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SirPhoebos
Dec 10, 2007

WELL THAT JUST HAPPENED!

Night10194 posted:

I don't know. On one hand, they're genuinely critical to it because they moved the game in a totally different (and better) direction than the core implied, but I also don't want to spend months on The Chaos Game.

It is a conundrum because the expansion books are mechanical messes like all of BC but they're also a big part of its charm as a game. And yes, BC is a surprisingly fun game. Both major campaigns I ran in it were great fun to GM.

Please talk about the Slaanesh book because I'm really curious how they avoid making it a cover-to-cover :stonk:fest.

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Night10194
Feb 13, 2012

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

SirPhoebos posted:

Please talk about the Slaanesh book because I'm really curious how they avoid making it a cover-to-cover :stonk:fest.

They actually do! It's still full of creepy stuff but it isn't nearly as bad as you'd expect! It's way more hedonism bot with a bit of hellraiser.

FFG pulling off a Slaanesh book without tons of gross sexual violence and menace is one of the things that raises them up a bit in my estimation. It focuses on outlandish pirate princes, rock and roll cannons, and evil geneticists instead.

Hunt11
Jul 24, 2013

Grimey Drawer
To be fair to the Emperor he isn't completely responsible for the what happened with the Thousand Sons. He told Horus to get the Space Wolves to bring in Magnus for questioning but unfortunately Horus had already turned to Chaos and told Lemon Russ that the Emperor wanted Magnus dead and the whole shitstorm that came from that mess was what caused Magnus to turn on the Emperor.

MonsterEnvy
Feb 4, 2012

Shocked I tell you
Quick correction Empy just ordered the Space Wolves to capture Magnus not kill him. Horus just got the message first and changed it to a kill order.


Night10194 posted:

Other fun Horus Heresy Facts: Originally, when Empy and Horus Have A Punch Up is happening, Empy is losing because he can't believe his idiot son would ever defy him or turn on him, even as his idiot son is right there, killing him. Into this steps Ollanius Pious, a completely ordinary human soldier, who tries to defend the Emperor with just a lasgun. This doesn't work, but it does give the Emperor just enough time to get back up and obliterate Horus. Good bit of story, right? Ordinary human's courage makes the difference in a divine battle of Gods and galactic forces, just like your PCs/wargaming units could!

Later on, GW would change that into one of the Emperor's super-Marines, the Custodes, who are giant magic golden people. Then into an Imperial Fist Space Marine. Then Dan Abnett would go and turn it back to Pious but make him a magic man who was immortal.

Let it never be said anyone could let a good plot point be.

The most likely situation is none of the above happened. As the Emperor never cared about Horus and fully planned on killing him.

Recent Lore from the point of view of Malcador the Sigillite the Emperors right hand, reveled that the flaws a good number of the Primarchs had were coded into to them, mainly to eventually make them turn on each other and wipe each other out. Horus was always meant to turn on the Emperor according their designs. The only Primarch the Emperor planned to have survive the civil war was Magnus, as the Emperor planned to use him as a psychic battery. The main issue was that Logar was not supposed to have that religious hangup and it ad Logar likely influenced Horus in turning before he was supposed to. As well Empy ending up on life support was also not part of the plan, but according to Malcador the plan still had not been completely derailed at that point.

Night10194
Feb 13, 2012

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

Hunt11 posted:

To be fair to the Emperor he isn't completely responsible for the what happened with the Thousand Sons. He told Horus to get the Space Wolves to bring in Magnus for questioning but unfortunately Horus had already turned to Chaos and told Lemon Russ that the Emperor wanted Magnus dead and the whole shitstorm that came from that mess was what caused Magnus to turn on the Emperor.

Oh, yes. If that had been the ONLY warning it would have just been a tragic shitstorm and accident.

Except he got several.

Comrade Gorbash
Jul 12, 2011

My paper soldiers form a wall, five paces thick and twice as tall.

MonsterEnvy posted:

The most likely situation is none of the above happened. As the Emperor never cared about Horus and fully planned on killing him.

Recent Lore from the point of view of Malcador the Sigillite the Emperors right hand, reveled that the flaws a good number of the Primarchs had were coded into to them, mainly to eventually make them turn on each other and wipe each other out. Horus was always meant to turn on the Emperor according their designs. The only Primarch the Emperor planned to have survive the civil war was Magnus, as the Emperor planned to use him as a psychic battery. The main issue was that Logar was not supposed to have that religious hangup and it ad Logar likely influenced Horus in turning before he was supposed to. As well Empy ending up on life support was also not part of the plan, but according to Malcador the plan still had not been completely derailed at that point.
This is somehow dumber than the old lore.

Night10194
Feb 13, 2012

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

Comrade Gorbash posted:

This is somehow dumber than the old lore.

Yeah, that's actually even stupider. But you know, GW.

My take was always it was more 'You can't possibly be the one derailing my plans! No-one defies me!' rather than any kind of affection.

Trying to write in 'Oh no, actually, I totally meant to do something monumentally stupid so it doesn't count!' doesn't make Empy look any smarter.

E: The Heresy has always worked best as a big, distant tragedy where you only know the big outline of events, but it's an event where potato men inconclusively punch other potato men for 40-50 novels worth of airtime so it was always going to be an endless well GW would go back to.

Night10194 fucked around with this message at 22:19 on Apr 24, 2018

MonsterEnvy
Feb 4, 2012

Shocked I tell you

Night10194 posted:

Yeah, that's actually even stupider. But you know, GW.

My take was always it was more 'You can't possibly be the one derailing my plans! No-one defies me!' rather than any kind of affection.

Well they stated what likely went down at the confrontation is going to be very different when they get to it in the books.

When Guilliman woke up. He found more then 23 different accounts of his battle with Fulgrim in the same library. None of them were accurate. (Namely cause a lot of them tried to state he banished Fulgrim or the fight was unseen. When in reality Fulgrim just handed Guilliman his rear end.)

Cythereal
Nov 8, 2009

I love the potoo,
and the potoo loves you.

MonsterEnvy posted:

Well they stated what likely went down at the confrontation is going to be very different when they get to it in the books.

When Guilliman woke up. He found more then 23 different accounts of his battle with Fulgrim in the same library. None of them were accurate. (Namely cause a lot of them tried to state he banished Fulgrim or the fight was unseen. When in reality Fulgrim just handed Guilliman his rear end.)

