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That Old Tree
Jun 23, 2012

nah


theironjef posted:

Afterthought 28 - Car Vore has become live and ready. I think the intro might be tuned a little high, so watch your headphones. Otherwise this is a fun one, for some reason the questions were really just clicking for us.

Holy poo poo that intro.

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Young Freud
Nov 25, 2006

Evil Mastermind posted:

It's interesting; after the history of Gaea name-dropped all these people who the writer just assumed I'd be familiar with the major players of the Salem Witch Trials, I tried to look up the names in this chapter to see if they were based on real people. Turns out the people weren't, but the text was.

Which is another problem I have with this stuff. They drop these historical names and chunks of important text, but next say "oh by the way, this is based on our real-life %THING", but they always present it like I'm just supposed to get these references. I mean, this was 1992! Google didn't exist yet! Hell, if I didn't just search for the Salem names on a whim, I never would have known those were real-life historical figures.

There's a great bit in the Tharkold book where they bring up the free humans' (the Race) mythology and it's the quote from the fictional Book of Man from Lester del Ray's "For I Am A Jealous People". This make me wonder if the weird intergender creation mythos quote for the Tharkold might have been pulled from somewhere.

Count Chocula
Dec 25, 2011

WE HAVE TO CONTROL OUR ENVIRONMENT
IF YOU SEE ME POSTING OUTSIDE OF THE AUSPOL THREAD PLEASE TELL ME THAT I'M MISSED AND TO START POSTING AGAIN

Young Freud posted:

There's a great bit in the Tharkold book where they bring up the free humans' (the Race) mythology and it's the quote from the fictional Book of Man from Lester del Ray's "For I Am A Jealous People". This make me wonder if the weird intergender creation mythos quote for the Tharkold might have been pulled from somewhere.

Refresh my memory? If it involves a hermaphrodite being who gets split in 2 by jealous gods its originally from Plato, tho I know it best from Hedwig & the Angry Inch: http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=_zU3U7E1Odc

Young Freud
Nov 25, 2006

Count Chocula posted:

Refresh my memory? If it involves a hermaphrodite being who gets split in 2 by jealous gods its originally from Plato, tho I know it best from Hedwig & the Angry Inch: http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=_zU3U7E1Odc

It's definitely not that, because the Tharkold are hermaphrodites to begin with, so there's no splitting off and what's given of their creation mythos indicates that the Progenitor of Demons basically sprang from whole cloth. Here it is from the "Kraznavekta" as described in the Tharkold splatbook...

quote:

Omoo-Zhan, Progenitor of Demonkind, the self-begotten, Itself It bore, inseminator and gestator, within the womb of stars. Wings flaring, eyes burning, did Omoo-Zhan fly Its hunting dance among the stars. Talons tearing, fangs biting, did Omoo-Zhan seize Creation by the throat and bear it down. Before Omoo-Zhan, the Universe did bare the throat. Unto Gestator Omoo-Zhan did Inseminator Universe submit. And <She'> bore many children from <His> seed, and we shall rule worIds.

Yeah, that's the Demon God basically raping the Universe. There might actually be some creation myths that include that. I know Shinto creation myth is kinda skeevy.

Mors Rattus
Oct 25, 2007

FATAL & Friends
Walls of Text
#1 Builder
2014-2018

Ethereal Player's Guide: I'll Be Watching You

Entrancement gives a bonus to diverting attention toward or away from yourself. The Rite is to spend 10 minutes distracting someone from what they were doing.
  • 1 Essence: Create a momentary distraction that draws someone's attention in the direction of your choice. Both the target and the the object that distracts them must be in line of sight, and the subject can resist with Will. For (CD) of the failed Will roll, or until something more urgent calls attention to itself, the target stares at whatever you chose.
  • 2 Essence: As above, but you can entrance (Ethereal Forces) people.
  • 3 Essence: Entrance one person to the degree that they will continue staring at the object of fascination until struck or forcibly made unable to see it. Victims can resist with Will, but failure means it lasts (failed CD) hours, after which they can roll again.

Fertility grants an affinity for Songs of Fruition. It gives a bonus to create dreams of childbirth of growth. Spirits generally hide a Fertility affinity due to the abilities it grants them being hated by angels. The Rite is to plant something, or to facilitate or participate in an act of conception.
  • You can learn any of the Songs of Fruition without a teacher, no roll.
  • 5 Essence: Bless plant or animal life, including humans, with fecundity, as per the Animals affinity.
  • 3 Essence (plus any Song cost), Primal: You can interbreed with mortals without using the Ethereal Song of Fruition. If you know either the Ethereal or Celestial Song of Fruition, you may use them on others rather than yourself.

Filth gives an affinity for the Songs of Pestilence. It gives a bonus to pollute any dreamscape with images of mud, muck, sewage, smog or other filth. The Rite is to befoul a structure, stream, pond, glade or similarly sized area.
  • You are immune to foul smells and tastes, can eat anything not actually toxic and are not repelled by normally nauseating material. No roll.
  • 1 Essence: Generate an unpleasant odor covering a radius of (Ethereal Forces) yards for (CD) hours. It's not strong enough to make anyone vomit or hinder them, but is very unpleasant. Alternatively, permanently contaminate (Ethereal Forces) pounds of food or drink with a disgusting but non-poisonous taste.
  • 2 Essence: Coat any one object or creature in sight with a layer of grime, mold and rot, covering up to (Ethereal Forces) square yards of surface per use. This is not immediately harmful, but the muck is not healthy and will gum up electronics or moving parts quickly. It is very difficult to clean.
  • 2 Essence: Turn an area up to (Ethereal Forces) yards in radius 'dirty,' hastening the growth of mildew and fungus, attracting dust and dirt and generally making the area look grimy no matter what, for (CD) days.
  • Primal: You are immune to poison and disease of all kinds, period, no matter what. You can breathe smog, swim in toxic waste and eat poisoned or diseased food without harm. No roll.

Fire gives an affinity for the Songs of Fire and Numinous Corpus: Flame. It gives a bonus to create fires or warmth in dreams. The Rite is to consume something valuable with fire.
  • 1 Essence: Ignite something flammable within sight, equivalent to applying a match.
  • 2 Essence: Create fire that does (CD) damage, ethereal or corporeal depending on plane, that will ignite any flammables.
  • 1 Essence: Radiate heat out to (Corporeal Forces) yards, lasting (10*CD) minutes. The heat cannot do damage but can make an area sweltering.
  • 2 Essence: You are immune to heat and fire for (CD) minutes, but not to artifacts like Fiery swords, nor to lasers or electricity. For another 2 Essence, you can extend this to someone else.
  • Primal: You increase the duration of your fire immunity to (CD) hours, but only when applied to yourself.

Glamour gives an affinity for the Ethereal Song of Nimbus. It gives a bonus to any Dreaming rolls to improve your own appearance or create a favorable reaction. The Rite is to impress someone important.
  • 1 Essence: Get a bonus of (CD) to a reaction roll.
  • 2 Essence: As above, but even a failure is treated as a success with CD 0.
  • 2 Essence: Force a favorable reaction. The target makes a Will roll or is treated as if charmed by the Impudite resonance by you for (CD) minutes.

Hunger gives an affinity for the Songs of Hunger. You get a bonus to creating dreams of physical hunger or food. The Rite is to satisfy your hunger or help someone else satisfy theirs.
  • You can recognize someone who is hungry with a Perception roll. No affinity roll needed.
  • You can 'devour' people ethereally. If you reduce someone's Mind HP to 0 in ethereal combat, you get all of their remaining Essence, and get 1 Essence even if they had none left. This costs nothing but does take a roll.
  • 3 Essence, Primal: you can swallow others whole in the Marches. This is a Dream-Shaping contest, and if the victim fails to resist, you devour them as above. They take no ethereal damage, but are treated as if they hit 0 Mind HP, with all effects as normal, plus you get their Essence as above.

Light gives an affinity for the Songs of Light. You get a bonus to illuminate a dream. The Rite is to spend a full day or an entire night in a dreamscape under the equivalent of full sunlight.
  • You get +1 to all TNs in bright daylight and -1 to all TNs in darkness, no roll.
  • You can't be blinded by any light, including the Celestial Song of Light, if you make an affinity roll. This does not prevent damage.
  • 1 Essence: Glow for (CD) hours.
  • 1 Essence: You are immune to any harm from light in any form for (CD) minutes, including the Celestial Song of Light or lasers, but not fire, electricity or any form of heat.
  • 2 Essence: You shine as bright as the sun, blinding any who look directly at you and fail a Strength roll. This extends out for (10*Ethereal Forces) yards, or can fill a whole dreamscape with a Dream-Shaping roll, and lasts (CD) rounds.

Lightning gives an affinity for the Songs of Lightning. You get a bonus to introduce lightning storms or electricity to a dream. The Rite is to spend the night in a thunderstorm.
  • 1 Essence: Become luminescent and discharge sparks at will for (CD) hours.
  • 1 Essence: Generate electricity with a touch, dealing (CD) damage. With a Precision roll, you can start a car or power appliances for (CD) minutes.
  • 2 Essence: Project electricity, dealing damage as above, but with a range of (10*Ethereal Forces) yards, or anywhere in a dreamscape. You automatically hit but can be Dodged.
  • 2 Essence: You are immune to electrical damage for (CD) minutes, and can extend this to another for 2 more Essence.
  • Primal: You increase the duration of your electrical immunity to (CD) hours, but only when applied to yourself.

Luck gives a bonus to arrange improbable 'random' events in a dream in order to benefit or harm someone specifically. The Rite is to escape a bad situation or gain some benefit, entirely by chance.
  • Whenever you spend Essence to boost a roll, you get a free +1 to the TN, no roll.
  • 3 Essence: Cause good or bad luck for yourself or anyone you see, the exact result of which is left to the GM. It can happen at any point between instant and the next 24 hours, with the CD determining how immediate, relevant and/or beneficial or harmful the luck is. A failed roll has the same effect as a success, but also curses you with bad luck at the same level of effect.
  • Primal: You are ridiculously lucky. Good things happen regularly, and random events will almost never harm you. This has no effect on Interventions, however. No roll.

Minerals can provide affinities for the Songs of Stone or Numinous Corpus: Rock, but only when your affinity is for stone. Each Mineral affinity applies to a particular type of mineral, such as stone, metal or gems. You get a bonus to create your preferred material in dreams. The Rite is to spend the night surrounded by your favored material - which includes concrete for stone and cars or vaults for metal.
  • 2 Essence: You become hard to move and heavy, subtracting (CD) from the TN of any Strength rolls that directly oppose you somehow. This lasts for a single encounter or dream.
  • 2 Essence: You add (CD) Protection by becoming hard as stone or metal. In the Marches, this reduces ethereal damage and is halved to protect against celestial damage, rounding down. This lasts for (10*Ethereal Forces) minutes, but can be extended another duration for 1 Essence.
  • You can create mineral vessels, with Protection equal to their Force-size, +2 Power to all unarmed attacks and immunity to anything that would not harm a statue, but halved movement and Agility for initiative. No roll.

Motherhood gives a bonus to creating images of motherhood in a dream, including any attempts to protect children. The Rite is to defend a child from harm or care for a child for one day.
  • 1 Essence: You may designate anyone you like as your child, getting +1 to the TN of any action to protect them, but also gaining a Dread with level of (Ethereal Forces) of your child being harmed. You must make a Will or Dream-shaping roll to unmark someone as a child.
  • 1 Essence: Know exactly where one of your children is, and in the Marches, instantly go there.
  • 3 Essence: Create a Soul Link with one of your children.
  • Primal: Your children also feel a bond to you, with no mechanical effect, but which makes them feel as they would towards their real mother, possibly including needing to make a Will roll to harm or disobey you. Celestials and ethereals vary, but any kind of maternal affection they can feel is applied to you when you mark them as your children.

Obscurement gives affinity for the Songs of Concealment and the Ethereal Song of Form. You get a bonus to hide yourself or others, and to any attempt to use Move Silently in the Marches. The Rite is to successfully hide something from a searcher for a day. (You are something.)
  • 1 Essence: Avoid notice for (CD) hours, requiring a Perception roll to notice your existence unless actively looking for you, especially alert, or you call attention to yourself.
  • 2 Essence: As above, but even those alert or looking for you must make a Perception roll to spot you, unless you threaten them. You can also give this ability to others for the same cost, objects or people.
  • Primal: You can become invisible at will, as per the Ethereal Song of Form, but using (Ethereal Forces) as the Song's level. You can remain invisible for (Ethereal Forces*Essence spent) minutes. For 3 Essence per minute, you can make someone or something else invisible.

Plants gives a bonus to introduce or control plants in a dream. The Rite is to spend all night in contact with plant life.
  • You may create plant vessels. No roll.
  • 1+ Essence: Accelerate plant growth. For (Essence spent) days, any plants within (Ethereal Forces) yards multiply their growth rate by (CD+1).
  • 2 Essence: You may possess plants, causing your vessel to vanish and your mind to occupy any plant you touch, for up to (CD) hours. This causes a Disturbance as per changing vessels, and the plant is treated as a host. You can't animate it - just sit in it. You retain all senses, however, and may use Songs or affinities. If the plant is destroyed with you inside, you enter Trauma. You may leave it at any time, reverting to your vessel and causing Disturbance again.
  • 1 Essence: Identify a plant and know any and all properties it has and purposes it can be used for.
  • 2 Essence: You may move unhindered through any form of vegetation, as per the Terrain affinity, except you can't use it on others.
  • 5 Essence, Primal: Bless plant life with fecundity or curse it with barrenness. An area of soil with radius of (Ethereal Forces) yards will be unusually fertile for (CD) months, or barren for the same duration.

