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Night10194 posted:It was a game that got the fundamental pleasure of stealth/espionage: Going into a situation knowing something you're not supposed to know, that the person you're dealing with doesn't know you know. I tried playing and ended up absolutely hating the hacking minigame to the point it made me rather unenthused at playing the rest of it.
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May 5, 2020 18:32
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It was still a great game and you ought to be proud of having worked on it.
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May 5, 2020 18:33
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Night10194 posted:It was still a great game and you ought to be proud of having worked on it. Thanks! I am pretty proud of it. It was my first "real" project in the industry (not counting a cancelled project and a brief "all hands on deck" stint on Neverwinter Nights 2), and the first time I got to write dialogue that made it into an actual game. Still kind of surreal to me 12-odd years later that James Hong read lines I wrote. It was a weird project in a lot of ways, but I'm pretty proud of it, warts and all.
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May 5, 2020 18:41
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Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay 2e: Barony of the Damned I Should Probably Name This Party Our heroes have had to put up with a lot on their way down to Ubersreik. Vendrick was so excited about being close to the Athel Loren again that he couldn't help but go on and on about how amazing of a place it was and how great elven culture can be, stories pretty obviously exaggerated by homesickness. They've agreed to take a route through the Arden in southern L'Anguille because at least then he'll get to visit one Bretonnian forest, and he swears he knows easy ways through it that should speed their journey. They pass the memorial statue to the Ubersreik Five, heroes who saved the town from an insane tide of rats around the same time as Karl's adoptive mother and her friends were saving Talabheim. Vendrick remarks it's good that party had an Asrai Waywatcher; every good party should. Hinting that he's hoping to be one some day. Traveling to Helmgart, they're surprised not to encounter any particular adventures there; the military academies and cadets have Axe Bite Pass locked down pretty tight. Ulrike is a little sad to see the academies are becoming majority Myrmidian, with statues of the southern goddess (now sometimes depicted with a Hochland Longrifle over her shoulder instead of her traditional spear) going up around the city. With the Storm of Chaos now ten years behind the Empire, things have calmed down enough to return to normal and patrols in the pass are keeping it pretty clear. So they head down into Montfort, the great fortress-city, to officially enter Bretonnia. Taking the Grismerie river north from Montfort (after a day or two to see its amazing fortifications and rest themselves, and for Gilbert to introduce them to actual Bretonnian wine and Karl to trade his white robes for Bretonnian yellows since only nobles can wear white) they cross over shortly to the other side to visit his ancestral lands in Bastonne. Meeting his father, his two elder brothers, and his four younger sisters, Gilbert is crestfallen to hear that while his deeds certainly sound impressive (and must be true, they are attested by a holy man of Shallya) his father simply does not have a direct fief to give him; they will be going to his eldest brother. And he has not impressed any other lords as of yet. Ulrike is also very annoyed that everyone stares at her hair. Men, the occasional woman, everyone. She finally asks Gilbert what the hell that's about, and an awkward conversation where he tells her it's custom in Bretonnia only to show a woman's uncovered head to her husband before the marriage bed leads to her pulling her wolf-hood up for the rest of the trip. She can take Brets complaining about a lady knight, and she won't wear a helmet, but that she'll make an allowance for. It isn't a helmet, anyway, so Ulric is cool with it. Lacking an easy prospect for enfiefment, Gilbert is heartened to hear that Duke Adalhardt (a friend of his father's feudal superior) is looking for brave errants and has land to give. That will require a journey all the way into Lyonesse, but he also promised Karl they would visit Couronne and the great cathedral of Shallya. To that end, they continue on the Grismerie and take the northern path into the Arden forest in Artois. Vendrick is as good as his word, and is able to lead them competently through the wood, though they likely have a few encounters with beastmen and strange creatures there. They narrowly miss the town of Uesin, never realizing what an interesting adventure they missed out on. From there, they join up with the River Sanz and head into Couronne, and Gilbert has the chance to compete in (and lose quickly at, our boy is good for his age but no match for plenty of more experienced knights) a tourney before the court of King Louen. Meanwhile Karl and Anya get a chance to visit the great Cathedral of Shallya. Still, Gilbert's gotten his name out there a bit and did his best, and Ulrike tells him it's Ulric's way to take a stab at it and lose to and learn from more experienced knights. He even has a chance to train with one, a Sir Havel, who sees in the boy the making of a warrior in the style of Landuin of Mousillon, a Knight of the Ideal. Yes, I've always imagined the Virtues of Knighthood as different martial arts styles, so we're going with that for Gilbert to explain why he picked that one up. Traveling down the Sanz (it's still faster than walking) they eventually end up in L'Anguille, the great sea city, and thankfully miss the terrible pre-made adventure that starts there for Knights of the Grail. I could have put them through it for fun, but it's real bad. They spend a little time in the city, with Elena happy to be someplace she can find other Estalians for once and Anya picking up some new books, and Vendrick gets to be condescended to and called 'cousin' by the Asur living in the sea elf enclaves. Being talked down to like that gives him something of an idea of what it's like, and might make him learn something. But you never know with elfs. Soon, they set out overland, across the pleasant coastal plains of L'Anguille and into the lakes and hills of Lyonesse. They pass the town of Domremmy at the old border of 'old Lyonesse' and take a moment to stop at the shrine of Rapense d'Lyonesse, the one overt lady knight and one of the great heroes of the province. Ulrike is amused to see it. Soon, they continue south, finally making it to the court of Duke Adalhardt, who wants help going after a dangerous wanted criminal and who offers (terrible) land in return. What will they be able to get out of him instead? What's the catch? The catch, of course, is that the man fled past the containment quarantines into dread Mousillon, the Barony of the Damned. Will that stop the heroes? Obviously not. But first we have to get into what Mousillon is like. I'm a little sad this book doesn't lean into the impression of Mousillon from Knights of the Grail, as a more theatrical sort of evil barony. Instead it takes the place a little more seriously, though the adventure will have plenty of fun silliness (like the matters of the pigs) and our heroes will meet a great and ancient spirit of goodness on the way. We'll be getting into the barony itself, bits about the great knight Landuin, how everything fell apart, why frogs and snails are awesome (honestly, I wasn't too impressed with frogs' legs and escargot when I had them) and how people make their living in this doomed and wild place of swamps and lovely land. And yes, I know the long travelogue had little to do with the adventure, but it's a goddamn long way to just handwave them traveling all the way across not-France. Next Time: Lyonesse Took All The Good Land, Thierulf Might Have Been a Jerk Night10194 fucked around with this message at 01:03 on May 6, 2020 |
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May 5, 2020 19:23
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GimpInBlack posted:Thanks! I am pretty proud of it. It was my first "real" project in the industry (not counting a cancelled project and a brief "all hands on deck" stint on Neverwinter Nights 2), and the first time I got to write dialogue that made it into an actual game. Still kind of surreal to me 12-odd years later that James Hong read lines I wrote. It was a weird project in a lot of ways, but I'm pretty proud of it, warts and all. For real, one of the most shining parts of Alpha Protocol was the dialogue, so you definitely have my thanks for working on one of the best and most memorable parts of a really good game.
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May 5, 2020 19:25
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I genuinely, to this day, do not understand the problem people have with AP hacking.
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May 5, 2020 19:50
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wiegieman posted:I genuinely, to this day, do not understand the problem people have with AP hacking. Apparently it can be an eyesight thing; some peoples' eyes don't process the parts that aren't moving among all the moving bits. Especially on certain kinds of screens.
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May 5, 2020 19:52
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The controls can also be a little weird, or at least I always found that. I enjoyed the actual minigame itself but getting my mouse or keyboard to cooperate wasn't always easy.
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May 5, 2020 20:27
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Also given there are premades designed to go through the Mousillon adventure, they give a direct 'how much EXP should the PCs have when they get here' (17 advances, so 1600+Free Advance) so just assume the protagonists picked up another 500 EXP along their long tour of not-France. They're probably going to need it. Parts of this adventure can get really nasty if you're not ready.
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May 5, 2020 20:54
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Night10194 posted:And yes, I know the long travelogue had little to do with the adventure, but it's a goddamn long way to just handwave them traveling all the way across not-France. Frankly one of the best parts of this. Night10194 posted:Apparently it can be an eyesight thing; some peoples' eyes don't process the parts that aren't moving among all the moving bits. Especially on certain kinds of screens. Bingo, couldn't really process it in the way it wanted and it just ended up being more frustrating than anything else.
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May 5, 2020 21:04
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Cooked Auto posted:Frankly one of the best parts of this. Echoing this, the little character bits and asides are my favorite part of these write-ups, Night.
