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Something I'm sure we're going to get into that I love about magic in WHFRP is how distinctive each of the wizard colleges are. The Empire doesn't really do generic wizards, and it's great.
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Jun 7, 2018 17:42
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Elves can apparently master all 8 winds but as far as I've seen WHFRPG doesn't let you play as elvish wizards.
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Jun 7, 2018 17:47
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Kurieg posted:Elves can apparently master all 8 winds but as far as I've seen WHFRPG doesn't let you play as elvish wizards. You can play an elf wizard during their 'minor' apprenticeship, where they're learning a single Wind to get accepted to Hoeth and study under the Loremasters, and thus on par with a normal human wizard. They could never really figure out a way to put High Magic in the game. And yes, this is also the book that introduces your wind slowly changing your wizard as you pick up all kinds of neat, flavorful little changes to your personality and body, like fire wizards' hair turning to flame or people being unable to remember a shadow wizard's face.
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Jun 7, 2018 17:52
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Most of the stuff High Magic does in the war game really wouldn't work well in an RPG, since it's stuff like "destroy a magic item" that works in a war game where you're playing every fight with an untouched army, but would really be a pain in an RPG where magic gear represents a significant investment.
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Jun 7, 2018 18:28
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Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay: Realms of Sorcery On the Winds of Magic So, one of the things that shocked the early human wizards was being told that yes, the power they were using really was related to the stuff of Chaos. Atheyric energy all flows down from the north through the gaping wound in reality, which Teclis told them about, but didn't give them many details about (probably because he doesn't know, either; if you'll remember from the Tome of Corruption it is insanely hard to get near that thing). This means it's easier to use magic the further north you are, with the flows of magic growing weaker towards the equator. While they all flow from the same injury in reality, it is possible to shape spells and use magic without the intercession of the Chaos Gods, nor the use of Dark Magic. Humans can most easily do this by focusing on one of the eight separate winds of magic, each representing a realm of mortal imagination and dreaming and how it interacts with the physical world. This paradigm, of eight winds, has become the most successful human paradigm of magic to such an extent that it even influences the works of heretical and unlicensed wizards like necromancers in the modern Empire. The first of the winds is the Wind of Hysh, the White Wind of Light. Hysh is the magic of illumination, both literal and figurative, representing the yearning for knowledge and enlightenment in mortal minds. Hysh's Light represents inspiration, healing, and the banishing of darkness as much as it does physical light; these wizards are able to provide bursts of foresight, banish demons in contests of wills, or shoot lasers out of their eyes. Students of Hysh are said to master the most difficult single color, and spend much of their time learning philosophy and studying the history of the world to hone their minds for the challenge of the magic of Enlightenment. The magic is also attracted to harmony and song, and so the Magisters often train their apprentices to sing as choirs to help with their rituals. These wizards are known as learned, wise masters of the arts, and fearless banishers of devils and monsters. Azyr, the Blue Wind of the Heavens, is the magic of the skies and the magic of fate and prophecy. It reflects the power inherent in the contemplation of the stars and that which is beyond one's reach. Azyr is unbound by normal linear time and reaches into the infinite possibilities of the heavens, letting the Magisters of the Blue reach out and read possible futures for the world and themselves. They can also shoot lightning at people and fly, which is pretty rockin'. Azyr tends to lead its practitioners towards a dreamy nature, with their 'heads in the clouds', so to speak. The most difficult test a celestial wizard faces is that of living with knowing the future, and knowing that some things cannot be averted, no matter what they do. They are much sought after as councilors and advisors for their foresight, and their weather magic can spare an entire community from drought. Chamon is the Golden Wind of Metal. It represents the desire for order and predictability in the universe, the hope that one day all things can be understood and catalogued and that all things have their place. Chamon's magic lies in alchemy and the transformation of materials into new states; a practitioner could turn a lump of steel into the finest sword one could ever hope to wield, or transform lead into gold. Indeed, one of the most famous stories of Chamon had the Supreme Patriarch