Puissance gives a bonus to creating weapons or conditions favorable to weapon usage in dreams. The Rite is to hit someone with a natural CD 6.
  • Choose one specific type of weapon, such as pistols, throwing stars or swords. You get +1 to any skill using that weapon, no roll, permanently.
  • 2 Essence: Create an ethereal weapon of your chosen type, with (CD) power. This remains until you banish it or leave the Marches.
  • 2 Essence: Multiply the power of a single attack with your chosen type by (CD). This works in ethereal, corporeal or celestial combat.
  • Primal: Choose a broader category of weapon: Ranged Weapons, Melee Weapons or Unarmed Combat, for example.

Speed gives an affinity to the Songs of Motion. You get a bonus to Dream-Shaping rolls to outrun or outmaneuver someone else. The Rite is to beat someone in a race or other contest of speed.
  • 1 Essence: Add (CD) to your Agility for initiative purposes, for an entire fight.
  • 1 Essence: Add (CD) to your movement per turn, in any realm, for (Ethereal Forces) hours.
  • Primal: You automatically win any initiative contest, save against other Speed-affinity spirits or Ofanim. In the Marches, you automatically win any race or outrun anyone, unless you lose a Dream-Shaping contest. No roll.

Terrain is like Emotion - you pick a specific type of terrain, like Sea, Mountain, Forest, Arctic, Desert or City. You get a bonus to creating that type of terrain in dreams. The Rite is to spend the night in the chosen terrain type.
  • 1 Essence: Add (CD) to any Survival roll in the chosen terrain.
  • 2 Essence: Move unhindered through the chosen terrain for (CD) hours. You don't automatically avoid hazards, but your movement rate can't be reduced. This costs +1 Essence to grant to others.
  • 1 Essence: Substitute (CD) for the an Area Knowledge roll within the chosen terrain, even if you don't know the area.
  • Primal: You automatically succeed at Survival rolls in the chosen terrain, with CD, if needed, of (Ethereal Forces).

Water grants an affinity for the Songs of Water. You get a bonus to bring water into dreams or shape water in dreams to your will. The Rite is to spend the night in or next to a body of water.
  • 1 Essence: Divine the nearest water source.
  • 1 Essence: Breathe water for (CD*10) minutes, plus 1 Essence to grant the ability to another.
  • 1 Essence: Walk on water or move through it at running speed in any direction, for (CD) hours.
  • 2 Essence: Create and/or purify (CD) gallons of water, materializing it anywhere not inside a living creature. With a Precision roll, upset the water in someone, foricng a Strength roll to avoid nausea and -2 TN to all rolls for (Ethereal Forces minutes, or cause extreme thirst or bloated sensation, with no mechanical effect in the short term but extreme discomfort.
  • 2 Essence: Quench fires within (CD) square yards. Double cost for particularly fierce fires, and any fire that can't be put out by water is unaffected.
  • Primal: You breathe water naturally, in any vessel. Further, you can make vessels of water, with the Force size determining the watery mass. These vessels can move freely in bodies of water but are half speed on land. Most attacks cannot harm them, but they need a Precision roll to manipulate anything physically. However, they can engulf and drown people with a contest of Strength.

Wealth gives a bonus to shape a dream towards images of riches or quests for wealth. The Rite is to acquire something more valuable than anything else you currently own.
  • 1 Essence: Know something's value relative to the local market.
  • 1 Essence: Judge how wealthy someone is.
  • 2 Essence: Bless someone for (CD) days, causing economic transactions to go well for them.
  • 4 Essence: You may conjure wealth somehow - turning things to gold, conjuring gems or winning lottery tickets, whatever.

Weather gives an affinity for the Songs of Storms. You get a bonus to alter the weather in dreams. The Rite is to spend all day exposed to severe weather.
  • 1 Essence: You are immune to any weather or temperature extreme, including natural lightning, for (CD) hours, but not any other electrical attacks. Even tornadoes, blizzards and sandstorms won't harm you, though floods and mudslides can, as can earthquakes or volcanos.
  • 1 Essence: Preict the weather for the next 24 hours.
  • 2 Essence: change the weather, with a sidebar on guidelines. Each level of change costs 2 Essence, and you can't cause more than (CD) levels of change per roll. The change lasts 1 hour and covers (Ethereal Forces) miles in diameter.



We get a brief bit on Vessels. You can cache Essence for vessel creation. The cost of a vessel is (15*vessel's size*vessel's level) Essence. Size is limited by your Forces. You must have a certain number of Forces to be able to use a Vessel of a certain size, though you can wear one smaller than your Forces. The size of most vessels is equal to the Forces of a normal being of that type - so 5 for an adult human. However, it's not always that way - really big things need more Forces even though a whale probably doesn't have more Forces than a human. Charisma can be raised up to +3, costing 15 Essence per vessel level, or 10 Essence if the Charisma is limited to a certain kind of being. Vessel Discord makes vessels cheaper, and only affects one vessel - so you only have it while in that vessel. It reduces the cost by (3*vessel's level*Discord's level) Essence, or (5*vessel's level*Discord's level) for Celestial Discord, though never below 1 Essence.



Next time: Types of Etherealo

oriongates
Mar 14, 2013

Validate Me!




Windriders Of The Jagged Cliffs Part 5:
Little Towns On The Cliff


So, this section will be pretty quick, because I don't think anyone cares about halfling population statistics or GDP. This chapter deals with the vertical cities that dot the Jagged Cliffs.

Here's a vertical map, showing the relative elevation of the different cities (horizontally they're often quite far apart).




Thamasku

Thamasku has two notable features. First, it is the halfling capital and by far their largest city (12,000 people). Second, it has the distinction of actually being built on top of the cliffs rather than stuck on a ledge looming over a mile-long drop.



That's because Thamasku is actually the only remaining city from the Blue Age, being the remnants of an ancient Rhul-thaun metropolis built on the island chain that would eventually become the Jagged Cliffs. That means that the Rhul-Thuan took a look at Thamasku with it's flat ground, plenty of room to stretch your legs and minimal risk of falling to your death and decided..."naaaah". As you can see from the illustration there's actually a huge tract of arable land around Thamasku (according to the map scale its about 100 miles across) and with a population of only 12,000 people its hardly overcrowded up there...the entire halfling population of the Jagged Cliffs could pretty comfortably live in and around the borders of Thamasku.

But why do that when you can live right on the border of nothing at all.

Being in the center of a forest means that Thamasku actually uses lumber and so there are wooden buildings in addition to those made from life-shaped materials. The city is located on the borders of a lake which empties over the edge of the cliffs (because the authors don't really get geography sometimes) which the halflings sail on in wooden boats, as the means of creating life-shaped watercraft have been lost. Which is a shame, because apparently they looked pretty awesome.



Thamasku is, culturally, more conservative and clan-focused than other cities, probably because this is where the most clan politics happen and the law-making Conclaves gather. The whole place is the economic center of Rhul-thaun society, so much so that it even has its own thieves guild! Although the ancient life-shapers who built Thamasku were masters of the forces of life itself they knew poo poo about city planning. That's why this is what Thamasku looks like:



Beyond that, Thamasku has a few notable places. It features the largest Air elemental temple (and in fact, the largest temple at all) in rhul-thaun society. Despite this it still has less than 20 priests and its main function is as a resting place for windriders and their mounts. The air priests see windriding as a way of communing with the element and therefore consider all windriders "holy men" of a sort. The second largest temple is also here, a water temple located at the edge of the lake itself. Of course it also has the largest Life-shaper sanctuary, submerged underneath the lake and the entire structure is alive, its gills providing air for itself and the life-shapers who live there. In addition to Thamasku proper there's the tiny village of Sol-Fehn which is really just a remote section of Thamasku that serves as a transportation hub for those coming up from or going down below.


Pareth

The second largest halfling community is Pareth, home to about 3,500 people. The city is known as being particularly friendly to windriders and almost every business gives preferential treatment to them. It also has the second largest life-shaper sanctuary, bored into the side of the cliff by (now lost) life-shaping digging techniques, making it the only existing subterranean rhul-thaun structure (really...not only do halflings refuse to life on flat land, they won't maybe dig a bit inside the cliffs too?)

Glerran

While Pareth is the village for windriders, Glerran is the village for climbers (because apparently you've got to have a theme). The village is home to about 2,500 inhabitants. Beyond catering to climbers it really only has two notable features:

First, its home to the only full-fledged psionicists in rhul-thaun society: a pair of twins named Kal-Odot and Fren-Anan. In addition to being powerful psionicists, they have a special talent which allows them to communicate telepathically at all times and (by agreement) even swap minds. They are both self-taught and have used their psionic abilities and cunning to rise to great power in the city (one serves as the city administrator while the other serves as a false critic and opponent).

Second, it is home to a temple of elemental earth (the largest of its kind) where the priests engage in a ritual of "dancing earth" where the clerics use their powers to animate stones and knock them together, annoying all of their neighbors. The place was founded by an exiled air priest who rejected the air and began to worship earth. He was cast out into the deserts east of the jagged cliffs where he was eventually caught by a group of non-halfling bandits who began torturing him. A pyreen noticed and slew the bandits, saving the halflings life. Among the bandits equipment the earth priest found a wand of Animate Rock, which he took as a sign from his element. He returned to halfling society and founded the earth temple in glerran, using the wand for the rock-dance once every 10 years. Unfortunately, the priests of the temple are unaware that the wand has only two charges left. Apparently even the few clerics in halfling society don't actually know how to craft magic items.

Sahr-Tosh

Sahr-Tosh is kind of a terrible place to live, probably why its less than 2,000 people in all. The place is more exposed than most cliff communities and built in a particularly storm-prone location. The place is constantly battered by storms and no real explanation is provided as to why anyone would choose to live here...its not known for any kind of essential resources nor does it seem to sit on any vital trade or travel routes.

Oh, and pterrax riding pterrans live dangerously nearby and are quite happy to snag halfling climbers.

Why do we live here!?

In addition, the life-shapers of Sahr-tosh do not even keep up the pretense of political neutrality as the city administrator is also the head life-shaper. The life-shaping sanctuary is far larger, relative to the village's size, than any other and the life-shapers take the opportunity provided by being basically the rulers of the city to perform their most dangerous and morally questionable experiments here. They even have their own life-shaped assassins called the ghav-nosh (takers of life) that they use to eliminate their enemies.

In addition to the main shaper sanctuary there is the Stormtower, a kind of life-shaped prison. It holds 14 pods containing unknown, but apparently powerful, life shaped beings. No one knows anymore what is in the pods or how they could be opened safely (assuming thats even possible) and so they are kept here.

So yeah, Sahr-Tosh is a shithole.

Yihn-Tol

Before Glerran took over that role Yihn-Tol was the village that most suited climbers. Now its smaller (only 1,800 people) and no longer as important. It is the lowest halfling village and therefore the closest to the swamp and the effects of Rajaat's Curse, so mutations are especially common here. And of course the swamp is full of death-monsters who are quite happy to try and climb up the cliffs to eat some halfling faces. It is also the first target of the Reggilids (you'll find out about them later) and assaults by the thri-kreen empire to the west.

Basically, Yihn-Tol is the canary of the Jagged Cliffs, its there to hold the line against all the horrible stuff and once it finally gets torn off the cliff-face everyone else knows poo poo has gotten real bad.

The place is under such danger that there is no life-shaper sanctuary here. Life-shapers are flown in when needed to repair buildings (especially the city's walls, which are a unique feature among the halflings) and then flown out again once their done. Everything else must be imported.

Almost as bad as living in Sahr-Tosh.

Ter-Omak

The only notable feature of Ter-Omak is that it is home to a Hatfield/Mccoy style feud between two clans.

Vir-Rath

This village used to be supplied with water from huge, organic pumps...but of course the pool that they drew from has run dry, no one remembers how to repair them and its too costly to make new ones. So water has to be physically carried up from lower sources. At least its not Sahr-Tosh.

Sunnil

One of the smallest ledge-villages, only housing 1000 people. That's about all that's worth knowing.

Reg-Tol

The smallest full-fledged village (800 people), it used to be a luxury retreat for the rich and the traditional home of the High Lord. But since there are no more High Lords its now just a small, fairly nice little village.

Bav-Rem

A little village only notable for the fact that everyone is dead now. Although no one knows it yet, Bav-rem was the victim of a life-shaped experiment gone awry that produced a The Blob, which devoured everything organic and then retreated to a nearby cave to rest off its big meal. The place is basically a big plot hook as the creature will eventually emerge to feed, or maybe even reproduce.

Oh well, everyone may be dead...but at least its not Sahr-Tosh.