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May 5, 2020 21:13
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 A Note on Revisions: Someone asked me if I planned to review the old and new versions of the Blood Hunter side by side. I suppose this is an answer for all the classes I’ve reviewed and plan to review (which have all been updated to varying degrees), but unless the changes are drastic or otherwise notable I only plan to review the latest versions as of these postings. There’s a fair chance that many of you know about Matthew Mercer. If not, he’s a very successful livestreamer of Critical Role, a YouTube/Twitch channel which plays Dungeons & Dragons and other tabletop games from time to time. CR has helped bring in new fans to D&D to the point that “Critters” are a noticeable subculture in and of themselves. Mercer’s own homebrew campaign of Wildemount was popular enough that Wizards of the Coast published it as an official setting. But Mercer’s been designing products here and there for far longer. Back in 2015 he collaborated with Vin Diesel to make a new character class, the Witch Hunter, based off of one of Vin’s movies. Initially free and not playtested, the Witch Hunter would turn into the Blood Hunter as a Pay What You Want Product on the Dungeon Master’s Guild in 2016. It was revised again in 2018 and most recently in 2020, the latter of which was released as a new product in and of itself. I will admit that I never saw the Last Witch Hunter, but when reading the fluff text of the Blood Hunter they sound closest to a copyright-friendly Witcher: Blood Hunters study a long-lost magical tradition known as Hemocraft to physically enhance their own bodies and manipulate the elements at the temporary cost of their own blood and health. Blood Hunters use this magic to defend civilization from monsters of all stripes, organizing into societies to share their knowledge and resources. As a class the Blood Hunter is a brainy martial: d10 hit die, proficient in Dexterity and Intelligence saving throws, alchemist’s supplies, and all weapons and armor save for heavy armor. They can choose three skills from a mix of physical and knowledge types. At 1st level a Blood Hunter has advantage on Survival checks in tracking fey, fiends, and undead and Intelligence ability and skill checks to know things about them. Additionally, they learn a Blood Maledict, a unique means of using their own life force to fuel a debilitating offensive curse, and can learn more as they gain levels. They also get the typical Fighting Style at 2nd level and Extra Attack at 5th level that most martial classes have. One thing I should note before continuing. Two of the Blood Hunter’s class features, notably the Blood Maledicts’ amplified effects and Crimson Rites, require them to cut their own flesh, drawing power from wounds in the form of 1d4 to 1d10 damage* per use. This is a very heavy expenditure at lower levels in comparison to higher ones, as even a 1d4 can be deadly at 1st or 2nd level. The major Hemocraft centric class features include Crimson Rites, where you can enchant a wielded or natural weapon with 1d4 bonus damage of a specific energy type until the next short or long rest, and you can learn more energy types as the Blood Hunter increases in level. They also gain the ability to brand a target at 6th level which allows them to never lose track of their target as well as damaging them when they attack back. Said Brand at 13th level prevents the target from taking the Dash action, teleporting, or otherwise leaving their current plane of existence. *die grows as the Blood Hunter levels up. The other class features are more sedentary and blood-less. At 9th level they can use History to recall information about an object or building they touch with advantage pertaining to grim and evil things; at 10th level they increase their speed by 5 feet and add their Intelligence bonus to physical saving throws; at 14th level they gain advantage on saves vs being charmed or frightened; at 20th level they can reroll their Hemocraft Die and take the lower result while also regaining one use of Blood Maledict whenever they get a critical hit with a Crimson Rite-empowered weapon. Blood Maledicts: A Blood Hunter can learn up to 5 Blood Curses over the course of a 20 level career, and there are 11 in this book. As four of those can only be taken by a specific Order subclass and gained automatically as a result of the process, the Blood Hunter is not exactly overwhelmed with options. Every Curse can only be used a limited amount of times per short rest based on class level, but can also be Amplified to be more powerful than usual albeit at the cost of losing hit points equal to the result of the Hemocraft Die. Summarizing the Curses, most of them impose various kinds of debuffs and in some cases damage (usually necrotic or psychic) and are all “Blood Curse of X” in title. They are also restrictive in that they can only work against targets that have blood in their system whether it’s their own or another’s. Most of them are quite useful in a variety of situations. [Blood Curse of] Binding reduces a target’s speed to 0 feet and prevents use of reactions until the next turn or for 1 minute if Amplified (new save every round). Exposure is triggered by reaction, causing the target to lose resistance or immunity if applied against a damaging effect targeting them.* One Blood Curse I particularly like is the Fallen Puppet, where as a reaction the Blood Hunter causes a target who just fell unconscious or died within 30 feet to make a single attack against a target within attack range (and half movement if Amplified). Another nice one is The Eyeless, where an attacking creature subtracts the number rolled on the Hemocraft Die** from their attack roll (or all attack rolls made that turn if Amplified). Muddled Mind imposes disadvantage on the next Constitution save a target makes with a concentration spell, being a good anti-magic option. *is still rolled if used normally, but makes higher-level Blood Hunters capable of imposing larger penalties. **the attack can be done by an ally rather than the Blood Hunter themselves, making for a nice team player. Two of the more situational ones include Anxious, which makes a target easier to Intimidate and forces disadvantage on the resisting roll when Amplified, while Bloated Agony imposes disadvantage on Strength and Dexterity checks and deals damage every time the target performs an attack more than once per round (longer duration when Amplified). The Order-specific curses are invariably high level for prerequisites, ranging from 15th to 18th, and are automatically gained as part of being in that Order at the appropriate level. Blood Curse of the Exorcist (Ghost Slayer) instantly dispels any charm, frightened, or possessed condition on a target with no chance to resist and deals bonus psychic damage to the bestower of said condition if Amplified. Blood Curse of Corrosion (Mutant) imposes the poisoned condition on a target as a bonus action and a failed Constitution save, and 4d6 poison damage every turn they remain poisoned if Amplified. Blood Curse of the Howl unleashes a roar that stuns and frightens targets in a 30 foot radius or 60 feet if Amplified, albeit you cannot be selective of targets which limits its utility due to friendly fire. Finally, Blood Curse of the Soul Eater as a reaction grants advantage on attacks until the end of the Blood Hunter’s next turn whenever a (non-construct non-undead) creature drops within 30 feet of them and restores a warlock spell slot if Amplified. Blood Hunter Orders are societies dedicated to the study and fighting of a related set of creatures, and serve as the Blood Hunter’s subclass. We have 4 to choose from. Order of the Ghostslayer specializes in undead of all kinds and grants a new Crimson Rite which has various anti-undead measures (radiant damage, resistance to necrotic damage, etc), a bonus Blood Malediction of the Blood Hunter’s choice as well as the ability to use curses against bloodless targets, the ability to turn Ethereal for a limited number of rounds at 7th level, adding bonus Hemocraft die worth of damage when attacking undead and/or branded creature (which cannot become ethereal while the brand’s active), and at 18th level can avoid dropping to 0 hit points by ending an active Crimson Rite and dropping to 1 hit point instead. Overall, a rather good option. I feel that the bonus damage and Blood Malediction are a bit unimaginative, but being able to expand said Maledictions to affect any kind of target as well as limited Etherealness are very good features.  Order of the Profane Soul instructs its initiates to make pacts with entities in the ways warlocks do so as to better fight fiends, mages, and other entities which take more than muscle and steel to take down. The subclass grants warlock spellcasting albeit at slower progression, which is really good. They can also use held weapons activated as a Crimson Rite as a spell focus, and depending on their chosen Warlock patron can impose various debuffs and beneficial side effects: Archfey prevents a target from becoming invisible or taking advantage of cover due to a magical light, Great Old One imposes the frightened condition, Celestial can heal a creature within 60 feet equal to Hemocraft die + Intelligence modifier, etc. At 7th level they can make a weapon attack as a bonus action whenever they cast a cantrip. Also at 7th and 15th level they gain a 1/long rest use of a specific spell depending upon their patron, and tend to have direct combat uses such as buffs, debuffs, and damaging effects although there’s a few utility and healing spells included. 11th level imposes disadvantage for a branded creature on saves vs the Blood Hunter’s warlock spells. May seem like this class’ features end early, but the further options are the 15th level spell I mentioned, and the Curse of the Souleater bonus Malediction at 18th level. Another strong option, particularly due to the opening up of warlock spells. As you can choose the Hexblade as a patron, you can totally play that angsty gish you always wanted but with a d10 Hit Die! Order of the Mutant focuses on self-improvement over the base alchemical modifications all Blood Hunters undergo. Said orders’ abilities revolve around learning formulas for mutagens which grant short-term boosts of various kinds albeit at a cost to something else. They can only be used by the Blood Hunter and nobody else, and the number of mutagens which can affect them at once ranges from 1 to 3 depending on their level. They start with 4 formulas and learn more as they level up. There are 20 mutagens total, and include a rather diverse mixture. Quite a few of them grant advantage* on various d20 rolls, resistance to damage, etc but disadvantage/vulnerability on a related subject as the body min-maxes to compensate. Some of the more notable mutagens include granting true flight for 1 hour but disadvantage on STR/DEX ability checks; “fast healing” of a few hit points per round as long as you’re between 1 hit point up to 50% of your total but reduces speed by 10 feet; and a bonus use of Blood Maledict but disadvantage on death saving throws. *or a +3 to +5 bonus in the case of an ability score The other Order features include immunity to poison condition and damage at 3rd level, the ability to ignore the negative effects of a mutagen for 1 minute 1/long rest at 7th level, force branded targets to be unable to use polymorph or illusion magic to conceal their true form at 11th level, and at 18th level can flush a mutagen from their system as a bonus action and immediately gain the benefits of another one in its place a number of times per long rest equal to their Intelligence modifier. This order has some potential, although will likely be taken by players who seek to optimize their Blood Hunters for a specific kind of role or build. The side effects of the mutagens may make the Order unappealing in comparison to the others who don’t have that kind of cost. The brand’s unique feature is more situational, too given the relatively limited amount of shapeshifting monsters. Order of the Lycan was originally a supplement, but as of the latest version is now part of the base product. Blood Hunters of this Order study lycanthropes, including injecting their bodies with an altered form of the disease to enhance their combat prowess. This is perhaps the most straightforward of the three options in that it’s a PC-friendly way of being a werewolf. At 3rd level the Blood Hunter gains advantage on vision and scent-based Perception checks, and can transform into a hybrid form 1/short rest up to one hour but can be ended as a bonus action. This alternate form grants resistance vs nonmagical non-silver weapons, +1 to +3 bonus to melee damage rolls, and better unarmed damage. But they suffer from Bloodlust, which is the potential to attack their own allies on a failed Wisdom save if they’re under 50% hit points and no enemies are nearby! Even worse, this save is automatically failed if the Blood Hunter ever suffers from an effect that would make them lose focus on a concentration spell or ability. At 7th level they add 10 feet to their base speed and add +1 to +3 on unarmed attack rolls, and said attacks are treated as magical when undergoing a Crimson Rite. At 11th level they gain more uses of their wereform, and can regenerate hit points every round when between 1 hit point and under 50% of their total. At 15th level they gain advantage on attacks vs branded creatures and on Wisdom saving throws to avoid friendly firing allies. At 18th level they can transform an unlimited amount of times and can last indefinitely in said form in addition to gaining Blood Curse of the Howl. This is my least favorite Order. The others had a nice mixture of combat and utility features, but the Order of the Lycan is geared almost entirely to combat save for their Perception advantage. Furthermore, the chance of attacking one’s own allies forces the rest of the players to build their characters a certain way to avoid accidental team-killing. It is very reminiscent of the Frenzied Berserker from 3rd Edition. For those unfamiliar with said system, the Berserker was similar in that it had Frenzy, a super-barbarian rage equivalent, but had the chance of attacking their own allies. As the Frenzy can be triggered by a wide variety of things involuntarily, it was common for gaming groups to have a PC spellcaster act as a handler where they’d plop an enchantment spell to put them out of the frenzy. Conversely, an enemy spellcaster could do the very same thing to trigger it, so it was always a double-edged sword. Existing Class Comparisons: When it comes to monster hunter themes, a comparison with the Ranger is inevitable. Additionally, one particular Order also makes one think of the Warlock. Beyond these two classes, comparisons get murkier. First off, the basic Player’s Handbook Ranger sucks donkey dongs; it’s widely acknowledged as the weakest class in 5th Edition, and a huge portion of the fanbase prefers to play with the Revised version in Unearthed Arcana which is what we’ll use as a measuring stick. First off, the Blood Hunter is more likely than the Ranger to know things in general: having the various “knowledge” skills along with Intelligence as one of their primary ability scores, combined with advantage on said rolls for monsters and phenomena, does quite a bit to help. The Blood Hunter doesn’t get bonus languages, a static damage bonus vs favored enemies, or automatically does things good in the wilderness, but their ability to call upon various alternative energy types and compass-like Brand means that when it comes to hunting monsters they are unparalleled. One mark against the Blood Hunter is that they typically deal with foes of a more supernatural nature, while the Ranger has a wider variety of favored enemy choices and can communicate with mundane animals. Rangers are also better at stealth by default, barring access to the Blood Hunter’s warlock spells: hello invisibility! Another point in the Ranger’s favor is that they have spellcasting capability by default, and the spells they do get vary in utility and can include a few ‘team player’ options both in and out of combat. The Blood Hunter is rather lacking in features which can directly aid their fellow party members barring some Blood Maledictions, as most of their abilities involve enhancing their own prowess or reducing that of their foes. When it comes to the Warlock, a Blood Hunter belonging to the Order of the Profane Soul has less of everything in the magical department: they can only get a 4th level slot maximum, and even then at 19th level (1st at 3rd, +1 every 6 levels) and are at a static 2 spell slots for almost the entirety of their class. They can learn up to 3 cantrips and 11 normal spells as opposed to the warlock’s 4 and 15 so they’re a bit under par in the amount of spells that they know. The Blood Hunter’s inability to learn Eldritch Invocations robs them of some more useful at-will features of the base warlock, and their Eldritch Blasts are going to be less powerful should they learn said cantrip. But how do they compare to the Hexblade Patron, aka the Bladelock? Well, the Blood Hunter already has all of their major weapon/armor proficiencies, but with a higher hit dice to boot. Both classes have a good number of counterattack and debuffing abilities to use, drawing from respective short rest-refreshing sources. But the Blood Hunter has various abilities which draw independently of each other, while most of the Warlock’s arsenal of magic draws upon the same spell slots. Their Crimson Rites and Blood Maledictions are more versatile than the Hexblade’s Curse which is the subclass’ primary debuffer, which is a big point against the Bladelock. Another point is that the Blood Hunter can attack and cast a cantrip in the same round. But a point in the Bladelock’s favor is that they can summon specters to fight alongside them in combat, a feature which the Blood Hunter does not have an equivalent. Final Thoughts: The Blood Hunter is a pretty fine class, although it’s biggest weakness is that its various effects come at a cost. Even if said abilities are powerful, many players are loath to pick options with a negative effect unless they find some means of minimizing or countering it. I feel that Matt Mercer wanted to get across the double-edged nature of Witchers, but in 5th Edition mechanics the closest equivalent we have to this is the Berserker Barbarian who suffers a level of Exhaustion after every Rage. And guess how popular that subclass is among gamers? If I were to adopt the Blood Hunter to my games, I think that I would lower the damage of Hemocraft to a 1d2 or maybe a 1d3 at 1st and 2nd level, and likely redesign the Order of the Lycan to have broader out of combat use while also getting rid of that stupid friendly fire Bloodlust. Join us next time as we gotta catch ‘em all with the Caretaker Warlock!