of the Colleges, Balthazar Gelt, tricking a lord who was planning to rebel into letting the Gold Wizard see his treasury to inspect his finances, at which point he turned all the man's wealth into lead so he could no longer pay his mercenaries and then flew away on his Pegasus, probably laughing. Chamon is particularly attracted to certain metals, especially heavier ones like Gold, and this leads the logical, science-minded wizards to study these materials to try to discover why their magic likes them so much. Their association with the Engineer's College is also rapidly making the Gold College one of the richest Colleges in the Empire. Ghyran, the Jade Wind, is one of the most important winds in the Empire, even if it isn't the most powerful at slaying dozens of enemies on the battlefield. This is the magic of life and conception, the power of renewal and natural spaces. Jade Wizards are tied closely to the land and seem to wax and wane with the seasons, using spells that can take a barren field (or one blighted by evil magic) and make it productive and fertile again. They can even apply those powers to humans or livestock, and Jade Wizards have saved more than one noble dynasty from ending due to infertility. They are also capable healers, and very learned in the ways of medicine and agriculture even without their spells. Very few communities would turn down the aid of a Jade Magister. Jade Magic is especially attracted the shores of the Empire's rivers, flowing down through the silt and life-giving water. Ghur, the Amber Wind, represents the other half of the natural world. This is the magic of beasts and living creatures, the power of wolves and crows and all that walks or crawls or flies upon the earth. It represents the primal power of beasts, untainted by the horror of Chaos. Ghur has always had a little trouble really differentiating itself from Ghyran in the fluff; its blurb in the book is by far the shortest. What you want to remember about Beast Magic is that it's the much more martial form of nature magic, on paper; the RPG doesn't do well with it mechanically. It focuses on shapeshifting and strengthening living beings with echos of natural, primal power. The RPG version lacks most of the more powerful shapeshifting spells from the tabletop game, presumably because letting a PC turn into a dragon was a little outside the scope of normal PC abilities. Aqshy is the Red Wind, the power of fire. Philosophically, it represents passion of all kinds; anything that refuses to sit still and be silent falls under Aqshy. As a Wind it is attracted to excitement, argument, and conflict, meaning many Bright Wizards are extremely quarrelsome and excitable people. This also means the actual magic is about exciting things; sometimes this is used to make them burst into flames, sometimes this is used to make tempers flare and allegiances among one's enemies crack, and sometimes it's used to turn food extremely spicy (Red Wizards are the kind of people who eat peppers like they were an apple). These are some of the Empire's most famous battle wizards, striding into war with a crown and a sword of flames, throwing blazing bolts of power every which way and that. Ulgu, the Grey Wind, is almost the exact opposite. It represents the power of hidden knowledge, the crafting of unseen and complex plots and occult secrets. Magisters of Ulgu tend to be unimpressive people who are difficult to place and remember, and they tend to possess terrible senses of humor and a love of sticking their noses where they shouldn't to learn what they aren't supposed to know. These trickster-wizards are inexorably drawn to the mysteries and plots that fuel their magic, both forming plots of their own, and loving to uncover the plots of others. This makes them some of the Empire's best spies and messengers. They believe they act for the good of all under the thick, obscuring mists of the power of Ulgu. Finally, we come to Shyish, the Purple Wind, and the most misunderstood. Shyish is the magic of endings and natural entropy. Later fluff for the TT game will forget that Shyish is actually the antithesis of Necromancy, not its neighbor; this is the magic of death, not undeath. These wizards are, in fact, some of the strongest foes of the Undead and often work together with the Church of Morr to oppose vampires and other undying threats. Their magic is, as above, the magic of natural endings; they can call forth the ravages of time to decay an object well before its time, or age an individual, or in the most powerful workings, simply sever a soul from its body and send it straight to Morr. Practicing the magic of Shyish tends to give Amethyst Magisters a great appreciation for life, and a stoic acceptance of their own eventual deaths. Next: Other Forms of Magic
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Jun 7, 2018 19:10
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I love the Human-Dorf friendship and Elves not being too mysterious, but also not commonplace in WHFB, as it shows very distinct fantasy people that still work together, which seems different from a lot of other fantasy. I love the uncompromising hostility of 40K, since most other sci-fi has humans be these diplomatic trader types a la Federation/Starfleet and Imperium is literally not that. Also, hell yeah, Bright Wizards.
