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Night10194 posted:I don't think 'these people have an ideology and state entirely based on exterminating people like me, so we must prepare to fight and destroy them as best we can' counts as an unreasonable reason to have a grudge against somebody. That's because you're a healthy human being, and not a fictional slightly-fashy reporter who's part of the group benefiting from the facism.
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May 4, 2019 17:12
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One can almost see the slap-fighting going on in the writing between Bill and Kevin. "This one guy wrote a book." "The Book of Twelve, eh? Well, it's RIFTS, baby! It has to be mysterious and NO ONE KNOWS WHENCE IT CAME!"
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May 4, 2019 17:28
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I really need to catch up on the thread so I can be properly enraged about all this.
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May 4, 2019 17:35
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 Rifts Coalition Wars 1: Sedition, Part 9: "A volunteer stint in the Coalition Army is six years (with 6-12 year renewals suggested), however, half of these "green" recruits won't last more than six months on the Tolkeen Front, and will come home in body bags as nameless, forgotten heroes who sacrificed their lives for the greater good of the Coalition States."  "Perhaps you would like to stop fighting and realize how this is really both our fault?!" Call to Arms Emperor Prosek Wants You! So, the Coalition has thrown an army of "nearly one million units and support personnel" of "four massive Battle Groups of roughly 225,000-300,000 troops each", and roughly a half-million Skelebots. How do they afford that many skelebots again? They cost 3 million apiece on the Black Market, we're told, and that's... math... 1.5 trillion dollars. Even if they get some predictable cut rate as manufacturers, it's still at least hundreds of billions of dollars for robo-skeletons. Well, that aside, there are four Coalition battle groups: Relentless, Dauntless, Fearless, and Merciless. About 60% of the force is actually raw recruits from outside the Coalition States recruited on vague notions that they might give citizenship in return for service. Generally speaking, it's a lie, but apparently a lot of folks are buying it. Granted, the pay is very good for those outside of the Coalition. While rumors of terrible losses on the front have come back, that apparently hasn't affected recruitment because...?  "Excuse me, maybe when you stop fleeing you could consider that maybe both sides are wrong?!" Generally speaking, the Coalition is aiming to be totally ruthless. Other than capturing people for interrogation, they're taking a scorched earth policy to this offensive. Local communities are given a "join us or die" proposal, unless there are signs of them being associated with magic, then there's just dying. Their hope is that their mobile forces like special forces, SAMAS, and dog boys can counter guerilla attacks, and that they can slowly embargo and cut off Tolkeen's supplies and resources. As such, Tolkeen largely has to rely on ley lines as their remaining import / export routes. Pretty short this time, but this chunk was squashed between two longer sections with no other easy place to put it. So, one thing I'll point out - and that you'll see above - is that frequently the art will portray the Coalition's invasion in a pretty dim light. Often you'll see the Coalition slaughtering, harassing, or abusing the local populace. However, when it comes to Tolkeen, usually their attacks on soldiers are portrayed within the context of war. Sure, we'll have art of the monsters and jerks they've recruited, but those are usually just illustrative rather than narrative. Granted, there isn't much opportunity for Tolkeen to be portrayed as brutal - they aren't attacking much in the way of civilian communities, after all. But there could be pictures of their monstrous allies being cruel to civilians or tormenting prisoners, and we don't even get much of that. We'll get a little, but not as much as we get literal goose-stepping Coalition soldiers and Coalition mechs burning villages. It's almost as if most people working on this just presume the Coalition are the baddies and portray them that way.  Next: War is meh.
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May 5, 2019 05:36
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Alien Rope Burn posted:Well, that aside, there are four Coalition battle groups: Relentless, Dauntless, Fearless, and Merciless.  That sounds like something someone would put as a joke in a Warhammer 40k story.
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May 5, 2019 05:51
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Ratoslov posted:
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May 5, 2019 12:59
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I adore how it seems like everyone on this project but Kevin went into this with 'gently caress the Coalition' but that doesn't matter because Kevin.
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May 5, 2019 13:01
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"but think of the humble Dead Boy who is not involved in the monstrousness of the Coalition States and is simply a solider who thinks he or she is serving their country and has been suckered by the charismatic words of a despot etc etc." Whatever, Kev.
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May 5, 2019 13:06
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I'm just curious: how "keep politics out of games/talking about games" is Kev?
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May 5, 2019 15:31
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Evil Mastermind posted:I'm just curious: how "keep politics out of games/talking about games" is Kev? Well, he republished Recon, a game about the Vietnam War, and then he and Wujcik tried to fictionalize the conflict; they tried to depoliticize the Vietnam War. Later on, we'll have "The Republicans" as a group of villains in Rifts, which he'll take pains to assert has no relation to the political party. (And to be fair, there's no hard line between them and their modern namesake.) He's averse to generally doing anything he thinks would relate to current controversies or cause overt offense and has been that way long, long before the current zeitgeist in reactionary gamer politics. That being said, Palladium Games tend to have an anti-authoritarianism / anti-capitalism / anti-war theme running through most of them, though it doesn't seem anywhere near as deliberate or self-aware as something like Steve Jackson Games' libertarian leanings or Posthuman Studios' anarchism.
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May 5, 2019 16:22
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Note that "Tried to depoliticize the Vietnam War" here means "Pretend until like the last page the the US didn't lose the war" and "mostly present the Viet Cong and NVA as part of an evil bolshevik conspiracy theory rather than ever talk about colonialism." It's rough.
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May 5, 2019 16:53
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open_sketchbook posted:Note that "Tried to depoliticize the Vietnam War" here means "Pretend until like the last page the the US didn't lose the war" and "mostly present the Viet Cong and NVA as part of an evil bolshevik conspiracy theory rather than ever talk about colonialism." For a real fun example of politics-in-games, I heartily recommend FGU's Merc. The only published supplement was a campaign guide for Rhodesia!
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May 5, 2019 17:02
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FMguru posted:It's also a pretty mainstream Reagan-era pop-cultural interpretation of the Vietnam War (source: grew up in a military town during the 1980s) 
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May 5, 2019 17:54
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May 5, 2019 18:00
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Nope nope nope nope nope
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May 5, 2019 18:02
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May 5, 2019 18:14
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I want to know more, but only in the same way that trainwrecks draw the eye. This might be the most evil sentiment I've read in an RPG! (because I've never actually seen quotations from any of the outright Nazi ones).
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May 5, 2019 18:18
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Yikes, that's terrible. The book has to be at least somewhat old if it's talking about Rhodesia, though. I can only hope the rules for shooting AT Rhodesians are as deadly as "old school mil shooter RPG" would imply.
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May 5, 2019 18:26
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Davin Valkri posted:The book has to be at least somewhat old if it's talking about Rhodesia, though. I can only hope the rules for shooting AT Rhodesians are as deadly as "old school mil shooter RPG" would imply. Here's the author carefully explaining that none of this is political, you guys! 
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May 5, 2019 18:28
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FMguru posted:It's from 1984. 
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May 5, 2019 18:59
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open_sketchbook posted:Note that "Tried to depoliticize the Vietnam War" here means "Pretend until like the last page the the US didn't lose the war" and "mostly present the Viet Cong and NVA as part of an evil bolshevik conspiracy theory rather than ever talk about colonialism." Yeah, I haven't read it in ages and have a better awareness of that kind of thing nowadays. I just remember them scribbling out the names of real countries and writing in fake ones as if that was... supposed to fool... anyone? You'd know far better than I. In any case, what Siembieda thinks is controversial can be very selective. He's avoided touching on the Middle East in Rifts for that reason because he doesn't think they could do it justice / well, but has neo-communists in Russia and the whole mess that is the Africa book. So it goes.
