Register a SA Forums Account here!
JOINING THE SA FORUMS WILL REMOVE THIS BIG AD, THE ANNOYING UNDERLINED ADS, AND STUPID INTERSTITIAL ADS!!!

You can: log in, read the tech support FAQ, or request your lost password. This dumb message (and those ads) will appear on every screen until you register! Get rid of this crap by registering your own SA Forums Account and joining roughly 150,000 Goons, for the one-time price of $9.95! We charge money because it costs us money per month for bills, and since we don't believe in showing ads to our users, we try to make the money back through forum registrations.
 
  • Post
  • Reply
Gatto Grigio
Feb 9, 2020


Even 9th century Danes aren't immune to The Expression.

Adbot
ADBOT LOVES YOU

Angrymog
Jan 30, 2012

Really Madcats

Gatto Grigio posted:

Even 9th century Danes aren't immune to The Expression.

It is The Expression, isn't it?

Hipster Occultist
Aug 16, 2008

He's an ancient, obscure god. You probably haven't heard of him.


Angrymog posted:

It is The Expression, isn't it?

I can't unsee it now, dang that's either intentional or a crazy coincidence.

Josef bugman
Nov 17, 2011

Pictured: Poster prepares to celebrate Holy Communion (probablY)

This avatar made possible by a gift from the Religionthread Posters Relief Fund
God dammit.

Yeah that is The Expression alright.

By popular demand
Jul 17, 2007

IT *BZZT* WASP ME--
IT WASP ME ALL *BZZT* ALONG!


That meme goes back well into prehistory when Caveman Gah tricked Caveman Bo into sticking his dick into a hollow tree which unbeknownst to Bo was inhabited by bees.

PoontifexMacksimus
Feb 14, 2012

Hipster Occultist posted:

I mean, he can throw a smoke grenade but his gas mask doesn’t let him see through the smoke, just breathe it. (Also, as as a funny side note the book describes the smoke as loving white phosphorus! No, it doesn’t burn like the stuff. I don’t think they know what white phosphorus is)

White phosphorus is actually commonly used for smokescreen munitions and similar "not directly lethal" purposes. Some countries that have officially banned the use of incendiary weapons still retain and use WP in such a "defensive" role, with all the war crimes potential that entails

PoontifexMacksimus fucked around with this message at 22:43 on Apr 23, 2021

Libertad!
Oct 30, 2013

You can have the last word, but I'll have the last laugh!




The final chapter of Beowulf: Age of Heroes is also the longest, culminating in 65 pages before hitting an Appendix. Granted, a fair portion of the chapter is artwork and stat blocks, so this Let’s Read Entry may not be as long as it ordinarily would be. The authors drew inspiration from the poem itself as well as other contemporary writings, folktales, and oral traditions of the region and era. The text prioritizes using the Old English spelling of a monster’s name, along with modern names and spellings. The book’s bestiary functions more or less the same as other 5e sourcebooks, with a few key differences.

1. Monsters can gain Inspiration thanks to the Monster Pool, so some special abilities require them to spend it.
2. Every monster has a sample list of Gifts and Burdens to adjust their difficulty. Some of them are significant enough to change their Challenge Rating, which in turn can affect their Proficiency Bonus. In such a case, variable entries for relevant categories are given.
3. Every monster has a brief list of how the Defeated condition can be imposed upon them. The vast majority can suffer this by dipping below a certain HP value, but some other effects are given as well.
4. Barring the entries for human enemies, every monster also has discussion of how they can become the Monster and thus Undefeatable in an adventure. 1-2 means of overcoming this condition are also provided for GM inspiration.
5. Monsters are sorted alphabetically by category, said categories being folkloric rather than by typical 5e monster type. Within those categories, individual monster entries are organized alphabetically.



Ceorlcund are creatures who are seemingly human but possessed of obvious monstrous disposition, or were once human that trafficked in dark magic or fell prey to a curse that twisted them on the inside. Galdre are sorcerers who gained immortal status but at the cost of turning into barely-living husks held together by shadows. They can inflict harm with but a gaze, and they have the most Gifts of any monster by far with a wide selection of magical features: plunging an area into darkness, teleport a la Misty Step, change a creature’s size, charm creatures, etc. Haegtes, or Fury-Witches, can afflict people of any gender and most commonly befall humans who become obsessed with an all-consuming hatred. They are very much melee-based fighters who can enter a barbarian-style rage and have natural claw attacks, and their Gifts include those of the Galdre’s Magical Features as well as others such as a Climb speed, the ability to take on a magical illusion, and mimicking other sounds and voices. Healfhundingas, or Wulvers, are dog-headed humanoids who live in their own communities but are capable of peaceful interactions with humans. Conflict is most common when some outside Monster corrupts a Wulver leader with its fell influence as well as the typical troubles of land disputes, religious conflict with the Church, and famine reducing many to raiding. Hreoplings, or Screamers, are short humanoids who shout in an incomprehensible language. Some have knowledge of primal earth magic that can elevate some of their number to undead forms, which is a Gift. They seem to be perpetual wanderers and outcasts, inevitably coming into conflict when humans settle in their territory.

Healfhundingas and Hreoplings are the stereotypical fractional CR humanoids with few natural abilities. Their Gifts are reflective of this in giving them better weapons, increased Strength, and more HD and thus Hit Points, although the Hreoplings have some more supernatural Gifts like Grave Travel where they can teleport between barrow-mounds (provided they’re undead).



Deofol are fiends who are most active at night and of relatively unknown origin. Nihtgengas, or night-demons, hunt for unguarded humans at night to strangle to death, and their stat block and Gifts reflect them as being stealthy ambush predators. Sceadugenga, or shadow-walkers, are gaunt Huge-sized four-armed fiends who kidnap people to draw into dark mists never to be seen again. They are large bruisers who exude a poisonous stech and whose limbs can be individually attacked, and their Gifts tend to enhance their natural attacks.



Eotenas are lesser giants who are far shorter than their true Gigantas brethren but are still notably bigger and stronger than humans. Ogres are obese humanoids who crave the taste of human flesh and are possessed of a desire to rule over an area, which makes them tyrants of humanity and bitter foes towards their own kind. Trolls are dumber than ogres and don’t possess any pretense of civilization and act more akin to two-legged animals. Both of them are pretty close to their standard 5e stat blocks in mechanics, although trolls have a connection to water which can be incorporated as a weakness when they’re the Monster of the story.



Firas are regular human enemies shorn of any special features. They include the ever-iconic Bandits and Raiders who at CR 1/8th are perhaps the weakest enemies in this chapter. What separates them is that raiders’ weapons and Gifts tend to emphasize mobility and long-reach weapons, while bandits are more generic long-seax wielding melee brutes.

For those of a more proper challenge, we start with the well-armed but ultimately cowardly Braggarts who become easily Defeated if they suffer the Frightened condition or have no allies within sight at the start of their turn. The Fallen once served a ruler who they outlived, considered a dishonorable fate in Anglo-Saxon culture; they are pretty tough CR 2 enemies with an AC 17 and a Parry that can add +2 to that value, and their Beaded Axes and Angons can render a foe weapon or shieldless on a critical hit. Oathbreakers are the lowest of the low and are held together as roving societies of violent outcasts motivated by material survival, which makes them all the more vicious with Multiattacks and their swords and war bows. Finally, Schemers are basically wannabe Wormtongues who sow strife in communities with their words. They possess magical amulets which grant them resistance to normal weapon damage and can succeed at a saving throw 2/day, and can pronounce words of doom and destruction which can impart psychic damage; they’re remarkably easy to Defeat, which happens if they fail a DC 10 Charisma save in combat when they take any amount of damage.

One other thing I noticed in the Fira entry. Some Gifts allow a human to be mounted, granting them advantage on melee attack rolls against unmounted creatures (this also exists as a Gift for followers). Directly attacking a horse is considered unheroic and if the Hero does it or orders a Follower to do so they impose the Troubled Condition on their Followers. In my Northlands Saga review I also happened to notice a similar setting reluctance in exposing horses to danger. With the help of a Norwegian friend we found a Wikipedia article that lent some credence to this. They were primarily used for transportation and held religious significance among the pagan communities. There is evidence of them being used in combat and in some rare cases being slaughtered for meat, however, suggesting that people still manage to find exceptions.



Gigantas are true giants who live at the edge of the world. Although huge and powerful they are none too smart. One-eyed Giants are remnants of a formerly-great civilization who now exist as but a few tribes within the Dark Forest. Two-Headed Giants have better natural vision and can be cleverer on account that two heads are literally better than one for scheming. Both monsters are rather standard middle-CR Huge melee brutes, but they have a good assortment of Gifts that can enhance their combat prowess.



Gryrefugol are ‘evil birds’ with likely supernatural origins. Eormenultur are horse-sized beasts with bronze beaks (or iron beaks and even metal feathers as Gifts) who are nimble fliers, while the Nihthroc (night-ravens) are said to be spies for the Old Gods and thus only come out at night. The latter birds are not very strong, being CR 1/4th creatures. They do have advantage on sight-based Perception checks and can perfectly recall any detail in the last 24 hours.



Mererunan are mighty creatures of the sea, natural and otherwise. The hwael and kraken have the Siege Monster ability, where they deal double damage to objects and structures which makes them deadly against ships. Hwael are mundane yet still dangerous whales, and those of a more evil disposition have been known to pose their backs as false islands to then sink and drown sailors once they set afoot (this is one of its Gifts). The Kraken is lower-CR than its Monster Manual counterpart but it is still a giant tentacular horror who can spurt a blinding, poisonous ink cloud. Its Gifts can grant it Legendary Resistance and actions along with immunity to non-magical non-energy damage sources among other things. Rounding out this section is the low-CR Nicor, humanoids who can transform into seals via a special skin cloak. They sometimes marry humans during times of peace, and it is said that they are the sworn enemies of sea dragons and their spears are designed to cut through their hides.



Orcneas are the walking dead, souls cursed or voluntarily tasked with staying in the mortal world until certain preconditions are fulfilled. The Dreag are revenants obsessed with accomplishing some purpose in life; in a few cases it can be an honourable one for Heroes to assist, but sometimes their good intentions are warped or they rise to perform wicked ends instead. They are CR ½ undead who can Multiattack and fight with shield and spear. Heags are tomb guardians who patrol ruins and barrow mounds; they are well-equipped with ornate armor fashioned during more prosperous ages, manifesting in a high 20 AC. They are very much endurance/defense focused undead, regenerating hit points when inside their burial area, can avoid dropping to 0 HP vs non-radiant and non-critical damage on a successful CON save, and can Parry to raise their AC as a reaction. Some of their Gifts include Magical Features to boot.

Mearcstapa, or March-Steppers, are mist-like undead with disproportionately-stretched bodies. They are said to arise when a corpse is not given a proper burial or who are disturbed from such a rest, being forced to wander the world. They can Multiattack with a great spear and and make a retaliatory reaction attack, and they are constantly surrounded by mists granting them obscurement vs ranged attacks. Some of their Gifts boost their combat abilities directly, but they also get the ability to create a magical disguise or expand their personal fog into a larger radius.



Wideor are mundane animals of the land, detailing bears and wolves. They are similar to their monster manual entries, but can become Monsters via supernatural interference. We also learn that the word Aarth, the proper Anglo-Saxon name for bears, is bad luck to say in the belief that it summons them. Instead they’re called Bera, the brown one, instead. And instead of stats for normal wolves, we have Evil Wolves who live in the darkest reaches of the Forest, possessed of uncanny intellect and are known to be the pets and servants of more powerful evil creatures. They are akin to dire wolves statwise but have 9 Intelligence and can speak the Trader’s Tongue.



