|
The Janedoes just feel very... metagamey. Like... is there any lore for why they hate almost-complete things? Why they're choosing to harass the players and not just attacking everyone who's almost done cooking dinner or close to crossing the street or has almost written their PHD dissertation instead? They seem like an extremely desperate fallback for when you can't think of any other reason for something to screw up the players' progress.
|
#
?
Mar 18, 2023 07:02
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 12, 2024 02:15 |
|
|
Nessus posted:If we conquer them, oh Khan, we will get a million bolts of silk. But if we should rule them, we will get a half million bolts of silk every year. Most GMs don't run adversaries like they care about their lives or health at all so real world attitudes don't apply. Stack that with a lifetime of handling hostile GMs and it's very easy to just execute and dismember every adversary after they surrender as policy just so you never have to worry about them again.
|
|
#
?
Mar 18, 2023 07:44
|
|
|
disposablewords posted:(The only way you could make her more so is if she grew up and got a girlfriend.) Minus the growing up part, I did exactly this in an Eberron campaign I ran (they were eleven and ten respectively so it wasn't quite 'girlfriend' yet but the point was there).  I used the Flame to pick at the idea that the will of the church and the will of the deity - or divine force - were not always in accord. The church isn't corrupt enough to actually directly go against the Keeper and those who hear the voice of the Flame, and the church does enough good that the Keepers haven't purged the church's ranks due to the inevitable collateral damage and the prospect that doing so would invite more harm than good, but as a religious person myself in real life I enjoyed playing on the tension between what the god wants and what the church wants.
|
|
#
?
Mar 18, 2023 14:30
|
|
|
UNKNOWN ARMIES 3E BOOK FOUR: EXPOSE PART 3: IDENTITIES REDUX It’s that time again. This post is all about the Identities chapter of the Unknown Armies 3e splat Book Four: Expose. Let’s do a quick refresher of identities before we dig into the new options presented by the splat. Characters in Unknown Armies 3e have their basic capabilities determined by their hardening in five psychological stress meters: Helplessness, Isolation, Self, Unnatural, and Violence. The amount of hardening in a meter not only determines your ability to resist shocks directed at that meter, they also determine your character’s chance to succeed at the linked skills. The best way to explain this is to just show how the dueling meters are laid out on the character sheet.  The more hardened you are to violence, the better you are at committing violence and the worse you are at Connecting. The more hardened you are to Unnatural, the better you are at stealth and the worse you are at… perception. Whatever meter you’re looking at, your character’s capabilities change as they sink deeper into the occult underworld, becoming more accustomed to endless horrors and leaving their normal existence behind. Identities are what let you hold on to who you are. They’re the core of (almost) every Unknown Armies character. If something is important to your character concept, you make it an identity. Identities can be a job, a personality descriptor, a hobby, an adjective… Adept schools and Avatar archetypes, the two main flavors of caster in Unknown Armies, are mechanically represented by identities. An identity has a numeric rating, a set of of-course-I-cans, and a set of features.
Alice Alcazar, Cigar Smoking Mage posted:Ustrinaturge 60%*: (Gains Charges, Casts Rituals, Gutter Magick) Alice’s Former Chauffeur identity is a better example of what I was talking about in the bulleted list. The of-course-I-cans are somewhat duplicative of the skills in the parenthesis which the identity subs for, but are also useful for things besides perception, running away or shooting a gun. In the actual game, her familiarity with CDL vehicles allowed her to canvass truckers for clues about a rent-a-cop who was hassling magick users. Navigating unfamiliar environments helped everyone escape the neverending warren of utilidors beneath the Magic Kingdom. The Provides Firearm Attacks identity is the one you need in Unknown Armies if you want to reliably kill people with guns. I don’t think Alice ever used it once in ten sessions of play. It’s nice to have someone in the cabal who knows how to shoot, but if you start lots of gunfights you won’t last long. The other thing of-course-I-cans are useful for is giving NPCs personality. One thing Call of Cthulhu modules used to do (they might still do this, I don’t know) is give NPCs overly specific skills that indicated how they would behave in a given situation. 75% odds to ignore details, 55% proficiency in inarticulate yelling, 99% chance to wait patiently for a chance to attack… This is why it really irritates me that many NPCs in official UA3 books don’t get of-course-I-cans, just the three features. Phew, that’s a lot of detail for a review that isn’t going into the corebook in depth. But now you should understand the basics of what we’re about to evaluate.  FEATURES Book Four introduces four new features you can stick onto identities. These are character options and I’ll evaluate them based on whether they’re fun and a good use of one of the three feature slots an identity gets. Cooperative If you take the cooperative feature on an identity, you can use that identity to modify die rolls made by other players, as long as those rolls use a skill that your identity subs for. So if you’ve got Connect and Cooperative on an identity, and another player needs to succeed at a Connect roll, they get access to die manipulation from this feature. You’re allowed to add or subtract exactly 10 points from their roll. This is important because Unknown Armies 3 is a blackjack d100 roll under system with special results on doubles. So getting from a 23 to a 33 is a big deal, provided it’s still under your skill. Cooperative is a good feature, especially since the buff doesn’t depend on what level you have the identity at. If you were a filthy min/maxer you could stick a cooperative tag on an identity you had at 1%, and it would still give the +/-10 to other players when they used the skills your identity subbed for. I’ve never done this and I don’t know anyone else who has, Unknown Armies is a game where min/maxing is only fun if it happens in-character. That’s how we got the Freak, the coolest wizard who ever lived. Sincere If an identity has the Sincere feature, your chances of success go up by 10% on any roll of that identity made to help one of your five mechanically defined relationships. As a refresher, that’s your guru, mentor, favorite, protégé, or responsibility. This one can hypothetically be pretty useful, since by default you’re supposed to have the cabal (the group of player characters of which your character is a part) as one of your mechanically defined relationships. So if you’re working toward a shared objective, all your actions are technically for the benefit of one of your relationships (the cabal) so the bonus applies any time you roll that identity. In practice I’ve never seen anyone take this identity. I think most people find it more useful to have a third feature than buff the chance of success on the identity overall. Probably because Unknown Armies characters already have lots of ways to buff their odds of success. Obsessions let you flip die results, passions let you flip and reroll, a 10% buff just isn’t that big a deal. Tactical The Tactical feature lets you buff other characters’ odds of success by ordering them to do things. If someone is trying to do something that pertains to the identity, you can roll your identity percentage to give them helpful instructions. If you pass, they gain the ability to flip/flop the dice on their own roll - transpose the tens and ones place. They don’t need to be rolling a skill that your identity subs for, it just has to reasonably fall under the purview of the identity’s title. This identity sucks. I don’t like any mechanic where