Register a SA Forums Account here!
JOINING THE SA FORUMS WILL REMOVE THIS BIG AD, THE ANNOYING UNDERLINED ADS, AND STUPID INTERSTITIAL ADS!!!

You can: log in, read the tech support FAQ, or request your lost password. This dumb message (and those ads) will appear on every screen until you register! Get rid of this crap by registering your own SA Forums Account and joining roughly 150,000 Goons, for the one-time price of $9.95! We charge money because it costs us money per month for bills, and since we don't believe in showing ads to our users, we try to make the money back through forum registrations.
 
JcDent
May 13, 2013

Give me a rifle, one round, and point me at Berlin!
Cultures: Balkhan, pt. 2



Degenesis Rebirth
Primal Punk
Chapter 2: Cultures


Laibach

Want to know more about the palers? Too bad! Instead, you get to learn about a city that's untouched by the vegetation that so often overwhelms abandoned settlements of man. Laibach has a song of its own and the center of the city is etched with Dushani Chakras of various sizes.

'Laibach posted:

The Balkhani say the buildings are telling the city’s story in a language that no one can understand. Others claim the voices are the shadows of those whom the screaming of the Dushani Mokosch Eidolon has ripped body from soul, no less. Until today, the souls vacillate on Eidolon’s wavelength, unableto flee.

Mokosch Eidolon the most anime name in the book yet.

Laibach is also situated on an old smuggler route in the Carnic Alps between Purgare and Balkhan. What few visitors come there can find Burn and weapon staches, even slave pens. However, nobody stays long. A bandaged creature – a cyborg with eye lasers – roams the streets and there are red lights (cameras?) in the windows downtoawn that can alert it to the presense of visitors.

Pest

This part of Budapest is now a giant sound amplifier for the Dushani, to the point where sound can slice you to pieces before disintegrating you entirely. It used to be held by the Judges at a time long past. However, the only inhabitans now are mutants (called Abberants, because we're short on synonims I guess) who will kill anyone who makes a sound. Some Apocalyptics still manage to harvest Burn in there - they must have very disciplined children!

Summarized half a page if not more there.

Breaking the Wave

AND THEN CHERNOBOG HAPPENED!

The Corroded wanted to cross the city, so he ordered the clans to clear the road, break the sound wave. Hundreds got vaporized by the sound waves, with Dushani from all over the country rushing in to bolster the song of defense.

Breaking the Wave posted:

The Corroded is impatient. He wants to move on. Lights flash in the night sky; detonations tear the whispering of the woods. Soon, he will have reached his destiny. Next stop Beograd.

Like in any good post-apocalyptic setting, pre-Eschaton losstech kicks loving rear end.

Voivodate Beograd



Voivodate Beograd posted:

Over the centuries, Beograd’s Twin Tower has been besieged, fortified, conquered, lit on fire several times, ironclad, cursed and blessed.

The place is the iconic seat of power, and the settlement grew around it. Whoever takes power, installs himself in the Twin Tower. The Djuric family/dynasty has held it for the 100 years and there are celebrations on the account of the centenial - and to help the citizens forget Beograd's many enemies.

The Voivode sold Spitalier doctors to slavery after they failed to stop typhus a year ago. Some Apocalyptics empied their chamber pots in front of him once, so now they have to live in a ghetto that they can't leave at night.

The Usudi are a new problem in the mountains; the kind that eats travellers. However, this isn't just your usual bare-assed Clanners being angry at people who use indoor plumbing!

Voivodate Beograd posted:

However, those Usudi wake a primordial fear even in Djuric’s assassins. They are nightmarish creatures without fear or brains, dehumanized and deadly. Even the smallest scratches lead to putrid blisters when an Usudi is around. They pollute the air and the soul. The people consider them a bad omen.

Ah yes, nigthmare killers that spread contageous miasma – might be a bad sign! Might be.

The others smell Beograd's weakness: Dalmatians have sent advance parties of shock troops for exploration (the Steiner scout lance approach), and Sofia is both building walls and hiring new troops. Oh, and remember that the Corroded is on his way.

So Djuric is sending lookalikes into Beograd to demonstrate normalcy; two have already been assassinated.

Voivodate Sofia

Sofia is a cool place, with a lot of clean mountain water, fertile ground, and wind conditions that take Sepsis into the mountains and away from their lands.

It's guarded by five fortresses that protect the five mountain passes leading into Sofia. If IRL Sofia isn't surrounded the mountains, well, the Degenesys Facebook claims that since the world is set 500 later, the location of the cities doesn't have to be the same as we know today.

'Voivodate Sofia posted:

Sofia itself lies on the northern slope of the Witoscha Mountains. Ramrod-straight streets lead past palaces adorned with pillars, metal-covered buildings and dusty apartment blocks. Some end in giant plazas, others get lost in the forests’ proliferation. The Voivode’s palace is an octagonal hall clutched in steel ribs that would have room enough for dozens of Surge Tanks.

The Voivode rarely stays in his pimp shack. He's always about town, inspecting troops, giving orders, and so on. He's spreading the road network and even building a radio mast. The book calls the latter Voivode's only mistake.

All in all, I kinda like the writing about the Sofia's Voivode. Too bad the dude doesn't even get a name.

Confederations

Oooh, a sidesection!

Confederations posted:

Djuric knows his people. He loves them for their savageness and excesses, for their grand gestures and their passion.That is also why he mistrusts them.

Djuric's love/mistrust relationship with his walking stereoptypes means that he has to seek outside help. For that, he's tapping the Pollners, and I regreat having already used the Eastern Poland joke earlier.

Pollners are sworn to him and they carry out his orders. They get free reign in the city and in return. When they're not whoring and drinking in Beograd, they go out to the clans of Pollen and Balkhan to convince them to join Djuric.

Adbot
ADBOT LOVES YOU

Bieeanshee
Aug 21, 2000

Not keen on keening.


Grimey Drawer

Libertad! posted:

Thoughts So Far: I really like Midgard's pantheons. The mask aspect is a cool and innovative concept for a divine origin, and I like how there's cross-cultural adoption of deities rather than having them be consigned to geographic areas. I liked the idea of de-emphasizing alignment, although I feel that the Worldbook did not go far enough in this regard. But besides the Dark Gods, it should not be too hard to let clerics be of any alignment given how most of the deities aren't innately tied to moral systems or demand atrocities. There is a bit of gender stereotypes among deities called out as being favored by women or have male-focused orders (Bastet, Lada, Mavros, etc) and associating cross-dressers and female prostitutes with the "evil pantheon" is more than a little problematic*. But overall I felt this to be a good chapter.

I agree. Overall it's quite good, but I'd really rather see the whole thing with Shub-Niggurath ejected completely.

Feinne
Oct 9, 2007

When you fall, get right back up again.

