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JcDent posted:Idk, how do you call it when you donxt consider yourself racist, but still engage in some of the racist mores without malicious intent? Pre-woke? Race is an ideology, comprising the belief that humans can be categorically divided into clear, distinct subspecies with unique traits. The last word on this ideology is that it's just plain wrong. Racism isn't always paranoia and hatred, though they obviously go hand-in-hand. Racism is always dehumanizing, though, even if it's dehumanizing people by way of making them larger-than-life heroes or manifestations of the author's best hopes for themselves and the world. (For example: a kulturkampf over Black Panther, argued on both sides by people who have never heard of Seretse Khama.)
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Jun 5, 2018 19:54
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A bunch of wizard college adventures in wfrp would actually be really fun, wouldn’t it
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Jun 5, 2018 20:06
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Mors Rattus posted:A bunch of wizard college adventures in wfrp would actually be really fun, wouldn’t it The wizard colleges will even actually avoid unnecessary and stupid grimdark!
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Jun 5, 2018 20:07
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Adventure: a bunch of townies stole your wallets while you were drinking, you must now make it back to the dorms while in various degrees of hangover and break back in without the maids catching you or else you’ll get wizard detention
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Jun 5, 2018 20:08
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Also the college has an entire garden of seeing plants that you have to trick in the process. You're drunk because the Life Wizard was out showing off how he can turn muddy water into whiskey, again. They can do that, by the way. One of their new spells purifies liquid and gives their choice of turning it into safe, drinkable water or booze. Life Wizards have got to be some of the most popular wizards.
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Jun 5, 2018 20:12
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Man. Given the shenanigans actual Medieval/Renaissance college students got up to I can only imagine what they'd do with fireballs.
unseenlibrarian fucked around with this message at 20:24 on Jun 5, 2018 |
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Jun 5, 2018 20:19
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The pitched battles of town and gown got way more bloody.
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Jun 5, 2018 20:20
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So you're playing Magicka (the game whose entire draw is friendly fire is always on and you're practically encouraged to stumble your way across the plot and see how many ways you can pulverize innocent npcs and monsters alike with spells)
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Jun 5, 2018 20:24
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Life wizards are the backbone of the Empire's agricultural system. The Empire rarely experiences famines, and they don't have trouble with droughts because of the Celestial college.
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Jun 5, 2018 20:35
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unseenlibrarian posted:Man. Given the shenanigans actual Medieval/Renaissance college students got up to I can only imagine what they'd do with fireballs. Plus rioting over food and stealing chickens, geese, and other animals from townies, and spreading incendiary literature. Also, if you go to the right country, you might get to do all those things with a jaunty top hat and sword. And of course, if enemies are approaching and the town mercenary garrison cuts and runs, the wizard university is probably getting called up.
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Jun 5, 2018 20:51
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wiegieman posted:Life wizards are the backbone of the Empire's agricultural system. The Empire rarely experiences famines, and they don't have trouble with droughts because of the Celestial college. All the different orders have great reputations. No one likes the shadow wizards because they're regarded as thieves, the amethyst order (wind of death) are considered one step above necromancers by the common folk, metal wizards are heavily involved in alchemy throughout the empire, and fire wizards are considered extremely dangerous, but you always want them with you when you go to battle. Who doesn't want a guy who can throw screaming skulls of fire at the enemy?
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Jun 5, 2018 20:52
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Spire part 20 Running the Game I'll be a bit concise here as it's a bit more wordy (although they're very good words indeed).  We kick off with a section on how to make the game fun, being open with the players about where their limits are and what kind of game they want to be playing. Fairly basic; you don't want to be making your players uncomfortable, and you want everyone to have a good time. Then we go striaght into some general GM advice; The GM never rolls dice except for stress and fallout - purely reactively. The player's are the ones who get to roll. But don't make the players roll unless they have to - the game is a conversation/story; only make rolls when there's something at stake. Keep notes for consistency. Say yes and fail forward - let the players push the game forward, and make failure a deviation, not a blocker. Re-use before you invent - use old, established material in favour of bringing in new factions and characters. Ask questions, and listen to the answers - keep the players engaged with the story. Change stuff - don't be afraid to deviate from how the book tells things. Now onto the theme and tone of Spire. General focus is on, obviously, revolution and sacrifice. This is a society which revolves around violence in dead end alleys, and religions worshipped in crumbling temples. It's not fair, it's not pretty, and those in charge see those below them as things; less people than tools or pawns. As ever, the GM can pick and choose just how far down each path they want to explore. Magic - how common is magic in your game? Free and easy to access, or secret, rare and dangerous? How much control do the authorities have over practitioners, or are various orders and churches very much self-governed? The Ministry - how wierd is it? Is is just a resistance network, or is it more cultish than that? After all, in the default setting the Ministers are properly ordained in the cult - does it get wierder the further up you go or is the ritual just another front? The Villains - how evil are the Aelfir? Are they just normal people blinded by priviledge, or is their cruelty truely otherworldly? Or is the oppression of the drow done more out of tradition with younger Aelfir resistant to the inequality?  The Revolution So the game breaks down the structure of each revolutionary act - each strike against the oppressors - into three acts. The Gathering Storm is all about planning and gathering information, bribing informants and preparing blackmail material. This is intended very much to be player driven - they're picking the target and approach. The GM might have an over-arching plot in mind, and should dangle enough information for the players to go after without railroading them into it. The goal should be to change the status quo in some way, and this ties into the advancement system. Most sessions the players should be making the kind of small changes to the city to net them a Low Advance. Every three or four sessions, they should be hitting a bigger target - the fallout from that should be enough for a Medium advance. After a few such jobs, they should be aiming for the big time - High Advances require significant and lasting change to the city of Spire. This should give you an idea of tempo when it comes to planning. The Strike is when it all goes down. This will be much more action-orientated, from a vicious assualt on a rival faction to an intricately-planned heist. The GM should make sure everyone plays a part - don't let just one player hog the lime light. Also, ask difficult questions and introduce complications - make them ask themselves what they're willing to do to win. The Aftermath is where the players pick up the pieces, maybe try to take advantage of their success or failure. The GM should try to describe the effects on the neighbourhood, or on the players Bonds - make it feel consequential, with possibly wide-ranging ramifications. The rest is then encounter design; balancing difficulty and writing a good villain. For the former, it's pretty easy - 0 is your run of the mill antagonists, a difficulty of 1 is harder than usual; complications or an NPC with skin in the game. Difficulty 2 makes most rolls pretty much a flip of a coin and should be reserved for really tought situations. For the latter, they reccommend a list of questions to ask about your villain; what they want and how they think they're going to get it, but also who they love and why, and what they're scared of. Villains should be as human (or drow, etc) as anyone else - not just one-dimensional sillouettes. Henchmen and lackies are then defined by how they differ from their boss. Next time, appendices
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Jun 5, 2018 22:43
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The list of villain questions is actually pretty solid as a basic writing guide.