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May 5, 2019 19:00
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Remember, it's not the United States and Russia, it's Stateside and Big Red. It's not North and South Vietnam, it's People's Nam and Royal Nam. Bleh. Fun fact: When I originally started on Patrol, it was a dark comedy satirizing those choices in Recon, and war RPGs more generally. The nations had the same names as the ones in Recon, but were portrayed as horrifyingly exaggerated caricatures, with the PCs literally dropped with no support or objective into the middle of the jungle and told to defeat the commies for Uncle Sam. Obviously, I moved away from that within a few weeks of starting the project, but it's still somewhat visible in the way the game doesn't place the PCs inside a larger military structure within the bounds of the rules themselves.
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May 5, 2019 19:16
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Joe Slowboat posted:I want to know more, but only in the same way that trainwrecks draw the eye. This might be the most evil sentiment I've read in an RPG! (because I've never actually seen quotations from any of the outright Nazi ones). Paul D. Baader posted:The one thing that Rhodesia counted on during its time of trouble was outside aid from America and England ... . something both nations refused to give. Until the Rhodesian government permitted majority rule, both America and England would not help. The ironic thing about the attitude of America was that Ian Smith had agreed to phase in majority rule, but gradually, over a ten year period. This agreement was made in the early 1970's with (then) Secretay of State, Henry Kissinger. What the U.S. and British governments wanted was not only Majority Rule, but that the Rhodesian government was to hand over the reins of power to the Communist guerrillas and that the ZANU and ZAPU Terrs were to be integrated into the Rhodesian Security Forces. This was unacceptable to the Rhodesians. In reality, meanwhile, Ian Smith declared Rhodesia independent on the tails of a campaign with the slogan "For a whiter, brighter Rhodesia" and disenfranchised the black population even more while he was in power. The idea that the US and Kissinger wanted Rhodesia to become communist is asinine for obvious reasons, but the most pertinent point is that Kissinger had the US foreign department drop Rhodesia and South Africa in the 70s because if the US supported colonial governments in Africa, their claims of 'freedom' would ring hollow and every post-colonial government in Africa would flock to the anti-colonial rhetoric of the communist bloc. The US did not want communists in power in Africa, and supporting minority rule in Rhodesia was incompatible with that goal.
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May 5, 2019 19:23
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Same those Americans weren't publicly executed for killing in the name of one of the most evil governments to ever exist.
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May 5, 2019 20:53
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LatwPIAT posted:In reality, meanwhile, Ian Smith declared Rhodesia independent on the tails of a campaign with the slogan "For a whiter, brighter Rhodesia" and disenfranchised the black population even more while he was in power.
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May 5, 2019 22:28
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Alien Rope Burn posted:Yeah, I haven't read it in ages and have a better awareness of that kind of thing nowadays. I just remember them scribbling out the names of real countries and writing in fake ones as if that was... supposed to fool... anyone? You'd know far better than I. I think it's more because Michigan is home to a large Muslim-American population and Siembieda's reasoning is that he'd rather not be killed by some wannabe jihadi upset of Rifts: Middle East, nevermind that other RPGs have had splats of various quality about either Islamic culture, Arabs, or the Middle East. open_sketchbook posted:Remember, it's not the United States and Russia, it's Stateside and Big Red. It's not North and South Vietnam, it's People's Nam and Royal Nam. This is reminding me a lot of "The Peninsula" and "The Mainland" in Ghost In The Shell: Stand Alone Complex.
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May 5, 2019 23:37
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Was that a sub only thing, because when I was watching the dub they just named the countries.
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May 6, 2019 00:03
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Terrible Opinions posted:Was that a sub only thing, because when I was watching the dub they just named the countries. It might be 2nd GIG then, since I recall the euphemism stuff being banded around, especially around the whole refugee issue, and finding it strange when they actually do mention Korea, it's the Korean People's Army on "the Peninsula", which makes it fairly obvious.
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May 6, 2019 00:09
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It was 2nd GIG yeah as I recall it was well. Which comes off as a bit odd as they weren't exactly shy on dropping other country names. But I suppose Korean immigration was and is a very sensitive question in Japan.
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May 6, 2019 00:12
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Cults: Jehammedans Degenesis Rebirth Primal Punk Chapter 3: Cults JEHAMMEDANS   "Counternance" means face, facial expression or favor/approval!Sacrificial Lamb The opening fiction begins with a battle between Jehammedans and Anabaptists. We're following the viewpoint of a mounted warrior. His face is heavily tattooed with records of ancestral glory, and his hair is pinned-up. The book also insists that we capitalize 'Scimitar,' even when talking about regular-rear end sabers. Anyways, the mounted warrior sees that his dudes are losing. His plan? Clear the 300 feet (what's with the bullshit measurements all of the sudden?) between him and the Anabaptist camp and “kill the Anabaptists' fat leader.” The first 100 feet pass without anything interesting. He then runs into a line of spearmen. That's when we learn that he's an Isaaki, “destined to die for others to live” and “the sacrificial lamb.” The regular Jehameddans in the battle are the imaginatively-named Swords of Jehammed. With 50 feet left to the target, the Issaki starts thinking about how victory would allow new families to settle on this side of the river. Fortunately, he gets hit in the shoulder before he get deeper into analysis of the economical base of Jehameddans. Now, the spears (wielded by Furrors, which I guess are the Anabaptist redshirts) are hitting his legs and the horse – or so I infer from the text. quote:Barely enough time to say goodbye to the glorious days as a blessed child in his mind. To his father’s love. To the priest’s eulogies. The Isaaki purposefully drops from the horse, rolls and attacks. quote:May God decide if he wants to accept this sacrifice.  Pictured: probably not your PC, possibly a heretic. Cain and Abel I actually read the entire Jehameddan bit before writing it, so I already know how faux-Islamic it is. But I don't know if they welded any other Abrahamic faith bits to it. But the ride is going to be a little wild. Back to the book: Jehammed appeared in Mecca – and in style: quote:He appeared to them on top of the Kaaba, the mysterious black building in Mecca: Jehammed, last of the prophets. He was a shining dream, replete with God; his voice thundered down on the people and made them feel the power of his Lord. He told them that God would come upon the world in anger, to purge it from lazy faithlessness. gently caress yeah, God is coming down to own centrists! quote:To pass it on to his disciples, the descendants of their progenitor Abraham so that the Seed may sprout and the land may flourish in faith. Is God going to pass anger on to his disciples? It's not made clear. Also, the Seed mention here smells of Anubians BS. Was Jehammed an alien too? Am I just paranoid?  Anyways, then rocks fell and everyone died  Life was poo poo for everyone, but Jehameddans survived via the pro-strat of banding together against the danger of the world. Some flaked off, joining Apocalyptics(?) and such. But the community remained, crafting weapons from Bygone scrap, investing into animal husbandry and keeping themselves clean to keep the plagues away. quote:The Jehammedans spread from the Balkhan to Borca and Hybrispania and flourished where other clans died. In the early years, they gathered all those under the roof of the faith who felt homeless and stranded in the wasteland and adhered to Jehammed’s laws. In Balkhan, they made cosy in the ruins of Budapest. In Borca, Jehameddan Iconides impressed the locals of Osman enough that the entire city converted. In Hybrispania, they got to rule Castille in a bit of Re-Reconquista. Even small settlements were happy to see Swords of Jehammed (who were probably there to drive out Clanner dipshits and Apocalyptics). Ancient Anger Remember how Adriatic basically dried out and turned into lush lowlands? Well, that's where Anabaptists and Jehammedans, quasi-Christian farmers and crypto-Muslim shepherds, met. The former saw vast tracts of land for crops, the latter – good grazing ground. quote:When the Anabaptists finally took up their arms, a conflict arose that couldn’t have been much crueler. The life-giving Adriatic soon was adorned with piles of corpses on the Purgan side. Just like Cain, the farmer, had killed his brother Abel, the shepherd, the Jehammedans felt victimized. The Anabaptists attacked them, raped them, killed them, smashed what the Jehammedans had built the diligence of a thousand hands in the centuries after the Eshaton. That's kinda what you can expect from some of the more historical versions of Anabaptists, yeah. Strange how those were the guys that survived the end of the world! The Anabaptists crossed the river to attack Jehammedans on the Balkhan side ... but then Aries the Ram appeared. quote:No one knew this stranger, but he promised to destroy the enemy souls, for his anger was tremendous and old. The Jehammedans let him do as he pleased, and the foreign warrior lead their troops. The wind of revenge came over the Anabaptists like a roaring blizzard, the occupied areas of the East Adriatic plain were reconquered with a thousand saber cuts, and the enemy who had already felt victorious was killed, beheaded, and defiled.  Lead by someone that's almost assuredly a Chernobog-type cyborg, the Jehammedans drove the Anabaptists to the other side of the river. After one last big battle, the two sides settled for hundred of years of cold war, staring at each other's entrenched positions and, I dunno, mooning oponents from time to time. Fronts However, things are going south for Jehammedans. In Balkhans, they fought Africans (and possibly their own heretics) to a stalemate. Sofia's Voivode saw the opportunity and occupied a weakened Bucharest. The Jehammedans in Hybrispania opposed the African invaders (wait, how long ago that happened?) and were crushed. All would have been lost if it wasn't for the Warpage. However, both Jehammedans and Scourgers see this Psychonaut bullshit and starting to realize that they might have been fighting the wrong foe. Next time: ever noticed that shepherds do it like this, but fishermen do it like that?
