off this first migration, the fighting and opportunity for plunder stirred up the orcs of the World's Edge Mountains. Even united, the Ungol weren't enough to hold off a full orcish army, especially not after their war with the Norsii. Kislev and the Ungol were in serious danger of being destroyed, but thankfully the southern warlord turned out to hate orcs more than anything else. Knowing the orcs would sweep down from the steppe next if they weren't stopped, Sigmar took an army of tribal warriors and went to the aid of a great Ungol warlord, the two of them fighting side by side to personally slay the Warboss of the great host. They swore then that when these northern lands were sorely pressed, or when the south faced destruction, the tribes would work together to stave it off. So when Sigmar went to his great battle at Blackfire Pass alongside the dwarfs (we'll get into that in Sigmar's Heirs), the Ungol sent horsemen and warriors to join him. Meanwhile, when the greenskins threatened the Ungol again, Sigmar's tribal warriors would march north to fight alongside their allies. While a united Kislev is a 'new' thing, the alliance between the Empire and Kislev is not. The Eternal Treaty signed by Magnus the Pious is simply a formalization of an arrangement that has existed on and off again for over 2000 years. In 1500 Imperial Calendar, things changed again. The Ungol had prospered, built cities, and begun farming and living a more sedentary life in addition to their traditional steppe wanderings. But the increasing Chaos presence on the Eastern Steppe was driving any sane peoples away, as the Kurgan expanded and monsters became more and more common. One of those sane peoples was the Gospodar, a very wealthy steppe tribe led by the Khan-Queen Miska. Miska was the first of the Ice Witches, a woman of enormous strength with a sword or with a spell, and she and her great host of horsemen drove the Ungol north and west, forcing them to crush the remaining Dolgan and Roppsmenn in their flight from Miska's legions. Even this did not protect them, as the Khan-Queen's magic was a force for which the Ungol had no answer. She and her Gospodar crushed the great city of Praag, turning the walls to ice and then shattering them with her magic. Having defeated her enemies, Miska left her sword to her daughter Shoika, and told her people that she had foreseen something terrible coming from the north. She promised to return when her people needed her most, and rode off into the Wastes by herself, armed only with her magic; some people who are trying to flatter the current Tsarina (or who have seen her magic, because she is in the running for most powerful human mage in the setting) whisper that she may well be the reincarnation or return of Miska herself. Shoika founded the city of Kislev, declared this to be Gospodar Year 1, and rode west to crush the last remaining Ungol city, Novard, which is modern Erengrad. She dreamed of a unified country, and by this point, it could only be unified by arms. Too much blood had already been spilled to do it otherwise. She declared herself Tsarina, lord of all peoples of the north, and within two years she had forced the Ungol to agree. Within a few years, the Gospodar and Ungol had rebuilt Erengrad (they changed the name when they captured it) and rebuilt the walls of Praag, and were beginning to be called Kislevites, after their new capitol. The Kislevites also retook all territory lost to the Empire over the years, pushing the southern border back to the Urskoy river, since the Empire was busy with its long decline in the Time of Three Emperors. Thus began the state of affairs that would last for 750 years, as Tsars and Tsarinas of Gospodar descent ruled the southern cities and demanded the homage of the Ungols in the north. Meanwhile, the Ungol and Gospodar intermarried and intermixed, their cultures coming together even as they remained a bit separate. The south and north of Kislev may be different places, but they can all agree on one thing: gently caress Chaos. Next: gently caress Chaos.
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Aug 22, 2017 14:35
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One of the things I like about the ice witches and how they fit the description of the khan queens s is that mechanically you can max out the Ice Witch path and immediately go into Captain for near max combat and army skills in the same time it takes someone else to become a Wizard lord. It seems like a really powerful combo, if not Bray Shaman broken.
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Aug 22, 2017 18:26
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Warhammer Fantasy: Realm of the Ice Queen gently caress Chaos So, Kislev has always had to deal with Chaos. Its entire history, Chaos attacks Kislev. Some of the Steppe tribes have always listened to the darker spirits from the north, and the Kurgan and Norse have always raided to prove themselves. Kislevite towns and villages are used to defending themselves from these raiders, who they call Kyazaks. Every Kislevite town or village is required to provide a rota, a unit of soldiers. They're not quite militiamen (that would imply poor training and equipment) and not quite the full-time career soldiers of the Empire, since each rota is under the command of its village and is intended to be the standing force and patrol for that village. In the north, these rotas are made up of Ungol horse archers, who fight much in the way of the Kurgan that they're defending against do, and who focus on wide-ranging patrols to protect travelers and herds. Gospodar settlements in the south will pool the town's money and pay to equip a rota of winged lancers, the Kislevite equivalent of knights. Because of the huge area they have to cover, most rota troops are horse-mounted. The cities and their nobles also provide rotas of troops, though more of these will be footsoldiers (especially since the foundation of the Streltsi, the gunmen), but these city-troops are much more numerous and more richly equipped, and more directly linked to the Tsarina. Every couple decades or centuries, the Kurgan or Norse will unite under yet another Lord of the End Times or God of Destruction or whatever they're calling themselves this time and form real armies. When this happens, rotas are formed together into a larger army under an appointed, Gospodar Boyar called a pulk. Depending on how potentially apocalyptic the threat is, multiple pulks may be called up and sent at it. One is usually enough for a normal tribal rising. The Great War Against Chaos, in 2301 IC, is one of the times where it wasn't. Interestingly, this book calls Asuvar Kul a 'half demon'. I've never seen this appellation applied to any Chaos Lord before, not even in Tome of Corruption, and I wonder if it means he was near to ascension, describes a particularly frightening set of mutations, or if it's actually quite literal and he was genuinely unique in being demon-spawn. Kul united both the Kurgan and the Norse, and other peoples besides, and marched south, beating the first few pulks sent at him and sacking Praag, though the defenders held him for six months of siege. He made his way through Kislev slowly, doing as much damage as he could, but the defeat of Praag and the utter ruin he had brought to the city galvanized the people of Kislev to unity against the threat. Unfortunately for them, the Empire