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Jun 5, 2018 22:45
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Point of order - the Carrion-Priest also wants to turn into a hyena.
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Jun 5, 2018 22:58
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 Mythender Part 11: Optional rules There’s a few systems that are only included in Mythender at the Mythmaster’s discretion. The first is the existence of Greater Weapons. Normally, only Greater Myths can use Weapons with more than one type, but this privilege can be given to Mythenders as well as a small boost in power. Usually, a Greater Weapon is gained by looting it from a defeated Greater Myth, to be used in a later game. Taking a Greater Weapon requires making one Corruption box and 1 Fate box permanent, and the Weapon cannot be removed or changed (actually, the book says “charged,” so I guess by rules as written, Greater Weapons get you less benefit than normal ones. Nice editing). In addition to having two standard Weapon type abilities, each combination of Weapon types gets extra effects:
I don’t know why the last combo doesn’t get any extra mechanical effects. Next is Mythic Wrath. Rather than each Mythender just getting one Moment (personal non-combat event), instead, you get to have as many as you want, but too many will give the Myth time to build up power. After each Moment, the Mythmaster secretly rolls a d6, using the result to describe the Mythic World’s responses to events. It’s implied that the Mythmaster should hint at how high the roll was using the severity of the response. For the first two Moments, subtract 3 and 2 from the result respectively, also adding 1 for a particularly long Moment. Starting with 0, add any positive result to a secret total. If the total reaches a threshold (10 for 1-3 Mythenders, 13 for 4 Mythenders), then the Myth attacks immediately. Even if the threshold isn’t hit, it gets some extra Might tokens and Thunder dice, both depending on the final Wrath total. Overall, using this rule is more than likely to give the Myth a better start to the fight, and I'd argue that the first set of non-combat actions should have a cost at all, especially since whoever would go last could just get screwed out of their turn. Mythenders usually only get to act as a team by sharing Lightning tokens around, so their attacks usually don’t directly interact. If you want to use combo attacks, Mythender offers the Chained Action mechanic. After an ally attacks, incorporating their action’s description or effects into your own will get you one bonus Storm die. A Gift is introduced here that increases this to 2 dice for both you and anyone who Chains off of your actions. This AMAZING power (read: not a big bonus at all), your Mythmaster (who is really overestimating this) might give the Myth a free +1 to its own Storm rating, since it can’t Chain off of anyone. All of this is such a minor tweak that it’s not worth bothering with. Then we get to the fun optional rules: Culling Reality and Ending the Mythic World. Given that Mythenders have done this in the past, according to fluff, I suppose it’s only fair to let the player characters do the same. Culling Reality is technically the more minor of the two, but has more visible ramifications. After Ending a Greater Myth at the finale of an adventure, each surviving Mythender can decide on one concept that they want to Cull from reality, such as hunger, death, grief, lust, fear, tyranny, language, color, and so on. Mythic concepts are invulnerable to Culling, such as ”the existence of Loki,” and so are the absences of concepts- you cannot create by Culling. Apart from those, go wild- you might seriously screw over the world, but you’re the one with the power. All memory and records of the concept fade from reality, though the effects of its existence remain- Culling the concept of conception won’t *immediately* depopulate the Mythic World, but no new pregnancies will occur (good job, idiot). It also goes by the letter of what you want to Cull, not intent- culling "hunger" won't necessarily remove the need to eat. When anyone wants to Cull a concept, everyone weighs in: they may either agree, disagree, or try to Murder someone. Normal Murder rules apply. After any peaceful discussion (inevitably followed by murders), everyone who wants to Cull a concept gathers dice: You get 1 die for getting the killing blow on the Greater Myth, 1 die if you had a total of 20 lightning tokens (counting each 2 remaining Thunder dice as 1 lightning), 1 die for each god your character has ended in play (including this Greater Myth and those from previous games), 1 die for each of your failed attempts to Cull this concept. Anyone attempting to Cull the same concept pools their dice together. Count the 6’s. You succeed with two 6’s if the concept relates directly to the Greater Myth you Ended, else four 6’s. On a successful Culling, as it fades from reality, and each Mythender immediately becomes aware of the long-term consequences. Only Mythic beings, like yourselves, ever remember its existence. If concepts aren’t enough for you, you might have the option to End the entire Mythic World! How? Just kill everything. It’s that easy! quote:Mythender is about adventures against individual gods with a Mythic World. It’s an episodic game, meant to be played not as a long campaign but as something fun to do here and there. So the Mythic World is implied to be full of gods and Greater Myths that are just waiting to be Ended next time you play. By default, the game considers each Mythic World to have 6 “main” gods that need to be Ended. Any Mythender who Apotheosizes becomes a new one. If a Mythic World ever has 12 main gods or more, it is considered to have won forever, its power insurmountable without embracing Corruption yourself. If it has 0 (*after* checking for Apotheosis), the World is Ended. In a sense, this is the only long-term campaign that Mythender supports, though repeated appearances of individual Mythenders aren’t mandatory. It’s a pretty shallow mechanical system, being no more than a score, but it does provide a goal. There’s several paths from there. Usually, the land which the