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May 5, 2020 21:59
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Libertad! posted:I will admit that I never saw the Last Witch Hunter You haven't missed much to be honest. It's Vin Diesel being Vin Diesel pretty much and everyone thinking he's the coolest dude ever as a result.
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May 5, 2020 22:02
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It was a fun popcorn flick, but felt like an adaptation of someone's home game.
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May 5, 2020 22:18
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Bieeanshee posted:It was a fun popcorn flick, but felt like an adaptation of someone's home game. It was based on Vin Diesel's D&D character, so yeah, you're not too far off the mark there.
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May 5, 2020 22:21
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Man, Vin Diesel and Nick Cage seem like the two actors in Hollywood who are most living their dream.
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May 5, 2020 22:25
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 Aftermath, the third book in the YKRPG set, is heavily based on Robert W. Chambers's story “The Repairer of Reputations,” which you should read. In “Repairer,” Hildred Castaigne firmly believes he is destined to become emperor of the United States with the support of the enigmatic Mr. Wilde and the Cult of the Yellow Sign. But at the end of the story, it is revealed that Castaigne is delusional and that the Cult doesn't exist, and his fantasies of imperial heritage are as unreal as the cheap brass crown he believes is solid gold. But what if he was right? What if Castaigne successfully took over America in 1920, with help from Carcosa and the Yellow King, and the country was ruled by his descendants for decades? In Aftermath, the PCs are former freedom fighters who took part in the battle to overthrow the Castaigne dynasty – and now have to confront the question of how to rebuild the country. Aftermath is set in the same time line as Paris and The Wars, and in the present day. Besides the usual choice as to whether to play at Occult Adventures or Horror level, Aftermath can be played at one of three Weirdness Levels: - In an Overt game, everyone knows about the Yellow King and Carcosa, and how they backed Castaigne's coup, as well as the monsters still left roaming the country after the Castaignes were deposed. - In a Fading game, people used to know about Carcosa, but most people (except the PCs, and other exceptional types) are forgetting that there was anything supernatural about the Castaigne era. Even photographs and paper records are changing to eliminate evidence of the supernatural, perhaps due to the King's influence. - In a Covert game, the Castaignes kept the existence of Carcosa secret from the general public. The PCs learned about the supernatural during the fight to free America, but they and the current provisional government keep the knowledge hidden as well because it would only terrify the public. Once again, PCs are created by choosing an Investigative Kit and assigning general abilities. One player gets the Government Lethal Chamber Technician kit. The Government Lethal Chambers, mentioned at the start of “The Repairer of Reputations,” are suicide booths freely open to anyone, and will probably provoke a lot of Futurama references. The other Investigative Kits include: Journalist Marketing Coordinator Waiter Doctor Photographer Security Guard These Kits represent what you were doing before the revolution broke out; you may have returned to your old job since, or you may be doing something new. If you've played The Wars, Laws suggests assigning the Lethal Chamber Technician kit to whoever had the highest Mechanics ability. The Writer becomes the Journalist, the Merchant becomes the Marketing Coordinator, the Peasant becomes the Waiter, the Medical Student becomes the Doctor, the Photographer stays the Photographer, and the Sergeant becomes the Security Guard. Extra kits can be given to the person who played the Lieutenant. Again, however, there's no requirement to do it this way, and you can let the PCs choose whatever Investigative Kits appeal to them. Investigative abilities in Aftermath include: Accounting Architecture Art History Bullshit Detector (“Assess Honesty, renamed for a less genteel era”) Bureaucracy Cop Talk Counterinsurgency (using your old insurgency skills to investigate terrorism) Flattery Forensic Anthropology History Inspiration Interrogation Intimidation Intuition Law Leadership Medicine Negotiation Occultism People Person (making buddies everywhere you go) Photography Psychology Reassurance Research Science Streetwise Technology Trivia There are no General Kits for this campaign. Instead, players get 46 (Horror) or 52 (Occult Adventures) points to assign to the following General Abilities: Athletics, Composure, Driving, Fighting, First Aid, Health, Insurgency, Mechanics, Morale, Network, Politics, Preparedness, Sense Trouble, and Sneaking. Of those, the only new ones are Insurgency, which is Traps and Bombs from The Wars plus the ability to plan guerrilla warfare and sneak attacks; Network, which enables you to find people to do small tasks for you; and Politics, which is used to pursue your group's Goal, about which more later.
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May 5, 2020 23:57
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Cooked Auto posted:I tried playing and ended up absolutely hating the hacking minigame to the point it made me rather unenthused at playing the rest of it. wiegieman posted:I genuinely, to this day, do not understand the problem people have with AP hacking. It's fine on a controller, but on mouse and keyboard it is hell.
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May 6, 2020 00:02
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Well completed my latest thread catch-up. Regarding Hunter: the Reckoning-what if this was all just a way to trick people into playing extras in LARPs? "Oh sure you're a full participant! Just one that has no powers and runs away from everything!"
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May 6, 2020 00:19
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Night10194 posted:And yes, I know the long travelogue had little to do with the adventure, but it's a goddamn long way to just handwave them traveling all the way across not-France. This would probably stand out to me as one of the high points of the campaign.
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May 6, 2020 00:53
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One of my low key favorite things about Warhammer is that the placement of just about every major city makes sense and the world actually relies on river and water transport to a realistic degree. Any time your PCs can get on a boat to go somewhere, they will get there faster, safer, and cheaper and they absolutely should. Places that aren't on water routes are either smaller or have something very special to keep them populated, like Middenheim's location on the Falschlag.
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May 6, 2020 00:59
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Chapter 7: Battle, pt. 2 Degenesis Rebirth Katharsys Chapter 7: Battle Memnaelar posted:Hooray! Now to catch up to here! Attack Explains the “Combat Skills” bit of “Combat Skills and Their Counterparts.” Active Defense Now we're moving into “Agility The God-Stat” territory! You see, you can spend an unspent Actions to defend actively. So barring Potentials or whatever, if you spent your one action early in the Initiative ladder, you're left holding your dick in your hands with Defense 1 (besides modifiers for Movement, etc.). If you use up that action before your turn, you're just out of luck when it comes to your active turn (you can still run away, seeing how Movement is free). Mobbing up is great, since you can't actively defend more than you have actions (unless NPCs get special rules for that). To defend in an active manner, you can Dodge ranged attacks with AGI+Mobility (the text doesn't say that this applies to melee as well, but the formula below the text does) or with BOD+Melee (or Brawl) to parry and block. If you win or tie, you don't get damaged. If you blocked melee with a combat ability (so, not AGI+Mobility, I guess), you counter-attack. The text is unclear, but if you win the active defense AND roll 3T or more, you auto-hit? Roll damage. Even the formula says “attacker is hurt” which is some natural language right there  Reload One action unless you have a muzzle-loader or some other slow-to-reload weapon.  These two pistols will take five days to reload, by which time he will have already been killed by the Frazetta Background Horde Changing weapons Dropping weapons is free, picking up (or taking them out of your hip holster) etc. imposes -2D on “related Action, whether a defense or an attack.” If you need to Interactions If interacting with the environment “costs a few seconds of attention,” it costs an action. Special actions These are the ones you gain from your Cult and Rank, and their effects and costs are described there. Weapons quote:Every weapon can be expressed in numbers in the KatharSys, and those numbers are summarized in the weapon profile. Name The magical name of the weapon that gives the one who knows it- wait, no, it's just the name of the weapon. Handling How uneweildy your weapon is. Adds or subtracts dice from attack and defense rolls. Distance Degenesis trips all over itself to explain dice penalties depending on range. There's none for effective range, -4D for Far Shot, -8D for extreme shot. Damage Some weapons have a set damage score. Others can have “F” in the formula – that means that the weapon relies on BOD+Force score in some way (we're FFG'ing this, boys!). It probably only applies to melee weapons, but it would be funny if it also went for spears and bows. Magazine I mean, do I need to explain? However, this text also says that every attack uses one shot, which raises questions about possible rapid fire weapons and trading ammo between guns. Qualities Special rules for weapons Encumbrance Weapon heavy, what do? If the weight of your poo poo is more than BOD+Force, you take a penalty equal to the difference between the weight and stat. BOD+Force slowly making way to God-Stat status. Hope you can find a backpack with quick-release straps. A reminder: Johann the Goon-Spitalian has 2 in Body and 0 in Force. Just for kicks, I looked faaar ahead and Splayer the Spitalian specialty spear is Encumbrance 3 while the Spitalian suit is Encumbrance 2. Rules-as-understood-by-JcDent, Johann is getting -3D on every roll for having the temerity to use his iconic equipment. Slots and Tech Level Slots allow you to modify a weapon, Tech Level determines the level of augmentations you can use. Armor Seeing how defending is kinda hard, you need to wrap yourself in many layers of corrugated paper to survive.  Meanwhile, the Jehammedan bro here better hope his Male-Pattern Sexy Armor provides enough defense against the horde after he spends his one action shooting his bow Name As described by ISO 69420. Armor rating Subtract this from weapon damage and take the result in wounds. Qualities What makes your armor special. Encumbrance Can you even afford to have both a weapon and some protection? Slots and Tech Level You probably already know what that means. Next time: We learn how to construct AN, the Not!United Nations from Mercenaries 2: World in Flames
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May 6, 2020 07:39
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Night10194 posted:But first we have to get into what Mousillon is like. I'm a little sad this book doesn't lean into the impression of Mousillon from Knights of the Grail, as a more theatrical sort of evil barony It'd be tempting to run Mousillon as-is on the basis that even when they're setting out to be bad, Bretts don't know any other way to do it than to reach for the storybooks. They paint their armour black and brood at crossroads because they genuinely think that's how you do evil. Every time the Sylvanians visit they get very awkward and leave early.