Bieeanshee posted:

I agree. Overall it's quite good, but I'd really rather see the whole thing with Shub-Niggurath ejected completely.

I dunno they're using enough 'real' mythological entities that I don't feel like it's super out of place to have their own take on something like that. They just took one of her names and her vague description and kind of created their own thing from that prompt.

Joe Slowboat
Nov 9, 2016

Higgledy-Piggledy Whale Statements



Feinne posted:

I dunno they're using enough 'real' mythological entities that I don't feel like it's super out of place to have their own take on something like that. They just took one of her names and her vague description and kind of created their own thing from that prompt.

A. Lovecraft is a very different thing from historical mythology
B. I don't think that's the primary reason why 'Transgressive cross-dressers serving a chaos sex abomination' needs to not be in an RPG

LazyAngel
Mar 17, 2009

Spire part 11



Districts and Factions of Commerce

Let's start off on a high point: (copied because I'd only end up writing it out verbatim).



So yes, the North Docks are overseen by the Duke of the order of St Beneferas, who rules from their Castle - a decomissioned military paddle-steamer of human make. She (the current Duke being a female Drow called Westfall) exerts tenuous control over the feuding gangs of Knights, and is generally given free reign as long as the damage to the docks themselves is kept to a minimum.

The Range is a row of houses which have been completely knocked through, creating a jousting range. Of course, horses are rare in Spire, so this consists of drunkards running at each other full tilt.

The Sundered Bell is an Eidolon, an anchor-artifact that binds a demon into the real world. There were once seven such bells, which the ancient Drow used to summon the Kraken from the waters near the Spire, but only one remains, split into two on the orders of the Aelfir Warrior-Poet New-Rivers-Broken.

Solace. A home for the needy. Notable in that there appears to be no ulterior motive associated with it, and it may well be a genuine charitable institution.

The Heap A collection of half-sunk boats and rafts just outside of the docks. There's gnolls hiding out here amongst the outcasts and gutterkin, and they're probably up to something.

The Carmine Sceptre One of the toughest bars in the Docks, and home to the only order of Knights that's exclusively female. Also serves as a womans' shelter. Staffed almost entirely by middle-aged, impossibly violent woment and their equally violent children.

The Last Leg The only bar in the Docks who have never paid for their beer - and this is a matter of pride. Whenever the taps run dry, a small fleet heads out to plunder other inns or nearby trading vessels.

The Sky Docks

From the bottom of the Spire to the top. The sky docks generally serve a slightly higher class of trader. Giant delivery birds - including the infamous Spire megacorvidae - fly up and down the Spire itself, and carry goods to and from the great Skywhales that are the most common form of aerial transport to and from the city.

Megacorvidae aren't as smart as their smaller cousins, but are big enough to carry good and people up and down the city. Handlers are exclusively Drow and human - Aelfir don't get on with animals - and are generally a suspicious bunch.

Skywhales are enourmous floating creatures that slowly drift across the countryside, plucking bundles of the leaves from the trees below with their dozen or so trunk-like tentacles (and any creature foolish enough to sleep or be otherwise immobile in their path). Pretty slow and hard to steer, they're rigged with crude sails and other means of gentle persuasion.

The Instrumentalists believe that Spire is a massive, incomplete musical instrument whose songs will lead to enlightenment. There's currently a full seventeen different factions, all part of a nightmarishly complicated web of betrayals, alliances and counter-alliances, but all seem to have a knack for 'singing' to the city, unlocking doors and moving the very structure itself.

The Blue Port

The third commercial district of the Spire, opposite the Docks, the Blue port funnels incomers into the city through one of six gates (past a gauntlet of bribable guards and customs officials). The Bazaar at the centre of the Blue port is possibly the largest market in the known world. Pretty much anything can be bought or sold here, if you know where to look or know someone who knows.

The Low Wall Boarding House is basically a front for a network of smuggling tunnels through the city wall and throughout the lower levels of the city.

Mercenary Houses make their living either hiring out with the Allied Defense Force or being paid to keep trouble in the port to a minimum, but there's always a handful available if you need some short-term friends with a penchant for violence.

The Azurites are priests of Azur - dedicated to the god of commerces. They control much of the markets of the Bazaar, and are the reason the district is called the Blue Port - after the blue-and-gold of their sacred vestments.

Next: Crime!

Halloween Jack
Sep 12, 2003
I WILL CUT OFF BOTH OF MY ARMS BEFORE I VOTE FOR ANYONE THAT IS MORE POPULAR THAN BERNIE!!!!!
Shub-Niggurath, in particular, is an entity that was never really depicted in Lovecraft's own stories, only appearing as references to a dark Cybele sort of figure. There are many different ways to make pastiche of or pay homage to Lovecraft's writing that don't involve spinning Shub-Niggurath out into a sex monster, yet that inevitably happens.

Feinne
Oct 9, 2007

When you fall, get right back up again.

Halloween Jack posted:

Shub-Niggurath, in particular, is an entity that was never really depicted in Lovecraft's own stories, only appearing as references to a dark Cybele sort of figure. There are many different ways to make pastiche of or pay homage to Lovecraft's writing that don't involve spinning Shub-Niggurath out into a sex monster, yet that inevitably happens.

Indeed, the details of their implementation are poo poo and would be poo poo even if they changed the name and the vague description of the deity in question. I think any good implementation has to start from the fact that she's really more of a cosmic principle than an actual entity and worshipping her is questionable mostly on the grounds that she doesn't care that you're doing it and her attention is likely to cause weird unique lifeforms to start appearing and probably not being the right kind of help.

Vulpes Vulpes
Apr 28, 2013

"...for you, it is all over...!"
Not a full F&F, but from Over the Edge's Cloaks-
Introduction:


The suggested end-states to the adventure outlined in the books:




The 90s were a wacky time for RPGs.

Oberndorf
Oct 20, 2010



Was that supposed to be tongue in cheek, or does it just come off that way 20 years later?

LatwPIAT
Jun 6, 2011

Oberndorf posted:

Was that supposed to be tongue in cheek, or does it just come off that way 20 years later?

Leaving the book in a busy airport so it'll be mistaken for a "handbook of international crime and espionage" is an allusion to the 1988 Secret Service raid on Steve Jackson Games, when the Secret Service labeled drafts of GURPS: Cyberpunk a "handbook of computer crime".

Oberndorf
Oct 20, 2010



LatwPIAT posted:

Leaving the book in a busy airport so it'll be mistaken for a "handbook of international crime and espionage" is an allusion to the 1988 Secret Service raid on Steve Jackson Games, when the Secret Service labeled drafts of GURPS: Cyberpunk a "handbook of computer crime".

I think I had heard about that somewhere. I just meant that the “total war” end sounded like a random list of vaguely nonsensical things that should have been read off by Bill Murray, followed by “Mass hysteria!”.

