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'on the one hand, we could keep shoving this lady in the copy machine and get lovely copies. on the other, I could make the copy machine into a bitcoin miner'
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Nov 2, 2018 15:13
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Halloween Jack posted:There was also a Star Trek comic where the Enterprise gets attacked with voodoo, and Spock protects them with ancient Vulcan mysticism that is, coincidentally, identical to voodoo. (Or, what the comic thinks voodoo is. A space wizard controls the Enterprise by making a model of it.) Isn't that basically the not-very-good TOS episode 'Catspaw?'
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Nov 2, 2018 15:29
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We’re finishing the Knacks in Adventure with the most powerful set, the Dynamic Knacks of the Stalwarts. Dynamic Knacks: Dynamic Knacks are also tiered by Level. While Psychic Knacks were powers of the mind, these are powers of the body. There’s again no Trait requirements, but some of them will cost Inspiration to use. Level One Knacks: A Single Bound: You can jump much farther than a normal person. Triple jump distances, and double movement rates on bicycles as well since those are both leg things. This doesn’t impact your foot movement rate or damage you’d do kicking, which makes this a cool and flavorful but pretty rarely useful Knack. The rare non-broken Dynamic Knack! Cool Hand: Your physical composure never fails. While you can still be injured by effects, you never get penalties to Dexterity-based checks from things like wounds, illness, or stress. You get a bonus die in any task that requires ultra-fine manipulation (but never in combat). Your ranged weapons have doubled effective range because your aim never wavers. You also don’t get any physical effects when you drink. You still get drunk, but there’s no sign of it in your motions. This is a much cooler one, it gives you a bunch of little and fun bonuses. Heightened Senses: It kinda says what it is in the name. You get two bonus dice on all Perception rolls that would be on the edge of human perception in some way. Your aimed ranged attacks get double the normal range. You are vulnerable to sensory overload if the storyteller wants to gently caress with you because you argued with them for an hour about whether taking this with Cool Hand tripled or quadrupled your range. It’s pretty good, though. Mad Scientist: This is the Stalwart’s super-science buff, you spend Inspiration to drastically cut the time it takes to invent something. The downside is that this relies on making crazy jumps of logic that make no sense to anyone who isn’t a Stalwart, so you can’t use assistants who aren’t. Super-science is potentially great, we’ll see the broke stuff it can do next chapter. Powerlifter: You can do crazy feats of strength. You get your Destructive Facet as automatic successes when you roll Might as long as you got any successes at all. These also count towards a chart that determines how much you can lift. loving charts. It doesn’t make you punch harder, though, that’s coming up in a bit and god drat is it powerful. Sex Symbol: Powerlifter but for getting laid. Take your Intuitive Facet as extra successes when you roll Seduction. I feel like there’s not enough support for a Social Stalwart (which is a shame because Novas will have plenty) and this kind of doesn’t have much of a place in their power set. Also it is way too easy to go creepy. Superhuman Reflexes: It’s what the name says, and you get +3 Initiative. It’s got great synergy with something we’ll be seeing at level 2! Level Two Knacks: Aetheric Vision: This lets you see poo poo outside the normal range of human vision. You spend an Inspiration to use this for a scene, and take no penalties for low light. You’re also able to see active electrical circuits, heat, whatever the gently caress. Doesn’t even really have to make much sense, if you can dream it you can ‘see’ it because this doesn’t really work the way it claims to. What you see using this doesn’t have to match what we know you would see if you were say looking at infrared radiation for reasons that won’t really make sense until we get to Aberrant and learn how Nova powers work. This is pretty fun, though. Blazing Speed: Okay and now we break the game. Before you roll Initiative spend an Inspiration. This turn, subtract three from your Initiative roll in exchange for getting a second full action after everyone else has acted. Daredevils needed to be outnumbered to get an extra action, and Mesmerists couldn’t do it at all. You don’t give a gently caress, you’re the loving Flash. Superhuman Reflexes obviously negates the penalty, or just be part of a Psychic Synergy and use someone else’s better roll. Why not. That’d also give you 5 bonus dice so you can split all your actions three ways and still be doing better than you would have been outside the synergy, six actions a round probably doesn’t break the game or anything. Not like you can take another power and make all your attacks do five dice of extra damage a few down the page… Blindfighter: I heard you like Daredevil and want to be Daredevil. You suffer no penalties for movement or close combat in low light or darkness. Rolls related to anything but spatial awareness still do suffer penalties. You can sonar poo poo out to twice your Inspiration in meters, but this doesn’t give you precise enough information to aim ranged attacks. Because Daredevil doesn’t shoot people jeez. You know if you want to take this, it’s as much a flavor thing as a useful power. Optimized Metabolism: A laundry list of cool effects. Once you’re an adult, you age at a rate of one year per [Stamina times TEN] years that pass. You can hold your breath for five times as long as normal, need to eat only once a week, and can’t be poisoned, diseased, or drugged. You can still be burned by things like acid, though. Pretty drat strong, just cut out a whole bunch of bullshit from your life. Piledriver: I heard you like punching so I put some more punch in your punches. Whenever you roll a damage effect based on Strength of any kind, add your Destructive Facet to the damage. This is crazy town right here. Let’s compared to Fists of Stone. That’s 8 base dice at Strength 5. Well with the same Strength 5 and Inspiration 5 (so you can have Destructive 5) you do 12 base dice with a punch. Except you are allowed to use weapons too. So why not use a Sword and its Strength + 5 Lethal? 