was still in pieces, and so while Magnus the Pious went about getting the Empire's poo poo together and beating it into the head of the Ulricans to stop the civil wars, Kislev had to hold as long as it could. Dwarfs from the World's Edge Mountains came to reinforce the city of Kislev itself, recognizing that if it fell, Kislev was going to go with it. The Kislevite account of the great final battle at Kislev emphasizes the role of the Kislevite cavalry, of course, painting a picture of Magnus's great charge faltering as he challenged Kul himself, and being bouyed to victory by the sudden arrival of a great host of Winged Lancers who had just returned from trying to save Praag. At the same time, the dwarfs led the defenders of the city out into a final sally, while Magnus took Kul's head in personal combat. Being hit by three armies and having their general killed was too much, and the battle turned into a terrible rout for Chaos. The Kislevites still call the ridge the Lancers rode down from the Hill of Heroes to this day. Still, while Kul's deliberate, patient style of thorough devastation did eventually get him killed, he had done immense damage to Kislev. The next century was a dark time in Kislevite history, as they struggled to rebuild and fight off the remaining demons, blight, and monsters that had been left in the wake of Kul's army. Other enemies took advantage of the reduced rotas and savaged population to launch their own raids, and Kislev struggled. Tsar Vladimir Bohka, grandfather of Tsarina Katarin, emptied nearly the entire royal treasury and bullied multiple Boyar houses into bankrupting themselves to pay for mercenaries, gunpowder weapons to equip a new model of troops, and engineers and laborers to rebuild lost towns and villages. He rallied the peoples' spirits and led armies north in a thorough and systematic campaign that matched Kul's, but in reverse; where Kul had burned and slaughtered, the Tsar Bohka rebuilt. When Vladimir died fighting goblins east of Kislev, his son Boris took the throne. Boris would revive the traditional cult of Ursun, the bear god, mostly by finding a totally awesome polar bear buddy he then rode into battle. Boris was a fiery, likeable man with an easy demeanor, and while he eventually fell in battle, he finished much of his father's work. Also I was wrong; the book definitely says the popular legend is that his bear buddy is still out there, eternally fighting Chaos and taking revenge for his awesome Tsar pal. With Boris' death at the defense of the Lynsk, his adult daughter, Katarin, ascended the throne. At first a distant, but competent ruler, she has had to become much more personally involved in military matters due to the Storm of Chaos. She only had four years to secure her throne and get matters in order before our good friend Archaon the Everfailure showed up to get clubbed in the face. When he first showed up, the Grand Theoganist of the Empire, Volkmar the Grim, the man who reformed the Witch Hunter orders and was generally elected because he looked like he could fight his way out of a power metal album covers, immediately took up his hammer and went to go fight the fellow. Sadly, GW's writers were still trying to feed better characters to Archaon to make him scary at this point, so Kislev and Volkmar's first attempts to kill him failed, and Volkmar died in the attempt. Due to an obligation to pretend Archaon was really scary, the book tries to paint him as having learned from Kul's loss and thus trying to ignore Kislev to get at the Empire, explaining the relatively minor damage he did compared to Kul. He left behind a few lieutenants and mid-bosses to try to deal with Kislev, and they lost to armies led by Katarin and several prominent Boyars. Meanwhile, Archaon lost the war down in the Empire, since he drove in deep without securing his back then tried to lay siege to a heavily fortified position by attacking the walls directly every day for two months. Again, dude was not a good general. So, there's Kislev today. Some of the work of fixing the place up was undone by the Chaos horde passing through again, but they mostly managed to fight it off this time. They're bloody, unbowed, and ready for your PCs to come in and help clean things up. The Tsarina's throne has been very clearly secured by her successes during the Storm of Chaos, and she now looks to centralize her power further, as almost every Tsar has tried to do. As well as all the rebuilding and remnant-fighting you can get up to, there's plenty of intrigue and jostling over how much Kislevite power ought to be centralized, and of course Chaos left behind plenty of cults, crime, and disruption in its path for PCs to investigate and deal with. E: What's really interesting is just how *little* mention the Storm really gets in Kislev's history. This was one of the last books in the gameline before it was closed due to GW shuttering RPG production and I think they were both getting really sick of talking about it, but also really wanted to take Kislev's reaction in a different direction. In Sigmar's Heirs, written 2 years prior, there's a ton of emphasis on how much damage was done to the Empire and how Archaon totally really messed things up and maybe things will never recover and we're all doomed anyway! Here? He does way less than Kul and Kislev shrugs and gets back to the more interesting parts about how the Tsarina plans to make use of all that fame and glory she just won, or how the Ungol are considering a breakway republic since Praag didn't get hosed up too much this time, or any of the other more interesting plots than trying to pretend the Storm of Chaos was apocalyptic. Next: They recognize Katarin is Tsarina, and that they are her subjects, but would be very surprised to find out the Bokha Palaces expect to be able to tell them what to do. Politics in Kislev. Night10194 fucked around with this message at 19:26 on Aug 22, 2017 |
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Aug 22, 2017 19:15
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 Part 7: "The addict feels a surge of almost sexual pleasure as the fleeting spirit of his victim momentarily touches him"  Chapter 4 Continued The Mayombe Named after the Kongo-descended Cuban religion of Palo Mayombe, the Mayombe are Voodoo spirits that have been tainted from their original form and become Corruptors. Apologies to Alien Rope Burn, as I’ve decided to steal their cultural footnotes concept given how far some of these guys go from their source material compared to the Voodoo pantheon of the previous post. Zarabanda: God of destruction and war, Zarabanda became a Corruptor through worship by Red Sects. Human sacrifice is involved in his magic rituals, and numerous serial killers worship him. Those unfortunate enough to become his Mount are extremely strong and durable and go on a streak of mutilations, murders, and cannibalism, and his Spirit Warriors due pretty much the same thing out of their own will. -Cultural Origin: Zarabanda, or Sarabanda, is the Kongo god of war, strength, and metal, and is likely to be a regional variation on Ogun. Ikku: Ikku is a merciless specter of death, bringing with him disease, destruction, and general suffering. Most of his modern cultists are either bokor or members of inner city gangs, and his favored tribute is unsurprisingly human sacrifice. Prostitutes and the homeless are particular favorites. His Mounts