That's all the cities, next the low down on the life shapers.

oriongates fucked around with this message at 04:57 on Mar 23, 2016

Zereth
Jul 8, 2003



Okay so wait. The have space up top. It's even an amazingly nice place to live, for Athas.

They are clearly living on the cliffs NOW because they are super traditional and have been doing that for a long time, but they have no reason to have started doing that in the first place.

There's nothing down at the bottom of the cliffs anybody would want, and in fact it's a good idea to stay as far away as possible, so there's no good reason to have built places to rest while moving from the ground level to or from the top, that would have eventually expanded into real cities.

If they needed some inhospitable area to expand into for Reasons, they could have climbed UP from Thamasku onto those plateaus up there, presumably.

And it's not like there USED to be trade with the ground level because before they started living on the cliff that was underwater.




Is the moral of this book "halflings are really loving stupid"?

EDIT: And/or the book's author(s). They clearly decided "cliff-dwelling halflings!" and then failed to provide any reason they'd uh, have started doing that in the first place.

Mors Rattus
Oct 25, 2007

FATAL & Friends
Walls of Text
#1 Builder
2014-2018

Ethereal Player's Guide: Happiness Hotel



Anything imaginable can lie in the Marches. Ethereals include singing beer bottles and pagan gods. All they have in common is that they are of the same stuff. A figment is like a god, in the same way a reliever is like an Archangel. Ethereals are innately mutable, formed of Essence and dreams, and often their nature is imposed on them. It can even be changed. They can be categorized by nature and origins, but no classification is either definitive or entirely accurate. Spirits can take any guise, and there's no way to be sure if the Santa you meet is a recently escaped drema-fragment, a full spirit or even a god trying to subsume the image of Santa into his own Image - or even an elemental disguising themselves for osme reason. All spirit types are made using the same rules, and they aren't really classes so much as descriptive categories, which can overlap quite easily.

Elementals are those spirits defined primarily by their elements. Most older ethereals are elementals, and the eldest of them predate humanity. They might be born of mortal dreams, but are more likely to spontaneously materialize in the Marches. Some say the first were born as the Earth cooled and began to dream of stone, water, mountains and storms. Note that these aren't just Earth Fire, Wind and Water - there's plenty of more contemporary and humanocentric elemental strands, after all! The defining feature is that an elemental strongly embodies only one or two strands, usually in a simple way. Elementals tend to have thin masks, defining themselves by their strands, not by some external purpose or Image. Sometimes they may take unlikely guises, however, most commonly when trying to change their Image or expand affinities. However, they usually prefer more intuitive forms, and even in other forms it is usually easy to tell what their elements are, unless they're really trying to hide them. Primal spirits are usually elementals.

Primal spirits are made of only one strand. This lets them have access to primal affinities. Most primal spirits are elementals, manifesting their element in the most straightforward way, but they can have more complex Images.



Dream spirits, sometimes know derogatorily as dream fragments, are those born in dreams, their Image crafted by a mortal dreamer. Most are quite weak and short-lived, but a few endure by gathering Essence from other dreamers to feed their Image, and some have become quite powerful. Figments are the images generated by dreams, non-sentient and non-sapient, who exist only to perform their role. Almsot always, they have but a single Ethereal Force, and they never have Celestial forces - any that gain them cease to be figments. Figments can be quite intelligent in their behavior, and they are Symphonically aware, but they can't voluntarily grant Essence to others. They lack self-awareness and usually vanish when the dreamscape does. Every so often, however, a dreamer wil ahve an extremely vivid dream, and a figment will escape it, remaining after the dream ends. These figments wander about, obeying their Image, oblivious to their own origins. Most of the time, they are quickly devoured. However, sometimes they will grow in power and gain more Forces, and very occasionally, they will survive to become a true spirit, able to fight back and so much safer than a mere figment.

Figments come in a few types. Background Animations are just...there, the parts of the dream you rarely notice. Random passers-by, the band of penguins playing jazz, trees. They do the same thing over and over, and if they somehow escape, they'll just keep doing that until they're noticed or somehow expand to a greater role. They are almost always 1-Force. Foreground Figments have a bit more personality, because they directly interact with the dreamer - the tiger that chases with you, the girl that flirts with you, the giant butterfly that quotes Rand and is your repressed childhood. They are more sophisticated and can briefly pass for autonomous. They are usually 1-Force, but may have a second. Central Characters are the focus of a dream, and are most likely to break free and eventually become true spirits. Most are still 1-Force, but some have as many as 3, though none Celestial. They might be family members, man-eating cars or whatever, but they are highly sophisticated and smart enough to fake the free will they don't actually have.

Autonomous Dream Spirits are what figments can become. They may not immediately realize their nature has changed, and most do continue to act out their roles for along time. Still, they have the ability to act independently and even violate their nature and choose different goals. The most willful, intelligent and lucky figments become these spirits. They can be...well, anything. The more 'rational' they are, the more likely they can interact menaingfully with others and grow in power. Talking bears, signing furniture and so on, that's normal. Psychopathic inverted kidneys, or singing black holes, they probably don't last very long. Each of these spirits is unique, and while another dreamer may dream something like them, they are gone if destroyed. If a new one shows up, it's just a coincidence.

Gestalt Dream Spirits are born from the synergy between an escaped figment and ambient belief of dreamers. Dream images that are very common might show up as figments in thousands of dreamscapes - millions, even, that never go anywhere for each that becomes a true spirit. Because gestalt spirits can benefit from ambient belief, they tend to be stronger and more likely to survive than autonomous spirits. However, they are viciously competitive with those that share their Image, unless they form a tribe. Functionally, they are little different from autonomous spirits...except that when they die, they tend to get replaced, and the replacmeent may even share their memories and abilities. This makes it hard for others to track which 'version' of the spirit they're meeting, or even how many versions exist.







Creatures of Myth are beings so prevalent in the collective consciousness that they just show up in the Marches. Some argue the cause and effect are reversed - these spirits predated human dreams, and popular belief made them stronger. Some were born before the Purity Crusade, when ethereals went to Earth more, and had both the Image and vessel of myths. Some interbred with corporeal beings, making half-breeds that were corporeal but had the form of mythical creatures. The difference between these and gestalt dream spirits is that gestalts begin life as afigment and become stronger by ambient belief, while creature of myth are born in the Marches, with no birth in dream. The distinction is a fine one, though, and easily obscured. These spirits can easily be identified by their popular Image, which can vary from the archetype, but always shares enough common features to be identifiable.

Classical Myths are the most numerous, even after the Purity Crusade, since they've had millenia to embed themselves in the dreams of humanity. They were swept from the Earth and many died in the Crusade, sure, but even Uriel couldn't get them all, nor prevent human dreams from reviving them. Of course, all are much rarer now, and wary of going to Earth, almost never in their true form. But they remain.



Modern Pop Icons are somewhat rarer. It takes a lot of belief to make a legend, and few qualify. The latest movie star or dictator might generate more Essence in raw numbers than Galahad, sure, but a temporary surge won't create permanent ethereals often, and once their Image is forgotten, most will fade. Attila, Robin ood and Mulan endure the fads that wiped out the Cromwells, Nobunagas and Ben Franklins. The spirits who are strong and plentiful now may not be the ones with staying power. In the meantime, however, pop icons are usually avoided by older ethereals, because they're very strong and aggressive while powered, and often they lack manners. Plus, of course, there's a certain amount of envy for the power that Kennedy, Elvis and Marilyn Monroe currently enjoy.

Pagan Gods were once strong, with temples on Earth feeding them vast flows of Essence. And then monotheism happened. Now, some of the gods describe it as a sudden assault that left them stunned and weakened, but it was really a process that took almost 3000 years. During that time, gods declined and arose, but they stayed around until the Purity Crusade, which broke them. It did not, however, kill them all. They lost their worshipers, sure, their temples and Tethers, but legend and stubbornness kept them around. Some even still get a tiny trickle of Essence, and others have pinned their hopes to the neo-pagans. There are also a few gods that somehow share power with the Archangels - mostly the Hindu gods and the Loas. They are too benevolent ot be Heaven's enemies, and are grudgingly accepted, given their durability.

To be a god, you need at least 9 Forces, and likely more. Then, you need to make your Image so strong that it becomes a defining component of your being. This is referred to as a godhead, and there's two ways to get one. The first is assumption, which is fast and exceptionally dangerous. The second, transfiguration, is slow, and only very dangerous. Assumption will be covered later, but it's essentially stealing a god's godness, and failure means you die. Transfiguration, meanwhile, means establishing your Image as synonymous with a concept. The concept can be anything, but it's usually one of your elements or affinities. This requires a lot of Essence supporting your Image to permeate the Marches. When thousands dreamed of Amaterasu as the sun goddess and hundreds of motes of Essence were sent by worship, she was transfigured from mere sun-sirit to the Japanese Kami of the Sun. There's no hard mechanics here, but the usual method is lots of worshipers and becoming famous for representing your nature. Elvis would need, for example, to not only be associated with rock and roll, but worshiped as it, and would need to be the only Elvis so worshiped, having wiped out all other potential challengers and sharers of the Image of Elvis.



PC-level gods would be Lesser Gods, potent by ethereal standards and even celestial ones, but nowhere near a Superior. They're essentially made like normal characters, and most gods are of this level thanks to Force-loss in the Purity Crusade or fading. However, even a Lesser God has powers other etherals do not. They can break the rules on primal affinities - any affinity compatible with their godhead can be primal, even if they have multiple elements. Further, they can devise personal Rites to gain Essence. These must be compatible with their nature, and they can be given to others...but when used by others, they draw Essence from the god to the user.

Greater Gods are Superior-level being. They are unquantifiable, and exceptionally rare. The Purity Crusade destroyed most of them and continuing persecution by Heaven and Hell took care of the rest, alongside declinging worship. These gods can have many powers, but all are able to grant attunements - mostly Ethereal Connection, Seneschal and possibly Songmaster. They may create Domains rather than just taking control of existing ones. And they can stabilize and claim ethereal Tethers, as long as tyhey have a Domain. Greater Gods are largely beyond the scope of play, and even Lesser Gods are suggested to not really be allowed as PCs. The game gives only one sample Greater God: Odin.

Next time: Odin

Mors Rattus fucked around with this message at 16:03 on Mar 23, 2016

Maxwell Lord
Dec 12, 2008

I am drowning.
There is no sign of land.
You are coming down with me, hand in unlovable hand.

And I hope you die.

I hope we both die.


:smith:

Grimey Drawer
I can buy "cliff-dwelling halflings who have no real reason to live on the cliffs" on pure rule of cool, but maybe they should have made that oasis spot full of giant monsters or something.

Angrymog
Jan 29, 2012

Really Madcats

Just started reading this thread, and I'm really sad about how much of s poo poo-show it seems that Mage 20 is. Mage was my game back when I was in my teens/early twenties.

oriongates
Mar 14, 2013

Validate Me!


Zereth posted:


Is the moral of this book "halflings are really loving stupid"?

EDIT: And/or the book's author(s). They clearly decided "cliff-dwelling halflings!" and then failed to provide any reason they'd uh, have started doing that in the first place.

Yeah, pretty much. The history of halfling society seems to be one of truly bad decision-making.

"Hmm, our society is getting fairly big. We could try and expand...we do have an entire world to work with after all and only two major cities. Naaaw, we'll try and make a superfood. Oops, created a massive toxic algae bloom."

"Okay, massive toxic algae bloom. We're masters of the forces of life, we'll figure this out...or we could build something to drain life from the sun itself. No one really uses the sun right? Oops, literally destroyed most of the oceans."

"Despite our best efforts the new world is lush and full of beauty and life. Lets just stay here on the top of these giant cliffs. We also shouldn't worry too much about writing our life-shaping secrets down."

"You know, living in this nice sheltered forest is cool and all and there's plenty of flat, bountiful land at the bottom of the cliffs. But what if we cling awkwardly to the side of them instead?"

"Wow, all of a sudden everyone is developing odd mental powers and abilities. Lets just ignore those."

"Our greatest hero and leader has apparently figured out that just maybe we should be trying to figure out what's going on in the world, including what happened to all the other halflings out there. He left 10,000 years ago. I'm sure he'll be back soon."

MJ12
Apr 8, 2009

Angrymog posted:

Just started reading this thread, and I'm really sad about how much of s poo poo-show it seems that Mage 20 is. Mage was my game back when I was in my teens/early twenties.

M20 is really disappointing, yeah. It's basically supposed to be the definitive mage but isn't particularly definitive (BRUCAAAAAAATO!). If I was doing M20 I'd probably tear out the whole 'disparate alliance' metaplot, use that space to provide a pile more plot hooks wrt history (what if I want to play back in the 90s? What about if the Avatar Storm didn't happen? What if the Avatar Storm did happen? What should a Threat Null thingy look like?) etc etc. and maybe even more advice on different ways to run magic, a la the Revised Storyteller's Guide.

You could cut out a lot of wordcount and add a lot of plot information if you wrote it concisely.

oriongates
Mar 14, 2013

Validate Me!


Maxwell Lord posted:

I can buy "cliff-dwelling halflings who have no real reason to live on the cliffs" on pure rule of cool, but maybe they should have made that oasis spot full of giant monsters or something.