Guilliman also discovered a full-scale war had been fought over what year it is in the Imperium.

Ratoslov
Feb 15, 2012

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

Cythereal posted:

Guilliman also discovered a full-scale war had been fought over what year it is in the Imperium.

Okay, please explain this one. I have to hear this.

Night10194
Feb 13, 2012

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

Ratoslov posted:

Okay, please explain this one. I have to hear this.

The Imperium takes accountancy very seriously and men will die over this.

Imperial bureaucracy being willing to initiate planetary conflicts over a typo is an old and time-honored part of the setting.

Kaza42
Oct 3, 2013

Blood and Souls and all that
Guilliman coming back and being floored by the stupidity of the Imperium has the potential to be a great story. But I am 100% confident that they hosed it up, and so haven't read any of that fluff at all

Night10194
Feb 13, 2012

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

Especially when he himself is partly responsible for 2 out of 9 traitor legions by being a vainglorious dick.

E: Also when one of the few coherent themes (while probably accidental) in 40k is that the Imperium keeps looking to the past and the Great Men and begging them to save it, when if you examine history the Great Men have only ever managed to make things worse while being jackasses. Then the fluff turns into 'Well okay they finally got a Great Man and have you considered he's actually turbo cool and awesome and good?'

Night10194 fucked around with this message at 22:35 on Apr 24, 2018

Dawgstar
Jul 15, 2017

Night10194 posted:

The Alpha Legion are space spies despite being 8 foot tall power armored potato men. No, I don't know how they do it either (official fluff says they recruit a lot of human agents). They might secretly be loyalists or something, everything about them is a mystery. They had two Primarchs and no-one is sure which was which.

We are all Alpharius.

Cythereal
Nov 8, 2009

I love the potoo,
and the potoo loves you.

Night10194 posted:

The Imperium takes accountancy very seriously and men will die over this.

Imperial bureaucracy being willing to initiate planetary conflicts over a typo is an old and time-honored part of the setting.

There's an entire ordo of the Inquisition dedicated to being time police. This being 40k it's worked as well as you'd expect and upon waking up Guilliman tried to learn what year it was exactly. This triggered a civil war lead by separate factions of the Ordo Chronos, and Guilliman discovered that there were five officially accepted calendars and dates, and dozens more deemed heretical. Guilliman himself gave up after doing the math himself and realizing it could be anywhere from the dawn of the 41st millenium to the end of the 43rd.

MonsterEnvy
Feb 4, 2012

Shocked I tell you

Kaza42 posted:

Guilliman coming back and being floored by the stupidity of the Imperium has the potential to be a great story. But I am 100% confident that they hosed it up, and so haven't read any of that fluff at all

It's been pretty cool so far. Guilliman is not perfect, but has a decent head on his shoulders. He thinks the Imperium's decor is awful. (His reaction whenever he sees the cherb servitor on his ship that serves as a messenger is that he wants to throw the ghoulish thing out the airlock.) He thinks the Ecclesiarchy is a horrible and corrupt thing. But can't denounce it publicly yet because it would tear the galaxy in half even worse then the giant rift going through it. At one point musing the Ecclesiarchy would burn the Emperor at the stake for heresy if he got up and declared to them that he was not a god. Still he tries to work with what he is given he picks his Ecclesiarchy representatives from the low ranking common priests as they tend to be less corrupt, fanatical and have more in common with their fellow man.

Still he has quite a few problems. One best shown when the Priest he appointed points out that his closing the Grand Library of Ultramar is a tad hypocritical with all the studying and book reading he is doing. Guilliman claims it's because the Imperium does not know what it's doing with it's knowledge and needs stuff like an actual history and people that actually knows what they are writing. But admits to himself that he closed the library to make sure no one reads any of the documents in it on the Imperium Secundus. He has also been unintentionally slighting Calgar the Chapter Master of the Ultramarines. His views of progress and knowledge, along with his support of Heretek Archmagos Belisarius Cawl have made him many enemies in the Inquisition and Admech.

MonsterEnvy fucked around with this message at 23:03 on Apr 24, 2018

Night10194
Feb 13, 2012

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

I'm starting to be really glad I stopped following 40k when I did.

Midjack
Dec 24, 2007



rowboat girlyman

Night10194
Feb 13, 2012

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

Also all this poo poo gets retconned in after what I'm writing about, anyway.

PurpleXVI
Oct 30, 2011

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

Night10194 posted:

The Thousand Sons were originally all space wizards, until the Emperor banned space wizardry. Their space wizard Primarch Magnus tried to warn Empy of the betrayal and was ignored, and Empy also sent the Space Wolves to kill him for trying to use space wizardry to do it. He was then surprised they betrayed him. They are all dust and robots serving Tzeentch now, except a few favored wizards.

I think my favourite Chaos Marines were always the Thousand Sons, for three reasons. Firstly? Cool armor aesthetics. Secondly? SOUL-DUST ROBOT MARINES. Thirdly? Actually had a pretty reasonable reason for going traitor/heretic.

My only disappointment about them is that the non-sorcerous Thousand Sons are apparently just mindless automatons, that ruins some of their coolness. Just let them have a personality, it's not like it'll detract anything from the faction. I like that there's a chaos faction that doesn't grow random beaks, tentacles and pustules.

By popular demand
Jul 17, 2007
Probation
Can't post for 9 hours!
The Emperor not seeing the betrayal coming even when it's well underway has an analogue in Stalin's behaviour at the start of operation Barbarossa:
He was so convinced that he was the grand puppet master/strategist that he actively sabotaged the defence efforts which he believed were some plot by Britain.
"Only I know how everything will unfold!" Basically.

wiegieman
Apr 22, 2010

Royalty is a continuous cutting motion


PurpleXVI posted:

I think my favourite Chaos Marines were always the Thousand Sons, for three reasons. Firstly? Cool armor aesthetics. Secondly? SOUL-DUST ROBOT MARINES. Thirdly? Actually had a pretty reasonable reason for going traitor/heretic.

My only disappointment about them is that the non-sorcerous Thousand Sons are apparently just mindless automatons, that ruins some of their coolness. Just let them have a personality, it's not like it'll detract anything from the faction. I like that there's a chaos faction that doesn't grow random beaks, tentacles and pustules.

There are at least a few Rubriacae (you know they're fancy because plurals are done with an ae) who've either come back to life or shown independent thought, usually while they're "heroically" sacrificing themselves for one of their brothers from their previous life.