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May 6, 2020 08:51
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 Spellcasting in RoleMaster uses a Power Point system: a spell-casting character has a certain number of Power Points based on their casting stat, casting a spell of n level costs n Power Points, and a spellcaster regenerates all their PP after eight hours of rest. ___  Using D&D stats again as a convenient shorthand for describing how this works, a stat of 13 to 15 gives a character one PP/level, a stat of 16 or 17 gives two PP/level, and a stat of 18 gives three PP/level. A level 3 spellcaster with 14 in their spellcasting stat would have a total of 3 PP, which comes out to a three, level-1 spells, or one level-3 spells, or any combination thereof. This is not a lot of PP starting out, so the game makes it a point to talk about the importance of Power Point Multiplier and Spell Adder items. A Power Point Multiplier item, simply, multiplies a spellcaster's PP maximums by that much. If our level 3 spellcaster has a 2x Power Point Multiplier, then they would have a total of 6 PP. A Spell Adder, on the other hand, lets a spellcaster cast so many number of spells, of any level, without expending any PP. If our level 3 spellcaster has a Spell Adder +2 item, then they can cast any two spells they know, of any level, at no cost to their PP. ___ I've been using the phrase "spellcasting stat" generically, so let's dig into that. RM divides its spells into three "Realms of Power": Essence, Channeling, and Mentalism. Essence roughly corresponds to elemental or arcane magic, Channeling is directly analogous to divine magic, and Mentalism is psionics. In terms of spellcasting stats, RM assigns its Empathy stat to Essence, or Intelligence if one were using D&D; the Intuition stat to Channeling, or D&D's Wisdom; and the Presence stat to Mentalism, or D&D's Charisma. ___ RM also classifies spells into Class III, Class II, and Class I spells. Class III spells require three combat rounds of casting, two combat rounds of "preparation", and then they take effect on the sixth round. If a spell is of equal level, or one level less, or two levels less, than the spellcaster, it is a Class III spell. Class II spells require two combat rounds of casting, one combat round of preparation, and then they take effect on the fourth round. If a spell is three, four, or five levels lower than the spellcaster, it is a Class II spell. Class I spells require one combat round of casting, and then takes effect on the succeeding round. If a spell is six or more levels lower than the spellcaster, it is a Class I spell. In our example of a level 3 spellcaster, all of their spells would be considered Class III spells. If they make it to being a level 4 spellcaster, then their level 1 spells would be considered Class II spells. This is important as far as how it slots into the game's initiative system and reining in the potential power of spells, by making it so that it a caster that's about to drop a combat-ending spell may need to endure six rounds on uninterrupted casting before it can go off. For example, there is a spell under Mentalism that can cause a target to fall asleep, but it is a level 2 spell, so only a level 8+ spellcaster would be able to cast it as a Class I spell, and even then, it would take two rounds to take effect, as compared to D&D where a level 1 Magic-User can learn Sleep and have it go off in round 1 (and also affect multiple target rather than just the one). ___ The act of spellcasting itself is also subject to some rules. If the spell is a Non-attack Spell, then the caster makes a [d100 + character level] roll, and if the result is 3 or higher, the spell is successfully cast. If the spell is a Base Attack Spell, first, the caster makes a d100 roll, modified by their character level, the distance to the target, and a modifier based on the target's armor versus the spell's Realm of Power:  That will gives us the Base Attack Roll. Then, the target gets to make a Resistance Roll, which is a d100, modified by a stat depending on the Realm of Power (i.e. d100 + Empathy / Intelligence modifier to resist an Essence spell). The target number for the Resistance Roll is based on another table:  The level of the spellcaster determines the column, the level spell's target determines the row, and the resulting cross-reference, plus the caster's Base Attack Roll, is the target number needed to successfully resist the spell. Example: Our level 3 spellcaster with 14 Intelligence (let's say they're an Essence caster) would roll d100, +3 for being level 3, and +5 for having 14 Intelligence. Let's say the target is 55 feet away, so that applies a -10 modifier, and the target is wearing metal armor. They roll a 74. According to the Base Spell Attack Table, a(n unmodified) roll of 74 of an Essence spell against a target wearing metal armor applies a modifier of -25. Taking all the modifiers together [74+3+5-10-25] gives us a final Base Attack Roll of 47. Then, let's say our target is a level 2 character with 16 Intelligence. A spellcaster level of 3, cross-referenced against a target level of 2, gives us a 55 on the Resistance Roll Table. If we add the Base Attack Roll of 47, we get a final target number of 102. The target then rolls d100, +15 from having 16 Intelligence against an Essence spell. If the result is 102 or higher, then they resist the spell. If the result is 101 or less, they suffer the spell's full effects. There is a third kind of spellcasting, called an Elemental Attack Roll. This is rather similar to weapon-based combat: the spellcaster rolls d100, and adds their character level and a number of other modifiers (including the target's DB), and refers to a chart:   The modified roll is cross-referenced against the target's armor type, and the result corresponds to the amount of damage dealt, and like in weapon attacks, a letter corresponds to a critical strike that needs a follow-up roll as well:   ___ The last mechanic I'm going to mention in this post is that there's a fairly involved process for actually learning new spells where you roll for learning them, but it's far too complicated and it's much easier to simply convert every "Spell List" into its own skill, and learning a skill up to a certain level means you get to learn all the spells, of that list, up to that level. And in that one paragraph I've now opened up having to talk about learning skills in RM, as well as "Spell Lists". The latter I will cover in the next post, but the former is part of "the whole rest of RM", so that will have to wait. ___ Up next: Spell Law, Part 2, the spells themselves
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May 6, 2020 10:26
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JcDent posted:Chapter 7: Battle, pt. 2 Ah, Degenesis. I can always rely on you for an overly complicated system for small details stuff while completely losing track of the big picture.
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May 6, 2020 11:01
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Night's Black Agents: Solo Ops Part Eight: Never Say Dead, Chapter One Looks like "Bourne" won in a landslide, so for this operation, Leyla will be focusing on intel gathering, escape and evasion, and minimizing collateral damage--when she does go on the offensive, it will be a precise, surgical strike with clear objectives and an exit strategy. So, with that in mind, let's meet our protagonist: Leyla Khan Born in Beirut, the daughter of a British diplomat and a Lebanese academic, Leyla grew up in Lebanon but moved to the UK in her mid-teens. She excelled both academically and athletically, and after studying history and politics at Cambridge, she joined the SIS. After a few years, she was assigned as an asset handler in the Cairo office, tracing dark money and terrorist suspects across Europe, the Middle East, and North Africa. At some point during that time, she was noticed and suborned by a vampire of the Transylvanian line called Jovitzo, forced to serve as his pet spy and assassin. She has recently, through means she doesn't yet remember, broken free of Jovitzo's control, though the act did severe damage to her memory. I actually overstated her amnesia before--according to the book, it's "only" the last five years, when she was Jovitzo's blood thrall, that she's mostly lost. I'm still going to play her as though she has near-total amnesia, though, because it's more fun. Her character sheet, with my choices for Mastery Edges, is as follows: pre:Leyla Khan Investigative Abilities Bullshit Detector, Charm, Criminology, Electronic Surveillance, High Society, Human Terrain, Intimidation, Notice, Outdoor Survival, Reassurance, Research, Streetwise, Tradecraft, Traffic Analysis, Urban Survival Pushes: 3 General Abilities Ability Depleted? Athletics 2 [ ] Conceal 2 [ ] Cool 2 [ ] Cover 2 [ ] Driving 2 [ ] Evasion 2 [ ] Fighting 2 [ ] Filch 2 [ ] Infiltration 2 [ ] Mechanics 2 [ ] Medic 2 [ ] Network 2 [ ] Preparedness 2 [ ] Sense Trouble 2 [ ] Shooting 2 [ ] Surveillance 2 [ ] Mastery Edges Ice Cold (Cool) En Garde (Sense Trouble) Stealth Operator (Infiltration) Discard to ignore all penalties Discard when you gain a Shadow Discard to automatically Hold in a to a test. Problem to refresh all dice pools. Fighting challenge when ambushing. She comes to in a haze of pain, confusion, and a sharp, almost soapy taste in her mouth that some part of her brain identifies, inexplicably, as "grandma candy." She's lying in a hospital bed in a small, private room, wearing one of those embarassing paper hospital gowns. An IV drip is in one arm, and a thick bandage low on her right side over a dull, throbbing ache. Feels like a gunshot wound, she thinks, and doesn't question how she knows what a gunshot wound feels like. Outside the window, lengthening shadows crawl like spidery fingers down thickly-forested hills and mountains. By this point she's no longer surprised when she recognizes them as the Carpathians even though she has no recollection of having ever been there. (Leyla starts this operation with an Injury Problem: "Beaten Up," which is a bit of an odd name given that her injury is described as a gunshot, but hey.) Because she's an action-movie protagonist, she does the first thing any action movie protagonist does upon waking up alone in a strange hospital room: she yanks the IV out of her arm (and speaking as someone who has had a lot of IVs in his life, gaaaaaaah!) and peels off the sensors monitoring her heart rate and other probably-important things. A machine starts trilling a signal loss alarm, and she automatically switches it off without thinking about it. The chart at the foot of her bed gives her name as "KHAN, LEYLA," so at least that's one mystery solved. There's a flat-pack wardrobe in the corner of the hospital room, and hanging inside are a set of clothes: hiking gear, it looks like. All new, but not like fresh-off-the-rack new: looks like they were bought expressly for a hiking trip. Is that who she was? A tourist on her first backpacking trip through Eastern Europe, who... got accidentally shot by a hunter in the woods? Leyla further Notices that several tears in the shirt have been neatly sewn up, and the zipper on the jacket is missing a few teeth. It looks like a big animal tried to maul her, but how the hell does that square with a gunshot wound in her side? In any event, she gets dressed (and is not surprised to discover they're all in her size), because whatever the hell situation she's in, she's pretty sure it will not be improved by facing it in a paper gown with her rear end hanging out. A small rucksack tucked into the corner of the wardrobe doesn't provide much more--another change of clothes and a few extra pairs of socks and underwear, but no ID, no wallet, no money, no gun. There is, however, a cheap, older-model cell phone in a side pocket (prepaid burner phone, the Tradecraft part of her brain recognizes). It's locked with a six-digit PIN that her fingers put in on autopilot, but there are no call logs, no text messages, no saved numbers. In fact, the only thing on the phone at all is a text file, containing the address of something called the Gellért Hill Cave Church in Budapest. This is a problem. She's still hazy on the who and the why, but she knows that someone very dangerous is looking for her, and that without proper gear she's in real trouble. (At this point Leyla picks up the Problem "Running on Empty:" Until she gets her hands on a cache of gear, she can't make Preparedness or Shooting tests.) As she's trying to figure out what to about this, the door opens to admit a young woman in purple scrubs. Her ID badge declares her to be "Magdalena Halmi," and after getting over her start at finding her patient out of bed and dressed, she adopts that tone that nurses everywhere in the world seems to have mastered and disapprovingly tells Leyla to get back in bed so she can change her bandages (in Hungarian, which it turns out Leyla speaks fluently. Handy that.) Leyla is torn--on the one hand, she knows she needs to keep moving, but on the other, she needs intel, and if things go sideways, the last thing she wants is to rip open a gunshot wound. Reluctantly, she gets back in bed and lets Nurse Magda take care of her. While her wound is being taken care of, Leyla subtly questions Magda about what happened to her. Apparently, she's at a small, private hospital in Esztergom, about 50 km outside Budapest. Local police found her unconscious on the side of the road earlier that morning and brought her here. Leyla asks how, if she was unconscious and had no ID, the hospital knew her name. Magda looks confused and says her passport was in her backpack. When Leyla informs her that it's missing, Magda says "Dr. Vertag" must have taken it to check her status with the police. That strikes Leyla as highly suspect, but her Bullshit Detector isn't pinging on Magda--the nurse seems to genuinely believe this is a plausible explanation. (Letting Magda treat her wounds counts as taking time, which means we can discard "Beaten Up." Normally we'd first let Magda make a Medic test to remove Injury cards first, but in this case it doesn't matter because we only have one Injury. Discarded injuries are replaced by half as many (round down) Hurt cards, and half of 1 rounded down is 0. We're early enough in the operation that we have no Blowback, Heat, or Shadow problems, but taking time here causes the rest of the opening to play out a little differently. Such as...) Speak of the proverbial devil, Dr. Vertag himself ambles into the room just as Magda is finishing up. He's a big, bearlike man with sleepy eyes and a bushy beard. He puts up a gentle demeanor, but there's something mean in the cast of his expression that makes Leyla think it's an act. He looks even more startled than Magda did that Leyla is up and moving, and snaps peevishly that the nurse should have called him immediately if the patient woke up. He spins her the same story that Magda did, about the cops finding her on the side of the road and bringing her to his hospital, but Leyla's Bullshit Detector is pinging like crazy. Maybe it was the tone in his voice when he said "if the patient woke up," like he knew she wasn't supposed to. Maybe it's the way he keeps not-so-casually shuffling toward her while fumbling with something in his lab coat pocket. Either way, Leyla's on high alert, and when he lunges at her with a syringe, Leyla's hand snaps out, jabbing a nerve cluster in his inner elbow to force him to drop it right into her waiting hand, then easily twists him into an armlock. Magda's eyes are as round as saucers, she's too stunned to even shout for security. It's our