FATAL & Friends 2020: 61 billion casualties

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Speleothing: May 6, 2008; Spare batteries are pretty key.

By popular demand posted:

I'd go with the guy shouting Lightning Bolt while throwing darts over playing this game every time.

Maybe combining religious sperging and gaming is strictly an American thing, whenever I got to sperg out with gamers real life religion was never on the table.

That's because this game isn't marketed towards you. It's marketed towards your parents who want you to be a good little christian and memorize bible passages*.

*only the right ones tho, not the commie bits

# ? Jun 20, 2021 12:58

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# ? Apr 28, 2024 13:46

LongDarkNight: Oct 25, 2010; It's like watching the collapse of Western civilization in fast forward.; Oven Wrangler

Josef bugman posted:

The wikipedia article on him is so bloodless that I kind of want to find out more about this utterly inept clown man and his terrible loving ideas.

This is from a few pages back but I'm finally caught up. This pod covers stupid bits of military history and has good run down on how bad of a general he was, made one of the worst in history.

https://www.stitcher.com/show/lions-led-by-donkeys-podcast/episode/episode-132-luigi-cadorna-redux-79969815

# ? Jun 20, 2021 15:16

Robindaybird: Aug 21, 2007; Neat. Sweet. Petite.

Ghost Leviathan posted:

I only recall hearing Bibleman had a villain who was a very obvious anti-semitic stereotype, complete with a supercomputer that acted like a stereotypical jewish mother.

Seems to be something all the moral-alternative Christian pop culture imitations end up going into.

Even VeggieTales the one that goe mainstream has a huge helping of it (and some horrifying implications as one of the rules is there's no veggie Jesus and the veggies can never making references they are saved)

# ? Jun 20, 2021 15:40

Mors Rattus: Oct 25, 2007; FATAL & Friends
Walls of Text
#1 Builder
2014-2018

Age of Sigmar: Sylvaneth
Grumpy Plant Wizards

Gnarlroot Glade are ruled over by the Grum-King, also called te Old King, and they have existed for a very long time. They being both the Gnarlroot and the Grum-King, who claims to be of the very first generation of Sylvaneth. The Gnarlroot are the main folks objecting to the idea that the Oakenbrow are the eldest Sylvaneth, and they've definitely got a ton of very old Treelord Ancients. Their collective understanding of life magic is perhaps the best in all of the Realms, and they're among its greatest wielders. They know the secrets of plant magic and how to shape the natural world more than anyone, and this has made their greenholds and fortresses practically impossible to take down.

The magic of the Gnarlroot serves them well in battle, cursing foes and regrowing their own forces in the field. Their Treelord Ancients teach the Branchwyches and Branchwraiths, and it's led to a very tightly connected clan structure. The leaders of the Gnarlroot clans, called Gnarl-Lords, and they always take their time thinking through their decisions in order to ensure their beloved clans are minimally hurt. They hate being rushed, and if anyone outside the clans - even other Sylvaneth groves - gets in conflict with them, they are generally pretty closed off to new ideas or arguments. The other glades consider them to be annoyingly traditionalist and stuck in their ways. There is one exception, however - the Gnarlroot love magical lore above all else, and will seek it out from pretty much any source. They will even talk to and work with mages of other peoples to achieve this - regardless of who they are, which has led to some bizarre situations. They're not huge fans of sharing knowledge they already have, though, even with other glades. The Grum-King permits his secrets to be shared only when directly ordered to by Alarielle.

The oldest and most famous Gnarlroot enclave is the Silvered Grove, a powerful greenhold that withstood extended siege during the Age of Chaos. It survived disease and attack, and its inner rings were never accessed. Ever. Their soulpod grove is one of the oldest known to still exist, and it contains within it more knowledge on life magic and defensive gardening than anywhere else in the Realm of Life. Despite their traditionalist nature, the Gnarlroot have also proved to be key to the creation of the new Free Cities in Ghyran. They have a strong presence in these cities and have made a great effort to assist their fellow glades in reclaiming and purifying lands held by Nurgle. They are exceptionally rare outside Ghyran, though, and most individual Gnarlroot prefer not to travel very much. Their forms tend to have many knots in them, with reddish-brown bark and sigils that glow with green light. Many are scarred by their many defensive battles, and thick layers of moss and ivy are common, especially among the elder Sylvaneth of the glade.

The Harvestboon are the youngest glade to rise to major power, with their ruling Willowqueen invited to the Royal Moot in the middle of the Age of Chaos. They are the smallest of the major glades, and while they have planted many new soulpod groves recently, they total only a little more than a dozen clans. They don't have numbers, but they are extremely dedicated, having known nothing but war. Even their eldest were only grown in the middle of the Age of Chaos, and they've always been eager to help. The Harvestboon were the leaders in reclaiming Eiderhall and the Jadefalls and the force that purified the Seven Rivers Forest. No one can deny that they've been the most successful glade so far in the Season of War.

While the Harvestboon are aggressive, they are far less bitter than many of their elders. Indeed, they are hopeful and ambitious, especially since Alarielle's return to battle. They loved the coming of the Season of War, and they've moved to meet her energy. They've already sprouted at least one new clan to help in the fight. They are famous for the beauty and power of their Branchwraiths, whose spells and songs are without peer. The greatest of them is the Willowqueen herself, confidently pushing her forces into battle after battle because she believes their purpose is to heal and reclaim Ghyran. She fears no danger and has developed a doctrine built around massed dryads quickly tearing into the foe, supported by Branchwraith magic.

Harvestboon Sylvaneth tend to have silvery bark and bright green foliage, and they also often have pale reds, purples and yellows among their leaves, similar to a rising sun. There are relatively few of them, but their numbers have been rising since the Season of War began, as they've been aggressively planting new soulpod groves. Their audacity tends to make them polarizing figures among their fellows. Some, such as Heartwood Glade, see them as the ideal future to pursue, while more conservative groups like the Gnarlroot or Winterleaf are sure it's only going to be a matter of time before their reach exceeds their grasp and they cause a massive problem.

The Ironbark Glade are led by the Archduke, who led the first Sylvaneth settlement of Chamon. The Ironbark learned how to tap into mineral veins via their roots, which has led to their bodies being very sparkly due to integrated metal and crystal deposits. They formed trade alliances with the local duardin in the Age of Myth, which eventually brought their civilizations very, very close together. At least until the Age of Chaos, when all the Sylvaneth of Chamon were wiped out...except the Ironbark. For centuries, they were the only ones of their kind to exist in the entire realm, and their alliance with the duardin was key to their survival, even as trade dwindled and the Kharadron abandoned their holds.

Many mountain karaks fell, but the Ironbark refused to abandon their friends. They took in tons of duardin refugees fleeing the forces of Chaos, helping them reach Azyr or the Kharadron fleets. The duardin have a long memory, and the aid of the Ironbark has never been forgotten. Many duardin that trace their origins back to Chamon still consider the Ironbark to be their spiritual kin. They have taught the treefolk much of defensive war, and it's proven very, very useful.