Wyrmas are to dragons what ogres and trolls are to true giants: poor excuses for their mightier brethren, but still dangerous to most humans. Wyrmas are serpents who make their lairs in the wilderness and are mostly of animal intelligence. They are prominent in Biblical folklore, and those who are throwbacks to the serpent who tempted Eve have sapience and speak the tongues of humans, manifesting in a Gift of the same abilities along with the ability to charm targets who fail a Wisdom save. Otherwise, the Snaca and Merenaedre, Serpent and Lake Serpent respectively, are huge beasts who can swallow smaller targets. The former can constrict opponents while the latter can spit powerful blasts of water and mud that can respectively damage opponents and impose disadvantage on attack rolls. Lake Serpents are more magical and can select from Magical Features as Gifts.



Wyrmeynnes are actual dragons and are suitably the highest-CR enemies in this bestiary. There are many types throughout the world, but four species are presented here. They all have appropriate lair actions (and legendary with the right Gifts), and a list of sample universal Gifts are provided irregardless of species. Each one also has their own species-specific Gifts. Their great ages mean that they speak a high number of languages: all but the air dragons speak Ancients, Draconic, English, Latin, and Trader’s Tongue. Ligdraca, or fire dragons, are the typical fire-breathing kind with powerful scorching breath and prefer to live in mountainous regions with hot geological activity. Lyftfloga, or air dragons, are capable of flying to other worlds with their wings and live exclusively in the highest places in the world. Sometimes they are of friendly disposition, flying down to the lowlands to advise a human ruler in some course of action. Statwise they’re similar to Fire Dragons but with an icy breath, and can speak every language in existence along with a natural telepathy. Saedracan, or sea dragons, call the deepest and most remote reaches of the world’s oceans their home, and are amphibious and can breathe lightning. Ythgewinnes, or lake dragons, are the smallest breed (about the size of horses) who bitterly fight each other for freshwater territory. This variety has a non-damaging breath weapon which emits a thick fog cloud that it can see through but others cannot.



Ylves and Dweorhas, or elves and dwarves, are special cases. They are nigh-unknown supernatural entities who can take all manner of forms and are in a state of existence somewhere between mortals and gods. As such they do not have proper game statistics and are not overcome by typical martial prowess. Although both elves and dwarves have traits similar to their folkloric inspirations, they aren’t really a categorized species even if some of them share similarities in habitat and personalities. Elves are selfish, mysterious beings who have long memories and live in places of nature far from humanity. Dwarves are more approachable and are known to craft the highest-quality items and wargear; they are more understandable than elves, often motivated to collect rare items and feel jealousy towards other dwarves of greater power and status. They live under the ground and know much about the rare metals of the world and all manner of dead things buried beneath.



The true final section of Beowulf: Age of Heroes summarizes material that can’t easily fit in the rest of the book. Most of it concerns details on generating material on the GM’s side, including lists of Old English names, the generation of communities, meadhalls, monster lairs, and interesting details about NPCs. Material from earlier chapters is reprinted here such as the Portent Table, and character sheets for Heroes and index card-style templates for Followers are provided and can be filled in. And our true final section is the Beowulf Reading List, a bibliography the writers used in the research of this era in the making of this sourcebook. I’ll repeat it here for those interested parties:



Thoughts So Far: The monsters are overall pretty cool, and I like how much they can be customized via the use of Gifts and Burdens. There was one choice that puzzled me: Magic Resistance grants advantage on saves vs magic, and is considered powerful enough to increase their CR by 1. This would be a great boon in a normal 5e campaign, but in Beowulf where the Hero and their Followers are more or less non-magical, this will hardly see use save against certain magic items. But overall I have few complaints for this chapter.

Final Thoughts: Third party publishing for Dungeons & Dragons is a fraught one. All too often there remains the risk of one’s work passing into obscurity. Proper game design and balance often have no role to play in whether or not a product becomes a best-seller, and many Dungeon Masters refuse to use any non-official sourcebooks at their gaming table due to such concerns. Compounding this are many people who try to fit square peg genres into the dungeon-crawling fantasy round hole, trying to turn 5th Edition into a genre it cannot adequately support.

Beowulf: Age of Heroes manages to more or less avert many of these perils. Albeit set in a very different campaign setting than most in its ruleset, the concept, culture, and formula maps well enough to 5th Edition. Material in this book is easy to reference and manage, and it’s clear that a lot of love and care was put into it. But perhaps of greatest interest to those who wouldn’t be ordinarily inclined towards Dark Ages historical fantasy, the rules for 1 on 1 style play look functional to this reader’s perspective. They may take some work in adapting to a more standard high fantasy setting, but Beowulf provides a solid skeleton in which to build upon.

In short, Beowulf: Age of Heroes more than deserves its spotlight, and is a world in which I can see myself both running and playing. I look forward to seeing more of what Handiwork Games has to offer in the future, both for this line of products and others.

As for myself, I plan on Let’s Reading Seas of Vodari next. I’ve been promising to review that one for quite some time, and after enough procrastination I should use the energy from my writer’s inspiration to get out some drafts this weekend.

Libertad! fucked around with this message at 23:42 on Apr 23, 2021

JcDent
May 13, 2013

Give me a rifle, one round, and point me at Berlin!
Chapter 9: Burn, pt. 3



Degenesis Rebirth
Katharsys
Chapter 9: Burn


Supply and Demand

Different peoples want different Burn varieties, and Apocalyptics know where to find a buyer, like using Unity to broker peace between Voivodules (because THE USUDI SURE LOVE TO FIGHT AMONG THEMSELVES) or supplying Argus to Hellvetics and “the war-like Clans of the Balkhan” (SURE LOVE TO FIGHT).

Sites

How do the spore fields spread about? Any way you can dream of, basically, from Biokinetics sacrificing themselves, to spore storms, to Leperos jacking off or something, to this:

quote:

Pheromancers inject potent spores from the Earth Chakra into their human drones. At first, the victims stay alive and look up to their master wide-eyed. The Sepsis builds within them, grows as fuzz between the now blind eyes and bulges in cysts in their armpits. Death is mercy. Their skin is paper-thin and taut. When the Pheromancer splits them open along the spine, the white flood flows out and sinks into the ground. The seed for a new field is sown.

However, fields are not found in convenient places, as Spitalians and Anabaptists (but nobody else, I guess) patrol around settlements and burn them all down.

Clans and Apocalyptics fight for what fields can be found, especially Mother Spore fields, as they’re the only ones that produce potent Burn.



The effects of leaving a crayon stuck in your nose.

Harvest

The spore fields call out to harvesters, and so you get visions and trip balls until you find the cusps. This process is also different for everyone, because what we love about Burn is the lolrandum nature of the entire thing. The more infested you are, the louder the call.

quote:

Once a Burn cusp has been discovered, everything happens in a rush: the fist-sized cusp is completely taken out of the crackling mycelium.

:vomarine:

Maybe then you can consume that fresh Bion to get immunity to this lovely writing.

When you have Spore infestation, you start hearing the call of a blooming field infestation x 100 meters away. So if my characters were to get their infestation to 10 (and abuse Glory to never get permanent infestation), they would hear the siren song of :catdrugs: one a kilometer away.

Spore fields have a level, and it determines both how often it blooms (once every (Potency) months) and what kind of Burn you can find: you need level 5+ field to get Potent stuff.

As for harvesting, you get 1D x level x 10 cusps per field. So a Mother Field can net, at the minimum, 50 cusps, of prime grade Burn that’s still inferior to the Anabaptist Nettle Battle Brew.



The average lung after preparing a Forge World miniature for painting.

Identification

This just says that it’s impossible to tell what kind of Burn you have until you go :bong:, so most people rely on their dealer to not gently caress them over.

BURN IN THE CULTURES

Borca

East Wind Flock used to flood Borca with all sorts of Burn… but then the Spitalians zeroed in on the Ravens in Justitian that controlled the business and launched the Great Purge with Judge and Anabaptist backing.

The Scrappers didn’t like their drug supply getting cut (and, I guess, the rest of vice being exterminated as well - somehow, nobody seems to grasp that you don’t need to be an Apocalyptic to sell drugs or run a brothel). The two gangs that moved in swore to Kranzler (the head Preservist) that they wouldn't be getting the Burn trade. That is a lie, of course, but, you know, :

quote:

The Spitalians are not naive enough to believe that. Of course the Flock’s Magpies sell Burn in the bordellos. Of course “angels” sell Bion in the Scrapper quarters. But the Flocks restrain themselves and keep the price high. Kranzler takes a pragmatic point of view: as long as there are two cats in town, the mice will stay away

That’s not how that metaphor works, and what’s the logic supposed to be here? Two big drug traders are keeping smaller ones away? God drat, this book. :rolleye:

The real Burn funtimes are now happening outside the cities, where people gather to throw drug orgies:

quote:

Bygone market halls are cleaned of debris. They stretch chains of lights and cover the walls with embroidered sheets. Hookahs are smoked, dice are rolled, and laughter rings out into the wasteland. For days, life returns to these buildings. The Apocalyptics’ Battle
Crows stand in front of them, guarding them while inside the Magpies writhe on cushions and crates full of Burn cusps are emptied.

Granted, hippie nonsense like this wouldn’t last if all of your customers turned Leperos. That’s why the book says that there’s a lot of smuggled (sometimes by Spitalians themselves) EX sold there as well.

quote:

Having to buy it at the Spital time and again inevitably leads to an entry at some point. It is always better not to let the doctors know that you were infested by spores.

What the gently caress does that mean?! How the gently caress is this an explanation seeing how:
1. EX is only useful for cleaning spore infestation, and I doubt people ever buy it for cows.
2. Of course you were infested by spores, this is Degenesis, this poo poo can happen due to inclement weather or a weird fly landing on you.

Also, a dose of EX costs 200 and lowers your infestation by 1D. So yeah, not only is Burn terribly variable in effect, so is the drug treating it. Also, you can only take a dose a day. Someone please work out the drug math for me.

In any case, drug trade is coming back into the Protectorate (read: Borca) as Spitalians and Judges have their hands full with the Clans.

Have we talked about how Clans are another issue without a solution? Outside Chernobog leading the ones in Praha, they don’t seem to have any leadership, no goals besides “gently caress poo poo up,” or any real way to strike at them. Just like with Sepsis, you can only treat the symptoms.



Tech level V RG Free Spirit drug paraphenalia

Franka

Sun Wind Flock has submitted to Pheromancer Queen Machiaven, so now they can harvest Mother Spore fields without an iss- look, just shoot any Apocalyptic on sight, OK? There’s really no justification for letting them live, they’re literally working with the enemy of all mankind.

Anyways, Unity is mostly sold in Borca, with only some going to Purgare and Hybrispania, where “meekness and peace” are considered weakness, so the locals slip it to their enemies to own them.

Down in the Med, Neolibyans aren’t exactly fans, either:

quote:

For hours, they discuss with burning hearts, devising brilliant contracts and business ideas. But when the stimulus phase ends and they are back on the upper deck again, both feet on the ground, they see absolute justice in these contracts. No one loses anything; everyone wins. But who wants that? Unity Burn can only be a game to them.

This the “pure” capitalism libs keep telling you about, and it’s only ever possible due to evil alien mushrooms :v:

Free Frankans hate Burn because, well, Soufrance (by the way, are termites native to France? Why did they of all people get the mounds and the vents?)

Polen

After East Wind fell, splinter flocks established themselves, selling Bion to be smuggled into Borca. Spitalians usually don’t have the power to cleanse the markets, but they burn whatever camps they can - and Apocalyptics let them, as a way to get murderdoctors to vent their steam.

Meanwhile, Famulancers in Danzig are buying Bion to keep the cold at bay.

quote:

The Preservist Pavel Keresz does not shudder from the cold, but from rage. The Consultants charged him with keeping the Burn flood at bay. That is exactly what he does. He declares handshake contracts with the Apocalyptic scum null and void. He sends the Famulancers to the markets, chases down smugglers, and burns the fungal flowers of profitable spore fields. The Clanners call him the Ash Man. The Flocks start to lose their patience.