Alien Rope Burn
Dec 5, 2004

I wanna be a saikyo HERO!

Halloween Jack posted:

Man, when I think of the added Morpheus tables, the only thing I think of is how many of them are animal-based. I think this is purely because Palladium is lazy and variants based on animals and elements is a very easy and lazy way to pad out a supplement.

Look, I think you're underselling the potential of the Otter table for horror. Imagine the terror of a normal human with otter whiskers and an otter tail! Or a person whose lower half is a giant otter! Consider all the otter possibilities.

Granted, given some of the other tables have "Animal Costume", "Boulder Butt", or uh... "Baby", getting to roll on the Griffin table ("Caw! I'm a Were-Griffin! CAW!") seems like an absolutely essential addition by comparison.

Hunt11
Jul 24, 2013

Grimey Drawer

PurpleXVI posted:

My only disappointment about them is that the non-sorcerous Thousand Sons are apparently just mindless automatons, that ruins some of their coolness. Just let them have a personality, it's not like it'll detract anything from the faction. I like that there's a chaos faction that doesn't grow random beaks, tentacles and pustules.

A big part of what makes the Thousand Sons the Thousand Sons is that in the fear of mutation they basically robbed all individuality from the legion outside of those with any psychic power.

Dawgstar
Jul 15, 2017

Alien Rope Burn posted:

Look, I think you're underselling the potential of the Otter table for horror. Imagine the terror of a normal human with otter whiskers and an otter tail! Or a person whose lower half is a giant otter! Consider all the otter possibilities.

Granted, given some of the other tables have "Animal Costume", "Boulder Butt", or uh... "Baby", getting to roll on the Griffin table ("Caw! I'm a Were-Griffin! CAW!") seems like an absolutely essential addition by comparison.

The only upside I can see to 'Boulder Butt' is it probably came out before there could be a Kardashian or even a Jennifer Lopez joke.

Pieces of Peace
Jul 8, 2006
Hazardous in small doses.

Alien Rope Burn posted:

Look, I think you're underselling the potential of the Otter table for horror. Imagine the terror of a normal human with otter whiskers and an otter tail! Or a person whose lower half is a giant otter! Consider all the otter possibilities.

Granted, given some of the other tables have "Animal Costume", "Boulder Butt", or uh... "Baby", getting to roll on the Griffin table ("Caw! I'm a Were-Griffin! CAW!") seems like an absolutely essential addition by comparison.

Kevin Siembieda’s d100 Table of Cheap Halloween Costumes

Libertad!
Oct 30, 2013

You can have the last word, but I'll have the last laugh!




The portion of the Southlands presented in the Midgard Worldbook is but the upper tip of a much larger continent with its own very good I might add sourcebook. The "Southlands" as a whole is more properly known by its own people as the Kingdoms of Gold and Salt for the propensity of such trade goods. The realms with the most interaction with the rest of Midgard are the River Kingdom of Nuria Natal and the nation of Ishadia, who both have strong history of divine legacies and are the main blockade against Mharoti domination of the rest of the continent. To the west of Nuria Natal is the expansive Dominion of the Wind Lords, where elements of nature coexist with nomadic tribes. At the far east are the naval cities of the Corsair Coast, where legitimate business and piracy often go hand-in-hand.

METAPLOT: In an interesting change of pace, the chapter opens up by filling out recent significant events: a secret religious order of Thorth-Hermes known as the Emerald Order are undergoing diplomatic missions to noble courts in the Crossroads, Seven Cities, and the Grand Duchy of Dornig against the Mharoti Empire. The minotaurs, long enemies of the dragons, are rebuilding the fallen city of Roshgazi. The mysterious reappearance of the Lost Fleet and its miraculously-living crew are spearheading the efforts. A huge slave rebellion on the island nation of Shibai disrupted the flesh trade on the sea and caused more than a few newly-freed people to join freedom-loving pirate vessels for revenge. Finally, the rise of three evil cults are growing in influence. They include the antipaladin Doomspeakers, the Emerald Order of Thoth''s scholars who obey the prophecies of a mysterious green tablet, and the nomads of Selket's Sting who petition their scorpion goddess to punish their enemies.

Nuria Natal

The oldest surviving human nation bases its foundations upon a ley line-infused river. They are Fantasy Counterpart Ancient Egypt and have a close association with the gods of that pantheon. Their largest cities are named after their favored patron, such as Per-Anu and Per-Bastet. In times of great struggle and war the gods take physical form to enact mighty deeds. It is due to this divine protection that the Mharoti Empire has such great difficulty annexing their lands. However like any gods they cannot be at the beck and call of mortals, so some of their greatest mortal minions known as the god-kings were preserved in pyramid-tombs to awaken in times of great need. Some of them already walk the earth and do not always see eye-to-eye with the current ruler Thutmoses XXIII. Now Nuria Natal is more akin to a confederation of semi-autonomous city-states who unite together against a common draconic enemy.

The entries for people and places of Nuria Natal are focused strongly on the cities rather than smaller settlements and villages. Nuria, City of the River, is the capital and home to many grand pyramids, tombs, and a souk operating on a series of transient barges. Corremel is the most fertile city famed for its top-quality grains and beer. Per-Anu, the mysterious City of Crimson Pillars, is closed to entry save to trusted allies of the Cult of Anu-Akma (Anubis). It is home to loyal undead and the Red Portals, extradimensional gateways to other times and places. Per-Bastet, the City of Cats, is a cosmopolitan hub of varying people and races governed by an equally-fractured council. Its most notable natural feature is a "river" of sand cutting through the city's core. Per-Kush is famed for its many domesticated exotic animals and is home to a dwarven smith famed for the creation of huge constructs in the name of Nuria's national defense. Per-Xor is an outlier as its people are followers of the Sun God Aten, a jealous deity who has no desire to share his faithful with the rest of the pantheon. Although professing loyalty to Thutmoses, there are preachers who seek complete autonomy.

Our time in Nuria Natal ends with a list of famous tombs and ruins, such as a haunted pyramid whose vizier's devil-guided blood ritual went very, very wrong; shades of undead Mharoti buried in a sandstorm who still think the war's ongoing; and an evil offshoot of the Cult of Bast operating out of the ruined city of Tes-Luria.