Or at least make it smaller. The entire population of all the cliffside communities put together is only just a tad bigger than the current population of Thamasku. It'd be easy for literally everyone else to live in the little forest paradise up at the top and it would hardly made things more difficult for halflings.

And remember, the halflings don't engage in projects like mining, so its not like you can explain it by having communities scattered around to gather raw materials or anything...everything they need can be found in greater quantities at the top of the cliff. Heck, if they dammed the lake at the top of the cliff (a lake which is apparently an infinite source of water) they could probably fill that entire basin and just live on the rim with a quality of life easily comparable to the Last Sea.

Mors Rattus
Oct 25, 2007

FATAL & Friends
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#1 Builder
2014-2018

The weirdest part is that actual Dark Sun Current Day halflings are cool as poo poo. Pictographic little cannibal assholes.

oriongates
Mar 14, 2013

Validate Me!


Yeah, its weird that the descendents of ancient bio-tech masters are actually the lame halflings.

FMguru
Sep 10, 2003

peed on;
sexually

REIGNING YOSPOS COSTCO KING
Gotta say I'm liking the idea of a race whose entire gimmick is that they make bad decisions. A whole plateau full of little George Constanzas, haplessly flailing and failing and getting angrier and angrier.

Vox Valentine
May 30, 2013

Solving all of life's problems through enhanced casting of Occam's Razor. Reward yourself with an imaginary chalice.

Their first invention is a race of Kramers.

Count Chocula
Dec 25, 2011

WE HAVE TO CONTROL OUR ENVIRONMENT
IF YOU SEE ME POSTING OUTSIDE OF THE AUSPOL THREAD PLEASE TELL ME THAT I'M MISSED AND TO START POSTING AGAIN
EPG's Figments give off a strong Psychonauts vibe. I love the setting since, like Mage, it gives power to those who know dream-logic, myth, and symbolism best. I'd make the Celestials just a bunch of jumped up rear end in a top hat Celestials, the current kings of the hill sure... but there were other Solar Gods and Lust Gods and whatnot before them, and there will be after. Maybe they trick Nybbas and the thief demon into helping them?
Is there a conflict between the older pagan gods and the new media archtype personalities, American Gods style?

Midjack
Dec 24, 2007



Everything ethereal really seemed to get short shrift in the core In Nomine and it's nice to see it get expanded so much in this book. Though it really seems like the Ethereal is this whole other game that only touches the rest of In Nomine in a couple of places and honestly could just straight up ignore Heaven and Hell and be better off for the removal.

Black August
Sep 28, 2003

Ethereals were an afterthought from day one, yeah. The Marches is where they got their first real expansion, but it was a back of the book light set compared to the full Ethereal Players Guide, which does do a great job of allowing you to explore something that isn't "Celestials and the inferior humans who serve them"

But, open setting. Can easily tell Uriel to gently caress himself and just say ethereals have a diminished but still present impact on the modern world. You just have to decide exactly how Blandine, Dominic, Laurence, Beleth, Asmodeus, and Nybbas are dealing with it.

I mean you know that Mike and Baal are already flagrantly using ethereals however and whenever they like.

Mors Rattus
Oct 25, 2007

FATAL & Friends
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Ethereal Player's Guide: Brick House

Ill Words is an attunement that draws on Odin's reputation for causing feuds and lying. He gives it only to other ethereals, and generally only close allies. Loki also has it, and may or may not be able to grant it. It can be used when you speak to bad-mouth another person, object or idea. Everyone who hears must make a Will roll. Failure means they must immediately make a new reaction roll to the subject, with a penalty of (Ethereal Forces). Success, however, means they must make a new reaction roll towards you, with a penalty of (Ethereal Forces).

One-Eye draws on Odin's own sacrifice of an eye for wisdom. The receive it, you must pluck out one of your eyes. For ethereals or celestials, this causes an effect like a Discord - any vessels or hosts will be missing an eye, as will celestial forms. For ethereals, it becomes part of the Image. There are no defined game effects for this part. Anyway, in exchange for the eye, you may attune yourself to up to (Ethereal Forces) other creatures, with a touch. They must be either willing or unware of what you are doing, and if they later decide they don't want it, it vanishes. Each attunement lasts until either you or they dispel it. You may see through the eyes of anyone to whom you are attuned, and you can see through as many of these eyes, on any plane, at once, without confusion. It is rumored that Odin himself is attuned to anyone that accepts the attunement.



The ethereal realm is sometimes seen, probably inaccurately, as being 'between' the corporeal and celestial. It can be accessed from both, after all. There are Tethers from Earth, and you can literally walk out from Heaven or Hell into the Marches, via Gabriel's Volcano or the Towers of Blandine and Beleth. For those that cannot use those Tethers, however, the path seems endless. Some spirits maintain that these are not actually Tethers, but unique Domain-borders. Celestials just htink theyh ave unique features that resemble Tethers. Much that is true in the celestial plane is also true in the ethereal. Spirits who claim celestials are just empowered ethereals claim this is proof.

Anyone can etner the ethereal plane. Mortals do so every night. However, to control entry takes an act of will. Ethereals and celestials have vairous methods, but mortals can usually do so only be dreaming. Any non-mortal in corporeal form can force themselves to sleep with a Will or Dreaming roll. Failure, however, means waiting 30 minutes to try again. Success drops you in the Marches, leaving your napping vessel behind. (Ethereals can ascend in their vessels, but it costs Essence.) Humans, likewise, can will themselves to slepe, but it takes (30/CD) minutes. Humans enter the Marches in their own dreamscape, which usually materializes in the Vale of Dreams. Celestials also appear on the Vale, with angels on Blandine's side and demons on Beleth's. Ethereals appear at their anchor site. Anyone who entered by sleep can leave by waking. This takes a Dreaming roll, and on a failure, celestials and ethereals can try again the next round, while humans must wait (CD) minutes. Ethereals or celestials awaken instantly if their vessel is disturbed by anything, with a Will roll to avoid waking if they desire. Humans make a Perception roll when disturbed to wake up, with bonuses applied as the GM desires. If not disturbed, an ethereal or celestial can sleep as long as they want, but mortals must eventually wake, though a Will roll can delay this for (CD) minutes.

[img]http://i.imgur.com/2it2zoN.png/img]

Anyone with the Corporeal Song of Dreams or the Dreamwalking attunement can enter the Marches via a human dreamer, appearing inside their dreamscape while leaving their corporeal form behind. Unlike dreaming, however, you are anchored to the dreamscape and can't exit it. If expelled from it somehow, you return to your body, which can also be awakened as normal. Kyriotates, as a note, can enter the Marches by 'sleeping' - they appear next to their host's dreamscape, not inside it. The human can remain asleep or wake up. A Shedite's location depends on if they willed themselves to sleep (in which case, next to the dreamscape) or allowed the host to sleep naturally (in which case, in the dreamscape).

Ethereals who have a vessel may enter the corporeal realm anywhere they've been before by making a Will roll and spending 1 Essence. They can return to the ethereal, arriving at their anchor, for another Will roll and 1 Essence. Celestials cannot, however, ascended directly to the Marches except via an ethereal Tether. However, they can walk in from Heaven or Hell. Any angel or demon that leaves the celestial plane and enters the Marches is no longer in celestial form, though they may appear to be. On exiting the Marches for the celestial realm, their celestial form reappears, with a Will roll but no Essence cost. A celestial that entered the Marches this way can neither ascend to Heaven or Hell nor descend to Earth - they must find an exit to the Marches first. However, one who entered by an Ethereal Tether or who entered the Marches by sleep can physically enter Heaven or Hell, de-manifesting their vessel with a Will roll as if ascending. (If they don't, they must go to their tether when they next return to Earth and until they do, it is comatose. However, if it is killed, they suffer no Trauma.) Ethereal Tethers on Earth are rare, but exist, linking to a Domain. Any ethereal or celestial can use them to travel from Earth to the Marches, though a celestial must assume celestial form first. Ethereals can just use Tethers freely to get into the Marches without paying Essence, or to exit the Domain to Earth without cost.

Once in the Marches, unless anchored to a dreamscape, you can travel between Domains. Most mortals are anchored, however, unless they are lucid dreamers. Anyway, traveling through the Marches is a bit mindbending. The geography in the Vale of Dreams is relatively consistent, but outside that, nothing is certain. The GM can make a journey as long or short as they like. The Marches may be infinite, though some say that travelers have found the edges, beyond which lies only gray emptiness, though always in a friend-of-a-friend sort of way. Time and space in the Marches are relative. You are only fast or slow there in relation to others, and that can change by Domain. However, no journey ever takes more than one night, even to the Farthest Marches. While the experience may feel indefinite, even years-long, it always ends within one night...just, not necessarily at your intended destination. If you fail to get where you wanted, it's because you didn't know the way or the place was avoiding you, not because you didn't go far enough. An angel could search forever, arriving in different places each night, trying to find Mount Shem, where ethereals claim God came from, but a spirit who knows the way could get there in a single night. Ethereal journeys are story-driven, taking as long as the GM likes before arriving at the right place, but for quick trips you can just make an Area Knowledge )Marches) roll, arriving on a success within (6-CD) hours. Failure means you wander for (CD) hours before finding somewhere else, or all night on a 6.



A lucid-dreaming human is able to shape their own dreams, and even to notice that the greater Marches exist and exit their dreamscapes. They do not leave these dreamscapes behind - they are part of the dreamer, and the dreamscape instead merges with the Marches. Everything they can perceive is now effectively part of their dreamscape, and vice versa. This gives humans the unique power to use and maintain dream-shaping no matter where they are in the Marches. If a human makes a dream-object, they can even carry it between Domains, as that object is part of their personal dreamscape - though this doesn't apply to anything that leaves their person. Humans are also able to alter their dream-selves and ignore any penalties based on the Domain they are in. They may use the Dreaming skill to grant themselves a bonus to skill rolls, as well, as per a free use of the Ethereal Song of Dreams. However, lucid dreaming can be dangerous - anyone that can see you can use Dream-shaping against you, even without entering your dreamscape, as everything is your dreamscape. And any bonuses they'd get still apply. Further, lucid dreamers are fully exposed to celestial attacks. A lucid dreamer can make a Dreaming roll to reform their dreamscape around themselves, to shield out the Marches...but only when not in a Domain. You have to exit a Domain to raise your dreamscape.

The ethereal plane does not operate based on normal physics. Everything is a dream, and reality is shaped by intellect. There is no such thing as an ethereal form - all occupants of the Marches are mental constructs, making the point where their intellect is focused relative to others. This is why humans and celestials can travel the Marches without taking theirb odies along. However, it tends to leave ethereals unsatisfied, as it does not explain what they are. Celestials claim they are dreams animated by Essence, but ethereals prefer to believe their true selves are part of the Marches, made of interwoven strands. Whatever the case, appearance in the Marches is mutable, changeable easily by thought.

Independent entities all have a 'natural' appearance in the Marches, even figments. It's the form they take when they first manifest and how they appear to others unless they use Dream-Shaping to change it. An ethereal's natural appearance is its Image. A celestial's is either their celestial form or the appearance of their last vessel, depending on if they entered from the celestial plane or Earth. A human, of course, appears as their corporeal body. Because all of this is illusion, however, even a Seraph can't necessarily tell if an entity is presenting their natural appearance...though deliberately pretending to be something else is a form of lies, and a Seraph of Destiny can always see through illusions at a touch.

Anyone can conjure an ethereal object with a Dreaming roll, but personal dreaming will only make an object that remains with you. Environment dream-shaping can make items you can give to others and take elsewhere in a Domain...but even these will vanish if you leave the Domain. Further, just because you make a weapon doesn't mean it does anything useful as an ethereal weapon. Actual artifacts, however, have a reality that surpasses their image. Like entities, theyh ave a natural appearance. Those made on Earth or the celestial plane appear identically to their true form, while those made in the Marches have the apearance given to them when they are created. The owner can alter their appearance (but not function) with a Dreaming roll, while anyone else cna alter a found artifact via environmental Dream-Shaping.

Places, primarily Domains or dreamscapes but also the areas between them, take on a natural appearance when created. Sometimes this is self-sustaining, sometimes definded by the ruler of a Domain. Anyone else can attempt to change it, but this is an environmental change that anyone can contest - particularly the Ruler - and even if successful, changes vanish when you leave the Domain.

So, what is dream-shaping? It's an effort to influence the environment of the Marches by use of the Dreaming skill. The more you want to change something, the harder it is. Failure means you can't try again for (CD) minutes, with CD 6 meaning a full hour or until you leave the Domain or dreamscape. CD of a success determines how close your intent was to what happens. CD 1 gives you a perfectly serviceable item, but CD 6 means it was exactly what you imagined. Any success lasts either until the dream ends or something else alters it. However, environmental dream-shaping can be opposed by a contest by anyone else in the same environment.