Bieeanshee
Aug 21, 2000

Not keen on keening.


Grimey Drawer
No, those are all genuine OTE plot points.

Zomborgon
Feb 19, 2014

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



MYTHENDER is a game based around killing gods. That’s not tooling around for 20 levels to work up to that point, mind you- you’ll just sit down with your 4 hyped-up friends and smash Odin’s head in over the course of a couple hours. This is high-octane action done… pretty dang well, I’d say.

Some selling points:
- Your character is whatever you want them to be, with extremely little restriction. So long as they’re willing to put up a fight against oppressive deities, anything goes.

- In combat, your actions succeed. How much of an effect you actually cause is up to the dice to some degree, but if you say you shove a spike into Loki’s face, that happens, and he cannot simply block it.

- Description is everything. The combat is surprisingly simple once you figure out the basic mechanics, though there’s enough strategy to hold your average D&D player’s interest, but the real fun is in using your character’s abilities in the most over-the-top ways possible. If you can justify your action with the items on your sheet, the only other requirement is that it’s cool.

- Most importantly to me, you’ll be rolling fistfuls of dice at every opportunity.

Also, the entire book is available for free at http://mythenderrpg.com/


Let’s get right into it.



Introduction

We start with a bit of fiction- A party of three Mythenders approaches Thor, calling him the "so-called God of Thunder” in disdain. We get a lot of detailed description of the combat, particularly the Mythenders’ unique styles of fighting, such as one Mythender using lava-based magic while another smashes a formation of soldiers with her horse. The narrator, another Mythender in the party, concludes the tale:

quote:

The giant Tome of Life and Death hovered before me and flipped open to a blank page. I used my own blood to write “On this day, the Myth of Thor was no more.”
The god of thunder coughed blood and godly bile as he fell from his chariot in the sky. The moment was still. Then he got up and charged us, wielding his legendary hammer.
Let this futile charge come, oh warrior of Norden. When the skalds sing of your Ending, this will only make the song grander, motherfucker.
This sort of tone continues throughout the entire book.

We then get a description of what the game is about. The player characters are Mythenders, who go around the Mythic Worlds killing gods by unmaking them, terrifying mortals with their very presence, and otherwise being kickin’ rad. In the end, many Mythenders are corrupted by the power they wield, and thus they Apotheosize into Mythic gods themselves- a fate they all struggle against.

There’s some flexibility in the focus of the game- either you’ll go whole-hog into the over-the-top action, basically ignoring all that losing-your-humanity nonsense in favor of taking on the biggest opponents you can, or you can have a classic epic of the corruption power brings. The next few pages have a section titled “Playing This Game Wrong” that worried me for a moment, but it boils down to having inconsistent tone- everyone should be on board with either “drama” or “metal.” Fair enough.

The Inspirations section directs your attention to the battle scenes from Lord of the Rings, 300, and “fantastical anime where the Mythic and mortal worlds [are] intertwined.” In case you’re wondering, it does call out the God of War video games as a very direct inspiration for the whole book. It also suggests that, if this would be your first RPG, that you do not play it immediately- it specifically suggests out trying Fate Accelerated as an introduction first.

Next time: Setting details, what a Mythender actually is, and how your sword is (possibly) not a weapon.

By the way, this is my first time writing here- after a long time reading, I figured I owed some content instead of just snide remarks. As such, feedback is much appreciated.

Vulpes Vulpes
Apr 28, 2013

"...for you, it is all over...!"

Oberndorf posted:

I think I had heard about that somewhere. I just meant that the “total war” end sounded like a random list of vaguely nonsensical things that should have been read off by Bill Murray, followed by “Mass hysteria!”.

Yeah, it's pretty much all the canon conspiracies setting their clocks to "Go-Time" and what would happen then.

Ghost Leviathan
Mar 2, 2017

Exploration is ill-advised.
Hang around paranoid schizophrenics and/or hallucinogenic enthusiasts long enough and you'll get great RPG ideas.

JcDent
May 13, 2013

Give me a rifle, one round, and point me at Berlin!
Cultures: Balkhan, pt. 3



Degenesis Rebirth
Primal Punk
Chapter 2: Cultures




The book also has quotes from IRL sources, but I'm not sure if I should bother with them.

Karakhan

So I said that I liked the description of the nameless Voivode of Sofia. Well, this next bit just make everything just confusing.

Some nameless dude wandered into Sofia (later quoted as having said “Sofia called to me”), took in the sights, somehow ended up directing the reconstruction of Cathedral of the Patriarchs, did some ruin delving... and coup'd Voivode Victor with full support of the customs officers, city guard and even the Boyar guard.

He then assumed the name of Karakhan, which the book claims to mean “black leader.” Karkhan immediately got to work: he solved the (previously unmentioned) Paler problem “by fumigating the bunkers with a handful of trusted companions,” (this means that he either gassed them, or that he struck a deal with them) and armed his officers with machineguns (even odds of weapons in question being SMGs and assault rifles) and body armor. Karakhan kept the Sun Discs for himself.

No, I have no idea what those are. Maybe got the guns and the Discs were looted from the Paler tunnels? I assume they would have some old world tech kicking about.

Anyways, Karakhan was not alone in his dealings.

Karakhan posted:

At his side is a black woman clad in the Voivodules’ garb. The crisscross patterns are unknown, not pointing towards a certain clan. Her voice is deep and calm, and she only talks to her Karakhan, talking to him in an African idiom that no one around understands. Depending on thelight, she seems to be ancient or very young, and she never smiles. Is she an emissary of Tripol’s Merchant Bank, his bodyguard or his lover? “My heart and my soul,” he calls her when talking to his officers. “Too big to carry within me.”

Is Karakhan some lostech wonder, too? The Sofia section stated that building the radio mast was the Voivode's only mistake. If we assume that Voivode to have been Victor the deposed, does it mean that Karakhan was lured to Sophia by the radio mast? And if the Voivode in the Sofia bit is Karakhan, is the radio mast his mistake, then?

gently caress.

Anyways, Sofia is described as being the mirror image of Karakhan: tricky, disciplined and challenging. Meanwhile, Karakhan is said to have assumed the city's motto for himself: “Grows,but does not age.”

My theory is that Karakhan's real name is Marty Sue of the clan DMPC.

Bucharest

Bucharest has been through some poo poo. Ruins are everywhere, including the “fortress walls [that] once held against zealots from the deepest south.” Apparently, the city had suffered a severe firestorm that made stones melt into glass.

The Dambovita river overflowed some time ago, turning the municipal territory into a short lived lake. It dried up and left soggy ground that could not support the taller pre-Eschaton buildings ("towers," the book calls them) that well. Most of them collapsed, saved for the two that crashed into each other and remained there like two drunks. The whole area had undergone cycles of reclamation from vegetation, inhabitation, fighting and abandonment.