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May 6, 2019 08:00
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'We would have given them rights on our own eventually...' is the lying refrain of every colonialist sore loser, see also the Deadlands lost-causer stuff earlier.
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May 6, 2019 11:08
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Ghost Leviathan posted:'We would have given them rights on our own eventually...' is the lying refrain of every colonialist sore loser, see also the Deadlands lost-causer stuff earlier. It's especially contrived in the case of Rhodesia, which declared independence precisely so it wouldn't have to let black people vote. They didn't quite get as far as making it clause 1 of the UDI, but if Ian "whiter, brighter Rhodesia" Smith had actually been OK with letting black people participate in democracy, he would probably not have declared Rhodesia an independent nation when London said he had to give black people the right to vote.
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May 6, 2019 12:06
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What Fire Has Wrought: Genseral Besides the five Gentes Major, there are over a dozen Gentes Minor. Their numbers have grown and shrank over the centuries, with some families entirely lost and some just fading in and out of power. Often, a major gens will serve as patron to a minor gens. These cycles of obligation and favors influence Lookshyan politics quite a bit. The game lists only a few of the Gentes Minor, leaving you room to come up with your own if you want. Gens Kiraga, the Earth That Upholds the Shogun’s Bastion, is an Earth-Aspect line that traces its lineage to a distant cousin of the Daimyo of Deheleshen. They are an ambitious gens with a dream of empire, hoping for a new Shogunate to rise in River Province by steel and power, rather than just to serve as mercenaries. Kiraga was once a Gens Major with great influence among the rank and file, but they are now recovering from heavy losses in wars suffered through the past century or two, which allowed Gens Maheka to supplant them. The Kiragas remain common in the infantry forces, respected for their loyalty and spirit. Many are outspoken Interventionists or Imperialists, which often has them facing off against their more conservative rivals in the city. Gens Nefvarin, the Air That Fills the Wings of Dragon, is an Air-Aspect line descending from the founder of Lookshy. They were heavily invested in the Lookshyan Sky Guard. In the golden years of the Sky Guard, they were skyship officers and sorcerer-engineers specializing in skyship maintenance. However, as the Lookshyan fleet of skyships dwindled over time, so too did the importance of Gens Nefvarin. The final blow was the loss of their top officers in the Gunzota Incident, from which the gens has never recovered. (The Gunzota Incident was the action of an internal conspiracy of Lookshy dedicated to removing nepotism and corruption from the ranks; in RY 615, they used a First Age weapon at Gunzota Redoubt to transform everyone inside the Redoubt into crystal, as well as anyone who goes in to explore the place. It was ruled an accidental discharge, but the conspiracy still exists in an effort to prevent nepotism from returning, and investigation of the incident could well reveal them and spark a massive scandal about the legitimacy of the current General Staff.) Gens Nefvarin, once the patron to Gens Yushoto, is now its client. They continue to produce skilled sorcerers and do still maintain the last, mothballed remnants of the sky fleet in case they are ever required. Most are Interventionists that want a more aggressive foreign policy, while others hope to meddle in the Realm Civil War in an effort to seize the Imperial Palace for the Seventh Legion. The latter group is not well-supported politically, but the Nefvarin name does still carry respect, and if they can produce a legitimate strategy, they may be able to find the support they don’t currently have. Gens Nerigus, the Wood Whose Roots Clutch Riches, is a Wood-Aspect offshoot of Gens Teresu. They see themselves as the quartermasters of Lookshy, devoting themselves to overland trading. They have strong if somewhat complicated ties to the Guild, allowing them to bring in food, wood and Nexus steel, but they’re constantly fighting the Guild over the prices of those very contracts, plus Lookshy’s tariffs, exchange rates and so on, as each side tries to get the upper hand over the other. Most of Nerigus holds important roles in the Stores Directorate, but they try to avoid showing obvious favoritism to Nerigus-owned businesses. Despite this, they profit quite well off the arrangement. As a gens they lean Interventionist, in the belief that increased involvement will mean increased economic leverage. Gens Sirel, the Water of Distant Shores, is a Water-Aspect gens descended from a Blessed Isle gens that defected to Lookshy around 500 years ago, when the Empress was still conquering the Realm. They disliked her dismantling of the old Shogunate social structure, and their distant relations to Gens Teresu allowed them to get into Lookshy, which they’ve been loyal to ever since. Today, they are still a client of Gens Teresu, backing the naval wing’s Mercenary politics. Sirels are pushed to excel, possibly as an overcompensating effort to get out of the Teresu shadow, and there have even been Sirel admirals in the Lookshyan Navy. Others rebel against the family’s pressures and become heretics or louts on the fringe of Lookshy society, occasionally as cover for membership in the Intelligence or Security Directorates. The Sirels still maintain ties to Realm patrician families and cadet Houses that they share bloodlines with, which can be quite useful for diplomacy or business, plus intelligence on Realm internal affairs. However, many Lookshyans see these ties as a source of potential disloyalty in the gens. Gens Taroketu, the Heirs of the Wandering Blade, have no strong aspect. They take their name from “One Cut” Taroketu, a famous outcaste who appeared in a key battle to help stop the most recent Realm invasion. The family has few Dragon-Bloods, but they have a lot of wealth due to their heavy intermarriage with wealthy merchant families. Between this and the legends surrounding Taroketu, they retain surprising influence. Mortal Taroketus often feel driven to keep up with their Exalted peers, which can mean grand and dramatic gestures, unorthodox strategies or even unethical and illegal scheming. They have a good relationship with the Guild, and make for an excellent (if very quiet) middleman between Guild factors and Realm Great Houses. While the Taroketus have no real interest in changing the status quo, Taroketu’s wife was an exiled Vanehan noble, and so the gens does have a distant and theoretical claim to the throne of Vaneha. With the Realm in chaos, the Interventionists of Gens Taroketu see a chance to pursue that. Gens Toriki, the Five Dragons Guarding the City’s Walls, also have no strong aspect. They claim descent from the survivors of Deheleshen and its former garrison commander, and as a result they don’t really see themselves as part of the Seventh Legion. The gens is more concerned with the defense of the city and its day-to-day governance than anything else, and while the Torikis are loyal servants of the Legion, they see the defense of River Province as a whole as a waste of lives and money. They are powerful within the Shogunate Bureaucracy and the Justice and Security Directorates, and they maintain the temple to Tu Yu, old city god of Deheleshen. They are a focal point of the Isolationists, which should be fairly obvious. Gens Yan Tu, the Fire That Sheds a Thousand Sparks, is a Fire-Aspect line descended from Taimyo Nefvarin Yan Tu. They see their true legacy to be strategy and the art of battle. Many of its members are sorcerers, while others focus on cavalry combat or engineering. Yan Tu has a reputation both for great skill and great theatricality, on and off the battlefield. They like to be seen as direct and ingenious, but in truth, their reliance on frontal assaults and sorcery in battle or insults and seduction in court tends to be a ruse, designed to distract from their actual goals. The Yan Tu tend to be Mercenary or Interventionist, but that’s less out of politics and more because they enjoy a good fight, ideally as over-the-top as possible. Next time: Life in Lookshy
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May 6, 2019 14:04