become swift, strong, and durable sadists who sneak up on people and stab them with knives, and his Spirit Warriors have to make at least one human sacrifice a month to keep in his grace. -Cultural Origin: Iku is the concept of death itself. Rather than being some evil monster, however, he's more of a cosmic tax collector: everyone's gotta die, and it's his job to make the rounds and get people to pay their final toll. Mbua: Known as "the Killer", Mbua is a patron god of cannibals, serial killers, and assassins. People killing other people is what makes him happy, and he's probably behind that serial killer fraternity mentioned a few chapters back. Mbua never takes Mounts, but his Spirit Warriors are basically Zarabanda's plus the added bonuses of having great reflexes and a near immunity to pain. -Cultural Origin: Mbua is the general term in Palo Mayombe for evil spirits. So that one pretty much stays the course. Kiyumbe: One of two Corruptors that are a group of minor spirits rather than specific powerful entities, kiyumbe are ghosts created when a bokor calls forth a soul from a recently buried corpse and then proceeds to enslave and brainwash it into a murderous undead assassin. Kiyumbes without a controller for whatever reason gather in places of suffering such as prisons and insane asylums. Kiyumbes that possess the living cause the possessed to go berserk and assault all those around them in a frenzied state. -Cultural Origin: This one seems to be fully the invention of GURPS Voodoo, as I couldn’t find any references on kiyumbe besides GURPS and a type of African flowering plant. Nkisi: These guys are bokor's familiars, spirits with great strength, speed, and intellect that takes the form of a cat, dog, rat, or snake so that it can masquerade as a pet. Some nkisi also strike out on their own, possessing the head honchos of street gangs and drug cartels. Cultural Origin: Nkisi's the collective term for any spirit in Kongolese religion and Cuban Palo.  The Pantheon of the Lodges While it is noted that there are some Lodges that worship the gods of the ancient Egyptians, Celts, and Norse, all the spirits presented here are either Greek or Gnostic in origin. Abraxas: A god entirely concerned with the metaphysical world, Abraxas is not one to Mount mortals or empower Spirit Warriors. Instead, the enigmatic deity challenges Initiates to overcome their physical boundaries and achieve gnosis, coming to them in the realm of dreams as a limbed snake or being of pure light. The Ophites in particular worship Abraxas as the Serpent of Eden, and they and many other Lodge Initiates call upon Abraxas for rituals of warding or divine insight. Some Schismatics, however, claim that Abraxas is actually a Corruptor, hiding his dark deeds behind a mask of impartiality. -Cultural Origin: While Abraxas wasn’t associated with the Serpent venerated by the actual Ophites and the form he is depicted in is usually that of a man with the head of a rooster and two snakes in place of legs, everything else here is relatively consistent with Abraxas as viewed by early Gnostics. Pan: Pan, the satyr god of old, has an odd history with the Lodges, being publicly shamed as the Devil by the Roman Lodge's Catholic Church while in secret they and other Lodges continued to worship him. He is the patron god of the Crowley Society, whose Initiates surround themselves with satyrs (actually minor manifestations of Pan rather than their own category of spirit), and one of the only male spirits that is called upon by the Servants of Hecate. Pan and his satyr manifestations can spread lust or let out a shout to strike fear in the hearts of mortals, and when Mounting someone he makes the possessed a lecherous party animal with a fair bit of strength, flexibility, musical talent, and sex appeal. His Spirit Warriors have the same lecherous party animal habits willingly. -Cultural Origin: Well...it's Pan. It's kind of hard to mess up Pan. He even has the panikon deima, his shout of fear. Animae: Animae (singular anima) appear as either stereotypical Medieval Church art-style angels or as glowing white beings, and act as the intelligent and unwaveringly loyal servants of the Lodges. The Lodges’ wealthy chapters typically have animae constantly guarding their estates, and its strongest Initiates are usually in the company of a few acting as bodyguards. Animae do not convey their power to Spirit Warriors, and being possessed by one only grants minor strength and agility. -Cultural Origin: The anima is the Latin name for the spark of life. Daemons: Hulking faceless humanoids in heavy armor, daemons are brute force servant spirits that are typically used to smash things. Daemons can be ordered around by an animus, allowing the Initiate to command animae who in turn have troops of daemons under their own command. As with animae, daemons cannot bestow power upon a Spirit Warrior, and their possession grants minor strength, agility, and endurance boosts. -Cultural Origin: Varying spirits below the gods, daemons in Greek mythology are parted into malevolent (cacodaemon) or benevolent (agathodaemon) entities. Genii: Every individual has a genius, a guardian spirit that resembles an idealized version of the human they are tied to. The vast majority of Spirit Warriors within the Lodges utilize the power of their own genius, grantin them significant boosts of Strength, endurance, and agility. They’re quite important to keep safe, however, as a dead genius is extremely hard to replace – a new spirit has to be attuned to both you as an individual and to your entire spiritual bloodline. -Cultural Origin: Genii in Roman tradition are guardian spirits that are tied to people, places, and things. Demiurges: The demiurges may or may not be the actual demiurges of Gnostic faith, as the Lodges simply gave that name to Western Corruptors without putting much thought into whether or not they fit the label. Like other Corruptors, they hate humanity and want them to suffer and die, they're the enemies of justice, yada yada etc. etc. blah blah blah. -Cultural Origin: The Gnostic Demiurge goes by a variety of names, including Saklas, Yaldabaoth, Samael, and YHVH. Birthed without the approval of the great divine oneness of the Monad, the Demiurge was wreathed in ignorance of the world above him and created the material universal to rule over as a god. He is a blockade between humanity and gnosis, and the goal of Gnosticism is to pierce through the Demiurge's veil and achieve knowledge of the spiritual existence.  