Then the Jehammedans came, converting the local tribes, crushing those they couldn't sway. They preached at such tourist spots like Stavropoleos Church, the Cathedral of the Patriarchs (one in every city?) and even the House of the Republic. They also let their goats get in on some urban grazing action.

The splendor (goats?) of Bucharest made Jehammedans clash with Anabaptists. The war turned to be costly, drawing in Bucharest's best to replace casualsies. Said men were not there to protect the city when the Africans crossed the Bosphorus and came in knocking.

They Sow The Wind...

Chroniclers and Scrappers escorted a huge load of niter through the somer borderpost of Teritorial Region IV (near Laibach), which I assume means Hellvetics. The documents were in order and the passage for payment were paid without even haggling. By the time some Hellvetic officer took notice of the shipment, the trail had gone cold – not even Justitian knew anything about it.



The symbol appears approximately here in the chapter. I have no idea what it means.

...And Reap The Whirlwind

The incursion into Balkhan was a big thing for a Neolybian named Zuberi. He had three Surge Tanks given by the Merchant Bank (of Tripoli), hundreds of Scourgers following him, and even his friends and family who were there to witness his triumph.

Zaberi's plan was to storm Bucharest, close off the southern Balkhan (somehow...) and loot the poo poo out of Paler tunnels afterwards. Zuberi had already cast his face in silver; the mask was to be worn at his triumph in Tripoli and the ceremony in which he'd be declared a sheih of the Merchant Bank.

The trip went uneventfully, with Surge Tanks making slow and steady progress (remember, they're huuuge). The route took them through the Voivodate Ionnus - an enemy of Bucharest, and well bribed to boot. Never the less, the Voivode wanted to meet Zuberi.

Voivode Neven merely asked for him and his cavalry to be allowed to join the expedition and fight in the siege of Bucharest. Zaberi agreed: if you can have Balkhanis killing Balkhanis, that means fewer dead Africans.

During the trip, the Balkhani cav scouted ahead, reporting on the conditions of the route, especially if flooding or landslides were blocking the path. With some corrections, the convoy still ended up within three days of travel to Bucharest. It was then that the Balkhani asked for one last stop. They wanted to hold a small fiest before they end up having to feast with their ancestors (gotta love that suicide cav). Zaberi agreed, because he was so full of himself, and he wanted to show the local colors to his guests. So the convoy set up in a good open field which which provided great line of sight on any possible ambushers. The tanks were parked as in an open, triangular fortress formations, and a fire was set in the middle.

What Zaberi didn't expect was the Balkhani being suicidal. Neven himself infiltrated a tank's engine room and threw a bundles of grenades in the furnace. “Never would he surrender his country to the black devils,” says the book of the nationalist martyr.

...And Reap The Whirlwind posted:

The grenades detonated with a flash, followed by a barrel of flame that vaporized the engine room and roared against the armored hull. The Surge Tank bucked, the outer shell burst outwards. Molten metal rained down to the ground, hitting a layer of niter that Neven’s henchmen had applied days ago. The fire was searing hot, eating deeper and deeper into the ground. Until it reached the buried niter barrels – Neven’s legacy and gift to the Balkhan.

They didn't hear the explosion in Bucharest, but they certainly saw the flash. Fragment (rank) Impulse (name), nestled in the safety and comfort of Justitian's Central Cluster, watched the whole thing unfold over drone feed. The niter thing was a part of his plan to protect his ancestral land.

I guess unlike AdMech, Chroniclers are more given into sentimentality and nationalism.

Next time: Voivodate Supreme Great Leader

Shart Carbuncle
Aug 4, 2004

Star Trek:
The Motion Picture

Thanks for plugging away at this. I've had a hard copy of this game for a while, but I've never been able to penetrate it. I still don't know what to make of it, but it's fun to watch your travails.

It gives such a good first impression when you crack it open and take in the art, but as a game... :iiam:

JcDent
May 13, 2013

Give me a rifle, one round, and point me at Berlin!

Wikipedia Brown posted:

Thanks for plugging away at this. I've had a hard copy of this game for a while, but I've never been able to penetrate it. I still don't know what to make of it, but it's fun to watch your travails.

It gives such a good first impression when you crack it open and take in the art, but as a game... :iiam:

Well, I'm only 250 pages away from finishing Primal Punk and grabbing Katharsys for all of that sweet, sweet rule poo poo.

I'm glad to see someone's following these :3:

DalaranJ
Apr 15, 2008

Yosuke will now die for you.

Zomborgon posted:



MYTHENDER is a game based around killing gods. That’s not tooling around for 20 levels to work up to that point, mind you- you’ll just sit down with your 4 hyped-up friends and smash Odin’s head in over the course of a couple hours. This is high-octane action done… pretty dang well, I’d say.

Is this the one where you have a dice pool you roll to increase the size of your real dice pool next turn?

DalaranJ fucked around with this message at 01:43 on May 18, 2018

Zomborgon
Feb 19, 2014

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

DalaranJ posted:

Is this the one where you have a dice pool you roll to increase the size of your real dice pool next turn?

Indeed it is; plus the "real" dice pool is your life meter.

Also, holy heck that's quite a quote block.

Night10194
Feb 13, 2012

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

Warhammer 40,000 Roleplay: Black Crusade

Why the hell would you do that

So! Infamy and Corruption. One thing I love about Black Crusade is that Insanity is out and Corruption doesn't suck. We're also going to be spending some time on the big new options you get in Tome of Decay, namely Possession and Daemonhood, and plenty on mutation and Rewards of Chaos. Corruption is a milestone marker for the PC, showing the progress of the campaign and ticking down how long you have before your characters' final fate as heretics is revealed. The milestone marker function is nice; you check alignment every 10 points of Corruption. This is also another place Humans stand out compared to Marines. Humans check for Reward or Mutation at 10, 20, 40, 60, and 80 Corruption. Marines check at 10, 30, 60, and 90. So a Marine can only ever get 4 Mutations or Rewards, while Humans get 5 and get them earlier. If you're lucky, this means a Human can (if they go hard on their path and earn the Mark for pure devotion in buying advances) actually get all 6 Rewards of their God. No Marine can achieve this.

What I'm not as fond of is how Corruption and Infamy are used as a direct win-loss state, and tuned so that if you use the default Infamy level for winning (100) you are most likely to lose. More importantly, you're most likely to know you're going to lose as you hit high Corruption. Do you think it's fun to play the latter fifth or so of your campaign knowing you're going to hit the arbitrary Tentacle Barrier and your PC is just declared to have lost at everything because you didn't get one number higher than the other number in time? Maybe this is partly just me, but one of the problems of playable Chaos has always been that Chaos dicks its followers over at every turn. You feel like kind of an idiot for ever working with them given that you're much more likely to end up a mindless ball of tentacles than actually get anywhere in the long run. 'Chaos always screws over its own followers personally and with great gusto' feels like something that has more of a place in a game where you're fighting Chaos rather than the game where you are playing Chaos. Worse, I've harped on this before but your PC is done either way. Daemon Princes are just as finished with the campaign as Chaos Spawn, RAW. There's no middle-ground. No place where you stay on as a Chaos Champion who will never reach daemonhood but who doesn't become a Spawn. A direct win-loss mechanic at the end of a long campaign progression feels weird.