For Dream-shaping, there are four 'environments': the Vale of Dreams, Domains, dreamscapes and everywhere else. In the Vale, you can use any personal dream-shaping you want...but no environmental dream-shaping at all. Blandine and Beleth prevent it entirely. In a Domain, personal changes are possible but can be resisted by the Domain's properties. Environmental changes are also resisted this way, but can also be contested by the Domain's master, who is immediately aware of any alteration attempts while they are in the Domain and can negate them with a simple, non-contested Dreaming roll. Dreamscapes are easier - humans can't impose automatic penalties and must win a contest to resist changes. However, a dreamer can force you out of a dreamscape with a Dreaming roll, and a lucid dreamer can use Dreaming to reduce your rolls as well as improve their own. Lucid dreamers are always treated as being in their own dreamscapes when making personal changes, but not environmental ones. As for the Border and Far Marches, there's no restrictions in those empty spaces. Anyon can shape them as they like, but all changes fade when you leave.

It is possible to cause Disturbance in the Marches. Conscious Essence expenditure always does, but ethereal combat does not. Entering and leaving the Marches by any means does not, evn Superior manifestations. Celestial combat, however, does cause Disturbance. Any Foce destroyed by a celestial causes Disturbance in the Marches, and soul-killing humans causes another 10 Disturbance on top of that. However, this applies only to when any non-human harms a human or when a celestial harms an ethereal. Humans can hurt anyone freely, and ethereals can damage each other or celestials without making any Disturbance. Altering human dreamscapes also causes Disturbance.

While there is no linear distance in the Marches, Disturbances weaken as they cross Domain boundaries. However, they do not weaken when crossing within Domains, regardless of subjective size. For each Domain 'border' between the source of Disturbance and the listener, it is -5 to sense the Disturbance. The theoretical line between Blandine and Beleth's sides of the Vale is a border, as does the theoretical line between Border and Far Marches. They do not normally cross between realms, but those in Blandine or Beleth's Towers can hear Disturbances made in the Vale.

Next time: Ethereal Combat

Evil Mastermind
Apr 28, 2008

Apropos of nothing, I'm working on the next Torg post and I just found a piece of Wick-worthy GM passive-aggressive dickishness. Basically having something the players (not characters) can't do due to World Law mechanics, not telling the players they can't do that, and when they try the GM is instructed to just take the spend resources away while "smiling cruely".

I mean, I know rear end in a top hat GMing knows no time frame and all, but still. The first thing I thought of when I read that was Play Dirty.

Halloween Jack
Sep 11, 2003

La morte non ha sesso
Clearly you need a collection of DM Masks for the High Lord of whatever cosm the PCs are currently in.

Evil Mastermind
Apr 28, 2008

Halloween Jack posted:

Clearly you need a collection of DM Masks for the High Lord of whatever cosm the PCs are currently in.
"Okay, so when I'm wearing this mask we're doing action movies, but when I'm wearing this mask we're doing Gothic horror."

Alien Rope Burn
Dec 4, 2004

I wanna be a saikyo HERO!

Evil Mastermind posted:

"Okay, so when I'm wearing this mask we're doing action movies, but when I'm wearing this mask we're doing Gothic horror."

You don't tell the players that! That'd spoil the GM mystique. :smugwizard:

Doresh
Jan 7, 2015

Alien Rope Burn posted:

You don't tell the players that! That'd spoil the GM mystique. :smugwizard:

You can always have the mask fall off your face to reveal another mask.

Halloween Jack
Sep 11, 2003

La morte non ha sesso

Doresh posted:

You can always have the mask fall off your face to reveal another mask.

Evil Mastermind
Apr 28, 2008

Now you guys are reminding me of one of my favorite Paranoia modules: The People's Glorious Revolutionary Adventure, the one where you play Commies from Alpha State. It came with cut-out mustaches for everyone to wear, including a big beard for Tovarisch Computer.

Vox Valentine
May 30, 2013

Solving all of life's problems through enhanced casting of Occam's Razor. Reward yourself with an imaginary chalice.

Evil Mastermind posted:

Now you guys are reminding me of one of my favorite Paranoia modules: The People's Glorious Revolutionary Adventure, the one where you play Commies from Alpha State. It came with cut-out mustaches for everyone to wear, including a big beard for Tovarisch Computer.
You can pick up ported PDFs for Paranoia 1e and 2e through Bundle of Holding and The People's Glorious Revolutionary Adventure is one of the books included if you're looking for a place to get it from.

Evil Mastermind
Apr 28, 2008

Hostile V posted:

You can pick up ported PDFs for Paranoia 1e and 2e through Bundle of Holding and The People's Glorious Revolutionary Adventure is one of the books included if you're looking for a place to get it from.

Oh I already did. Paranoia 2e was one of the first games to break me out of the D&D mindset way back when it first came out.

That was around the same time Torg came out, now that I think about it.

Vox Valentine
May 30, 2013

Solving all of life's problems through enhanced casting of Occam's Razor. Reward yourself with an imaginary chalice.



CHAPTER FOUR: GHOSTS OF LONDON

Hey I hope you're ready for a lot of art because I have a lot of art and there's not too much to this chapter.
The Spirit World is linked to the physical landscape of London but it's also linked to the biggest source of power in the city: aethertech. Aether is a wirelessly transmitted form of energy invented by Nikola Tesla and the broadcasting plants are powered by massive coal furnaces. The Spirit World is actually measurable/understandable as a low frequency level of aether, so aethertech can be used to actually measure the Spirit World. So what is it? It's a bit like going to the Other World from Silent Hill; it may match the physical landscape but it's altered and changed by the emotions of people interacting with it or who've come and gone. Destroyed buildings may exist as whole or vice-versa. The ghosts that occupy the Spirit World are erratic and their true nature aren't entirely clear but it's generally held that they have a sort of "battery" necessary to their existence (or that they ARE aetheric energy bound into a sentient form). Ones that are bound to people, places or things draw power from them, while some of the more powerful spirits exist independently and conserve/drain power somehow.

With religion being a bit on the backswing and science's gleeful exploration of the supernatural, Neo-Victorians retain a fascination with spiritualism. Some of it is superstitious in nature, some of it clashes with scientists over the relationship between soul and spirit, but the séance is widely popular. On the other end, you have spiritualist cults like the Adepts of Perpetuity, the Invisible College, the Daughters of Ammit and the Blackthorn Covenant. The Adepts are aristocrats so terrified of death but are unable to take any more anti-aging treatments so their spirits are stripped from their body before death and used to possess a new body that is adopted into an Adept family. The College is a(n allegedly) disbanded cult of mediums and ghost-hunters who blackmailed aristocratic families with secrets gleaned from the dead. The Daughters worship the Egyptian demon Ammit by using alchemy to distill the essence of the living and dead for drinking in an attempt to attain immortality and dread power. Finally, the Covenant is a cult of homeless beggars and madmen who worship the spirits of the city and willingly give up their bodies to possession to escape life and serve a higher power. It kind of says a lot that there's more info about evil ghost cults than anything else.

The infamous spiritualist cult The Brotherhood of the Funny Outfits.
So what does one do with a haunting or a spirit? Neo-Victorians treat mild hauntings like one would treat being mortified about a pest problem. Minor hauntings/immaterial ghosts need to have their haunts destroyed or relocated (haunts being people, places or things keeping the ghosts attached). If destruction isn't an option, an exorcist can exorcise and banish, a medium can communicate to the ghost and talk them through severing a haunt, or a parapsychologist can capture/contain or talk to the ghosts. Ghost-hunting/ghost handling is a vital business to London's economy; there's no shortage of takers and it's considered to be the "safer" alternative to Undertaking. These businesses range from amateurs with home-made tech or low-level mediums to teams with contracts with companies, the Anglican church, large franchise companies or groups who work for specific families/groups. The worst case scenario for dealing with a haunting is flat-out quarantine of the affected area as executed by the Department of Health; quarantines can last for decades or until someone gets rid of the ghost (most often a poltergeist or malicious spirit).

I ain't 'fraid of no property damage.
Taxonomy of the Dead

Spirits are divided into three categories based on strength: apparition, ghost and poltergeist. They are a self-contained aetheric force that can manifest between the Spirit World and real world and they leave behind ectoplasm. All spirits basically need a tether or a reason to keep existing or else they'll gradually dissipate and fade away. Apparitions can last around months, ghosts can last up to centuries depending on what holds them on Earth and poltergeists only lose power in isolation. London has no shortage of old ghosts but the majority of them active in the metropolis are people who died after the Plague; they're only made from a bad, sufficiently traumatic death and the worse the circumstances the more power the spirit has. Dying and becoming undead do not create spirits, so someone dying from the Plague or vampirism can never become a ghost. Other artificially created undead don't have ghosts either and word is out for what happens to most half-lifers (like ghouls or Thropes, not dhampirs because they become vampires). Finally, a note on possession: the person being possessed will not remember what happened while they were possessed. In long term possession cases, the mental faculties of the victim will decline if freed and many have attempted suicide immediately after release. Also, possession really plays hell with the immune system and post-possession the human body has a higher risk of illness.

A friendly reminder that Neo-Victorian science is terrible and their scientists are idiots.
GENERAL SPIRIT RULES

To be honest I can't be assed to regurgitate everything I just said but with actual game mechanics this time. Here's some new info instead:
  • Spirits don't have Vitality or Coordination; Will is their health stat and they also have Wit, Charm and Intellect. If a spirit's Will hits 0, they're laid to rest or destroyed.
  • For every month of existence, a spirit must make a DC 11 Will roll where failure reduces Will by 1 until permadeath.
  • Spirits cause Fear rolls unless you are friends with an Exorcist. Be friends with an Exorcist.
  • Spirits spawn with a secondary manifestation and it's not uncommon for them to spawn with more than one of the following: Aetheric Disruptions, Darkness, Ectoplasm, Hallucinations, Mists, Noises, Smells, Spectral Glows, Strange Feelings, Temperature Changes.
Apparitions only have Will equal to the Will of their creator. They can't react or respond to communication with the living. Their appearances are limited to the sense of touch, sight or hearing and how high their Will is. They can't attack and can only play out the same scene over and over. Really they're like well-made illusions as opposed to anything else.

Apparition or ghost? You be the judge!
Ghosts retain all of their stats from life (except Vitality and Coordination) and their skills, but their minds might be impaired from death. Their appearance is tied to how stable their Will is but is tainted by aspects of their Corruptions. Also, most importantly: ghosts can never be player characters. Ghosts can manifest in certain ways, and get ways to manifest equal to their Will selected at their creation.
  • Audibility: ghost can become audible at will. Their noises can deafen people for a while but who can hear them depends on their Will.
  • Corporeality: ghost can temporarily make a body for itself out of ectoplasm to touch people. Does not last long at all, really not worth it.
  • Dread: ghost forces a fear roll. If the living/half living fail, the ghost regains Will or loses Will if nobody is scared.
  • Dread Communication: spy on the living, talk to them politely or force them to experience dreadful nightmares (but you can't kill them in their sleep).
  • Fetch: if someone dies in the ghost's presence, they become a ghost too and that ghost gets the Fetch manifestation as well. Quite a vicious cycle.
  • Ghost in the Machine: ghost can broadcast over radio frequencies and control machines like an Electrokinetic can.
  • Harbinger: the ghost can curse an object to break or malfunction or work how it shouldn't or curse a person to befall an accident ranging from "inconvenient" to "possibly fatal". Kayako from The Grudge would have this power.
  • Madness Induction: ghost can force madness in people around them.
  • Nature Manipulation: control vines, trees, animals, build a body for yourself out of a swarm of angry bees, etch swear words into a lawn by commanding grass to die.
  • Pestilence: carry the disease that killed you, making it harder to avoid disease or making a contested Will roll to make someone catch the disease. Fortunately for the "no undead" rule, I don't think you can carry the zombie plague.
  • Possession
  • Psychical Powers
  • Spectral Vampirism: devour the Vitality of the living to regain Will but can only be used if your Will is lower than your starting Will.
  • Spectrivore: the same as above but with eating other ghosts. In this world, it's kill or be killed. Except we're both ghosts.
  • Tempus Fugit: ghost can accelerate time and aging in organic/nonorganic targets. It can attack people and age them 1d10 years or can use their powers on non-living material and age everything in Willx10 feet around them one year per minute.
  • Visibility: become visible to people without Second Sight.
  • Weather Control: bad news, the ghost's new body is made out of angry bees and it's shooting hailstones and lightning at us.
Ghosts can't attack people unless they're using Manifestations or possessing a person. They can also regain Will based on why they're bound to the world of the living. The Pathology (and Will sources) are:
  • Death, as in they are terrified of death and don't believe they're dead (convinced a person they were alive/were treated like they're alive).
  • Desire (indulging in its appetite).
  • Devotion (helped/protected their object of devotion).
  • Duty (regain info on self, perform task or gain insight).
  • Love (share a moment of real affection).
  • Madness (inspire fear/cause pain).
  • Sin (make amends/help someone in need).
  • Vengeance (REVEEEEEEEENGE!).

THE FURY!
Poltergeists are assholes. You need Second Sight to see them and they're all terrible inhuman abominations, primal horrors created from a person dying with impotent rage/hatred or the death of a diseased mind. Poltergeists can't be reasoned with or talked to, they're just wellsprings of anger and psychokinetic power. The best way to deal with them is capture and isolation or by quarantining its domain. Destroying its haunt is a good idea but easily said than done for two reasons: because there's a poltergeist standing between you and its tether, and because the poltergeist is prone to destroying it without realizing as it rages. They can't manifest, they regain Will whenever someone dies around them and they get one Psychokinetic power set (Electrokinesis, Pyrokinesis or Telekinesis) equal to the Will of its dead creator.