In-Betweeners As stated in previous chapters, In-Betweeners are entities that are not quite spirit yet not quite mortal either, filling out the role of what would be referred to as monsters in most games. The origins of In-Betweeners vary, from souls that were “damaged” in the reincarnation cycle to the result of an animal and human soul merging through some strange happenstance or ritual, and some are even just born spontaneously. While corporeal, In-Betweeners can see spirits as well as physically harm them and vice versa. They "feed" on human emotions rather than material sustenance to live. Most In-Betweeners (read: all of the ones in this book, but the caveat is still given to make ones that don’t) have "In-Betweener Invulnerability", which means they have no organs, take the bare minimum damage from bullets and stabbing attacks, and generally have to be thoroughly pulverized if you want to truly kill them. With one exception, the In-Betweeners here are all based on mythological archetypes rather than a single monster from one particular lore. In random statements from other GURPS Third Edition books, the Minotaur of Crete, loogarou of Haitian mythology (and the werewolf legends it evolved from), and faeries of Europe are given as some other examples of In-Betweeners. Bird People: Strong, swift, and ruthless, the bird people are humanoids with wings attached to their arms, heads of birds of prey, and vicious talons. They are found naturally in the forested mountains of the Caribbean, but have also appeared in urban areas of the United States and Canada, where they nest atop tall abandoned buildings. Appearing under the cover of darkness, they murder at least one person a week, as failing to do so mentally ails them and eventually causes them to die as well; in rural Haiti, children are told that they mustn’t wander off at night, lest the bird men come down from the mountains and take them. When taking human form, bird people usually disguise themselves as homeless vagrants, allowing them to slip through society mostly unnoticed. Some rare bird people are able to cleanse their souls and lose their bloodthirstiness and need to murder, and if you can convince them these guys make loyal guardians. Cat People: The cat people hail from central Africa, but many took human guise and moved with the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade to start new lineages in the New World. Unsurprisingly, the humanoid cats are exceedingly flexible, agile, clever, and sadistic, and have the ability to take the form of a human or housecat. They literally get horny from sensing pain, as well, and the most villainous of their breed take part in snuff films and child pornography.  More regularly villainous ones take place in other types of porn or become drug enforcers, and a scant few can overcome their sadistic natures and become not-horrible people.Skin-Changers: Perhaps some of the most terrifying In-Betweeners, skin-changers are ageless murderous monsters who resemble people that have had their skin removed to reveal everything beneath. While they cannot innately shapeshift like many other In-Betweeners, skin-changers get around the whole "is a horrifying walking beast of revealed muscle and fat" issue by being able to assume the form of someone whose flayed skin they have taken. The oldest skin-shifters have prodigious collections of preserved skins they use in their day to day routines, which usually consist of being manipulative masterminds behind various criminal enterprises. Not scary enough? Well, lucky you, skin-changers are also agile, smart, endurant, and super-strong, regenerate wounds in the blink of an eye, and naturally have the powers of a Third Level Initiate! If you couldn’t guess, these guys are supposed to be end game threats for high point parties, and they are neither playable nor redeemable. Snake People: In their natural form, snake people are scaly humanoids with yellow irises, slitted pupils, long forked tongues, and viper's fangs. They like screwing around with humans, either turning people against each other or doing old fashioned kingmaking (with themselves or their immediate servants as the kings, of course), and also habitually murder like many other In-Betweeners. As the Ophite snake people show, however, some can move beyond these urges and redeem themselves. As with skin-changers, Snake People never die of old age and innately have the powers of Third Level Initiates, but are otherwise less powerful. They've got more modest boosts to their stats, regeneration that works on a scale of minutes rather than several times a second, and have hemotoxic venom. In addition to a human form, snake people can turn into any snake species they know about. Tontons Makouts: The angry, brutish ogres known as tontons makouts (singular removes the S from each word) aren't particularly bright, but they make up for it with prodigious strength, thick hides, and a near imperviousness to pain. They have foul tempers, gluttonous appetites, and love to kill people. Papa Doc Duvalier named the enforcers of his dictatorship after these monstrous In-Betweeners, and some of the real deal were even in his service. Most were wiped out after Duvalier fell from power, but some still lurk in the dark places of the Caribbean or followed their Red Sect masters in retreat to America. -Cultural Origin: Tonton Macoute, meaning "Uncle Gunnysack", is a boogeyman figure from Haiti. This unpleasant ogre stuffed unruly children in his gunnysack, hence the name. Duvalier actually did name his special enforcers the Tontons Macoutes, though I have the feeling that none of them in real life were supernatural beings.  Devourers Devourers are the eldritch horrors that sit at the top of the food chain of corporeal life, being to In-Betweeners what gods are to lesser spirits. They live under metropolises, but were there long before even the first founding stones were built, leading some to hypothesize that the Devourers draw people in to create cities they can corrupt. They have gigantic, monstrous forms with super-damage resistance and regeneration that would impress even a skin-changer, the ability to grow violent emotions in people for miles around their lairs, and deal double damage to spirits as a gently caress you to any loas or other deities that try to oust them. While that may seem to massive a hurdle to surmount, Devourers do have one fatal flaw: their Sendings. Sendings are In-Betweeners capable of taking any form that are created by a Devourer up to five at a time to do its bidding while it stays comfy in its lair. Destroying a Sending weakens the Devourer, and if the good guys can figure out that all the weird monsters lately have one single source, they can eventually cripple the Devourer enough to have a somewhat fair chance of actually defeating it. Next Time: Why the Haitian Revolution was actually bad, and other items of questionable historicity. Fossilized Rappy fucked around with this message at 21:42 on Aug 22, 2017 |
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Aug 22, 2017 21:40
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That Devourer concept isn't a bad way to do a big, bad horror villain enemy. "I have to beat his lieutenants and screw over his plans to make him beatable." works fine as a boss mechanic.
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Aug 22, 2017 21:43
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Of course the evil spirit who has preferences in his human sacrifices prefers prostitutes and the homeless.
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Aug 22, 2017 21:47
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Leraika posted:Of course the evil spirit who has preferences in his human sacrifices prefers prostitutes and the homeless. You know, in a well written story that could actually be a really smart thing. The spirit doesn't actually have a preference, but knows that by telling people to sacrifice the people others view as expendable there will be no resistance. After all, people already justify doing all sorts of terrible things to the poor and vulnerable, can you imagine what they'd be willing to rationalize if there was a supernatural power egging them on? Get someone to sacrifice a prostitute and you're well on your way to making them a regular customer.
