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7th Sea 2: Nations of Theah, Vol. 2 - Angry Ghosts Mstitel the Night-Haunt follows after horses, watching for the flash of coin. They say it can smell a boyar a mile off. And once it does, it destroys him. It is a trickster of some sort, with terrifying claws that rend its wealthy victims. Muzhiks have nothing to fear from it, but it hates boyars with a terrible passion. No one knows why, but Gallenian boyars know better than to travel by night or, if they must do so, to hide their wealth and dress plainly, to confuse the Avenger. Even traveling in groups will not keep them safe, for it can fight many at once. It comes out only after dark, to ambush nobles. First, it performs acts of mischief, scattering the wood of a campfire, tipping a wagon or disturbing bats to make them shriek across your path. It may trail a noble for hours, terrorizing them until they break down. Once the boyar is terrified enough, fleeing or brandishing a weapon in false bravado, Mstitel strikes. It impales on idle blades, rolls boulders over ridges, spooks horses off cliffs or bridges. The few survivors always say that, just before the chaos, they saw a pair of angry red eyes watching them from the shadows. The truth? Once, atop a Gallenian mountain, there was an estate built for Lady Kveta Masalsk Radkova v'Riasanova, where she lived with her large family, to the eleventh generation. The estate's domovoi came to love the family, and when a rival boyar came in to murder Lady Kveta and all her kin, it was left alone in a mountain tomb. Its grief over losing its purpose and beloved family drove it draw deep from its will, deeper than any domovoi before or since, calling on power that no domovoi should ever use. It became something else, something larger and darker, and its instincts to protect warped into a desire to 'protect' the land from boyars that would abuse it. It became the Night-Haunt, Mstitel. When it finds a traveler, it watches them to determine their social rank and heritage. It listens to speech, gauges wealth from luxuries, even asks questions or riddles in the voice of the wind. If anything displeases it, it goes into a terrible rage and plays with its prey before finally killing them in a horrific mockery of its once friendly nature. It is just barely possible that its wrath could be appeased by a hero taking ritual vengeance against the family that slew Lady Kveta's family, or performing funerary rites for the fallen house, especially if you could find a last survivor of Kveta's line to help convince it to return to its original state. Mstitel is Strength 7, Fearsome, Nocturnal and Shadowy. Every fisherman in Ussura knows it's dangerous to set off in a boat without protection against rusalki and vodyanoi. The mere presence of a human that hasn't placated them angers them, and when they're angry, people drown and things break. The rusalki were once living women, but they linger in their watery graves to haunt others. The vodyanoi, on the other hand, are half-human children of the Leshiye of the waters, resenting humanity for its ability to travel on land. They are generally considered a single cooperative threat. Some say that rusalki and vodyanoi enslave humans to build an army of amphibious soldiers that they may, one day, drown all of Ussura and rule it. Bogatyr and other warriors kill or banish these things when they can, especially when the Ushkuiniks use them to strongarm others. Some families, however, have made longterm deals with the spirits, especially if their survival depends on the waters. They might give up the firstborn of each generation to the rusalki or allow a vodyanoi to live under their roof as a brother every thirteenth month. In fact, the vodyanoi and rusalki work together only when they see use for it, and their cooperation is full of backstabbing and competition. The Ushkuiniks and some others have learned how to play this to their advantage, using the spirits' pride and spite to pit them against each other or manipulate them to help. There are no grand plans of conquest, though occasionally a vodyanoi with delusions of grandeur may attempt to take over a single estate or fishing business. The rusalki tend to lack both the imagination and motivation to meddle in anything past the shore. The vodyanoi do live in underwater fiefs that are something of a parody of surface life. When they 'drown' someone, they do not die, but are instead cursed to breathe water instead of air, forcing them into slavery. It is possible to bargain with them to get people back, or to get a Leshy to help break the curse. The rusalki care little for wealth or servants, and are not in fact ghosts. They aren't dead and were never human. They are water spirits that consider certain areas to belong to them. Their attacks and seductions are based on territory trespass, and any slave-taking is because they think their target is pretty and they want to keep them. They are possessive, jealous monsters with no real regard for others and their desires, which makes them combative but easy to bribe. However, there are ghosts that pretend to be true rusalki sometimes, and it's best to figure out what you're dealing with because the tactics needed are very different. Rusalki and vodyanoi are both Strength 6 and Aquatic. Upir are spoken of by the Orthodox as a cautionary tale against witchcraft and the worship of false gods. These, plus dying of unnatural causes and bringing corruption and shame on your family cause you to become upir. Walking corpses that do not age, thirsting for blood and killing to survive. They move after sunset, drawing their victims away from safety and leaving them a hollow husk in the town square. Older tales suggest, however, that upir are