you have to roll dice to give someone else an increased chance of success when they roll dice. Plus the thing it gives you is not that valuable. Players are already flip/flopping their dice like crazy and another one on the pile is too niche to be worth a feature slot. Weaponized Physique Weaponized Physique buffs your unarmed damage by a single point. Not just unarmed attacks using the identity with the feature, any unarmed attack. Like Cooperative you could hypothetically spend a single point on an identity and then slap this on it for a free lunch. I’ve never seen anyone do this either, because a single point of unarmed damage is worthless. Unknown Armies is a game where an unarmed strike does 2d10 damage and the average person has 50 HP. A single point of bonus damage per-hit is not going to turn the tide, especially since most combats only last a couple turns. This is a case where scaling would really have been helpful, like you get bonus damage equal to the identity divided by 10. That’ll do it for features. Two decent options and two that I don’t care for. Time for some NPC stat blocks. GMCS Ok, Unknown Armies technically calls them GMCs, for Gamemaster Characters. I’m going to keep calling them NPCs. I’ll spell magick with a k but I have to draw the line somewhere. This section of the book presents eighteen NPC stat blocks, complete with hardened stress meters and identities fully kitted out with of-course-I-cans. After the NPCs come nineteen additional identities to add flavor. By grabbing a template and rolling for an additional identity, you can quickly generate an NPC with a character sheet. This is valuable because Unknown Armies characters are labor intensive to generate, and the tiny details matter. Their level of psychological hardening determines how they react to seeing spells or being attacked with weapons. Their identities can bolster their stress defenses or give them special abilities. The only thing missing, and I really wish the devs had included this, is a random passions generator. NPC passions (fear, rage, noble) are important for both roleplaying and the coercion minigame. Anyway, there’s always the possibility that the players will start a fight or argument with a random person who isn’t an important statted NPC, and it’s great to have a fallback. Let’s random gen some NPCs. Giant Boy Detective posted:I’m Working Homeless, of course I can know which creepy places even the violent and crazy are scared to go, haggle tenaciously, repair just about anything with just about anything as long as it only has to work one time more. (Protects Self, Substitutes for Lie, Substitutes for Secrecy) Alan Moonshadow posted:I’m a Petty Crook, of course I can get you something cheap that fell off a truck, arrange to get you bonded out of jail, tell you which beat cop is bent. (Find criminal opportunities (unique), Substitutes for Lie, Substitutes for Secrecy). Roy Matches posted:I’m a Server, of course I can talk to the local beat cop on a first-name basis, spot the person or event that’s out of place, give directions. (Protects Isolation, Substitutes for Connect, Substitutes for Fitness). I like this section a lot. It’s broadly useful but each entry has flavor text to give it personality (which I’m not reproducing here in full). Good segment.  THIRTEEN MYSTIC IDENTITIES One of the five types of magick in Unknown Armies is not actually a type of magick, it’s a grab bag for anything that doesn’t fit in the other four categories. This is the “Unique Supernatural Identity”. If you want your guy to be telekinetic, or able to see ghosts, or to pull tumors out of people’s bodies with psychic surgery, or do something else that’s magickal but not a full on adept or avatar, that’s a unique supernatural identity. To make a unique supe, you use a taxonomy presented in the corebook to figure out which category of powers it’s most similar to, and use that framework to generate some basic mechanics and some restrictions on its use. It’s a simple but versatile system that produces reasonably balanced results which feel flavorful and distinct. The UA3 core set presents a handful of example powers built with the framework. Book Four: Expose presents thirteen more. Let’s roll a few d13s and see what we get. A 1 gets us No-touch aikido. This is based on real world claims that you can damage or disable people without touching them by channeling energy through martial arts. It doesn’t seem like these claims are taken seriously in actual self-defense, but in the Unknown Armies world magick is real and anything is possible. Under the framework in the corebook, no-touch-aikido is classified as a specific harm, meaning you can use it to deal real physical damage without laying hands on someone. Specific harm powers have conditions attached to them, and no-touch-aikido only works if someone is attacking you in hand to hand combat. A 6 gets us Statosight. This one goes right to the heart of the Unknown Armies cosmology, allowing you to see if someone is an Avatar, and if so which archetype they embody. It can give you insight into the machinations of the Invisible Clergy, the most powerful ascended Avatar of each Archetype, if they are meddling in earthly affairs within your line of sight. In game mechanical terms, Statosight is a specific inform ability. You roll the identity to activate it and open your third eye. Finally, a 13 gets us Zennihilator. This ability lets you tank shocks to your Unnatural, Isolation and Helplessness meters through transcendental meditation. A specific protection ability. You might be thinking “why not just take a mundane identity with Protects Unnatural, Protects Isolation and Protects Helplessness as features? Wouldn’t that have the same mechanical benefit”. The answer is that by rules as written, unique supernatural identities have the features Casts Rituals and Casts Gutter Magick in addition to whatever unique thing they do, for a full set of three features. That means that Zennihilator gives us both the stress defense and access to a couple types of casting, which a mundane identity wouldn’t. The tradeoff is that supernatural identities never grant of-course-I-cans, meaning we miss out on picking some mundane but useful stuff our character can do. There’s one supernatural identity here that doesn’t fit into the established framework from the previous book. When you successfully use the Wormworld identity, it draws the nearest supernatural creature toward your location. It can’t summon them out of the blue, but the text doesn’t give a maximum range either. There’s no guarantee you’ll be able to control the beast that arrives, communicate with it, or even perceive it. I played in a game where someone had this power and it was a ton of fun. The unique supernatural identities section is a good demo of creative uses for the power creation rules in the corebook. This is one of the better chapters overall because it balances gamable content with flavor text that makes you actually want to use it. Our next update will have four more supernatural creatures. PurpleXVI posted:I think it's more that like... players recognize patterns, and anyone who's a "villain" that does bad, evil dogshit stuff to other human beings usually negotiates in bad faith at every stage of their life and will quite obviously attempt to wriggle out of any agreement made if possible. Even if you can "coerce" them now with blackmail or threats, the moment they see a gap in it in the future, they'll lunge for it, either because they're addicted to being shitheads or because they loathe being under someone else's control(in a way that prevents them from being shitheads). PurpleXVI posted:Plus like, unless the players need something from said person, or it's somehow too public to get away with(which I can see in some cases, but access to Weird Magic poo poo also makes it a lot more likely they CAN get away with things), what's the advantage to them of coercing rather than killing? My beef with the coercion system drills down to the specific implementation of the Unknown Armies stress defense rules, and to really unpack that would require a full review of the corebook. Maybe another time.
|
|
#
?