first challenge of the operation! This is a Sense Trouble test to recognize that Vertag--who is, of course, in the pocket of the vampires--is about to try to drug her. The Advance difficulty is 7+, and Leyla comes out strong with a 5 on the first d6. We could just roll the second die and be reasonably sure of an Advance, but I'm going to use a Fighting stunt (the nerve strike and armlock) for an extra die at this point. My second roll is a 4, which means we've hit the Advance threshold without rolling all of our dice, meaning we pick up a Push--which we'll use in the very next beat. Also, because we Advanced, we pick up the edge "Syringe Full of Propofol," which lets us replace any Fighting Challenge with a quick Filch (4+) test to automatically Advance. It's not a sidearm, but it's something. With Vertag contained, Leyla uses that Push she just picked up on Interrogation. Vertag admits that he takes regular payouts from some kind of criminal organization to take care of problems for them--no-questions-asked surgery, pharmaceutical supplies, etc. He doesn't know who they are or what they do, but his main point of contact is another Englishman called Sinclair. At this name, Leyla has a sudden flash of memory: John Sinclair, former SAS. Friend. Fellow exile. Fellow thrall. In her mind's eye she sees him, smiling as he cuts a prisoner's throat. And something else: his address in Budapest. The Edges are flowing fast here, as Leyla picks up "Memories of Sinclair," which she can discard for a free Push or bonus die against Sinclair. We'll bank that for later. Vertag doesn't appear to notice her momentary reverie, and Magda is too appalled at realizing that her boss, who is kind of a dick but always seemed like a basically good doctor, is in fact the kind of person who would drug a woman and sell her to the mob, so Leyla orders him to tell her how she factors into this. Vertag tells her that Sinclair told him that, if an injured woman matching Leyla's description should turn up in his hospital, Vertag was to keep her sedated and call Sinclair immediately. As far as Vertag is concerned, she's welcome to him--the money is good, but ever since he started working for this gang there's been entirely too much weird poo poo going on in his hospital. Leyla encourages him to elaborate--break-ins at the morgue, patients dying of acute anemia after multiple transfusions, creepy half-heard whispers in the halls late at night... things Leyla immediately recognizes. As to how long she has before Sinclair and his goons show up? The squealing of tires outside in the parking lot would appear to answer that. TO BE CONTINUED Had we not taken time to let Magda patch up Leyla's wounds, we'd have a little time before the goons show up--long enough to search Vertag's office, find the gear he stole from her, and discard "Running on Empty." As it is, we're going to have to GTFO on the double. Overall, I like the beginning of this adventure--it eases you into using Investigative and General abilities nicely, but this first scene is pretty busy--there's actually a whole other beat that's supposed to go after meeting Magda that I skipped because it felt like too much. I'll try to fold it into the escape scene next update, but its main purpose is to be a potential secondary vector into meeting Vertag, as he only enters the operation if the player takes time or kicks up enough of a fuss that someone (probably Magda) decides she needs to be sedated for her own safety. I prefer the version we experienced, because it makes the fact that Vertag is trying to sedate Leyla for nefarious purposes more apparent. In any case, next episode we'll get our first glimpse of the residual effects of Leyla spending five years as a vampire thrall, head into Budapest and see about acquiring some proper gear before we decide which of our two current leads (Sinclair or the church) to follow up on. Next Time: Kill Team GimpInBlack fucked around with this message at 11:50 on May 6, 2020 |
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May 6, 2020 11:06
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 Heart: The City Beneath 12 - Landmarks, Tier 3 and Rogue Landmark The last of the 'fixed' Landmarks are those found on Tier 3. Here the laws of reality have long since been deserted, and the laws of the Heart hold sway - gravity fluxes any which way, time stretches or leaps forwards and notions of direction and distance are entirely arbitary. Safe Havens and Haunts are few and far between, and travel between Landmarks can take weeks or just a few minutes. Forgot to mention is before, but most of the sample landmarks also have potential plot-hooks listed for them, which are generally a good reason for one faction or another to hire the players to go there. The Tier 3 Landmarks tend to be particuarly rich. Briar is a twilit forest, dark and tangled and populated by countless beasts, strange and dangerous. Hunters from House Gryndel are a not-uncommon sight here and can prove a useful source of supplies - they consider this one of the finest hunting-grounds in the Heart, and drag many bizarre trophies up-Spire. When the advance of the 33rd Regiment ground to a halt, these veteren fighters did what they new best, they dug in. The Bunker is the Landmark where they made their eternal last stand. It's a forest of razor-wire, criss-crossed with trenches and the occult pseudo-ghosts of the soldiers of the regiment. The Hounds make pilgrimages here - this is where the commanders of the 33rd carried out whatever ritual left them in their current state of limbo. Cairnmor is the grand barrow of an ancient King, nameless and forgotten. The tree above the barrow fell some time in the distant past, its golden sap leaking into the tomb. The old King and his court now exist in a perpetual drunken revel as a bunch of pissed-up revenants. The Ghastling Plain is a sea of ash, beneath a ceiling of ever-burning embers. People live here, amongst the desolation; long-houses built on stilts support fisher-folk who catch the eyeless lizards and ash-squid that swim across the plains. It's a good source of trading goods - the ink sacs of the squids are especially prized upspire. The Maw is the ultimate place of devotion to the Hungry Deep, a shrine to decay and entropy. The cultists here, their lives prolonged by the blessing of the place, commune with the ancient obelisk at its heart, from which a pit and stair descends far, far deeper; maybe even to the Heart itself. The Moon Grove is a holy place, the resting-place of the truly faithful to the Moon Beneath; so blessed by their deity that they can no longer move, their bodies covered in unblinking black eyes. They are interred here, still breathing, beneath the eternal light of the Moon Beneath. It's a peaceful place, but it's easy to be overwhelmed by the sacred power and piety of the landmark. Grave-robbers are rare, successful ones even more so. See bloodborne for an idea of the Moon Beneath's 'blessings'. It's not a malevolent force, it's just not the right kind of benevolence for our reality. The Gnolls of the far Nujub are portrayed by their Aelfir enemies as bestial, violent creatures, but this couldn't be further from the truth - they are massively accomplished occult engineers with science that is, in some areas, massively more advanced than anything known to elf or man. The Plaza of Silicate Flowers, Misallocated is one such feat; a silicon construct that captures the sun's light, spreading it across the district in a multitude of colours throughout the night. The Institute of Celestial Ontolofy at the center was one of Nujub's great places of research and learning. Until they tried tapping the Source, the gnoll's artificial afterlife. Now it's been dragged into the Heart, and the inhabitants are just trying to survive, trading with whoever dares make it down this far. The deepest of the temples of the Moon Beneath, The Temple of Tenacity is a blasted place on top of an ever-burning fire. The few zealots who make their home here are really there because they just can't stand people, and take out their issues on visiting pilgrims. Terminus is home to one of the great Nexus Devices of the Vermissian - a turntable in three dimensions that can be turned right, left, up, down, strangewise, and other, less orthodox directions. Despite the fact that trains aren't running on the network, the Nexus Devices still operate according to some long-lost timetable, tapping directly into the Heart itself. Theoretically, you could travel anywhere on the Vermissian from here; even the parts that are otherwise inaccessible, or nonexistant. Wardstone Nasonov is the greatest acheievment of the Deep Apiarists; an island of stability place on the threashold of the Heart itself. Members of the sect travel here every year to sacrifice part of their hive; there's little food and the stress of keeping the wardstone operational is quickly too much for them to handle, so the swarm must be constantly refreshed. Rogue Landmarks These are sites that don't stay put, not even within the same tier, instead they wander throughout the Heart, turning up in all sorts of places. Magi-mal's Domain is the lair of the only Midwife to have survived also becoming a blood-witch. She's horribly powerful, and fortunately for the City Above, spends most of her time roaming around the City Below, her lair following along behind her. Woe betide those who cross her - at best you'll be eaten, at worst, she'll 'adopt' you as one of her children. The Room is a single, innocuous room - a simple bedsit, with clean, if tired furniture. But if you leave through one of the 'internal' doors, you'll end up in another copy of the same room, only slightly askew. These are actual physical spaces, and objects taken from one copy remain removed. It's a bad idea to do so, because things removed from the Room act as seeds - and there's a chance that they'll turn wherever they're placed into another copy of The Room itself. The worshipful Lady Salvatious Gryndel, before her eventual dissapearence deep into the Heart, aimed to set up a network of lodges; resting places for the members of her exclusive club. Budget and time contraints meant she had to fall back on the use of illegal human machinery and arcane sorcery - there is only one Salvatious Gryndel Hunting Club; it just has many, many doors. If you've got the key, you can enter this wood-panelled warren and mix with jaded noble hunters, utterly off their tits on brandy and illegal narcotics. Without a key, the doors will lead only to blank walls. Next: Fractures, sundry afterlives
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May 6, 2020 11:13
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Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay 2e: Barony of the Damned The Land of Despair After a few readthroughs, I actually think I like what Ben Counter is going for with Mousillon. It's not as 'fun' as the land of performative evil where people sing FIE ON GOODNESS FIE and all dress in black armor to pretend they're Chaos Warriors and Vampires (Chart likes 'people get into disguises and have a farce' like Schwalb likes 'and then you get covered in poo poo and mutate', and it's a much better thing to love in your writing) but it still fits with Bretonnia and the themes that make Bretonnia compelling. It goes a little over the top in the poverty and grimness in a way that makes it kind of implausible anyone survives in Mousillon, but when it comes to the actual theming and intent it works well. Chart is also still a secondary author, too. Counter also wrote Carrion Call, so it's kind of amusing that a party that was partly shaped by that adventure is here to see more. It's also actually quite fortuitous that the party are a bunch of established characters; the primary goal of Barony of the Damned is actually character development. Many of the decent things you can do are purely optional (though you do get rewarded with extra EXP) and you will have the chance to just walk away empty-handed rather than either take a huge risk or do something terrible, because which of those three things you choose says a lot about you. There's going to be a lot of Gilbert in this adventure and it's going to teach the heroic furious dumbass more than a little about being a Knight of Bretonnia. Reading this adventure, I am really glad they have a completely unironic knight who thinks the system works perfectly partly because he's 17 years old; it will gel really well with what happens here. Also, complex cycles of pig-based legends. I hope you're as excited about those as I am. But this is also a sourcebook, not purely an adventure book, so first we have to talk about the Lost Duchy. You see, Barony of the Damned is meant to set up a wider Mousillese Campaign if you want to play one, introducing villains and potential allies well beyond the scope of the adventure itself. Which is fine, because the hook it has for a Mousillese Campaign is actually quite cool. Still, first we're going to get a Mousillon Sourcebook before our heroes descend into the place. I also still need a name for their party and have struggled to come up with one. We begin with a story of Landuin d'Mousillon, the finest of all of Giles' knights. Landuin is herein depicted as a man who did not care for violence and killing. He was one of the greatest swordsmen ever to live, and his Virtue still inspires the best technical fighters in the setting (A Grail Knight of the Ideal gets a cap-breaking +5% more Str and WS; Sir Havel who beat the heck outta Gilbert is meant to be a man with a 90% WS as a result and one of the finest swordsmen possible) but he despaired of violence. He still fought, because there are terrible things that won't listen to any language but the lance and the sword, but he was gripped with sorrow when his own beloved Mousillon was besieged by the dead. He made his name when he single-handedly drove through the Necromancer's bodyguard to strike him down, letting the rest of the Grail Companions kill the crumbling undead and save the duchy. Landuin had fought with such fury because he blamed himself for the Undead even making it to Mousillon. When he had ridden forth to join Giles and meet the Lady, he had left behind a green and pleasant land at the mouth of the Grismerie river, rich in snails and without the taint of evil. He felt he should have been there to prevent the Undead ever menacing it in the first place. If there is one thing clear about Landuin d'Mousillon, he seems to have felt responsibility for everything. Absolutely everything. One of those people who takes the world on his shoulders and always wonders if he could have done something more. The damage to Mousillon was the beginning of his long depression. When he returned home to rebuild his home, the Grismerie had silted up and begun to turn the land near the harbor to swamp. He was still able to build a respectable duchy, but he never seemed to feel happy again. Thierulf d'Lyonesse tried to cheer him, but depending on the account, either there was some quarrel between them that is long since forgotten, or they argued over the love of a woman, or they argued over Thierulf blocking Landuin from being declared king and demanding it be given to Louis the Rash if he could succeed the first Grail Quest. Whatever the case, Thierulf was no match for the most skillful swordsman in the world, and was dealt a terrible blow that marked his face forever. Landuin withdrew, depressed at the murder of Giles, the fortunes of his land, and the everpresent violence of the world. He would eventually be found dead, supposedly of a broken heart and advanced age, despite the fact that Grail Knights rarely die of old age. Yes, I've