Ironbark forces create defenses by mixing wood and steel, creating substances that can withstand nearly any attack. They wield finer weapons than any other Sylvaneth, and their ironthorn defensive structures make excellent ambush zones when attackers try to get through them. In battle, they emulate the power of the ironthorns, digging in deep and holding positions despite impossible odds. They're not particularly great at aggression unless it's a counter-offensive, though - their specialty is defense, and defense alone.

Next time: Winterleaf, Dreadwood, Heartwood

# ? Jun 20, 2021 16:28

illhousen: Jun 12, 2021

DragonRaid

Rulebook, Part 2

Alright then, combat.

Combat is done on a square grid, with each square representing five feet. You can�t move or attack in close combat diagonally, though you can use ranged weapons for it (since they use numerical ranges, enjoy figuring out if the enemy is close enough to shoot).

In each round, each character can perform one of the following: attack an opponent within range, perform an action (standard ones are drawing a weapon, changing weapons, saying a WordRune and getting something out of a backpack) or move two squares.

The combat round is simultaneous, which is always an awkward affair: the consequences of all actions only really take effect at the start of the next round, so even if you�ve killed an enemy, they still get to attack one last time.

Attacks are always resolved first, then actions, then movement, so if an enemy was within range at the start of the round, you can attack them even if they�re going to spend their turn moving out of range.

Since the combat is simultaneous, there is no need for an initiative system: PCs always go first in whatever order they want, then NPCs take their turn.

Attacks give us our second resolution mechanic. When a PC attacks an enemy, it�s relevant Weapon Skill + d10 vs battle Ability + d8. For the reverse, it�s Battle Ability + d8 vs Shield of Faith + d10. Ties go to the defender.

For damage, you just roll a flat d5 or d10, depending on weapon type. Dark creatures all have their own damage scores, ranging from d2 all the way to 2d8+2.

Dark creatures� Battle Ability (used for both attack and defense as seen above) generally ranges at 3-8 points, with low numbers being more common, so, combined with their use of d8 instead of d10, the odds are generally in players� favor. There are some exceptions, though: selfoes and cave trolls have Battle Ability 10, forest trolls get 13, water trolls 16, and giants get a whooping Battle Ability 20.

All of the more formidable foes are intended to be used as mini-bosses, so it makes sense, especially considering the rules for surrounding the enemy. When two or more characters attack the same opponent, the opponent rolls for defense once, then each attempted attack (starting from the highest roll) subtracts its rating from the defense roll. Once the defence roll is reduced to zero, the attack that did it hits, as well as all following attacks.

For example, let�s say a water troll is surrounded by three PCs, who all attack it. Its defense roll is 20 (Battle Ability 16 + a roll of 4, average result). The PCs have rolled 12, 10 and 8 for their attacks. The attack of 12 doesn�t hit but reduces the defense roll to 20-12=8. The attack of 10 does hit normally as it�s higher than 8, and then the attack of 8 hits automatically.

It works for the enemies as well, so a bunch of weak opponents can absolutely ruin your day.

Ranged weapons mostly function as normal with a couple of additional rules:

You can attack diagonally. Given the attitude towards math expressed in the skill section, I bet you�re required to calculate hypotenuse for your range, though it�s not stated outright;
You can�t attack an enemy on a square adjacent to yours. Not sure if someone standing diagonally to you counts, though;
If there is an ally between you and your target, on a failed attack against an intended opponent you make a full attack roll against your ally, complete with the defense roll;
If the opponent is taken by surprise, they don�t get to add the roll of d10/d8 to their defense, using only a static number. There are no specific rules for setting up an ambush, though, so it�s the AM�s call when it happens.

LightRaiders are forbidden from killing dragon slaves and are permitted but sorta discouraged from killing dark creatures (except for orcs and goblins, whom you must kill on sight), so there are some rules for non-lethal takedown:

Disarming is simple and stupid: you use your action to roll d10, if it comes up 9 or 10, you knock the weapon out of enemy�s hands. That�s it, a flat 20% chance to succeed independent of any of your stats.

Overpowering is more complex. You add together your Strength and Agility (you know, those stats you roll once and change never), then I think add d10 (the game doesn�t ask for the roll, but then refers to the number you get as a roll result, so�) and compare it to the opponent�s HP + d8. If your number is greater, you�ve successfully overpowered your opponent and can proceed to tie them up, which takes two rounds of concentration. You can�t do anything else during those rounds, but I�m not sure it means you only get passive defense or if you roll to dodge normally.

Several PCs can combine their Strength and Agility scores for this, which actually makes it a surprisingly viable method of taking down single powerful opponents if you just soften them up a bit with regular attacks first. Each PC on average contributes around 10 points to the score, so three PCs surrounding an enemy would have a score of about 30 before rolling,comparable or exceeding HP scores of even pretty tough dark creatures (except for the giants, they get 60 HP. Even then you�re overall better off trying to bind them after a couple rounds of attacks).

Physical Vitality mostly works as HP, but there is a bit of a penalty system worked in:

If you have any damage, you must make a successful Endurance check against difficulty 3 to travel.

If it drops below 10, the difficulty increases to 8 (good luck with beating it)

If it drops below 5, you can neither travel nor fight.

Below 3 you�re knocked out.

At 0 you die.

You can attempt to withdraw from the fight at any time. All enemies in range can make an attack against your passive defense. If you survive, you get to withdraw.

So, that�s about all the game has to say about what it calls normal combat. The system is overall straightforward and should work OK, if you�re into highly lethal tactical grid battles (which is in itself an odd choice for a game primarily focused on spiritual warfare). The main issue here is that you�re all fighters. Most of the time, your only options are to hit an enemy with a sword or to not hit an enemy with a sword.

The use of WordRunes is intended partially to help with this problem, but most of the ones usable in a fight are dreadfully boring. It�s a loooong list of �add 2 to character strength�, �add 3 to a skill�, �reduce the difficulty level of a sin enchantment of a specific dark creature by 2� and so on. You�re not going to hurl fireballs or cover everything in grease with them.

But anyway, want to completely ruin the combat system? Here�re two words for you: critical hits.

The section on advanced combat opens with the only discussion on safety procedures the game has to offer:

quote:

Note: The Advanced Combat System is included for the purpose of making a battle more realistic and exciting. Since real war is brutal, this may offend some players. This system is optional. The Adventure Master and the group can decide together whether to use it or not, but it should not be used if anyone is offended by it. See section III E in the Adventure Master Manual for further guidelines.

Always good to see games equating realism with gore.

Also, about them torture goblins. Gonna talk about them? No? OK then.

I guess it�s at least good that the game recognizes that offending players is a bad thing, even if it�s applied inconsistently. Also, you know, the fluster beast exists.

Anyway, the advanced combat system offers two additional modes of attack: half-swing and a critical swing. Half-swing is just a normal attack that deals half damage. It�s meant to whittle down dragon slaves before the takeover without killing them, it�s fine.

Critical swing is different. If you decide to use it, you announce the decision, make a normal attack check, and on success roll d10. If it comes up 10, your attack is a critical hit. You then roll again on a huge-rear end table to see what the effect of it actually is:

Yes, you read that right. If you�re lucky, you can in fact fell a giant instantly with a dick kick

The table is followed by clarifications and explanations of individual effects: head wound could result in an eye loss, which prevents you from using any ranged weapons, leg loss means you can�t walk for three weeks, but then get to replace your leg with a wooden one that functions normally, hand loss prevents you from using two-handed weapons and requires you to retrain to use your off-hand without penalty.