World controlled becomes fully mortal, rather than being destroyed itself. Perhaps the Mythenders’ curse remains, always at the risk of falling and thus resurrecting the Mythic World, or perhaps they become mortals themselves. Perhaps Ending it forced you- or gave you the choice- to move on to the next Mythic world. Non-main Myths left alive might also survive to move on to another World. These issues and more are up to the players to decide- it might even vary by who's doing the Ending, or perhaps which World is being Ended. After that, the author just lists thanks and acknowledgements- we have successfully Ended this book! *roll*  …poo poo, that’s over my number. I guess I’m the next RPG writer. If you’ve got anything you want to ask about the game before I finish this thing off, go ahead and do so. I’ll sum up some responses to those and earlier comments in the final post. Next time- The conclusion: Miscellaneous Mythender Musings
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Jun 5, 2018 23:19
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As a result of this thread, a friend got me Spire for my birthday, and I'm extremely hype. Also, I have consumed over half of the 'suggested media' selections and love most of them. Hellboy, Pratchett's Watch books, Blade Runnet, Perdito Street Station, and Bloodborne. Plus Bloodborne's OST as a separate entry. It's a thing of beauty.
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Jun 5, 2018 23:29
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Oh God I have just imagined Reg Shoe as a Firebrand and I think I may need this.
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Jun 6, 2018 00:12
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My copy of Spire arrived today, but I ordered a Luxury package and only got the book, so that’s annoying.
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Jun 6, 2018 00:30
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Josef bugman posted:Oh God I have just imagined Reg Shoe as a Firebrand and I think I may need this. Abso-loving-lutely. I kind of want to run a campaign about infiltrating the Red Row Watch in order to turn it into a theoretically law-abiding organ of actual justice for the drow.
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Jun 6, 2018 02:04
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Cultures: Africa, pt. 3 Degenesis Rebirth Primal Punk Chapter 2: Cultures The Coastal Cities Reaper's Blow terminates somewhere near Algeria and Marroco. The Africans had one look at the tectonic bullshit and decided not to interact with it. However, to east, the cities grow. The Coastal Cities posted:Children sit on the battlements of ancient fortresses, climbing the cast-iron cannons, waving to the ships or throwing stones at them. Book, I doubt those ancient fortresses still have their cannons today. The cities are your bustling centers of commerce, where sailing ships and Surge Tanks can be seen standing side-by-side. You also have “ancient military gliders” with black sails and spotted hulls (what kind of a boat is that anyways?), as well as Scourger motor boats. The bigest boats of all are the luxurious transport craft that any Purgan captain would be more than happy to abandon in times of trouble. The Coastal Cities posted:But giant transport ships with superstructures of gold, silver, mahogany, and flowing silk approach the port as well. Their wake from their bow makes the smaller ships bob up and down in the waters nearby. The smoke of their diesel engines rests in the bay like a haze and crawls into the docks and lungs of hundreds of white slaves waiting to unload them. The Africans have done well for themselves; while most buildings in the coastal cities are two-three stories high, some are described as “sky-scraping.” There are some factories, too. But that's not to say that you won't find that African Flavor in there! In any city, you can find rocks carved with mystical symbols which celebrate the faiths of the locals. Also, the Scourgers fix their buggies in city plazas. Those are two details that are fit to share a single paragraph. This bit also hosts the description of Bazzar, Colorful, 1 Per Region. The lengthy description ends with that special spice you have come to The Coastal Cities posted:In an auxiliary hall, caretakers of rich Neolibyans wait for the next batch of slaves, preferably domesticated and educated. Tunis In the Bygone days, Tunis was the HQ of United African Organization (UAO), “the counterpart to the European UEO.” The acronyms are kinda pointless since those organizations haven't been mentioned before and probably won't be mentioned until deep in the Cults section. Tunis was the arm depot of the organization, something the Scourgers used to their advantage. That's why you can see them wearing those blue UN helmets in illustrations. But it didn't last. Tunis posted:During a mock attack on the docks by a fleet of Corpsian pirates, the slaves used the chaos to break into the facility, seize the weapons and attack the Scourgers in their coastal encampments from behind. The Petro store’s tanks detonated in rapid succession, the fireball engulfing two Surge Tanks and tearing them apart. The Scourgers’ rapidly approaching Koms veered, struck by the column of fire, and burst like ants under a magnifying glass. Why is "Petro" capitalized? That column of fire sure had some unexpected horizontal dimensions if it struck the incoming buggies! The slaves, led by a group of Balkhani slaves, all former Voyavodes, are trapped. They can't go into the sea, since there are Scourger torpedo boats hunting anything that moves. Fair enough, you can't really use your small arms against dedicated naval attack craft. They can't break out through land because, ugh, there are barricades and Neolibyan big game hunters? I dunno, this just seems like a problem that an overwhelming amount of gun violence could solve in short order. Constantine Constantine is where the famous African Dinars are minted. The standards are rigorously enforced by the Bank of Commerce. Greatest smiths are invited to the city to design new coins and patterns (...how often do you need to do that?) and Neolibyans are willing to sacrifice