15 Lethal dice, why not. Doesn’t cost anything to use this power either, so you’ve got plenty of Inspiration to use Blazing Speed. Sun Tzu’s Blessing: You’re a tactical genius. You get automatic successes equal to your Reflective Facet when you’re rolling to plan out tactics. Strong but comparatively laughable after we earlier got the ability to throw down ninety loving lethal dice a round. It’s also got no bonus to actual leadership, just tactics. Touch of the Muses: This Knack buffs physical creative exercises. You get to add your Intuitive Facet as automatic successes. For once one of these is REALLY sneaky good, and they note that having this Knack would justify halving the cost of raising any background where you being a loving baller artist could help. It’d also be great for raising a bunch of money if you’ve got some moderate notice. Even more and even quicker if you don’t mind turning your art to forgery. Level Three Knacks: Body of Bronze: I wonder who inspired this ability. You get innate armor, with Bashing rating equal to two + Reflective Facet and Lethal equal to two + Intuitive Facet. It’s at least [2/2] as a result. The Lethal rating is a lot more useful, prefer having Intuitive Facets if you’re taking this (I mean after you have all the Destructive you want to break Piledriver open). At least this makes you chase a different carrot than Piledriver, so you can’t have absolutely everything you might want. Indisputable Analysis: Sherlock Holmes poo poo. Spend a minute observing a scene, spend an Inspiration, roll Intelligence + Awareness. Every success gives you a bonus die to all your Investigation rolls that deal with the scene you’re observing. This manifests as the sort of crazy but in retrospect logical jumps of the real Sherlock Holmes, though if the BBC one had come out before this they’d probably have gone the over the top mind palace route because that is VERY Stalwart/Nova. Man of Many Faces: You know your shape? You can shift it. Concentrate for 30 seconds, spend an Inspiration and roll Disguise or Perform (depending on whether you’re just trying to change to not yourself or are trying to be a specific person). The change lasts for the rest of the scene, though you have to be able to concentrate on it so taking too much damage or getting knocked out will end it. The number of successes you roll determine how much you can change yourself, with 5 successes even allowing you to be someone of the other gender or a giant. You still need to be able to act to fool people reliably if you’re supposed to be someone specific. This is a pretty solid one, great for disguises. Reptilian Regeneration: You go into a trance, spend an Inspiration, and roll Endurance. Each success lets you heal a level of damage, requiring one minute for a bashing level and ten for a lethal level. You can’t be awakened by anything short of a bashing health level during this time. One of the few powers you could directly compare and say ‘yeah the Mesmerist got better’, this is nice for healing yourself after combats and certainly better than the Heroic healing one but is still vastly inferior to the Touch of Life. Sensory Filtering: This allows you to ignore anything you don’t want to pay attention to. You negate all penalties from anything sensory (including the risk of sensory overload if you have Heightened Senses). You can choose to isolate specific sensory inputs, like listening in on a single conversation in a crowd. This is a subtle one but just being immune to things like blinding from flashes and deafening from loud noises would be pretty great. If you’ve got this, REALLY make use of it because there’s tons of creative applications. Threat Awareness: You can tell people are going to attack sometimes even before they do. This allows you to take one action before the attacker in the first round of a combat. You also get a bonus to your initiative in the first round, which slowly fades as combat progresses. It’s a very focused effect but making someone be dead before they’ve even had a chance to attack is not exactly weak. The Future: Stalwarts vs Novas Stalwarts will one day become the transhuman Novas of Aberrant, and if you are familiar with that game you can see that a lot of these Stalwart Knacks are actually applications of Mega-Attributes from that game. Which actually kind of makes sense, Stalwarts are still on the bleeding edge of the evolutionary change that results in Novas and it’s just not quite there yet. When we get to Aberrant and cover Mega-Attributes just watch for all the Extras on them that are literally a Dynamic Knack. Conclusions: Stalwarts are really, really powerful at the things they do. For the most part that involves beating the absolute poo poo out of people. One problem, honestly, is that there’s not a lot of support for focusing on anything other than combat or Perception stuff. I’d consider adapting some more of the Mega-Social effects to Knacks to give that as an option, though maybe it doesn’t need it. The Daredevil is firmly the best Social character and maybe that’s fine. I’ve been mentioning super-science a lot and next time we’ll learn all about it. It’s… a thing. I'm also going to start working on some of the characters now that we've seen all the Knacks and are about to get to the last thing a character can have.
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Nov 2, 2018 15:38
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I could sort of see the Sex Symbol Knack as the process can 'idealize' your body and have seen it taken to that effect, but it is a bit off-putting.
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Nov 2, 2018 16:20
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Dawgstar posted:I could sort of see the Sex Symbol Knack as the process can 'idealize' your body and have seen it taken to that effect, but it is a bit off-putting. That along with the shapeshifting are both Mega-Appearance extras but I wish they'd gone with like ANY of the other, cooler things Mega-Appearance does. Also writing the super-science section it occurs that one of the silliest starting characters power wise would pretty much be Jetstream Sam, so you're definitely getting that.
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Nov 2, 2018 16:24
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Hell yeah, give me a power-suit wearing smarmy Brazilian kenjitsu master.
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Nov 2, 2018 16:37
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And now I want a setting where I can play a Space Voodoo master.
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Nov 2, 2018 17:27
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Ghost Leviathan posted:And now I want a setting where I can play a Space Voodoo master. I'm like a million books away from covering Trinity but a Telepath in that is pretty much Space Voodoo in what you can do. Don't let the psychic veneer fool, Trinity is a game where you play as heavily armed space wizards.