Here's the mandatory naked lady for this chapter. I guess whatever is possessing her hates pants and loves Spiderman.

And that's it for Chapter 4. There's really not NEARLY as much compared to Chapter Three, and that's not even counting out the fact that I included the rules/powers for Second Sight with the Medium class. Funny how this whole expansion is supposed to be ghosts but the ghosts don't get a hell of a lot to them. There's really not a lot to say here! Poltergeists should be used sparingly, there's some neat diversity among ghosts, but the majority of this chapter is back story, world fluff and repeatedly explaining the same things. It really is all downhill from here because NEXT TIME is Aethertech and all the new equipment the book introduces. But to its credit, there's some neat stuff.

Vox Valentine fucked around with this message at 19:33 on Mar 28, 2016

Halloween Jack
Sep 11, 2003

La morte non ha sesso

Angrymog posted:

Just started reading this thread, and I'm really sad about how much of s poo poo-show it seems that Mage 20 is. Mage was my game back when I was in my teens/early twenties.
Same here. I wish I'd been following the thread at the time so I could comment on it. Mage wasn't "my" game--another guy in our high school circle of friends was the Mage guy while I was the Vampire guy--but I certainly spent some time with it, including the only time I've ever seen someone GM while sleepwalking. Mage could be trippy like that.

We were no longer playing it with any regularity by the time the 2nd edition Revised corebook came out, so I wasn't party to any of those epic flamewars I heard about. But I'm fascinated with the way most of the memes of online mage discussion found their way into our discussions in a different form--I didn't learn what the "whiskey flask trick" was until last year, but we had very similar discussions about what was and wasn't coincidental magick, why the portrayal of the Technocracy was all over the place, and pretty much everything besides the Avatar Storm.

gradenko_2000
Oct 5, 2010

HELL SERPENT
Lipstick Apathy
I was listening to the latest System Mastery Afterthought, and they mentioned how the Everquest TRPG works well because the spells are mostly the sort of thing you'd expect to find in an MMORPG, and that each class has its own individual spell list, and nobody has any world-ending, reality-bending.

So I took a look and, wow, that sure is something - it's all just buffs, or debuffs, or direct damage, or AOE damage, or a summoned creature. That's pretty neat, and precisely the sort of thing I always envisioned a D&D-type spell list should be like in order to be more balanced (see also: 4th Ed, 3rd Edition Warmage).

Adnachiel
Oct 21, 2012


Witch Girls Adventures: Respelled: Part 8: Equipment

The equipment chapter starts off with an explanation of the Wealth stat. It works in pretty much the same ways as the Allowance stat: Your savings determines your starting pool of points to buy equipment with at creation (which does not carry over when the game starts), while you get however many points of wealth you have a week in-verse.



Wealth is directly tied to a character’s lifestyle, which is explained in fluff charts that tell the players that if they’re playing an orphan who lives on the streets, their character probably doesn’t have a winter home in Cancun, among other things.

New to the equipment system is “Add-Ons”: properties that can be put on items to customize them while increasing their cost, in place of a list of individual items. The amount of add-on points a character can have on something is limited by their age. Standard starting characters can put a maximum of 15 points worth of add-ons onto an item.

The rest of the chapter, as you’ve probably already guessed, is a list of the different categories of items and the various add-ons that go on them. Bah…

Basic Supplies: Regular clothes, electronics, and a month’s worth hobby supplies/manga. Doesn’t have any add-ons and is bought at a rate of 3 pieces to 1 point. The only interesting bits is that the list of clothes includes an entry for a “formal Immortal kilt”, and you can buy up to 5 video game systems for 2 points.

Armor: Your basic suits of armor, from leather to “moon metal”. Comes with a note mentioning that it’s considered rude to wear armor in the magical world. Add-ons include:
  • Custom: Reflex and Skill roll penalties are 1 less.
  • Metamorphic: Turns the armor into a piece of jewelry when not in use. Costs a “power point” to activate. What are those? Well, based on some stuff later in the chapter, I’m going to guess it is a remnant from the time when there were rules in the works for playing non-witches. I’m assuming it was the non-witch version of zap.
  • Used: Increases Reflex and Skill penalties by 1.
  • Viva: +2 Life points and +1 to resist poison and diseases for… reasons.

Clothing: Regular clothes that might have enchantments on them. Tops and bottoms cost 1 while most accessories cost 2 for some reason. Add-ons include:
  • Armor: Adds 2 points of armor.
  • Changing: Instantly clean and change the colors of the item for 1 zap.
  • Flight: Spend a zap to fly up to 50 mph. Can be put on shoes and backpacks.
  • Speed: Gives the item a rank of Hyper Movement, which doesn’t exist, in return for a power point.
  • Holding and Stasis: Turns backpacks, purses, and hats into bags/hats of holding. Costs 7 points altogether.

Electronics: Electronics that can have add-ons on them. Chart includes listings for generic “mini”, “small”, and “large” gadgets. The former two cost more than the latter.



Add-ons include:
  • A.I. - Makes the item a sapient entity with D6 stats, a combat action, 19 skill points (with 4 reserved for the Computer skill), and no “Power attribute” skills, which I guess was the non-witch version of the Magic attribute.
  • Foci: Lets the character cast spells with the item. Gives a -1 to zap costs and lets Foci add-ons be applied to the item.
  • Hacker Defense and Offense: Penalties and bonuses (-2 and +2) against and for hacking, respectively. Defense can be taken multiple times. The Offense blurb implies that it used to be called “High Tech”.
  • Holographic Read-Out: Makes holograms. “That picture is takes an ease senses roll to see through and detect as not real.”
  • Monster Knowledge: Turns the device into a pokedex that gets regular updates. +4 to Cyrptozoology and History rolls.
  • Peripheral Support: Lets the device control nearby cameras, printers, monitors, scanners, whatever. +1 to hacking rolls.
  • Power Detection: Turns the device into a Dragonball Z style scanner. Insert an old power level joke here.

Eyewear: Glasses and goggles. Nearly all of the add-ons involve adding the ability to see different things like magic, ghosts, in the dark, and incoming punches (to give an excuse for some Reflex bonuses).

Foci: The term “foci” is now used as a catch-all term for anything that is used to cast spells, including wands. All foci reduce the zap cost of spells by 1, can levitate a pound of stuff up to 20 feet at the cost of a zap per minute, ignore 5 points of damage, and have 10 life points. Characters can only own one primary foci. Along with stuff that have the “Foci” add-on available, they can choose between either a wand, a cane, a staff, or an umbrella. Also…

WGAR posted:

Characters with the magic ability cannot purchase Foci.

The add-ons list is mostly just the custom wand stuff from the core chopped up. The only thing that the four main types of foci are required to have now is a Material. (Which are halfway through the list due to it being in alphabetical order.) Add-ons include:
  • Aptitude: The crystal tip part of the custom wand section from the core. Which makes no sense if you’re using a smart phone or laptop as your foci. +1 to Casting of two specific magic types.
  • Bane: +1 to Casting against a specific monster, including mundanes and mortals. No, that’s not a typo. There’s a difference between the two that you’ll learn about later. I learned that while I was writing this post and now I’m wondering if Harris just decided on that when this part was being written. I probably used one or the other interchangeably when I shouldn’t have. Whatever.
  • Change: Turn the foci into a normal item that is under a foot long.
  • Focus: Increase one of the aspects of a spell so that it’s one MTR higher.
  • Light: Use the tip of the foci as a flashlight for a zap a minute.
  • Lighter: Same as the above, except produces either a small flame or a 2 foot jet (that does 1 damage) for free. The blurb makes it out to be an attack, but it’s definitely in here for all of the witches who like to turn people into cigarettes and smoke them. Can only be used with wands and canes. (I’m a little surprised that I haven’t come across an NPC who vapes and does that. It’s probably an image thing. Not as erotic or whatever.)
  • Magi-Lock: Shocks (2 damage) anyone who tries to use the foci. Says it can be used for any type of foci, but the blurb specifically mentions wands and staffs.
  • Material: Along with all of the different wand coatings from the core, with mentions that ebony wood is the most common and unicorn horns are rare, we have elder wood (immune to Elementalism spells and gets bonus against them), haloium (bonuses to Healing spells and can’t be used by wicked characters), moon metal (makes you faster under a full moon and gives bonuses to Alteration), night metal (growls when waved, can’t be used by heroic characters, and gives bonuses to Necromancy), and zombie bones (AKA human bones, gives bonuses against the undead).
  • Self-Powered: The foci runs under spell or battery power and doesn’t require spending a zap point to use it.
  • Used: Has only 8 life points and does a point of damage to the user if a spell fails.

Instruments: Musical instruments for characters who study music or use music when casting magic. These can have the Foci add-on applied to them and the item chart includes entries for drum sets and pianos. I like this section only because it gives me a host of amusing mental images of witches casting spells with gongs, keytars, and theremin.

The image also includes an axe guitar, because of course it does.



(One of the first images that pop up in Google Image Search for “axe guitar”...)

Add-ons include:
  • Charmer: +1 to Social skills when played.
  • Double Duty: The instrument is a keytar or any other combination of two instruments. Has no requirements or restrictions on the kind of instruments you can use. So the sky’s the limit on what you can make with this one.
  • Floater: The instrument can float and stay within 20 feet of the owner. This is the start of the mention of several things requiring a trait called “High Tech for Mortals”.
  • Ka-bong: Allows you to beat someone with the instrument (2 points of damage) without destroying it.
  • Light Shower: The instrument produces controlled sprays and waves of light when used. +1 to Instrument rolls when in front of an audience.
  • Masterpiece: The instrument was made by a master craftsman. +2 to Instrument rolls.
  • Self-Playing: Gives the instrument a skill roll of D8 +2 (+3 if it has the Masterpiece add-on) that it can use to play itself.
  • Sidekick: The instrument is alive, has a Music skill (which doesn’t exist) of 4, and 8 points worth of mundane skills.

Jewelry: There’s no longer a limit on how many pieces of jewelry you can have. Tiaras and crowns are an option if you want to play princess, and amulets/necklaces cost the same as a cello, a smart phone, and a desktop computer. Can have the Foci add-on applied to them. Other add-ons include:
  • Boost Attribute: Gives +1 to a chosen attribute at the cost of 1 zap per hour.
  • Communication: Spend a zap to send a telepathic message to another person with a piece of jewelry with this add-on.
  • Power-Points: Gives the wearer +2 zap.
  • Prep: Turns the item into that ring from the core that instantly gives you a shower, fresh clothes, a full stomach, and 8 hours of sleep at the cost of a zap point.

Magic Consumables: Includes makeup, candy, candles, and potions. All consumables cost no zap to use and have a D8+4 Casting roll to activate whatever power they have on them. Candles may or may not have to be eaten, however…



Add-ons include:
  • Duration: Determines how long an effect that isn’t Healing or Energize last for. Can be from a single combat round (1 point) to a day (4 points).
  • Energize: Restores 2 zap. “2 per rank up to three ranks can be purchased”.
  • Healing: Same as Energize, except with life points.
  • Package: Allows candy to come in a pack of 6 pieces. Costs 3 points.
  • Tax: Has the same blurb as Energize. So who knows what this does.

Miscellaneous Items: Any magical bric-a-brac that doesn’t fall into any of the other categories. That is to say, books (including e-readers), hobby kits, and trinkets (items less than a foot tall and wide and weigh less than a pound), since that’s what the chart for this section has listed. Add-ons include:
  • Aligned: An add-on for books that gives a +1 to Casting based on a specific alignment, be it Good, wicked, love, hate, humorous, or whatever.
  • Aura: Lets a trinket give off a positive or negative aura (which pretty much translates to +1 or -1 to rolls) within 5 feet of it. The blurb mentions books that have it, even though this add-on can only be applied to trinkets.
  • Build Kit: Determines just what exactly can be built with a Kit item. Kits can build up to 5 Wealth’s worth of either electronic, mechanical, medical, computer, potions, or magical items. Also gives a +1 to repair rolls for whatever type of object the kit builds.
  • Library: Lets you replace a book in your possession with another that costs the same. Can only be used once a day. The amount of points spent determines how many books can be switched out at a time. (2 points for one, 3 for 2, and 4 for 3.) I’m not quite sure how this works. It doesn’t say anything about a library card or the books being magical in some way or where the drat things come from.
  • Stasis: Keeps anything, items and creatures, locked inside a trinket alive and in perfect condition. Same as it does for clothing. Probably in this section explain all of the characters locking people inside objects.
  • Trivial Magic: For a zap, the item performs any act of magic that would probably be classified as a cantrip in other systems and has no effect other than that “it’s really cool”. The example given is a pen that floats and dictates what you’re saying, ala Rita Skeeter.

Pets: This is just an expanded version of the Pets/Familiars section from the core. Many of the stat spreads for the different pets you can have are the same. There are some new types of pets you can have, however. These are aracsi (foot long and tall spiders with an ability called “Does Whatever A Spider Can”), lesser chimera (who can actually choose their abilities from a list), dragonlings (tiny dragons that can talk and don’t really see themselves as pets), horses, and generic reptiles. Fish have been removed from the list for some reason. Furballs (mice, gerbils, hamsters, hedgehogs, etc.) cannot be owned by mortals for some reason. None of the other animal types have that restriction. So while chinchillas and the like are verboten, you’re free to own a loving lesser chimera even if you don't have a drop of magic in you.