a lot to see their face on a new Dinar. Of course, gambling is rife in the city, with African Apocalyptics trapping workers in various debt slavery schemes. There are no actual slaves permitted into the city, and even Africans of good standing can only enter after a thorough soul checking by The Scourgers are still jumpy: the treasure of 300 years spent looting Europe is stored there. And here I though that all that fortune was used to make the lives of all Africans better? Well, whatever, there's a poo poo ton of gold there. I'm sure the players will love to try and steal it for... reasons. Tripol  Bank of Commerce in the background, extremely rad Scourger in UAO helmet in the foreground. Tripol is the city in Africa. The exploration (and looting) of the Mediterranean basin started there, and the city has been fed a rich diet of Dinars. This, naturally, attracts a lot of people (and I bet they enjoy not living next to creepy alien jungle). Tripol posted:The masses live in skyscrapers flagged with awnings and panels of cloth. Ancestral statues made of black hardwood lean next to their doors, wind-bells chime in the breeze. Next to them huddle one-story lodges with broad terraces, their walls whitewashed or covered in bamboo. Strands of cables link the houses, forming a network above the plazas that cuts the sky into triangles. Surge Tanks tower like rocks in the sea of people, and within less than two days, ladders are in place and carpets adorn the upper deck. Old men sit in the shadows of the arcades and smoke cinnamon flavored tobacco. Young people congregate on the rooftops, dangling their legs while someone offers them tea. Others stomp and clap to the rhythm of their songs, forming circles, leaning forward and parting again, singing out their joy. There are many ancient buildings in Tripol and none of them are disused. The tribes that migrated there also love displaying their cultural artifacts, like leather shields and carved statues. Supposedly there's a museum that houses an ancestral sculpture carved out of Psychovore wood. The clan that made it joined Anubians a long time ago, which is, oooh, spooky  . The Bank of Commerce has a very physical presence as the golden dome of the building that houses the organization rises over the city. “No place is more sacred to the Neolibyans than this temple of the Dinar,” writes the book as it strains under the attempt to make Cults more cult-like. Here, Neolibyans get yearly permits to ply trade lanes or to collect profits from some areas of business. The Bank is also the place where you get your Thread of Destiny read by an Anubian before signing a long term contract. Disturbances in the thread portend to bad poo poo coming down in a man's future, thus endangering the deal. The Bank of Commerce. Somehow, it has a section for itself, despite most of the description staying in the Tripol bit. Anyway, The Bank of Commerce is only open on certain days, and slackjawed tourists stare at it wondering about the riches and splendor found within. Some say that even Spitalians had stayed there recently. Next time: Rachel Dolezal, the first Spitalian in Africa
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Jun 6, 2018 05:05
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Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay: Realms of Sorcery This elven kingdom was founded on bad ideas and listening to cursed swords and by God it's staying that way Now, the elves had not been designed for war, or really much of anything besides sitting in their perfect, engineered habitat where they'd be safe and prosperous forever. I like to think the Old Ones originally built elves as pets, myself. This is partly because is means what happens next is the equivalent of a bunch of pampered little pomeranians going wild and saving the world after the collapse of civilization and I think we can all get behind that. The elves were absolutely not ready for the Collapse (no-one was) and found their beautiful island habitat swarmed by devils and its many spells of plenty and perfection disrupted by the raw energy of change leaking out of the wound in reality left by the exploding Gate of Heaven. This means that when the first demons hit Ulthuan and found the locals already reeling from famine, disease, and other anomalies they'd never had to deal with before, they both found plenty of elves willing to surrender and do whatever the invaders said to survive and plenty of elves to just murder for fun. However, when things looked their worst, an elven noble named Aenarion managed to call down the newly empowered old elven chief God, Asuryan, and merge with a portion of his power, becoming a demigod of 'Elven dignity, culture, and self-belief'. That's right, the shining virtue of the greatest hero of the elven people was partly 'being really smug about being an elf'. In this new supreme state of Elfmind he was able to impart the arts of war to the other elves and organize a defense against the tide of demons. Ulthuan was cleared of hellish monsters and Aenarion made friends with an ambitious and powerful mage named Caledor Dragontamer, because he had tamed and made alliance with dragons. They held for about a century (There's no mention of the Slaan holding Lustria in this book, but be assured it was going on at the same time) as it became increasingly clear that this war was, at present, unwinnable. As long as the enemy has infinite demons and you need 30 years, at least, to get an elf up to fighting speed the simple matter of attrition makes victory impossible. Into this mess, Caledor came up with a plan. The problem was the endless spill of chaotic energy from the north; if the energy could be directed and dissipated back out into the void rather than letting it fester on the world, Chaos could lose the ability to manifest infinitely in reality. However, speaking through Aenarion, Asuryan objected to this plan; it would also limit the power of Gods like him, and isn't the world being rent apart in an infinite void of hellish sorrow worth the presence of ASURYAN, great Phoenix Lord? Surely a little thing like the apocalypse happening shouldn't get in the way of the personal power of the king of the Gods. As you might