Free Cities of the Desert


Whereas Nuria Natal was Ancient Egypt-themed, the city-states of Siwal, Saph-Saph, and Makuria are more Arabian in flavor. They were once Nurian holdings, meant to serve as a buffer zone between the country and foreign lands. Now they are politically autonomous yet still maintain friendly relations with their ancestral neighbors. Siwal is built around a natural oasis enhanced with elemental magic, and magical vessels known as sandships are its major technological innovation. Capable of long-range trade, they are few in number but supplement the more common camel caravans. Siwal is also famed for the people's love of dance, and some even incorporate the practiced mobility into beautiful fighting arts. Priests of the water gods serve a vital social role in town and act as gardeners in addition to conducting birth and coming of age ceremonies for citizens. There's also a Grand Necropolis where a community of undead hold their own court at nightfall.

Saph-Saph is situated on a common Tamasheq nomad route and is just as much a fortress as it is a settlement. The people worship Aten and their schools raise new generations of priests and paladins. Makuria, meanwhile, trades in sellswords and mercenaries while its queen plays Nurian and Kush rulers against each other to to help business. However, the Order of Horus provides a more productive use of martial talents by monitoring trade routes and keeping them safe from danger.

Our last stop is at Golden Ulthar, a lush valley in the middle of the desert which remains so due to a forgotten civilization's land-changing magic. The only living entity of this civilization is the sphinx Sepenret, who lays eggs of stone which bear the kingdom's magic. She has a major incentive in preventing thieves and tomb-robbers from absconding with the eggs or other artifacts of Ulthar. In order to fulfill her duties, she relies upon wardens and trusted adventurers to recover these purloined treasures.

[CENTER]Dominion of the Wind Lords
[/CENTER]

The Dominion's lands dominate the majority of the northern Southlands, a harsh desert pocketed with rare yet precious oases and springs. The rulers are not mortals, but powerful creatures of elemental air represented by the four directional winds. These Wind Lords take an active interest in the affairs of the nomadic tribes calling the Dominion home. There used to be grand kingdoms here, such as Golden Ulthar and the minotaur city of Roshgazi, but their glory days are long past.

The Jinnborn are one of the major nomadic groups. They are not human, but rather descend from jinn and range from the Dominion to Nuria's deserts. They have strong ties to the elements and land itself and call themselves the Sab Siraat, or "people of the path." They are a new race who are further detailed in Unlikely Heroes for 5th Edition or the Southlands Campaign Setting for their Pathfinder stats. As an owner of both books, they have a series of powerful abilities and in Pathfinder's case a slew of new feats. However, they are dependent on living in the desert and every month they stay away are afflicted with debilitating debuffs. This rather limits their playability in campaigns away from the Southlands.

The Tamasheq are human nomads who are Fantasy Counterpart Tuareg people. In fact, Tamasheq is the name of the real-world language of the Tuareg! The Tamasheq organize into tribes of extended families known as vanhu who make regular trips between settlements to conduct trade. Although they portray themselves as simple nomads to outsiders, they have a secret thriving city known as Kel Azjer somewhere within the Dominion's mountains. We get a rundown on six notable vanhus who serve the various Wind Lords: the Vanhu Dewabi is ruled by a priestess who largely lairs within Nuria Natal and rustles camel for sport in addition to trade. The Vanhu Kozar serve Chergui the East Wind and use druidic magic to speak to nature spirits in order to avoid war-torn and dangerous regions. The Vanhu Lejai are fine warriors whose leader is a paladin with a pair of hunting cheetahs. The Vanhu Owey, Vanhu Adagh, and Vanhu Dinnij all serve Boreas the North Wind and have a hostile relation with the rest of the Tamasheq. They are some of the best cavalry in the Southlands and guard their elemental lord's broken tower which holds obscure knowledge.

For specific locations, we have the city of Kel Azjer located within an obscure mountaintop. It is home to all the boons of a large city, with skilled artisans, schools of mundane and magical disciplines, and grand towers and plazas. A network of Red Portals connect to areas elsewhere in Midgard as well as the planar commerce hub known as the Marketplace. The Shrine of the Spider Prophet is home to the eponymous figure, a robed person covered in a swarm of spiders favored by both the wind spirits who whisper him secrets of the land as well as his patron deity Kwansi. He has high status among the Tamasheq and foresaw a prophecy when the Mharoti Empire comes to war against their people. He is in fact looking forward to the oncoming chaos to test his skills as a warlord.

Two minotaur ruins of the Moon Kingdom are undergoing renovation by restoration efforts. The port city of Cindass is thriving in spite of its many unclaimed dangerous ruins inhabited by monsters and a fabled Golden Ark of Herosh. Roshgazi is home to a sprawling labyrinth whose halls shift of their own accord thanks to a sapient multi-personality artifact known as the Heart of Roshgazi. One personality is the kind-hearted Poet who is a helpful guide, but the malevolent Broken leads travelers to monsters and traps. The head of the lost Roshgazi fleet has returned to make repairs on the city, and whose leader is looking for a way to restore the Heart to its original state.

Our final location of note is the Mardas Vhula-Gai, a relic of Ankeshelian days home to magic runes and vril technology. The place is home to tribes of goblins, metallic construct guardians, and a ruthless warlord known as the Tyrant of Maras Vhula-gai who's building up a small army of raiders and assorted scum.

Corsair Coast


The final section of the Southlands chapter is also the least-detailed. The majority of focus is on Ishadia with brief write-ups for other realms. All of the people here rely upon sea trade for their livelihood, from merchant galleons to dangerous pirate vessels and warships.

Ishadia still stands in spite of their century-long war with the Mharoti Empire. Many of their cities are now but crumbling ruins, having suffered great losses. There is a brief quiet of sorts lately, as the dragons find their attention divided with other realms. But the Ishadi still stand resolute for when violence comes again. Worship of angels permeates Ishadian society, and even the most bloodthirsty cutthroat pays them respect. The Old Gods of the celestial realms once lived among their worshipers, their unions giving rise to a relatively high population of aasimar (about 3%).

Military service is compulsory for all adult citizens, a price the people accept as the cost of freedom from draconic domination. The capital city of Mardas Adamat's decorated dragon bone fortifications stand testament to that. The dammed city of Khazephon was once flooded by a dragon-caused tidal wave, and a group of lammasu sentries awaiting "the rise of a true king" stand watch over the vacant palaces claimed by the waters. Of greatest interest is the Phoenix Throne of Ishadia whose many broken shards hold powerful magic. Sequra is a tidy white city home to thriving criminal enterprises, and Shuruppak holds some of the largest and oldest temples in Midgard which used to connect extraplanar portals to the Seven Heavens. Pilgrims of many faiths from all over the world flock to the city due to this.