not born of sorcery or damnation, but instead that they have a contagious disease that turns people into bloodsuckers after death. In places with the disease tradition, tradition dictates immediate cremation of any bodies dead to illness or unknown causes, lest they rise. Some say an upir can be cured of their condition, so long as they don't die first, and every region has its own version of what indicates someone is upir. Some say the infected lose the power to see colors or the ability to eat foods that are not meat. Others believe erratic or antisocial behavior are symptoms, and others say it is the ability to walk in the cold unprotected without being harmed. Another tale says that upir are caused by botched reincarnation, making two souls exist in the same body - either by chance or evil magic. One dominates the waking life, while the other roams free at night as the body sleeps, delivering nightmares and stealing the life force of children. When an upir dies, they say, the second soul can escape as a butterfly or moth to find a new host. Thus, in communities that believe this, butterflies and moths are slain on sight. Despite the wildly differing tales, no one doubts that upir exist. Rumors of frequent sightings can draw in Kreuzritter upir hunters, who head out to rid the land of them. Other nations believe the upir to be related to the blood-drinkers of other nations, such as Eisen's vampir. However, while in some cases techniques that work on one work on the other, all too often they don't. So, the truth? The upir are tied to an event in the distant past, when an old man feared death so much that he meddled in necromancy. He became immortal, but at terrible price - he and all of his line would be upir. The bloodline is now spread far and wide, but very dilute. Not all who bear it become upir. But a person with enough of the old man's blood, born under the right kind of moon? They're an upir. In life, they have strange cravings for raw meat, or the company of crows, or exposure to the cold. They may even crave blood, but in life they don't require it to live. They age and die normally. Once they die, however, they transform into an immortal blood-drinker, human-looking in all respects but requiring blood to live. An undead upir can be killed only by fire or Leshiye-blessed weapons. They aren't nocturnal by nature and have only one soul, but when they sleep, their soul does in fact exit their body as a moth or butterfly to drink the blood of others via their nightmares, and so many upir choose to sleep by day to minimize the harm they cause accidentally. Not all upir are villains, though it's easy for them to become so. They aren't contagious, and they aren't caused by sorcery or doing evil. However, those who study necromancy do run the risk of accidentally or deliberately recreating the old ritual to make upir, turning them and their entire family into the creatures. If a PC wants to be an upir, the game says it is possible, by use of the Dark Gift Advantage to gain, say, the Nocturnal Quality, especially by use of the Befleckte Seele Background (albeit for an Ussuran rather than an Eisen character). Most upir, however, are Monstrous Villains with Strength 7 and Influence 5, and are Powerful and Regenerating, as well as having the Extended Family and Fascinate Advantages. Some very old and potent upir may be even stronger than that. Northeast of Tebizond, high in the mountains, you can find Strannik. Some say she is a human, abandoned at birth and with no awareness of human society. Some say she is a Leshy, more potent even than Matushka, but elusive and hard to interact with or be blessed by. Some say she is an evil spirit, who takes the lives of those that trespass in her mountains. Others believe she is a terrible serpent, turned into human form to trick people into her lair so she can suck out their warmth. Others say she is the last living Syrneth. Only one thing is agreed on: Strannik appears as a tall woman in dark furs, untouched by the cold. Some say she is very powerful, able to reshape her mountain, and others say she is vicious and cruel. Others say she blesses those who find her. The reality is no one's ever seen Strannik. The name comes from a number of different legends, but she doesn't actually exist. The most common tale is of a young girl lost in the mountains and raised by bears. Even those that say Strannik is Syrne or Leshy start with a girl getting lost in the mountains. Maybe she gained power from some benefactor, maybe she found a lost artifact, maybe she got possessed by a spirit. Everyone in Somojez has a Strannik story to tell, always about a friend, relative or acquaintance that met her. Perhaps she guided the person to safety, or perhaps she killed them in a fit of rage. (It is best to remember that if that one is true, there shouldn't be a story in the first place.) The stories persist, despite Strannik's apparent nonexistence. At this point, telling the story is almost as important as the story itself. Any Ussuran storyteller of any skill whatsoever knows at least one Strannik tale, and probably several. Sometimes, people get in games of oneupsmanship or contradict each other's stories. It's just one big ol' rural legend. Next time: Vodacce
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Jul 31, 2018 21:48
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Ratoslov posted:It strikes me that you could take the whole 'Sigmar left without a heir' thing to support a republican Sigmarite heresy- if Holy Sigmar himself ruled the Empire based on his virtue as a ruler rather than his blood, and even he did not rule forever, then why the hell are we listening to some inbred baron who spends all our tax money on wine and doxies? Halflings silently agree.