gather, Asuryan is a bit of a dick. As the battles got worse, Aenarion was forced to draw forth the sword of Khaine, the elven God of murder, and when he did, Khaine eagerly punched Asuryan in the face within his soul and started a tussle for who gets to drive the elf king. This distracted the poor, dumb, increasingly insane bastard long enough for Caledor to get together a bunch of wizards, get him to sign off on the containment plan, and scurry off to the center of Ulthuan before the king could say no. By the time Aenarion realized he'd been defied, he had no choice but to get an army together and follow the wizards; he couldn't hold the island without them anyway. The Isle of the Dead, as it came to be known, was chaotic with battle and the usual epic warhammer murder spree began until Caledor just barely managed to get off his spell, creating the Vortex and trapping himself and his fellow magi in time at the moment of their triumph. The Vortex of power keeps Chaos at a lower level and ensures that demons and things cannot remain indefinitely in reality; the creation of the Vortex saved the world. So yes, this one time, against the advice of their King and their King of the Gods, the elves did, in fact, absolutely save the world. Meanwhile, millennia later, the humans found their kingdom under the great Emperor Sigmar. The book goes into why the Empire initially distrusted all arcane magic. Firstly, Sigmar was a warrior with no magical ability himself; he'd managed to overcome plenty of Chaotic foes as well as the various orks and goblins and so felt that anyone should be able to manage with a strong right arm and a big hammer. Secondly, the Empire was taught much by their dwarven friends and allies, who also distrusted and hated arcane magic outside of their steady, reliable runework. Given how much the Empire learned from the dwarves, and how close their friendship was in the early days, it simply followed that when their allies told the humans that magic was unsafe and unreliable, the humans listened. Thirdly, there existed no unified human magical tradition in the region that could make magic safe, and so most attempts to experiment with it ended in fires and tentacles. And fourthly, one of Sigmar's great battles was against Nagash the Great Necromancer, who very nearly killed the Emperor before getting his skull stoved in with a hammer. Given those four points, it's perfectly understandable that Sigmar outlawed the use and study of magic; a mistake, but an understandable one. This continued for a long time, especially among Sigmar's own cult after he vanished and was said to have become a God. It can't be denied that where the Empire's cults preached against wizards, there were fewer plagues, fewer demon incursions, less mutation, and fewer beastmen. With this correlation in mind, measures against suspected mages grew harsher and harsher in the name of 'protecting the community', and witch-burnings first entered the popular consciousness. For every hedge wizard who might've brought ruin down on the community, the templars burned several suspects and innocents. Preachers railed against a plague of magic that simply didn't exist. Meanwhile, as they were busy burning people who didn't fit in or who had minor deformities, the actual Chaos Sorcerers were powerful enough to hide from most of the mobs and work their dark and insidious schemes, especially when they could rescue someone of talent from the mob. With no formalized study of or regulation of magic, magic fell increasingly to those who could ignore the law. The wealthy and powerful could dabble in magic (and secretly fall to the dark) as the poor burned in the streets. Once again, the book is remarkably clear on this explicit link; it talks about how these 'burning times' (oi) were a self-fulfilling prophecy. The hunters feared mages would fall to darkness if allowed to practice or study, but in attacking so indiscriminately and wielding lethal force so widely, they created a situation where anyone with magic talent would be tempted to turn to powers that could protect them. Once again, Chaos profited from repression and fear. If you were going to be treated as a pawn of darkness whatever you did, why not go with the forces that promised actual protection from the zealots? Many of the early cult magi fell to darkness because they were pushed. Next Time: Magnus the Pious and the power of foresight
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Jun 6, 2018 16:36
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I think they changed the order of things a bit with the whole Aenerion story, I don't remember Asuryan (or any of the Gods really) making an appearance in the version I read.
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Jun 6, 2018 20:34
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Josef bugman posted:I think they changed the order of things a bit with the whole Aenerion story, I don't remember Asuryan (or any of the Gods really) making an appearance in the version I read. They did not literally appear.
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Jun 6, 2018 21:03
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Josef bugman posted:I think they changed the order of things a bit with the whole Aenerion story, I don't remember Asuryan (or any of the Gods really) making an appearance in the version I read. He mostly appears via inhabiting and working through Aenerion as his chosen after Aenerion decided to throw himself in to fire. The fire part is curiously not mentioned in Realms of Sorcery. E: If there's one thing I can say about Warhams, it's never trust the elf gods. Bunch of stuck up pricks and murderous lunatics to the last. Night10194 fucked around with this message at 22:42 on Jun 6, 2018 |
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Jun 6, 2018 22:22
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Man, WHFB lore is so loving great. The elves, the human-dorf relationship  , Sigmar overcoming adversity through liberal application of hammer to the face, the lovely early history of magic...Of course, we all know it will end at some point and we'll get Bright Wizards, reliable staple of WHFB armies that is anything but stable.