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Warhammer Fantasy: Paths of the Damned Part 2: Spires of Altdorf Welcome to the Talk Show While I find a lot of the main thrust of Spires of Altdorf exceedingly dull and it has a serious lack of a 'real' antagonist (among other things), it is at least going to try to do some interesting things. Some of them work, many don't, but I appreciate the effort. Overall, I think this is one of the weakest books David Chart wrote for WHFRP, though. He is up-front that the book is balanced for the PCs to win in the end, and it does try to mitigate some of the 'roll X at -10 to continue plot' stuff from book 1 and railroad the players less heavily. At the same time, it kicks you hard in the dick if you played a character who actually put points into being mechanically good at social things, despite the main plot of the adventure mostly revolving around social matters, because I'm sorry, Chart. I like your writing, a lot. But you've got some brain worms with the 'Never roll social skills, just base it entirely on what the players say in RP' stuff. This showed up in Renegade Crowns, too; there's a bit in there about how good roleplaying can carry a character with 22% Fel just as well as one with 70% Fel, Charm+20, and Schemer. The entire social aspect of the main conflict of the adventure, which is the primary part of the adventure, explicitly says to never actually test Social Skills or Fellowship while running it. Before I go into the colorful history and stuff on Altdorf, I want to to talk about why that kind of stuff pisses me off as a GM and a designer. Firstly, players often play characters who are better at something than they are. Let's take me as an example: I like martial arts. I used to do martial arts. I developed arthritis at 25 that makes doing martial arts very difficult. So I like playing martial artists in RPGs, where I don't have to worry about my joints. Similarly, you can get a player who is shy or quiet who wants to play a character who is charming and eloquent. That's what their character's Fel is meant to represent. Liniel in the Brute Squad is a phenomenal social character, and had the option to be way better at it; she promoted into combat stuff because A: An elf with a big hat and two pistols is funny and B: I knew the adventure coming up would give her absolutely no reason to use her excellent Fellowship and talents and skills if she went Courtier. Say Liniel's player is a quiet person who really likes imagining playing the charming elf noble who always seems to know what to say; this adventure is completely set up to zone that player out of playing that role and punish them for not being as eloquent as their PC. And that aspect is the actual, full main conflict and thrust of Spires of Altdorf. This also effectively punishes a player for putting character resources into Fellowship or social skills, and it's a problem throughout WHFRP2e. The weird part is, with the game being heavily investigation focused (at least part of every adventure usually revolves around finding the right rear end to kick) and incentivizing avoiding unneeded combat, social skills should be very useful and Fel tends to be a favorite stat when I GM or play. But in official published stuff, you're expected to 'roleplay, not rollplay' through almost every social encounter. I wonder how many of this line's designers would accept 'Sure I have a 22% WS, but I know what halfswording is so I'm gonna describe my character being great at fighting and win the combat challenge.' I'd guess the answer is 0. The other issue with the book is it's the setting book for Altdorf, but we don't get a solid places of interest overview like in Middenheim. Chart instead opted for more of a general 'here's what a rich estate in the city is like' or 'here's what poor neighborhoods are like' thing, talking about the various difficulties for fights, sneaking, and adventure in the various kinds of environments that can pop up in the city. So you don't get nearly as firm of a sense of place or a filled in city as you do with places like Erengard or Middenheim. A lot of the history and flavor of the city is good, and I don't mind them trying to change things up, but a lack of a good, solid overview of Altdorf is a little disappointing. The main issue with this approach is that while you get a lot of good 'how to have a good fight scene in an opera box' material, you're missing a lot of the grounding and story hooks that really shined in the other detailed city descriptions. You do get story hooks in sidebars, but they're much more general and less useful overall. This story also lacks a general antagonist like Liebnitz, who was probably the highlight of Ashes even as his character needed some more work. There is a pretty great comic relief antagonist (A cultist who survived the shakedown at Heller's bar in Middenheim, now frantically trying various wild attempts to kill the PCs for revenge to inject some excitement into the plot) but they also have to add a totally unrelated evil wizard to disguise the fact that Xath is a really lovely main villain. A Khorne Demon just isn't the kind of enemy that can carry multiple adventures as your main bad guy. This isn't really the author's fault, but you're going to see an increasing number of subplots, side-villains, and other distractions from the main plot as the Paths of the Damned go on, to try to disguise how bad of an idea the actual main villain was. Paths of the Damned just can't sustain interest because a vague evil demon you never interact with (ideally you actually never see Xath and win the campaign without ever fighting him, talking to him, or really learning much about him) whose only motive is 'BLOOD FOR THE BLOOD GOD' was just a bad, bad choice for Main Villain for an entire campaign. For this game, the Brute Squad will be finding out that there's another artifact like the Skull, and that they kind of need to actually ace this one instead of letting Khornates make a tiny bit of Xath's power come out and get stabbed in the face. You see, Xath pissed off Khorne so bad that Khorne split him into three and stuffed him in MacGuffins and now the heroes will have to go to 3 different cities of adventure and deal with them all in turn. Also, when you kill a demon you just send it back to hell, so 1/3 of Xath is 'free' now (but in hell, and it was a really lovely third). The next artifact, an evil knife of knifing, is located in Altdorf and under lock and key by the Light College of Magic. You might think this is safe, but with a third of himself out Xath is starting to get his beastmen and cultists moving a little and you know no macguffin is ever safe until the PCs throw it in a fire themselves. If the PCs do everything right, they will talk endlessly to NPCs for several sessions in between exciting side adventures and eventually just figure out how to easily destroy the dagger after getting it handed over by reasonable wizards. Yes, it's entirely possible to have only a couple easy combats and mostly have this adventure consist of shuttling between NPCs playing a political/conversational minigame (with no dice rolls). There are also various other ways this adventure can go that will still put the PCs on the path to succeeding enough to go to adventure 3, but they're various levels of hosed, up to and including 'one PC dies to let you win' if things are going really badly. But before we get into Brute Squad's longwinded adventure in Altdorf, we have to handle the city. I'm pretty sure that's the part everyone's looking forward to anyway! So join me next time for a story about sewage, wizards, and a city full of exaggerated disdain! Next Time: Altdorf's History
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May 6, 2019 14:51
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What Fire Has Wrought: Constant Warfare Lookshy’s people are divided into five castes. Citizens have full rights within the city. They may own land, vote in the district councils and may choose to leave the city when their mandatary term of military service is completed. All members of the gentes are citizens, and any noncitizen promoted to officer rank in the Seventh Legion or inducted into the Shogunate Bureaucracy becomes a citizen, which they retain even once retired. Helots are a hereditary underclass. They may have salaries and own property, but they cannot own land. They may attend district councils but may not vote or speak at them. They may request work transfers, but must ultimately labor where they are assigned. They may earn citizenship by devoted or heroic service, and make up the majority of enlisted soldiers. Metics are foreign residents of Lookshy. They may only rent land and are subject to travel restrictions within the city, but have no particular social responsibilities and may leave at any time. Indentured are those who voluntary accept up to five years of indentured service to a citizen in order to pay off debts or remove criminal charges. All indenture contracts are handled by the Directorate of the Adjutant General. Slaves are owned by the Seventh Legion, not individuals. Most are prisoners of war who were unable or unwilling to be repatriated after the war ended. Slaves are given room and board and may own non-land property, but they otherwise have few rights in Lookshy, are closely supervised at nearly all times and are harshly punished for disobedience. Their children are generally freed as metics upon reaching adulthood, but this is not strictly legally required. The Seventh Legion draws its cultural foundation from the Shogunate legions. Thus, it assumes that Dragon-Blooded are naturally leaders in both mundane and spiritual matters, but its prime focus is military. Because of its history, it is even more martial than the Realm, seeing no particular difference between the Seventh Legion and the city proper. Thus, military service is both a civic duty and sacred charge for all Dragon-Blooded, as is obedience to