Also, the picture for this section depicts the most fake looking unicorn ever.



Add-ons include:
  • Alpha: +2 to social rolls with animals of their type, and +1 with similar animals.
  • Beautiful: +1 per rank (up to 3) to their Social die.
  • Familiar: Allows the character and their pet to communicate telepathically and share zap and life points.
  • Good: Can spend 2 zap to heal a single life point in someone else and anyone casting Necromancy and shadow spells are at a -1 to do so around them.
  • Shapeshifter: The pet can turn into an animal that is the same size or smaller for 2 zap per minute of transformation time.
  • Wicked: +1 to resist shadow and dark magic, and healing and light magic is at a -1 to cast when near them.
  • Zombie: The pet only eats brains, is immune to psychic and mind attacks, and has a -2 to resist Necromancy spells.

Transports: Brooms, bikes, cars, scooters, motorcycles, flying umbrellas, flying surfboards, and other things used for transportation. Each has a different max speed and amount of life points listed. Add-ons include:
  • Aquatic: Makes everything except regular bikes work under water. (Actually, a lot of stuff in this section can’t be applied to regular bikes.)
  • Cloaking: Spend a zap to make the object blend into the nearby scenery for up to a minute. Everyone inside it also gets +2 Reflex and sight rolls to detect them are at a -1.
  • Flight: Makes the item fly. If you’re getting a broom or a carpet and you don’t get this, you’re kind of dumb. Spend a zap to fly up to 50 mph per rank bought (2 for 1, max 3) for up to an hour. “"If the transport can fly, the adds to it's flight. speed"[sic]
  • Green: Makes the vehicle environmentally friendly and travel twice as far without needing to refuel.
  • Jump Boost: Do a sick 40 foot vertical and 100 foot horizontal jump when you hit full speed.
  • Life Support: The inside of the vehicle is pressurized for high altitude or underwater travel and is always at the perfect temperature. (So what happens if you buy an aquatic vehicle without this?) Also gives a +1 against hot and cold attacks.
  • More Than Meets the Eye: Turns the vehicle into a bracelet, credit card-sized piece of plastic, or a toy car when not in use for 1 zap.
  • Safety First: Passengers take half damage from crashes.

Weapons: Generic weapons are divided up into various types which have different sets of life points, damage modifiers, and costs.



This is added on to your base damage, which is whatever your normal hand-to-hand damage is. Things like Hyper Strength, which doesn’t exist, also affect how much damage a character does. Weapons can be made into Foci. So your Punch Witch can have a set of magical brass knuckles to cast her spells with. Add-ons include:
  • Amulet: Turns the weapon into an amulet and gives a -1 to anyone trying to figure out it’s a weapon in that form.
  • Elemental: Pick an element from this chart and get the benefits from it. The weapon will also do damage of that element.

  • Energy: Makes bows fire energy beams instead of actual arrows. Does +2 damage and can make the target fall unconscious for D4 minutes if they fail a Hard Body roll instead of doing damage.
  • Magic Bow: The Archer niche from the Character chapter. So if you didn’t get it from that, you can get it here.
  • Oversized: Wield a sword that is as large as you, ala Cloud from Final Fantasy VII. Requires at least a D8+1 Body or a rank in Hyper Strength, which doesn’t exist. Has +1 Armor, +10 Life, +2 to damage, and +1 to Scare rolls in combat. In addition, anyone damaged by the weapon has to make a Hard Body roll or get pushed back 10 feet.
  • Pack (of Ammo) Provides 10 arrows for bows and turns one thrown weapon into 4. This add-on is required if you’re using a bow. Doesn’t say if it’s required if you just use energy arrows instead.
  • Self-Powered: Is included on this list for some reason even though regular weapons don’t require zap to use.

Guns: The blurb emphasizes that guns may not be the best fit for your campaign, but witch hunters and quirky witches with a steampunk or zeerust bent use them. So the rules have to be in the book. Guns are divided up into three types: Pistols, Rifles, and Ray Guns. Rifles are the best choice, but the most expensive. (They cost as much as a muscle car. 8 points.) Ray guns can be used as foci. Add-ons include:
  • Ammo: Pretty much the same as Pack (of Ammo). Required for pistols and rifles to work.
  • Autofire: The gun can fire a D4 roll’s amount of times in an action, with a -1 to hit and damage after the first attack.
  • Blaster: Pistols and rifles can fire plasma bolts instead of regular ammo. (Doesn’t say if you need to take ammo if you take this.)
  • Hunter Rounds: A mortals only add-on, this allows for the purchase of specialty ammo, including silver bullets (+2 damage to werewolves), gold bullets (+2 damage to vampires (never heard that one before, but okay)), rock salt (somehow hurts spirits), and cold iron (+2 damage to fae, +1 damage to witches, even though the cold iron weakness is NEVER brought up in the rest of the rules as being a weakness witches have).

We’re done with this chapter. Have a terrible picture.



Next: The Appendix.

Adnachiel fucked around with this message at 21:15 on Mar 25, 2016

Snorb
Nov 19, 2010

gradenko_2000 posted:

I was listening to the latest System Mastery Afterthought, and they mentioned how the Everquest TRPG works well because the spells are mostly the sort of thing you'd expect to find in an MMORPG, and that each class has its own individual spell list, and nobody has any world-ending, reality-bending.

So I took a look and, wow, that sure is something - it's all just buffs, or debuffs, or direct damage, or AOE damage, or a summoned creature. That's pretty neat, and precisely the sort of thing I always envisioned a D&D-type spell list should be like in order to be more balanced (see also: 4th Ed, 3rd Edition Warmage).

EverQuest d20 was actually my first tabletop RPG, and the first RPG book I ever purchased. It was great, and the only reason I don't play it anymore is because a gallon jug of antifreeze burst open in my car trunk and soaked it a couple years ago.

The D&D bard could stand to borrow a lot of stuff from the EverQuest bard.

Mors Rattus
Oct 25, 2007

FATAL & Friends
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Ethereal Player's Guide: Moving Right Along

Corporeal combat cannot be done in the Marches. Ethereal combat, sure. Celestial combat, yes. But no part of the corporeal ever matters in dream fights. Celestial attunements that would deal corporeal damage instead deal either ethereal or celestial damage, user's choice. Songs that normally deal corporeal damage, however, do nothing in the Marches unless they specify otherwise, except for Numinous Corpus. Ethereal combat may appear to be physical - wrestling, fencing, shooting lasers, whatever - it's not. It's all mental in nature, and all damage is Mind damage. Ethereals can naturally make ethereal attacks. Humans and celestials must know the Songs of Dreams or the Dream-walking attunement to do so, or have an ethereal weapon. Lucid dreamers may also make ethereal attacks.



While there are no celestial forms in the Marches, the soul is bare there, and thus can be attacked. Celestial combat is significently deadlier than ethereal combat - it risks Force-loss and death. Spirits very rarely use it unless they're certain they'll win. They consider angels and demons to be bullies and marauders because celestials usually considerably outmatch them in celestial combat ability, and thus are quick to initiate it if they're losing ethereal combat. While humans can be attacked celestially, they do have one protection: within their dreamscape, they have to initiate celestial combat before they can be harmed celestially, and few know how. Lucid dreamers, however, no longer have this protection. Few ethereals will fight mortals in celestial combat, however - they gain nothing from it and can still lose. Demons, however, have been known to take advantage, and angels will use it against Hellsworn. Either way, both ethereal and celestial combat in the Marches are rangeless - barring Domain conventions, if you can see a foe, you can attack them. Ethereal weapons have no use in celestial combat, however.

Loss of all Corporeal Forces in the Marches has no immediate effects, but prevents you from taking corporeal form again until you get at least one Corporeal Force. Any vessel on EArth immediately dies unless it's in a body bag, as does a human's body. Loss of Ethereal Forces is normal. Loss of Celestial Forces destroys the soul, though a human's body will remain in ap ermanent coma. Celestials are expelled from the Marches and awaken as Remnants if they have a vessel to return to, or die if not. Ethereals become figments or Remnants.

The Marches are, to most eyes, featureless, empty and covered in mist. A spirit can walk for hours without finding anything, and days without finding more than scattered, abandoned landscapes of old Domains. The darker parts of the Far Marches have bits and pieces of unpleasant terrain scattered about, with roaming monsters and nightmares. But most of the Marches are empty. Evne spirits, alert to the subtleties of the terrain, need special expertise to fidn their way around outside their normal areas. Spirits refer to the breaks in this emptiness as Domains. Some are immense, others tiny, 'micro-Domains' that could fit inside a fist from the outside and, on the inside, contain about as much as a house. Domains move through the Marches, drifting like icebergs, and the bigger ones move slower. Some Domains, called oases, are natural. No one knows how they form. Greater gods and Superiors can create other Domains by force of will, while lesser spirits can cobble together micro-Domains into a shared world. Humans, of course, transform their dreamscapes into tiny Domains whenever they dream.

The Vale of Dreams, at the heart of the Marches, attracts most dreamscapes. The beautiful dreams manifest more purely in Blandine's half of the Vale than anywhere else, and nightmare is strongest in Beleth's. At the center of Blandine's Vale is the Tower of Blandine, an immense Divine Tether. Rumor has it that spirits once visited it and spoke to Blandine, but in the modern day, it is death. The guards might hear a messenger, but never allow a visitor in, and kill any intruders. The ancient spirits mourn this, for it is said that the Tower hold the greatest library in all of the Marches. About half of the Vale is ruled by Blandine as her Domain - greater in size than the Domain of any pagan god. But even she has limits. While Blandine influences all of her Domain, she does not define it totally. Most of her realm remains mist and potential, flavored with hope and inspiration, and a few tiny, spirit-crafted Domains hide within it.

The Fortress of Gabriel also manifests in the Marches - a huge volcano, dimly visible from the Vale of Dreams. Usually, it is directly opposite Beleth's Tower, with Blandine's Tower in particular, but it does move on occasion. Walking to its foot is not hard. A narrow path runs to the caldera, a Tether between the Marches and Heaven, and the path definitely moves and can be hard to find, but it's always there. Those who can sense the strength of Tethers say it is the strongest that has ever been. Some say Heaven will use it to invade one day, while others claim it will one day be used by refugees from the Marches to enter Heaven.

Beleth's Tower stands tall in the nightmare realm of the Vale of Dreams, a Tether into Hell. Spirits visit it sometimes, reluctantly, and they say it is a dark place of mazes and horrors. It contains an ampitheatre for the torture of dreamers, a library of nightmares of extreme quality, and of course Beleth's throne. Approximately half the Vale belongs to her, but like Blandine, she cannot dictate its form entirely. Some regions are designed personally by her into sub-Domains of terror, but others remain a blank, tinted by fear.

The Border Marches which surround the Vale of Dream are patrolled by the Guardians, a force of Malakim of the Sword. They protect the Vale and the human dreamers from spirits that would influence them. For Malakim, they seem almost reasonable, preferring to drive spirits off to destroying them, but that doesn't stop the ethereals from bitterly resentng them. The Guardians defend Blandine's Marches vigorously, and while they try to keep spirits out of Beleth's Marches, it's much harder, and they lack the authority to start a war with Nightmares.

The Far Marches lie beyond the influence of celestials, built from the human unconscious. They are a barren landscape, full of many pockets of substance. Thousands of micro-Domains, hundreds of oases, more than a few spirit-crafted Domains. The farther one goes, the less the Far Marches resemble Earth. Beyond the Domains angels know are regions of allegory and myth, where superstition dictates reality. Beyond these areas lie the Utgard stones, and beyond that, either chaos or nothing, according to travelers.

Greater gods create some Domains in the Far Marches, while others occur naturally, and yet more are made by lesser spirits, who steal substance from dreams to help create their little Domains. They don't always run on the same rules as the rest of the Marches. The 'physical' reality of a Domain, set in the time of its creation, can operate however the maker wanted. Water can flow uphill, inanimate objects can weep in the presence of lies, whatever. Spiritual reality, however, cannot be changed. Spirits can't design domains that alter the nature of celestial combat, Songs or the fundamental selves of those within. (Some Domains do these things, but no ethereal has ever been able to ensure it happens.) The natural law of a Domain can't discriminate between individuals. A god can make a Domain where whoever sits on a throne controls the weather, but can't lock that to itself. Thus, most gods avoid building their power base into physical law, but instead design Domains to subtly play to their strengths.

Created Domains have a master or ruelr. A god who creates a Domain is automatically its master. If a group work together to make one, the most powerful spirit is made master. When the master of a Domain formally grants residency to a spirit, that spirit gains a permanent anchor within the Domain. If the master also assigns a position, like craftsman or Seneschal, the spirit also gets a bonus to fulfilling its duties. The master gets that bonus on all activities in their Domain. If a Domain's master dies or enters Trauma, the most powerful spirit in the Domain at that moment becomes the new master. A polite usurper will usually leave the old master alive if they can, but more ruthless types will destroy them utterly. If a spirit assumes the godhead of a Domain's master, they become the new master as well.