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Aug 22, 2017 21:54
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I keep reading Tonton Makouts as Tauntaun Makeouts. I think I have been listening to too much Expounded Universe.
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Aug 22, 2017 21:58
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Tauntaun Makeouts squats in Han Solo's Sky House.
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Aug 22, 2017 22:00
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The Tonton Macoute, under Papa Doc, were predominantly the enforcers of the regime as you mentioned. They were generally know to kidnap dissidents in the night and torture them to death or to assault people, acting as both secret police and government-sanctioned death squad, people who would put the corpses of their victims up on display in public places. They also infamously ran the polls and we're directly responsible for ballot fraud. Duvalier changed their names many times but the people of Haiti always knew them as the Tonton Macoute because they always wore the same uniform: straw hats, sunglasses, blue denim shirts, guns and machetes. It's generally unknown how many people they actually killed. High estimates are 60,000 and low estimates are 30,000. A lot of them never saw justice because when Duvalier's son took over he forced the leader of the Tonton Macoute into exile in Florida (the man lived there comfortably until his death) and when Baby Doc was overthrown, untold members of the force fled to America or the Dominican Republic and pretended to be normal refugees, hiding their past deeds and living in silence of their actions. Really not looking forward to how the Haitian Revolution was actually bad.
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Aug 22, 2017 22:22
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 CHAPTER FIVE: A MOMENT IN TIME Or Last-Ditch "Dramatic" """Irony"""   The Fall of Charybdis was the pivotal moment in the war to finally establish the PTM. G-Unit has been thrown back into time (or into a memory, it’s really not clear) into the body of some of the infantrymen responsible for defeating the last bastion of the anti-PTM resistance. This means they have military-grade weapons at their disposal for the entirety of this scene.
 Spoilers: you are not supposed to kill The Major nor is it ever suggested that this would be a thing you do. no matter how much Beth or Peacemaker or Doc would like to derail the PTM from coming to pass. Instead it’s time for some classic war adventures at the Battle of Scylla Heights.  Scylla Heights is an abandoned low-income tenement block that’s home to a resistance outpost. The rest of the unit (50ish soldiers) will break off to explore the rest of the area. G-Unit approaches the map to try and find the sniper (who has Prowess 5 but the fact that he’s hidden means that they have a d10 for defense against his shots even though the shots only deal 1 damage due to armor). For each turn the PCs search, he takes a shot at the PC closest to him (he’s shooting from the L-shaped building). It’s not too hard to find him; now all that matters is how they deal with the sniper. You have two choices.  1: G-Unit can hustle to the building and assault it to flush out the sniper. Other NPCs will join G-Unit in searching the building to get to the sniper’s nest, a derelict building full of abandoned rooms and weird shadows made by the holes in the building. If this option is taken, G-Unit won’t be the ones who find the sniper. They’ll barge in on the other soldiers pumping the sniper full of lead. 2: Tama can use the Kiowa’s artillery cannon to bombard the building and try to kill the sniper with explosive ordinance. This is, uh. This is easier said than done. You make an Attack roll to do this but…uhm. It’s impossible to do this with the proper Prowess checks but, like, is this a contested thing? Who knows. The Major will prefer this route be taken because it doesn’t risk the lives of his men but you can talk him into allowing an assault. Actually here’s a good question. Why isn’t the Major wearing the same sort of armor his infantry is wearing? G-Unit can just take bullets for days because of the damage reduction, why is the man in charge of them wearing armor that lets him actually be shot?  Anyway G-Unit goes with the assault option, everyone hiding behind Tama who draws the sniper fire and struts right through it. When the sniper dies, they find him.  Child soldiers, man. Such a dark and powerful and emotional scene. He even did the pieta pose. Truly these accurately express the horrors of war. We put, like, Jude Law in this as Soapbox and Denzel Washington in as Johnson and we’ve got ourselves Oscar material. So the resistance HQ is found at the bottom of the building in a flooded basement that has a series of tunnels leading to the HQ.  There is no map for the tunnels; it’s just a rats nest of rooms in a series of tunnels. There are crates of food, water, ammo and spare parts all over the place. If your GM wants to be creative, G-Unit can also find artillery rounds and an abandoned field hospital. The Major leads the way the whole way with G-Unit at his heels until he finds the command center.  The defenders of the bunker are: the general, two of his officers, their political leader (“the president”), two political aides and five armed rebel soldiers. The general, his officers and the soldiers are all armed and will fight back. You can’t talk to them, you can’t reason with them, you gotta kill them and you gotta help end the war for the glory of the PTM.    Worth noting is that it’s written that you’re also shooting the unarmed political figure and his aides to death. No time to rest on your laurels, though. Time to go back to Gehenna.  Gasp, Major Havoc is the same Major who won the Battle of Charybdis! Why has he sided with the forces of damnation? Not even the book knows. He was selected to be a champion of the Demons and Blade and Lucretia don’t know about his ulterior plans and motives to let people get away. I mean Lucretia has the excuse of being dead now, but the fact of the matter is that this is not a trick.  The reasoning behind this plan is that killing Johnson or Ilona or G-Unit will just make them martyrs for the cause. Which, legit, is the most logical thing to do and actually a pretty smart move on the part of the Major. And this isn’t one of those jackass tricksy things either: the book says the portal leads to back to the Earth Dimension to a place of relative safety. This offer is extended to Johnson and Ilona as well. Johnson will decline the offer after a moment of thought, spitting at Havoc’s feet because he no longer belongs on Earth but amongst prisoners. Ilona doesn’t get to make this choice because she’s not allowed to have any agency as a woman who exists to be tortured and also she might not have survived the Lucretia fight. Major Havoc basically hisses angrily at Johnson and shakes his fist for his insolent display in the face of his sinister generosity. If the party declines, they can also take a swing at Major Havoc who dies in one hit because he’s actually just a sentient swarm of Guilt Worms. He hits the ground, half of him swarms away to safety and the other half try to bite on the PCs like normal Guilt Worms. Except whoops they keel over and die.   So. The resolution of this whole thing. Johnson and Ilona return to the hospital and the school to be greeted with open arms by their gangs. Mitya returns to Louie and convinces Louie to ally with the other gangs and Patton is basically on their side as well. The alliance is officially formed and war is almost certain with no time to prepare or strategize, only able to use the knowledge Johnson has of Blade as their ace in the hole. Demons heavily infest the ship and the forces of damnation are only under the control of Major Havoc (maybe?) and Blade (definitely). Also the Warden has built an army of Beth-shaped Terminators and wants to shove everyone into cells and explode the Demons. Plus, Blade still has that teleportation thing and the book is like “tee hee, what’s he gonna do with that~?”, suggesting that he’ll use it to strike at the heart of the allied gangs or teleport into Project: Lord of the Flies’ labs to get guns or super tech or find a way to get off of the ship. Plus hey everyone gets a new Trait automatically if they completed all six of the modules. It's really good it's...a free +1 to one of two stats.  But G-Unit won’t be around for that. Once Major Havoc makes his pitch, they immediately take the portal out and drag their whole party with them, leaving Johnson and Ilona behind. Welp.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GvekgVwDCiQ
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Aug 23, 2017 06:44
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I never thought that I'd get Crazy Taxi flashbacks from F&F. Looking forward to the conclusion, Hostile V.