A neck wound can potentially result in a partial paralysis. To find out how badly you�re hosed, you roll d100. Each 25% means a paralized limb. Go above 90%, and you�re just dead.

Critical hits here are bad for the same reason they�re always bad: it doesn�t matter much if a random goblin loses a leg since they�re going to be dead soon enough either way, but it matters very much if a PC loses an eye or an arm. That�s gonna follow you throughout the whole game, right until you hit one of those insta-kill effects.

In a later section, the game addresses it with the following:

quote:

Do not take the game too seriously. It is disappointing if your character is about to make a score of 10 in all the Character Strengths and suddenly gets killed; but remember that it is only a game. You can roll up another character and try again. Learn from your mistakes and move on.

...to another, better game, hopefully.

Speaking of moving on, next is an actually fun section. Dragon battles!

Most of the rules on dragons are contained within AM Manual because the game is not great at organization, but basically they�re big boss monsters with high Battle Ability, high damage, and lots of HP. They use Pride Factor instead of Physical Vitality because they�re literally held together by the strength of their egos. The two stats are mostly equivalent, except dragons suffer no ill effects until their Pride is reduced to zero, at which point their souls are kicked back into the spirit world, leaving their bodies to rot.

Dragons have five modes of attack: mind speech, fire, physical attacks (claws, bite, tail swing), breath, and smoke. They always open the fight with mind speech and then alternate between different modes.

Dragons� attacks are always resolved first, unlike normal battles where enemies go second. It�s still simultaneous, though.

The use of a specific mode of attack restricts the PCs to the specific response during that round.

Mind speech is the psychic assault seeking to infect the PCs with bad thoughts. It always targets a particular character strength, and if a PC has 1-2 in that strength, they�re automatically swayed, which deals damage to the strength and obligates the player to act in accordance with the foreign though.

If the character strength in question is high enough, the PC can attempt to refute the mind speech. The rebuttal is freeform, though it�s expected to be based on the bible. It�s up to the AM to decide if it�s successful. If the AM feels nice, the mind speech is refuted, and the dragon suffers damage equal to the PC�s Belt of Truth rating (or double that with Wisdom at 8+).

Fire is straightforward: each dragon type has a fire weapon in a particular shape (cone, line, fireball, lava flow) of particular range. If you�re in range, you have to defend against it with the Shield of Faith. There is no roll involved, you just compare your number against the dragon�s Battle Ability. If it�s higher, you suffer no damage, otherwise it�s d8 for each point of difference. With dragons� Battle Ability starting at 15 for the weakest one and going all the way to 60 for an elder dragon, that can easily one-shot you. Fortunately, several PCs can combine their Shield of Faith rating if they�re all within range of the dragon. So, you�re actually better off grouping up before the fireball hits. It won�t really save you against the elder dragon because even 4 PCs with maxed out defense still means 20d8 damage to everyone (your max HP is 45, btw), but it�s viable against lesser ones.

Getting hit by a fire attack is probably the fastest way to TPK.

If you do survive, you get to attack the dragon with normal weapons.

Smoke and breath attacks are grouped together. They�re basically debuffs that serve to impair your vision, make you choke, create illusions in the smoke and so on.

Here we�re introduced to our third resolution mechanic (if you don�t count �just compare the numbers� and �it�s up to the AM�): all smoke and breath attacks target a particular character stat (be it primary stat, skill or part of the Armor of God). The player then must roll equal to or below the affected stat on d10 in order to avoid the effects of the attack. (So it�s also our first roll-under mechanic.) failure means they�re affected and need to be rescued, same as with the sin enchantment and mind speech.

(Now that I think about it, I�m not sure when the rescue action is allowed to take place. It requires offering counsel, so could you do it in the middle of combat? Does it take an action? IDK. �Our friend fell under an evil spell and started attacking us! We must reach out to them!� feels like something this game should enable, but does it? Certainly, there is little mechanical guidance for that so far.)

In this stage, PCs can attack the dragon by using WordRunes. There is actually a whole series of WordRunes that deal damage to specific types of dragons. They all can be used once per day per player, though, and only deal 5 damage, so the excessive use of breath and smoke is a great way for the dragon to prolong the fight far beyond the point of interest.

Finally, physical attacks are as simple as they sound: the dragon attacks with claws, tail or bite, dealing substantial but not insane damage on success, the PCs defend and attack normally.

Overall, I like the idea behind dragon fights. They�re big boss monsters with several attack modes that require you to alternate between physically fighting your opponent and refuting their ideology. It�s very �shonen final battle� in concept, and I�m here for that.

Unfortunately, the execution is lacking. From one side, the game is stuck in this ridiculously lethal old school mode that doesn�t really fit its themes. From another, it�s, well, propaganda. Two thirds of the mental battle are occupied by directly quoting curated bible verses, and the freeform part is judged by the AM, who is assumed to be a religious authority figure.

Speaking of curated bible quotes, next we finally get to the WordRunes.

I�ve explained the basic concept (and, like, half of the rules because they sorta sprinkled all over the books) already: quote the bible, receive a (usually very lame) miracle. There are, however, mechanics attached that need some explaining:

All WordRunes have a difficulty rating, and you can�t cast WordRunes with the rating above your Sword of the Spirit score or below it by more than 3 points (not 2, that was my mistake);
Most WordRunes require you to have a particular character strength at a certain level or above before you can use them;
Most WordRunes have restrictions on how often you can use them. Most can be used once per game day, some twice per day or once per week or whatever;
You can read three WordRunes per adventure from the text. If you want to use more, you have to recite them from memory;
If recited from memory, the use of WordRunes awards you with maturity points (exp) for both the Sword of the Spirit and the associated character strength

I also have to somewhat retract my previous complaint about math. Reading the rules more closely, temporary buffs only affect the score they target, you don�t have to recalculate everything that depends on this particular stat. I still think that the use of weighted averages is cruel, and you still can be hit by it in the middle of a session, but at least it�s not a literal supervillain plot to make children give up on math anymore.

As I�ve said before, most WordRunes are really boring buffs/debuffs that give you a couple of points in a given character strength for an encounter, or lower the difficulty of a sin enchantment or whatever. There are some better ones, mostly used outside of combat: a WordRune that causes mists to swirl into a picture that communicates something important about the current situation, a light that guides you home, a WordRunes that provides you with food for one day (usable once per day), making a bridge appear, and so on.

Some further highlights include:

Father�s Will

quote:

Not everyone who says to me, �Lord, Lord," will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only he who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. (Matthew 7:21)

This lowers the difficulty of selfoes� sin enchantment. Quoted here mostly because it looks like evidence for selfoes being a stand-in for Catholics rather than humanists.

Cat's Got Their Tongue

quote:

1 Peter 2:15
For it is God's will that by doing good you should silence the ignorant talk of foolish men.
1 Peter 2:15

If a LightRaider can say the Cat's Got Their Tongue WordRune, he may silence vain murmurings against the OverLord.