Are boy Pavel, the rare sympathetic Degenesis character!

Balkhan

Muse is useless to the locals who don’t want to go on acid trips, and “those who want to be intoxicated would do better to try some Slivovitz.” :tinsley:

There’s some confusing stuff about Voivodes taking spore fields and Apocalyptics maybe not caring as Muse isn’t cool enough for business, who cares.

poo poo still works out for our favorite enemies of mankind because the locals literally can’t spot them:

quote:

Spitalians always look like Spitalians, but an Apocalyptic embodying the desires of a people is simply a man or a woman. Smuggling has become easier, and never before has so much Glory be sold *sic* to the Voivodates.

Hybrispania

Guerreros are claiming all of Argos Burn for the war effort (remember that?), but Apocalyptics still manage to smuggle some by relying on obscure mountain routes going through forgotten villages.

Africans claim that Argos is the reason why the resistance is still ongoing, as it makes them confident (though the Initiative boost?) and also immune to ambushes (via the “never surprised” effect). As such, the Africans burn every field they encounter… which something you should be doing anyway? :shrug:

Purgare

The civilized eastern part - even the separatists nobody really remembers - never use Burn. To the west of the Apennines things turn dire, and the Clans use every bonus they can. Also, more racism:

quote:

The Romanos lead the way. They harvest Glory and trade it for Bion and Muse. Pirates bring Argus from Corpse.

Yes, not only our not!Romani deal drugs, so do the in-setting Romani. Class act, Degenesis.

Africa

quote:

The Psychovores are a creation of the Primer, but they produce nothing that resembles the Burn. Maybe the Psychovores lack the spiritual component the Spitalians ascribe to the Earth Chakras.

You can’t get high on Burn in Africa, that’s it.

And yes, the Borca part was much longer than the others, why do you ask?

In conclusion

Burn is dumb! The fluff might have some things going for it, but once you get within any proximity to the rules, it goes extremely stupid, and I hate it.

Rub yourself with Elysian oils and cleave in half any Apocalyptic you see.



I made this for some reason

Next time: Chapter 10: From Hell

Hel
Oct 9, 2012

Jokatgulm is tedium.
Jokatgulm is pain.
Jokatgulm is suffering.

Is there any rpg that deal with drugs and stuff even remotely decently? It seems like they are always either complete garbage(but apparently still super in demand), some edgelord garbage or both. I don't think I've encountered a game were pretending the drug chapter didn't exist wasn't the best solution.

PurpleXVI
Oct 30, 2011

Spewing insults, pissing off all your neighbors, betraying your allies, backing out of treaties and accords, and generally screwing over the global environment?
ALL PART OF MY BRILLIANT STRATEGY!

Hel posted:

Is there any rpg that deal with drugs and stuff even remotely decently? It seems like they are always either complete garbage(but apparently still super in demand), some edgelord garbage or both. I don't think I've encountered a game were pretending the drug chapter didn't exist wasn't the best solution.

I know when I did a homebrew Fallout: Florida game, I simply had zero fluff on the drugs(also they were largely fictional anyway), they were all just temporary stat boost/malus effects, with an addiction chance on each use(a permanent malus when not endruggenated with your addiction). And of course perks to encourage rampant drug use, like the one that doubled both the penalty and the bonus when hitting those drugs.

I intentionally made them being constantly drugged to the gills a great choice if you could secure a constant supply.

By popular demand
Jul 17, 2007

IT *BZZT* WASP ME--
IT WASP ME ALL *BZZT* ALONG!


which system did you use Purple? I'm thinking of running a fallout campaign too.

Ghost Leviathan
Mar 2, 2017

Exploration is ill-advised.
Drugs in Fallout are basically magic potions. Which come to think of it, is something that RPGs rarely pull off well either. More the issue with how bad a lot of systems are with consumable items in general.

Hipster Occultist
Aug 16, 2008

He's an ancient, obscure god. You probably haven't heard of him.


PoontifexMacksimus posted:

White phosphorus is actually commonly used for smokescreen munitions and similar "not directly lethal" purposes. Some countries that have officially banned the use of incendiary weapons still retain and use WP in such a "defensive" role, with all the war crimes potential that entails

Ah, I stand corrected then. I see white phosphorus and I think "terrible melting gas."


Black Atlantic, Part 6

A beaten and bloody Vatenguerre is tied to a post in Brotherhood Square. What happens if the PCs killed him in the rooftop chase? :shrug: I guess you just toss this scene and everything that follows out. Even if you allow that this narrative is only one possible version of events that you’re supposed to modify for your group, the weaknesses of that approach are made clear with situations like these. These folks would like you to pay them money, but large sections of said product will simply not work because it’s structure is so drat rigid. Not only do they fail to consider any alternate paths, but they don’t provide any meta-level tools for cooperative storytelling ala Apocalypse World. Thus, as a GM you’re left with a loving mountain of work if you let your PCs break things, and unless you’re damned good at improvisation (some are, but it’s a rare GMing skill) its going to be drat near impossible to run a fun game. The alternative is to minimize PC choice and stick to the narrative as closely as possible, which has its own issues. I know I’ve repeated some version of this point a few times, but drat.

Anyways, Yasen (the racist evil guy) is ranting about the Spitalians and what they did on Ushant. He points out the PCs and says they have a boy witness who can testify that they were working with the Spitalians. I guess as payback for getting Eris off the hook for the crime of being a pseudo-muslim slut. We’re told that in a sidebar Vicarent will protect the PCs if they didn’t work with the Spitalians, otherwise they’re in serious trouble and only Oppolus can save them. Not sure why he would, considering they just tried to execute one of his beloved adopted sons. Also, the PCs were assumed in the narrative to never really do anything with the knowledge they had, so they’d come across as kinda wishy-washy to me.

Luckily for the PCs Vicarent protects them, Yasen don’t like it and says some poo poo to the contrary but he can’t really do poo poo. For some reason Vatenguerre chooses this moment to insult Vicarent, he responds by essentially declaring war on the Spitalians, disemboweling the Preserver, and then literally bisecting him in a single blow. He sends one half strapped on a horse to Rennes (the Spitalian stronghold city), and the other half gets put on the first cart to Monitpeller (the Spitalian stronghold in southern Franka). King Oppoulus pulls a Picard meme, but even he can see that the Preservers are probably rogue agents. Their cults have worked together for centuries, and it probably isn’t worth throwing that alliance away for vengeance. He proclaims that they have a week to get the Starfire and the rest of the Red Pack back, or he’ll raze Rennes to the ground. Oppolus will beg the PCs to do so, he’s desperate to avoid a war that will claim thousands of lives. Spoilers, neither of those two things happen, but we’ll get to that.



Without any current leads, the PC’s return to Parel’s island. We’re told in a sidebar that the character who experienced the Haunting can roll INS+Primal (2), if successful “they feel a vague tingling sensation, their fingertips become numb and their lips dry. Almost as if they had not drank something in two days. The thirst is overwhelming, and Eris has something to do with it”

I guess she raped dehydration into the PC as well. Great storytelling there Marko.

Back on the island Parel has just finished burying his adopted child, while Ampere has moved all of Helios Shamash’s equipment and charts over to his room. All he has to say is that whatever Helios is looking for, it moves with the currents and is on the surface of the Ocean. If they were out in said ocean, they could use radar to locate it.

After that the PCs sit down to supper with the whole gang, there’s a bit of gloomy talk before the lights start flickering again. The near field (EMP) is back! Ampere runs to his radio to track it, and we’re told that a “haunting melody” plays through the radio, and despite disbelief from Ampere and Parel, Eris reveals that it is Aries, come to kill her for defiling his flock or some poo poo. However, the melody gets fainter and fainter and the source is moving farther away. Eris will also reveal that Aries/Jehammed has promised to take the most faithful of his flock to the stars. A little later on in the metaplot we’ll learn that there’s been an Orbiter waiting in a place called Baikonur for centuries now, and the Will is necessary to either access or chart a course in it, I can’t remember atm.




I forgot to mention earlier, but you either pick Focus or Primal as a focus at chargen. It’s entirely possible to have a party of all Focus characters. Marko acts like that scene creates this profound bond that echoes throughout the story or some poo poo, and all you get are these little visions which honestly don’t help at all. Not like it would excuse it even if it gave you a billion xp or whatever, but it’s just salt upon the wound.

Right after the emp, a blackout hits the island. Parel instantly realizes Morlaix (the Salt Wolf constructed water-driven power station) must be down, and clearly Shamash has tapped the electricity to find the thing he’s looking for! Parel tells the PCs that he has a small submersible that can get there in six hours, so it’s off to Morlaix they go!

Remember those Spitalians we were supposed to catch? Yeah, me neither. Its time to jump to another plot thread, so sayeth the great book!

Morlaix itself is real spooky you guys. It’s empty, quiet, and there’s fog everywhere. Parel comes with the PCs to investigate, while he leaves his adopted son and co-pilot Poli in the submarine. The water sluice gates themselves have been manually pulled up out of the water, so someone definitely disabled the power plant manually. While the PCs walk around they can make a few rolls that don’t really matter, like on the beach you can make an INS+Survival (4) to find a rock that has a freshly-applied fluorescent color on it’s surface. We are told that the character is unable to find out what this poisonous substance is. Wait a sec, if this is poisonous, does it hurt the PCs if they touch the rock, lick the rock? :shrug: The PCs can also make another roll in which they find a small tin filled with smelly green algae and marked with the astrological symbol for the planet mercury. We’re told in a sidebar that this algae is called “star food” and it is a protein cocktail mixed with growth hormones, antidepressants, and antibiotics. It’s what Argyle feeds to his Pictons, who by nature burn a lot of energy and this keeps them going. No mention of this is relevant at all to the PCs, or even the story really.

Spoiled for goat-man dick



This is a reference to Ifrit/Aries setting off all the dogs with his emp. Honestly, I fail to see why these visions are important or why they matter to the story. You could excise them entirely, and nothing would change. They’re just weird, but apparently they matter so much you had to rape a PC to inflict them or some poo poo.

Once the PCs get into the power plant proper, they’ll have to climb the scaffolding to reach the transformer and get things running again. On the transformer next to the big switch is more of that fluorescent paint, but this time it’s the symbol of saturn. For some reason.

This next section is written rather poorly, and after reading it twice I can’t really make heads or tails out of exactly what they want to happen. I think they assume that some PCs climb the scaffolding with Parel, and that some head towards a bridge that leads into the village proper. However, just as the PCs heading into town start to see a bunch of dismembered corpses, GM fiat declares that they’re ambushed. No, the PCs don’t get a roll to see a bunch of howling cannibal barbarians early, don’t be silly! The Pictons have followed the near-field emp effect to this village, thinking that Helios was responsible for it. Here they’d ambush him, and take both him and the Will back to Briton. For some reason they think the characters are his harbingers or some poo poo and spring the ambush.



The PCs are effectively penned in on both sides, but the PCs do have a couple advantages. If the person atop the power plant/aqueduct has a good long range weapon, they can clear LoS to the bridge and can essentially pick the Pictons off as they try to cross. Also, the Pictons are afraid of tech. Ampere’s suit modules force a PSY+Faith roll for them, failure means they freeze or flee the field, and any similar tech from the PCs can do the same. However, none of this actually matters because the outcome is already determined. There’s too many Pictons to kill. Once they kill at least four, the Picton leader Balor will call out for Helios the world killer and fire the Soul-Burner attached to his head



It hits a generator block atop the power plant, sending it flying. Ampere identifies it as a Soul Burner in case the PCs don’t pick up on that, and their only option is to climb down and retreat to an area with better cover. They’re still penned in though, and things look bad until this guy shows up.