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Nov 2, 2018 17:48
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 ALEPH Funnily enough, despite being a playable faction at the release of the current third edition of the Infinity rules, ALEPH doesn’t get a faction writeup in the core book. It took until Human Sphere N3, the first rules supplement this edition, to get the full thing. ALEPH has this strange neither-nor thing going on a lot of the time, where it feels like the authors can’t decide exactly what they want to do with the whole faction. I keep getting shades of Lost where I’m starting to suspect there may not be a cohesive metanarrative at all, actually!! Of course, a lot of this unease could be attributed to localization problems yet again. Who knows? ALEPH’s genesis stems from the growing need for computing cycles. An international consortium of research labs, computing companies, and governmental bodies formed Project Toth to build a gigantic new supercomputer, the likes of which had never been seen. Instead of operating as a distributed computer network, Project Toth sought to create one gigantic processor, revealing Interruptor’s total lack of understanding of how computers work. But don’t worry, this one isn’t an electronic computer, it’s a quantronic computer, so he doesn’t have to explain poo poo. I’m assuming, by the by, that bad editing struck again and the project is named for the bird-headed Egyptian god of writing and knowledge, rather than a particular person of Hungarian descent. Maybe CB are actually big fans of Space Ghost? At some point, some idiot let AI researchers into the cluster. They saw this vast reserve of computing cycles being used for things like “cancer research” and “predicting the weather to avoid drought and famines” and decided no, there was a nobler purpose to all that power. Instead, they built a smart framework to monitor other research projects, and somehow adding a layer of software between your calculations and you increased productivity and dramatically lowered response time. In short order, this research system bootstrapped itself into sentience, and ALEPH was born. (“ALEPH” isn’t an acronym, incidentally, it’s just the first letter of the abjad. It’s capitalized because Interruptor thinks it’s a Kabbalah term, which I guess is technically true, but puts the cart before the horse a bit. It is definitely in keeping with what some comp sci nerd would think is a cool name for their pet robot.) A passage describes ALEPH as “preemptively programmed with built-in supervision parameters, with absolute priority of maintaining strict, constant control over [data]. Its basic programming included control relays and an outlook of respect and empathy toward human life in all its forms.” Whether that’s meant to suggest they shackled this thing once it woke up, or they programmed their original database software so that it could never go Skynet is not made clear. Regardless, the computer geeks built a pitch-perfect Big Brother. In an effort to provide contrasting viewpoints about ALEPH destroying any semblance of privacy and taking over our governments, the HSN3 text features passages from a Nomad polisci professor-slash-terrorist, and what appears to be a BDSM enthusiast who would like ALEPH to embody itself and step on them, oh please, use the heels. I guess we’re meant to find the truth somewhere in the middle, but it’s a pretty cack-handed bit of writing even by CB standards. With the rapid spread of this new AI, which became the new Internet because shut up, the Project Toth staffers found themselves in a curious position. This ultra-benevolent AI apparently only answers to them, and it’s planted itself in every computer in the whole solar system. Thus the O-12, the Space UN, was founded, as the only governing body that was entrenched everywhere humanity spread. I think this is silly, but it’s at least appropriately messy and bizarre to be a realistic take on the founding of an interstellar government. Project Toth is now Bureau Toth, one of the major limbs of the O-12. The bureau’s mission is to supervise ALEPH, and its machinations are kept secret from the AI. Bureau Toth also enforces the Sole AI law, reasoning that they’ve got a handle on ALEPH, but some idiot inventing another god-intelligence might not keep so tight a reign on things. Ergo, there will be one and only one mega-AI in the Human Sphere. Humanity has coexisted with ALEPH for about a hundred years as of 2177. At this stage, if it were going to kill or enslave us, it would have done so by now. Whether the AI regards us as fellow travellers, pets, or just a convenient ecosystem to parasitize is another question altogether. Rather that communicate to us via Majel Barrett’s voice for eternity, ALEPH has created numerous Aspects to interact with humanity. These are individual personalities, whipped up by the computer to have specific idiosyncrasies and so on, so as to be more personable to people. If you’re checking the weather, you get the Siri voice coming out of your wrist-computer. If you need to schedule an event or make a dentist appointment, you chat with Debbie-214, the Aspect for your neighborhood you’ve known since you were a kid. When a personal physical touch is needed, these Aspects are downloaded into artificial bodies, dubbed functionaries. The most famous functionaries are Abel and Angela, ALEPH’s primary spokespeople and representatives to O-12. Abel is described as a handsome bearded older man dripping with gravitas, while Angela is a obviously artificial supermodel/rocket scientist. Okay. ALEPH also has other representatives and Aspects which aren’t as famous, namely its private army. The Special Situations Section was notionally created to enforce the Sole AI Law, but as coercive force is wont to do, the remit of the SSS grew over time. These days, the robot army is used as a consultant force for the other ALEPH-aligned militaries, as well as directly confronting the Combined Army invasion. The policing part of ALEPH’s army is the Operations Subsection, and you will get in so much trouble if you refer to them as “Vedic,” young man. All Vedic troops are aspects of ALEPH to one degree or another. These are adept hackers and biomechanical combat gods, with a corps of remotes to back them up and do the dirty work of soldiering. Vedic recently got their full-fledged sectorial status, as opposed to running as vanilla ALEPH without all the Greek units, and they’re pretty cool. Also, the internet Stasi. OS armies specialize in dirty tricks and high-tech wizardy. They play similarly to Nomads, but with weirder gimmicks. In a delightful failure of localization, the special division created for the fight against the EI is the Assault Subsection, colloquially the “Steel Phalanx.” The Phalanx is composed entirely of recreations of mythic Greek heroes and their underlings. Lead by Achilles, the TAG that walks as a man, they’re a dysfunctional group of superhumans taking the fight to Johnny Xenomorph. They also have a propaganda corps based off the Greek choruses of antiquity, as well as a GI-Joe styled cartoon show called Myrmidon Wars, because ALEPH knows how people work by now. Steel Phalanx is for dorks and Warhammer players who want space marines in every franchise. Steel Phalanx armies are hard to kill and punch above their weight, but get ready to see the phrase “costs too much” in the unit write up. If you play Steel Phalanx you deserve every swirlie you get.