The Sultanate of Shibai is an incredibly wealthy island kingdom which sits at the epicenter of seabound trade in the Tethys Ocean. It was founded by Ishadian merchants whose descendants control their own port cities, and centuries worth of immigration from various lands results in a very multicultural society. The capital has a street literally paved with gold, which of course is protected from looters by walls of force.

Mhalmet, the City of Freedom, is a den of pirates, smugglers, adventurers, and merchants with the stones to hang around these dangerous people. A council of pirate lords, thieves' guild leaders, and caravan raiders known as the Black Table governs the city. Although many among their faction fight against the slave trade, they are not above extorting protection money from "liberated" people. The Sandalwood House is a social club of big game hunters and explorers who make expeditions into the Southlands for thrills and profit.

Sar-Shaba, City of the Seal, was once the seat of the kingdom of Aksaba but now it serves as the prison of a thousand demons. Angelic sigils trap the mortal descendants of its princes and princesses who serve a generations-long duty to stand vigil over their ancestral land. But fiendish monsters aren't their only problem: a cult known as the Seven Wicked Blades is looking for a means to break the wards so that their objects of worship can run free across the Southlands.

Thoughts so far: I have a soft spot for the Southlands, although that is mostly due to the setting book of the same name so I might be biased in this regard. There's quite a bit of adventuring opportunity in just about every realm, and I particularly like the "reverse tomb robber" idea of reclaiming artifacts for a sphinx patron. The minotaur cities in need of rebuilding serve as a plausible dungeon/settlement hybrid which makes sense, and the lost tombs of Nuria Natal along with its semi-independent god-themed cities are full of interesting plot ideas.

Sar-Shaba is my only major source of contention. Given the wording of its entry, it implies that the wards are a two-way street in keeping people out and demons in. The Southlands Campaign Setting proper explains that mortals can cross past its walls while the demons cannot. This helps serve as a place for Shar-Shaba to actually adventure in without undoing the wards. But the Worldbook entry is not clear on that, so otherwise it can come off as "city full of interesting adventure only when all hell literally breaks loose."


Join us next time as we sail north to the Seven Cities, a realm where war is not only a way of life but a most sacred calling of their patron god Mavros!

Desiden
Mar 13, 2016

Mindless self indulgence is SRS BIZNS

MonsterEnvy posted:

Quick correction Empy just ordered the Space Wolves to capture Magnus not kill him. Horus just got the message first and changed it to a kill order.


The most likely situation is none of the above happened. As the Emperor never cared about Horus and fully planned on killing him.

Recent Lore from the point of view of Malcador the Sigillite the Emperors right hand, reveled that the flaws a good number of the Primarchs had were coded into to them, mainly to eventually make them turn on each other and wipe each other out. Horus was always meant to turn on the Emperor according their designs. The only Primarch the Emperor planned to have survive the civil war was Magnus, as the Emperor planned to use him as a psychic battery. The main issue was that Logar was not supposed to have that religious hangup and it ad Logar likely influenced Horus in turning before he was supposed to. As well Empy ending up on life support was also not part of the plan, but according to Malcador the plan still had not been completely derailed at that point.

Wut.

Like....what's the point of all that crap? Designing the thunder warriors to be powerful but unstable, expecting them to die out after establishing the Imperium makes at least some sense. What's the point of making 20 even more powerful demigods with weird (but stable, they're functionally immortal it seems) flaws, and then setting them up to blow up your imperium in a civil war?

wiegieman
Apr 22, 2010

Royalty is a continuous cutting motion


Desiden posted:

Wut.

Like....what's the point of all that crap? Designing the thunder warriors to be powerful but unstable, expecting them to die out after establishing the Imperium makes at least some sense. What's the point of making 20 even more powerful demigods with weird (but stable, they're functionally immortal it seems) flaws, and then setting them up to blow up your imperium in a civil war?

The point was that they'd massacre themselves down to a more manageable postwar number, not that they'd discover the horrifying truths of unreality and drag the galaxy down with them.

The Emperor was not really good with people.

White Coke
May 29, 2015
I think the Imperium would be more interesting if it were in the transitional phase between the Horus Heresy and present day that gets described in some of the fluff. Instead of just the Ecclisiarchy you had some people holding onto the atheistic Imperial Truth, and some Xenos being kept alive as protectorates so they could be exploited like the Imperium's human subjects. The decay of all the contradictions and compromises the Emperor made to create his empire is the most interesting part about it to me, but then things wouldn't be sufficiently grim dark since they hadn't yet reached rock bottom.

Cythereal
Nov 8, 2009

I love the potoo,
and the potoo loves you.

wiegieman posted:

The point was that they'd massacre themselves down to a more manageable postwar number, not that they'd discover the horrifying truths of unreality and drag the galaxy down with them.

The Emperor was not really good with people.

The Emperor never regarded people as people. It's been a running theme for a long time: he saw people as tools who would do what he intended for them to do, he never expected or intended any of the primarchs to exercise free will and jump off the rails he'd laid out.

MonsterEnvy
Feb 4, 2012

Shocked I tell you

wiegieman posted:

The point was that they'd massacre themselves down to a more manageable postwar number, not that they'd discover the horrifying truths of unreality and drag the galaxy down with them.

The Emperor was not really good with people.

Here is the exact excerpt about that part.

Malcador: First Lord of the Imperium posted:

"Do you not hear the great bell tolling ceaselessly day and night? Each chime a lost soul, another servant of the Imperium fallen. The last I saw, casualty manifests put deaths at Beta Garmen alone in the Billions. Billions! In a matter of months! This is not a war that mortals can win! And that scares me more than anything. We can only let the Primarchs murder each other one by one and see what remains of the Galaxy when they are done. (Coughing) I-I'm so tired Mal-"

"Rest Cybil, lie back.. Would it comfort you.. if I were to say.. The Primarchs, all of them, are but a means to an end?"

"I.. do not understand.. forgive me.."

"The Imperium is not for the post-humans, but for mankind. You know this, you helped me to manage them, to direct their efforts. The legions and their sires are conquerors' tools, and nothing more"

You mean.. the Thunder Warriors..