In case you want to shut up an argument dead.

Gate Opening

quote:

Psalm 118:20
This is the gate of the Lord through which the righteous may enter.
Psalm 118:20

The Gate Opening WordRune, when articulated correctly, opens gates that protect castles, towers, fortications, and other types of buildings in the Dragon Lands. This WordRune recognizes the OverLord's sovereign rule over all things, even over evil.

That�s� a very literal interpretation of the verse. Also one of the rare WordRunes that can be used as needed.

Purge Evil

quote:

Proverbs 20:30
Blows and wounds cleanse away evil, and beatings purge the inmost being.
Proverbs 20:30

The LightRaider who says the Purge Evil WordRune may add 2 to the amount of damage that one does when he hits. Lasts for one encounter.

...Well, that�s certainly a choice of a verse.

There are also TeamRunes. They function exactly the same, except the whole party must recite them for the effect to take place. I guess that�s one way to ensure that smaller parties have some advantage over big ones.

The main highlight here is this:

Break-away

quote:

2 Corinthians 6:14
Do not be yoked together with unbelievers. For what do righteousness and wickedness have in common? Or what fellowship can light have with darkness?
2 Corinthians 6:14

Sometimes LightRaiders may join forces with dragon slaves without a clear understanding of the consequences. Trouble usually results. The RaidTeam who can say the Break-Away TeamRune without error will find that their Once Born companion(s) will fall asleep for an hour of playing time, allowing time for evasive action.

In case you need to ditch the non-believers.

Overall, the mechanical underpinnings of the WordRunes are not that bad if you�re fine with a game being used as a memorization tool. The limits on their use mean that someone with a good memory won�t be able to just spam them endlessly, and the effects outside of combat are pretty fun, it�s just the battle ones that suck.

Of course, it�s impossible to ignore that the game�s goal here is to make you memorize disparate, disorganized out-of-context quotes. It will not deepen your understanding of the bible, and I�m not even sure it would impress your Sunday school teacher since a lot of the verses were seemingly chosen for being sorta related to adventuring rather than their ideological importance.

Next is character advancement, which is simple, and I�ve mostly covered it already: gain maturity units by doing good deeds, reciting WordRunes from memory, and completing the missions. Once you get 20 maturity units in a given stat, it goes up by 1, while associated maturity units go back to zero.

You lose maturity units by getting enchanted or falling under the effects of mind speech. If it reduces maturity units in a given stat below zero, it goes down by 1, with whatever number of maturity units out of 20 is left after the full damage is dealt.

The book closes with some advice for prospective players. I�ve covered one about not taking the game too seriously and rolling with your character death from groin attack, but the rest are fine, actually. Work as a team, keep a regular schedule, bring plenty of snacks and drinks, use metal minis if you can get them.

On that positive note, the Rulebook is done. Next time we�ll look at the AM Manual.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q3Xi3Bd2_g0

# ? Jun 20, 2021 16:42

Libertad!: Oct 30, 2013; You can have the last word, but I'll have the last laugh!

Chapter 9: Beast Compendium

Jeosung is home to a lot of typical fantasy monsters, but a few new creatures are particularly numerous and/or prominent to merit mention. This chapter gives us 11 new types and 23 stat blocks, a fair amount for a non-bestiary sourcebook. Additionally each creature also has a listed elemental affinity. This doesn�t have any specific game statistics beyond showcasing the universality of the five elements in the setting�s cosmology, although it does have greater mechanical relevance in the OSR version.

Agma Bagjwis (CR �) are giant bat-like monsters which lair in the Open Wounds of Haenamguk, flying out in droves to kidnap and feed on prey. The creature focuses on strength in numbers, mobility, stealth, and can communicate telepathically.

Bulgarsari (CR 5) are scaly elephant-like beings who were once valiant defenders of all that was good and right, but now they devolved into animal-like intelligence and serve none but their gullets. They are physically strong specimens who can shoot scalding steam from their trunks.

Dokkaebis (CR � to 5) are the major servants and masterminds behind the Winds of Darkness. They mostly live underground in Jihaguk and plot the day to take over the world of Iseung once again, engaging in hit and run raids on the surface as well as other wicked plots. We have stat blocks for three different ranks of Dokkaebis; all of them are shapechangers who can take the forms of humanoids and have minor innate spellcasting (usually focusing on enchantment and hexes), but their true forms are humanoids with claws and sharp quills emerging from their bodies. Basic Dokkaebis are humanoid cannon fodder akin to goblins and orcs, while Dokkaebi Infiltrators are tougher creatures who have more powerful spellcasting and Arcane Trickster-like abilities. Dokkaebi Elite are the dread lords of their kind, and in addition to being the strongest of them all they have spellcasting that focuses on weakening and sickening their enemies.

Dragons (CR � to 17) are one of the most famed descendents of the Heavenly Beings and made their mark in history in significant ways. Much like traditional dragons they grow in size and power with age, but that isn�t solely a biological process. Dragons who seek a more powerful form undergo a meditation-like hibernation where they perform countless mental tests after closing their minds to the outside world. Those unable to complete such tests become Kkangcheoli, decaying rotting dragons driven to madness and evil. Those who succeed may eventually achieve the lofty heights of the Yong dragon, the most powerful variety that hasn�t been seen in the world since the Age of the Dragon Kings.

The least powerful dragons are merely Giant Serpents of animal intellect with venomous bites, although Imugi are the next step up and gain the ability to spit fire as well as sentience. Kkangcheoli lose the ability to spit fire and instead gain superheated melee attacks, can violently explode upon their deaths, and Legendary actions. Yong Dragons are physical powerhouses with a true breath weapon and also possess innate spellcasting, with a variety of restorative and utility magic along with Legendary Actions.

Foxes (CR 0 to 7) can evolve into higher states of being much like dragons. The mundane fox can eventually turn into a bulyeonwoo, a shapeshifter who can take on humanoid form. Being better able to pass in humanoid society allows them to learn more about the world, causing a disproportionate amount to involve themselves in academic professions. Bulyeonwoo have minor spellcasting focusing on illusion and enchantment, and in humanoid form they are skilled martial artists, capable of making Chimsul strikes that can rob a target of their ability to take reactions. The Gumiho are the oldest and most powerful foxes, notable for their 9 tails. They have the abilities of bulyeonwoos but are more powerful with more spells, can shapechange into a variety of animals, possess prehensile tails, a Chimsul strike that can incapacitate foes for 1 round, advantage on saves vs Illusion and Enchantment spells, and Legendary Actions.

Gwishin (CR � to 4) are ghosts, a kind of spirit trapped in Iseung and unable to move on to their final resting place. Such a tragedy is incredibly distressing, causing gwishin to react angrily to their surroundings. Common Gwishin are incorporeal beings with a chilling touch that can temporarily prevent a target from recovering from damage along with some minor spellcasting and a rechargeable ability that forces a target to reroll a d20 result. Bulgwishin are spirits of those who burned to death and emanate a dangerous aura of supernatural heat. Dalgyalgwishin are faceless ghosts who hunt and stalk lone targets near graveywards, having a multiattack claw attack, limited short-range teleportation, and can Sneak Attack like a Rogue. Mulgwishin are those who drowned to death and have an aura which can darken nearby light sources, cold-based magical attacks, and when standing in water can grapple and start to drown targets.