More importantly, it's also surprisingly non-interactive. Most actions that gain you Infamy also gain you Corruption, and gain you both in, say, d5 increments. Or d3 Infamy and d5 Corruption, more commonly. This is because you tend to start with 0-8 Corruption but 20-24 Infamy. By parceling out Corruption at just slightly higher rates than Infamy, you make it so that head start doesn't make it as likely you'll reach Daemonhood. But the rate of gain being based wholly on dice rolls also means it isn't really down to decisions players make whether or not they're going to get screwed or become demigods at the end of the campaign. The Compact system described last chapter has a few options to let you be more ambitious to gain more Infamy if you win at the cost of extra Corruption if you fail, and that sort of thing should have been a bigger part of the system.

Another baffling decision is the way your Corruption determines what you can do with Fate Points, as does your Alignment. You gain Infamy Points instead of Fate, which is confusing since an Infamy Point is different from a point of Infamy. I'd have called them something else. Anyway, you have 1 per session per 10 points of Infamy. They function exactly like Fate, except for two big differences. First, you cannot burn one to survive being killed; instead, you lose 8+d10 Infamy to survive going down and remain in play that session (where you can be killed again) or 10+d10 Infamy to be dropped out of the session and come back next session (which seems kind of lovely if it happens early in the session). You also gain d10 Corruption immediately for doing this. This essentially means if you ever have to Burn Fate in Black Crusade your character is probably hosed long-term.

Secondly, what you can do with Infamy Points is decided by your Corruption level and Alignment, as mentioned. At 0-20 Corruption, spending an Infamy point can get you +10 on a single test before rolling, d5 Wounds+any Critical Damage (but not Critical Effects) healed, or immediately remove all Fatigue. Do you see what's absent in this list? It would be the CORE loving MECHANIC of Fate Points and their equivalent, namely letting you reroll a test. So for the first fifth of a campaign, when your PCs have their lowest stats, least amount of Fate Point equivalents, and need it most, they cannot spend Infamy Points to reroll. This is awful. 21-60 you gain the ability to add +1 DoS to a successful test, reroll a test, or heal d5+1 HP. 61-100, you gain the ability to spend Infamy Points to recover from Stun (note that being Stunned for multiple rounds in this game may as well mean you're dead, since you cannot attack back and cannot Dodge or Parry while Stunned), heal d10 Wounds, or immediately count as rolling max on Initiative. Gating some of the core functions of Fate Points to the last 2/5th of a campaign is just stupid. Similarly, you change up what you can and cannot do by God. A Khornate can spend Infamy to automatically hit with an attack at 1 DoS, but heals 2 less wounds when healing with Infamy, minimum 1. A Nurglite always heals max wounds when spending Infamy, but can never reroll failed tests. A Slaaneshi can spend Infamy at 21-60 to avoid the effects of a Critical Hit outside of limb destruction, death, or stunning (you know, the important ones) but can never spend Infamy to break Stuns. A Tzeentchian can always spend Infamy to add +1 DoS to a test; they don't have to wait for 21-60. At 21-60, this becomes 'add d5 DoS to the test'. They may never spend Infamy for +10 to a test before rolling. So Khorne and Tzeentch get great abilities, Nurgle gets shafted, and Slaaneshi are meh.

Infamy is also used to buy things, exactly like Profit Factor, expect you're strongly encouraged to explain how your fame and dark glory factored into you getting or not getting an item. You don't just roll to buy something; you say you're rolling to see if your knowledge of the dark prophecies of a reborn Drusus allow you to trade them to a fallen Inquisitor for an antique Inferno Pistol, with the implication being that if you fail the Infamy test you've now got someone who refused to deal with you for your heretic to punish for their insolence. Or they offer you a sidequest to get what you wanted. Or in granting you what you wished, you now have the respect of an ancient tribe that gave you their 'magic' (Power) sword and you can reward their devotion or not. Adding a little fluff to your attempts to roll to acquire items and services helps make the process more fun, and the idea of 'I can't just buy things, I have to rely on my reputation and power to get them as gifts or trades' makes more sense in the Chaos context.

You also test Infamy (d100, roll under Infamy to succeed) when you hit your Corruption thresholds to see if you gain a mutation or a Reward, and only if the Corruption that reached the threshold came from a 'positive' source. See, you gain Corruption both for successes and failures (usually more for failures). This is also how the Gods aggressively enforce their desired norms. Say you're a Khornate and you decide to spare a worthy adversary so you may fight them again, or you just straight lose a duel: You gain Corruption and it counts as a Failing, so if it puts you over a threshold you do not test Infamy and instead immediately gain a Mutation. Same for a Slaaneshi turning down the chance to try something new or indulge to excess, etc. The Gods will enforce their box on you and it has mechanical weight. If you don't want to be in a box and wish to remain Unaligned, your reward is that you cannot gain Rewards and always gain a Mutation, you just get to roll twice and pick your choice of Mutation.

I really wish it was acknowledged how aggressive normative Chaos is, just the norms are skulls and spikes. Naturally, most GMs will ease up on this stuff a little and let their players play around more, especially if you have a heavily mixed party where you've got multiple Gods all hanging out together. But the Gods are supposed to directly, mechanically enforce you staying in the box, and trying to play a character outside of the box generally mechanically weakens you.

Next: Mutation and Reward, in detail

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!

JcDent posted:

Well, I'm only 250 pages away from finishing Primal Punk and grabbing Katharsys for all of that sweet, sweet rule poo poo.

I'm glad to see someone's following these :3:

I'm interested in all the PRIMAL PUNK updates, too. But sometimes it's just hard to comment on something that's as goddamn incoherent as that weird Colombian RPG with the spirit wolves and the world arranged in rings and the goddess that wants everyone to kill her except that would also end the world. The one with the incoherent character sheet.

Kurieg
Jul 19, 2012

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

PurpleXVI posted:

I'm interested in all the PRIMAL PUNK updates, too. But sometimes it's just hard to comment on something that's as goddamn incoherent as that weird Colombian RPG with the spirit wolves and the world arranged in rings and the goddess that wants everyone to kill her except that would also end the world. The one with the incoherent character sheet.

Eoris?