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Jun 7, 2018 19:53
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I cannot tell you how glad I am to be writing up an actual interesting setting again. 40k got really, really old over the 4 games of it I wrote up, especially with just how much each one was copy-pasted fluffwise.
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Jun 7, 2018 19:58
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I'm glad to be reading your WHFB posts since you're a good, funny writer, but I have major disagreements with you over 40K which would only give me a headache, so I skipped those. Man, I'd so play a WHFRPG 2e campaign...
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Jun 7, 2018 20:01
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JcDent posted:Man, I'd so play a WHFRPG 2e campaign... WHFRPG 4th ed is due next month I believe. Either later this month or next.
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Jun 7, 2018 20:08
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In my experience, the most useful for a WFRP party is probably the LIght Wizard, who as well as the afore-mentioned quite powerful laser eyes, has several useful buffs including the rare ability for Wizards to magically heal damage.
Deptfordx fucked around with this message at 20:10 on Jun 7, 2018 |
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Jun 7, 2018 20:08
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Cooked Auto posted:WHFRPG 4th ed is due next month I believe. Either later this month or next. I hate to sound like a Grognard, but 2nd Edition is so suited for me, I'm not sure I'd be interested in a new edition short of it being released to universal acclaim as the best thing ever to happen.
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Jun 7, 2018 20:10
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Deptfordx posted:In my experiance, the most useful for a WFRP party is probably the LIght Wizard, who as well as the afore-mentioned quite powerful laser eyes, has several useful buffs including the rare ability for Wizards to magically heal damage. Also having the option to go WP to WP with a demon to instant-kill it is both badass and a useful thing to have in your back pocket. All of the forms of magic are pretty useful, just Amethyst and Amber get a bit of the short end of the stick mechanically. All they had to do was give Amber Wizards Bear's Anger from the TT game and a bunch of actual buffs, but no, they're stuck with 'now you have the exact stats of a common bear' which doesn't hold up to equivalent level warriors at all.
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Jun 7, 2018 20:10
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Cooked Auto posted:WHFRPG 4th ed is due next month I believe. Either later this month or next. We dunno if it's good yet!
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Jun 7, 2018 20:10
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Night10194 posted:Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay: Realms of Sorcery I love this loving setting so much you guys. Next to Shadowrun and Glorantha it's probably one of my favorites.
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Jun 7, 2018 20:12
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JcDent posted:We dunno if it's good yet! Seems interesting though from the previews they've posted.
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Jun 7, 2018 20:30
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Wrath and Glory is due out soon as well, which will be eicepool based 40k.
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Jun 7, 2018 20:44
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Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay: Realms of Sorcery Dark Elves Prefer The Explosions There are, of course, other forms of magic besides human Color Magic. High Magic, or Qhaysh, is an extension of Color Magic that requires centuries of study to master (this being one reason no human has ever done so). It requires an understanding of the links and harmonies of all eight winds, in order to form spells from multiple winds without overchanneling aethyric energy and causing Chaos. It relies on a balance between the various ambient magics channeled into it, and it tends to be extremely precise and focused in its effects. Given how long it takes to learn and how elf PCs start at the same level as human PCs, they elected to simply avoid giving direct rules for High Magic in the RPG; any elf PC who has spellcasting careers is roughly on par with a human since they're still learning their basic Color Magic in preparation to go become a High Mage. We've talked about Dhar, or Dark Magic, back in vampire town. Dark Magic is formed when someone stops caring about focusing on or balancing ambient magic and just grabs as many fistfuls of raw aethyric energy as they can out of the environment, compacting and twisting the magic to fit the purpose of the spell they're using right now. This produces the magical equivalent of nuclear waste from a spent fuel rod. The seeping, compacted leftovers of the spell can infect the area where it was used, seeping into plants and animals and rocks and trees and causing mutation and blight. This compacted magic can eventually be