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Jul 31, 2018 21:56
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MonsieurChoc posted:Halflings silently agree. We'll get to it when we get to Sigmar's Heirs, but Halflings have the only functioning democracy in the Old World and are uniformly fairly prosperous over in the very rich and fertile mootland. When they aren't forced to fight vampires who are only held back from conquering them from the fact that it's always sunny in the Mootland, halflings taste terrible, and that every other Von Carstein would mock a Von Carstein trying to conquer the halflings for lacking ambition and class.
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Jul 31, 2018 22:00
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Pretty sure Warhammer Fantasy also has the awesome vampire hunting halflings, or some atleast. Or maybe I'm thinking of some other setting.
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Jul 31, 2018 22:06
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Nope, that's Fantasy. They live right next door, after all. Honestly, the Stirlanders are generally a bigger threat; the Mootland used to be part of Stirland, and used to make Stirland rich. Then an extremely fat Emperor (Emperor Ludwig the Fat) made his chef an Elector Count after being enthralled by the sheer artistry of his use of butter and the Halflings have been independent ever since. Stirland hates this. Stirland hates everything. I think they may be the only Imperials who are bigger assholes than Middenlanders. You might recall Stirland from Night's Dark Masters, where they were given rulership of Sylvania after Vlad and his sons were beaten and mismanaged and abused the land so much that the Sylvanians happily welcomed the vampires back.
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Jul 31, 2018 22:09
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Night10194 posted:We'll get to it when we get to Sigmar's Heirs, but Halflings have the only functioning democracy in the Old World and are uniformly fairly prosperous over in the very rich and fertile mootland. I know, I got that book. Halflings are cool.
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Jul 31, 2018 22:12
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Night10194 posted:When they aren't forced to fight vampires who are only held back from conquering them from the fact that it's always sunny in the Mootland, halflings taste terrible, and that every other Von Carstein would mock a Von Carstein trying to conquer the halflings for lacking ambition and class. I thought they were also really good guerillas who'd been preparing for the Vampire Invasion for generations, so a theoretical Von Carstein who didn't care about their cousins' mockery would still have to deal with being bled dry by guerillas for at least a generation before their Mootland annexation would show profit.
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Jul 31, 2018 23:00
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Nessus posted:If you're extending the field to ancient Rome then to a first approximation, everyone probably has ancestors who benefited from forced labor, so it starts to take away the value of the concept except as something to feel miserable and depressed about. When it comes to benefitting from the slavery and exploitation of more recent people, the history of European colonialism and how that's very central to the current world order is probably a better source to pick from. You have to beat it into people that the benefits of "civilization" are a lie made to justify the oppression, which can take a while, but you can point out pretty clearly how forced labour in Portuguese plantations was a thing that benefitted modern Portuguese people via the economy, and how there're really just was no "it wasn't so bad" to the Herero enslaved and worked to death on Shark Island.
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Jul 31, 2018 23:23
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 You thought it was dead, but now prepare for the return of The Great Modron March Part 9: Served With a Summons Having escaped Bedlam and Pandemonium, the Modrons are just beginning their trek through the Lower Planes, and now they’re arriving at one of the most dangerous destinations in the multiverse: the Abyss. The infinite levels of the Abyss house an infinite number of screaming, bloodthirsty Tanar’ri, and very little unites the squabbling demons like the chance to take a bite out of some modrons. The March is about to get pretty severely downsized. Of course, it’s not just the modrons at risk, either. By this point in the March, they’ve managed to attract a pretty sizeable following: researchers, mages, and looky-loos, all wanting to study the March and gain some valuable insight into the workings of the multiverse. These followers tend to be pretty hardy and high-level types (they’d have to be, wouldn’t they?) which is good, because they can’t rely on the modrons for protection. Instead, they bring their own. Or,if they’re mages, they summon some help. Summoning always works. See, the way summons work in Planescape is… weird. The summoned monsters aren’t conjured up out of thin air-- they’re actually brought (or “summoned”) from somewhere else. Nor is this teleportation. Instead, a crystal swoops down out of the sky and imprisons the summoned creature, whisking it to its destination. In fact, there’s a whole breed of creature-- the Demarax (http://www.lomion.de/cmm/demarax.php)-- that feeds on these crystals. This is all a long-winded way of saying that this part of the adventure begins when our party, minding their own business, is conked on the head by magical