the last standing order of the Shogunate. This is known officially as the Lookshy Directive: “Maintain Lookshy as a Shogunate city under Seventh Legion authority, and hold your post until a new Shogun emerges.” The Dragon-Blooded of Lookshy are brought up from an early age to be soldiers and officers. They are taught that their great destiny is to work and fight for the greater good of the Seventh Legion, and rather than focus on individual skill or personal glory, they tend to be taught to value honor, moderation and consideration of others, to better produce people who can join the most disciplined military force in the world. Training and formal education begin at age five via private tutors. By age eleven, Lookshyan children are enrolled in academies, of which there are over a hundred within the city, each with its own specialty. These academies teach combat techniques, weapon skills, tactics, modern and ancient literature, River Province history, and math, among other things. The best and most desirable academies see social decorum and presentation as vital to success as soldiers or scholars, and many electives are designed to refine students’ social skills. Tea ceremony may be part of a class offered with lectures on statecraft or the workings of the Shogunate Bureaucracy, for example. The General Staff keeps an open door for outcastes that wish to enlist, and they are given generous payment. A large portion of the Lookshyan budget is dedicated to recruitment, with bonuses offered to successful recruiters. This isn’t just for armed combatants, either – Lookshy will take any outcaste willing to work for it, whether that means they serve as a field cook, a sorcerer or a merchant. Outcastes are heavily encouraged to seek sponsorship and adoption by a gens, to help them acclimate to Lookshyan life and be properly trained. In the past, groups immigrating together sometimes used their numbers to gain recognition as a Gens Minor – most notably, Gens Taroketu did this – rather than dispersing among the various city gentes. If petitioning for permanent residency alone, though, outcastes are encouraged to join an existing gens via adoption or marriage. There is no official penalty for failure to do so, but it will limit social mobility. Adoptions are overseen by the Directorate of the Adjutant-General, with final approval in the hands of the General Staff, who are usually inclined to place outcastes into the Gentes Major. This entire process is meant for screening recruits and filtering out the potentially dangerous or problematic outcastes, because any gens that adopts them will be held responsible for their actions. The social hierarchy of Lookshy revolves around citizenship status, and citizens hold all high ranks in the Seventh Legion. Military service is compulsory for all citizens and helots for a minimum of five years. However, that is not the end of service to the Legion, even for those that muster out after their term. All Lookshyans not in active service are considered to be reserve forces, and they attend regular training, practice drills and wargames throughout the year to ensure their readiness in an emergency. After your five-year term, though, plenty of doors open to you if you’re Exalted. You can voluntarily re-enlist, for one. The rank structure of the Seventh Legion has not changed in centuries beyond what has been made necessary, such as the relegation of the Sky Guard to purely ceremonial status due to the lack of skyships. Unit compositions are in multiples of five, much like the Realm – five soldiers to a fang, five fangs to a scale, five scales to a talon, five talons to a wing, five wings to a dragon, and five dragons to a legion. Mortals are rarely able to rise above the mid-tier ranks, but ambitious and skilled Dragon-Blooded can easily expect to reach the General Staff one day, if they are wily and survive the wars and if they dedicate themselves to Legion ideals. Most missions are outsourced via contracts between the General Staff and various nations within the River Province. The type of action you see depends on your posting and field force. First Field Force, for example, is mostly recon and quick-response units, and tends to get sent to the most dangerous areas. Most Lookshyan forces are citizens or helots serving compulsory terms, but metics can also join the foreign field forces, which consist of former janissaries, ex-mercenaries, runaway slaves, criminals evading justice and so on. Most of them have never actually seen Lookshy proper. They receive one year of intensive training, which either gets them up to the Legion standards or weeds them out if they can’t cut it. The foreign legions of Lookshy are not nearly as well-equipped as the proper Seventh Legion field forces, nor as disciplined. They operate largely on the outskirts of the province and in the East at large, occasionally under the guise of independent mercenaries. Dragon-Blooded may remain in legion service for decades if they seek a military career. Some become strategoi, as the Legion’s chief tacticians are known, while others join the ranger corps to serve as Seventh Legion special forces, who do the most dangerous and classified missions. Most of these are operations the Legion does not publicly acknowledge, such as sabotage, assassination, deep-cover infiltration or so on. Sorcerers and artificers often serve as sorcerer-engineers and maintainers of Lookshy’s First Age ordnance, which is vital to the city armory. Some seasoned infantry officers also take jobs outside the city to train armies for other city-states in River Province or to command the redoubts the city maintains throughout the Scavenger Lands. As with the Realm, Lookshy has a strong tradition of magic. Its foremost sorcerous school is the Valkhawsen Academy of Sorcery, which uses Shogunate-era techniques that rely on formalized and ritualized meditation, poetry and ceremonies to empty the mind and achieve unity with Creation itself. The city makes far more use of sorcery in the day-to-day than much of Creation, and has more Dragon-Blooded sorcerers than almost any nation that isn’t the Realm. They are fully integrated into all levels of command in the field forces, and it’s not rare for special forces units to have a sorcerer assigned to them. However, most are forbidden to summon demons or elementals, a task that is exclusively the realm of the elite sohei known as sorcerer-exorcists. While the Legion sees most sorcerers as battlemasters, not social pariahs, the sorcerer-exorcists are handled with great care. Not all Lookshyans serve in the Legion proper, however. The Seventh Legion has established seven directorates to manage its support staff. The leaders of each directorate bear the rank of taimyo, equal to that of field force commanders, and while there is some degree of overlap between their responsibilities, each handles different kinds of support mission. They make up the basis of much of the city’s civil service. The Directorate of the Adjutant-General handles issues of personnel, from administrating the academies to assigning and reassigning soldiers to helping retired soldiers find civilian work or medical care. The Intelligence Directorate is in charge of obtaining information on potential enemies’ capabilities and assess the threat they pose to Lookshy, if any. The Justice Directorate enforces the laws of the Seventh Legion, both within Lookshy and in the field. Their white-robed justiciars keep the peace, and their judges investigate crimes and oversee tribunals. The Liaison Directorate negotiates with other governments on behalf of the Seventh Legion, both on the grand scale of politics and the details of minor contracts for renting land for a field encampment. The Operations Directorate handles military strategy and tactics, coordinating campaigns and analyzing results of battles. The Security Directorate handles all counterintelligence and military security, from arranging guard rotations to tracking down All-Seeing Eye spies. The Stores Directorate organizes acquisition, storage and distribution of Legion resources, from field kit to food to First Age weaponry. They maintain the armory as well, which covers a number of artifacts, including ancient siege weaponry, Hearthstones retrieved from the four manses of the city and its holdings throughout the River Province, and the legendary gunzosha armor. Elite mortals who have undergone ritual blessings and surgery can attune to these powered armors and wield their Evocations as if they were Exalts, at the cost of drastically shortened lifespans. Access to the armory is carefully controlled and earned by service, with the rare First Age weapons (including the city’s handful of functioning Warstriders) available only with approval of the General Staff. Other Dragon-Bloods find work in the Shogunate Bureaucracy, the last remnants of official Shogunate government. Their position is mostly ceremonial, but their symbolic authority is immense, as the Lookshy Directive names them as the cultural inheritors of the Shogunate itself. If a bureau of the Bureaucracy were to go against the Seventh Legion within its sphere of influence, such as by refusing to sign off on a budget, the Legion would lose massive face with the city’s people. However, the Legion is capable of direct action against the bureaucrats, such as by using military reassignment against them, if they are pushed too hard, so mostly the two groups stay out of each other’s way. Next time: Money and Faith