Mar 18, 2023 18:13
|
|
|
Soulbound: Era of the Beast And When We Touched, She Didn't Shudder At My Paw We begin our exploration of Ghur on the continent of Thondia. It is a massive and primordial landscape that disdains the civilized people that try to make it home, and it has broken and devoured the ancient ruins of its Age of Myth lands long ago. Even modern settlements are quick to be overtaken and consumed by the land if they are abandoned. Thondia is a landscape of extreme size - everything is bigger there. Plains stretch from horizon to horizon, mountains jut out like giant fangs biting at the sky, and so on. The animals are no less huge and deadly, with Maw-Krushas making their homes in the mountains and plains and hunting anything smaller, which is most things...well, except the other apex predators of Thondia. The Thondian Rok is more than capable of grabbing and carrying off a steam tank...and in fact seems to enjoy hunting the things by dropping them on rocks to crack them open and eat the crew within. The Rockgrinder Wyrm is another major threat - a gigantic earthworm that lives in the softer stone mesa and whose preferred prey is troggoth swallowed whole. The human tribes of the Thondian wilderness tend to worship the forces of Chaos, particularly Khorne, as all of existence is a life-and-death struggle for them. The orruks are considerably more numerous in these lands than humans are, however, and they and several ogor tribes have made their homes in the wide savannahs. Some mawtribes actually claim territories so huge that they take over a month to travel across even if you know the land well. Thondia's gargants are particularly large and proud as well, as this is the homeland of their legendary precursor, Ymnog. Hunting is the primary food source for all of these peoples, because the beasts of Thondia are numerous and filling if you have the power to take them down. As the Era of the Beast dawns, Thondia has grown even more geologically active than most of Ghur. The Song of Life has revitalized its flora and fauna, and the land vibrates with the hoofbeats of Kragnos, stirring the spirits of the land and pushing them a terrible, burning hunger. The fury of the landscape has caused the manifestation of powerful, violent spirits, which the scholars of Azyr have named the Krondspine Incarnates because the first one known to exist by the Free Peoples was found in the Krondspine mountains. The Kruleboyz have managed to somehow injure the continent and its leylines, causing a sudden and extremely large increase in spreading swamps and mires in the southern part of the continent, known as the Drowned Lands. Thondia is wounded, and that seems to be making it angrier. While it has suffered greatly in recent days, Excelsis remains the largest and most successful Free City on the continent. It is used to trouble, even if most has not been quite so terrible as the recent kind. The people remain courageous, but they are deeply threatened. The reason for so much of that trouble is the same reason the city was founded and the same reason it still survives: the Spear of Mallus, the massive shard of the World-That-Was that rises from the ground at the edge of the Clawing Sea. It is a gigantic crystal that is made from solidified prophecy, and the Prophesier's Guild funds mining efforts to chip off chunks of it. These shards are then sold at prices based on their potency in foretelling the future. The weakest of these prophecy-shards are small crystals known as Glimmerings, which are the heart of Excelsis' economy and its primary currency. Most Glimmerings are simply used as money, but they can be destroyed to get a brief look at the near future. Overuse of Glimmerings can be addictive and leave the user in a haze of hallucinated possible futures, unable to tell them from reality. Larger crystals are more potent and usually called Auguries. They are much more powerful and valuable than Glimmerings, and they are generally sold at auction by the Prophesier's Guild Hall. The Prophesiers are skilled at discerning the nature of Auguries and are generally able to tell generally what kind of information is in a less complex Augury, but they are unable to determine specifics, so this knowledge is mostly used to help set starting bids. Buyers generally have to weigh the potentially high cost of the Augury against the future profits it may allow them to gain, and the Prophesiers do their best to make the sale look attractive. However, the most powerful and dangerous Auguries are not sold - they are kept locked up in vaults for emergencies and studied by the Collegiate Arcane to try and understand the nature of their prophetic magic. Excelsis was founded near the end of the Realmgate Wars by the ruthless Knights Excelsior, largely settled by Azyrite colonists. Ghurish families and clans came to the city as it grew, and the early city's life revolved around its port. The western port district is the old city now, and largely populated by poorer groups, as the wealthy nobles moved eastern hillsides that offered a more commanding view of the landscape. The city has expanded beyond its walls several times, meaning several districts are actually walled in internally, including the Noble Quarter. The current walls are unlikely to be moved past, as the land beyond them is marshy and difficult to build on, but that hasn't slowed construction. Rather, the wealthy now pay to build upwards, creating the Veins, huge multi-tiered neighborhoods along the outer walls. The Veins were an early home to poverty and despair, and rumors of sedition within them created fertile grounds for Chaos cults. The Knights Excelsior, never known for mercy or restraint, instituted a murderous purge to get rid of these cults...along with a full quarter of the city's civilian population. While the cults were destroyed, many innocents died with them, earning Lord-Veritant Cerrus Sentanus the fearful and hated title of White Reaper. The locals do not like their Stormcast, and likely never will. Orruks have plagued the city since its founding, and much of its early defense was at the hands of the Scourge Privateers, whom the city paid to drive out monsters and raiders along the Coast of Tusks. Captured monsters also helped fuel the economy, as the Scourge brought them home for sale. However, as the city grew wealthy on the trade in monsters and monster materials, Chaos corruption returned. High Arbiter Ortam Vermyre had plotted his takeover for years, falling into the worship of Tzeentch to gain the magical might needed to pull it off. He was detected and slain before he could pull off his coup by the Order of Azyr, but this meant a second purge by the Knights Excelsior to drive out his cultists. Fortunately for everyone, the second purge was considerably smaller and they didn't kill anywhere near as many people. In part, this may be because they were interrupted by the Necroquake, which caused a storm of ghostly attacks. Excelsis weathered them well, with the Prophesiers and Collegiate Arcane predicting the danger with a few key Auguries. Of course, the continued assaults by Skaven, Orruks and eventually Kragnos still wore on the populace, of course, along with the repression and brutal "justice" of the Knights Excelsior. Enduring hardship has become one of the core cultural values of Excelsis. The weather is almost constantly rainy, usually stormy, and the more expensive buildings are made from stormstone, a blue-blackish kind of marble that is innately resistant to weathering. Wood and bone are also common, especially cheaper use of driftwood and sea monster bones to make shacks protected from rain by sharkskin. The Spear of Mallus rises from the bay, with mystic towers floating around it under command of the Collegiate Arcane and Prophesier's Guild. Some are labs, others mining stations. The Stormkeep of the Knights Excelsior sits outside the city, on a coastal cliff south of it. This fortress, the Consecralium, is constantly shrouded in thunderstorms, and few people approach it on any given day. Even folks with positive business there or need of aid from the Stormcast tend not to want to be there. The harbor itself is always full of boats from all kinds of cultures seeking trade, and the Kharadron maintain a small aether-berth floating above the bay with a few airships present at any given time. The most powerful naval power in the region is definitely the Scourge, led locally by Fleetmaster Arika Zenthe. She is an aelven pirate with a notoriously shifting temper and a centuries-long history of raiding the Coast of Tusks. She is well paid by the city for protection, and while she is vicious and cruel with those whom she finds boring, she never breaks her given word. The western half of the city is considerably more organized and less organic, enclosed in a miles-long wall with carefully spaced gatehouses. Westgate Tower was once the greatest of them and the main land entrance into the city, but it is now a shattered ruin of stone and only partially cleared bodies. Rebuilding it has not been possible, as there has been constant low-grade fighting through the ruined gate and broken walls around it since Kragnos left. With the forces of Destruction and Chaos assailing it so often, it has been deemed better to reinforce with defensive troops than rebuild it only for it to be torn down in the middle. Other parts of the walls haven't fully collapsed, but