crystals and wakes up in service to a mage. Her name is Taraere Illsmiser, she’s a 12th-level tiefling mage, and she’s not as clever as she thinks she is. See, she’s been following the March, and it happened to pass near a notorious fortress located on the first level of the Abyss-- the constant open-air battleground known as the Plain of Infinite Portals. This fortress, the Fortress of the Fallen Stair, is ground zero for endless tanar’ri factional combat, and right now it’s split between three factions. According to legend, the basement of the Fortress contains a vast cache of powerful magic items. So Illsmiser figures she’ll go check it out as a side errand-- protected, of course, by the most powerful creatures she can summon. She’s modified monster summoning IV, and she thinks it’ll last a week, but the Abyss twists all magic. In this case, the chaotic energies caused the spell to grab the PCs-- substantially more powerful servants than such a spell would normally pick up-- but compels them to serve her for a little less time than she’s expecting. The trick is to make it through that time. The DM is encouraged to keep careful track of time. Clever PCs can delay Illsmiser long enough to avoid having to go in for the the really dangerous tasks she wants, but only to a point. The spell compels obedience, and nothing short of a wish or limited wish will get them out of it. They have some leeway in interpreting her orders, but any attempt to disobey a direct command requires a penalized save, and even a success only grants 1d6 rounds of respite, after which they’ll have to test again. It’s mentally exhausting to defy her, and the PCs (being in the range of levels 6-9) will have a hard time standing up to a 12th level mage covered in magic items. So. The crystals arrive and scoop up our PCs, who are treated to a dizzying and terrifying array of mental images as they speed towards the Abyss; it’s not a friendly place. The light becomes “fractured and chaotic” and they see scenes of demonic rage and betrayal. When the crystals dissolve, the PCs are standing on a vast, heat-baked plain covered in pits and twisted towers; the Plain of Infinite Portals. They’re standing before Illsmiser, whose only description is “a plane-touched woman of average appearance” (though the game notes she’s dressed like a wizard, sparkly symbols and all). She’s a little surprised to see the PCs, but not very; the Abyss’s effect on spellcasting is well known. Attacking her is certainly something they could consider, but doing so is useless; the spell overrides that action easily enough. Illsmiser introduces herself (“call me Taraere”) and explains what’s happened. She suggests that, as adventurers, the PCs might actually enjoy being her servants, since there’s bound to be excitement along the way. Of course, she also reinforces her dominance by commanding them to join hands and march in a circle. This they do, eventually (if there are holdouts). Taraere lets them go and tells them that she’d like to be able to give them some leeway in accomplishing what she admits is a very dangerous mission. She tells them that as long as they don’t interfere with her plans or try to harm her, she’ll be hands-off, but if they insist on messing with her she will exert her will. She’d prefer that they act of their own free will (“If I wanted zombies, I’d have created some myself”) but she’s utterly amoral and willing to toss their lives away to serve her mission. She tells them that they’ll serve her for one week and then be free to go; the spell will drop them back off where it found them. As she says this, the certain knowledge enters the PCs’ heads that the spell will actually release them after one day. Aha. So once the terms of service have been laid out, Illsmiser explains what they’re after: a magic book, the Mors Mysterium Nominum, which contains the true names of dozens of Tanar’ri and is supposedly held in the basement vault of the Fortress. The first thing she has the PCs do is pick up her belongings and carry them for her like pack mules. This is an opportunity for some serious Plain of Infinite Portals flavor, and a random encounter or two if you want. A couple of vrocks are likely to attack, and, uh, vrocks are pretty serious business, guys. You can scare them off by putting up a show of force, but they’re not messing around. As a side note, one of the biggest difficulties in fighting in the lower planes is that lower planar creatures are immune to all weapons below a certain level of enchantment (vrocks, for example, require +2) and weapons lose one “plus” for every plane you are removed from the plane where the weapon was forged. Even if you have an Outlands-forged magic sword, it has to be at least a +3 to even hurt these guys. Demons in general are a big pain in the rear end, although having a high level mage around helps some. Anyways, the book has some neat ideas of flavorful bits to include, and encourages the PCs to talk to Taraere; she’s friendly enough once she’s sure they’re obeying, and she knows a lot about the modrons and the March from having followed it for so long. The Fortress of the Fallen Stair is your standard dimensionally twisted non-Euclidean tower of madness, full of Escher stairs and what-not. It’s famous as a place where many Abyssal lords launched their careers, and so the belief is that controlling it makes you a big deal. So, in a form of self-fulfilling prophecy, ambitious and powerful demons fight constantly for possession of it, and only the strongest survive. Of course, the Abyssal Lords know this, and keep an eye on the Fortress; any tanar’ri experiencing too much success there can expect to have a nasty accident soon. Power hates competition. Here, have a map.   