That’s the beggar they show before (obviously), but Aries is in the driver’s seat now. He lets loose a wordless subvocal scream that rattles the bones of the characters, but is otherwise unheard. All of the Pictons turn from the PCs to charge the weeb greek samurai. He kills them all with his glowing white Katana because he’s such a cool badass, but the distraction does give the characters a way out of the situation. Luckily for them the near-field has disabled most electronics, so they don’t have to worry about being picked off by a head-mounted laser. As they flee Ifrit finishes up with the Pictons and begins chasing them, Eris freaks out a bunch. For some reason this causes some distress to the guy who’s currently serving as a meat-puppet for a body-swapping AI, and he stops chasing them to clutch his head in his hands. This does give the PCs a head start, but it doesn’t last forever. There’s some rolls involved for the chase, don’t fail them or Ifrit kills you when he catches up.




Take a random, barely-related song lyric quote is a dumb font/layout. That’s cool right?

At a certain point in the case the PCs run into Balor. He’s pretty surprised, the PCs don’t look like sleepers, but that’s not going to stop him from killing them. The PCs have 5 rounds to kill him or deal at least (6) trauma to get him to retreat. The emp has disabled his eye (the soul burner) but he’s still got a chainsaw that’ll hurt whatever it hits. While the PCs might be suffering from the EMP as well, Balor only has 3 armor so it’s actually pretty easy for the PCs to just action economy him and strip the most powerful weapon in the game from his corpse if they’re quick enough. It can only fire every other round, but in all other respects it’s a full-on soul burner. Give it to your best shooter and they can 2-shot virtually anything in the game, and will one-shot most things.

The PCs get chased a bit more, Ifrit throws some rocks at the PCs, one hits Eris and knocks her out, etc. Spoilers, the PCs make it back to the sub, but not before noticing a floating iceberg not too far away. Once everyone is inside, Parel notices that they only have enough fuel to go 30 nautical miles, which won’t get them back to Brest. That um, seems kinda dumb. Why’d he leave without enough fuel to get back home? While he’s trying to figure out what to do, Ampere figures out that Helios was looking for this iceberg and whatever he’s after is here, inside of it. Parel makes a decision, he’s send Eris and his son back to the coast where they’re to look for someone who can help them get back to Brest, while he goes with Ampere and the PCs to the iceberg to avenge his son’s killer and stop Helios. Notice how much input the PCs had in that decision-making process?



In order to reach it, the PCs have to first climb aboard Soufiane’s boat which is tied up nearby, then they have to climb up a long chain to reach the top of the iceberg, both actions requiring rather pointless rolls. Or rolls that mean certain death, depending on how well your PCs swim in ice-cold seawater. As the PC’s approach the submarine, they’ll see the same symbol that they saw upon the spear of Helios. The symbol of project Free Spirit.



”Parel” posted:

Good god!” Parel moans.

”Ampere” posted:

“There are no Gods,” Ampere sneers. “This is RG work!” If the characters ask him what RG means, he’ll slick back his wind-tousled hair. “Recombination Group, Project Tannhauser. The whole poo poo that destroyed our world,” he spits out with revulsion on his tongue.

Setting aside the ridiculousness that is the sentence “The whole poo poo that destroyed out world,” this answer really loving sucks. Chances are this is a huge bombshell to the characters, and this fuckin’ nerd can’t even be bothered to answer a very important question in a satisfactory manner.

Getting inside is actually pretty easy, all the PCs have to do is follow a set of tracks to an access hatch and let themselves inside. This is the Black Atlantic, or so says a golden plaque saying so at any rate. The PCs can figure out that the sub’s emergency power was turned on six hours ago, but the sub itself hasn’t drawn power from its nuclear propulsion in years. We’re informed in a sidebar that this was supposed to be the command ship for Helio’s efforts. Once he and he fellows awoke, they’d call the automated supply ships to the shore and arm themselves with all of the gear and supplies contained within. However, the Chroniclers (likely with the help of the Marauder Aspera or Triglaw) hijacked their signals and looted them all, all but the Black Atlantic. It evaded them until something in the water knocked it off of it’s automated course, and got it stuck in an iceberg for a few decades.

The first two rooms of the BA are boring and nothing happens besides some NPC dialogue.

The PC’s get funneled into the next room because it’s literally the only way forward. They go rappel down a chain through a hatch in the floor, ending up in a room called the Polyhedron. It looks like this, but ignore the spooky eye for a minute. That comes later.



It’s a memetic education chamber. After a brief but very loud announcement in which the PCs are informed that errors will be punished and success rewarded, they’re treated to this godawful world salad that’s supposed to be Memetics at work.



I believe Marko probably thought this was badass and cool, but I can’t stop laughing at the line “The Monkey licks a fruit. The Monkey is shot.”

After everything goes black, the screens light up with scarlet symbols, the very same symbols from Eris’ scroll. The 22 Archetypes or whatever the gently caress. A question like “I desire my neighbor's wife and the servitude of his sons” is supposed to be answered by the symbol for the Ruler. You have 30 seconds to answer, if you fail the room flashes red and shifts, and the air begins to taste of gas. This has no effect. If you get it right, the room flashes green and you see a frolickering deer or some poo poo It doesn’t actually matter though, because Argyre hacks in and demands to know where Helios is. That’s his eye in the picture above. After the PCs explain the situation, he’ll tell the PCs that if they’re able to start the fusion reactor he can hack into the ship’s network to stop Helios. He’ll let the PCs out after that, via another hatch in the floor.

The PCs find themselves in the poorly translated Commando Bridge. There’s a bunch of Artifact Lore and Science rolls to work everything, with success telling you that the fuses are burnt out and thus the controls on the bridge will not work. You’ve gotta restart the reactor manually. Luckily, Parel knows how to operate a fusion reactor. The PCs can also check out the admiral’s cabin after bashing down the door, there’s an automatic pistol, a copy of Gulag Archipelago, and a picture of Helios dressed in a US Navy uniform.

The reactor room itself is locked, it takes a PSY+Cunning (3) and a INT+Artifact Lore (2) roll to figure out how a combination lock works. That’s not hyperbole either. Its 4 dials with four numbers, the solution is found when all the numbers add up to 1616. This number keeps showing up earlier in the adventure, so hopefully they were paying attention.

Anyways, the PCs break in and Parel starts sodering wires and poo poo. Just as he’s about to finish, Helios appears on a walkway 2 floors up! He’ll talk some poo poo about how he’s the good guy out to save humanity, and how Argyre is full of poo poo. When Parel asks him why he killed his boy, Helios denies killing any children and says something so deep you guys.

”Helios” posted:

The potential of a weapon is in the hands of its carrier.

In an alternate, better-written adventure, our Hellvetic has strapped Balor’s eye to his forehead and one-shots Helios because gently caress are Soul Burners powerful.

Back in the real world, Helios will then snap his fingers, and Arnika drags Soufiane forward. He’ll say that this is the killer of your child, and now the potential is in your hands or some poo poo as Soufiane is tossed down two stories. Soufiane’s legs break from the fall, and when Parel asks why he did it, he'll tell everyone that Helios promised to take him to Britain if it was worth someone’s life to him, and he’d have to sacrifice someone. So he killed the kid. Parel then blows his brains out, and that’s the end of our Leopard friend.

By now, Arnika and Helios have fled. The characters have to move forward and pursue them. They pass through the troop quarters and a bunch of monitors light up. Argyre has hacked into the security system, and starts the self destruct sequence! No, the book doesn’t tell you how long this might take, why do you ask?

The next room is a mess hall, where Arnika ambushes the players in the dark again. While he’s in his element, the book does finally acknowledge that they’re only up against one guy finally. For some reason you can make a bunch of social rolls to question his belief in Helios and his motives, which rattle him and apply penalties to his next initiative. However, we’re also told that after the characters open fire, he’ll realize his mistake and retreat. Maybe it’s just me, but that seems like a pretty lovely speedbump if he retreats at the first bullet fired his way.


The next room is a bunkroom, where Arnika ambushes them again. He’ll fire off a salvo, topple a locker, and then retreat further. The lockers are actually full of pristine Bygone gear, but we’re told in a sidebar that every second the PCs spend cracking safes and popping open locks is another second Helios has to get away while the sub self-destructs. However, we’re never given an actual time-frame, so it’s kinda hard to adjudicate how long the PCs have, or even what kind of loot is available.

As they pursue Arnika down another hallway and into the engine room. The little Paler bastard pops open a ballast tank, sending ice-cold rushing water down the into the room. Ampere gets shot in the shoulder as well. Basically you gotta make a whole bunch of body rolls to rescue the NPCs who get trapped and wounded by the rushing water, before making your escape up a ladder into the weapons silo.

The weapons silo has some nukes in it, and several screens are displaying a bunch of targeting data. The characters flash back to Helio’s hideout, and realize that his three targets are London, Bath, and Aquitiane. They now realize what Argyre was trying to prevent, Helios is going to use nukes for revenge instead of, oh I dunno, maybe nuking the loving chakra impact sites? gently caress, this guy is dumb. He’s nuking Bath to destroy Argyre’s Thor laser, London because that’s where he was made a slave, and Aquitaine because they stole all of his gear from the supply ships they hacked. That’s right, he’s going to butcher 90,000 people because they stole some guns and computers. This is guy who claims he’s trying to save what’s left of the future.

The only way forward is through the Ballast Tanks, because the weapon silo itself has no exit. There's a bunch of rolls you have to make to swim through the cold, dark water. Fail a bunch and that’s bad, etc. Moving on.

The PCs emerge in the Torpedo compartment, where Helios graciously lets you rise out of the water before giving his evil villain speech. He’ll tell the PCs that Argyre can’t be trusted, and that he wants the will to shoot down GG in the Minerva space station that orbits the earth. Then he’ll tell the PCs that they can’t stop him from destroying the Will. It has everything Argyre needs on it, but once he deals with it the “greatest hope of humanity” will no longer be in any danger from him.

Now, this confused me. There’s nothing that he needed the Will for aboard the Black Atlantic. So why do all of this? Why bring it with him? Why not just melt it once Soufiane stole everything from the PCs? I get why he’d maybe want the BA, but bringing the Will align just attracted a lot of heat that he didn’t need.


Arnika does not take this revelation well, and shoots his former master in the gut. The book never says exactly why the destruction of the will is so enraging to Arnika, even in a sidebar it just says that he knows it’s the key to Exalt’s Grindworks. The city of Exalt was an early Free-Spirit ruled city, and the Grindworks was a labyrinth machine that breaks memetic conditioning. You can read between the lines and figure out that maybe he’s pissed because the Grindworks could be used to break the conditioning on all of his fellow Palers or something, but even that is just a guess. Anyways, Arnika dives for Cover with the WIll in his hands, tosses his backpack to the PCs. It’s combat time!



This is what a fully charged Free Spirit suit looks like. Best armor in the game, and this one at least comes with a microwave pulsar in the palm. (A soul burner that does 2 less damage). It boosts his bod+force to 14, and is 10 armor against bullets. He’s a credible threat even as a single boss guy, his weapon can one shot a lot of characters and he can take a punch. A combat monkey can still one-round him though, but they’d need to roll well. Or y’know, have their own soul burner. On average dice Bob the Hellvetic one shots this guy.

However, that’s not how you’re meant to fight this guy. Inside the backpack is the Yoke that Argyre used to control his nanites. If it’s on his neck but not receiving a signal, the nanites crystalize and kill the yoked target. So you’re meant to literally pile on and overwhelm his BOD+Force (14) in a grapple, and then slap the Yoke on his neck. There’s a bunch of really corny dialogue with him screaming “NOOOO” and “NEVER.” It basically turns him into a wave sculpture. Now, either grap his corpse or peel off the suit and enjoy the best armor in the game. I doubt any future modules will adjust for how this can affect the power curve.

Once Helios is dead, Arnika will help the PCs escape. They have to open the Dispenser (which is a really odd word choice for a vault-like bunker) and escape through the Cyrogenic chamber rooms. However, there’s a complication. The Black water has gotten to all of the Sleepers, and they’re all now Incubi! Psychonauts of the Levianthics strain.