have been heavily undermined by Skaven or damaged by the battle with Kragnos and his allies. The city's engineers and architects are trying to rebuild, but enemy action destroys much of the new construction as quickly as it goes up. The Veins fill much of the northern area between the western noble districts and the eastern port. The southern central area is more affluent and generally known as Squallside, at least until it heads west far enough to become the wealthy Wellman's Row as it reaches the city center. The city is bisected by the Tradeway, a massive road that stretches from the harbor markets to the Grand Square and Prophesier's Guild Hall, then off through the Western Trade Gate and Great Excelsis Road that heads inland. At the heart of the city is the Palace Excelsium, the city's center of government. The Grand Conclave meets there, consisting of 244 members from all walks of life, plus the higher Council of Twelve that are empowered to take direct governmental action on issues that are too pressing to wait for a full Conclave meeting. In the last year, over two hundred councillors of the Conclave have died or vanished, and while Grand Matriarch Yarga-Sjuhan endures, she generally has no more than 30 Conclave members to call on at any given time. She is an ex-general of the Freeguild and has generally been an excellent administrator, but she is exhausted physically and mentally after the siege, where she was almost killed by daemons. The Palace is home to one of Excelsis' greatest secrets and most potent defenses: a hidden hall whose floor is composed completely from crystal mined from the Spear of Mallus. The hall is laid out in the shape of the Coast of Tusks and the city, creating an augurium map that continuously prophesizes potential problems for the area. Without this prophetic map, the city would have been destroyed long, long ago. The Prophesier's Guild Hall sits nearby, as does the Hall of Justice, headquarters of the city's Freeguild troops, who also work as guards and law enforcement. The Glimmerstretch, the city's other major roadway, travels along the north-south line of the city through the center, rather than the east-west of the Tradeway. South of the central area is the Temple District, home to the Abbey of Remembered Souls that handles most funerals and memorial services. Past it is the Taverna District, which unsurprisingly is known for its many pubs, bars and brothels. The Taverna District lies next to what is known as the Duardin Forgequarter Sprawl, where the majority of the city's duardin population can be found. They are represented on the Council of Twelve by Vaidal Marchiana, the greatest bladesmith in the entire city. He is also the leader of the local Ironweld, whose work is done out of the Forgequarter. They are known for their flying machines, and gyrocopters are common in the skies over the southern city. North of the central district is the Teemings, a large and crowded merchant district that handles most of the city's business needs. (At least, outside the shipping needs of the harbor.) It is bordered on the north by a forested district that is home to the Serpentanis, a large pyramid used as an embassy by the Seraphon. The Skinks that manage the Serpentanis are somewhat confused by why the locals have been giving them free gifts, especially when they have so little for themselves...but that's mostly because they don't understand that the city is deeply grateful to Lord Kroak and are leaving offerings in the belief that the place is a religious temple in the way they understand it. The forested district is also home to the Citadel Tenebrais, the home and cultural center of the city's Darkling Covens and their ruling sorceresses. Few non-Darklings ever get to visit the Citadel, and those who get nosy about it tend to vanish unexpectedly. The western Noble Quarter is enclosed by inner walls and is home to the wealthiest members of the city population in large palaces and the somewhat more modest townhouses of successful merchants. The Noble Quarter is protected from the constant rains by large aetheric machines which generate a rain shield and the illusion of sunny skies. A large chunk of the Noble District is no longer easily accessible, however, sealed off by a giant duardin-made containment wall. This area is now known as the Crystalfall, the crash site of a Tzeentchian skyvessel during Ortam Vermyre's attempted coup. It is illegal to enter the Crystalfall, and the broken ballrooms and stores of the district are now home to criminals that prefer to act unobserved, particularly the Nullstone Brotherhood's remnants. The cult used it as a staging area during the Siege, and after that, illegal trespassing into the Crystalfall became punishable by death. Next time: Threats to the city.
|
|
#
?
Mar 18, 2023 18:48
|
|
|
mellonbread posted:The advantage is that nobody will come to your house and kill you because you killed that other guy. When other people want something from you they will also attempt coercion, instead of blowing you away with a gun or a powerful spell. If someone gets the drop on you in the Unknown Armies world they can instantly kill you very easily. The main thing stopping people from doing this is the understanding that anyone else could easily do the same thing to them. Yeah, but I can't imagine ever having someone put my players into a contractual leglock and force them to do things without my players plotting every single vengeful bit of wriggle-room they can find to eventually spitefully tear said person's face off. Perhaps that's why I, as a player, would absolutely expect someone to plan to do the same to me. Plus, I don't think: "you blackmailed our buddy, so now we're going to be civilized and only blackmail you." necessarily follows. If I've blackmailed someone who's got powerful and loyal friends, or perhaps allies that greatly benefit from their not being blackmailed, I don't see any reason why they'd hold back from just rendering me into chunky salsa if they could get away with it and don't need me for anything. I honestly think a mechnically iron-clad coercion would downright gently caress up my sense of disbelief, unless it was outright some sort of magical geas, and even then it's thematic that such things get perverted or broken by finding specific wordings that violate the spirit without violating the rule as written.
|
|
#
?
Mar 18, 2023 20:42
|
|
|
It seems like "PCs should be expected to thoroughly murder all antagonists" is a huge limitation on the design space of RPGs, although I kind of wonder how much of an absolute truth it is, or if it's a case where it's reasonably likely there will be one guy who thinks like that, and that one guy will be loud, and everyone else is likely to go with it. Like this seems like a genuine design conundrum but it also seems like it's come up less in my own game space. If anything I've seen more people in my own gamersphere want to aggressively spare everybody and try to rehabilitate them in some way, which means that the cast can get bloated if you aren't being careful to say "the guy you spared meets you a week later with his bags packed, because he's getting the gently caress out of town. He thanks you and provides you with a modest but quantifiable reward for your mercy."
|
|
#
?
Mar 18, 2023 22:00
|
|
|
PurpleXVI posted:Yeah, but I can't imagine ever having someone put my players into a contractual leglock and force them to do things without my players plotting every single vengeful bit of wriggle-room they can find to eventually spitefully tear said person's face off. Perhaps that's why I, as a player, would absolutely expect someone to plan to do the same to me. Plus, I don't think: "you blackmailed our buddy, so now we're going to be civilized and only blackmail you." necessarily follows. If I've blackmailed someone who's got powerful and loyal friends, or perhaps allies that greatly benefit from their not being blackmailed, I don't see any reason why they'd hold back from just rendering me into chunky salsa if they could get away with it and don't need me for anything. Sounds like a skill issue, buddy.
|
|
#
?
Mar 18, 2023 22:11
|
|
|
Nessus posted:It seems like "PCs should be expected to thoroughly murder all antagonists" is a huge limitation on the design space of RPGs, although I kind of wonder how much of an absolute truth it is, or if it's a case where it's reasonably likely there will be one guy who thinks like that, and that one guy will be loud, and everyone else is likely to go with it. I think it's more that antagonists who operate in bad faith, you may as well just kill, because you can never get them to cooperate or to knock their poo poo off for any longer than it takes them to find a loophole or think they've found one. Antagonists who operate in good faith, but on different assumptions and ideals than yours, you can entirely have some sort of agreement with, after setting the stage for actually getting them to listen, perhaps by proving your earnestness or skill. Now this is assuming some sort of darker, more realistic setting. I personally tend to run more comic games where my players let most villains go after deeply embarrassing them, because they tend to be supremely petty individuals who've briefly gotten their hands on power they don't know how to handle, and my players free them of that burden before they get too used to being a danger rather than a pest.
|
|
#
?