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Nov 2, 2018 21:22
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Why are the best factions for this game both the ones run by idiot robot brains?
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Nov 2, 2018 21:27
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I'm not seeing anything to discount my theory that ALEPH is an out of her depth nerd trying to weaponize her historical/mythic fanfic to deal with being attacked by alien bitcoin miners.
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Nov 2, 2018 21:30
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The tragedy of man is that he will inevitably create a machine capable of designing a more kickass army full of sick giant robots and hacker-wizards and poo poo than he ever could.
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Nov 2, 2018 21:38
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Mors Rattus posted:Why are the best factions for this game both the ones run by idiot robot brains? Because they're actually messy idiot robot brains instead of being portrayed as all powerful computer Gods, I think. Instead they're like, robots that make their own GI Joe superhero team with merchandising and a cartoon and a robotic rear end in a top hat that's spiteful enough to try to punch you.
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Nov 2, 2018 21:45
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Personal canon is that creating historical fanfic super soldiers is a vital step to achieving Transcendence. ALEPH doesn't necessarily know this.
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Nov 2, 2018 21:46
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grassy gnoll posted:Steel Phalanx is for dorks and Warhammer players who want space marines in every franchise. Steel Phalanx armies are hard to kill and punch above their weight, but get ready to see the phrase “costs too much” in the unit write up. If you play Steel Phalanx you deserve every swirlie you get. I feel attacked, but only because it's true.
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Nov 2, 2018 22:09
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grassy gnoll posted:Those are the new Morlock sculpts. They’re just the Zack Snyder Suicide Squad. That one’s literally just lovely halloween costume Harley Quinn. I hate these as much as I love Tomcats and the Szalamandra. Like, they put out a special edition bust for the OG tentacle head lady, since she was so iconic, and then they scrap all those and give us this garbage. It drives a body to drink. Wales Grey posted:He's Deadpool. No, seriously he's literally just Deadpool, that's it, that's what he is. Nomads are the best because they have the best sculpts and they're the Juggalo faction.
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Nov 2, 2018 22:18
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 quote:In the ruins of Symbaroum a dream sight revealed Symbaroum is an rpg from swedish developer Järnringen, released in 2015 and translated into english after a series of kickstarters. The game's a mostly traditional fantasy rpg centered around conflict between the giant forest of Davokar, the lost kingdom of Symbaroum and the new nation of Ambria. The setting is perfectly designed for roleplaying, and is a good model for exploring how to create an evocative place with clear themes and obvious hooks for players. The core system is also interesting to talk about, but less of an unqualified recommendation. the system is fairly traditonal it's a good model for doing a D&D style game as mostly gridless and with some modern elements. The system lists a variety of different and surprising influences. The core dice system is adapted from Basic D&D's d20 roll under an Attribute, and the character design and Corruption system draws from Warhammer FRP. The structure of abilities and powers was inspired by White Wolf, and it takes Rituals from 4th edition D&D, of all things. There's also a couple ideas from Apocalypse World on the Gming side, but it's not specific to PBTA. I'm overall down with the system although it has a couple of issues I'll get into when the time's right. Surprisingly it's one of the few rpgs where the balance issues favor the players, and the enemy design causes some issues. When I was asking around about this game before my campaign started, somebody said they switched to Shadow of the Demon Lord, which would work well, but I also think The One Ring would be a great option with the rules for Journeys, Despair and Social conflict.  theres probably a bunch of cursed candles in here I can sell for hundreds of dollars The setting of the game is very well executed, although my understanding is limited because they try to hide stuff from players for the sake of mystery, and I'm not going to spoil my campaign to make this overview work better. The game setting revolves around recent attempts to forge a nation and conquer the giant forest of Davokar that covers what was once the fallen kingdom of Symbaroum. The principle theme of the game is the conflict between nature and civilization, and there's room for a variety of different campaigns ranging from Treasure Hunting, political machinations and defending the forest. Although the setting is very European, there's lots influences from Shinto spiritualism, as well as other regions such as Africa and south America. It's a mix of Medieval Dark Fantasy and Princess Mononoke, and it all works really well. Also with this review I'll be incorporating content from the Advanced Players Guide, because it's interesting and gives me some setting stuff to work with.  Collosus-riding witches are frequent art choices but they aren't written up in this book. buy adventure module 3 or whatever to learn their deal! Wrestlepig fucked around with this message at 23:31 on Nov 2, 2018 |
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Nov 2, 2018 23:28
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The art in Symbaroum looks gorgeous. Looking forward to seeing more
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Nov 2, 2018 23:39
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Thus Spoke Aroaleta posted:“... and the day dawned, when the spawn of the Serpent took to arms, when the crimes of countless days must be counted and atoned for, horn by horn, fang by fang. And the sinners wept with blinded eyes, they moaned with severed throats, they fled on fractured limbs. And Symbaroum fell, into dreamless sleep ...” Setting part 1:The Founding of Ambria Although the history of the setting started a thousand years ago, when Symbaroum fell to it's decadence and corruption, the story as presented started around 20 years ago. The Kingdom of Arboretor had finally won a nightmarish and brutal 20 year war against the Dark Lords, powerful necromancers with dark magic and hordes of the undead, but the land was utterly ruined. The sheer amount of dark Sorcery had caused so much death and corruption that crops could no longer grow, children could not be born and the dead would return to life and go through the motions of their old lives. Their Queen, Korinthia, had been rescued from her captivity, but she was disfigured and left a shadow of her former self, always wearing a porcelain mask from that day onwards. She declared that Old Arboretor was lost, and they would found a new kingdom across the Titan Mountains. There are implications that something more sinister is going on, and that Korinthia has her own reasons to travel towards where Symbaroum sleeps under the shade of the forest.  The Royal Procession. I don't know about you but I'm starting to think the Queen might not be a good guy The lands surrounding the great forest of Davokar were already inhabited by a loose confederation of Barbarian clans, who will get their own focus later. Korinthia's expeditionary force found the empty city of Lindaros, abandoned for 200 years since a plague of 'Bleeder's Disease', Lindaros was rebuilt with the labour of desperate refugees and barbarian prisoners of war from the army's further conquests. Korinthia named the city Yndaros after her dead father Ynedar, and proclaimed it the capital of the new nation of Ambria. The conquest of the north and creation of Ambria was brutal as barbarians were subjugated under Ambria's military might and settlers dealt with starvation, poverty and discovering the dangers of their new home, but their results were undeniable. With Yndaros established, they were ready to begin adventuring in the Dark Forest of Davokar. 