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May 6, 2019 15:10
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One weird thing I notice as I read this adventure, and indeed, the rest of WHFRP2e: There's an assumption that unarmed fights aren't lethal, despite there being no actual rules for unarmed fights being nonlethal. I mean I've always house-ruled that in to give characters an out for not killing people when they lack Strike to Stun as is, but I wonder if it's something that was intended to be in the game, showed up in developer test games, and then somehow got left out of the main book. E: I should also issue a correction: There is a small sidebar on actually using social skills for intriguing during the main conflict (on the principle that players might not be as talkative as their characters), it's just the majority of the material is all about how to purely roleplay it out and it emphasizes that it's generally never required for PCs to roll dice and that they can succeed without ever actually using any character abilities. Night10194 fucked around with this message at 15:39 on May 6, 2019 |
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May 6, 2019 15:23
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What Fire Has Wrought: Keeping The Faith The gentes are not totally analogous to the Great Houses of the Realm. Gens members do not receive any stipend from the family, though their essential needs are met and they can ask for additional resources in certain circumstances or in exchange for a favor owed to the imperator. In Lookshy, at least in theory, your contribution to the Legion is more important than the mere fact of your Exaltation, and even Dragon-Bloods are expected to work. The biggest source of income for a Lookshyan is likely to be a career in the Legion proper, the directorates or the Bureaucracy. You can also make money running a business or being an artisan, and Lookshy makes almost as much off trade as it does from military contracts. The gentes do maintain a web of ongoing businesses and are happy to finance new ventures, but commercial income is riskier and less reliable than a soldier’s paycheck. Further, basic living expenses and military discretionary pay is untaxed, but all money from trade or other sources is subject to a flat rate tax set by the Liaison Directorate. Few Lookshyan Dragon-Bloods actually survive to retirement age. That handful that manage it usually retire either to the gens compounds within the city or a private estate nearby. Even then, they tend to remain active, usually involving themselves in the lives of their descendants, networking with other elders and calling in favors on behalf of their family before their deaths. Like the Realm, Lookshy worships the Immaculate Dragons. However, the Immaculate Faith of Lookshy (and the Shogunate before it) is practiced very differently than the Realm’s Immaculate Philosophy. Some differences are smaller than others – the Realm’s take is aniconic, while Lookshy uses vividly illustrations of the Immaculate Dragons, which can often be found on decks of cards in their many barracks. Both groups emphasize the proper role of spirits in the Perfected Hierarchy, though the Faith is somewhat less rigid on this than the Philosophy. The biggest difference, however, is that the Immaculate Faith is not a state religion. It does not exist to justify the rule of the Seventh Legion, but to be a guiding path to mortals and Exalts seeking spiritual enlightenment. Many Lookshyan Exalts consider it a vital part of their spiritual lives, but largely unrelated to politics and governance. The Faith has no governing body beyond the Bureaucracy’s administration of temples and schools, and the sohei, as Seventh Legion chaplains are called, have no temporal authority, unlike the monks of the Immaculate Order. The Immaculate Faith states that while Exaltation may be a reward for excellence and leadership, in and of itself it is not deserving of extra respect. A Dragon-Blood must be judged by their deeds rather than their blood or the elevated spiritual position of their soul. Most modern sohei hold that all people travel the path of enlightenment at their own pace. You cannot drag a mule to a river and force it to drink, and neither can you force your beliefs on others. Some sohei advocate a more direct approach, believing that increased acceptance of the Faith outside of Lookshy would help stabilize River Province, but most take a pragmatic view towards their neighbors’ tendency to worship specific gods. Still, while the Faith’s practitioners may claim this is primarily a stance of principle, this tolerance is as much rooted in political compromises as anything. After all, Lookshy has to be more tolerant to be able to cooperate with the often god-riddled nations of the Scavenger Lands. The Purist faction reject this approach as inherently corrupt, and if they could, they would enforce the Faith at the edge of a blade. The traditional expression of the Faith in Lookshy is the Shogunate-era doctrine of the Code of the Righteous Warrior. The Righteous Warrior is the pinnacle of the Faith’s ideals, an enlightened soul that lives by the five Immaculate Pillars of Honor, Loyalty, Prowess, Conviction and Compassion. They are the ultimate warrior, who can win any battle but also understands that the blade is not always the solution. Some state that even the Immaculate Dragons were not Righteous Warriors, but merely came within a hair’s breadth of achieving it. The Righteous Warrior is the ideal all Dragon-Bloods should strive for, though they may never reach it. The Pillar of Honor demands impeccable action and honesty. Honor also means a sense of personal dignity. The word of a Righteous Warrior is always true, and it must never be given cheaply. Mela showed by her deeds that only via honor can true victory be achieved. The Pillar of Loyalty teaches that loyalty must be absolute. The Righteous Warrior’s first loyalty is to Shogunate ideals, then to one’s commander, then to one’s family. Pasiap taught that loyalty was the foundation of all things – from a peasant family even to the Shogunate itself. The Pullar of Prowess states that all actions must be done with perfect skill and timing. The Righteous Warrior kills only at the appointed time, doing nothing needlessly. Hesiesh embodies the Pillar of Prowess, keeping his almighty power tempered with restraint. The Pullar of Conviction means that you cannot doubt that your cause is just. The Righteous Warrior never acts without believing wholly in the cause for action, for to do otherwise risks death for an unworthy cause. Danaa’d showed that true conviction can defeat even the greatest foes by her persistence in swimming to the sea floor to seal away the Anathema. The Pillar of Compassion holds that the virtues that ennoble the Righteous Warrior are brotherly affection, sympathy and charity. Sextes Jylis taught that a compassionate warrior cannot lose to a heartless foe, for the Righteous Warrior has something greater to fight for. Sohei begain their training in academies owned and operated by the temples. These provide a classic Lookshyan education centered on Immaculate theology, including the history of the Faith, its roots in the Shogunate and the workings of the spirit courts. They also cultivate and tame their Essence, studying meditation and the Immaculate martial arts. Only those who gain basic mastery of themselves may advance enough to master the spirits, after all. This can include subduing spirits by combat, but a sohei’s job is to be an intercessor with the supernatural, which doesn’t have to mean violence. Many sohei commit themselves to the Faith’s temples, which are mostly in Lookshy, though a few exist in the Scavenger Lands, or they tend to the Legion, but there are always tales of wandering monks that travel the land to bring the Faith to the outskirts of civilization and to fight the rogue demons and gods that terrorize mortals. Despite the many religious and political differences between the Realm and Lookshy, they always agreed on the Wyld Hunt. Lookshy sees the Anathema as a threat to the security of River Province, and that cannot be allowed. They regularly intercept the Wyld Hunt when the Realm sends its shikari to the River Province, but they have never turned the Hunt back. Instead, the mortal soldiers working with the Wyld Hunt will be replaced by Lookshyan troops from the local field force. The shikari are then escorted to their destination with all respect and assistance of the Seventh Legion. Before the Empress vanished, Lookshy and the Realm would even undertake joint operations to take out particularly dangerous or well-defended Anathema, with the All-Seeing Eye sending word ahead of the Hunt’s arrival. Today, Wyld Hunts are often formed in haste and there is no time to contact the General Staff, so collaborations on a large scale have become rare. When dealing with the rest of Creation, Lookshy tries to present a unified front. Open politicking is rare, and the political games of Lookshy are usually