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Jun 7, 2018 04:50
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Cultures: Africa, pt. 4 Degenesis Rebirth Primal Punk Chapter 2: Cultures Discordance This sub-section is a lot longer than that superfluous bit about the Bank, but here we are. Anyways, The Earth Chakras (the spore fields) in Europe and Psychovores in Africa don't interact well. Technically, the Discordance is said to be located between the domains of Chakras and the 'Vores. However, the only region that had funky stuff happening was Pollen, which definitely isn't located between Africa and the rest of Europe, so... When Discordance hits, spore fields crumble, and green Psychovore jungle is replaced by withering purple plants. Spiky bulbils form. When they burst, freaky alien things, colorful and sometimes “hundreds of paces long,” take to the sky. Most of them die almost immediately. However, some survive longer. Anubians compare them to pearls: the bulbil takes some Earth animal (or a human), mix it with alien DNA, and hopes for the best. I guess Discordance is the failson of both Primer and Psychovore, as those two seem to be building stable mutants without any problems. The Shabath clan (of Africans?) is famous for hunting those creatures, and the region next to Bengasi (Benghazi?) is especially rich with them. After a good hunt, they put the captured freaky poo poo in cages and parade them in the coastal cities. “Last year,” the biggest attraction was a net formed from octupii connected by their tentacles. Its heads exhaled blue fog while it clung to the side of a glass container and formed geometric patterns with the tentacles. Some theorize that it was a form of communication. Anyways, it died within a day, so not many people got to see it as something other than a mass of dead octupii. Somehow, it still became the biggest attraction of the year. The Gate to the East The Gate to the East posted:Even in Tripol, all is not gold that glitters – sometimes it turns out to be fool’s gold.  The east gate of Tripol used to be an upscale gambling district. Now it's a very poor gambling district. That's basically what the section says. I guess you can go here for quest giver NPCs in the form of down-on-their luck Neolibyans with rumors of treasures but no financial backing. Long Shadows This is semi-lengthy and convoluted section about Bank of Commerce basically putting a poo poo ton of people into debt servitude by giving out easy loans. Long Shadows posted:The sheikhs make tremendous profits. Dozens of cities struggle in the Bank of Commerce’s chains in the meantime. Highly indebted clans guarantee a seemingly endless supply of cheap wage slaves. Many villages send their children onto African Scrappers’ ships in the hope that they might find an artifact to buy their freedom. Today, the Bank of Commerce is the most powerful institution in Africa. It commands vast resources and halls full of IOUs – each and every one of them is worth a favor. It finances wars and lootings and even holds the Neolibyans on a tight leash. It implies that Neolibyans are separate from The Bank of Commerce – but why do they submit to it then? And if they are a part of it, why do we need the bit about the tight leash? Also, lol, wage slavery. Bank of Commerce is basically Wall Street. The Road This depressing book is the only white literature acceptable in Afri - wait, no, that's not about that. You see, not all Africans are itching at the chance to get himself some whitey Rhoomba replacement. Madame Dayo is an old Anubite that decline advancement to the third circle (didn't level up?). Instead, she started up "The Road," which smuggles slaves back into Europe. Some stay with the organization and even go into the jungle to get captured again to help a new group to escape. Quabis For the last year, the hottest new thing in Quabis was... white people. Specifically, Spitalians were brought into the town by a ship belonging to a Justitian-based Neolibyan. Their hands weren't tied, their clothing wasn't shredded by the Scourges (so that's where the Scourger name comes from). The Scourgers didn't even let children throw rotten fruit at them like usual. The Spitalians (I know I sometimes call them Spitaliers – the connection to Hospitaliers is just too strong) are free to mingle in the city, haggling over dates, drinking coffee and playing Kalaha. Quabis posted:They have adopted African foundlings and teach them the white man’s shamanism – pure medicine, based on evidence. At first, there was trouble with people accepting free whites in Africa. However, Scourgers, being the guardians of tradition (and also warriors and slavers, what with the name), came up with a ritual to make the Spitalians honorary Africans. This included being buried under ground, clawing your way out and chewing on intoxicating leaves for days. Wakili, the Neolibyan that brought the Spitalians here, gave them two Surge Tanks. The first was called Aesculapius and became their After a lengthy (paragraph about) repair, the tank was filled with fuel and provisions, and the Spitalians set out towards Dhoruba. Masai scouts followed it and noticed something: the tank turned east, towards Anubia and maybe even Cairo. Quabis posted:You simply cannot trust the white man. Around whites never relax, am I right?  *Remembers that he lives in 2018* Wait, poo poo, that's true  Next time: the Psychovore queen of Anubia
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Jun 7, 2018 05:07
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JcDent posted:Man, WHFB lore is so loving great. The elves, the human-dorf relationship Hey man, cannons explode too, and they can't make your sword light on fire while you're crushing Chaos.
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Jun 7, 2018 05:37
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Ya, which makes wizards 200% cooler.
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Jun 7, 2018 05:42
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Cannons don't summon demons. Or cause horrible things to happen if they mess up. Also aren't reliant on the magic of the surrounding area. Point for cannons.
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Jun 7, 2018 05:50
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ChaseSP posted:Cannons don't summon demons. Or cause horrible things to happen if they mess up. Also aren't reliant on the magic of the surrounding area. Point for cannons. You sure about that. 
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Jun 7, 2018 06:23
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That's different and you know it is. That was a cannon custom made by evil rear end in a top hat dwarves.
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Jun 7, 2018 07:37
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Cannons also can't defend themselves if some random guys walk up to them and start hitting them with pointy objects.
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Jun 7, 2018 07:55
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If Bright Wizards are wrong, then I don't want to be right. 
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Jun 7, 2018 10:15
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Deptfordx posted:If Bright Wizards are wrong, then I don't want to be right. *explodes in agreement*
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Jun 7, 2018 10:46
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JcDent posted:“Last year,” the biggest attraction was a net formed from octupii connected by their tentacles. Its heads exhaled blue fog while it clung to the side of a glass container and formed geometric patterns with the tentacles. Some theorize that it was a form of communication. Of course.
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Jun 7, 2018 11:42
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Cooked Auto posted:Of course. Somebody saw Arrival.
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Jun 7, 2018 13:47
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Young Freud posted:Somebody saw Arrival. Yeah pretty much. The whole communication sentence is just so unnecessary and feels like the author going "Did ya get it wink wink nudge nudge".