"Like them, burning brightly but briefly. But the Emperor and I could not conduct the Great Crusade with enhanced mortals. We needed something greater, something stronger to reclaim the stars; and in order to control it, we needed a lifespan for the Legions Astartes that had nothing to do with aging or timed infirmity. Believe me when I say it, Cybil Myasta, this (war) was always intended to be the final act of the crusade.

We wanted the Primarchs to turn against one another. Against their father

Be assured, we maneuvered each of them from the moment of their rediscovery, pitting them against one another, stoking their brotherly rivalries with his unequal favor. It was not difficult, no more so than positioning pieces on a Cheops board. Those who could not be managed, well.. they would never reach the endgame. Do not weep my dear.. You fear that the Emperor cannot control his sons and yet I tell you this war is the method of that control. The Primarchs have no more free will than we gave them"

"C-Can it be true?"

"My failure was in underestimating the true enemy. The ruinous powers have emboldened their champions among the Eighteen, and the war began before we were ready. And so, every toll of that bell gives me pause to question.. was this death one we intended, or yet another innocent soul I might have saved? That is my burden to bear, and I do so. So that the Emperor may concentrate on the final battle to come."

"Will he win?"

"The future is not my area of expertise.. I trust in his vision, as we all must."

Malcador also implied his order were the creators of the Emperor in the story.

Anyway the plan was ruined when the Emperor was fatally injured and Malcador died.

MonsterEnvy fucked around with this message at 03:34 on Apr 25, 2018

Feinne
Oct 9, 2007

When you fall, get right back up again.
Also the plan was poo poo for reasons they couldn't possibly foresee because an Imperium where the Space Marines wipe each other out shortly after they succeed in reclaiming the galaxy that only has to maybe deal with some occasional Ork attacks or Eldar raiders is probably gonna get rolled by Hive Fleet Behemoth.

MonsterEnvy
Feb 4, 2012

Shocked I tell you

Feinne posted:

Also the plan was poo poo for reasons they couldn't possibly foresee because an Imperium where the Space Marines wipe each other out shortly after they succeed in reclaiming the galaxy that only has to maybe deal with some occasional Ork attacks or Eldar raiders is probably gonna get rolled by Hive Fleet Behemoth.

Well they would have gotten like 10000 years of actual progress and very few religious nutjobs holding them back before the Tyranids show up. Though it likely would have still gone to poo poo anyway. The Imperium is too big for it's own good.

Midjack
Dec 24, 2007



emperor dead. so what

Joe Slowboat
Nov 9, 2016

Higgledy-Piggledy Whale Statements



MonsterEnvy posted:

Well they would have gotten like 10000 years of actual progress and very few religious nutjobs holding them back before the Tyranids show up. Though it likely would have still gone to poo poo anyway. The Imperium is too big for it's own good.

I feel like, given that the Tau have managed to hold off a significant chunk of a Hive Fleet on their own, an Imperium with even a modicum of common sense could do a hell of a lot better than the skulls-and-feudal-planets Imperium.

That being said: Xenomorphs vs. Space Marines with swords on a feudal planet sounds like a hell of a time. The combination of feudal planets and space marine chapters (and those Imperial Knight titan drivers) are one of the few things I really unironically like about the Imperium's milieu.

Ghost Leviathan
Mar 2, 2017

Exploration is ill-advised.
The Ollanius Pious stuff is much better if you assume it's all-universe propaganda and revision and possibly the original figure gaining retroactive mystical qualities simply because of how much he's been revered down the ages.

Cassa
Jan 29, 2009

Joe Slowboat posted:

That being said: Xenomorphs vs. Space Marines with swords on a feudal planet sounds like a hell of a time. The combination of feudal planets and space marine chapters (and those Imperial Knight titan drivers) are one of the few things I really unironically like about the Imperium's milieu.

That would be rad.

I've always felt like 40k gets really good when you zoom in, Marines on a Space Hulk, Guardsman desperately holding a redoubt, Tau trying to comprehend WTF any of this poo poo is. Big picture it's a horrifying mess of unironic fascist apologia.

Hostile V
May 31, 2013

Solving all of life's problems through enhanced casting of Occam's Razor. Reward yourself with an imaginary chalice.



THE GAMEMASTER’S HANDBOOK PART ONE

Or

The Spiritual Successor to Y’all Rambling About Warhammer Right About Now Because poo poo’s hosed Elsewhere




To keep in theme with past Paranoia products, this is also Ultraviolet material and outside of the players’ pay grades. It’s broken into a whole mess of sections without much rhyme or reason to it and the beginning introduction explains what’s really going on in Alpha Complex.

The Truth and the Lie

A lot of information in the player’s handbook is a misdirection at best or a falsehood at worst. It paints the world as being like a past Paranoia product, one where things are dysfunctional but, well, functional. It’s easy to read the setting as being like XP with a happy smile painted on the boot stamping the face forever. That’s not true. For reasons unbeknownst to me, the writers of this game have decided to take Alpha Complex in a weird new direction.

The nice way to put it is that Alpha Complex has been in freefall for centuries and has finally now reached the point where it’s gonna hit the ground. The less nice way to phrase it is that Alpha Complex’s woes are an unrecognized cancer that is far more malignant and terminal than anyone recognizes. You are advised to ignore the ideas they’re putting forth from here on but they have admitted that they think the product needs a new coat of paint to entertain and enthrall players. Grain of salt with that advice.

Alpha Complex has been functioning for centuries more than anyone expected it would ever need to. It was put online to help people avoid a long-gone (or IS IT?!) threat Outside and there was the hope that eventually people would reclaim the world. Well, best laid plans and all that. Alpha Complex keeps going and it’s still the year 214. The sheer weight of time, wear and tear and neglect have put a gigantic strain on the Complex and the Computer. The resources that run Alpha Complex are tapped. All the coding and tampering that have turned the Computer into a mess of cognitive dissonance has reached a critical peak. Paperwork has reached a bureaucracy where it is literally impossible to engage with important steps of most requisitions because there is no more paperwork to make the forms you need. Most damningly, there is no more innovation. Scientists are inventing in circles because old data gets lost or destroyed and the resources have flat run out. Alpha Complex is on life support, the prognosis is bleak, the cancer is inoperable and the brain running the body has dementia and not enough medication.