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Nov 3, 2018 01:25
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 AGRIMANCY: Landbreakers, Tamers, Sodbusters quote:In the beginning, we were alone at nature’s mercy, naked and afraid, ignorant animals. But we did something the flying birds and racing horses and screaming tigers could not. CHARGING Agrimancy is the magick of man against nature, of the eternal war between human order and the inherent chaotic entropy of nature. To generate charges, agrimancers must commit sacrifices, taking the things they have tamed and exercising that final and supreme act of dominance: the taking of life. To make a minor charge you kill a small animal that the agrimancer has raised from infancy. A significant charge is a large animal, such as a pig or cow, or human sacrifice. The human sacrifice route is seen as a twisted form of the art, not so much for moral reasons as because it’s a cheap shortcut to avoid the effort of actually fighting with nature. Major charges require truly impressive feats of agriculture or sacrifice. Domesticate a new species, feed a million people at once with a single farm’s output, own and run a farm of 100 square miles or a ranch of 1,000, and so on. You can only earn a major charge once per decade from the same farm, want to get one faster you’ll have to start from scratch with a whole new plot of land. You could also sacrifice your own adult child. TABOO Agrimancers can never let nature get the upper hand. Minor inconveniences don’t count; You don’t lose your charges when you get wet in the rain, but you sure do if it makes you hydroplane out of control. Basically anything that would be physically dangerous or cause a roll counts. Same for losing control of or being attacked or harmed by an animal. Finally, no crossing wild water. Ocean, seas, lakes, or major rivers. Streams, ponds, and smaller rivers don’t count generally, but an agrimancer can never go across the Mighty Mississippi or cross any ocean without losing their mojo. This includes flying in a plane. After all, if it makes you exploit a loophole in air physics to soar over it, it’s beaten you. RANDOM MAGICK DOMAIN Agrimancers have sway over anything wild, natural, and untamed. Things already shaped by human hands or bent to human wills are outside the purview of the agrimancer, as their magick is the shaping and the bending. But anything else of the natural world that has not been tamed by human hands is fair game. HIGHLIGHT FORMULA SPELLS ORACULAR FEAST: Cast this spell while eating cooked animal flesh: You can now remember everything that animal smelled, saw, heard, or otherwise sensed for the last few days of its life. This does work on humans. RAISE FROM STONES: Cast this over a patch of bare earth and you summon a squadron of small dirt-golems. They’re unnaturally strong, and follow all the casters orders, but aren’t very smart and are totally non-aggressive. A single good whack will make them collapse into dirt again, so they’re overall useless in a fight but are terrific at any sort of manual grunt labor, or just to terrify the straights with a small army of silent waddling soilmen. ACT OF GOD: You summon down a lightning strike on a patch of earth of your choice, in 168 hours. That’s a full 7 days after you cast it. The strike is powerful enough to total a car or blow a room to smithereens, it hits random people in the area, and does damage like a gun. VITAL BEAST: This spell is cast on an animal, and makes it bigger and beefier, by 5%, applied to identities and body mass. You can cast this as much as you want, and there’s no limit. You can make a chihuahua the size of a rottweiler, or a cow that’s as big, and as strong, as a semi-truck. WHOLESOME: You make a magical loaf of bread, that when eaten whole by yourself, stops you from aging from one year. Other people can eat the bread to get the effects, but an individual has to eat the whole thing by themselves, no sharing. This doesn’t regress aging, just stops the clock for the next year, before you need to re-cast it.  CAMERATURGY: Lensers, Imagicians, Paparazzi quote:It used to be that producing an image was the domain of a privileged few, those who had access to pigment to put on a cave wall, had the time to do so and, most importantly, had the inner eye that takes the transitory and unique image that I see and transforms it to a permanent and universal image that I display. As humankind became more sophisticated, and our paintings gained fidelity, the technical demands on their makers became more stringent. CHARGING Cameraturges get charges by taking photos. Obviously. Minor charges just require you to work on your photography for an hour, setting up and taking photos. A significant charge requires you to take a photo of an emotionally intense moment, one charge per event. A major requires you to take a photo of a historically important and defining moment, the sort of photo that wins pulitzer prizes, gets spread around the internet, and winds up in textbooks. TABOO Cameraturges have three taboos they must avoid. The first is simple: No digital photography. Real photographs have to be purely physical, light imprinted on film. The second is they must take at least one photo every 24 hours. These two are generally simple and no effort to follow, but the last one is a doozy. All cameraturges must maintain a gallery. This is a formal defined place where you keep your photos. It doesn’t have to be a proper art gallery, though of course it can be. It could be a rented out storage unit full of filing cabinets or a dingy apartment with photos pinned to the drywall. A cameraturge must maintain the sanctity of their gallery at all costs: One an image is part of the gallery it cannot be removed. Temporarily taking it out is fine, but if