Halloween Jack
Sep 12, 2003
I WILL CUT OFF BOTH OF MY ARMS BEFORE I VOTE FOR ANYONE THAT IS MORE POPULAR THAN BERNIE!!!!!
Overlight. Eoris, Anima, and Immortal also have insane character sheets, just off the top of my head.

Freaking Crumbum
Apr 17, 2003

Too fuck to drunk


Zomborgon posted:

The narrator, another Mythender in the party, concludes the tale:

This sort of tone continues throughout the entire book.

ugghhh that prose is physically painful to read. i appreciate the concept of "epic level play without having to do 20 levels of dirt farmer" but if that's indicative of the style throughout the book, i'd give this a hard pass

Mors Rattus
Oct 25, 2007

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

What did Thor do to deserve this, anyway? He's historically a pretty likable fella.

Halloween Jack
Sep 12, 2003
I WILL CUT OFF BOTH OF MY ARMS BEFORE I VOTE FOR ANYONE THAT IS MORE POPULAR THAN BERNIE!!!!!

Freaking Crumbum posted:

ugghhh that prose is physically painful to read. i appreciate the concept of "epic level play without having to do 20 levels of dirt farmer" but if that's indicative of the style throughout the book, i'd give this a hard pass

Still better than Requiem 2e.

OvermanXAN
Nov 14, 2014

Mors Rattus posted:

What did Thor do to deserve this, anyway? He's historically a pretty likable fella.

Well, there was that time he and the rest of the Aesir hired contract labor and then stiffed them on payment? Beyond that, I'm not sure.

Night10194
Feb 13, 2012

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

Mors Rattus posted:

What did Thor do to deserve this, anyway? He's historically a pretty likable fella.

He was well known, high level, and thus very impressive to kill?

Kurieg
Jul 19, 2012

RIP Lutri: 5/19/20-4/2/20
:blizz::gamefreak:
I was more amused by someone attempting to ape the writing style of an Edda then ending with "Motherfucker!"

Zomborgon
Feb 19, 2014

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

Freaking Crumbum posted:

ugghhh that prose is physically painful to read. i appreciate the concept of "epic level play without having to do 20 levels of dirt farmer" but if that's indicative of the style throughout the book, i'd give this a hard pass

Well, when I say that it continues throughout the book, I refer to whenever the author is providing description in the voice of a player. Mostly- it occasionally leaks into a header.

Some parts could use tightening up, but the rules text itself is more neutral in tone. The book also has a fair amount of actual, positive advice to offer when it comes to description, so I guess they were trying to be tongue in cheek, or at least a bit intentionally juvenile.

Mors Rattus
Oct 25, 2007

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

OvermanXAN posted:

Well, there was that time he and the rest of the Aesir hired contract labor and then stiffed them on payment? Beyond that, I'm not sure.

That's mostly on Odin and Loki, tho.

Freaking Crumbum
Apr 17, 2003

Too fuck to drunk


Zomborgon posted:

I guess they were trying to be tongue in cheek, or at least a bit intentionally juvenile.

that strikes me the same as those comics where the punchline is the guy saying "LOL I WAS INTENTIONALLY BEING DUMB". whether the person was doing it "intentionally" or not, it makes me cringe and would singlehandedly kill my interest if i were reading the book directly

i mean lucky for me, you're reading it instead. i'm just saying that first passage would be the point where i closed the pdf and deleted it. kind of like how i got a few pages into the darwin's world players guide (thinking there might at least be a few ideas worth stealing for a different fallout-style game) and then i got to the point where they give examples of the in-setting slang and there were at least 4 different insulting terms for women and none for dudes.

LazyAngel
Mar 17, 2009

Spire part 12

Pretty much the half way mark now!



Districts and Factions of Crime

So Spire is barely-govenable at the best of times, but there's some parts of the city where the rule of law has just thrown up its hands in despair and gone home for an early night. Not just rough, poor and violent (that's covered under Lower Class), the Crime domain covers the gang masters, the drug lords and other organised crime.

Red Row
And at the heart of it all, is Red Row. Sitting just under the surface, this is the tip of the Underspire, which extends - some say - as deep as the spire is tall. The guard do maintain a presence of sorts here, although they mostly try to stay out of the way of any real trouble. Three bosses run Red Row - Mother Moon, The Sisters and Mr Winter - and sooner of later anyone who works here works for one of them, willing or not.

The Arena is pretty much as you'd expect; a smorgasbord of unregulated bloodsport carried out amongst indentured or impoverished gladiators. Mother Moon runs the arena, and her harem enforce order her with a silken fist wrapped in razorwire.


Brother Hellion's Church of the Gun is an oddity; a charismatic preacher of the sacred properties of gunpowder and the sanctity of bullets. It might be just a long-con, but his followers certainly seem to have unusual abilities when it comes to firearms.

Hellionite (extra advances)
Available to those who attend Brother Hellion's sermons, and who own a gun that they've named. Refresh when you use a gun to get what you want.

Low Bless a bullet to great effect or bind your fortune to a spun cylinder.
Medium Remove the need for powder and bulets, summon dark spirits into your weapon.
High Guns become destruction incarnate in your hands and bullets love you too much to cause you harm.

The Vorloren Standard is the only guard post in Red Row, staffed by washed-up losers, on-the-edge vigilantes and the occasional naive rookie who wants to clean up the undercity. Built into the premises of the defunct Vorloren Standard Warehouses and Shipping company they try to keep a low profile, cracking down on minor infractions whilst turning a blind eye to the bosses who rule the Row.

Threadneedle Square is the domain of the Sisters, rulers of the Underspire drug empire. There's three of them, and they're far removed from the business of actually dealing the drugs, relying on a legion of middle-managers, dealers and thugs.

Drugs in Spire
Drugs are widely available throughout the city, and their legality varies depending on where or who you are, often without regard to effect or potency. Here's a few from the list;

Malak is a mild depressent that's a daily tradition for most Drow; mild and non-addictive. Seventeen years ago, however, the Council outlawed its manufacture and distribution - pretty much to give the Guard an excuse to arrest or press into service any given Drow.

Godsmoke, made from dried fungus that grows near temples and churches. Gives a euphoric, pain-dulling high; popular with factory and farm workers.

Carotid. Grows from the walls in the deep parts of the city. Gives the impression that parts of the city's structure are alive; stone skin over metal bones. Might not actually be hallucinogenic.

Blues. Small pills that make the user feel impossibly sad. Generally used by Aelfir as most of them can't feel sadness naturally.

Sulphur. Pitch black crystals made from the run-off from demonic incursions. Massive rush which skews the morality of the user towards cruelty and unpleasant acts. Usually very expensive, but the availability of cheap Sulphur is a sign that someone in Spire's summoning demons. And that's not good for anyone.

Next: High Society

oriongates
Mar 14, 2013

Validate Me!