always found something suspicious in Landuin's death, but then I find many things suspicious in the story of the Twelve Great Battles and the Companions of Giles. A function of not trusting the Lady in the least. Plus, I played a PC from Lyonesse, I know Lyonesse, and I sure as heck don't trust its founder. Lyonesse being the province of backstabbings, assassinations, and things getting kinda Crusader Kings 2. I'm not saying Thierulf murdered Landuin for scarring him in a duel or something, but it seems possible to me. But then I've always gotten the odd impression Thierulf is behind a fair number of Bretonnia's troubles, given he's the one whose positions all led directly to the Code of Chivalry as we know it and he's the one who supported the things that gave the Fae Enchantress the power to crown the king. But then I basically have an entire wall full of red strings that all point to THE LADY and I love Bretonnia so I probably ponder this stuff too much. It's unknown is Landuin was some sort of fisher king and the land came to reflect his sorrow, or if his growing sorrow was all a reflection of the land. The city of Mousillon and its river-valley became increasingly grey and swampy, supported only by the northern parts of the province where it still had clean water and good farmland. That would change with the story of Merovich the Butcher, a man hated both within and without Mousillon. You might remember him from Knights of the Grail. When the Skaven first unleashed the Red Pox on Bretonnia, he was the lunatic knight who came out of nowhere with a retinue of black knights seemingly immune to the plague. With the blessing of the fae, he fought side by side with the woodsy elfs to butcher squealing rats by the hundreds, and saved the country. Then he invited everyone home for a victory feast. Seeing he had criminals impaled and still dying outside his palace as decor, or that his home was brutal and metal in the extreme, the King dishonored his hospitality and called him a brute. Being a bit drunk, Merovich challenged him to a duel. They squared off for a fair fight, and Merovich ripped the King's throat out with his bare hands and drank his blood. Oddly it's kind of implied Merovich wasn't a vampire. Just inhumanly strong by some dark means. Lyonesse immediately pushed for the total destruction of Mousillon, or at least, the annexation of all the good parts of it, to be given to Lyonesse. The book emphasizes that point, because this is how Hams do sometimes: Yes, there's moral outrage about blood drinking and slaughter, but it also usually contains some political advantage for the person so outraged. Lyonesse taking all the actual good land in the coming war (with the blessing of the Fae who had originally been Merovich's allies) probably doomed the province to its current state. Merovich is hated outside Mousillon as a regicide and brutal monster, but within it as the person who gave Lyonesse the excuse they wanted. Two hundred years ago, something even worse happened. The Duke of Mousillon, Maldred, rebuilt the city and seemed to be restoring the land. He rose greatly in esteem with the people of Mousillon, who also loved his Lady Malfeur, and seemed in all things to be the successor to Landuin's legendary reputation. The problem is he then used a beauty contest between his lady and the Fae Enchantress to lure her into his castle and poison the poo poo out of her. Malfeur was a powerful dark sorceress and Maldred a dark lord, and they put the Enchantress into a deep sleep so she could no longer guide anyone to the Grail. This probably really annoyed Queen Ariel over in Athel Loren. With Grail Blessings falling off, people feared the crown had lost the mandate of the Enchantress, since no-one knew she was locked in Maldred's basement. Maldrad claimed he should be made rightful king, and even claimed he had found the actual Grail, and now he as King would distribute its blessings. This threatened a great civil war; with the Enchantress gone, and Maldrad being a warrior and lord of great reputation, many of the Knights and Nobles believed his claim. Eventually the actual Lady had to get involved and show the actual Grail, which sent Maldrad and his supporters running back to Mousillon. The royal armies followed to besiege him, but the city suffered the worst disease outbreak in its history as the Red Pox came back. It killed every single person in the besieged settlement, including Maldrad and Malfeur, despite their attempt to shut themselves up in the castle and ride it out. When the King's army finally opened the gates, they found a city of corpses. The King and the freed Enchantress declared: There would be no more Dukes of Mousillon. Mousillon had abandoned the Lady entirely, and the land would suffer in silence, no longer truly considered a part of Bretonnia. This has not helped Mousillon in the slightest, and a bit like Sigmar driving the Norsii into the northlands and exposing them to Chaos, this might come back to bite Bretonnia. Because right now there is a black knight rising in Mousillon, rallying against the very idea of Knighthood and claiming he has seen terrible truths about the Lady and the true contents of the Grail... One interesting bit about the plague: It probably wasn't the Skaven. The original Red Pox was. But since then the Skaven have just stationed a small research team in Mousillon to monitor the place. It doesn't have Warpstone and nothing here is worth killing, and they don't think they can make it worse. It feels...odd that Mousillon got hit by a terrible plague at exactly that moment to kill everyone in the city, and that since the Affair of the False Grail the land has become even more warped and dangerous and miserable. Almost as if some magical force was trying to wipe it out. You know, like the Fae. Again, I have a wall full of red string and this isn't in the text, but there's plenty of suspicion here as it is. I also always feel pretty bad for Landuin. I think he's my favorite of the Grail Companions. Next Time: The Land Today
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May 6, 2020 14:33
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Night's Black Agents: Solo Ops Part Nine: Never Say Dead, Chapter Two When last we left Leyla Khan, she had a crooked doctor in an armlock and had just heard a bunch of her old pal Sinclair's goons pulling up outside the hospital. Let's check back in on the current state of her character sheet: quote:Leyla Khan Leyla assesses the situation: out the window, she sees three big, black SUVs with tinted windows pull up in front of the hospital: standard-issue goonmobiles, an observation confirmed when eight thick-necked bruisers in leather jackets pour out of them. Four move as a group toward the main entrance, while the other four spread out around the building. Leyla knows this tactic: one team of four will come up to retrieve her, another team of four will spread out to secure the various exits to the building, and at least two will be in each car with the engines running in case they need to make a quick exit (that'll also be where Sinclair is running the grab from). The hospital itself is four stories tall, and Leyla is on the top floor. Her one advantage is that, as far as Sinclair and his goons are aware, she's dosed to the gills on Propofol and will be unconscious for hours. First step: Secure Dr. Vertag. He's no use as a hostage--Sinclair won't give a poo poo about him--but she can't leave him loose to call security on her. Magda provides a solution when she opens the wardrobe and suggests shoving him inside. She gives her boss (well, almost-certainly ex boss now) her coldest "disapproving nurse" glare before slamming the doors on him and wedging a chair against them. And then there's Magda. By all rights, Leyla should just tell the nurse to forget she ever saw Leyla and make her break for it. But... she knows Sinclair will leave no stone unturned when he finds that Leyla has slipped his net. He won't just take it on faith that Magda didn't help her, or have some inkling of where she might go. And if Sinclair's interrogation techniques are unpleasant, his Master's are far, far worse. Cursing quietly and wondering if her old self was this much of a soft touch, she tells the nurse to stick close to her and promises she'll get her out of here safely. Magda (who never bought that bullshit story about Leyla being a "lost, injured hiker" but recognizes a woman on the run from a bad man) nods and tells her that, aside from the one elevator in the middle of the building (it's a very small hospital), there are two stairwells at the north and south ends of the building. There's a service entrance on the ground floor that leads to the employee parking lot out back, and with that, Leyla has a plan. Palming her shiny new syringe full of knockout juice, she takes Magda by the hand and leads her into the hall. This is our first linked challenge, and our first one with real stakes. If we hadn't taken time earlier, we'd have been able to use our Infiltration dice as bonus dice on the initial Evasion challenge, I guess because we'd be moving before the goons had gotten into position, but we did, so we can't. We're going to run the default assumption of Evasion to get to the service door, Fighting to take out the guard there, and Mechanics to steal someone's car, though the book says we can adapt this challenge to the player's preferred approach--including making an Infiltration challenge if the player wants to sneak out, which seems weird since the Evasion challenge says you can't use that ability if you've taken time. We're also at -1 die to keep Magda safe, because y'all chose the Bourne playthrough so naturally we're roping the first attractive European woman we meet into our high-stakes espionage caper. Moving quickly, Leyla leads Magda out of her room. The elevator is a no-go--even if the goons aren't coming up it, it lets out in the lobby in full view of the main entrance. The south stairwell is both closer to the service entrance and farther from the elevator, so that's where Leyla heads--and the ding of the elevator behind her proves that that was the right call. They have a brief scare as Leyla's legs buckle and she has to catch herself on the wall--evidently there's still a little sedative in her system. But she powers through, and Leyla and Magda slip into the stairwell and out of sight. With only a single die to roll on this challenge, we got incredibly lucky and rolled a 5 on our first die. That puts us comfortably in Hold territory, but I'm looking at that -1 die penalty for keeping Magda safe and the fact that an Advance on this challenge gets us a bonus die on the next one. I don't want to deplete another ability by Stunting right now, so I'm gonna gamble and take an extra Problem. It's a fairly nasty one--for the rest of the scene we reroll any dice that come up 6--but we'll go for it anyways. And fortunately extra Problems take effect after the challenge, because we rolled a 6 on the bonus die, pushing us up to Advance territory. Luckily, there's only one goon guarding the service entrance. He doesn't appear to be packing--looks like Sinclair was hoping to make this a quiet operation. From her vantage point around a corner, Leyla can hear an angry squawking over the goon's radio--looks like the boys upstairs have discovered her missing. She takes advantage of his moment of distraction at the call to hit him--unlike Dr. Vertag, she's smart enough to have her syringe in-hand. But the meathead is quicker than he looks, or maybe she's still a little sluggish, because he twists away and all the needle catches is his leather jacket. poo poo. And finally the dice turn against us. Mindful of that depleted Fighting ability from last update and the -1 die for protecting Magda, I tried to use our "Syringe Full of Propofol" Edge to Advance out of this challenge for free. Unfortunately, that requires a quick Filch (4+) test to pull off, and even with the extra die from our last Advance we only scored a 3. We're now facing a Fighting challenge with effectively 0 dice. On the plus side, we only discard the syringe if the Filch test succeeds, so we still have that. The guard has of of those collapsible batons, and he's obviously had some training with it, because it flicks out and catches Leyla in the knee. She crumples, but doesn't go down, and slams a couple of quick knuckle-punches into his sternum. They grapple, smashing out through the service entrance, slamming each other into dumpsters, brick walls, and asphalt. Finally, Leyla bounces his head off an air conditioning unit and the goon drops. Leyla, battered and limping, with a nasty shiner swelling up on her left eye and relieves him of the baton. Magda quips that dammit, she just finished patching Leyla up and she went and busted herself again, clearly she can't be trusted to go off on her own. She may not know what Leyla's on the run from, but if there's anything Magda can do to help, she will. Leyla puts on her most Charming smile and says "how about a ride?" With no dice in our pool, we have no choice but to burn bonus dice to even have a chance to succeed. I decided to take an extra Problem, which in this case is a straightforward Injury card, and apparently this online dice roller I'm using really likes 5s--that's enough for a Hold, and honestly neither of the options on an Advance are terribly compelling here (another chance to pick up "Memories of Sinclair" if we missed it earlier or an option to interrogate the goon), so we're going to take what we can get. We have also fulfilled the requirements to turn Magda into a Contact! There are four potential triggers, of which you have to do any two:
Magda's car is a 30-year-old Yugo, which is... not the ideal car for a road chase. Fortunately, while she was stuffing Dr. Vertag into a wardrobe, Magda swiped his keys. She shrugs and says she figured Leyla might need a set of wheels, and any man who would sell a woman to... human traffickers? (she's still fishing for the real story) deserves to lose his BMW 6 Series midlife crisis machine. Leyla smiles, and Magda smiles back, and Leyla learns something else about herself that she didn't know before. They make it almost to the employee gate on the side of the parking lot before Sinclair's goons spot them. Leyla guns the engine and shoots out onto the main road, with the goonmobiles in hot pursuit. But Leyla drives this car like an extension of herself--barreling down narrow country roads and mountain switchbacks, cutting across oncoming traffic (out here on the outskirts of Esztergom, that mostly means big-rear end trucks hauling logs), and on one memorable occasion jumping a goddamn freight train (naturally, Leyla and Magda hold hands during the jump). One by one the pursuers drop away--the last one slamming into a tree and dramatically flipping into a ravine in a way that suggests its occupants will not be coming back to work any time soon (picking up the Edge "Attrition" in the process, which we can discard for a bonus die or a Push when we take advantage of the enemy's reduced numbers). Technically the free Advance on the car theft challenge is supposed to mean we get away free, but I wanted another action beat here so I decided to treat it as a Hold instead. In this case it was a pretty straightforward Driving challenge, and we rolled a 6 and a 3 on our Driving dice. Fortunately the car chase is a new scene, so we've discarded the "Still Woozy" problem that makes us reroll 6s. By the time the women are on the main highway to Budapest, the sun has nearly set, but they're free and clear of any pursuit. Maybe now they have time to take a little breather. Next Time: "Holy crap, BAAAAAAAAAAAAATS!"