Kyeryong (CR �) are a local breed of cockatrice who are hunted for their meat and magical properties. There are various kinds out there, such as the fire kyeryong who can breath fire which exhausts them, mountain keryongs who possess the ability to glide, and snow kyeryongs whose magical sleep breath and ability to camouflage themselves in snow makes them the most elusive kind.

Mulyong (CR �) are an evolutionary offshoot of dragons, appearing as human-sized fish with dragon heads. They are capable of ramming small vessels and their tails can propel them at great speed underwater.

Samjokgu (CR 0) are three-legged dogs with a third blue-colored eye on their foreheads. Through this eye they have short-range truesight, making them prized animals for ferreting out shapeshifters and illusions.

Suhosins (CR 5, no picture) are direct descendents of the Heavenly People, so rare as to be thought mythical. They live in pocket demiplanes of their own creation, and only come to the Material Plane when in need of some person or object they cannot get in their self-created paradise. They appear as tall athletic humanoids, although they emit a subjective illusion that makes them appear different in the eyes of each viewer. In terms of stats they are multi-talented, being proficient in a variety of mental skills, have superb Strength and Charisma (20) and add the latter score to their AC, possess a wide variety of innate spells, and have powerful unarmed and throwing attacks in melee along with Legendary Actions.

Sushosin are ordinarily non-violent, but when they are pushed to anger their tempers are nearly unstoppable, only coming to regret their actions when the battle stops and they regain self-awareness.

The Unseen (CR 5) is actually a single entity of unfathomable size who can project clawed extensions of itself into the Material Plane. Not much is known about the being save that it manifests in the forest of Giljobeun in Mudangguk and can create illusions to attract and misdirect prey. A manifestation of its fangs are represented as a single monster, naturally invisible save when it makes an attack or grapple. It can also generate a damaging psychic Scan where they learn of a target�s deepest desires, and such targets can be further subject to a Lure which charms them. Beyond these abilities the Unseen can grapple and drain targets of their life energy, and hide/retract as a bonus action or reaction respectively (latter is rechargeable) to become invisible again.

These monsters also have stats in Pathfinder and the OSR. Overall they are faithful conversions, and in Pathfinder�s case their CR values are more or less the same. However, Pathfinder has some new things. For one, Dokkaebi are of the Goblinoid subtype and speak Goblin and Common (in 5e they spoke Common and the Spiritual Lexicon), and the Suhosin are outsiders with the (angel) subtype. A few monsters also have limited class features such as the Bulgwishin casting sorcerer spells with the Elemental (fire) bloodline.

The OSR bestiary is more or less similar to the base 5e, although there are some new things. For example, the poison of Dragons has a 2d6 table of random negative effects, the Gumiho has a mini-system for grappling for OSR rulesets that would lack it (1d20 + Strength bonus for contested rolls, save vs Paralysis to break free), we have listed GP values for kyeryong captured to be domesticated or poached for meat and eggs, and there�s a sub-table for opposing elemental affinities in regards to certain elemental spells and the Monk/Sunim�s bonus unarmed strike damage.

But the OSR bestiary gives us one more entry in neither the 5e or PF versions: stats for Wild Spirits, which is less a predetermined stat block and more a monster template for generating stats of spirits based on their rank. It�s pretty comprehensive, and includes guidelines for recommended special abilities and references the earlier tables for a mudang�s patron spirit generation in determining known spells.

Appendix

Our final section of Koryo Hall of Adventures discusses two rules that couldn�t easily fit into prior chapters: the Team Leader and Reputation systems. The first is a simplified means of determining the effectiveness of hirelings, recruited NPCs, and mobs. This is meant more for when PCs recruit allies to their party as opposed to foes they face, and the rules focus on this side of things. In short, a PC can declare themselves a Team Leader of a group of NPCs. Said NPCs determine initiative and actions collectively as one, and the team leader can give one order per round for them to perform an action. The exception is in regards to attacks, where depending on the enemy size a number of NPCs in a team make individual attacks all at once.

For NPC groups taking damage there are two suggestions: keeping track of each NPC�s HP individually (not recommended by the book) or determining a Hit Threshold via averaging the group HP and multiplying it by the number of NPCs. Lowering of Hit Threshold determines overall morale and fighting spirit, and as the more they suffer the harder it is for the team leader to get them to follow orders. In such cases a Charisma check is required, whose DC is determined by the percentage of HT remaining and the overall martial training of the NPCs (untrained, well-trained, elite).

The second system, Reputation, reflects the overall level of fame and notoriety of the PCs� status, both as adventurers in the Koryo Hall and in broader society. Basically for every Deed (quest) they complete which is particularly good or evil, they mark one check (good) or one X (evil). Every time 3 of those boxes are filled they gain +1 or -1 Reputation for good or evil Deeds respectively. This modifier also occurs when the PC levels up and if they have more checks or Xs.

The Reputation system doesn�t account for minor acts of charity, opportunism, and selfishness. At least, not beyond the lower levels. As the PCs� Reputations increase, only obviously selfless acts of good and utterly selfish evil can further modify their scores.

The Reputation score is relevant in certain social situations, where one�s honorable nature or infamy may be particularly advantageous or not. Instead of a universal value the book proposes two modifiers: a Reputation modifier for situations where having a good reputation is relevant, and an Infamy modifier where having a bad reputation is advantageous.

The Reputation System exists as-is in the Pathfinder version, although the Team Leader rules exist only in 5e. Many OSR systems already have dedicated hireling/follower sub-systems, and I presume the lack of a Reputation System is in line with the OSR�s minimalist nature.

Thoughts So Far: The new monsters are interesting and have some variety. There isn�t much talk on existing monsters and how they can be adapted to the setting, which I feel is a bit of a negative. My favorite entries are the foxes, who have an interesting spin on the East Asian �trickster fox spirit� archetype by making them eager to integrate into humanoid society as pursuers of knowledge. The Unseen is another neat monster as well. The Dokkaebi felt a bit too close to the role of orcs and goblins, which I didn�t like as much. While I can understand having cannon fodder of an evil nation as a fantasy trope, there wasn�t much novel done with them beyond their deceptive magic. I also wish the Wild Spirit creation rules in the OSR version were adopted to 5th Edition and Pathfinder, although if I had to guess its inclusion into that system was to make up for old-school retroclones having comparatively smaller bestiaries.

I�ve seen quite a bit of minion/follower systems for 5th Edition, and Koryo Hall�s doesn�t really resonate with me. While it�s intended to be a simplification, the use of totalling Hit Point averages and individual attacks for �ganging up� still necessitates the separation of individual NPC stats, which is counterintuitive. The Reputation system is good in concept in representing PCs making names for themselves in the guild, but tying it to �is this good or evil?� morality can easily spawn arguments similar to Alignment debates that are the dread of countless gaming groups.