The DM is encouraged to come up with some fun stuff to put in the extra passageways in case the PCs want to return later. I don’t know why they would, but uh, sure. Taraere is actually willing to let the adventurers lead the way. She informs them that they’re heading for the library, but as long as the PCs’ route seems to be going there, she’s cool with it. The first chamber is an empty entrance hall with six doors, each with a horrible leering demon face. Taraere can narrow down the correct path to two doors, but she lets the PCs pick one. The first door shines with blue light and shows a “mewling child with eyes that seem to reflect vast experience.” Sure. The second is made of wood and shows an armanite (a centaur tanar’ri) in severe pain. The child-face door is wizard locked and leads to a guardroom. There’s a small group of armanites resting in here. They’ve given up on conquering the Fortress and are stopping here on the way out. They’re not super eager to fight, but armanites live for conflict, so they’ll certainly attack the PCs-- unless cowed by a sufficient show of force. If you can intimidate them you can pick their brains a little about the Fortress. They’ll specifically mention the Arena, which Taraere recognizes from her map. Armanites are pretty weak (especially compared to vrocks, geez) though they can shoot spark bolts and crush armor. Anyways, nothing else useful here, so the PCs can use the other door (the screaming armanite one). This door is trapped with a fairly nasty electrical trap, but that’s pretty standard for adventures of this level. The door leads to a nasty torture chamber, specifically for tanar’ri. Amusingly, among the implements of torture and pain are some holy symbols kept swaddled in cloth. There’s some holy water too! Past the torture chamber there’s a chapel to the Abyssal lords who rose up through the Fortress. It’s full of art, made and installed by the lords themselves in no sort of order, depicting their triumphs and rises to power. It’s not magical, but messing with it incurs the notice and the wrath of the appropriate lord so, uh, don’t do that. Beneath an altar of bone and sinew lies a narrow tunnel going straight down. As long as you crawl wormlike along its walls, you actually stick to them-- the tunnel’s gravity orients towards the walls. If you try to walk, though, you’ll fall 200 feet straight down and take a shitload of damage. At the bottom of the shaft there’s another crossroads and Taraere lets them pick right or straight. Right leads to the lair of a glabrezu, a powerful fiend. The door to its room is warded with strange sigils but can be opened by a simple knock spell. And it turns out… the glabrezu and Taraere know each other! “You! You bound me a century to your whims, you tormented me, and at the end of that time you slew me and forced me back here! Yet now you dare to walk into the heart of my power? You must be truly foolish, mortal!” And Taraere’s response? “Adventurers, I choose you!” Time for a brawl! The glabrezu knows Power Word: Stun and is also horrifically strong, and frankly, the chances of beating it aren’t great. A knowledgeable PC can notice that the runes on the door keep it bound here, and if they can convince Taraere that this battle is a waste of time, she’ll let them withdraw to where it fiend can’t follow. Anyways, the other path leads to the arena, which is always a happenin’ place. Right now there’s a fight on between a marilith and a pair of vrocks, with both sides fairly evenly matched. The arena’s stands aren’t just full of tanar’ri; there are all kinds of planars watching, since the arena is neutral ground and nobody fights outside of the sandy arena floor itself. Of course, the PCs now have to cross the arena floor to reach the door that’s their way out. It’s littered with hazards like quicksand and there’s always the chance of getting caught in the crossfire, though neither marilith nor vrocks will specifically target them. Past the arena is the Disputed Ground, a massive cave where tanar’ri armies clash endlessly. There are six of them, all seeking to control this pivotal chokepoint, and so endless hordes of dretches and manes slay each other by the thousands. The PCs have to navigate this chamber and avoid getting swept up in the carnage, which is particularly difficult when they pass the entrances since reinforcements constantly surge in, requiring a penalized Dex check to avoid trampling. Escaping the Disputed Ground leads the PCs to the Chaos River. As the name implies, this is a river of pure chaotic matter, which long since eroded its only bridge. Any use of magic in this room has a vastly increased likelihood of mutating and requires an Int check to avoid a wild surge. The only way across the river is, basically, to shape it like Limbo’s chaos. A concentrating character can do so, carving a path, though failure leads to consequences since this stuff is nastier than Limbo’s primordial ooze. Finally the PCs have made it to the library. It’s musty, old, and smells dank, but that’s not the worst of it. The worst part is that someone beat them to it, someone who even now clutches the Mors Myserium Nominum; an Arcanaloth. This is a very high-ranking Yugoloth, the Neutral Evil equivalent to the tanar’ri and baatezu. It looks somewhat like a jackal-headed furry, though in reality it’s a brilliant and powerful spellcaster. Like many powerful villains, the arcanaloth is genteel, and will be willing to negotiate-- though Taraere’s “negotiation” is basically just her screaming threats. The arcanaloth will not rise to the bait. It will suggest she show a bit of respect, and it clearly finds her amusing, though the longer she rants the less amusing she becomes. The PCs here should realize that