Mar 18, 2023 22:14
|
|
|
The problem is establishing and making sure they know and can trust they will be true to their word and isn't just telling poo poo to avoid being killed which guess what you commonly see.
|
|
#
?
Mar 18, 2023 22:20
|
|
|
Unless the victim is some sort of nonhuman monster, killing a person in UA still requires you to hide the body, erase evidence, etc. Magick can only do so much and only the most powerful workings can save you from prison. I try to highlight the multiplied inconvenience that comes from hiding felonious murder vs. finding an alternative This is part of the reason Blast spells are so valuable - they’re not any more effective than a handgun for ranged damage, but there’s no bullets or obvious signs of human violence to trace.
|
|
#
?
Mar 18, 2023 22:20
|
|
|
I like the whole buying and selling prophecy part of Excelsis.
|
|
#
?
Mar 18, 2023 22:32
|
|
|
Soulbound: Era of the Beast No, It Can't Be Our first big threat is the Piersrain Consortium, named after the piersrain rose of Ghur - a beautiful but very thorny and exceptionally dangerous flower. The Consortium is a group of nobles and rich traders that serve as patrons for artists, and they gather regularly to hold salons where they discuss politics, trade art pieces and decide the next target of their ritual hunts. That last is the problem, because the Piersrain Consortium is made essentially exclusively of secret Soulblight vampires serving Neferata. The group formed shortly after the city's founding thanks to the machinations of Neferata's servant, the ancient vampire Asynais, who made sure to only choose key people of Azyrite lineage to turn into vampires. Often these new vampires wiped out their families through feeding at her orders, inheriting their wealth and power. Each member was chosen for money and political influence and each maintains a network of dupes that bring them information without realizing they're vampires. While the Piersrain vampires may descend from Nulahmia, they are Ghurish through and through, and they consider the hunt to be at least as important as the feeding, if not more. When they select a target for their hunts, they always select someone dangerous who will provide a good hunt. They usually prefer to conceal their identities magically while hunting and stalking the prey, and most prey never realize they're being tracked. When they kill, they conceal every bit of evidence save for the trophies they claim, which if confronted on they would insist were won in fair fights. These trophies are kept hidden in their homes, and they are quick to take advantage of the recent chaos to mask their actions, allowing them to strike more boldly since the siege. The Knights Excelsior are aware that the city contains one or more vampiric covens, and they have purged several of the less cautious ones. The White Reaper is said to spend a lot of time personally trying to scour out the vampires, in fact. However, the Piersrains are not on his radar - they've stayed hidden so long for a simple reason: they are Excelsian, not foreign. They know their Stormcast and their people intimately...and they regularly purchase Auguries. Publicly, these purchases are made to secure financial holdings and make fortunes, but in truth, it's to ensure they stay ahead of the public prophesies and avoid potential investigations. The most likely reason they come to your party's attention is that they decide hunting a Soulbound sounds really fun. The Orruks and Grots of Thondia are another, more obvious problem. They consider it a personal insult that Excelsis still stands, and warbands ranging from small to entire clan armies assault the walls daily. This is exhausting the Freeguild defenders, crushing their morale and running through their supplies. The engineers and stonemasons are faring little better, having to constantly repair walls that keep getting knocked down. They're reduced to scavenging shattered buildings and broken ships for parts, because supply trains from outside are always being raided by large grot gitmobs riding vicious snarlfangs. The solution to this problem as far as PCs are concerned is generally pretty simple. Defeating the orruks in a public and humiliating way would be a great boost for local morale - though the humiliation is key, because you need to ensure the orruks don't think they're getting a fun fight. Driving off the gitmobs or otherwise dealing with them would also help with replenishing supplies and giving the builders more time to repair the walls. Then you've got the Cultists. While Vermyre's coup was stopped, many of his cultists evaded detection by removing their masks and slinking back to their normal lives. The Knights Excelsior tracked a lot of them down and killed them in the years since, but not all. The ones that have survived are the ones really good at hiding. Other cultists have made their way into the city in the caravans of pilgrims or merchants. There are now several Chaos cults within the city, though a lot of them are more interested in staying hidden than anything else. Others see opportunity in the problems facing Excelsis and are growing more active. Our specific example is the Searing Brand, an offshoot branch of the Aqshian Scions of the Flame. They worship the Chaos god known as the Ever-Raging Flame of Chaos, which the Searing Brand claim exists in the heart of lightning bolts. During the Siege, they managed to steal one of the city's fulminating engines, which can collect and direct electricity. On stormy days - which, remember, are most of them - they deploy the engine to summon lightning bolts to strike their leader, the Inferno Priest Hexbraltos the Radiant. Once they have built up enough electrical power within his body, they plan to unleash their own storm on Excelsis. Then there's the problem of monsters. See, in the months before the Siege, the racism against aelves grew so bad that the Scourge and the Order Serpentis both just abandoned the city entirely. The Scourge have returned because Morathi convinced them to take up their contract again, but the Order Serpentis have stayed away. This is a problem, because when they left, they didn't take all of their warbeasts with them. In the Siege, many of the cages these beasts were contained in got broken by the battle. Now, these reptilian creatures lurk in the slums and sewers of Excelsis, emerging at night to hunt for food. They are growing bolder as they learn best how to hunt civilians, and while it would be possible to hunt them down in their lairs, there's a better method available which might be able to turn them to useful purpose. That method is simple: the city needs a brave group to serve as goodwill ambassadors to contact the Order Serpentis and bring them back to the city, where they will be able to recapture and tame or enslave the beasts once more. Finding the Ghurish branch of the Order is likely to be very dangerous, as they typically prefer living in very lethal areas full of monsters to capture or hunt. The city is prepared to offer quite a bit to get the Order to return and deal with the problem, but the cruel lords of the Order are notoriously hard to impress, so the party taking on the job is going to likely also need to assemble a particularly nice bribe to gain their favor. The Order has pretty specific tastes - they like monsters, captured alive, preferably venomous and definitely able to kill things. As for more esoteric threats...well, we have the Yargana Prophecy. Yargana Synge was a sorceress of old Ghur, famous among the tribes of the Ghurish Heartlands for never being wrong in foretelling the future. According to legend, Yargana spoke of a time when Ghur would "awaken in anger" and would require appeasement. She also explained how to appease the land and recorded the information on some kind of star chart. That chart is believed to exist in the libraries of Excelsis. Finding it isn't the problem, however. Reading it is. See, the map is known to refer to the phases of the three moons of Ghur - Koptus, Gnorl Half-Eaten and Dronsor. Which would be fine, except the moon Dronsor was destroyed a long time ago, apparently eaten by one of the Ghurish continents. To find the answers to the Yargana Prophecy, an interested party would need to figure out how to track the phases of a nonexistent moon, which would likely require the aid of the Seraphon. We can't forget the problem of the Skaven, either. The Clans Pestilens and Skryre dug extensive tunnels under the city in the weeks leading up to the Siege. Many of these tunnels were found and sealed by the duardin, while others collapsed as the ground softened with the rain and Kruleboyz magic, but some tunnels still exist, hidden from the city's people. Skaven and grot raiders make use of them to bypass the outer walls with their raids, and some grots especially seem to enjoy releasing packs of squigs into the Veins. The folks there have it bad enough already, and would really appreciate if someone would collapse the tunnels on the raiders, or at least seal up their entrances and exits. Perhaps the greatest threat to Excelsis, however, lies with the Knights Excelsior. They are supposed to be the city's guardians, and they are among the most powerful forces in the region. Even when times are good, they are brutal and unforgiving of any mistake or sin. It is not good times right now, and their continual deaths and Reforgings have made the Knights completely intolerant of anything they perceive as corruption. They have executed three major purges in the history of the city, and each time, innocents died alongside Chaos cultists and vampires. There are few beings in the entire city more feared than the White Reaper - including the orruks outside the walls. It is extremely likely that a Soulbound party is going to clash with the Knights and their Lord-Veritant. They are likely to take exception with the methods the Knights use or their lack of mercy, and it is likely that the only thing that will keep some parties from being declared enemies of the city is their Soulbound status, which the White Reaper still respects. In these cases, the Knights will simply refuse to offer the party any support whatsoever. However, there is a chance to change things for the better. Lord-Veritant Cerrus Sentanus is a man slow to change, but he has realized at this point that there must be a flaw in his methods - the same problems keep cropping up, after all. He is tiring of constant hypervigilance and ruthlessness. If a Binding were to truly help the city and yet be unorthodox in its nature or methods or otherwise disprove the overly strict ideals of the Knights Excelsior, they might be able to convince the White Reaper that there are better ways and could bring him to understand that his methods are fascist and awful. Next time: Other places.