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Jun 7, 2018 14:22
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Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay: Realms of Sorcery A brief diversion, then Magnus I'd like to take a moment to go into one of the cool things the book does; there are a bunch of little in-character diversions during the big fluff dump, written by different master Magisters at different times (with occasional interludes with the High Elf Loremaster Teclis) talking about their various theories of the Aethyr. They're not only interesting in their own right, but they get at one of the cool parts of Fantasy in WHFRP2e's fluff: The people who live in it are actively trying to figure out its mysteries, and in so doing present a bunch of different possible explanations for things that a gaming group could use. They aren't content to sit around praising ignorance the way 40k Imperials were. For instance, a Metal Magister looks at the way things shape themselves to the thoughts and hopes of mortals and concludes from it that even thought is more 'real' than the raw unreality of the Aethyr, and thus on encountering it it molds and 'cools' the aethyric energy like molten metal being poured into shape in a mold. Of course a Metal wizard would think in those terms, but it's hardly implausible. We also get an interlude from Volans, the first ever head of the Light Order (we'll be seeing him a bit more later) where he theorizes that the Gods may well not have existed prior to the Collapse. After all, if demons and monsters first took shape and gained real power when the gate exploded, perhaps the Gods are the same, but are the manifestations of what people would see as virtues and protectors? Perhaps when Ulric beat the poo poo out of Khorne (but failed to seal the deal) at the beginning of all things, that was the people of the world creating a protector and a nobler form of 'war god' to face the destructive manifestation of hate? This is obviously considered a bit heretical by the various cults. Teclis seems to believe that the Aethyr is full of all of the unrealized potential of things that could be (or could not be, without magic) that can then be realized into the real world through speaking the 'words of creation'. There is an implication throughout the setting that Speak Arcane Language (Magic) is actually fragmentary knowledge of the language of the Old Ones, after all. Anyway, it's neat to have these little interjections from a bunch of different sources and all of the sourcebooks embrace this. The Old World has many different perspectives, many of them having merit, and the reader is invited to put them together how they wish. Now, back to Magnus. We know Magnus the Pious, but this book goes more into detail about how bad things had actually gotten post Wars of the Vampire Counts. Kul's appearance in Kislev was only part of the problem; as is usually the case at the Great Incursions, all of the cults around the Empire were activated and told to do as much damage as they could, while the Beastmen ran rampant. Blights spread across the farmlands of the Empire, cattle died in droves, people starved, and there were no human wizards to counter the curses and ill magics of the enemy. Worse, the coming of so much Chaos had greatly increased the rate of magic-sensitive children in the Empire, and despite the efforts of the Hunters to enforce the full ban, there were simply too many hidden cultists for an Empire with no knowledge of the enemy to deal with. To illustrate how bad things had gotten, Nuln itself faced a major uprising of Chaos forces such that there were street-battles between demons and the forces of the Empire. Actual house-to-house fighting between cultists, the monsters they had summoned, and the defenders of the city risked convincing people that Nuln was lost, and some of its defenders were ensnared by the enemy and changed sides in hopes of saving themselves. This is where Magnus the Pious first made his name, rallying the defenders of the city from his place in the seminary. But saving Nuln wasn't enough. Not only did her set out to put an end to the Time of Three Emperors and get help to Kislev, he realized he needed more aid; as always, Imperial heroes are as much diplomat and politician as fiery warrior. He sent an envoy to the land of the High Elves in Ulthuan, to beg assistance in such dark times. Unfortunately, the envoy arrived to find the elves under siege by their own kin. Malkith of Naggaroth had decided, as per usual, that the world being on the edge of destruction was the perfect time for him to get his mom to summon more demons so he could attack Ulthuan and try to become elf-king. The High Elves were barely holding on and while their king, Finubar, was able to see he needed to send aid to the humans, he could spare no army to do so. Asking his advisors for ideas, his greatest wizard, Loremaster Teclis, volunteered to take two fellow archmages and go to give the humans a key weapon they lacked: The knowledge of magic. This solution would let the armies of Ulthuan hold off the forces of the idiot king and his latest plan to probably try to eat the vortex or something while still sending needed aid to the humans, so Teclis and his two comrades set off for the lands of men. Magnus was initially disappointed that his envoy arrived with only three elves in tow, but they explained to him that knowing how to wield magic against the Great Enemy was one of the keys to success in his war. They would bring to their side every uncorrupted Hedge Wizard and dabbler and put them through a crash-course in how not to explode, with his leave. Magnus was initially suspicious of this, from his devout faith in Sigmar, but he was smart enough to realize that the elves had successfully used magic against Chaos for centuries, and that Teclis was basically the only non-dick elf lord in the setting aside from possibly Finubar himself. He permitted their plan after careful consideration, and they got to work grabbing as many potential wizards as possible, offering amnesty to any who came out of the shadows and submitted themselves for testing. Some of those who did were Chaos Sorcerers trying to trick their way into the ranks, but even with Chaos on their side a human dabbler is not going to be able to hide their taint from one of the greatest archmages in the world; those guys got exploded. Many, many others came forward and received licensing, instruction, and a path to use their abilities officially for good. We have an interesting little interlude here where the elf wizards examined the miraculous powers of human priests and declared they were 'obviously' simply arcane magic, channeled through ritual to such a degree that they were relatively safe. The interesting implication here is that elves legitimately don't understand divine magic. They treat it like a simple variation of Color or High magic, despite it working quite differently both in-setting (we'll get to that a lot more when we get to Tome of Salvation) and in mechanics. I've always personally suspected this is because elves have a very different relationship with their Gods, on account of their Gods being a bunch of jerks. The Hunters hated this idea. They hated everything ABOUT this idea; their dogma had taught them for ages that it was against the will of Sigmar and the Gods for humans to