the binding spell has almost worn out. If they’re canny, they can draw out the negotiations, placating Taraere and offering valuable things to the arcanaloth. Maybe they can even get the book! The arcanaloth is fully aware of the spell that’s holding them and how long it lasts, and if they do attack (or if Taraere loses her patience and forces the issue) it’ll fight defensively to hold them off. Sooner or later, those magic 24 hours are up, and as the world blurs around the PCs they should see the arcanaloth grinning with malice and hear Taraere’s scream of despair. Of course, it doesn’t have to kill her. Why would it? She’d make a much better pet… though she’ll remember who let her down, and if she meets the PCs again, she’ll be in the mood for revenge… So. This adventure is railroady. It’s very railroady. That’s sort of the point of it. It’s a cute idea, and I have to say one day means it doesn’t really outstay its welcome. There’s a couple too many “supposed to lose” fights for my liking, but the Abyss is really no place to play around. There also aren’t many illustrations in this chapter, disappointingly enough. Overall, the concept is kind of neat and makes sense as “the sort of thing that might happen” but it’s always annoying when the PCs are forced into a course of action, especially when the way they “win” is simply by delaying long enough that nothing truly dangerous happens. There are also very few true obstacles; mostly it's just "watch all this nastiness and stay away from it." The modrons, by now, are long gone from the Abyss. They’ve moved on to Carceri, a plane that’s easy to reach but very hard to leave, and a lot of people are keen to know just how the modrons plan to do it. DAD LOST MY IPOD fucked around with this message at 23:51 on Jul 31, 2018 |
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Jul 31, 2018 23:48
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Night10194 posted:We'll get to it when we get to Sigmar's Heirs, but Halflings have the only functioning democracy in the Old World and are uniformly fairly prosperous over in the very rich and fertile mootland. Aren't Halflings also the only ones that don't spontaneously burst into tentacles when warp shenanigans occur?
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Aug 1, 2018 02:27
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potatocubed posted:Of course, the other impression I get of Sigmata is that the dude was trying to write a real-life resistance handbook disguised as a game. And... I don't know what I think of that? probably shouldn't have included "step one: get turned into a magic cyborg by a numbers station" then
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Aug 1, 2018 02:29
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Ronwayne posted:Aren't Halflings also the only ones that don't spontaneously burst into tentacles when warp shenanigans occur? Yup. They're straight up immune to that poo poo.
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Aug 1, 2018 02:29
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Similar to the lizardmen...Halflings actually lizards confirmed?
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Aug 1, 2018 02:34
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ChaseSP posted:Similar to the lizardmen...Halflings actually lizards confirmed? The canon explanation is that the Halflings were the Old One's 'gently caress it, I don't care how it comes out, just make it immune to Chaos' creation. Considering the Ogres were the next race they made, I like to imagine that instead of all the canon BS about the Ogres being the perfect being but unfinished, an over-excited Old One was like 'We did it! We got the Chaos problem taken care of! I think the key is they need to be really fat and eat a lot, make me some really fat supersoldiers!"
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Aug 1, 2018 02:57
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ChaseSP posted:Similar to the lizardmen...Halflings actually lizards confirmed? Cunningly disguised Skinks, hoping a Slaan will finally show up and give them some orders?
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Aug 1, 2018 03:15
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The Chaos Problem: Volume 1 in the Ogre Chronicles by Dan Abnett.
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Aug 1, 2018 03:17
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You're immune to chaos, hooray! ...unfortunately, you don't come up to the waist of a Chaos Warrior and they just kick you away. I think Chaos Warriors have a cool sort of mystique/otherness in comparison to CSM since they don't have a good-guy counterpart. Anyways, WHFB rocks. The avenging domovoi is cool, too. What are the odds of PCs not attracting its ire? I don't remember how losejas magic works, but I'd play one just because they hate the abonsam, even if meeting one was unlikely in the campaign.
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Aug 1, 2018 04:21
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Losejas get deals with their dievas. Minor deals are effects they can pull off at any time because they're part of the deal. They can also, for a corruption point and a cost of doing something the dievas asks them to do, get just about any kind of effect, up to and including blotting out the sun over an entire city. This is not a good idea, but the power is there if they need it.
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Aug 1, 2018 04:24
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Ah, thanks, I was confused about how you get minor effects without making new deals. New deals just unlock new minor and major gifts, right, up until the seventh?