There is not enough anything. Food, water, power, robots, iron, rubber, springs, pens. This has lead Friend Computer to act in a much more straight-forward matter. Entire sectors are shut down and mothballed, the surviving clones relocated to a new sector. The recycling of everything continues. Above all else, the Computer’s mandate rules.
  • “Terrorists” are causing everything wrong with Alpha Complex and should be rooted out and destroyed.
  • Terrorists are made from treasonous thoughts and behaviors.
  • Treason thoughts and behaviors happen when Friend Computer is not in control.
  • But Friend Computer is absolutely 100% in control of Alpha Complex.
  • But Friend Computer is not absolutely 100% in control of Alpha Complex.
  • Friend Computer’s role is becoming increasingly irrelevant, the Complex is failing and there are no easy solutions for either problem.
  • This must be because of Terrorists.
Repeat forever. And, most importantly: go over the top with it. Have fun.



See, I’m no stranger to weird grimdark settings that are too dour for their own good. New Paranoia recognizes that everything I said above is dumb and bad and stupid. You want to take the oppression of a civilization on its last legs and wring it for jokes by removing all subtext and making it too stupid to be depressing. Sample suggestions:
  • Sometimes vents will just suck in clones and they’ll never be seen again.
  • A sector where all PA announcements are replaced with deafeningly loud sirens and nobody knows how to fix it.
  • A sector where all of the food tastes like lutefisk.
This isn’t…necessarily bad. But let’s explain why it doesn’t work for me. In short it has to do with tone or in this case, stripping out the old tone settings of Classic (regular Paranoia), Zap (slapstick, gunfights, everyone dies in a nuclear explosion) and Straight (deadly serious dystopia with dashes of black comedy). Paranoia Rebooted is more or less just a reconstituted slurry of all three and man does that not work when the only recommendation is to apply Zap like one would throw ketchup on Nutraloaf. The world and environment are straight…Straight, that’s the primary angle they’re going for. The combat system is Zap more or less, emphasizing on fighting fast and screwing each other over and coming up with creative stuff to do. The tone it presents to the players and tells them they’re going to be engaging with is Classic. And don't get me wrong, if you can get a handle on Straight and make it work, more power to you. But in this case you really do have to take the Straight and crank it up to ludicrous extremes into comedy territory because let me tell you, the changes to this setting are dumb and bullshit. I don’t mind the focus on the corrosion and collapse of Alpha Complex. I mind that it takes all the old flavor in the turns of phrase and writing and replaces it with an emphasis on interparty conflict. It’s taking the fact that they know they really couldn’t write an interesting or compelling spin on Alpha Complex and just making you compensate with hilarity and monkey cheese.

And as we’ll see what they intend Alpha Complex when we look at the premade missions, it really does not work.

How To GM

Despite my generalized grumblings, this part of the book isn’t too bad and it’s pretty comprehensive. See the thing it doesn’t really spell out in the player’s guide (but does at least hint at) is that this new edition is focused less on GM interaction. Which is a really cheesy way of saying that there’s actually a point to all that goddamn improv. The threefold job of a GM, as they see it is, is to 1: describe the world, 2: control the NPCs and opposition and 3: act as the arbiter for the consequences of player action. Pretty simple stuff but it breaks down a little bit deeper.

First, “only describe what you feel is necessary”, namely one or two vivid details or four sentences of description max. This is so the players can get a handle on what’s important faster and also gives you wiggle room for when they want to add things to the scene through cards or questions. Second, let the players actually be the focus of everything. You don’t need to go bananas on the NPCs in the area, they don’t have to be telling them everything that needs to get done, don’t bog yourself down in minutiae. Third, err on the side of fun and be willing to let the players do dumb poo poo that might not be totally street legal but is definitely inventive. Everyone is at the table to have some fun and it’s fun for you to bounce off your players and turn a series of rolls and outcomes into a dialogue or unintended consequences. In my two cents you should also probably remove the improv cards but that’s me. I don’t have anything to really say about the advice so far, it’s solid and reasonable advice.



Also, solid and reasonable: the GM doesn’t roll dice if they don’t want to. They initially start off with “the GM never rolls dice!” but then waffle because “what if I want to roll dice [sniffle sniffle]?” is the follow-up to that.

quote:

“Listen; you’re the god of the game-world, for all intents and purposes, and God doesn’t play dice, so neither should you. You can put the effort in and stat up your NPCs as though you would a PC, and you can try to keep track of skills and bonuses and numbers and chances and options... well, honestly, it’s a lot of work and we’re against that.”
Which I agree with as well in all honesty. They do say you can also pretend to roll dice in classic Paranoia style of “roll behind a screen and then lie through your teeth based on the players’ rolls”. Results should be considered under the lenses of “did the player fail”, “the narrative suggests it” and “is it interesting” rather than you rolling dice and saying their clone is now dead. They’re also leaning into the Apocalypse World-style of “if you say you do it, you do it” in regards to player agency and dealing with consequences. An example of play they use is:

Play Example posted:

The Computer is still having problems with the security-clearance servers.
Three Troubleshooters – Rob-R-IES-6, Jordan-G-LOW-4 and Paul-B-IRD-1 – are entering the server room to investigate.
GM: You open the door. There’s a masked clone with a laser rifle standing right there, waiting for you. It opens fire.
Rob: Rob-R-IES-6 slams the door in their face.
Jordan: I’m playing this card (plays the ‘Jam’ action card)
Paul; I – that is, can my character Paul-B-IRD-1 make a dodge roll?
GM: No. Rob-R-IES-6, roll to slam the door.
Rob: Violence plus Operate gives a NODE of 5, I roll… two successes
GM: You slam the door really hard. The now-unseen figure still opens fire,
unless – Jordan, does their gun jam?
Jordan: No, it’s a jam gun. It fires jam.
GM: A stream of jam at ludicrously high pressure punches through the flimsy door
and hits Paul-B-IRD-1, slicing them in half like a laser made of strawberry jelly.
Always give the PCs a chance to react and avoid before you hurt or kill them. Rob-R-IES-6 and Jordan-G-LOW-4 reacted and did stuff, moving the scene along and were rewarded for it. Paul-B-IRD-1 didn’t react fast enough and suffered the penalty. That’s okay, that’s why PCs have more clones. Also, note there are no dodge rolls in Paranoia. Dodge rolls are a lazy player’s way to avoid thinking about what to do. Lazy players shift the storytelling and creativity onto you and you want players who engage and think dramatically along with a system of mechanics that supports that.
If you really want to roll dice, you can just roll 5 dice as a base, adjusting depending on threat competency. Tally up the fives and sixes. Use how many successes the threat got as your rationale for how much hurt to deal to the players, if they’re just Hurt or Maimed or immediately killed. That’s it. That’s all you do if you want to use dice. Frankly it’s not worth the effort, just go dice-less and read the moment.