They were only kept under control by Cyrosleep, and now that they’re waking up its bad news. In addition to being Pyschonauts, we’re told that they also have sleeper nanites which grant them power regenerative properties. Except they kinda don’t, as even nanite regen is too slow to serve as combat healing. The characters have to hold position while Ampere and Parel get a gate open. Arnika gets torn apart by the Incubi, but not before throwing the Will to one of the PCs. The gate gets open just in time, and the PCs flee through it.

The last room is a hovercraft hanger. While Parel and Ampere get it up and running, the PCs have to physically hold the gate shut against the Incubi. All the while, the self-destruct count is ticking down. Parel gets the hoverfact working, and with a BOD+Ahtletics (2) roll they can get aboard in time. Parel punches it, and the hovercraft escapes the submarine just in time. However, as the PCs leave they see two rockets leave the Black Atlantic. We’re told that the PCs can only speculate as to what city was spared. Spoilers, Agryre is able to frantically retask the Thor laser to disable the Nuke heading for Bath, but uses up all the power and time he spent charging the loving thing. It’ll take months to charge again. Aquitaine gets turned into a crater.

Helios has won, the PCs once again fail to accomplish anything of note, and once again just witnesses to mass destruction they could have prevented in a better adventure.




As a consolation prize, enjoy Argyre in all of his rotten techo-zombie glory.


Next time, Chapter 4 and the end of this goddamn book.

PoontifexMacksimus
Feb 14, 2012

Hipster Occultist posted:

It’s a memetic education chamber. After a brief but very loud announcement in which the PCs are informed that errors will be punished and success rewarded, they’re treated to this godawful world salad that’s supposed to be Memetics at work.



I believe Marko probably thought this was badass and cool, but I can’t stop laughing at the line “The Monkey licks a fruit. The Monkey is shot.”

Monkey See... Monkey Die *badass guitar riff*

Night10194
Feb 13, 2012

We'll start,
like many good things,
with a bear.

Ah, the ole Battlefield Earth beam of pure education fired into the eyes.

Cythereal
Nov 8, 2009

I love the potoo,
and the potoo loves you.
I... must have missed where 'Free Spirits' who apparently ruled a city (?) and had transhuman sci-fi tech (??) were explained. I get that they're probably an AI, but...

Hipster Occultist
Aug 16, 2008

He's an ancient, obscure god. You probably haven't heard of him.


Cythereal posted:

I... must have missed where 'Free Spirits' who apparently ruled a city (?) and had transhuman sci-fi tech (??) were explained. I get that they're probably an AI, but...

Exalt is mentioned in Primal Punk (the setting book JcDent covered) as a great city that was destroyed in a conflict called the "City Wars" a while back. It gets detailed a bit in the Justinian books, but here's the gist.

Basically before the asteroid hit Free Spirit built this cool city full of tech, but key to the whole thing was a maze called the Grindworks. Said maze has the ability to purge memetic conditioning that's affecting your mind. It was meant to be like the great city of light where people could be purged of all the cruft loving with their minds, and emerge free to be fully realized and better people. Something like in that. A couple things went wrong.

1. Humans hosed it up. Instead of using the Grindworks for it's intended purpose, its citizens used it to indulge in hedonism. They'd go out and murder someone or something, and then use the grindworks to purge the guilt. This kinda turned the Exalters into bastards after a while, and didn't earn them many friends. Eventually they get it in their heads that they've got to spread this freedom across the land, to everyone.

2. While knowledge of Free Spirit was mostly kept from the RG Board, eventually someone found out right before the end came. The first sleepers to awaken were redirected to destroy Exalt. I imagine they gathered armies from a lot of the normies just living in the region.

Thus you get the City Wars, and Exalt is mostly destroyed as a consequence. However, we're told that with the Will the PCs could unlock it again. How, and what that would mean, is fodder for an unreleased book.

I covered Free Spirit in my metaplot post I think

SkyeAuroline
Nov 12, 2020

Search is hosed but I believe you did. Yeah, the issue with Exalt is it's all either in the newest book released after SMV overtly went off the deep end, or hasn't been written at all - you don't get any of this from the main adventure trilogy or even the base game besides "it existed, doesn't now".

TheGreatEvilKing
Mar 28, 2016





Wait, if the plot is about one guy's quest to launch the missiles he found on the old submarine, why do we have poo poo like Rape Chick at all?

Actually, given that rape chick is spouting off about some dude trying to kill her wouldn't the PCs all go and help that dude seeing as she raped one of them?

Robindaybird
Aug 21, 2007

Neat. Sweet. Petite.

"Why? All men want to have sex and it's awesome a chick takes the initiative" is DeGenesis' logic.

And of course it assumes all the players are playing cismale characters too, I imagine a GM actually going through with this garbage would be stumped by an all female party.

By popular demand
Jul 17, 2007

IT *BZZT* WASP ME--
IT WASP ME ALL *BZZT* ALONG!


I honestly can't imagine a scenario where the GM suddenly pulls this poo poo on my character and I'm anything but shocked in a very bad way.

I'm sure there's a sane market for explicitly roleplaying sexual scenes but this must be stated clearly before people decide to play the adventure.

Midjack
Dec 24, 2007



Degenesis is truly Hot Topic: the RPG for 18+ Mature Audiences ONLY.

By popular demand posted:

I honestly can't imagine a scenario where the GM suddenly pulls this poo poo on my character and I'm anything but shocked in a very bad way.

I'm sure there's a sane market for explicitly roleplaying sexual scenes but this must be stated clearly before people decide to play the adventure.

I don't think there is, really.

Mors Rattus
Oct 25, 2007

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

Age of Sigmar: Hedonites of Slaanesh
No, Really, I Mean It, Murder Is In Fact My Antidrug

The Myrmidesh Painbringers originally hail from Hysh, where the Myrmidesh cults were founded. They are widely known as the embodiment of Slaanesh's martial pride, but the blade-cults of the Myrmidesh do not match what many outsiders think of when they think of Slaanesh. Their true joe can only be found in combat and, occasionally, the sadism of slaughter. (Mostly in the higher ranks; the lower ranks tend to be more obsessed with perfection of combat.) Since their founding, the Myrmidesh orders have spread throughout the realms, and where in Hysh they maintain geometrically precise temples, in others they rule over crystal palaces or monasteries full of combat trophies.

Slaanesh's increasing power has brought many new applicants to the Myrmidesh, but actually getting accepted into the cults is not easy. To join the Myrmidesh, an applicant must pass six trials, all of them very painful and overwhelming to the senses. The final trial is the hardest, as the aspiring warrior must drink six very intoxicating concoctions, each of which assaults their senses with false data and causes hallucinations. Then, while high as balls, they must fight wave after wave of enemies. Only those who are able to overcome distraction and temptation are able to do so. They must care for nothing more than they love combat, and by focusing on that love of combat they are able to maintain focus during their ordeal and defeat the enemies before them. Only then can they call themselves Painbringers.

The Painbringers wear uniforms - sleek, sure, but they all dress the same. They do not need the distraction of self-identity and vanity. They wield curved blades and runic shields, and they stand apart from other Sybarites. Each of the various sects of the Myrmidesh practices a martial art known as the Dance of the Wailing Blade, but each focuses on a different specific aspect of the style. Some focus on defense, deflecting enemy and then unleashing the perfect counter, while others prefer a more aggressive focus of endless cuts, overwhelming enemy defenses. The specific focus matter sless than killing the enemy is as much agony as possible. Myrmidesh consider the torturous kill to be an art form, the perfect expression of martial skill, as it shows their total control over their weapons - they are able to even decide when their foes will die rather than having to kill them as quickly as possible.

Where other Hedonites cheer and grandstand, a Myrmidesh line stands in perfect, unnatural stillness. They observe the enemy approach and the madness around them dispassionately. Most Myrmidesh soldiers are ascetics, rejecting the sex and drugs and rock and roll that flood the rest of the Sybarites, because they want to focus on the total perfection of combat and the causing of pain. When the neemy nears, they move from stillness to sudden violence, striking out with blows that leave their foes in horrible pain and suffering. They seek to make it so that the last thing a victim sees is the Myrmidesh moving on, displaying their utter lack of attachment even to their victims, demonstrating total control of the enemy's death with such confidence that they don't have to watch it.

Myrmidesh cultists consider themselves far more sophisticated than other Sybriates, whom they see as crass and manic beings. They hide their faces behind completely enclosed helmets to focus on their status as devoted killers, and many consider their weapon to be the part of themself that is most actually them, rather than any part of their body. The body is often portrayed in their scripture as a crude tool of necessity before the perfection of the sword. This does not make them any less Slaaneshi - they are still Sybarites, their pride in their skill binding them to Slaanesh as much as their obsessive need for perfection. In the rare times when they are defeated in combat or shown to be imperfect in their mastery of swordplay, they become enraged, going into a frenzy of attacks to try and take down whoever did it. Only once the offender is reduced to a fine mist do they return to their normal calm, self-assured state, their rage fading as quickly as it came. Being Myrmidesh is, after all, about perfectionism, and those who prove they are imperfect are easily able to get past their veneer of confidence.

The Symbaresh Twinsouls are a warrior order that is formed from those who reject the teachings of the Myrmidesh. All of their number are former Painbringers who were unable to acceept being one among a faceless order and who could not accept the slow march of practice and perfection. Instead, they choose to seek power through partnership with a daemon. The Symbaresh mark themselves with runes of conjugation. (Yes, conjugation. Why? I don't know.) Then, they capture six aelves and offer up their souls in sacrifice. Why aelves? Slaanesh likes the taste of aelf souls. This gets the attention of a daemon, and each Symbaresh makes a pact with their daemon, offering it residence in their body. They design and create their own weapons and discard the helms of the Myrmidesh, painting themselves in personal imagery and working as hard as they can to look unique and striking, the better to enthrall Slaanesh and anyone else.

The Symbaresh also reject the precise combat style of the Dance of the Wailing Blade, with each creating their own unique and eccentric style, for the same reason. Each one is an egomaniac, and they travel together in an effort to compete and push each other to ever more impressive feats. They tend to shout about how cool they are as they do so...but the thing is? It works. The Twinsouls' daemonic partners like this stuff. They are granted superhuman speed and strength for what they do. They also tend to develop a somewhat broken sense of self, however. Often they speak in the third person or treat their bodies as simply clothing to be changed as needed, with little care for their own wounds. This is the activity of the daemon within their body, which slowly asserts control over the Symbaresh by encouraging their ego but whittling away at their sense of self.

The greatest of the Symbaresh, who are able to defeat these daemons and maintain control of the self through strong will are known as Egopomps, and their daemonic patrons are actually subsumed into their own personas, with the mortal Sybarite absorbing the daemon's personality and seizing control of it rather than vice versa. Egopomps are pretty dang rare, though. Most Symbaresh end up overwhelmed by their daemon, who takes control of their body and does whatever it wants while the sliver of their own soul that remains tries to figure out how this could possibly have happened, since it couldn't be because they hosed up.

Meanwhile, among the Beasts of Chaos, the Slaangor Fiendbloods are what you get when Beastmen look at Slaanesh and decide that yes, this is the perfect idea. They take the opposite tack of the cerebral Myrmidesh and prideful Symbaresh. Rather than pursue perfection, they embrace their baser urges. Indeed, most even give up on things like self-preservation as a concept, the better to focus on their single-minded need to hurt people. Their willingness to gently caress themselves up in order to gently caress up everyone near them often surprises enemies - as does the fact that their chitinous lobster claws are usually more than able to cut open even very strong armor.