it’s stored anywhere else for any length of time, is lost or stolen, or is destroyed then all the charges go poof. If a stranger even rearranges the photos then it triggers the taboo, but if someone else does it, the cameraturge immediately knows. This only applies to the negatives and the original print of a photo, copies don’t matter for the purposes of taboo. RANDOM MAGICK DOMAIN Light, images, reflections, sight, and preservation. HIGHLIGHT FORMULA SPELLS THE EX TREATMENT Take a photo of someone you want to hurt, look at them, and then cut or burn out their eyes in the photo. The target will then experience violent hemorrhaging from their eyes, nose, throat, and possibly anus. This does unarmed damage, but is freaky as hell to the target. X-RAY FILM: Take a photo of a wall and cast this while developing it: The wall will be gone and the photo shows whatever was on the other side. EMPATHY Take a photo of someone feeling an intense emotion. While happy emotions work, normally this spell is used on pictures of trauma and suffering. Show this photo to another person while casting the spell, and they feel the same emotions depicted in the image, likely causing a stress check. SOUL THEFT Take a photo of someone who can do magick. This does work on people who can’t but it doesn’t do much to them. With this spell, you can seal up a chunk of the targets soul in the photo. They get the result of the casting roll as a negative percentage to any supernatural or magickal identities they have. They recover those percentages at a d10% a day rate, until it’s all back to normal. While under the effects of the spell, they do not show up in film photography. The photo the adept used slowly fades until it’s blank, at which point the adept can throw it away without consequence. The adept can also choose to voluntarily end the spell, blanking the photo instantly.  CINEMANCY: Auteurs, Cliches, Tropers quote:Because many writers are lazy, and because many moviegoers seem to prefer it that way, many movies have the same conventions, clichés, and tropes. When one character in a horror film won’t leave with the rest, someone says, “Fine, then you can wait here by yourself” and walks away. What happens next? Exactly, that character gets spooked and runs to catch up with the group. (And usually gets murdered.) These tropes have been driven into the collective mind of humanity, like ruts driven into the ground by the same drat car riding on the grass. CHARGING Cinemancers get power from re-enacting cinematic cliches. Minor charges are by getting someone to remember and describe a cliche out loud or in writing. This has to be prompted by the cinemancer, and only works once per week per cliche and person. Quoting a line from a film works, but they can’t just say it. It has to be performed, imitated in some way through acting beyond just saying it out loud. Significant charges come from the cinemancer themselves acting like a cliche’d stereotype character for a period of at least five straight hours. They can’t break character once, but don’t have to act like anyone specific just fill a cliche or trope from film. A major charge comes from getting someone else to unknowingly act out a cinematic cliche. It has to be prompted by the cinemancer but it can take as much time to set it up as they want. TABOO A cinemancer can never leave a trope unfulfilled. Whenever possible they have to complete any cliche they come across. A cinemancer can’t not hit a fruit-cart in a car chase, meet a loved one at an airport at the last dramatically appropriate moment, or act like a romantic comedy lead when in a relationship. RANDOM MAGICK DOMAIN Banality, and illusions. Lowest common denominator stuff, especially based off film, but they can’t make anything permanent or concrete. HIGHLIGHT FORMULA SPELLS DOES THIS SMELL LIKE CHLOROFORM?: Stick a white cloth over someone’s face and cast the spell, and they go to sleep for five minutes. That’s all. Obviously real chloroform doesn’t work like this, but hey, that’s the idea! TALKING AND DRIVING: Cast this spell and for a few minutes your car safely and sanely drives itself. This lets you do literally anything else while the vehicle autopilots to your chosen destination. The car obeys all traffic laws and common sense though, so if you want to do sick stunts or just get in a chase, you better take the wheel. This spell does make the car easier to control in such situations though. RIGHT TURN, CLYDE https://youtu.be/i98QrSSHxo4 Your next punch always, always hits no matter what. MUSICAL MONTAGE The cinemancer hits a tune, at least 3 minutes long, and casts the spell. Whatever task you do will be finished b y the end of the song. You have to still technically know HOW to do the task, and have all the relevant materials, this just warps spacetime so you end up doing whatever you wanted impossibly fast. This doesn’t work for travel or combat either, so the usage is limited. 
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Nov 3, 2018 04:09
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Oh boy, it's the TVTropes domain.
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Nov 3, 2018 04:13
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Those adepts look pretty lame, I'm gonna be honest. 'What's your insane delusion that bends reality?' 'I FARM! BUT LIKE IN A WAY WHERE I HATE NATURE!'
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Nov 3, 2018 04:15
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Is it me or does anyone else find agrimancy troubling in it's implications? Like, in that whole intro text, I'm expecting... quote:We said to the other man, "Your name is slave. You serve me now and I do not fear you." Also, the bit about Oracular Feast being able to work on human flesh is some Ed Gein poo poo.