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Aug 23, 2017 07:15
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Video not available.
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Aug 23, 2017 07:18
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Might be because it has two songs that are pretty clearly copyrighted and Youtube has said as much. I'll switch it to a private video in case others keep having problems.
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Aug 23, 2017 07:29
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Oh gack, I knew the sniper was going to be a kid or something when the writing fiated that G-Team would only arrive too late. What a senseless waste of page space.
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Aug 23, 2017 07:44
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The only thing that video was missing was the narration bits of Forever Autumn done in the same style. 
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Aug 23, 2017 07:53
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Spectacular work, Hostile V. A great F&F of a blah source material. Edit: and we even get one more update! Yay! The Lemondrop Dandy fucked around with this message at 08:41 on Aug 23, 2017 |
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Aug 23, 2017 08:35
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Re: AAH Bypassed YouTube bullshit by the ingenious method of not using the official app. So many characters and all of them really forgettable, come next year I'll not remember this game at all.
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Aug 23, 2017 09:36
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I'm disappointed we never got "artwork" for G-Unit considering that how traced over photos the book's character art is for AAH.
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Aug 23, 2017 10:30
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At least you get to win at the end.
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Aug 23, 2017 10:48
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That Shocking Revelation about the Major is so incredibly unearned, it's making my head spin (and then my head flies off and becomes a new demon called a Headmaster, save or take 1d2 Despair.)
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Aug 23, 2017 13:01
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G-Unit will return in the sequel. (G-Unit will never return, they earned being done with this bullshit)
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Aug 23, 2017 13:02
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Sweet sweet annihilation, no megalomaniacal poorly written torturers, no bullshit railroading, just blessed oblivion. That could actually be a great game: you are rudely pulled away from the silence and forced to remember something of the unwanted past, and the sole reason for the adventure is your desire to die again.(although that may change) Which system would work best for an undying protagonist?
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Aug 23, 2017 13:15
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Young Freud posted:I'm disappointed we never got "artwork" for G-Unit considering that how traced over photos the book's character art is for AAH. Obviously you're meant to picture them as 50 Cent and pals. Horrible Lurkbeast posted:Sweet sweet annihilation, no megalomaniacal poorly written torturers, no bullshit railroading, just blessed oblivion. Planescape Torment: Tabletop edition?
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Aug 23, 2017 14:42
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Kinda, but without the clunky system.
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Aug 23, 2017 14:44
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What a wet fart of a conclusion. Great work, Hostile V, for making it through that and making it more entertaining than it had any right to be!
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Aug 23, 2017 15:18
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I think my favorite thing about the Major is that his fall is meant to be a major betrayal and people are meant to care except this character has literally never been mentioned before.
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Aug 23, 2017 15:26
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"The demon removes his hood, and it's THE MAJOR!" "...Who?" "The major! Wait... wait, you haven't seen him before, have you. Uhhh. He's this... I mean, he hasn't... okay, right, you all find yourselves in a flashback!"
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Aug 23, 2017 15:33
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I'd be hesitant to call this amateur hour, a lot of amateur RPG writers are at least more creative. AND THEY CAN BE ARSED TO CHECK FOR ERRORS IN THE STATISTICS.