built on a web of favors owed and debts collected. Senior officers often help out those new recruits that seem to match up with their philosophies, and while arguably this is not quite nepotism, the young Dragon-Bloods will remember the good words put in for them and are likely to return the favor when they get a chance. While members of the various factions debate, sometimes to the point of grudges, outright violence and blood feuding is nearly nonexistent in Lookshy. The Seventh Legion forbids dueling, and Lookshyan pragmatism discourages it anyway as an unacceptable loss to the Legion. Thus, those seeking to rid themselves of rivals are forced to act through less lethal means. Bureaucratic mismanagement or rumormongering to goad people into overplaying their hand are common tactics. Lookshy and the Realm have been enemies for centuries, fighting over politics, religion and other things. Still, most Lookshyans don’t actually hate the Realm unless they’ve personally witnessed its worst cruelties. Lookshyan policy is to avoid direct confrontation but be vigilant for Realm spies. Realm visitors are allowed in Lookshy, but must remain in designated areas and should not cause trouble. Immaculate monks and Dynasts are often restricted to the foreign quarter of the city alongside the merchants. The General Staff allow only one exception to this general rule – Dynasts with diplomatic protection may travel under strict escort to the Second Ring, where their embassy is located. Traditionally, Realm ambassadors to Lookshy have been retired outcastes loyal to the Empress, appointed as a reward for their service and accompanied by four handpicked advisors, as a satrap would be. House Ledaal has recently claimed the post via Deliberative favor-trading, in the hopes of better coordinating the Wyld Hunt and to seek revenge against Mask of Winters for the loss of Thorns. Most Lookshyans have little sympathy for the fall of Thorns itself, having had to fight Thorns’ forces almost 20 years ago at the Battle of Mishaka after Thorns’ forces invaded the Scavenger Lands; most Lookshyans lost a friend or relative at Mishaka. They recognize Mask of Winters as a threat, but were never fond of the Thorns garrison. Lookshy and the Guild have always had a tense relationship. The tacticians of the Legion recognize the Guild’s activities as economic warfare, and the Guild are well aware that their mercenaries are no match for Lookshyan regulars, let alone Lookshyan special forces. However, the General Staff is also aware that the Guild could put a lot of economic strain on the city if they wanted, which would greatly impede their ability to maintain operations in River Province. Thus, neither side trusts the other, but pragmatism and mutual unwillingness to start a fight and risk their respective power bases has caused a mutual, if grudging, understanding. Lookshy’s City Mother, Tien Yu, takes an active role in the politics of the spirit courts of River Province, advocating for its interests. She takes the form of a soldier with jet black skin and silver hair, wearing dragon armor made from moonsilver and black jade. Her predecessor, whom some say is her father, son, brother or lover, is Tu Yu, the City Father of Deheleshen. Once, he was a great tactician and sage of battle, but the god lost much power when the Old City fell to the Contagion and the Fair Folk, and his former duties have largely been assumed by Tien Yu. Tu Yu often comes off as a doddering old fool these days, but his pride is unbroken, and he owes a great debt to the Seventh Legion for reviving the fallen city. Next time: Outcaste Societies
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May 6, 2019 17:18
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What Fire Has Wrought: Life On The Outside Many outcastes never go to the Realm – most, in fact, of those born outside Realm satrapies. Most never go beyond their Hearth…or, for the unlucky few that never form one, themselves. Even one Exalt can be enough, though, when they’re the only one in the region. The Threshold is full of stories of wandering heroes and warriors, and many of them are born from the legends of an outcaste passing through the region. An outcaste might leave home for adventure for any number of reasons. The vast majority of Creation’s people are peasants that live as their grandparents ever did, but Exalts are destined for greater things by their very nature. Most can bear the village life only so long. Others are born into harsh lives and claim their freedom with their new power. Still, even those that stay at home usually leave eventually, if for no reason other than their family being mortal. After only six or seven decades, they die, and the Exalt is left alone, their grandchildren grown and with families of their own, nothing left to hold them back. A few are even forced into adventure by those that resent the Dragon-Blooded due to their associations with the Realm. A local god may cast out a Dragon-Blood rather than watch a rival grow, or a Lunar warlord may seek to kill them out of anti-Dragon-Blooded racism, or a local chief may decide to kill them while they are young to avoid a later challenge. Rather than fight, many outcastes end up fleeing and plotting their later vengeance when they are stronger. Some outcastes rise up to rule over a region, inspired by the deeds of the Scarlet Empress. So far, none have been able to match her, but many conquerors dream of it. Power draws in followers, and the outcaste have power. Those that go to war end up leading massive forces, as people flock to their banner to better themselves by proximity to the powerful. Many end up starting families or deriving from families of Dragon-Bloods, which gives them companionship and people like them. Outcastes, even more than others, thrive in the company of peers. Some join Sworn Kinships that contain Dynasts, getting drawn into the Realm’s intrigues but able to call on Dynastic resources for their own struggles. Other Hearths are purely outcaste, beholden only to their kin, gaining camaraderie and freedom. The Cult of the Violet Fang is based out of the wastes of the Northwest, and specifically a massive cathedral with stained glass windows cut from gems and gargoyles carved from opal. They descend from a group of Shogunate Dragon-Bloods who reached an armistice with the Fair Folk invaders. They are reclusive and secretive Fae-bloods, with the Exalts of the Cult devoted to honing their bodies and Essence in preparation for a ritual quest into the Wyld to face their Raksha ancestors every seven years. Those that return do so with alien blessings and treasures…or with their minds and souls torn to shreds, depending on if they won or lost against the Raksha. It is not always easy to tell them apart. The Grass Spiders are a clan of assassins based from the edge of River Province, a mix of Dragon-Bloods and mortals. Some of them seek out the life of a killer, while others are kidnapped and indoctrinated shortly after Exaltation. As with any such secret sisterhood, more than a few have ended up in love and raised their children in the group, too. Their hidden fortress-manse, the Unrepentant Sinner Palace, is home to the Three Elite Fiends. These are believed to be elder outcastes, though no one really knows for sure, and they train their subordinates in the killing arts, primarily the use of poison. When they kill, it is a work of subtlety, of grace and most importantly, of art. Heaven’s Dragons descend from the small population of mortals and Dragon-Blooded that remained in Yu-Shan after the Primordials were cast down. They have lived for millenia in the service of forgotten or absent gods, or otherwise making a living on Yu-Shan’s periphery. They dwell in tightly knit extended families in tenements made from subdivided palaces or the slums of the unemployed gods. A few rise to power as freelance agents of Heaven, gaining work in the celestial bureaucracy or serving a divine patron’s will. Some become criminals under the laws of Heaven, and these are exiled to Creation, bitterly plotting their return to the heavenly palaces. Poverty in Yu-Shan is considerably nicer than poverty in Creation, after all. The Khamaseen Battalion traces its origins to the Great Contagion and the fall of the Shogunate. General Khamasi Tala, seeing her city die around her, deserted her post and led her garrison into the steppes of the far Southeast. The descendants of her lost legion still travel the steppes and foothills of the Summer Mountains, speaking a language long dead in other lands. They reject the idea of service to Lookshy, because they know there is only one punishment for deserters, and the Khamaseen are certainly deserters. Instead, they devote their lives to mercenary service in the Southeast, maintaining their martial traditions as best they can. The Rogue Legion of Saloy Hin is descended from the seven legions that disbanded rather than allow themselves be divided by the Great Houses. For a given value of “descended,” given how recent that was. Rumors quickly sprung up of one of the seven legions wandering the Southern deserts, seeking out unclaimed manses and gathering large stores of firedust under the leadership of Saloy Hin, an outcaste graduate of Pasiap’s Stair. Once renowned for his daring tactics and rigid discipline, Saloy now recruits Dynastic exiles and outcastes to his banner, alongside Exigentts and God-Bloods. He and his legion sell firedust across the South, seeking to destabilize the region and establish a foothold there in preparation for Saloy Hin’s ultimate plan: conquest of the Realm. Yatani’s Children are a strange clan of savants, spread in diaspora. They dress strangely and speak strangely, but their claims are stranger yet. The Children of Yatani claim that they and their lineage of Dragon-Bloods are not of Creation, but rather refugees from another world, cast out by a terrible and ancient disaster. They are savants and scholars, hunting for any scrap of lore they can get. They are desperately searching for any evidence that their own legends of their lost home are true – and if so, if they can find a way back. Next time: The Wanasaan and the Sisterhood of Pearls