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Nov 3, 2018 04:32
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Aroaleta posted:... and the search goes on forever, for the hidden Ambal Seba, where the truth is spelled in gold, where the keys to the primal power are etched in circles, round and round the thirteen pillars. See, the mists will never fade. Not even Fofar the Destroyer can dispel the veil over a valley that does not exist. Ambria  The new nation of Ambria is dominated by the forest of Davokar, which will get it's own post later. The Ambrians can't exert much power over the forest itself beyond treasure hunting, exploring and a few outposts. The untamed wild of the forest counteract the Ambrian military advantage against enemy barbarians, the unnatural threats of the forest and the Elven guardians. The plains between the Forest and the mountain ranges of the Titans and the Ravens have been taken over and divided between different noble families and the church. The plains have been converted into fields, leaving some abundant groves of natural beauty and shelter. The weather is colder than the Ambrians would like, with harsh winters devastating the many refugee camps. The mountains are desolate, inhabited only by a few mining colonies, the dread Monastery-Prison of the Twilight Friars, bandits and a city of aloof Dwarves. The Ambrian people were created under harsh conditions of total war against the undead, and have become disciplined, practical and desperate. They try not to discuss the horrors of their last war, where they had to slaughter the same enemies over and over again, that were once their countrymen. They try to look forward, and make Ambria powerful enough that nothing like that will ever happen again. Their mindset is defined by a desire for control and ownership: they lost everything and always seek more and better. They see nature as another resource to harvest from, and it's no wonder why treasure hunting has become such a prominent activity.  probably dead on the inside These attitudes are reflected in their newly formed religion, centered around sole worship of the Sun God Prios. Although they used to worship many gods, the war led to a rise in his prominence until Prios was officially declared the one true God. He is worshipped as the Sun, and the Giver of Laws and Civilization. His church preaches that mankind's role is to cultivate his creation and tame nature, and that men have neglected this duty which has led to him slowly dying. Davokar is seen as the perfect example of untamed nature, and Ambria must conquer and cleanse the forest. Davokar does get pretty nasty, so they might be onto something. The Church of Prios is obviously modeled on medieval Christianity and is divided into 3 main groups: The regular priests, the Knights of the Dying Sun who distinguished themselves by their heroism in the Great War, and the Twilight Friars, who are a mixture of inquisitors, monster hunters and researchers into dark magic. Aside from the anti-nature attitudes, they're your standard Lawful Church you've seen a bunch. The other gods are somewhat present. They don't receive anything official from Ambrians, but occasionally worshiped in secret or their traditions continue in some form. They also bear some resemblance to the great spirits many barbarians worship, although the different clans vary a lot in their traditions. Some small settler communities left after Prios was instated as the state religion and maintain polytheistic views. The non-human people tend to respect spirits over gods, like Shinto or animist faiths. When asked about their views, the Elven envoy to the queen was quoted as saying Envoy Elori, who is both a spy and a huge rear end in a top hat posted:It is a vain presumption to think that the world would care about being worshiped or that it would listen to prayers; it is a presumption which mirrors man’s own desire to be worshiped and his expectation that he can force his will upon the world Elves are dicks. Ambria's divided into a few regions, each headed by a different duke aside from one given to the church. They're all pretty standard fiefdoms that have political conflicts with each other and within themselves. They also have a standing army under control of the queen, with orders of knights, affiliated Theurges of Prios and Wizards and an order of Rangers that patrols the forest. The current Field Marshal is 76 years old and still at his physical peak, possibly because of dark magic. If he dies, the Head Ranger will probably take his spot, which could cause problems with their closer ties to non-Ambrians and distance from the military heirarchy.  this is what being ambrian does to you Ambrians are fairly standard Humans for a fantasy rpg, but they're well executed and give you a lot of options for different gameplay and characters. It's not hard to justify being a guy with skills and a history going treasure hunting. Next time: The other, cooler groups
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Nov 3, 2018 04:33
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Night10194 posted:Those adepts look pretty lame, I'm gonna be honest. I really liked them, actually, because they look pretty sensible up to the point where you realize that they're literally a less stable version of the people from The Wicker Man. "We bend nature! Shape the wilds! Sacrifice our firstborn!" They should have leaned into the sacrifice angle because, well, it's pointing to a deeply weird element of human society: We put immense effort into raising healthy, strong animals for the purpose of killing them at the prime of their life. We reinforce and empower nature, only to suddenly turn on it. Humanity as nature's abusive spouse is a wild idea, and ... yeah no you're right Agrimancers come off as pretty boring compared to what they could have been. I wouldn't play one as a PC but they'd make remarkably comic, while also remarkably upsetting, antagonists, if played right IMO.
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Nov 3, 2018 04:34
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Night10194 posted:Those adepts look pretty lame, I'm gonna be honest. It also seems a bit odd in that aren't the functional adept schools all meant to be modern and new things because the old magics have been chewed over too much and lost their power? Or has that changed with the edition?
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Nov 3, 2018 04:37
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Speaking as a non-UA-superfan, all of these seem way more evocative than what I got out of the old Adept schools, which as I recall were "drinking," "emotionless sex," and actually those are the only two non-extended-material Adept types I can remember.
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Nov 3, 2018 04:55
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I mean the general sense I get from UA is that it's an Urban Fantasy setting about pointing out that most Urban Fantasy assumes the world still goes roughly as the world goes, and isn't that something, so maybe all the urban fantasy powers are basically meaningless scrabbling after power that won't actually do much but make you and everyone around you miserable. Not next to the real superpower: Having a rolodex and money. If you had real power you wouldn't be hate-farming nature, you'd be a US senator. But you don't have real power, so it's time to try to 360 noscope cornshot your way into it. E: Basically, I feel like a lot of it is about how the Underground is mostly irrelevant to the 'real' world and mostly a bunch of fuckups knifing each other in a parking garage over who gets to be parking king. Until your campaign when it suddenly and disastrously becomes relevant and everything spirals out of control. Night10194 fucked around with this message at 05:17 on Nov 3, 2018 |
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Nov 3, 2018 05:08
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I like the agrimancer, but I think it's a complete loss as a PC adept. Make him a cult leader, or the creepy old gently caress whose farm the PCs have to crash at... or a kook with a major charge and designs on ruining a factory farming operation.