shaped together into what's known as 'True' Dhar, where instead of pulling the winds in disharmony someone gathers up the stagnant leftovers of past dark magic and uses it for ill. Dark Elves prefer this sort of magic to High Magic specifically because it is more likely to kill its wielder, according to a sidenote: The stupid fascist pricks think this ensures the 'stronger' wizards survive and that it properly 'winnows' the weak. This is the magic of raw, unsubtle power, compared to the scalpel of High Magic or the focus and safety of Color Magic. It is mostly useful for Chaos or Necromantic spells. Wrestling this magic into shape almost requires a megalomaniac mind; otherwise it will rebel and snap back into whatever chaotic form it prefers, usually to the detriment of the wielder. Magic is also absorbed into all things as it passes south from the yawning gap in reality at the north pole. This 'earthbound' magic manifests in the increasing mutation rate the further north you get; while all living tissue can absorb a certain amount of the humming background magic of the world, too much will eventually cause the raw energies of change to make alterations. However, magic is being pulled out of the system at the same time as it's being pumped in, by the force of the Great Vortex in Ulthuan. This means the background magic is much lower further south, as less of the energy reaches it in the first place before the purging cycle starts. It also explains the difficulty of crafting magical items; they have to 'hold' the magic in, despite the force of the Vortex trying to pump it out. One of the most successful means of doing so is dwarven Runic magic, which can attract and stabilize the energy in specific, standardized forms and store it long-term. Ironically, for people who can't sense magic at all, the dwarves are some of the best artisans of magical tools. These flows of magic are shaped by natural leylines, as well; a sorcerer who knows how and where magic flows in the world can tap into these leylines for tremendous power, as we saw with the Kislevite Ice Witches and their magic linked to the icy power of Kislev. There is also a huge network of ancient power transmission devices known as Waystones, originally built as a sort of global travel and terraforming network by the Old Ones. The Elves set out to complete this network and rebuild it after they had survived the Collapse, and back when they were allies of the Dwarves, they taught their friends how to do the same. The dwarves helped construct runic pillars that served similar functions, and the whole world is crisscrossed with a no-longer-maintained but tremendously powerful network of these Elven, Dwarven, and Old One Waystones, plus lesser ones that primitive humans used to be drawn to construct at the nexuses of leylines, back before they could explain why they did so. As we saw in Tome of Corruption, these Waystones and ancient networks are very, very powerful; Chaos loves to try to hijack and corrupt them, and the wizards of the Empire are sworn to defend them by ancient pact with their teacher, Teclis. Magic is simply easier and safer to work neat one of these network nodes. More importantly, the later ones also serve to amplify the flow of corrupt power back towards the Vortex and out of the world; if Chaos could destroy or re purpose enough of them, it could be a tremendous disaster. There's also the matter of Warpstone, which is literally congealed and crystallized Chaos energy. Warpstone is such a powerful crystallization of all eight colors that even non-sensitive mortals can feel and see it. Touching it can instantly saturate a being with magical energy, causing mania, insanity, mutation, sickness, or even physical burns. For some reason, people are convinced this stuff is immensely powerful (It is, mind, if used in actual magic, but it makes it much more dangerous) and it has a reputation of being able to do all manner of wondrous things, despite being incredibly illegal and proscribed by the Orders save for very specific and controlled studies. It is thus extremely valuable to would-be warlocks and dabblers, many of whom are rich enough to pay Adventurers a huge sum of money to retrieve them a chunk of Warpstone. Warpstone's main interest for actual magicians is its ability to store vast amounts of energy; human wizards can use it to make up for their lack of expertise with runecraft to greatly aid in constructing magical items. Warpstone is, obviously, an unwelcome substance and not preferable for respectable wizards. To that end, the Gold Order discovered how to condense raw Chamon out into a stone of power, originally called Philosopher's Stones before the name acquired an insane, mythic reputation for being able to produce immortality and endless gold. To this day, non-magical 'alchemists' keep pointlessly trying to make Philosophers' Stones, passing off their failures to unsuspecting rubes for vast sums, while the wizards have changed the name to 'Goldstones' to avoid being associated with such chicanery. All of the Orders have learned to make these sorts of power stones, though it takes months of ritual; the results enable the Orders to craft some of the powerful items of magic that the Empire relies on to give its heroes an edge in its many wars. Next Time: On the Study and Use of Imperial Magic.