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Aug 23, 2017 15:40
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Warhammer Fantasy: Realm of the Ice Queen It's called Realm of the Ice Queen for a reason To other Old Worlders, Tsarina Katarin is one of the most powerful absolute monarchs on the continent. On paper, she has complete control of the entire Kislevite government, all her subjects are loyal, and none dare question the words of the Tsars. She is working as hard as she can to make this mistaken impression a reality, and this is one of the major conflicts of the Kislev book. Absolute monarchies never are, and she is only as powerful as the people who will obey her. Not only that, she has to contend with her center of power being in the southern parts of the country, and with the north being damaged in the war. While she gained a great deal of acclaim for her victories in the war, some of her northern generals did the same, and some of them may yet want to see a separate Ungol state or build their own power. Also, no Tsar can afford to do the usual dictator trick of appointing solely on loyalty rather than competence, for two reasons. The first is that leaders are judged by how competent they are in the defense of Kislev. If she appoints incompetent but loyal commanders and officials and they falter and weaken the country's defenses, she may well be overthrown by popular rebellion. The second is that, well, the forces of hell are RIGHT THERE. There's no telling how much time Kislev has to sweep up after the last mess, get its armies back together, and get ready for the next incursion of note. It could be weeks, months, years, decades, or centuries; they can't afford to dawdle on being ready for Chaos or else all the politicking in the world won't matter. The overriding principle in Kislevite politics, the most important qualification a leader can have, is being able to defend the country from the forces of hell. Attacks are constant, and actual incursions are unpredictable in how often they happen and how competently they'll be led. The country will nearly always come together when an actual incursion arrives, but if they've been undermined by incompetence or cowardice prior to that it can make the damage far worse. The common people will accept higher taxes if they can be convinced it is genuinely necessary to fight back the forces of Chaos or rebuild afterwards. People accept that it is the duty of unaffected areas to pay to rebuild and resettle regions and places that get razed or sacked during an attack. But the nobles generally also accept that if they tax their people into starvation and desperation, the people won't make very good warriors. The problems come when two groups think they both know the best way to prepare the defenses and are unwilling to concede. Kislevite politics start at the local level. The land is vast, and most of a person's interactions with the government will be with their Ataman/Hetman. This is the local mayor and leader mentioned in the background chapter; in many stanitsas (towns) they're elected, sometime by very strange means. One village had a tradition of electing their Ataman by having a big signing contest, for instance, and refuses to change this because both the Great War Against Chaos and the Storm completely missed them, so they assume the Gods like the way they do things. The Ataman (or Atamanka, about a quarter of Atamans are women) is the local mayor and judge, with wide powers to hear legal cases, settle disputes, direct building, and set local laws. Many of the people who have the official power to contradict the Ataman live very far away and do not regularly see the stanitsa, as they are the Tsarina's higher officials or Boyars. However, most Atamans have local checks on their powers that prevent them ruling as tyrants. In Ungol settlements, the wise women are a counterbalance, since they know the will of the spirits and have magic that can keep the Ruinous Powers at bay. In Gospodar settlements, the local priests serve as the same check. Often, the local Rotamaster (the commander of the stanitsa's military obligation) is another important check. Stanitsas where the Ataman is Rotamaster and the local priest are usually destroyed by Chaos as the Ataman goes mad with power. Katarin has noticed that the Atamans and their elections and selections are one of peoples' most important interactions with politics, but as she is located very far from most stanitsas, she cannot directly influence the choosing of every Ataman. Instead, she has made it necessary for her officials to affirm an election, as a formality. So far, her officials have generally confirmed local choices, but she wants people to start to think it is an honor (and eventually a necessity) for the Ataman to be confirmed by the Tsarina. She has also taken advantage of the losses taken in the Storm to proactively appoint a few local heroes in border stanitsas as Atamen, as advised by her spies and agents. She wants people to start to see her as having the right to do this, and thinks making strong appointments who have local support is the best path to accomplish this. Rewarding heroes who fought well in the Storm is normal enough, so people have yet to object. PCs playing as agents of the Tsarina could be asked to ride out to the border and see who is leading local efforts in stopping the remaining monsters in order to find the right individual to reward. Druzhina are the lowest rank of the genuine nobility; many Atamans are Druzhina, but not all. Druzhina are roughly equivalent to an Imperial Knight. This rank is traditionally hereditary, but Katarin has hit on the idea of 'lifetime' appointments that will not necessarily make a person's children nobles. She gives these to people who have made significant financial contributions to the defense, or to individual low-ranking soldiers who have fought well. She also uses this concept as a compromise position to create new Ungol nobility, and even this compromise position annoys the Gospodars, who prefer to monopolize noble titles as much as possible. She likes this idea because it means a family's continued nobility would be reliant on their continued favor with the Tsarina, but much of Kislev's nobility can see through this particular plan. Still, as Druzhina are relatively minor nobles, most accept it is her right to give out such rewards, and this does not cause too much grumbling. What the nobility worry about is the possibility of 'lifetime' Boyars. Boyars are the mid rank of the nobility, and are exclusively Gospodar. Were Katarin to try to create an Ungol Boyar, she might well have a revolt on her hands; one of the overriding principles of Gospodar rule has been that Ungols should not be in a position to head armies, lest they retake their independence. This is unfortunate, because there are indications that Katarin would like the flexibility to appoint Ungols to the Boyar position if they are willing to support her and have proven themselves able. She has been slowly pressing the idea that she has the right to appoint any able person a Boyar, emphasizing that the generals and major nobles should be chosen on ability and merit. Meanwhile, the Gospodar nobility try to push the idea that being a Boyar requires the sorts of roots and stability that only come from generations of experience and family stability, in hopes of thwarting this possible shift in politics. Boyars are very powerful nobles. They are usually close enough to actually monitor the Atamen under their rule, and if they rule in the north the Tsarina's palace can seem very, very far away. In practice, most Boyars don't get in the way of their Atamen unless the taxes don't arrive in full or the rota doesn't show up for patrol duties. It's become fashionable among Boyars to keep a second home in one of the great cities, and Katarin has done everything she can to encourage this fashion; Boyars living closer to her, at least some of the time, makes it much easier for her to keep an eye on them and exercise direct authority over them. These nobles have the power, wealth, and legitimacy to be a threat to a Tsar or Tsarina's plans, or some of their best allies. In similar fashion, the Tsarina holds court primarily in the giant, beautiful ice palace she literally raised from the ground with her own powers to celebrate her ascension to the throne. She does this partly because she likes ice and cold (most Ice Witches do), partly because the place is a massive amplifier for her magic in case anyone gets any ideas (cold places empower Ice Witches), and partly as a reminder that she built an entire palace wing in a day. Court clothes and fashion tend towards warm furs and many layers, though the Tsarina herself is completely unaffected by the cold and prefers lighter clothing. She does allow people to bring their own chairs, but sits on her own personal raised throne of ice at all times. Formal court has a long list of formalities that must be followed, including no courtier having their head higher than the Tsarina (Thankfully, she's a very tall woman and her throne is raised), all people in the court having to be somewhere she can see them, and no-one turning their back on her. Her palace guard are, of course, exempt from these rules. They are designed to ensure that when she is holding formal court, all people there are aware of where she is, what she's doing, and what she's paying attention to. These rules are designed to project the idea that the Tsar (in this case, Tsarina) is the center of the universe, a symbolic representation of how the Tsars have always wanted government to go. Next: War and military rank.