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Nov 3, 2018 05:11
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I'll elaborate a bit on it, since there seems to be some confusion, probably because I'm not as good at writing as Greg Stolze. Agrimancy is essentially old-school druidic blood-sacrifice mixed with Americana Prosperity Gospel work ethic and a heavy element of very very old school farm logic where everything that wasn't beneficial to you is a hostile and dangerous force. The sort of viewpoint that led to us genociding wolves and poisoning baby eagles. Agrimancie's paradox is that you must rely on nature while also fighting against it, farming and ranching as a war of man vs. nature, where one's livelihood is treated like an enemy. It is definitely a school that needs some campaign support built around it. Cameraturgy is pretty obvious: You use photographs to capture important and emotionally resonant events, and proceed to care more about the photo than the subject. Cameraturges treat photographs as realer than the things they depict. Cinemancers are sort of similar: To them the fake nonsense reality portrayed in film is more real and more powerful than actual reality. Movies are truer than the truth, fiction is realer than the real. Adepts in UA are all about finding super deep mystical significance in things that most people wouldn't. Nobody thinks Micheal Bay movies contain the deep mystic secrets that act as the keys to reality itself. But a cinemancer does.
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Nov 3, 2018 05:18
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Night10194 posted:I mean the general sense I get from UA is that it's an Urban Fantasy setting about pointing out that most Urban Fantasy assumes the world still goes roughly as the world goes, and isn't that something, so maybe all the urban fantasy powers are basically meaningless scrabbling after power that won't actually do much but make you and everyone around you miserable. Wapole Languray posted:Cinemancers are sort of similar: To them the fake nonsense reality portrayed in film is more real and more powerful than actual reality. Movies are truer than the truth, fiction is realer than the real.
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Nov 3, 2018 05:23
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The new crop of adepts seems less... self-destructive than the old ones. Which I suppose is better for "actually functioning as a member of a PC group" but it does lose some of the flavor the old adepts had.
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Nov 3, 2018 05:24
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I mean there's a deep, deep vein of 'you will be an immensely hosed up person' buried in 'any relationship you have you have to treat it like a rom-com'.
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Nov 3, 2018 05:25
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Night10194 posted:I mean there's a deep, deep vein of 'you will be an immensely hosed up person' buried in 'any relationship you have you have to treat it like a rom-com'. The book explicitly states that cinemancers try to be coldly polite with people because most romantic film cliches are criminal offenses.
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Nov 3, 2018 05:28
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Zereth posted:The new crop of adepts seems less... self-destructive than the old ones. they're less explicitly self-destructive, but all of them can really gently caress up your ability to be a functioning human being, unlike a few from the older ones like bibliomancy. If you want self-destruction though, just wait for the rest of them.
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Nov 3, 2018 05:32
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Night10194 posted:I mean there's a deep, deep vein of 'you will be an immensely hosed up person' buried in 'any relationship you have you have to treat it like a rom-com'.
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Nov 3, 2018 05:35
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Wapole Languray posted:Cinemancers are sort of similar: To them the fake nonsense reality portrayed in film is more real and more powerful than actual reality. Movies are truer than the truth, fiction is realer than the real. I'm a little disappointed there wasn't a bit about using sound suppressors on guns, considering one of the reasons they ended up in the NFA was because film noir fiction and films overemphasized their effectiveness. The "pfft" sound you hear in most movies is a trope, guns with real "silencers" are still quite loud, like you'll have no doubt a gun went off in the same room, but maybe not outside. In fact, there should probably be a cinemancer spell that increases weapon effectiveness: grenades make giant propane popper explosions, large-caliber handguns throw people around knockback or can shoot through multiple assailants with Spielbergian overpenetration, body armor can stop anything with no blunt trauma, etc. Wapole Languray posted:The book explicitly states that cinemancers try to be coldly polite with people because most romantic film cliches are criminal offenses. 
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Nov 3, 2018 07:18
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I made a bunch of Venture Bros comparisons before and they seem as appropriate as ever.
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Nov 3, 2018 07:31
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Wapole Languray posted:Adepts in UA are all about finding super deep mystical significance in things that most people wouldn't. Nobody thinks Micheal Bay movies contain the deep mystic secrets that act as the keys to reality itself. But a cinemancer does. You say this like you've never read a Supermechagodzilla post.
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Nov 3, 2018 08:32
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grassy gnoll posted:
I'd actually disagree with the characterization here. All ALEPH forces are immensely hard to kill and punch above their weight-ALEPH's signature things are above-average armor ratings, Dogged/No Wound Incapacitation on pretty much everything, defensive equipment such as optical disruptors or cloaking devices, and extremely good statlines. It's not uncommon for a basic trooper like a Myrmidon to be able to go toe-to-toe with an elite soldier from another army and have a good chance of kicking that other guy's rear end. Vedic is fast, stealthy assholes who have a little of the Nomad flavor of dirty tricks, but generally unlike the Nomads they're much better at winning face-to-face confrontations due to their elite statlines (while Nomads are often kind of weedy). They can play a pretty mean stealth game and have some ridiculously good sneaky jerks, but they can also win face to face firefights better than most other factions. The Steel Phalanx are just incredibly straightforward, unstealthy motherfuckers who are very good at bulling through opposition because they don't have any other options than bulling through opposition. Their signature thing is probably sky-high close-combat skill on every person, which means that they are ludicrously brutal in cramped maps where they can easily engage in melee.
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Nov 3, 2018 09:13
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