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Jun 7, 2018 20:50
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On Warpstone, the Skaven know how to dilute it into weaker safer forms so that it can be touched (and Eaten) and used to power their devices. Cause even they have enough sense not to touch the stuff raw.Deptfordx posted:I hate to sound like a Grognard, but 2nd Edition is so suited for me, I'm not sure I'd be interested in a new edition short of it being released to universal acclaim as the best thing ever to happen. 4e is based on 2nd edition. They were originally planning on just doing second edition, until they decided to refine it a tad.
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Jun 7, 2018 21:27
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Night10194 posted:Also having the option to go WP to WP with a demon to instant-kill it is both badass and a useful thing to have in your back pocket. All of the forms of magic are pretty useful, just Amethyst and Amber get a bit of the short end of the stick mechanically. Yeah Amber definitley has the weakest WizBiz going on. I've actually played an Amethyst wizard, and I enjoyed it, but yeah their spell selection is also fairly limited. I'd say the best three were Bright, Light and Celestial. Light we've discussed, Bright is best for blowing poo poo up with Fire, Celestial has some decent attack and utility spells but it's signature is a suite of highly useful spells giving you bonus fortune points and similar bend fate in your favor buffs.
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Jun 7, 2018 21:32
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No mention of hunger magic? 0/10 guidebook to magic. Basically Ogres cast magic by eating stuff, having effects from chasing their foes bones to break to buffing allies.
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Jun 7, 2018 21:33
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There's almost nothing on the Ogres in any of the books they got published before the game line closed, unfortunately.
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Jun 7, 2018 21:36
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Not in Realms of Sorcery, or *I think* any of the second edition stuff. In fact Ogres as Food Wizards from the tabletop game might actually postdate the second editon RPG era, I'm not sure.
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Jun 7, 2018 21:37
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And of course over in Lustria are the guys who taught the elves how to use magic.
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Jun 7, 2018 22:04
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So wait, if Chaos is basically a result of "impure" magic leaking into the world. And Waystones channel impure magic more effectively to the Ulthuan Vortex to be purified. Wouldn't that imply that one way to push back Chaos and reclaim the northern wastes would be to expand the Waystone network further north and defend it?
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Jun 7, 2018 22:07
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The North is a horrible place that has been tainted by Chaos. Terrible beasts as well as vicious Nords struggle to just survive in the frozen tundra while the later kill one another to appease their dark gods.
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Jun 7, 2018 22:09
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PurpleXVI posted:So wait, if Chaos is basically a result of "impure" magic leaking into the world. And Waystones channel impure magic more effectively to the Ulthuan Vortex to be purified. Wouldn't that imply that one way to push back Chaos and reclaim the northern wastes would be to expand the Waystone network further north and defend it? Yes, basically redoing the work of the Old Ones, but that would be extremely difficult to do. If it was easy, the lizards probably would've succeeded at it, given they probably have the plans for the original Old One stones.
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Jun 7, 2018 22:10
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Doesn't help the lizards have lost a bunch of their precious stones, or were destroyed by Skaven, Dark Elves, Nords and Empire explorers.
ChaseSP fucked around with this message at 22:13 on Jun 7, 2018 |
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Jun 7, 2018 22:11
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ChaseSP posted:Doesn't help the lizards have lost a bunch of their precious stones, or were destroyed by Skaven. Or destroyed by Chaos. Or plundered by ignorant humans. The sheer ignorance is probably the biggest obstacle with this plan - though it could be a great long-term goal for a campaign. The elves don't really understand what they're doing, and the lizards do understand what they're doing but are struggling to simply survive and regard other races, at best, as occasionally helpful idiots more likely to burn the whole place down.
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Jun 7, 2018 22:14
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I really wish there was an official Lustria book. They come up every time I'm talking about the game and setting. My three wishes are a Lustria Book, an Elf Book, and a Dorf Book and the line would've been mostly complete. E: One subtle thing I've noticed in Realms: In addition to not really understanding Divine magic, the elves don't seem to understand fully leyline/spirit based magic like in Kislev as a possibility. They're stuck entirely in the color paradigm.