|
|
#
?
Mar 19, 2023 01:37
|
|
|
I really do dig the Silver Flame as a group that got their hands on Real Divine Power (TM) in the form of a pillar of fire in their basement and turned around to call everyone else posers who don't have a real god. It's arrogance, but it's pretty believable arrogance. Silver Flame missionaries must be insufferable, though. "Onatar is with you in every swing of the hammer, huh? I mean, I can swing a hammer just fine, but did you hear we have a giant pillar of divine fire in the basement? Yeah, it's really something, huh?"
|
|
#
?
Mar 19, 2023 02:00
|
|
|
Capfalcon posted:I really do dig the Silver Flame as a group that got their hands on Real Divine Power (TM) in the form of a pillar of fire in their basement and turned around to call everyone else posers who don't have a real god. It's arrogance, but it's pretty believable arrogance. True, but I'm not sure that it really has much in the way of authority to really dictate doctrine, it's not really a transcendant being the way you think of Gods being such, it's just three guys all set on fire. Yeah Tira was a decent person, but was just some rando, and Couatl are rare but not unfathomably more mystically important than, say, angels, and they're not given special insight about the truly divine either. Not to mention The Shadow In The Flame. Also always kinda had the funny headcanon that Jaela has regular secret meetups/tea parties with Errandis Vol, one of the few entities in Eberron who can sympathise with having uncanny supernatural power thrust upon them as a young girl and becomimg the head of a somewhat militant religion Asterite34 fucked around with this message at 02:17 on Mar 19, 2023 |
|
#
?
Mar 19, 2023 02:15
|
|
|
Nessus posted:If we conquer them, oh Khan, we will get a million bolts of silk. But if we should rule them, we will get a half million bolts of silk every year. Well, sure, because...  hyphz posted:In most editions of UA, rules lawyering magick is a primary source of plot hooks, so go for it. I'd kind of like to, but I'm not in any UA games, don't have the rules and don't have much in the way prospects of either of those things changing anytime soon.
|
|
#
?
Mar 19, 2023 04:54
|
|
|
Nessus posted:It seems like "PCs should be expected to thoroughly murder all antagonists" is a huge limitation on the design space of RPGs, although I kind of wonder how much of an absolute truth it is, or if it's a case where it's reasonably likely there will be one guy who thinks like that, and that one guy will be loud, and everyone else is likely to go with it. It's also a design issue in that many players look for game mechanical solutions to their problems, because the dice are there to get rolled. Lots of things like antagonist motivation and courage and police response time are all left to the GMs discretion and the players don't have clean access to that. Only having rules for shooting people with guns ends up working as an unintended signpost. And I'd even hazard a guess D&D still casts the same shadow over other games it cast in the nineties. I think it's telling that a lot of the modern horror games are just scary dungeon crawls.
|
|
#
?
Mar 19, 2023 08:32
|
|
|
I mean "violence is always an option" for a reason. Sometimes foes, even human and understandable/explicable one's need death. Its like sparing the big villain having just murdered half a hundred weight of mooks, it sends a very odd message.
|
|
#
?
Mar 19, 2023 09:01
|
|
|
Mors Rattus posted:Soulbound: Era of the Beast This is super-cool image, and provides plenty of adventure hooks. Mors Rattus posted:Soulbound: Era of the Beast I appreciate that it is spelled out that the whole "hard men making hard choices, no matter the cost" is explicitly spelled out to be the wrong way to approach things, and it is assumed that the PCs go "yo, what the gently caress?".
|
|
#
?
Mar 19, 2023 09:06
|
|
|
Siivola posted:Well, for one I think there was something in the water in the 90s/00s that turned nerds into absolute fuckin sociopaths with regards to games and fiction. "Why doesn’t Harry just shoot Voldemort with a gun" etc etc. 
|
|
#
?
Mar 19, 2023 09:15
|
|
|
Josef bugman posted:I mean "violence is always an option" for a reason. Sometimes foes, even human and understandable/explicable one's need death. Its like sparing the big villain having just murdered half a hundred weight of mooks, it sends a very odd message. But question this assumption that a game must necessarily involve killing tons of mooks. Yes, D&D works what way, but it’s also a major hurdle D&D is facing in the modern era.
|
|
#
?
Mar 19, 2023 09:27
|
|
|
Mors Rattus posted:Soulbound: Era of the Beast Thing that I hate right now in tabletop sigmar is that their lore is the worst ( I mean lore is good they are the worst) but I enjoy their playstyle the most (hammer to the face LETS GO)
|
|
#
?
Mar 19, 2023 10:03
|
|
|
Siivola posted:On the one hand, yes, it is odd to kill tons of mooks and then not kill the bad guy. On the other, that's a completely normal thing that happens in action movies. ...is it really? I'm wracking my brain thinking for some where all the mooks get gunned down, and then the protagonist makes a deal with the bad guy at the end.
|
|
#
?
Mar 19, 2023 10:45
|
|
|
I can recall any number of action movies where the villain gets killed if their mooks do.
|
|
#
?