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Aug 23, 2017 15:57
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megane posted:"The demon removes his hood, and it's THE MAJOR!" 
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Aug 23, 2017 16:04
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 We was too late! The reverend had seen the light!
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Aug 23, 2017 16:17
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| # ? Apr 26, 2024 17:42 |
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Warhammer Fantasy: Realm of the Ice Queen Horses are for winners. Almost every man has some military experience in Kislev. Most able-bodied young men have done a term of service with their stanitsa's rota, and any woman who will volunteer can do the same (it isn't expected of women the same way it is of men, but a woman who chooses to fight and does so well will be respected for it). Most do not remain warriors their entire lives, but given nearly everyone in the country has learned to at least hold a weapon, when an emergency comes the Kislevites can call on some pretty impressive numbers. The Winged Lancers are considered the most glorious of Kislevite fighters. They are a Gospodar tradition, going back to the original Gospodar migration, and a stanitsa or city will pride itself on the appointment and arming of a rota of these impressive horsemen. They wear the best armor they can get and wield massive, long lances designed to outreach enemy pikes. They also wear strange winged back-banners, both to look more fearsome and for the shrieking, frightening sound they make when they charge. They are very maneuverable for heavy cavalry, training to wheel in formation in as little space as possible, and like all Kislevite cavalry they focus a great deal on the technical mastery of horsemanship. The most famous Winged Lancers are the Gryphon Legion, a unit of Gospodar noble cavalry that originally served as bodyguard to the Tsars. They somehow gained relative independence over the years and now often travel to the Empire and other lands to fight as mercenaries and spread the reputation of Kislev's horsemen, sending some of the money back to their Tsar or Tsarina. They are sworn to answer the Tsarina's call in times of battle, and they distinguished themselves during the Storm. The Tsarina would really like to get these famous warriors directly under her command, but they have centuries of tradition as an independent unit and their current commander doesn't care for the idea; it would limit his own power. The Ungol Horse Archers fight in little armor, shooting from horseback and scouting. Most Ungol rotas are Horse Archers, and they support the footmen and winged lancers by skirmishing and chasing down light cavalry. Considering that one of the main enemies for the Kislevite armies is Kurgan raiders who fight in much the same style, and that one of their main duties is wide-ranging steppe patrols to stop marauders and criminals, the Horse Archers serve those purposes very well. The Tsarina is worried about the horse archers, because consolidating them risks creating a group that would support Ungol independence. At the same time, they're an essential part of the military. She has been trying to find particularly amendable leaders among them to appoint as Druzhina, and may be looking to create Ungol Boyars who are loyal to her as a way to try to bring them further into the state and quell talk of an independent Ungol nation. As you might imagine, both Winged Lancer and Horse Archer will be available as 2nd Tier fighters later in the book. They're both pretty good, too! The Kossars are the main footmen of the Kislevite army, though they're now being rivaled by the Streltsi of Erengard. Kossars began with Ungol tribes that joined the Gospodar as mercenaries against their people during the initial migration, but the units are now made up of anyone who wants to join the army permanently to get away from home or escape a difficult past. This is only further reinforced by Tsar Boris Bohka's declaration that any person who becomes a Kossar will receive a full pardon. Note this pardon does not extend to any crimes committed *while* a Kossar. Kossars have a terrible reputation for drinking, causing trouble, and getting up to all the antics of off duty soldiers, but even more than usual. At the same time, as Kossars are full time warriors and constantly at drill, they also have a reputation of doing particularly well in battle, fighting on foot with a bow and a two-handed axe. Newer units, established by Tsar Vladimir, use the same two-handed axe but use it as a brave for their musket; these are the Streltsi. These men and women are the permanent, standing army for the Tsarina, and she sees them as very important to her projects. She originally raised their pay to gain further loyalty, but the costs of rebuilding after the Storm have forced her to lower it back down, leading to grumbling in the ranks. Ideally, she hopes to get the Gryphon Legion to join the standing royal army so that she can have her own cavalry, as well. Relief Columns are a new thing. Units organized to fight fires in the aftermath of the storm. They come out of the Tsarina's experiences during the Storm of Chaos; she originally stayed in the palace and worked through agents, partly from personal preference and partly because she wanted to be seen as somehow otherworldly and above everyday matters. During the fighting, though, she saddled up and went out to defend her people personally, and she discovered that wherever she fought, people credited her personally with those victories. Realizing that rescuing people and winning battles was an excellent route to personal loyalty and a more secure throne, she's created Relief Column armies to help clean up after the Storm and defend the frontiers. In the summer, she leads these columns to the north and east frontiers to rescue villages, drive back raiders, and aid in rebuilding. This new policy seems to be working, and is even slowly gaining her more loyalty within the Gryphon Legion. No-one in Kislev can object to the Tsarina doing her duty and fighting the enemies of the land, and the people she rescues are certainly grateful. It's also helped her gain more of a direct sense for military matters. PCs can get involved here, either as soldiers and scouts marching to save local communities, the defenders of local places trying to hold out for the Tsarina's forces to arrive, or as the agents she leaves behind to watch the court and ensure no intrigues gather while she's busy fighting. I actually like the Relief Columns as a good look into Katarin's character. She's a brutally pragmatic character who, for once, isn't a psychopath because of it. Yes, she's rescuing people primarily for political and military advantage for her overall goal of being a genuinely absolute monarch, but she's doing it by, you know, winning battles and rebuilding her country. She's an intelligent, ruthless person who often arrives at reasonable or morally correct positions *because* she's intelligent and ruthless. Much of the conflict in Kislev is centered around the fact that all parties in Kislev really want and need competent leaders to hold back hell. At the same time, the various political blocks in Kislev all want their powers, rights, and interests to be respected. They don't really fall entirely to infighting, but everyone is maneuvering for advantage while trying to do their jobs as best they can, because if they don't do their jobs they all die. It's a compelling mix of intrigue with a core of good sense to it, and the overriding demand for competence gives a good opening for a PC party to become socially mobile if that's their objective. Next: Religion, Witches, and Problems.
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Aug 23, 2017 16:36
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