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Jun 7, 2018 22:18
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wiegieman posted:Wrath and Glory is due out soon as well, which will be eicepool based 40k. Dicepool based 40K that seems to be pulling at least some of the "We have to cooperate to survive worse things" stuff from Fantasy in the fluff so far, which I am completely down for.
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Jun 7, 2018 22:22
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Night10194 posted:I really wish there was an official Lustria book. They come up every time I'm talking about the game and setting. This is at least half my fault, since I'm a shameless lizard fan (they're far and away my favorite race in WHF), but they're also really important to the setting's backstory and what might happen in the future, for all that they don't get out much. A saurus warrior would probably be playable as analogous to a chaos warrior, and a skink would probably be right at home with your more typical WHFRP party, if subject to a greater-than-normal amount of "WTF is that?! KILL IT!" "Hey, chill, she's our friend!"
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Jun 7, 2018 22:24
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Yeah, the most interesting aspect shown off in Wrath and Glory is that it's being built with the idea that you might play a Guardsman, a confused Marine Scout, an Eldar Ranger, and the Ork who follows them around because hey they find good fights, don't kill that golden goose. Like it's still 40k and thus I'm not especially interested, but that's a big step in a good direction.
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Jun 7, 2018 22:24
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Cythereal posted:This is at least half my fault, since I'm a shameless lizard fan (they're far and away my favorite race in WHF), but they're also really important to the setting's backstory and what might happen in the future, for all that they don't get out much. A saurus warrior would probably be playable as analogous to a chaos warrior, and a skink would probably be right at home with your more typical WHFRP party, if subject to a greater-than-normal amount of "WTF is that?! KILL IT!" "Hey, chill, she's our friend!" I want a lizardman skink stranded in the Empire to join a party and then midway through the game hear about the pit in Bretonnia that keeps spewing weird frog things and just go "No... no way. OH MY GOD IT IS! WEHAVETOGOTOBRETONNIANOW!"
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Jun 7, 2018 22:28
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Years ago I ran a very freeform game over a couple of sessions. I created a colony in Lustria, gave the fresh of the boat PC's a bunch of conflicting motivations, the village NPC's a bunch of interests and plot hooks and just let it all play out. At one point they followed the village priest who had been spotted repeatedly sneaking out of the village at night, only to find he had acquired a small congregation of skinks who he was attempting to convert to the worship of Sigmar.
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Jun 7, 2018 22:35
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One thing that really pisses me off in the later wargaming fluff is how thoroughly they throw out the whole 'Amethyst Wizards are not necromancers in the slightest' fluff, because much like 'Chaos opposes Undeath and Undeath opposes Chaos' it's another of those cool, slightly counter-intuitive rivalries that makes sense when you think about it. Of course the people about the gentle ending of things would oppose the monsters who claw onto existence at any cost to others.
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Jun 7, 2018 22:50
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I think that we all have learned over and over again that while you play in universes that GW made you must tailor them the gently caress out to fit your needs. poo poo ain't one size fits all, it's only made in an archaic pattern that fits no one particularly well.