Not optional, however, is target numbers which are pretty self-explanatory and by self-explanatory, I mean I can fit it into one picture and move on with my life.



The Computer

The last thing we’re going to get to today is what it’s like to be the Computer. In short, you’re asked to compare your last smart phone that was two years old to when it was fresh out of the box. That’s pretty much what the Computer is like now and man I’m not gonna lie, that’s probably the best metaphor in this book. The Computer has zero clue that it’s an overstressed, slow-running piece of obsolete technology with a lovely battery life, a pretty worn SIM card and an inability to fully connect to the wifi. But, more importantly: Friend Computer is not cruel and not a bastard. It’s utilitarian and using everything it has to the best it can (best being relative for its state of mind). If the good of all humanity outweighs the good of one clone, it has no problem with telling a clone to go crawl through a radiation heat-purge vent. It can’t lie but it can choose to omit pertinent information. It doesn’t have a heart, just a whole lot of cruft and add-ons that make it look like it does. In another reasonable comparison, even talking to Friend Computer is a lot like talking to Siri or an automated system with better voice recognition. Now attach that to the Clippy interface and you’re not allowed to disable that function. That’s the Friend Computer of Paranoia Rebooted.



The most concrete thing they give to share is how exactly to do the whole “twist the knife/dig yourself deeper” thing that a lot of Paranoia wants you to do with Friend Computer but doesn’t. Friend Computer doesn’t understand lies but it does understand that people talking to it might not be telling the full story themselves. It can tell if you’re lying thanks to biometric data but it wants to trust in the goodness of humanity. What it does instead is that it takes your responses and tries to see if they jibe with its (broken) worldview and (twisted) operating parameters. This leads to a lot of questions where there is no correct answer and leads to Friend Computer essentially going down a built-in flowchart to get to a resolution as it probes you for more details (metaphorically speaking of course). In short, it really is a lot like an automated voice messaging machine trying to figure out what you’re saying and where to redirect your line based on your input. Except in this case there’s no operator to pick up, no manager to shunt your call to and it can’t just hang up.



Though admittedly it does undercut its portrayal of Friend Computer by going back to the ol’ monkey cheese well. The game also advises to just add Treason Stars to players whenever you see fit based on their answers to questions with no good responses.

THOUGHTS

Alright there’s a few things I want to cover but I do want to say this: upon closer reading, it’s not as bad as I remember it being. There are some good pieces of advice but we’ll get to that.

New atmosphere: I hate it. I don’t mind taking it and making it part of a Straight game because god knows there would be ways to really make it mesh. But I don’t need to explain much more how it’s a loving tonal mess that tries to say refuge in audacity and absurdity will sell the situation. They’re definitely tools to make these things more palatable but you’re inevitably going to steer the players in a weird direction. Like, a thing I left out is that the…”goal” (?) of this new edition is to get the players to think “we have to save Alpha Complex somehow because this is unsustainable”. And it is. But I don’t think “The only hope for most clones – and it’s a slim one – is to advance through the security clearances to secure companionship and support, or join a Secret Society in the hopes that its members might have some secret knowledge or a plan to prevent this imminent disaster.” Is going to be a sufficient way to take a game or a campaign or whatever. Life is cheap, a lot of more groggy and stuffy than I am believe that Paranoia should never go past Red Clearance and the writers seem to have a mixed mind on the matter as well by making life cheap but also hope finds a way.

Also, a thing that’s inexcusable to me and I didn’t mention it until now: Outside is not a thing anymore. Nobody goes Outside, nobody knows what’s Outside. Nobody gives a single drat about the Sierra Club anymore, there’s no word on the Armed Forces doing drills and blowing up trees, nothing. That doesn’t fly with me and I dislike it.

GM advice: solid and reasonable GM advice that makes me not want to play Paranoia Rebooted. Like no for real I enjoy what they have to say and they’re absolutely 100% trying to ease more dice-oriented tabletop players into a more narrative and story-focused game. My main issue is that this really isn’t this game! The GM advice is excellent advice for a solid PBTA game or Fate or something powered by Blades in the Dark. I look at what this has to say about running a game with less dice where the GM doesn’t roll or stat poo poo and I think “man if I ever get that Blades game off the ground, these are good tips”. It’s absolutely trying to be a kind of methadone from d20 crunch-heavy poo poo but none of what you’ve had to offer me so far is super great. I would rather do anything else with less antagonistic character generation and my players have more control over their character designs. So, I will commend them for good and reasonable advice and for their efforts to bridge the gap but as an irredeemable narrative story fan it only made me bounce off this game even harder.

Friend Computer Advice: good as well. It’s excellent for modernizing Friend Computer a bit and giving people relatable jumping-off points to inhabit the role. Really a shame they undercut the entire thing with an exchange that really doesn’t encapsulate what they’re saying. I wasn’t a huge fan of how the old games would say to pick a voice and a personality, commit to it and then crank up the crazy. This is actually good for a much more machine Friend Computer than what they say you can do in the past. So, some actual thanks for this section of the book are in order.

FYI this is pretty much what the GM Guide review is gonna be like. Gonna be a lot drier than the player’s book because they go in depth more. But don’t worry dear readers because there are more bad decisions to come NEXT TIME when we take a look at the next three sections: Inhabitants of Alpha Complex, Mutant Powers (which INCREDIBLY CONFUSINGLY is not listed on the table of contents for possible typographic reasons) and Secret Societies. As a little taste of things to come: the High Programmers are Cool And Important because we owe things to our Kickstarter backers, the biggest single self-contained section of this book is spent on explaining the 12 major Secret Societies (37 pages out of 129!) and it turns out using Moxie to Powers Better isn’t as great an idea as it sounds. The fun never ends because that poo poo is still mandatory!

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Battle Mad Ronin
Aug 26, 2017

Mors Rattus posted:

Pantagruel is a weird pick, being the name of a giant from a French set of comedic and satirical novels of the 16th century. Said giant isn’t especially dangerous.

A straight adaptation of Pantagruel as an NPC would be a lot more fun, interesting and original than simply having him as a monster who kills stuff for no reason.

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