Final Thoughts: The Koryo Hall of Adventures is hard to sum up, as I have conflicting feelings. On the plus side, a lot of work has gone into it; the base setting paints a good picture for immersing oneself in the world and is full of interesting lands with great adventuring potential. Beyond the write-up of a little-known culture in fantasy gaming from an author who has lived in and researched it, the book has a few interesting departures from typical D&D tropes to make the world stand out. For example, the dearth of true gods, the different systems of government beyond base feudalism which make the regions feel sufficiently distinct, and a detailed write-up of the new Mudang class which provides an interesting �pick and choose� system for supernatural patron spirits. And while it would�ve been easy to just make the system for the most popular tabletop system and call it a day, the author put in extra effort for conversions to other popular D&D-style RPGs.

But even with all that said, there are many small things in Koryo Hall of Adventures which add up, and still leave the book feeling unfinished. In some cases it�s the fluff text not being descriptive, like the actual function of Chilseong gates or what role the non-Mudang spellcasting classes have to play in the setting�s cosmological framework. In other places it�s missing material that should be included or are instead scattered throughout the conversion documents, such as no 5th Edition or OSR write-ups for the new dragonborn subraces. This is not to say that the book is unable to be played right out of the box; individually such things are small in the grand scheme of things, but they�re numerous enough that one cannot help but notice.

But in spite of these doubts, I am overall impressed with the work that Aur�lien Lain� and the various proofreaders/editors/illustrators/etc put into this. I�m eager to see the lands of Jeosung further developed, and await the day more material is released for it!

For my next Let�s Read, I�m going to focus on another well-researched fantasy counterpart setting of another notable peninsula. Join us next time as we visit the rough-and-tumble Italian-inspired world of Brancalonia!

Edit: I also forgot to include a Bibliography (and Artist/Writer Portfolios). I'll include it in this post for further reading by interested parties.

Libertad! fucked around with this message at 23:47 on Jun 21, 2021

# ? Jun 21, 2021 00:59

Everyone: Sep 6, 2019; by sebmojo

Mentions of Deadlands' metaplot had me looking back through some old pdfs for Hell on Earth. One adventure, Urban Renewal was done pretty well. The other, The Unity was kind of stupid, due in part to a previous adventure.

The Good

Urban Renewal is set in the Hell on Earth city of Junkyard. The posse (party) has been hired/inveigled into dealing with a haunted piece of property. There's a lot more to it that I'm not getting into right now. The best (and in most cases only) way for the posse to deal with the various ghosts is to help them come to terms with their past sins and trauma, preferably through role-playing. The encounters with the ghosts take place within dream-like mini-realms that recreate their worst, most despairing moments, generally. It's a little like that Dragons of Dreams module from way back, but it's more creative, the party has a lot more agency and it overall doesn't suck. One of the ghosts was a pedophile and a serial killer of children, so destroying him is pretty much the way to deal with him.

That said, I did appreciate this bit in term of him:

quote:

Now, there�s a limit to portraying violence, and actually showing the mutilated bodies of small children is in poor taste. The dreams are more suggestive than descriptive: Dolls instead of children, glass eyes instead of real ones, and a display of torture instruments rather than the crimes themselves.

That statement lets you know that this adventure isn't from Degenesis

The adventure recommends showing a few scenes prior to their encounter with the evil pedophile (oops, redundancy). Unlike those of the other ghosts, the pedophile's dream realm allowed him to relive his "greatest hits" and takes the form of an abandoned school where he was able to spend several months luring a nearby settlement's children to horrible deaths at his hands.

quote:

Upon entering a classroom, the hero hears the muffled crying of children coming from the adjoining coat closet. Inside, on the opposite wall where children placed their winter boots and lunches on shelves, are hundreds of dolls lined side by side. The whimpering doesn�t stop, but the dolls themselves are silent. Most are badly abused with stuffing torn out and limbs missing. All their eyes have been removed. Knife cuts gouge the plastic and porcelain sockets.

quote:

Last but not least. Just before the heroes are about to encounter Elijah (the pedophile), they find his torture implements laid out on the teacher�s desk of one classroom. Think of a street surgeon�s chop shop and you�ve got the idea. The dozens of instruments themselves run the gamut from bone saws to muscle clamps, and from scalpels to bone-cracking mallets. All are encrusted red.

Granted that none of that is exactly subtle and it is somewhat emotionally manipulative, but that's kind of a good thing. This guy was a horrible, evil gently caress and the adventure wants the group to feel good about destroying him.

The Stupid

In The Unity was the final Hell on Earth adventure before Pinnacle switched to its Savage Worlds rules and was meant to take a posse from Hell on Earth to its Lost Colony setting.

In the adventure the posse encounter Raven (one of the main setting villains) and sees him kill one of the main setting heroes.

quote:

It�s time to reveal our villain�s true identity to the posse�and his purpose.

Cole Ballad jams two large knives deep into the heart of the burned deader on the flatbed. The thing shivers but then reaches forward and grabs Cole by the head and neck. He forces the Law Dog down onto the flatbed where he is held down by the carpet of dead men beneath them.

The deader screams: �I AM RAVEN! THE RECKONERS BETRAYED ME! BUT I WILL HAVE MY VENGEANCE WHEN I AM THE LAST LIVING MAN ON EARTH!�

Cole�s jaw drops in shock�he knows Raven is a servitor and can�t be killed without knowing his specific weakness.

Let the realization sink in as the heroes gain the APC. This is Raven, the villain who started everything. The posse can�t kill him, so they�d best run. Don�t let your heroes go charging after him�they won�t make it with all the deaders now surrounding Raven�s �throne��and they can�t kill him anyway since they don�t know his weakness.

So yeah, this seems like something that could be in Degenesis - the posse watches the bad guy do something but can't do poo poo about it.

Except that it's very possible that they could, if they chose to.

There was an earlier Hell on Earth adventure called Something About a Sword. If the party played through it successfully they got to obtain (and keep) Evanor, the sword in question. One of the sword's powers was this:

quote:

If a Legend Chip is spent while the user is facing an evil supernatural being, the sword begins to glow with an unearthly white light. This takes 2 full rounds, ending on the same segment in which it began 2 rounds later. During this time, the wielder can do nothing other than issue a litany of offenses to the damned creature. This means the sword-bearer can make an Overawe roll on each of his actions of those two rounds but nothing else.

The next hit on the fiend that causes even a single wound automatically kills it (even if it would otherwise be immune to this kind of damage).

One of the mechanics for Deadlands Classic (including Hell on Earth) was something called Fate chips which wear White, Red or Blue. Chips were drawn at the beginning of an adventure and awarded throughout it. They could be spent to affect dice rolls (or activate special powers). At the end of an adventure they could also be traded in for XP. If the party did something really brave/cool/etc the GM could also put a Legend chip in the "pot." Given the stuff the posse has been doing previous to this, it's easily possible that they could have a Legend chip.

So, the posse could have acquired Evanor in an adventure that was published by Pinnacle for the Hell on Earth setting. They could have a Legend chip for previous awesome deeds. Oh, and at this point they're in an armored personal carrier (which they're supposed to use to plow through the deaders/zombies and escape from Raven) which they can use to plow through the deaders/zombies to get to Raven and kill his supernaturally evil rear end with one good whack from Evanor.