Mar 19, 2023 10:47
|
|
|
PurpleXVI posted:...is it really? I'm wracking my brain thinking for some where all the mooks get gunned down, and then the protagonist makes a deal with the bad guy at the end. It doesn’t matter if the writers then decide to make the bad guy somehow become dead, because the point is that the protag doesn't have to get this specific blood on their hands. Surely this is a real thing and I'm not just inagining it?
|
|
#
?
Mar 19, 2023 11:49
|
|
|
Siivola posted:On the one hand, yes, it is odd to kill tons of mooks and then not kill the bad guy. On the other, that's a completely normal thing that happens in action movies. Basically a lot of "heroes" were... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7YqEZrP5t1g&t=24s&ab_channel=hapo667
|
|
#
?
Mar 19, 2023 13:50
|
|
|
Siivola posted:The deal isn’t the point, developing a last-second scruple and refusing to kill the one named villain is. Avengers for example ends with Loki being imprisoned after all his space alien mooks get shot. Captain Marvel shoots a bunch of space fighters and then spares that one guy. Luke throws away his lightsaber. The Punisher season finales are probably the weirdest cases because they’re so thick with unpacked ideology. It's pretty common in pulp fiction. Doc Savage, for instance, has a code against killing, but almost all his main enemies end up dead anyway, either through hubris, accident, their own flunkies turning on them, or whatever.
|
|
#
?
Mar 19, 2023 16:09
|
|
|
Josef bugman posted:I mean "violence is always an option" for a reason. Sometimes foes, even human and understandable/explicable one's need death. Its like sparing the big villain having just murdered half a hundred weight of mooks, it sends a very odd message. I blame MMOs. In the early designs, death was always the most effective form of crowd control
|
|
#
?
Mar 19, 2023 16:21
|
|
|
I mean, "game where you kill all the expendable henchmen without batting an eye and then go to great lengths to capture the mastermind alive" is basically Chess, isn't it? It's not like a new sign of society's moral decline.
|
|
#
?
Mar 19, 2023 16:38
|
|
|
PurpleXVI posted:...is it really? I'm wracking my brain thinking for some where all the mooks get gunned down, and then the protagonist makes a deal with the bad guy at the end. Almost all Bond movies and The Indiana Jones series end with the hero not killing the villain.
|
|
#
?
Mar 19, 2023 16:40
|
|
|
Nessus posted:Yeah, that poo poo has thankfully faded, but boy, it was just everywhere. To be fair I think this was parody.
|
|
#
?
Mar 19, 2023 18:26
|
|
|
Xiahou Dun posted:Almost all Bond movies and The Indiana Jones series end with the hero not killing the villain. Fullmetal Alchemist is the series I can think of where the heroes made a deliberate effort to spare mooks while still making sure all the main instigators were extremely dead. Terrible Opinions fucked around with this message at 19:22 on Mar 19, 2023 |
|
#
?
Mar 19, 2023 19:18
|
|
|
Xiahou Dun posted:Almost all Bond movies and The Indiana Jones series end with the hero not killing the villain. Not quite the example, as the villains often off themselves or get killed by their minions before the hero could have that moral quandary - closest I can think of is World is Not Enough where Bond tried to talk Elektra down but he ends up shooting her (curiously in earlier drafts, she does survive and is put in an asylum where he does visit her, but they nix it because can't have Bond have a serious relationship with a woman).
|
|
#
?
Mar 19, 2023 19:35
|
|
|
Some of the mook death vs. villain death seems like it may be dramatic shorthand ("these guys are here to make a cool and dramatic action scene/sequence" vs. "this guy is the actual named primary antagonist with whom a conflict will be realized") which is leading to these different outcomes. Sort of the SDC/MDC problem writ large.
|
|
#
?
Mar 19, 2023 20:04
|
|
|
Xiahou Dun posted:Almost all Bond movies and The Indiana Jones series end with the hero not killing the villain. I mean, when your villain manages to get themselves killed before you can draw a gun on them, it doesn't really count. Indiana Jones wasn't really in a position to kill the villain, so it wasn't like he made a choice not to, it was more that circumstance did the work for him. Siivola posted:The deal isn’t the point, developing a last-second scruple and refusing to kill the one named villain is. ... Luke throws away his lightsaber. I'm going to respond to the one of these I've actually seen. I think the big deal here is that Luke kills the various henchmen, the stormtroopers because they're coming at him and his friends, it's effectively self defense. We never see him walk over and finish off a wounded Stormtrooper, or step in and gun down a bunch of them at the chow line. He absolutely fights Vader and does a pretty decent job of it, too, but the moment where it's a matter of killing someone defenseless, he doesn't do it, because that is the line. The line isn't killing, the line is killing someone who isn't a threat.And there are absolutely stories that go along these lines, but in stories that aren't dogshit, this isn't when the hero discovers a newfound scruple against killing. It's generally because, yeah, the villain throws away their gun and surrenders and killing someone not fighting back in cold blood is absolute sociopath behavior for most people unless you have some sort of extreme grudge against them for poo poo they've done to you/people you care about in the past, or sometimes it's because not killing them is actually the harsher punishment, because dragging them back before a court won't just put them in a coffin, it'll have everything they crimed and villainized to build dismantled by the legal system, perhaps handed over to the very people they hosed over, while them dying in a horrible rocket-related accident will kill them but not dismantle whatever they built.
|
|
#
?