No one is wholly certain where the Slaangors actually come from. One legend claims that once, an order of knights exists that was said to be incorruptible. One day, a beautiful strangered appeared at their gates and asked for hospitality. He offered his hosts a chance to drink from his silver goblet, and the knights, who had been so long without any temptations, wereu nable to resist. They had recently won a great battle over the forest beasts, and their reputation had planted pride within their souls. Over the night, they fell into pained screams and wails, as their bodies transformed. As they looked at themselves in the morning, they saw that they had each been physically turned into the first of the Slaangors, for the goblet had contained a drop of Slaanesh's own saliva. Horns grew from their heads, claws sat the ends of their arms, and the eyes were deep, pearly pits that saw all. They tried to resist for a time, but eventually, their bestial urges drove them to attack the peasants under their protection, and the once noble order was fully transformed.

But that's only one story. In Ulgu, they say that each Slaangor is born from six rites of growing excess, and each must be purposefully done, ending in the willful drinking of ichor from a Slaaneshi daemon-animal. In Ghyran, they say the Fiendbloods are not born, but emerge fully formed from the writhing, glutted bodies that pile around the herdstones after a Slakefray's great bacchanals. (That one seems most likely to me - beastmen spontaneously generating from herdstones is how the Beasts of Chaos tend to actually work in practice.)

Whatever the case, the Fiendbloods are definitely channeling pure bestial urges and instincts in their service to Slaanesh. The Sybarites think they're the coolest drat thing ever, and often adopt Slaangors when they find them. They lather the beasts with perfumed oils, coat their horns and skin in gems and bright studs, wrap them in the ifnest silk. Most of the time, the Slaangors barely notice this, wandering around in a drunken stupor from which they emerge only to take part in parties and debauched celebrations. In battle, however, their normal lethargy vanishes. They race into battle with a savage glee, and they can be distracted from the joy of slaughter only by the finest foods and scents. They hoot and howl constantly in battle, expressing their love for the visceral pleasures of carnage and war without need for words. (Slaangors can speak, probably, but rarely do, because that level of thought is less fun than eating things and snorting whatever is put in front of their face.)

The End!

Options:
Chaos: Beasts of Chaos, Blades of Khorne, Disciples of Tzeentch, Maggotkin of Nurgle, Slaves to Darkness
Death: Nighthaunt
Destruction: Orruk Warclans
Order: Daughters of Khaine, Fyreslayers, Sylvaneth

Robindaybird
Aug 21, 2007

Neat. Sweet. Petite.

Midjack posted:


I don't think there is, really.

The only ones I've seen that don't go screaming head first into a whole ugly mess of consent issues are ones designed *explicitly* to be a single player experience and are more art games.

SkyeAuroline
Nov 12, 2020

Midjack posted:

Degenesis is truly Hot Topic: the RPG for 18+ Mature Audiences ONLY.


I don't think there is, really.

Hey, that's an insult to Hot Topic. This is more Spencer's speed.

Robindaybird posted:

"Why? All men want to have sex and it's awesome a chick takes the initiative" is DeGenesis' logic.

And of course it assumes all the players are playing cismale characters too, I imagine a GM actually going through with this garbage would be stumped by an all female party.

Cue the nasty "girl on girl cool, guy on guy ick" poo poo that the same sort love.

TheGreatEvilKing posted:

Wait, if the plot is about one guy's quest to launch the missiles he found on the old submarine, why do we have poo poo like Rape Chick at all?

Actually, given that rape chick is spouting off about some dude trying to kill her wouldn't the PCs all go and help that dude seeing as she raped one of them?

These adventures have issues with focus, to say the least. It's like trying to set up an investigative sequence and lay out what's going on with paths for players to pursue, but forgetting to ever use the clues provided or provide anything but the exact trail of clues you want to have your players follow. Combine "establishing how grim and dark our setting is", "foreshadowing plot developments that may not even come up in the book, if at all", and misc bullshit causes on top of that, and it's the shitshow we get now.

Completely unrelated to that: Continuing to push through Red Markets review writing, just been a bit tied up recently for doing much. Running my Never Going Home playtest wrapping up our one-shot (for potential campaign continuation) next weekend. Considering the entire mechanical bulk of NGH fit on one 8.5x11 page and most of the page count is premade adventures, setting info, and art (and even then it's sub 120 pages!), might be able to kick out an "interlude" review in a couple posts, to mix things up from grim zombies... with grim WWI, but still.

PurpleXVI
Oct 30, 2011

Spewing insults, pissing off all your neighbors, betraying your allies, backing out of treaties and accords, and generally screwing over the global environment?
ALL PART OF MY BRILLIANT STRATEGY!

By popular demand posted:

which system did you use Purple? I'm thinking of running a fallout campaign too.

I based it off Unisystem, specifically AFMBE. Not sure if it was ultimately the best choice, but it's relatively light and it comes with a bunch of pre-made modern/near-modern stuff to easily slot in, like tons of guns, armor, primitive weapons, etc.

MonsterEnvy
Feb 4, 2012

Shocked I tell you
Voting for Beasts of Chaos next

Joe Slowboat
Nov 9, 2016

Higgledy-Piggledy Whale Statements



Mors Rattus posted:

Age of Sigmar: Hedonites of Slaanesh
No, Really, I Mean It, Murder Is In Fact My Antidrug

They do not need the distraction of self-identity and vanity.

Most Myrmidesh soldiers are ascetics, rejecting the sex and drugs and rock and roll that flood the rest of the Sybarites, because they want to focus on the total perfection of combat and the causing of pain.

Myrmidesh cultists consider themselves far more sophisticated than other Sybriates, whom they see as crass and manic beings.

Hipster Occultist
Aug 16, 2008

He's an ancient, obscure god. You probably haven't heard of him.


TheGreatEvilKing posted:

Wait, if the plot is about one guy's quest to launch the missiles he found on the old submarine, why do we have poo poo like Rape Chick at all?

Actually, given that rape chick is spouting off about some dude trying to kill her wouldn't the PCs all go and help that dude seeing as she raped one of them?

Well, the short answer is that Marko is a bad writer.

The long version is that Eris is fleeing her former cult (The Jehammedans) because she discovered the scroll with the 22 symbols, and pointed out that the Apocalyptic use the same symbol on their tarot. This was some serious heresy that got her declared as a Deliah, so she booked it. The dude with the Ram helmet and the katana is Ifrit, one of the Horned Nine. They're remotely controlled via those horned ram helmets by Aries himself, who prior to the rocks falling was the preacher Jehammed who started the whole movement. When the end came he killed himself rather than become a techno-zombie in constant agony, and ended up becoming an AI instead of dying thanks to those nanites. The Horned Nine are basically his body and the chief boogeymen/enforcers of the cult, Eris thinks that's Aries come to track her down and kill her for her heresy. It's not though, he just wants his Will (the macguffin) back.

As for the rape, the game's fans and the writers don't see it that way. They look it as a seduction or some poo poo, and it's important because it creates a link between the PC and the NPC. For some reason it's important that the PC experience these haunting visons that relate back to Eris, and what she's afraid of. Except it's really not all that important. They provide no new information, nor do they provide any new clues. It's like they're prophetic visions of that stuff that's already happened.

Also, Aries is not exactly rational and he'll kill anything close to him in pursuit of the Will, so you really can't help him regardless. You probably could give it back to him after the stuff on the sub, but the book has nothing to say on that front.

Libertad!
Oct 30, 2013

You can have the last word, but I'll have the last laugh!

Robindaybird posted:

"Why? All men want to have sex and it's awesome a chick takes the initiative" is DeGenesis' logic.

And of course it assumes all the players are playing cismale characters too, I imagine a GM actually going through with this garbage would be stumped by an all female party.

The (white) male default of adventuring groups is something I see come up here and there in various gaming products. In my cases they were ones that could easily cause a massive plot-derail.

The last time I saw a plot-relevant gender flub was in Odyssey of the Dragonlords where an optional quest involves visiting the Island of Amazons. On the chance that the entire party is female they could effectively bypass an entire dungeon and most random encounters to get to who is basically the BBEG ruler of said land.

On the race front, one of the Deadlands AP requires the PCs to find a member of a "good guy organization" to proceed with the plot. He's in hiding due to the Chinese Triad wanting him dead, so his hired help will shoot at any Asians who approach...and presumes that the party has no members that fit said description, even though it had an entire chapter on martial arts options for PCs.

Another adventure path had boxed text presuming that all of the PCs were white in having "one of their most illustrious ancestor spirits" to fight alongside them against one of the Reckoners. That ancestor spirit being Robert E. Lee. It's even more jarring as the adventure in prior parts was heavily encouraging an all-Native American party (or at the very least PCs who are sympathetic to autonomy from colonialism).

Froghammer
Sep 8, 2012

Khajit has wares
if you have coin
Beasts of Chaos, because Beastmen in Warhammer have always been cool but never good in actual play

Robindaybird
Aug 21, 2007

Neat. Sweet. Petite.

Libertad! posted:

On the race front, one of the Deadlands AP requires the PCs to find a member of a "good guy organization" to proceed with the plot. He's in hiding due to the Chinese Triad wanting him dead, so his hired help will shoot at any Asians who approach...and presumes that the party has no members that fit said description, even though it had an entire chapter on martial arts options for PCs.

Another adventure path had boxed text presuming that all of the PCs were white in having "one of their most illustrious ancestor spirits" to fight alongside them against one of the Reckoners. That ancestor spirit being Robert E. Lee. It's even more jarring as the adventure in prior parts was heavily encouraging an all-Native American party (or at the very least PCs who are sympathetic to autonomy from colonialism).

All the more ways Deadlands takes a great concept and destroys it with Confederacy apologia.

Hipster Occultist
Aug 16, 2008

He's an ancient, obscure god. You probably haven't heard of him.


Black Atlantic, Part 7

Welcome to Chapter 4, Thrown to the Gods.

To sum things up, the PCs arrive at Parel’s island and everything is a mess. It’s clearly been sacked, and another one of Parel’s adopted kids is basically dead. He manages to squeeze out a few words like Spitalians, Garlene, and Caranac before expiring. Parel gets real sad, then real angry, so now it’s time to track down the Spitalians and get some revenge.


We’re told in a sidebar that the Red Pack (the Spitalians who endangered a productive centuries old alliance to steal a magic rock) managed to put everything together on their own. They heard about Garlene’s encounter with the Garanids, linked her to the PCs/Parel, figured she’d know where the mother spore field was out in the Atlantic, and kidnapped her. They also figured that if they left one of their own behind as a sacrifice the Anabaptists would get all riled up and ride straight for Rennes rather than search the city of Brest for them, which is what they did. Apparently all they did was hide out on a boat on the Penfeld, a river that runs through the city and empties into the Atlantic. Once they kidnap Garlene, they force her to take them to where she got infected. The Atlas Oil Rig platform.

Here’s what I don’t get. Ushant is an island, not far off the coast from Brest, but there’s no bridge so presumably you’d need motorcraft to reach it. Once they had the starfire, why didn’t they gently caress off back home? They would have had a headstart of at least a couple hours, and nobody would really know where they were going. The whole point of their mission was to secure the Starfire and return it to the Spital, for study. Pure Primer matter would greatly advance their studies and likely open up several new avenues for combating the spread of Sepsis. Instead, they hide out in the city of their enemy, thinking that nobody will bother to look for them. Then, they go to the Atlas oil rig to check out the mother spore field of the Leviathanics for some reason. Granted, Dr Vega probably does want to know more about these new Psychonauts, but doing so directing endangers their primary mission.

Anyways, the only option they have is to go to Oppolus for help. He’s glad to see them, he’d thought the characters had abandoned them. Most of the warriors of Brest had left with Vicarent, but he’s got 50 guards left. Just as he tells the PCs to meet him in the harbour, a servant bursts in and tells him that Imbali has fled the Basalm House with his son, Barringer. Luckily Ampere is here to remind us that Imbali wanted to visit the megaliths at Caranac, which is also the port closest to the Atlas Oil Rig. Funny how that worked out.