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Jun 7, 2018 23:07
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 Obsidian: The Age of Judgement is a roleplaying game by Apophis Consortium published first in 1999, and this review uses the 2nd Edition from 2001. Written by Micah Skaritka, Dav Harnish, and Frank Nolan. Obsidian is a post-apocalyptic anarchist corporatist literal hell on earth secret knowledge crunchy dice-pool game. It is purchasable online here if you’d like to support the authors of this work. Part 1: (2)bsidian (2)rigins Obsidian: The Age of Judgement, or as its front cover and only its front cover calls it “O with a 2 inside of it”bsidian: The Age of Judgement, is a 2001 tabletop roleplaying game. The work focuses on a blend of post-apocalyptic and dystopian themes mixed in with secret truths and christian influenced spiritual warfare that don’t mix together so much as congeal. I want to note that this might be the least clearly delineated second edition of any game I’ve ever seen. Based on reviews and their surprisingly, at the time of this publication, still active Facebook page the content seems unchanged at all between publishings and the developer introduction in this book references the year of publication of 1st edition. So little has changed that even the cover art still has the artist signature noting the year as 1999, so I’m not entirely sure what, if an changes, were actually made to this “second edition” except adding a “2” inside the letter “O” on the book’s title.  In the grim future, shirts are a crime art by: Christopher Shy Obsidian’s cover is unsurprisingly, mostly black, and what imagery exists on the front cover is well beyond the time honored tradition of trying to convey the feeling and tone of the game but not necessarily its rules and well into “not reflective of any aspect of the game as written.” The cover promises intriguing, dangerous, and dark power. The game proper has a surprising amount of rules for things like how to track your sick days at work. The back cover, for its part, does a better job summarizing the game than the games own story section will. It concisely informs you Obsidian, #2Bsidian, revolves around a post-apocalyptic future with demons where all humans live in one final city doing various questionable things in their decaying dystopian corporatist world to survive. Actually, don’t get attached to the one final city thing because every single additional sourcebooks is built on directly contradicting that core setting conceit. Inside the book, our first text is labeled Necessary Disclaimer. This disclaimer is the first of many outright lies about how important the next words you’ll read in the book are, and most of them feature notes from the game reminding you to read twice and make sure you understand them. Half of this disclaimer is “this is a work of fiction” butt-covering and half is a list of bad things you’ll be able to get up to in this game as a bit of a sizzle reel to entice you. These activities include drug use, murder, and daemonic impregnation. Great start, Obsidian.  Look at how incredibly black and edgy the layout of this book is. I also wish you could embed music into words because I bet that album is the perfect match for this review After that, it’s time for the developer introduction which clearly is completely unchanged from the 1st edition because it makes several references to the current year being 1999, not 2001. Buried under layers of the overly pretentious prose in this section is the admittance that this setting is an over-tinkered mess. By their own development timeline, Obsidian started out as a game about anarchists that morphed over the course of its more than half-a-decade development into a game where you either join or found a corporation. In another unexpected bit of transparency the developers admit that even though the entire setting is now about fighting demons from literal hell, those setting details were the very last things added. If this scattershot approach with no thematic vision for their product didn’t worry you enough, this section ends by basically all but admitting that the developers don’t have any idea the plot to their setting: ”There is much more information into the world of Obsidian than has been stated. We welcome any inquiries you might have as to in-depth theories or social structures.” Nice try, Obsidian developers, but I’m not doing your homework for you. Next Time: Nine is Not Divisible By Four Barudak fucked around with this message at 03:27 on Jun 9, 2018 |
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Jun 8, 2018 03:49
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Kaza42 posted:I want a lizardman skink stranded in the Empire to join a party and then midway through the game hear about the pit in Bretonnia that keeps spewing weird frog things and just go "No... no way. OH MY GOD IT IS! WEHAVETOGOTOBRETONNIANOW!" Can you explain? I must be missing something. I played Lizardmen for years but know nothing about the Bretonnian fluff. Did they have some kind of slann spawning thing or something?
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Jun 8, 2018 03:58
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Xiahou Dun posted:Can you explain? I must be missing something. I played Lizardmen for years but know nothing about the Bretonnian fluff. Did they have some kind of slann spawning thing or something? It was in the Knights of the Grail sourcebook for the RPG. There's a strange chasm in the province of Bastonne that emits freezing mist and weird, mindless, giant frog-man creatures climb out of it sometimes. It sounds like it could be a broken Slaan spawning pool or something.
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Jun 8, 2018 04:00
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Night10194 posted:One thing that really pisses me off in the later wargaming fluff is how thoroughly they throw out the whole 'Amethyst Wizards are not necromancers in the slightest' fluff, because much like 'Chaos opposes Undeath and Undeath opposes Chaos' it's another of those cool, slightly counter-intuitive rivalries that makes sense when you think about it. Of course the people about the gentle ending of things would oppose the monsters who claw onto existence at any cost to others. I that still is the fluff. Death Magic just tends to be popular with some Necromancer types cause it's useful for murdering stuff (Which they can raise as skeletons and zombies after). The Lores of Undeath and Vampires, and other Necromancy was created by pretty much using Dark magic to corrupt the Wind of Death. (Which in itself had been modified into Nekahara's lore) MonsterEnvy fucked around with this message at 05:17 on Jun 8, 2018 |
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Jun 8, 2018 05:14
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