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Aug 1, 2018 04:31
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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 11: Spell is not a Synonym for Inhabitant The next chapter is titled “Inhabitants” and despite being 59 pages long there are maybe two pages which could, at best, be charitably described as being about the actual Inhabitants of anything. Instead, this is the Magic section of the book, outlining the magic system for good guys, bad guys, and how sick-leave works for Corporations. PTO is a kind of magic, right? And magic comes from the root Latin inhabitamagicus, right? Before we get into any of that, we meet up with the same awful characters in the story that kicked off the previous chapter doing almost the exact same thing but with a different client. No really, the same guy gets hired to destroy the same object and brings along the same friends to help him and has the same sweaty reaction to how evil his client is but the only changes are the client is a different person and there is no woman getting nonchalantly murdered in the background. Oh, and since we just finished the section explaining how the mcguffin in this story works mechanically we can safely say that everyone in this story are idiots because that isn’t what the item actually does in game. Moving onto the magic, oh wait, no time for more fluff! The game re-tells the story from earlier in the book of how humans got magic in this setting except the details are almost all changed except the number of humans who receive the gift so I envy all of you reading this who already forgot that any of that happened. We do get another hilarious setting detail which is that despite the game earlier mentioning that the Zone/Bastion/Last Human City blows up and destroys any demons that get close, they just sort of built the city around some demons so the whole thing is riddled with them. Despite this massive city being built with demons inside of it, the average human somehow doesn’t know that demons are inside the city even though that would be like, I dunno, the absolute single most important thing for them to be aware of at literally all times.  I don’t see why people are scared of demon’s when they cut off their own heads a lot Anyway, good spell casters*, called Mystics, have three different spell schools Alter, Vision, and True Mystics. There are actually only two spell schools for Mystics because True Mystics cast from either of the other ones and have no spells of their own. Mystic magic is fairly intuitive; you have no MP or casts per day, everything just recharges over the course of a different amount of turns. Schools are further split into “rituals” which contain groups of spells of different strengths and recharge rates which you must buy sequentially. All in all its decently well thought out even if, as you may surmise, there is absolutely no balancing done between the Rituals, spells within a ritual, or making sure that skills have enough mechanical foundation to not feel merely as fluff. It’s also hurt somewhat by having spells have checks that need to be made against them to actually function. The checks are for the most part extremely easy for a caster to nearly always succeed at and a non-caster to regularly fail. It seems an elegant way to prevent non-casters from stepping on casters toes, but remember a caster gets special points to invest into spells that a non-caster doesn’t at character creation so all this does is introduce a trap character design. This is a minor complaint but it bugs me in terms of layout, as your Mind stat increases, the rate at which you refresh spells increases and they included a chart to show this. The chart goes from 1 to 6 Mind, but then in the notes explaining how the chart works explains what happens if you have 7 Mind. Why not just include that into the chart? What happens if I hit 8 Mind, do I not get any more benefits? Even more irritating, unless you built a trap character at character creation its not possible to have less than 4 Mind as a spellcaster, so why even show the refresh rates at Mind 1-3?  The chart in question, flaunting its crimes Natural Language is Terrible for RPGs Segue: One cap-stone spell is written like it should make you immune to Terror Ratings. What the mechanical description says, however, is you don’t have to roll against Terror Ratings which, as written, just means you automatically fail them**. With the Mystics wrapped up, lets finally take a look at how being a In order to cast a Kultist spell, you have to have a certain number of spirit points on hand. Not your spirit points, though, the spirit points of a spirit that is housed in your Kultist Blade. How do you get a spirit in there? Well you have two options. The first is to find a recently deceased person and use your Call rating as a check to see if you can trick them into getting into your blade which results in getting less than that Spirit’s max spirit points since its been decaying a little bit and its a higher difficulty roll for the same reasoning. The other option is to kill someone with your spirit blade and while your knife is in them do the Call rating check to see if you can trick their spirit into your blade. For the record: Tricking a spirit into your knife is easier when you are the person who literally just stabbed them to death With the spirit in your blade and it’s spirit points at your call, you can now cast spells from the Kult you belong to and the spells you bought while in its service. Each spell has an amount of spirit points it requires to cast and once used those spirit points are lost forever. As a benefit, Kultist magic has no skill check to cast so it can never fail. Lets now go over why this system is terrible.  Save or Die? No, my friends, there is no save Everything Wrong with Kultist Magic
Thats the magic section down, so next time lets figure out how to build our own corporation and staff it and what pay schedules we need to follow. Next Time: Refer to Form 103-2 *”Good” here includes making liberal use of memory-erasing, will-controlling, panopticon magics in addition to using magic to put people into solitary isolation in their own homes. **It also notes you’ll still flee from fights where the odds are bleak, so wouldn’t a fight where all your friends explode due to failed terror ratings still trigger this? Barudak fucked around with this message at 05:10 on Aug 1, 2018 |
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Aug 1, 2018 05:05
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JcDent posted:You're immune to chaos, hooray! Sling to the face motherfucker, King David-style.