Freaking Crumbum posted:

ugghhh that prose is physically painful to read. i appreciate the concept of "epic level play without having to do 20 levels of dirt farmer" but if that's indicative of the style throughout the book, i'd give this a hard pass

I'm not sure, but I think I recall at some point someone uses the horse they're riding as an improvised weapon...something that always struck me as crossing that fine line between 'crazy awesome' and 'just kind of stupid when you think about it'.

Leraika
Jun 14, 2015

Luckily, I *did* save your old avatar. Fucked around and found out indeed.

oriongates posted:

I'm not sure, but I think I recall at some point someone uses the horse they're riding as an improvised weapon...something that always struck me as crossing that fine line between 'crazy awesome' and 'just kind of stupid when you think about it'.

This is the only thing I could think of when you said that:

hectorgrey
Oct 14, 2011
Holy poo poo, this is a long chapter. Spoiler alert, I won't be finishing it in this post. I don't have many pages to go, but each page is so dense with information that it's difficulty summarise it more efficiently than the book itself already has. With that out of the way:

D&D 3rd Edition - The Core Books

Part 17: Running the Game (Part 4)

This is where we finally leave combat behind, and start looking at the other major danger to PCs: the environment. We begin with landslides and avalanches - these are particularly nasty, and are basically run the same way. A landslide/avalanche has a bury zone and a slide zone. The bury zone is the area directly in the path of the fall, while the slide zone is the area where other debris is likely to land.

Anyone caught in either zone needs to make a Reflex save - in the bury zone, those who fail this save are pinned under rubble, and take 8d6 of damage; those who succeed take half damage, but are still pinned. In the slide zone, those who fail take 3d6 damage and are pinned, where those who succeed take no damage. Anyone pinned by rubble takes a d6 of subdual damage each minute. If a pinned character falls unconscious, they must make a DC 15 Constitution check or else suffer a d6 of normal damage until they're either freed or dead.

Next, we have water. Wading through relatively calm water does not require a saving throw, so finding a good ford is useful. Swimming in relatively calm water is only a DC 10 Swim check, meaning most characters can simply take 10 to succeed automatically (though remember the penalties for armour or heavy gear). In fast moving water, a Swim check of DC 15 is required, and even on a successful check a d3 of subdual damage (or a d6 of normal damage if there are lots of rocks or cascades) per round is suffered. On a failed save, a further check must be made to avoid going under. Very cold water deals a d6 of subdual damage per minute of exposure (due to hypothermia). Likewise, very deep water causes a d6 of damage per minute, per hundred feet below the surface. A Fortitude save (DC 15 +1 per previous check) allows the diver to avoid damage for that minute.

At this point, we have a sidebar on drowning. A character can hold their breath for a number of rounds equal to double their Constitution score (so 20-22, or roughly two minutes, on average). Each round after that, a Constitution check is required, with a DC of 10 + the number of previous checks. Once the character finally fails, drowning begins. In the first round of drowning, the character goes straight to 0 hp and is unconscious. In the second, they go to -1 and are dying. In the third round, the character dies. Now, this sidebar never actually states that the character stops drowning if you remove them from the water, which has led to a common joke about how you don't, but this is clearly not the intent.

After water, we come to starvation and thirst. A medium sized character needs at least a gallon of fluid and about a pound of decent food to avoid these things. After a day, followed by a number of hours equal to their constitution score, a character who has gone without water must make hourly Constitution checks (DC 10 +1 per previous check). Each one they fail causes a d6 of subdual damage. A character who goes without food for more than three days must make daily Constitution with the same result on a failure. Any such subdual damage will cause the Fatigued condition, and this damage cannot be removed (even by magic) until the character actually eats and drinks.

Extreme heat is the next environmental damager we come to. In temperatures above 90 Farenheit (roughly 32 Centigrade) a character must make an hourly Fortitude save to avoid taking a d4 of subdual damage. If they pass out from this, they will start taking a d4 of normal damage every hour. The Wilderness Lore skill may add a bonus to this save, and this bonus can be applied to other characters as well. Heavy clothing or armour of any kind adds a -4 penalty to the save. In temperatures above 110 Farenheit (roughly 43 Centigrade) these saves must be made every ten minutes. Either way, the DC begins at 15, and is increased by 1 every time. Any subdual damage from a failed save causes heatstroke and fatigue. In temperatures over 140 Farenheit (roughly 60 Centigrade), just breathing is enough to cause a d6 of damage per minute without a save. A further save must be made every five minutes to avoid a further d4 subdual damage. In addition, anybody wearing metal armour or coming into contact with hot metal is affected as though by a Heat Metal spell. Boiling water does a d6 points of scalding damage - unless the character is immersed, in which case it deals 10d6 per round. There is a sidebar for catching on fire, and a later entry for exposure to lava.

If a character is in danger of catching on fire (for example they're exposed to burning oil, or find themselves in the middle of a Wall of Fire unexpectedly), they may make a Reflex save of DC 15 to avoid catching on fire. If they fail, they take a d6 of fire damage, and must make a similar Reflex save each round after until they eventually succeed - each failure deals another d6 of damage. Stop, drop and roll gives a +4 bonus to this save, as does having someone smother the fire in some way. If there is a body of water deep enough to douse the character in question, then that will automatically put the fire out.

Next, we have extreme cold. In temperatures below 40 Farenheit (roughly 4 Centigrade), an unprotected character must make an hourly Fortitude save to avoid taking a d6 of subdual damage. It starts at DC 15, and increases by 1 for every previous save. As with heat, a character with Wilderness Lore may grant a bonus to this save for themself or an ally. In temperatures below 0 Farenheit (roughly -18 Centigrade), this save must be made every 10 minutes - though if the character in question is wearing good winter clothing, it may be made hourly instead. Any subdual damage causes frostbite or hypothermia (treated as fatigue by default). Once the damage is recovered from, the penalties are removed.

Following this, we have weather - starting with the wind. A light (up to 10mph) wind has absolutely no game effect. A moderate wind (11-20mph) has a 50% chance of blowing out candles, but no stronger flames. A strong wind (21-30mph) will automatically blow out unprotected flames (such as torches and candles), give a -2 penalty to ranged attacks and listen checks, and may knock down a tiny creature unless they make a DC 10 Fortitude save. A severe wind (31-50mph) has a 50% chance of even blowing out protected flames such as lanterns, gives a -4 penalty to ranged attacks and listen checks, may blow away tiny creatures, knock down small creatures and even prevent medium sized creatures from making much progress unless they make a DC 15 Fortitude save. None of these give any penalties for siege weapons (which include not only the usual suspects, but also boulders thrown by giants).

A windstorm (that is, winds of 51-74mph) makes normal ranged attacks impossible (but siege weapons may attack at a -4), may blow away small creatures, knock down medium creatures and prevent large and even huge creatures from making any forward progress unless they made a DC 18 Fortitude save. It also has a 75% chance of blowing out protected flames. Listen checks may be made at a -8 penalty.