Except that the writer of The Unity apparently completely forgot about all this because there's no guidance for the GM if the posse chooses to just kill Raven right there and has the means to do so.

# ? Jun 22, 2021 15:13

Hipster Occultist: Aug 16, 2008; _{He's an ancient, obscure god. You probably haven't heard of him.}

Symbaroum: The Wrath of the Warden, Part Two

So our party just mulched two waves of corrupted barbarians without the help of the three Templar NPCs the book thinks you�ll need. If they had been there, they hit on anything but a 20 and do 9 damage a shot, meaning they can trigger more attacks and just woodchipper there way through those guys. I�m not a fan of having NPCs do all the heavy lifting like that, which is part of why I never included them in the combat.

Anyways, the sinkhole is quiet for the moment, and the PCs can roll a couple Cunning tests to learn some mostly inconsequential facts. Beast Lore will tell you that the corruption at work in the Clan Beasts seems almost purposeful and directed, while Ritualist will tell you that there are some obscure references to rituals that channel corruption and its effects into living bodies. You might also be a Sorcerer and actually know the Flesh Craft ritual, but the book doesn�t really take that into consideration. Although to be fair, being a PC Sorcerer is pretty difficult.

The book assumes (not without reason) that the PCs get close to the sinkhole to check things out. Aside from some corpses and the town guard quickly slapping a barricade around the rim, two bigwig wizards (Kullinan Furia and Eufrynda) are investigating. This is the first time that the book mentions how some of the Beast Clan took prisoners away down the hole, because apparently the PCs didn�t see that. No roll, you just don�t notice it and aren�t even aware until the two wizards mention it while talking to each other. After a minute or two Kullinan will tell every to hush, and the PCs can make a Vigilant test this round, or a Vigilant +3 test next round as the sounds of upcoming barbarians gets louder.

It�s time for another wave, but not in great detail this time. It�s the same as before, enemies roughly equal to the amount of PCs for each type, however this time a boss enemy shows up along with them.

So, this guy will hurt most PCs, he does 6 damage ignoring armor if he hits and acid blood is 3 damage every turn for 3 turns. However, he�s never going to attack. See that Quick of 10? What happens is Big Guy walks up (after the Patron Saint slides into flanking) and one shots him, the acid does nothing because the least damage Big Guy can soak right now is 4. Even if Big Guy rolls poo poo on damage, he�s still probably going ro roll high enough to trigger a free Pain Threshold attack, which will definitely kill him.

The book to its credit does account for both outcomes here. If you win the fight here, the attack stops for now and the barricade is reinforced. If you lose (npc clerics will save dying PCs) the Beast Clan pushes out and forces everyone back into the streets surrounding the square. Anyone inside that city block is assumed dead or taken, along with most valuables that could be found there.

Our PCs won, which means a bunch of Clan Beasts break through a house�s cellar and attack the forces manning the barricade from behind! They die like the rest. If you lose here, you go to the same �Reclaiming the Barricade� encounter in which the major NPCs show up and do an inspiring speech. You get several choices of how you can contribute to the assault, which is nice.

However, our PCs are badasses so they get the encounter that�s literally called �Anticlimax at the sinkhole.� With a name like that, I�m sure that we�re in for the ride of our lives. Basically everything is all calm at the sinkhole, nothing happens. However, just as the anxiety fades and people start chatting again, and then something does happen!

�Wrath of the Warden� posted:

a sudden and worrying sound is heard from the sinkhole � a rustling, shuffling
sound, as if a giant serpent was moving about down in the dark. The sound grows stronger; everyone grows tense. Then the sound diminishes again, as if its source has moved on, away from the sinkhole, deeper down into the Abyss.

Suddenly, a warrior steps out into the dim light that reaches the top of the rubble hill at the bottom of the hole. Her visage is dominated by predatory jaws and the skin on her naked forearms seems gray, crackled and leathery, as if it is unnaturally thick
and rough. She stares with black eyes towards the defenders on the surface before letting out a hateful falsetto howl and diving down into the dark on widespread bat wings. Then all goes silent, and this time the silence continues �

This is Helionor. Who is she you might ask? Well, she�s only the heavily mutated chieftain of the Beast Clan and leader of the attack on Thistle Hold! Apparently the sinkhole appearing in their domain opened a direct route between their camps and the town. Fearing what she felt was an inevitable attack from the Ambrians, she launched this preemptive assault to give the rest of her clan time to pack up and walk into Davokar. If they managed to seize slaves and resources while doing so, all the better.

Let's take this apart though. To start with, it ticks the �let my badass pc villain come in and make a grand entrance/monologue/kill a sacrifice while you all have to watch� box. It also ticks the �Sir Appearing in Another Film so they can�t die here� box, and so on. No concerns for player agency or choice here at all, sadly. They don�t even provide stats for her! What happens if Ash tries to cast Bend Will on her? She�s clearly visible for at least a combat round, maybe longer. Why can�t Scout shoot her? And so on and so forth. Also, that last bit where it says that it �does not hurt if players remember her wings and jaws?� Well, I checked and she�s not mentioned in any of the other currently existing books! Wrath of the Warden came out in 2016, and the 5th book is due on July 20, 2021. If you were playing through this from the beginning (taking breaks to wait for new books as well) would you really remember this off-hand reference for 5+ years (at least, she might not even be in the next book) so you could half-remember this minor faction boss? I�d argue even if you waited until the books were all released and played them in order weekly, you�d still probably forget this �entrance.�

Anyways once that�s done the guards set about building a proper stockade around the sinkhole, and anyone who approaches the hole without a letter from the Mayor saying you can get close gets banned from the town for life. You can also make some rolls and talk to the big npcs kicking around but none of them know anything or give you any new information, so it�s a complete waste of time (both IG and OOG) to do so. That�s it for Act 1.

Act 2:

A brief aside, I was wading through the rules to see if Ash�s summoned pets can be given equipment like a PC as well. With the Burning Servant the answer is yes, I didn�t notice earlier but they�re actually an animated suit of blackened armour with a fire spirit inside. Thus they have physical hands you can slap a better weapon into and so on. The Rune Guardian is a golem but already has a bunch of fist-fighting abilities anyways so he doesn�t need a tricked out sword. The Patron Saint though, boy is that thing a mess. In the core book that I have, it�s a physical being that�s invisible until danger is afoot, then it becomes a glowing golden figure of light. In a sidebar we�re told that they cannot be given new equipment, but they can take weapon style abilites which will modify their flail of light.

And then I saw the errata.

They gave the Patron Saint the Spirit Form (1) quality and took away it�s 1d4 Halo of Light armour. At first this seems like a good trade, it can pass through barriers and takes half damage from regular weapons. However, your literal patron saint of the benevolent sun god cannot cross running water, because apparently all spirits are vampires. Furthermore, it can�t actually use it�s Flail of Light (1d6) anymore, because Spirits cannot affect the physical realm without manifesting. This takes another ability (guess what it�s called), the first rank only lets you manifest for one turn, if you want your patron saint to stick around for a scene you gotta take it up a level and spend another 20xp on Manifestation (2). You�ve now just spent 30xp so your combat pet can actually hit things. You can buy the ability Alternative Damage, which is an attack that targets a stat instead of doing toughness, it�s meant to represent ghosts doing life-drain poo poo and whatnot. It�s not bad, but doesn�t really fit the theme.