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Aug 1, 2018 05:12
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The counterpart to Chaos Warriors is fancy Calvary with guns that can punch through plate. Dudes with fancy hats is 50% of why the empire is great in Warhammer Fantasy. E: Really just give a halfling a good enough gun and point them at a warrior. Guns are the great equalizer after all.
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Aug 1, 2018 05:16
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I'm loving the Modron March by the by, and enjoy that the game at least is aware enough that PCs are absolutely going to want to betray Tenebrae at the absolute worst possible moment for her.
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Aug 1, 2018 05:18
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ChaseSP posted:
IIRC the Halfling Hot-Pot ignores armour saves.
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Aug 1, 2018 05:31
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ChaseSP posted:The counterpart to Chaos Warriors is fancy Calvary with guns that can punch through plate. Dudes with fancy hats is 50% of why the empire is great in Warhammer Fantasy. I played a grizzled Halfling veteran soldier (with a gun) in a short-lived WHFRP campaign and I loved it.
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Aug 1, 2018 05:34
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ChaseSP posted:The counterpart to Chaos Warriors is fancy Calvary with guns that can punch through plate. Dudes with fancy hats is 50% of why the empire is great in Warhammer Fantasy. You know what I mean, you rascal. There's no Space Marines to Chaos Space Marines, no Sigmarines to Chaos Warriors, no Jedi to Sith, in WHFB. Instead, you have serried ranks of fantasy German.
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Aug 1, 2018 06:26
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Who needs dumb castrated super soldiers WHEN YOU HAVE EMPIRE STEEL. .
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Aug 1, 2018 06:36
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I'm a great fan of Space Marines and a great fan of them not being in Fantasy *ramps a steam tank into a Chaos Warshrine*
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Aug 1, 2018 06:40
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JcDent posted:Inkless should include that interview bit into the archive. Nah. What I include in the archive is what people post in their writeups. Don't like it? Post a writeup.
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Aug 1, 2018 08:28
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Sigmar not having a known heir reminds me a bit of Kahless the Unforgettable and makes me wonder if Star Trek was an influence there. And also the heavy implications/fan theory from the old days that Sigmar was actually a wayward Primarch, back from when it was strongly implied the Old World was in the Warhammer 40k universe.
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Aug 1, 2018 08:33
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Pls keep the reality balls from touching, thx 
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Aug 1, 2018 08:38
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What happens if a halfling snorts Warpstone?
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Aug 1, 2018 09:56
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The Lone Badger posted:What happens if a halfling snorts Warpstone? They get a bloody nose, I presume?
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Aug 1, 2018 10:04
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One interesting bit with the Sigmarines at least is that it seems implied that they're specifically Sigmar's answer to Warriors of Chaos, a bit of an inversion of how things usually go.
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Aug 1, 2018 10:39
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The idea of genetic immunity to chaos is kind of... interesting, though. It implies you could breed for chaos resistant humans/elves/dwarves/whatevers and eventually eradicate chaos like a literal disease, just by removing the people who can actually, uh, host it. The halflings also feel like they could settle the whole "but the Gods are just GOOD Chaos!"-debate. Are they able to interact with the gods/perceive the gods at all? Like, if the divine is the same to them as it is to humans, yet they're immune to Chaos, then the two ought to be different.
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Aug 1, 2018 10:39
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Does Fantasy have Blanks and Pariahs like 40k?
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Aug 1, 2018 10:43
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Ghost Leviathan posted:Does Fantasy have Blanks and Pariahs like 40k? It's big enough to have them. Also, Ogres aren't immune to Chaos, are they? You have dragon-ogres and stuff.
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Aug 1, 2018 11:24
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They're resistant. It's much harder to mutate an ogre than a human, and while they can agree to work for chaos they don't get hollowed out by it the same way. Dragon-ogres specifically IIRC are not made out of ogres at all, they're actually a truly ancient race that was not made by the Old Ones. The similarity ends at the name.
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Aug 1, 2018 11:28
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Oh, didn't know that! By the way, did anyone notice that the angels of the Angel of Death's sub-Angel carry around MP5Ks, and their clergy wear, ugh, Nazi pants and have Lugers?
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Aug 1, 2018 12:49
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Ghost Leviathan posted:Sigmar not having a known heir reminds me a bit of Kahless the Unforgettable and makes me wonder if Star Trek was an influence there. And also the heavy implications/fan theory from the old days that Sigmar was actually a wayward Primarch, back from when it was strongly implied the Old World was in the Warhammer 40k universe. Warhammer was originally a way to make RPGs about elves and dwarfs without getting sued by the Tolkein estate.
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Aug 1, 2018 13:55
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