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May 6, 2020 15:45
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Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay 2e: Barony of the Damned A Breakdown of Order The description of Mousillon as a land is where we get the theme this book is going for: Mousillon is Bretonnia without the romanticism and pretensions. It is Bretonnia with the illusions dropped and the brutality of its system made bare. This is what Bretonnia would look like if the nicer parts of normal Bretonnia just didn't exist, if all there was was the brutal relationship between peasant and noble and the grinding poverty and the raw, naked force that enforces both. It's grimmer than a land of performative evil, but it still fits. And there are still some really funny bits. The most important problems for Mousillon (besides starvation and plague and monsters) come from having no Duke and from being isolated from the rest of the country. Ever since the Affair of the False Grail, Mousillon has been treated like an exclusion zone. Bretonnia has set up watchtowers and castles along the borders, trying to prevent the spread of plague, and with Louen rumored to be planning to invade Mousillon again and try to fix the place in our current time of 2522 they are currently fully staffed and watching any passage in and out. As much as they can, anyway. This has made the population insular, and caused significant inbreeding. Much of the 'mutation' of the Mousilese peasantry isn't the work of Chaos but rather of being highly isolated populations that aren't very safe to travel. Some of it's probably Chaos, too. The nobility of Mousillon has no 'link' in the chain to provide Courts and hold anyone accountable for their actions. It turns out when you have a poor and brutal land ruled by warlords with no centralized authority, things get worse. The warlords of Mousillon keep the gap between Peasant and Knight even more fervently than the rest of Bretonnia, and most rule their people with a level of absolute power uncommon in the country. Mousillon's main income comes from swamping (catching frogs, snails, etc) and crime. Mousillon's city still has an excellent port even with the damage, and it's the only place you can load and unload contraband without the Merchant's Clubs taking a cut. The local knights and gangs do instead, but their cut is less. Sometimes contraband just stops in Mousillon before heading on to the Empire or Estalia. Sometimes it comes into Bretonnia and sails off up the Grismerie past the cordon. No cordon is perfect, and the Mousilese are smugglers in the way that only people whose primary provincial industry is smuggling can be. The peasants still try to farm, but with the silt and swamps, it's difficult to make much grow in Mousillon. The best land existing is near the edge of the Arden in the northeast, but that section of the Arden is dark and twisted, and full of peasant-eating monsters (even by Mousilese standards). Not many are brave enough to give it a try, especially with no reliable military force of knights to defend the villages that move up there. Mousillon does have one regular contact with the rest of Bretonnia besides the smuggling: Questing Knights love coming here to try to be the one to save the land, all by themselves. Plus, Mousillon is known to be full of black knights, undead rising from the old plague graves, Beastmen from the dark part of the Arden, and all kinds of monsters; what Questing Knight doesn't want to get in on that? It hasn't worked yet. Many never come back, some because they're dead as hell and some because they've taken to wearing black armor and settled down in the Land of Despair. While the gap between peasant and noble is even worse in Mousillon, the gender gap is much less stringently enforced. If a woman is a good fighter or a cunning ruler, she can take over her own property. It's hardly the oddest thing in the duchy, and with the general breakdown of normal Bretonnian society if you somehow get a decent ruler who is a lady who the hell is going to complain? Curiously some of this comes out of the knights not treating women with 'courtesy' as accorded in the Codes of Chivalry. Women aren't infantilized and placed on a pedestal, and the norms of courtesy that are designed to also reinforce that women are second class citizens don't really exist in this duchy. To a degree that plenty of women grow up without those norms, though even here plenty of ambitious women find it more convenient to dress as men if they want to do the knightly thing. It's just much less of a problem if you get caught, and much more of a possibility that if you never bothered you might make it anyway. This also leads to Mousillon being a haven for outlaws and revolutionaries. Who the hell is going to follow you into the Lost Duchy? Plus, there's always work for a good sellsword or a keen hand with a bow. Unlike the rest of Bretonnia, the Knights here are perfectly comfortable employing guns, crossbows, and other 'dishonorable' tactics and are happy to hire mercenaries and thugs. This is actually one of the things that might make the Black Knight a problem for Bretonnia if he puts together an army in Mousillon; with all the smuggling, he would have access to modern arms and followers who are very willing to use them. That might be a problem for the realm. Mousilese also like to use feudal oaths to trick more normal knights into being forced to serve them, and enjoy kidnapping artists so they can bring some cheer to their dark and swampy land. It's a poor Knight of Mousillon who hasn't kidnapped at least one beautiful damsel or handsome young knight through trickery, and if you don't even have a minstrel sadly singing about how he wishes he could see Brionne again chained to your throne what are you even doing? I do like that they keep the kidnapping of beautiful young Bretonnians and artists unisex; it isn't all menacing maidens and damsels in distress. Mousillon is also very lacking in Grail Damsels, because they were ordered to abandon the land. Also, the knights aren't the sort who rescue damsels, so any who break the quarantine orders to go mess around in the duchy tend to run afoul of its many peasant-eating monsters, who are quite happy to eat Grail Damsels when they can't get peasants. In essence, they realize that going to Mousillon would leave them unsupported Warhams Wizards, and the Damsels are generally smart enough not to do that. Mousillon is also known for its animal trials. Peasants are fond of putting animals on trial, for surprisingly elaborate crimes. Sometimes the animal even wins. Sometimes the animal is instead executed for their crimes, and consumed by the peasantry. Chickens are some of the most common defendants, usually for crimes like witchcraft, but it's not terribly uncommon to see a chicken being brought up on 'racketeering, bigamy, and sedition'. The Mousilese Major Crimes Task Force would have a field day with Nugget's ties to organized crime through his real estate fortunes if they ever got hold of him. All manner of animals face trials, probably because this is the only place peasants can express legal control of things and most of these creatures are edible. In fact, pigs are often falsely accused because often the village pig lives better than some of the peasants; pigs are symbols of great wealth in Mousillon and a fat village pig can be the target of jealousy and ridiculously trumped up charges. Naturally frogs and snails are completely above the law, and any peasant of Mousillon would find the idea of one committing a crime (much less being charged with it) completely ludicrous. Nobles still worship the Lady, but with absolutely no guidance or Damsels, this usually means whatever the hell the noble wants it to. Peasants worship Shallya as best they remember her, but the Shallyans of Mousillon died bravely fighting the Red Pox; there haven't been any for 200 years. Karl is in for a very unusual trip as people vaguely recognize he's 'with that pigeon lady, yeah, the nice one?' but don't really remember the Goddess of Mercy beyond that. They also worship Taal and Rhya, because almost every rural people do, though they have a darker cast to them as the peasants worship them more to fend off disaster. Manaan worship in the city edges close to the Stromfels heresy, about the angry shark god who loves drowned sailors and people getting murdered by the ocean. If you can think of a monster, Mousillon is infested with it. Undead, Skaven, Beastmen, and terrible things from the swamp that don't seem to exist anywhere else haunt the province. Keep a sword close by if you're in Mousillon. You're going to need it. The province's poverty gets a little bit to the level of 'how is anyone here still alive' for my taste, but the overall intention is sound if a bit exaggerated. This is a poor and desperate land that has suffered much in the past, and continues to suffer at the hands of its nobles. You probably aren't going to fix this place in a couple adventures; the problems go much deeper than that. Our heroes are going to have a rough enough time as it is. Next Time: Crimetown
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May 6, 2020 15:50
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Night10194 posted:One interesting bit about the plague: It probably wasn't the Skaven. The original Red Pox was. But since then the Skaven have just stationed a small research team in Mousillon to monitor the place. It doesn't have Warpstone and nothing here is worth killing, and they don't think they can make it worse. It feels...odd that Mousillon got hit by a terrible plague at exactly that moment to kill everyone in the city, and that since the Affair of the False Grail the land has become even more warped and dangerous and miserable. Almost as if some magical force was trying to wipe it out. You know, like the Fae. Again, I have a wall full of red string and this isn't in the text, but there's plenty of suspicion here as it is. It also feels very on point for an unusually subtle Nurglite or other sort to weaken Bretonnia.
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May 6, 2020 15:50
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If you're going to get shot at, save the first medic you see. It's worked for the Hams, and it can work for superspies.