We’re told in a sidebar that Imbali found in Barringer a vessel of perfect Ka, his life thread is untainted. From my understanding, the Ka is mysticism talk for a genetic lineage that goes back to the first humans, those created by the Primer 500 million years ago. Everything the Anubian cult does is centered around awakening the Ka within them, and they believe that eventually they’ll apotheosize into perfect immortal beings or something. For Imbali’s task that would enable her to become a Hogan (the last rank of the Anubians) she had to fulfil an ancient prophecy and bring someone like Barringer to Cario.

Once they get to the harbour, they find that grief has driven Parel to take off with the Hovercraft on his own. Oppolus sends a horseman to find Vicarent and tell him that they’ve found the Spitalians and he needs to turn his army around. The characters then pile in a motorboat and set sail along the coast. Once they arrive at Caranac, Oppolus sends his hunters to secure the village while he and the PCs make for the Megaliths. The character who was raped is tormented by “The Haunting” can roll INS+Primal (2), if they succeed they get read the following:

”The Haunting” posted:

The character tormented by the Haunting feels an uneasiness sneak through their body. They feel the warmth of hot breath on their neck, but there is nothing behind them. Something is in the forest. But what? The Horned One? No one could have made it from Morlaix to Carnac in a single day. Is the Horned One even human? The thought torments the character as they gradually approach a clearing. The underbrush gives way to an open field.

According to google maps, it’s about a 30 hour walk. It’s probably doable for people not juiced up on transhuman nanomachines, considering Navy SEAL training is more demanding. I’m not sure why this book takes the tone it does here.

Anyways, the approach to the Megalith calls for a stealth roll that doesn’t matter because you get noticed anyways. As you approach you see a saddled white horse, and then you sing Imbali dragging the body of Barringer through the grass, covered in the sack of stitched-together dog skins. She’s singing and doing some sort of Anubian ritual when Oppolus calls out to her, running the stealth you might have otherwise been engaged in. I’m just going to post the resulting encounter here.

”This fuckin’ book” posted:

"Lay my son down on the grass, you snake woman!" Oppolus steps out from behind a megalith with his harpoon, pointing it at Imbali. The characters can also choose to let their presence be known.

The Anubian curses irately, unable to believe that the characters have betrayed her. Carefully, she puts the Imiut skin containing Barringer on the ground.

Yeah, real un-fuckining-belivable that they’re helping a wise, honest, and trustworthy man who’s been nothing but a mensch to them, and they might also quietly possibly owe their lives to him as well. How strange it is they’re not utterly loyal to a foriegn mystic they’ve met once, and only helped them because it suits her own arcane purposes.

”This fuckin’ book” posted:

"Take two steps back. Now!" Oppolus gruffly orders.

"He’s not your son," Imbali replies disparagingly. "He belongs to a tribe older than yours, dear King!" she hisses. "Older than all the tribes on earth."

If the characters ask what she means, she will growl in their direction: "You brought the Fisher King here, did you not? What do you know? You’re nothing more than larvae digging through a rotten carcass."

Oppolus approaches the woman. The characters can come closer and form a circle around them. If they pull their guns, Imbali will respond by mocking them.

"I saved your companion’s life and this is how you repay me? By pointing a gun at someone who helped you when you were in need. No wonder they call you crows!"

Two things. Unless one of the characters is an Anubian themselves, none of this bullshit will mean anything to them, and yet this NPC acts as if it’s the most important thing ever. It might be to her, but someone who’s spent all this time away from Africa should at least be cognizant that the locals might not share her values.

Also, they’re pointing guns at her because she’s trying to kidnap the King’s adopted son for crying out loud, you aren’t in the right here lady.

quote:

If the characters confront Imbali and try to find out why she abducted Barringer, she will gasp, infuriated at their line of questioning.

"Because he is better than the rest of us! Because he did not deserve to live his life with those whose core has been eaten away at by the Ba!"

Yeah, lets get all impatient and pissy when 4-5 guys have guns pointed at me, that seems like a great fuckin’ idea.

quote:

Oppolus has heard enough. With the stock of his harpoon, he tries to strike Imbali in the head, hoping to knock her senseless. The Anubian, however, reacts with lightning speed. She meets the blow in the air with her left hand and breaks the stock of the harpoon in half with her right elbow. In one fluid motion, she rams the splintered end of the harpoon into Oppolus' thigh.

The king groans and falls to his knees in pain. Imbali whirls around and goes into a battle stance in order to defend herself against the characters.


"What kind of rotten traitors are you?" Every syllable is a reprimand. “Would you rather Barringer died and be up to your necks in the blood of a ruined country or see the king’s foster son freed so that he may live forever?"


Oppolus rips the broken harpoon shaft from his thigh and stretches himself out on a megalith before standing up.


"HE IS MY SON!" the king roars with all his heart.

"No. He is his son," Imbali counters, looking past him into the field.

This poo poo is just so fuckin’ dumb. Nowhere does it address that any reasonable PC would blow her away instead of listening to her rant and rave like she’s the only sane person in the room. You’re expected to just sit there while she talks down to you, and then a vision comes out of nowhere and paralyzes the entire group.

You can roll PSY+Willpower/Faith (5) to break free of the vision, in which you see Imbali throw Barringer over the horse and take off. The book says that if you engage her close combat, she manuvers the horse into attack mode and it tries to kick you. If it hits, it knocks you down and she takes off. No mention of shooting her or the horse, which seems like an effective method to stop her flight, so they just kinda of ignore that. Barringer is a metaplot npc now, which means he and Imbali get away thanks to GM fiat.

Anyways, here’s the vision.


”Some fuckin’ bullshit” posted:

A frightening sound blazes across the megalithic field, rattling as if a hail of hollow bones were falling from the sky. The bone drum blares through the night. Something is roaming between the stone steles. The silhouette resembles a gaunt jackal. Its ribs protrude through its matted fur, but its abdomen is bloated as if the jackal had just gorged itself on the dead. A golden crown sparkles above the figure’s head. It opens its seven eyes.


The vision is so strong that everything else around the characters blurs. The megalithic field has turned into a ghastly field of corpses. The jackal lowers its skull and gnaws at the bodies scattered upon the ground.

The horizon lights up in the West, burning brightly. The seven-eyed jackal raises its gaze and scrutinizes the characters. A dull growl rises from its belly and a mixture of blood and foam drips from its lips. Its ears perk up as if it has heard something. A deep thud mingles with the clattering of bones. It is getting closer and closer. The jackal raises its head in the air in order to trace the scent of danger.


Suddenly, a black ram bursts out from between the megaliths and rams the jackal's flank. The scavenger crashes to the ground, and the ram sinks its teeth into its throat. The black ram rages, tearing pieces of meat from the body of his prey. The jackal desperately snaps at the enemy, but the ram does not give in, instead trampling it into the dust. It pulls back and rams its horns into the jackal's stomach. The clattering of the bones has become so loud that it drowns out all of the other sounds. The characters feel a tingling sensation on their skin as if there were a static discharge. The next moment they are back in the present and once again masters of their senses. The jackal is gone, but the ram is still there.



Ifirit/Aries is back. He knows you have the Will and he wants it back. No mention of what might happen if the PCs give it to him, which considering the metaplot implications seems like something they might have thought of.


So Aries has stats. Good ones. He’s pretty capable to loving some PCs up with that glowing white katana of his. However, he’s not terribly damage resistant. If Bob the Hellvetic wins initiative he’ll put this guy down in a couple good Trailblazer shots, or one shot of Barlor’s Eye if you managed to grab that off of his head a while back. However, you’re not meant to actually fight him.

”The Haunting” posted:

The character that has experienced the Haunting sees a shadow out of the corner of their eye. Eris is standing between the megaliths. She is naked. Her body is covered in blood from head to toe and her eyes are wide open. The Delila pants like an animal, her body giving off steam. She fixes her eyes on the character. With her eyes locked on theirs, she takes off her face, revealing a gaping black hole.

"Aries is in his head!" her voice echoes from the depths of the void.

Then, she is gone.

Eris must have meant the helmet!

This game is so railroady it does not trust it’s player to figure out clues like this, and instead just spells them out clearly in the text. If only their fuckin’ metaplot did that.

So yeah, you have to do a targeted Bod+Brawl (4) attack to grab him by the horns. This however, leaves you vulnerable so the other PCs have to pile on and hold him down while you do this. You have to roll BOD+Force (2) every turn and collect (16) successes to pull the helmet off, because apparently it’s magnetically attached to his head or something. It’ll take you eight rounds to do so, if the party fails to hold them down said grabber is probably going to be disemboweled.

By the way, the core book doesn’t actually have rules for grappling. For that, you have to turn to the expanded rules book, Artifacts. Grappling someone is a normal attack at -4D, unless you suprise them, then it’s only -2D. The triggers indicate how many rounds you keep them grappled, after which you enter a contest of BOD+Brawl/Force against the grappled opponent’s BOD+Brawl. The target loses F/3 Ego each round in the grapple. Ifrit has 24 Ego points. Does he roll against each party member individually, and thus lose ego per person? Do they combine all of their rolls into one giant pool that he has to beat? Who knows? :shrug: Marko thought he had a cool scene on his hands and didn’t really bother to see if the rules could back up what he wrote.

Considering that most characters probably aren’t going to have a lot of dice to throw at this prescribed method of killing the boss, you’re better off just shooting him.

However, let’s say that you go through all of this nonsense. Once you rip the helmet off, we’re told in a sidebar that the helmet explodes if it’s not in contact with Ifrit. The characters have 100 meters to get rid of the helmet before it explodes. Nowhere is any of this information presented to the PC ingame. The helmet does not beep like a bomb, an NPC does not tell them to throw it away, etc. I guess you’re just supposed to get meta and tell the player out of game? There’s also no mention of how much damage that might do, aside from it releasing an EMP. Once the Helmet is destroyed, the Beggar asks you to kill him. He claims that if you don’t Aries will come after you, but tbh he’s going to anyways, and there’s no reason to kill this innocent guy who was mind-hosed into being his enforcer. However, this is GRIMDARK so we’ve gotta put him out of his misery.

”This Fuckin’ Book” posted:

“The characters have no choice, they have to kill the Beggar to free themselves from Aries’ clutches.

I’ll reiterate. Aries has seen their faces, he knows they have the will. He’s not going to stop searching for them. The Beggar is no longer controlled by Ifrit, and without a ram helmet he’s no longer a threat. Killing him accomplishes nothing.

With this mission a total failure, maybe the PCs can accomplish something of note with the Spitalians. I doubt it, but we’ll see. Once they get to Caranac a scout tells them that the Spitalians hijacked a boat and left for the Atlas Oil rig. The PCs fuel up and follow along with Oppolus and his guards.

This next part is also really dumb.

You see, in order to stall for time so Dr Vega and Bascule can do whatever it is that they came to do on the Atlas oil rig, the other two Preservers boarded a dingy with a machine gun and zoom around shooting at anyone that approaches. Keep in mind, at this point the characters have 50 people with them, maybe something like 20-30 jet skis and the rest in motorboats. Yet, 2 people in one dingy are presented as “nothing but pure carnage” and “An execution is taking place out on the open sea.” This one gun can hold off a small armada out on the open waves without any issues, setting aside that they misjudged how ammo and heavy machine guns work (these have like 5-6 minutes of ammo at best, and if they’re zipping around they need good luck to inflict casualties), numbers should overwhelm them here. By the way, they say it’s a machine gun, but doesn’t bother to say which one (the core book has both Light and Heavy varieties), so we don’t even know how much damage it does or how much it can Salvo for.

In order to deal with the dingy the PCs have to roll AGI+Navigation (4) to catch up, but this puts them in the line of fire and requires a combo roll of PSY+Reaction (4) and AGI+Navigation (3) to dodge the bullets coming at them. Then the book directly says “The characters have nothing that measures up to the heavy artillery.” It then applies a -4D penalty to shoot at the dinghy with handguns.

I’m sorry, but what? Is the book just arbitrarily changing what equipment the PCs have access to now? Has it forgotten all the gear they could have possibly looted in this adventure alone?