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May 6, 2019 22:15
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Rifts Coalition Wars 1: Sedition, Part 10: "Sometimes a puckish child will be so bold as to approach a stranger or soldier, or be lured out of hiding with a bribe of candy, food or plaything." The Fringes of Tolkeen A brief overview, catalyst for adventure and notable places on the borders of Tolkeen Rifts Coalition Wars 1: Siege on Tolkeen posted:Design Note: This section is designed to provide background world information and avenues for adventure. Consequently, most of the descriptions have some sort of story line suitable for building an adventure, or at least an encounter and mischief. Ah, the mischief of war.  So, Wisconsin has largely been steamrolled by the Coalition and either subjugated or annihilated to set up army camps and supply lines. Only psi-stalkers and humans were given the choice of surrender - D-Bees and wizards were just attacked on the spot. However, there is some resistance from disorganized guerrilla forces opposed to the Coalition. Tolkeen itself has a "Kingdom" mainly in the fact that it's the central community of region and has attracted a fair number of allies, but they're allies more in spirit than organization. Of course, its growing influence is part of the Coalition's justification for war. Some communities in Minnesota are Coalition Sympathizers, however, and think the Coalition arrival will benefit them because... well, we just don't know. We get a list of communities with no detail, but only Hogswaller, a town of barely over a hundred inhabited by anti-magic human supremacists who snub and upcharge wizards and aliens. We get the sort of number-sorted map reminiscent of Judges' Guild products that Palladium loves so much. I could go over things and tell you about the bar's spiced jerky or the fact the local brothel has "reasonable prices" but there's mainly two things that might actually spark an adventure. One, a local family is a bunch of Coalition spies, including an 11th level "field doctor" (not a class) and a 8th level healing psychic. Yup, an 11th level doctor is slumming around as a spy and not patching up troops during a war, which I could only credit to him pissing some superior off or somesuch. "Billy Bob's Garage" are a bunch of sympathizers who also harbor an agent complete with his own power armor. Leon Sebastian Jones is a drifter and gunslinger who's on the run from the Coalition and got hired on at Billy Bob's before sussing out all the Coalition agents in town, but doesn't know what to do with this information yet.  "Oh my god!... I look awful." Northfields is another small town built near where Osage once was. The adults are kind of spaced-out and the children are skittish here, and everything seems a bit neglected. Rifts Coalition Wars 1: Siege on Tolkeen posted:What's Going on — Game Master Information: Players, don't read this or you'll ruin the surprise. Immediately under that text (there's no space) it says "Possession" and a bunch of other spoiling text which is pretty hard to miss so if you've read that text it's unlikely you won't figure out the rest. "Evil shifters" from Tolkeen have arrived and summoned a bunch of possessing entities to take control of the town due to its Coalition sympathies to set up a trap for Coalition soldiers. The local Reverend is really one of the shifters in disguise, and only one remaining family has avoided possession by "pure coincidence" and takes care of the local children. The children haven't been possessed because... uh, who knows? Stop 'em, PCs. This is one of the few times you'll see Tolkeen (or Tolkeen sympathizers? it's not clear) performing a legit war crime against civilians, so savor that, I suppose. Borderline was a D-Bee community on the former site of Caledonia that was wiped out by the Coalition a decade ago. It isn't really important except to be able to shout "Remember Borderline!" and hope people around you do remember Borderline and aren't from Newtown or wherever and just say "Huh?"  Donning the fallen skull of a robot as a protective shell, Nutters became the first mega-damage squirrel. Cochrane in Wisconsin had survived the rifts with the aid of Elemental Magic and Techno-Magic, so early in the conflict the Coalition sent tens of thousands of skelebots to wipe them out. However, the several hundred wizards there were able to wipe out the majority of the skelebots, but were still overrun. Several dozen managed to survive and escape. Since then, it's known as the Skelebot Graveyard. It's rumored to be haunted, and there are a number of entities that have congregated here. There are rumors of skelebots rising from their grave - which may be due to tectonic entities (entities that animate objects from Rifts Conversion Book), but the real story is that the Coalition has dumped a number of skelebots there programmed to act as corpses. They're programmed to attack any non-Coalition target that gets near, and some "rise from their grave" to patrol at night. There are also about a dozen other "skelebot graveyards" we're given locations for but no details.  He's purple, just... take my word for it. Hill Crest is an idyllic town of freethinkers and sheepherders. Rifts Coalition Wars 1: Sedition posted:The town is one of the Coalition's first "scorched earth" targets. It will be completely obliterated right down to the last man, woman and child. Well, PCs no longer required, moving on! This was the home of the Great Purple Mage NPC, who once opposed the Coalition but has retired and is done with fighting, but will return to extract revenge against the Coalition, no doubt with exciting theme music. This may get him killed or he may turn to helping out refugees once he works all the revenge out of his system. He's a 10th level ley line walker with unrollable mental attributes. He'll appear on the cover of Rifts Coalition Wars 2: Coalition Overkill. The Hamlet of Vosberg is a small town that's unremarkable, which is to the benefit of a vampire who's settled down to prey on it and the surrounding area (waylaying travelers and soldiers). The war has more or less stripped them of outside contact and local defenders. There's a little mini-adventure about players finding a bloodless corpse in in the woods or other signs of vampires, get a rumor about a local old man who has found mysterious romance, go to his house, find out the romance is a vampire, and kill her. It turns out the old man is really in love with her, so it's tragic and stuff.  I guess we're supposed to feel bad for these guys? Camp Fatale is seemingly a group of refugees, predominantly female. Rifts Coalition Wars 1: Sedition posted:Consequently, they attract the attention of soldiers in the field who stop to "question" the camp in order to ogle the girls. And that is their downfall. Rifts Coalition Wars 1: Sedition posted:They all hate the Coalition and support Tolkeen, and use their "camp" to troll for Coalition Soldiers to victimize. They typically target Coalition squads (predominantly male), but when feeling ambitious and at full strength, entire platoons (the amp often divides into 2-4 smaller bands). Guys being guys, the presence of so many young women refugees lures CS patrols into their trap like moths to a flame. Ah, yes, sexiness, the evilest of weapons. It turns out they're psychics who use the camp to ambush Coalition soldiers, using Psi-Nullfiers (from Rifts World Book 12: Psyscape) to baffle the psychic senses of Psi-Stalkers and Dog Boys. They use mental control powers to turn them against each other, Telemechanics to disable vehicles and weapons, and then direct psychic attacks to finish off the rest. Rifts Coalition Wars 1: Sedition posted:Camp Fatale has killed nearly a thousand men (!) this way and the CS has absolutely no idea who or what may be responsible. Look out, fellas! She may look like a nice girl, but before you know it, you'll be tipping over for Tolkeen! Remember: if it's cute, shoot! Next: Emperor Prosek's New Groove.
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May 6, 2019 23:52
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The sheer prevalence of Sexy Kill Trap Lady in RPGs will never cease to astound me.
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May 7, 2019 00:02
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