Mar 19, 2023 21:22
|
|
|
Soulbound: Era of the Beast I'll Just Ignore Our first stop on our tour of Thondia outside Excelsis is Amberstone Watch, a Sigmarite settlepoint northeast of the city. It was the site of a major battle between the Grinnin' Blades Kruleboyz and the Hammers of Sigmar, who stepped in to stop the Grinnin' Blades from poisoning Thondian leylines. It was a hard-fought battle, but thanks to the intervention of Yndrasta, the Celestial Spear and favored huntress of Sigmar, the Stormcast won out. The town was once much bigger than it is now, but the rocky cliff it was built on has now sunk into the marshes made by the Blades. The only reason there's a settlement there at all is that to make a symbolic point, the Hammers of Sigmar have insisted on fortifying the area as a stronghold for Freeguild and Stormcast alike. The fortress is essentially the entire settlement, and deaths remain common among the scouts that operate from it. Their primary job is, after all, tracking the movements of Orruk clans and dangerous predators throughout eastern Thondia. None of the original inhabitants of Amberstone Watch still live there - they were wiped out in the attacks of the Grinnin' Blades. The current population are refugees who relocated after the Siege of Excelsis, and they see themselves as a constant challenge to the orruks of the Morruk Hills, with each day of continued survival an act of resistance and resilience after all they have already suffered. The Kruleboyz agree - Amberstone Watch still existing is an insult, and they'd very much like to wipe it out. Bilgeport is a pirate haven built inside the corpse of a massive godbeast-spawn. Officially, the sailors of Bilgeport only attack ships belonging to Chaos followers or groups not belonging to the Free Cities, but everyone knows they're just as happy to take Sigmarite ships if it seems like they could get away with it. The goods they seize from the trade lanes are then resold at ruinous prices, with anything clearly taken from Free Peoples vessels being sold as "salvage" taken from "wrecks." This has not, historically, gone over well with Excelsian leaders, and the Order of Azyr once ordered the execution of the pirate leaders. (They have since been replaced by other pirates, with little actual change in tactics except for a greater amount of discretion.) However, mercenaries are definitely in demand right now, and the orruks are happy to attack pirates as well, so the Bilgeport pirates have been grudgingly accepted as temporary allies of convenience now. Bilgeport is guarded from the weather by a giant shell, with five ribs jutting out over the harbor. Each rib has tons of cannon and ballistas mounted on it in case of sea attack, while the skull of the godbeast makes up most of the docks. The buildings inside the shell are mostly built out of the beast's bones, with the rest of the settlement's construction materials largely being sailcloth, driftwood and leather. The market is a great place to go if you want normally illegal or stolen goods, and Bilgeport maintains absolutely no laws regarding what goods can be wned or sold. The place is run by a group referred to as the High Captains, who usually number between three and five. The exact makeup varies depending on which pirates are the most powerful at a given moment and which are actually at port. The most infamous and dangerous of the High Captains is Rumbar the Salter, an ogor Butcher who claims to be on a divine mission to taste all of the meats of the sea. Rumor has it that he's currently busy gathering up materials for a magical ritual that will summon a terrible sea monster so he can try to kill and eat it. Most of this piracy is done in the Clawing Sea east of Thondia. The Clawing Sea is death for any ship that isn't ready to deal with its dangers, though - giant sea serpents, gyresharks that can swallow five men whole simultaneously...even the herbivorous leviadons that feed on the seawood are bad-tempered and prone to violence if disturbed, and in the icier northern waters, krakens trawl the surface for food when the weather is stormy. The aelven Scourge are easily the most famous and the best among those that ply its waters, having sailed it for generations - aelven generations, at that. Since the Age of Sigmar began, they have been well paid to protect Order's trade vessels and destroy enemy ships as well as making money capturing monsters for trade materials or gladitorial combat. With the rise of Morathi-Khaine, however, a growing faction of Scourge want to return to piracy against anyone they please instead of taking Sigmar's coin. They aren't the only dangerous folks on the sea, though, and not all such folks have ships. The Clawing Sea's current top predator is not an animal but the Kraken-Eater Mega-Gargant known as Gurnog Shark-Caster. Gurnog is very clever by gargant standards and has set up a racket so that he doesn't "overfish" the merchants of the sea. Rather, he has taken up extorting ships for treasure and, if they pay, actually letting them go alive. Assuming he isn't hungry that day. If he isn't paid or he's feeling particularly peckish, well, that ship is getting smashed and its contents stolen or eaten or both. Gurnog maintains several semi-permanent lairs along the Coast of Tusks in a number of concealed inlets, and he moves between them randomly, which makes tracking him very difficult. The Coast of Tusks is the name for Thondia's eastern coastline. The southern part is mostly swamps that fade into plains in the north, which are bordered by mountains and tundra to their north. However, geography in Ghur is not static, and all of these biomes are busy fighting each other for dominance. Everything could be different in a decade - or even a few seasons. The coastline is full of herds of large grazing beasts, including rhinoxen, thundertusks, flathorns and segmented, insectile tokkashottle. The predators that hunt them include the sabretusk and a reptilian ambush predator called a sheklis, which attacks by leaping out of holes in the ground that it has filled with digestive acid and then dragging prey into them. There's also flocks of ravenous slasherwings that scavenge any kill that isn't guarded. The Dawnbringers and settlers from Excelsis and Izalend have established many small settlements and forts along the coast, but most of them have fallen to the predations of the various dangers of Ghur - particularly the orruks. The Kruleboyz in particular have emptied out many settlements near marshy areas, leaving the buildings intact but devoid of any sign of life except, sometimes, mocking graffiti or a single body left as calling card. Those that survive do so by a mix of luck and courage, and there is little military aid to be found that can defend them, given the situation in Excelsis. The general mindset of Ghurish tribefolk is that city people should probably not make settlements they're not prepared to lose - the strong survive, and that's the way of Ghur. Next time: The Drench, the Gnarlwood and other lovely places that are surely safe
|
|
#
?
Mar 19, 2023 23:43
|
|
|
Xiahou Dun posted:Almost all Bond movies and The Indiana Jones series end with the hero not killing the villain. I can't speak much of the Bond flicks, but in Indiana Jones the main reason the bosses die is that the artifact they're going after kills them. I always thought the "smart move" for Indy would have been to follow the bad guys at a distance, quietly help them get whatever they want and then cart the god-thingie off after they're all corpses.
|
|
#
?
Mar 20, 2023 00:41
|
|
|
Everyone posted:I can't speak much of the Bond flicks, but in Indiana Jones the main reason the bosses die is that the artifact they're going after kills them. I always thought the "smart move" for Indy would have been to follow the bad guys at a distance, quietly help them get whatever they want and then cart the god-thingie off after they're all corpses. From memory in the Bond movies, Live and Let Die was the first movie where Bond directly kills the villain (by overinflating him with a shark pellet and watching him explode in a special effect that looked really awful, even by 1973's standards.) Connery's Bond never (directly) kills Julius No (leaves him to be boiled alive in a nuclear reactor's cooling tank), Rosa Klebb (Tanya Romanova shoots her in the back), Auric Goldfinger (they struggle over a revolver on an airplane, the revolver shoots out a window, Goldfinger gets sucked out and falls to his death), Emilio Largo (Domino shoots him in the back with a spear gun), or Ernst Stavro Blofeld (he lives through all three movies he's in, only to be Yeah, I was surprised too, especially because my favorite Bond killed both of his villains!
|
|
#
?
Mar 20, 2023 06:08
|
|
|
Snorb posted:From memory in the Bond movies, Live and Let Die was the first movie where Bond directly kills the villain (by overinflating him with a shark pellet and watching him explode in a special effect that looked really awful, even by 1973's standards.) Connery's Bond never (directly) kills Julius No (leaves him to be boiled alive in a nuclear reactor's cooling tank), Rosa Klebb (Tanya Romanova shoots her in the back), Auric Goldfinger (they struggle over a revolver on an airplane, the revolver shoots out a window, Goldfinger gets sucked out and falls to his death), Emilio Largo (Domino shoots him in the back with a spear gun), or Ernst Stavro Blofeld (he lives through all three movies he's in, only to be I think kicking No into the cooling tank and leaving him counts. Not his fault No could not grasp properly his fake hands. MonsterEnvy fucked around with this message at 17:10 on Mar 20, 2023 |
|
#
?
Mar 20, 2023 08:32
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 12, 2024 02:15 |
|
|
Snorb posted:Yeah, I was surprised too, especially because my favorite Bond killed both of his villains! I was gonna say I can remember several moments where Bond directly kills the villain. Like Hugo Drax taking the poison dart from the wrist launcher, or the villain in License to Kill who gets drenched in fuel or liquefied cocaine and gets torched with Felix's lighter. I think the only Bond non-involved death I can remember after that point was Sean Bean getting smushed by the Arecibo telescope superstructure as it collapses.
|
|
#
?
Mar 20, 2023 12:30
|
|