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May 6, 2020 15:53
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Night10194 posted:Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay 2e: Barony of the Damned Please tell me there's an Innsmouth equivalent but with snail people somewhere in this Ladyforsaken swamp. Night10194 posted:If you're going to get shot at, save the first medic you see. It's worked for the Hams, and it can work for superspies. Ironically (and unfortunately), medical care favors are about all Magda is good for as a Contact. She has Diagnosis, Pharmacy, and Reassurance as her Investigative abilities... Leyla (like all Solo Ops PCs) already has Reassurance, and there are absolutely no clues in any of the adventures that use Diagnosis and only one optional clue for Pharmacy in the third adventure. GimpInBlack fucked around with this message at 16:18 on May 6, 2020 |
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May 6, 2020 16:14
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GimpInBlack posted:Please tell me there's an Innsmouth equivalent but with snail people somewhere in this Ladyforsaken swamp. There are mysterious 'grey men' who live in the swamps. They're obviously intelligent, and sometimes they help people, sometimes they kill them. No-one knows where they come from or who they are, but they're strangely slimey and don't seem to have organs the way a normal humanoid creature would. So they could be such a thing, especially as they make pacts with villages sometimes. They're left completely up to the GM as to what they really are and whether they'll end up helping the PCs or trying to kill them.
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May 6, 2020 16:16
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Also, I just realized I still didn't manage to squeeze the skipped beat from Chapter 1 into the last update! I'm beginning to think that it's just an awkward beat that doesn't really do much for the momentum of this part of the adventure. It's an important piece of information, in that it establishes that Leyla is still at risk for falling back under the sway of vampiric mind control, but it's an awkwardly placed flashback scene without any clearly defined trigger for when it should happen. The book literally says, "when a cloud passes in front of the Sun or at another suitably dramatic moment," which is just kind of hard to work into a scene that's already establishing so many other beats.
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May 6, 2020 16:31
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Night10194 posted:I also still need a name for their party and have struggled to come up with one. quote:Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay 2e: Barony of the Damned quote:Also, complex cycles of pig-based legends. I hope you're as excited about those as I am. ...Barons of Ham?
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May 6, 2020 16:33
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Tulul posted:...Barons of Ham? 
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May 6, 2020 16:43
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Night10194 posted:There are mysterious 'grey men' who live in the swamps. They're obviously intelligent, and sometimes they help people, sometimes they kill them. No-one knows where they come from or who they are, but they're strangely slimey and don't seem to have organs the way a normal humanoid creature would. So they could be such a thing, especially as they make pacts with villages sometimes. ngl neutral, i.e. non-chaos, snail beastmen would be a super cool addition.
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May 6, 2020 17:20
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Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay 2e: Barony of the Damned Crimetown, Population Crime Like an awful lot of Bretonnian coastal cities, Mousillon is built on the foundations of an elven colony from before they got their asses kicked by dwarfs. Two centuries ago, Mousillon was actually doing well. Even with the terrible land, it had a good port in a strategically important place, so it saw plenty of commerce. If Maldrad had just made himself Duke of Mousillon and actually devoted his energies to rebuilding, he would have been able to turn it into a rival of L'Anguille. Alas, he had evil plans to become king, and so the town is ruined. The mass death left it sparsely populated once people streamed back in, and the damage from the royal siege has never been fully repaired. Surrounding the city are "The Charnel Hills" rather than the farms that would surround most cities. These are where the royal armies buried the population of Mousillon after the Red Pox, and there were so many corpses that the mass graves created artificial hills, which are still used to bury the city's new dead. The number of bodies attract ghouls, and the unquiet deaths sometimes cause the corpses to rise again. The city's Grail Chapel was a huge cathedral constructed of marble by Maldrad, to demonstrate his wealth and piety. It's remained intact, though it's covered in a black patina of ash from the general griminess of the city to make sure it fits in. It houses the one genuinely safe water source in the city, as well as an organized crime syndicate of 'priests' led by a woman named Aurore who claims to be a Grail Damsel (She is not, everyone knows she is not, but they like the blessings so they just pretend she's fooling them. Which is the most Bretonnian thing in the city.). She gets our first plot hook! She's actually starting to feel guilty about being a cross between a mafia don and a relic seller. The false hope she sells people of Mousillon (she doesn't charge for the safe water, using it instead to draw in customers, because she's pretty sure if she tried someone would kill her) is beginning to wear on her. Maybe she could be a real priest if she had a real holy relic? She might be willing to hire PCs to go look for actual holy things among the dead in the charnel hills and the crypts to see if she can become an actual priest. The one surviving stone bridge is surrounded by places for the dockyard stevedores and gangs to spend their money, so it's naturally full of brothels, gambling houses, and inns of low repute. Much of the city population is either in one gang or another, because if you have nobody to protect you you're probably going to die. Which is something of a mirror of the general feudal system of Bretonnia. The locals also love music halls, and gangsters love to kidnap bands and ministrels they're particularly fond of to keep. All of Mousillon's strong-men are really, really fond of captured artists, it's something of a theme. What the hell else are you going to do for fun around here? The Lance of Light was once the city's shining beacon, a lighthouse to help guide ships into the harbor. When Maldrad ruled, he converted it from an oil lamp to a WIZARD LAMP so he wife could keep it lit. This has made it considerably harder to operate, and like all the city it's fallen into disrepair. It's become a prison and the hangout of one of the worst gangs, the Ecorcheurs. They're slavers to the last, capturing people from among Mousillon's desperate populations to sell on foreign markets, or serving as a layaway for captives being moved illegally into other lands. They're considered violent and vile even by the standards of Mousillon; even the Mousilese are kind of uncomfortable with the flesh trade and the brutality of this gang. The Lance are not originally a light house, but rather a wizard's tower built by one of Landuin's courtiers, the sorceress Manon. She did all she could for Mousillon, but curiously on the very night Landuin died 'of old age' she was stabbed to death in her tower by an assassin. And there's another red string on the wall. Even now, the slaves sometimes report a pale, ghostly woman trying to say something they can't make out wandering the halls of the converted prison/lighthouse. What is Manon trying to tell people? What is she trying to warn them of? The ducal palace is sealed to this day and people are terrified of it. During the siege and plague, Maldrad ordered all sorts of things done within to drown out the sounds of the dying within his city. What, exactly, happened to Maldrad, Malfleur, and all their courtiers and servants is unknown; they seemed to have died in mid-revel, without the plague itself having killed them. The King at the time was so freaked out by this he ordered the palace sealed and the dead left where they were. The palace seems to grip the populace with dread; it contains enough wealth to buy all of Mousillion and 'make a man disgracefully rich the rest of his days', but none can bring themselves to unseal it and venture inside. Stories abound of terrible ghosts dancing to the music of the damned within, trapped for all time. Any who work up the courage to approach the gates are stricken with fear and back off...until maybe your PCs take a shot and discover terrible truths and curses within. What would they learn among the dead and the damned? That's up to you. The Lost Town used to be the wealthy part of town north of the river. It's since been abandoned by all humans, and is now a series of ruins inhabited by the darker and more monstrous peoples of Mousillon. Great wealth likely lies within, but the dead sleep unsoundly and the whole area is walled off from the rest of the town by barricades. There are all kinds of stories about soul-stealing monsters and terrible demons that walk the streets of the Lost Town at night. Most of them are true. PCs who enjoyed the terrifying old town areas in Thief will probably have a hell of a time braving Lost Town to try to recover its wealth and learn its secrets, because that's the impression I get of this place. Finally, there is the actual titular Barony of the Damned, and the reason I'd sort of rather not name the team for it. Like many places in the Old World, Mousillon has enormous sewers, but they aren't dwarf built. A few centuries ago, a mostly-forgotten Duke tried to modernize Mousillon. He hired engineers from Nuln to come and make Mousillon into an Imperial-style city (remember, the place wasn't nearly so hellish back then), and step 1 was building proper sewers, canals, and drainage. He had plans for trying to deal with the constant silt and swampiness, even. Alas, his money ran out with the sewers about a quarter finished and non-functional, and he died when his horse tripped on a molehill. As happens with most abandoned underground places in Hams, the sewers have become infested, especially as they aren't actually being used as sewers and thus aren't quite as full of filth. The Ghouls are the main inhabitants of the sewers, but they didn't become the Barony until the arrival of the Cannibal Knight. He will be a problem for our heroes. A brutal and ruthless man who feels he is still owed the natural deference of a Bretonnian Knight despite turning into a ghoul, he has organized the hundreds of ghouls in the original colony and made them into a grisly parody of a fief. The Knight is a brutally powerful warrior, and he has hit on the idea that a ghoul is superior to a human the same way a noble is superior to a peasant. He has designs on ruling the entire city, and darker gangs and knights have managed to make alliances with him in the past. This flesh-eating monstrosity loves the brutality and oppression of knighthood, having fully embraced all of its darker aspects. He is, in short, a huge dick. But he is a huge dick with hundreds of flesh-eating combat-ready cannibals. This makes him trouble. He can also fight on a scale pretty close to a Vampire Lord, even though he's just a ghoul. There's much more of the duchy, and some of it is quite interesting (like the legendary, hidden tomb of Merovich the Butcher) but only the city is actually relevant to the adventure and I'm eager to get to it. Still, if you want to have adventures in the terrible dungeon where the Fae Enchantress was imprisoned, or look for secrets of how Merovich was able to handle the disease and onslaught of the Skaven in his dark tomb, there's lots of adventures to be had in Mousillon's famous places. The book really does have enough material for an entire campaign set here. Going through fallen cathedrals and sunken chapels and dark dungeons could be a really fun time, especially as lots of people outside of Mousillon want many of the famed relics and old holy artifacts contained in its fallen places and aren't brave enough to go get them themselves. There are plenty of plot hooks, too, ranging from relic hunts, to fighting gangs, to an adventure to find the one survivor of a terrible plague so a famed doctor can attempted a convalescent plasma transfusion. Similar, we get a section on the dangers of travel here. Do not, under any circumstances, drink unboiled water in Mousillon. It is always a Toughness test. The locals know to boil the water and you probably know the same, but you will get horrible diseases and parasites otherwise. The Grismerie doesn't move fast enough at this point and the silt and swamp-water are extremely unhealthy and stagnant. The Red Pox is a curiously brutal disease, though survivable for a tough PC: It lasts 7 days, and costs you 5% Toughness a day with a WP save or lose an extra 5% unless you spend all day in bed, resting. At the end, stats are restored and you recover. Somehow, it gets much worse if there are many people suffering from it in an enclosed space; the penalty goes up to 10% per day and it will kill anyone short of a legendary hero if you don't have someone using Heal to reduce your duration. So a standard 'reasonably tough' PC will survive it with 7 days of bedrest if there isn't a huge epidemic (many PCs can get 40 or more toughness) even without treatment, while just about anyone will die in the worse situation unless they get help. No wonder it emptied the city. Mousillese PCs get Resistance to Disease and 2 random human talents. They also come with a randomly rolled deformity for 'The Mousillon Look' to pay for the extra talent. This is cosmetic, but marks them as being Mousillese if they can't hide it, which might give them trouble elsewhere in Bretonnia. We also get new classes for the Swampaire (a variant Hunter who focuses on entangling gear and catches frogs and swamp vermin) and the Frogwife (Excellent social/merchant character, also good at knife goes in guts come out that's what frog-cleaning is all about). And with that, we're on to the Villains of Mousillon, all of whom are written as potential campaign villains for a wider Mousillon campaign. All of whom are actually written as people you can potentially take down and interact with, too! Which is nice. Next Time: And he saw her without her glamor, for what she really was.
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May 6, 2020 17:22
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| # ? Apr 23, 2024 17:45 |
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Basically if you want to play Darkest Dungeon but it's in Arthurian Not-France in a world where lots of places are not Arthurian, that's what a Mousillese campaign is gunning for.
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May 6, 2020 17:23
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