work magic. Magnus had to expend much of his influence convincing the orders of Templars and Hunters to permit the study of magic. However, being as Magnus had the blessing of the Grand Theoganist and the trust of the church of Sigmar, his word held a great deal of weight. He was able to convince the various orders that the elves would not permit tainted students and that the will of Sigmar was that the Empire accept this offer by its new allies, preventing a wider attempt at purging the students coming to take advantage of the amnesty. The elves did not have time to teach the humans much besides the basics of battle-magic before throwing them into the fray, but even 'simple' fireballs, constricting vines, and spells of curing and healing were enough to make a big difference. The humans made up in numbers and spirit what they lacked in official training, with the great Von Taurnus, a former Greatswordsman and the first Imperial Bright Wizard distinguishing himself as a battle wizard without peer. Similarly, Volans, the first head of the Light Order and one of the only humans to ever perceive the essence of High magic, would go on to be a personal friend to Teclis and one of the founding educators of the Colleges. By the end of the war, one of the elven Archmages and many young human wizards had fallen, but it was clear that magic had made the difference in a war won on a razor's edge. The outcome of the Great War Against Chaos could very well have been different had it not been for the first Magisters. Magnus thus legitimized their orders and asked Teclis to stay a little longer, to help found a great college that could train future wizards. Thus, the Colleges of Magic begin. Next Time: The Founding of the Colleges
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Jun 7, 2018 16:04
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I know it's been said before, but I love in WFRP when the solution to "oh poo poo Chaos/Skaven/Orcs want to eat us!" is "hey let's form an international and inter-species alliance, because if one of us goes down, the rest are probably going to be next, and we're not unreasonable dickheads." While in WH40k, despite the fact that Chaos and the Tyranids are inimical to literally every other force on the battlefield, none of them would ever even consider an official alliance, despite it making perfect sense. 40k says we're all doomed because we're fundamentally morons, Fantasy says there's always a chance of survival and victory as long as we're willing to be courageous, reasonable adults.
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Jun 7, 2018 16:42
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Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay: Realms of Sorcery I cast SUMMON WIZARD COLLEGE Magnus is not only known as a great leader, but a great reformer. During the aftermath of the war, to fund reconstruction, he greatly revised and expanded citizenship in the Empire, partly to increase his tax base and partly to give more people a sense that they belonged to a larger political state. Some of his political capital was also expended on asking Teclis to remain and help to found official orders of study, that the Empire could benefit from wizards in the future. Having seen their use in the war, and having become friendly with the elven archmage, he reasoned the Empire should regulate and teach its magic-sensitive citizens on a regular basis rather than just as an emergency measure. The other surviving archmage, Finreir, wanted nothing to do with teaching the humans, reasoning that the elves and humans had fought one another before and that teaching the humans anything else would be undermining a critical elven advantage. Teclis, not being a stupid rear end in a top hat, countered that the humans were positioned to take the first blows from Chaos in future wars. Not only that, but teaching them would provide a bulwark against the sort of creeping corruption that had spread when magic was blanket banned. The humans would only be exposed to more risk without training. He was able to convince his subordinate, and thus Finreir and Teclis remained to help the humans found the eight Colleges of Magic. There were initially some minor riots when they, uh, magically rewrote the entire landscape of Altdorf to do this. I'm not entirely sure the Emperor had that in mind when he first asked them to do this, but the two wizards literally cast 'summon fanciful wizard colleges' and rewrote the flow of magic around Altdorf; the city has been a fair bit weirder ever since. It's very hard to find your way around Altdorf without landmarks anymore, and hidden throughout the city are the eight great buildings of the colleges, each dedicated to one of the colors of magic. Why is there suddenly a great and usually invisible pyramid of light for the Light Order? Who knows. That's wizard business and you know they ain't right in the head. The Wizards, for their part, displayed remarkable forethought in realizing that while they had been officially legitimized, everyone in the Empire was currently terrified of them. They began approaching the heads of guilds and noble households and offering all manner of oaths of allegiance and mutual benefit. They started looking for ways to apply their magic to commerce and food production as well as exploding the enemies of the Empire, trying to help in the reconstruction of the formerly-shattered Empire and make friends while they did it. Magisters were made a separate class of citizen, subordinate to the Imperial Household, to try to curb their sudden and growing influence on the city and the Empire. Even with measures to limit their influence, the incessant politicking and image-building efforts of the Colleges has made it fashionable for noble houses and powerful guild to employ powerful mages as advisors and helpers in the modern Empire. The Orders continue to grow more and more accepted by Imperial society as a whole, and the power and wealth of a Wizard Lord has only grown. Wizards understand that they are a very 'new' part of the Empire, even centuries after Magnus. The Colleges take every effort to build their reputation, and their independence, as servants and allies of the Imperial Household and the people of the Empire. The Magisters are increasingly viewed without fear, and increasingly important to all elements of Imperial society, as Life Wizards prevent famine, Celestial Wizards foresee and help with the weather, Metal Wizards aid with the schemes and plans of the Empire's Engineers, Shadow Wizards spy on its enemies, etc, etc. It would be fair to say that opening the Colleges to legitimate study opened an entire new era in the Empire, unlocking new advances in applied magic and scholarship that have greatly aided its ascent as a global superpower. Moreover, as the only major human nation with a widely teachable magical tradition (Ice/Hag Witches in Kislev are stable, but men aren't permitted to learn their ways) the Empire has become a destination for the magically sensitive from all over the world. To be a part of the Colleges can be a hard row to hoe, but it leads to potentially impressive job prospects if you can manage your student loans and avoid being eaten by a demon! Next: The Nature of Magic
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Jun 7, 2018 17:05
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