Turns out it doesn’t matter, and you shouldn’t even waste time making these rolls. The hovercraft piloted by Parel shows back up and rams the dingy, shredding it. It whips around back to the armada, and none other than Vicarent opens the side door. He wordlessly points with his sword towards the oil rig.

Fuckin’ hell

Anyways it’s quickly made apparent that the majority of the Armada can’t get close enough to the oil rig. The Black Water forms an oily, bubbly, sheen that writhes and churns, only the hovercraft can cross safely. Parel tells them that the hunters on Jet Ski’s will get infected and die. Dunno about the motorboats, or the possibility of getting oiled up with either Marduk or Elysian oil, but I digress. Oppolus gets into the hovercraft first and

”Oppolus” posted:

“Then, the king nods encouragingly to the characters. "Come aboard! This is just as much your story as mine."

Gee, how nice of Marko to remember that the PCs are also involved sometimes.

While you’re travelling the last kilometer across the mother spore field, Oppolus will ask Vicarent to spare Rennes, and he refuses even after finding out that Barringer will live.

”Vicarent” posted:

“Vicarent pushes his father's hand away. "Revenge is not a feeling. Revenge is a condition. Without revenge, a human being is nothing," he growls

I lurked their discord for a bit, and this is Marko’s favorite line out of everything that he’s written. He seriously loves it so much, and thinks it’s like the deepest, most profound thing ever.



However, let's get back on track. Speaking of getting oiled up, Vicariant pours a bunch over himself and hands the bottle to the characters, directing them to do so as well. They’re able to board the oil rig without issue, Parel, Vicarent, and Oppolus come along with the PCs to find the last of the Red Pack. They’re not much to do on the first floor except see a dead Incubi and a bunch of creepy Black Water pools. Oppouls, Vicarent, and Parel take one staircase up while directing the PCs to take another.

The characters are asked to make an AGI+Stealth (3) roll to sneak up to the second floor without being detected. However, it doesn’t matter because as soon as they reach the second floor the other group bashes open a door and sets off the Spitalians anyways. They’ve got Parel’s remaining kidnapped kids collecting samples of the Black Water. Maybe that’s why they’re here, however they already have samples of the infection thanks to that altercation in the fish market with that corrupted sea lion. I can’t really see why they’d risk everything by coming here.

Queue a good ol’ mexican standoff. There’s some poo poo talking back and forth, the Spitalians threaten to kill the kids, etc. Bascule (the guy with the pneumatic arm) then takes out the Spirtfire from the tube they had it in for some reason. Dr Vega tells him to put it back in, their mission was to take it back to the Spital. He’s compromising the mission.

”Bascule” posted:

“"gently caress the Spital! I am a soldier. My commitment is to humanity not you. I give a gently caress about your rank."

I’m not sure if “I give a gently caress about your rank” is an ESL thing or bad editing. Either way, we’re never told why he does this, or what he had intended to do with it. We never find out though.

Throughout this entire encounter, the oil rig gets hit with this massive rumblings. The third time it rumbles, a vast presence emerges from the ocean at starts tearing at the oil rig. It’s a Moloch, and it looks like this.



You see, the Leviathanics strain infects a living creature and takes it over. That creature can then consume other creatures to add to its body mass. Once it consumes enough, it can grow beyond its normal constraints, its numerous meals held together by the Black Water and formed into an abomination like that. When it makes itself known, Oppolus rushes Dr Vega and gets killed in a cutscene. She dodges his knife blow and injects neurotoxin that kills him in seconds. It does not acknowledge the possibility of maybe saving him or a PC killing her before she can do this.

The PCs are meant to help Vicarent kill Bascule, so Vicarent can take the Starfire from him. Once he does so, he takes it up in his hands and jumps into the Moloch, dissolving it into primordial soup and ending the adventure.

Epilogue




Tldr. Briton is hosed, the characters once again accomplish basically nothing of note (aside from becoming the metaplot macguffin postal service) while watching whatever region they visited disintegrate into ashes. You of course can deviate from this plot, but since future books assume everything happened as proscribed in this narrative, future material is going to be of less and less use to you as GM.

Speaking off metaplot maguffins, here’s what it looks like fully assembled.



The book finishes with a page on some future metaplot stuff surrounding the Needles, but I’ll cover that in the Justinian sourcebook. We get a bunch of stuff on how the Cults react, basically everyone but the Jehammedans can react at least somewhat positively if you report back. The Chroniclers are especially happy to get the completed Will, and the Spitalians Consultants are very, very interested in what the Preservers are doing behind their backs. This entire adventure fucks over any Jehammed PC though. You’re assumed to have their most holy artifact and to have basically killed one of his angels, so the only thing you can look forward to is fighting off kill squads. Any upward mobility in your cult is right out.

The book ends with a bestiary entry on the Leviathanics and their rules. In a nutshell, unlike all other forms of Homo Degenesis they don’t need to infect a gestating human. They can just invade like a virus and convert anyone to an Incubi. They’re really fast and can overlord their agility stat, and their plague is stuff like plankton and ocean protozoa. They can’t use it to attack, but it’s so numerous that it’s really easy for them to gather spores while in the water. If they despore completely or dry out on land, they take 1 damage an hour until they return to the water. They are also vulnerable to fire, and take 1 extra trauma damage from all sources of fire. Power-wise they can absorb things, divide themselves into multiple forms, spit poison, put out sources of flame near them, etc. Kinda poo poo really, the other Psychokentics are much more of a threat in combat. The threat the Leviathanics pose is really in how easy they can create more of them, Pyschonauts themselves are actually kind rare, thanks to needing to gestate in an infected mother.

And that’s the end of this lovely book, and this even shittier trilogy.

However, I’m not done yet.

Next time, Justinian, the Righteous Fist

Night10194
Feb 13, 2012

We'll start,
like many good things,
with a bear.

The moral is to never play an RPG adventure by someone who thinks they're writing a novel, because they can't control for who the PCs are and thus need to cut them out of the affair at every juncture.

Cythereal
Nov 8, 2009

I love the potoo,
and the potoo loves you.
I remain unconvinced that these people have ever actually played an RPG themselves.

Night10194
Feb 13, 2012

We'll start,
like many good things,
with a bear.

Cythereal posted:

I remain unconvinced that these people have ever actually played an RPG themselves.

I'm pretty convinced they have, considering how many adventures just like this I've seen in multiple systems. 'The GM shows off their 'cool' NPCs while you sit and watch' is a common RPG horror story for a reason; it happens.

JcDent
May 13, 2013

Give me a rifle, one round, and point me at Berlin!

Hipster Occultist posted:

Black Atlantic, Part 6

This next section is written rather poorly, and after reading it twice I can’t really make heads or tails out of exactly what they want to happen.

Should have used this as my full review.

E: By the way, are Leviathanics created via the BLACK WATER? Because all the previous varieties had to be born to infected humans.

Of course, having anything at all consistent in the setting is not a priority for people *checks notes* the most invested in the setting, the creators.

quote:

So yeah, you have to do a targeted Bod+Brawl (4) attack to grab him by the horns. This however, leaves you vulnerable so the other PCs have to pile on and hold him down while you do this. You have to roll BOD+Force (2) every turn and collect (16) successes to pull the helmet off, because apparently it’s magnetically attached to his head or something. It’ll take you eight rounds to do so, if the party fails to hold them down said grabber is probably going to be disemboweled.

SECOND BOSS FIGHT IN A ROW YOU CAN WIN BY GRAPPLING

JcDent fucked around with this message at 14:24 on Apr 25, 2021

Hipster Occultist
Aug 16, 2008

He's an ancient, obscure god. You probably haven't heard of him.


Cythereal posted:

I remain unconvinced that these people have ever actually played an RPG themselves.

Au contraire, I can guarantee they've played a lot of at least one rpg, and that RPG is Vampire the Masquerade during the late 90's.

JcDent posted:

Should have used this as my full review.

E: By the way, are Leviathanics created via the BLACK WATER? Because all the previous varieties had to be born to infected humans.

Of course, having anything at all consistent in the setting is not a priority for people *checks notes* the most invested in the setting, the creators.

Yep, they're something new entirely. The Black Water absorbs aquatic biomass (fish, plankton, etc) and eventually blooms into a mother spore field. From there it calls to infected people like Leperos and Drones, calling them to infect themselves. It can infect regular humans tho. It has to enter the bloobstream through an open wound, and takes PSY+Willpower weeks to develop. In Leperos/Drones its PSY+Willpower days. After that the Leviathanics takes control, unless you localize and remove the infected tissue prior to that.

They're not intelligent like the others though, the infection obliterates their memories and turns them into primal monsters who's only goal is to proliferate.

JcDent
May 13, 2013

Give me a rifle, one round, and point me at Berlin!

Hipster Occultist posted:

Au contraire, I can guarantee they've played a lot of at least one rpg, and that RPG is Vampire the Masquerade during the late 90's.


Yep, they're something new entirely. The Black Water absorbs aquatic biomass (fish, plankton, etc) and eventually blooms into a mother spore field. From there it calls to infected people like Leperos and Drones, calling them to infect themselves. It can infect regular humans tho. It has to enter the bloobstream through an open wound, and takes PSY+Willpower weeks to develop. In Leperos/Drones its PSY+Willpower days. After that the Leviathanics takes control, unless you localize and remove the infected tissue prior to that.

They're not intelligent like the others though, the infection obliterates their memories and turns them into primal monsters who's only goal is to proliferate.

Trash? Yes. Garbage? Also.

I can't stress how much I love that the players can't interrupt antyhing in the dang plot, not even by sabotaging the nukes (missiles are fragile) on the Black Atlantic, and then they kill of half the Chroniclers and 600 Famulancers (and none of the other ranks).

Bit bold of them to presume that Balor is still alive when he was involved in actual combat encounter.

Adbot
ADBOT LOVES YOU

Hipster Occultist
Aug 16, 2008

He's an ancient, obscure god. You probably haven't heard of him.


JcDent posted:

Trash? Yes. Garbage? Also.

I can't stress how much I love that the players can't interrupt antyhing in the dang plot, not even by sabotaging the nukes (missiles are fragile) on the Black Atlantic, and then they kill of half the Chroniclers and 600 Famulancers (and none of the other ranks).

Bit bold of them to presume that Balor is still alive when he was involved in actual combat encounter.

It's not so much that you explicitly can't, it's just that the book assumes you don't and never comments on anything that might be an alternate path. These books almost never say "If the PCs do this," but rather they say "The PCs do this" without acknowledging any other outcomes. Of course, if you do go off-script and change the status quo, future books that rely upon said status quo become expensive artbooks.

Like, for starters you could quite easily shoot Helios when he appears on the walkway, before he even launches the nukes. It's tricky because he's armor 10 against bullets, but it could be done with good guns+good ammo and some good rolls. (Or a couple shots with an armor peircing anti-material rifle/other heavy weapons. A heavy HMG can Salvo 10 times!) Then you're in possession of at least 3 nuclear missiles, a fusion reactor, and enough armaments to outfit a Bygone battalion. Congrats on being Europe's new hegemony.

As far as Balor goes, that's just another instance that proves Marko doesn't understand the action economy. He's one guy vs 4-5 PCs and 3 NPCs. Sure, Balor is fairly tough and has a dmg 12 chainsaw. It'll hurt any PC he manages to hit. However, he's only arm 3. Therefore, a properly built Hellvetic likely kills him in two shots. You don't even need good rolls really. You've got 5 rounds to kill him before Ifrit catches up, and while he's supposed to flee when he hits six trauma, he's never going to get that chance. Even if he did (say 1 PC goes first, does a bunch of damage, then he goes), he's not going to get far enough away with 1-2 movement actions to prevent his rear end from getting shot or chased down again.

Hipster Occultist fucked around with this message at 15:06 on Apr 25, 2021

  • 1
  • 2
  • 3
  • 4
  • 5
  • Post
  • Reply