A hurricane (75-174mph) gives siege weapons a -8 penalty, and may blow away medium sized creatures or smaller, knock down large creatures and prevent forward progress for a huge creature unless they make a DC 20 save. At this point, listen checks are impossible due to noise, and all flames - even protected ones - are extinguished.

A tornado (175-300mph) makes even siege weapon attacks impossible, will blow away large or smaller creatures, knock down huge creatures, and even prevent the forward progress of a gargantuan or colossal creature without a DC 30 save. The funnel of a tornado moves an average of 30mph. Characters in close proximity to a tornado who fail their saves are sucked towards the tornado - those who come into contact with it are picked up and whirled around for 1d10 rounds, taking 6d6 damage per round before being ejected violently (and potentially taking further falling damage).

With all kinds of wind, flying creatures are considered to be one size category smaller for the purposes of the effect of a failed save. A flying creature who wouldn't be able to move forward on land is instead moved 1d6*5 feet in the direction of the wind. A creature that gets knocked down is simply knocked prone - if flying, they're moved 1d6*10 feet. A creature that gets blown away is knocked prone and rolled 1d4*10 feet, taking a d4 subdual damage per 10 feet. Flying creatures are blown 2d6*10 feet and sustain 2d6 points of subdual damage. Basically, flying in bad weather is a terrible, awful, stupid idea, and you should absolutely do it.

Precipitation is also important to consider - rain reduces visibility by half, giving a -4 penalty to spot and search checks. It also affects ranged attacks, listen checks and open flames the same way a severe wind does. Snow affects flames the way a moderate wind does, and once on the ground reduces movement speed by half. While it's falling, it reduces visibility the same way that rain does, giving the same skill penalties and a -4 penalty to attack rolls. Sleet (kind of a cross between rain and snow) is slightly worse for flames (75% chance to put out protected flames; automatically puts out unprotected flames), and has the same effect as snow on the ground. Hail doesn't reduce visibility but does give a -4 to listen checks. There's also a 5% chance that the hail is large enough to deal a point of damage to anything in the open. Once on the ground, it has the same effect of snow.

Storms are essentially a mix of wind and precipitation, and those things are seriously nasty. A regular storm reduces visibility ranges by three quarters, imposing a -8 penalty to all spot, search and listen checks. They make ranged weapon attacks impossible (though siege weapons can try it with a -4 penalty), automatically extinguish unprotected flames and have a 50% chance of extinguishing protected flames. A duststorm has no precipitation, what with being in the desert, but instead deposits a layer of 1d6 inches of dust. There is a 10% chance that such a storm will be particularly powerful, dealing a d3 of subdual damage to anyone caught without without shelter and potentially causing choking (this uses the drowning rules). Such a greater duststorm leaves 2d3-1 feet of dust in their wake. A snowstorm is much like a duststorm in its aftermath, but more like a regular storm when it happens. Thunderstorms also add the danger of being struck by lightning, as well as a tornado showing up. There are also more powerful versions of these storms, with heavier precipitation and stronger winds.

In addition to the weather above, fog is also a possibility, it reduces all sight to only 5 feet, and even creatures within that distance have one half concealment (20% miss chance). Flash floods are often caused by hurricanes, and can easily wash away even large size creatures.

Around this point, we get a sidebar that covers suffocation. Rapid suffocation is basically identical to drowning. Slow suffocation, as might happen if you leave a person for 24 hours inside a bag of holding, is naturally slower. In a sealed chamber 10 feet on a side, there is enough air for one medium size creature to breathe normally for six hours. After that, the character takes a d6 of subdual damage every 15 minutes. The amount of air is, naturally, divided by the number of medium sized creatures and sources of fire, and it is also increased if the sealed area has a larger volume.

Other dangers include acid, which deals a d6 of damage per round of exposure (10d6 in cases of total immersion), while their fumes may be be poisonous i their own right. A creature immune to acid can, of course, still drown in it. Ice requires a Balance check to avoid falling over, and prolonged contact may cause cold damage. Low oxygen (commonly caused by high altitude) requires hourly Fortitude saves of DC 15, +1 per previous save, to avoid taking subdual damage. Over the long term, another save of the same DC is required every six hours to prevent altitude sickness - on a failed save, a point of ability damage is taken to each ability. Lava is basically twice as dangerous as acid, doing 2d6 and 20d6 instead of 1d6 and 10d6 respectively. This damage continues for an additional three rounds, though only half the damage is taken each time, once exposure has ended. As with acid, something immune to heat can still drown. Smoke acts like fog, but causes choking and subdual damage.

Falling objects deal damage based on how far they have fallen - something that weighs 5lb deals a d6 damage per 70 feet that it falls (rounded down), something that weighs 50lb deals a d6 per 40 feet, and something over 200lb deals a d6 per 200lb for the first 10 feet, followed by a d6 for every 10 feet after that. Something that weighs less than a pound deals no damage regardless of how far it falls - which makes sense; terminal velocity tends to be lower for lighter objects, and let's be honest, trying to work out the drag of any given object for a single damage roll would be a massive pain in the arse.

Finally, we come to the weather table. Simply put, there is a random weather table based on climate. It's reasonably concise, and changes in weather could well make travel significantly more interesting as it provides challenges for the characters to solve that don't rely on their ability to deal damage.

This is not the end of the chapter - there's still a whole bit on skill and ability checks to go, as well as saving throws and magic, before we move on to the chapter on adventures. We are very, very close though, and I'm definitely looking forward to the next chapter.

Nessus
Dec 22, 2003

After a Speaker vote, you may be entitled to a valuable coupon or voucher!



Mors Rattus posted:

What did Thor do to deserve this, anyway? He's historically a pretty likable fella.
Exist, in the face of a philosophy that hated him and had the power to do something about it, I expect.

Cassa
Jan 29, 2009

LazyAngel posted:

Spire part 12
Brother Hellion's Church of the Gun is an oddity; a charismatic preacher of the sacred properties of gunpowder and the sanctity of bullets. It might be just a long-con, but his followers certainly seem to have unusual abilities when it comes to firearms.

Hellionite (extra advances)
Available to those who attend Brother Hellion's sermons, and who own a gun that they've named. Refresh when you use a gun to get what you want.

Low Bless a bullet to great effect or bind your fortune to a spun cylinder.
Medium Remove the need for powder and bulets, summon dark spirits into your weapon.
High Guns become destruction incarnate in your hands and bullets love you too much to cause you harm.


OK! FINE. I'll buy the drat game.

Adbot
ADBOT LOVES YOU

Night10194
Feb 13, 2012

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

Yeah, I'm probably going to pick up Spire at some point now.

Drow, you have nothing to lose but your chains.

  • 1
  • 2
  • 3
  • 4
  • 5