Domains have a few properties that make them valuable. They can become the upper locus of a Tether. Ethereal craftsmen can build vehicles out of the substance of Domains, as well as other 'material' goods. Spirits can use the Dreaming skill to make a small home in a Domain, though generally they are limited to things thematically suited to the Domain. The master has the most power over this - they can not only shape the Domain, but veto other changes. Most Domains are also defensible. Few gods make them impregnable, but they usually have walls and defenses, to help ensure survival in the Marches.



Every human mind creates a dreamscape in the Marches. From the outside, they appear to be a strange, gaudy artifact, usually reflective - a crystal, bubble, mirror or whatever. Inside, one can see the representation of the human's mind. Most dreamscapes at any given time will be in the Vale of Dreams. However, with billions of humans alive, a spirit can expect to run across one or two dreamscapes just wandering the Far Marches each day. When a human sleeps, their dreamscape becomes a micro-Domain of their dreams, able to be manipulated both by outsiders and the human's subconscious, and they can be looked into from without to see faded images of what's inside. If a human in Beleth's realm makes a roll with a CD 6, they instantly go to Blandine's realm, and vice versa for failure with CD 6. Otherwise, dreamscapes drift almost randomyl, based on the events iwthin the dream. The Far Marches typically hold strange dreamscapes that are neither very uplifting nor troublesome. When a human wakes, all intruders are generally ejected from the dreamscape.

Many ethereals, unable to find a home in an established Domain, will build a micro-Domain for themselves - a tiny region of stability, the size of a human house, to use as shelter, home and place t keep things. Three common forms exist. First is the fabricated micro-Domain - a boat, truck, hut with legs or other spacious vehicle made in a Domain but able to travel the Marches. A competent artisan can make one that doesn't accidentally eat the cargo or change shape at random, and a good one can make one that abides by consistent natural laws. Crafting a micro-Domain takes at least a successful Dream-shaping roll with CD 4+. The second common form of micro-Domain begins as a human dreamscape. When the dreamer awakens, any ethereal present can make a Dreaming roll to preserve the dreamscape. If the spirit succeeds with CD 6, the dreamre awakens but the dreamscape splits - one part stays with the human, and the other becomes the spirit's micro-Domain, able to be remodeled and used as they see fit. Unless the spirit actively moves the dreamscape, it hovers completely still and is obviously unnatural. Angels drive these things away when they can. Most spirits tend to believe that doing this causes no harm to the human, but Heaven fears it damages human ability to dream. Most oases are also micro-Domains, though some are much larger. No one knows where they coome from. Spirits can 'merge' micro-Domains with 10 Essence and a Dreaming roll. Any number can contribute Essence and the best among them makes the roll. The usual result is a larger micro-Domain, but with enough, spirits can even make small Domains, usually taking decades of work.

Every Domain and micro-Domain has a few quirks that make it unique. Many have great positive features that benefit those living there. Some have negative features, tolerated because there's nowhere better to go. Others are just weird. As a rule, every full Domain will have at least one weird quirk and no more than three positive or negative Features...but the farther into the Far Marches you go, the weirder the quriks get and the more Features show up. Establishing or removing Features is done by RP, and has no mechanics involved, but is never easy.



Next time: Domain Features

Robindaybird
Aug 21, 2007

Neat. Sweet. Petite.

It's amazing how when WGA isn't awful, it's terribly lazy - and the Axe Guitar just makes me wish someone would make a setting based off of Brutal Legend (with a sane rule set)

Kurieg
Jul 19, 2012

RIP Lutri: 5/19/20-4/2/20
:blizz::gamefreak:
Well I know I've still got two books to finish up, and I will, but I've also gotten my hands on the finalized Beast: The Primoridal printing.
It's not as bad as the initial kickstarter offering but they've somehow managed to backslide some from the first backer copy. I don't even know how they did that.

So I'll do my best to finish up stupid adult witch fetish party relatively soon.

Mors Rattus
Oct 25, 2007

FATAL & Friends
Walls of Text
#1 Builder
2014-2018

oh man this is going to be amazing

and by amazing i mean terrible

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EverettLO
Jul 2, 2007
I'm a lurker no more


B-1 Code of Bushido, a First Edition Legend of the Five Rings Adventure



I’ve mentioned this adventure a couple of times in various threads and I figure it’s about time to run an F&F review. I should also mention, I’ve been mistakenly referring to it as Honor’s Veil, which was actually a separate, earlier adventure. Code of Bushido was one of the earlier releases for the first edition of L5R and came out in 1998. It is the first adventure in the Bushido series (B-1). At this time they tried to divide up the adventures by theme and labeled them in the same way that old TSR D&D adventures were labeled. Alderac really seemed to like aping early D&D, and included several boxed sets and an adventure that is an explicit nod to The Tomb of Horrors. It’s not really important, but I’ve always found it strange.

The book starts with an introduction of what to expect. It’s composed of three linked adventures that are intended to make the players wrestle with the sometimes problematic outcomes that following the Code of Bushido will lead to. It’s a strange conflict to me – you’re basically counting on your players to act on their modern sense of right and wrong and watch it conflict with Rokugani norms. On the other hand, these things wouldn’t be a big problem for the character who have grown up in the culture. It was written by several different people, but the two biggest names to remember are Ree Soesbee and John Wick. Ree Soesbee was famous mostly for making the Crane Clan synonymous with her own vision of them as pacifistic artisans. John Wick probably needs no introduction.

There is also a note in the credits that the original draft was by Greg Stolze, but he is not listed as a main writer. I’m not sure what that means other than his version was basically entirely done away with. That seems to have happened with a lot of his work on early L5R stuff. His main, untouched contribution to the system was in the City of Lies boxed set. It’s a great addition to L5R and still sees a lot of use today.

I’m hoping everyone is at least moderately familiar with L5R. It’s a high-ish fantasy version of Tokugawa era Japan with a smattering of other cultures thrown in. You play as samurai working for one of the seven (at this time) great clans. There is an incredibly deep history to the world and a metaplot so strong that it turns a lot of people off on the game. I chose to review this adventure in particular because it captures a lot of the feel of early L5R adventures: lots of railroading, weird assumptions of character behavior, and danger from the designers not understanding their own system.

The first adventure in the module is called A Matter of Honor. There’s an annual celebration in Phoenix lands at the Shrine of the Ki-Rin known as the Setsuban Festival. The biggest portion of this festival is the Grand Tournament, which shugenja (basically Shinto priests who can cast spells by getting help from spirits) from all over the empire come to test their skills. It’s basically a spellcaster duel, later called taryu-jiai, and didn’t get official rules until 4th edition around 15 years later.

Like most tournaments in Rokugan the Setsuban Festival attracts important nobles and involves politicking like nobody’s business. The most notable guest at this festival is a young lady named Otomo Yoroshiku, the Emperor’s niece and perhaps the most eligible woman in the Empire. A couple of the PCs (it is assumed that there are at least two male characters) have been ordered by their daimyo to seek her hand in marriage. A marriage into the Emperor’s family would be a huge boon to any clan in the empire and every clan seeks to reap the political windfall.



The other, likely less politically connected characters are forced to act as guards to a caravan of scrolls. The prize for winning the Grand Tournament is a cache of rare and valuable scrolls, one volunteered from each of the major shugenja schools of the great clans. The last leg of the caravan’s journey is under the protection of a Unicorn Clan lord known as Shinjo Gidayu. The characters are coerced into helping guard the cache through various means. If the characters bother to ask Gidayu why he doesn’t have his own people, notably his karo (seneschal) look after it, he’ll tell them “I do not have a karo. My karo is dead.” in what I assume are ominous tones.



There are a few small vignettes along the path from Shiro Iuchi to the festival. The caravan passes Drowned Merchant River, where the characters have a chance to see some scary ghosts and perhaps help lay them to rest. They also pass through the lands of Clan Dragonfly where they get a chance to mitigate a political scandal when a Dragonfly shugenja who was not invited to the tournament attempts to copy the scrolls. All of these pieces feel like they’re just thrown in to pad out play time. Finally, when nearing the festival, the caravan is hit by bandits.

The bandits attacked when the caravan was between two steep hills and strung out in single file. Archers rain arrows from atop the hills, but anyone passing a perception check will notice that they aren’t trying to kill anyone. They just seem to want to keep the guards pinned down. Meanwhile, a ronin shugenja named Koan (first edition was really bad with names) uses spells to put the guards and PCs to sleep. To hit the TN 30 Earth roll and stay awake, on average, requires an Earth of 6, which is literally impossible at this point in first edition. It’s just another way of saying ‘your PCs went to sleep’.



An NPC shugenja who was also guarding the scrolls manages to stay awake long enough to get into a battle with Koan, accidentally set the caravan on fire, and get killed. Koan makes off with the scrolls. This whole scene is railroady as hell and, in a great example of bad GMing, turns the PCs into bystanders in their own adventure.

If the PCs awake and decide to follow the bandits, they find that their prey crossed a steep ravine and cut the only bridge. It’s assumed that your players give up at this point and go on to report their failure. I don’t even know how to explain how dumb this is. No players I know are going to let a topographical feature stop them from regaining the one thing they were charged with guarding. That’s the adventure! Getting the scrolls back from dozens of armed bandits sounds like a pretty normal setup.

For two, it doesn’t make sense in-universe. Your samurai are honor bound to protect the scrolls and aren’t going to want to report their failure when there’s still a decent chance they can get them back. I mean, this is going to cause a serious problem for the festival and people have been forced to commit seppuku for a hell of a lot less. Getting killed trying to retrieve the scrolls is the better option.

Third, it doesn’t even make sense from the standpoint of the stated theme of the adventure. The theme is to show how the code of Bushido can lead to problematic outcomes. Charging after a host of bandits into likely death sounds like one of those outcomes, not slinking away to report failure.

However it happens, your PCs have to leave for the festival empty handed and with at least one corpse. When they reach the festival they may notice a couple of other things. For one, everyone is already deep in trying to win the hand of Otomo Yoroshiku. For two things, there are absolutely no ronin running around – the Phoenix Clan has specifically outlawed them from tainting the festivities. For three, the PCs are being followed by a child who always manages to stay just out of reach.


This is, ostensibly, a child.

Eventually they have to report their failure to Gidayu, and he is calmer than might be imagined. He is very upset about the death of his favorite shugenja and upset at the potential dishonor accorded to him for losing the scrolls ostensibly under his care. He makes veiled threats that the consequences will fall to the PCs as well and more or less orders them to go back and find the scrolls. To ensure that things go smoothly, he sends one of his samurai, a woman named Shinjo Iruko, along. She’s the woman on the cover shot. I have literally no idea why they needed this entire scene and could have chased the scrolls from the start. I guess the writers really felt that they needed Iruko around to help coerce the players in what comes next.

Thanks to nothing more than GM fiat the PCs can now follow the trail the bandits left behind. It leads to a picturesque village in the mountains called Village of the Nightingale. The village appears to have been founded recently by ronin looking for a place to call home. A grizzled looking ronin named Niban and his lieutenant, a ronin woman named Tobuko, greet the characters in the center of town. Of course this means the PCs are now surrounded by dozens of potentially hostile ronin. It turns out the scrolls were stolen to provide the ronin with leverage to get Koan into the tournament; they will not return the scrolls unless the Phoenix allow Koan to compete. Iruko pushes to just accept a deal and try to negotiate the Phoenix into allowing a ronin into the competition. It’s probably the only option that’s not going to result in the death of the PCs, so it seems reasonable to assume it happens. It should note: combat in the L5R system is ridiculously deadly. Possibly the most important skill for a combatant is being quick on the draw. A single sword stroke will likely kill or cripple a character and there is one hell of a death spiral cooked into the combat system. Any combat is foolish, and this combat in particular would be suicidal.



The PCs now have the challenge of convincing the hidebound Phoenix clan officials to violate their own dictates. It is certainly an interesting challenge. It shouldn’t be too much trouble, though, since they will have the backing of Gidayu and the ronin currently hold most of the cards. They crack, decided to allow Koan to compete, and the scrolls are summarily returned.

If any of the PCs are shugenja, they are allowed to compete in the tournament. Canonically, though, it ends with Koan making it to the final four and intentionally throwing his match against a Crane clan shugenja in an effort to stay diplomatic. The Phoenix accepted the idea of a ronin competing, but were never going to allow a ronin to win. The PCs are given appropriate honors for guarding the scrolls (or given grudging respect for negotiating out of a hard spot) and now have a powerful ally in Shinjo Gidayu. He offers to let Shinjo Iruko act as one of their bodyguards, mainly so he can have eyes and ears on them in the future.



That’s the end of the adventure. The ronin made their mark and negotiated with a great clan on their own terms. The tournament went off without another hitch. The only thing that bothers me is that every bit of this thing was pre-scripted and there is no room for the players to be clever. It’s just one long railroad from start to finish. Unfortunately, that’s a common thing in the early adventures. On the plus side, it doesn't contain much evidence of John Wick's early habit of putting women at a disadvantage in Rokugani society. For some reason he equated Rokugan with 1600s era Japan and left in the patriarchal parts.

Next time: Testimony, Murder, and Lies.

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