The Developers are aware that their own errata breaks their own RAW in half, with most people just ignoring that part of it entirely. When asked how to fix it, their suggestions mostly involve breaking other rules, thus kinda negating the purpose of an errata in the first place. Mechanically, this game is a fuckin� mess and the dev�s seem to be a little too cavalier with the whole �GM�s can fix it for their own games� attitude.

Anyways, let's get back on track. After the battle at the Sinkhole, the PCs remember that they still have to meet their contact back at the bar.

Which is currently at the bottom of the sinkhole.

And they have no idea who their contact was.

poo poo.

Act two is all about wheeling and dealing while talking to NPCs from various factions, trying to get leads on enough clues to figure out where you�re going next.

Aside from some ESL issues, things in this book are often also organized poorly. The beginning of this chapter includes a summary of the various clues that point towards where you need to go in the next Act, but then describes them again, in more detail, at the end of the loving chapter 40 pages later. Is it too much to ask for the people writing these things to just put all the information right where its relevant, instead of forcing me to constantly flip back and forth?

�Wrath of the Warden� posted:

Not more than a couple of hours after the fight at the sinkhole, the characters are approached by a courier, no matter if they are at home or at some public place like a tavern or inn. This time it is a tiny goblin boy who comes up to them with his dark
brown crochet hat in hand.

So this is kinda dumb and a bit railroady, it�s not bad in and of itself, but the nature of it speaks to how the writers view narrative structure and whatnot. Although I can�t be mad, because the thought of some little Goblin boy breaking into the fortified home of some paranoid adventurers really makes me chuckle all the same. Once again, questioning the goblin just revels some random drunk paid him to deliver the letter, so you can�t find anything out that way. There�s just too many bearded drunks in Thistle Hold for his description to be of any help, we�re told. Were it me running this adventure, I�d like to give my players a chance to track this guy down, and then maybe learn something about the Cult trying to kill them. However, it�s not time for the PCs to learn anything about said Cult, so that�s impossible.

The Letter� posted:

�What you know can kill you. Meet me in Kalegra�s Alley now. Maybe we can help each other.

Anyone who falls for this trap deserves the knife that will soon be entering their kidneys. Or rather, they would if Big Guy wasn�t such a threat. They�re just desperate treasure hunters hired by the cult, and their swords literally cannot hurt him. (They do 4 damage each attack, which he soaks easily) So he slaughters most of them for the 2 Thalers on each corpse. The party questions the one they left alive, but he can�t say much. They were just hired by an ordinary woman to kill the PCs, said woman is a Changeling so the description they give is worthless.

Some of you might ask �But Hipster Occultist, what happens if the PCs don�t walk into the ambush?�

Well uh, not much. The book doesn�t even mention that as a possibility. That being said, it�s not like it gives out any crucial information either, so you�re really just missing out on some pocket change.

After the ambush fails (one way or another) Erlaber (cult leader) tries another tactic. Over the next couple days while the PCs are following up on some leads, he gets up to some more shenanigans. He spreads word to a couple other cults that are in the area that the PCs are Witch Hunters from Yndaros (capital city of Ambria), who come to clean up Thistle Hold. We�re told that the cults generally are very careful to shadow the PCs from an extreme distance, and can only be seen if a PC specifically says they�re looking for people following them. They try to attack when the PCs are vulnerable, like when they�re sleeping and whatnot. There�s a few different options for dealing with said cultists, which I like. You can do something as simple as just fending them off for a couple days, or you could go all the way and bring evidence to the town guard and join the raids on their headquarters and so on, good stuff. Stat-wise they�re not huge threats, but some of the magic users could present. If the PCs capture one, all they really know is that the PCs are Witch Hunters and that they got tipped off by �The Prince,� a shadowy Sorcerer. And no, nobody knows who he is.

Fortunately for our PCs, they�re paranoid adventurers who�ve already been tipped off, so the cults shouldn�t be too much of a problem. I�d even award them some bounties if my PCs helped the Guard round up some rogue Sorcerers.

When that fails, he hires an infamous underground assassin known as the Black Cape. She�s pretty much your bog-standard amoral assassin. She does stand a chance at possibly killing one of the weaker PCs with her poisons in the right circumstances, but it�d be tricky and likely require her to get them alone. She�s probably going to lose literally any straight up combat though, which is why she tries to avoid them. If the PCs corner her, she takes a sucide pill and instantly dies. If you try to question her ghost with magic, all she can give you is the same worthless description of the changeling that the other cultists have already provided. Yay. I�m sure your PCs won�t get frustrated with every investigative avenue being instantly closed off, not at all.

While the PCs are dealing with all these motherfucking cultists on this motherfucking plane, they�re supposed to be tracking down who their quest giver was and what she wanted from them. To do that, they have to reach out to the various factions and so some side quests..

If any of the PCs belong to the Ordo Magica, they can go to them for help. Apparently Mayor Nightpitch has contracted the job of investing the spooky sinkhole out to the Wizards, so if the PCs make a roll they can convince the wizards to let them go on the expedition instead. It�s not a hard roll if they were present at the battle, the wizards are mostly happy to let someone go in their place so long as they bring an Adept Wizard along to take notes. This gives them the authority to get past the barricade and explore the sinkhole (and where said sinkhole leads) properly.

If the PCs aren�t attached to the Ordo Magica, you can ask some questions from the guy doing receptionist duty and get some minor hints.

Ash gets them inside, and after a brief conversation with a couple of the head wizards they�re now an officially licensed expedition.

Underground 2

Check out those Beast Qarters.

I�ll be honest, most of this dungeon is kinda of a dud. The only encounter other than the Witch at the Cystal Lake (more on her in a moment) is a bunch of lizard guard dogs the Beast Clan left behind as they fled the tunnels. KIlling them is both easy and boring. What the PCs are really here for isn�t the centerpiece of the cave network/underground lake beneath Thistle Hold (the Crystal Lake) , rather it�s a pile of crap they can search through in the Beast Clan�s living quarters. Most of what�s here is crap. There�s a bunch of weapons and armour in shabby condition that will only fetch half value (I�d really like for the writers to give us an amount here, guess what they don�t do?), and despite that you know our currently poor PCs are going to try and haul out everyone not nailed down. With a few Vigilant tests they can actually find a few valuable things, and will come out of the caves with some loot worth at least 200-300 Thaler, a sizable sum.

The real prize is Anadea�s body, she was taken down here and killed by the Beast Clan when the sinkhole opened. The main clue on her body is a letter from Teara-Teena, her Elven contact within the Iron Pact. A Vigilant test will help you find a treasured amulet from her mother with Anadea�s name on it, so that�s that part solved. You can also find a key to her storage box (which will come in handy if you find said box later) and a heavily corrupted golden pearl. Said Pearl forges a telepathic link between her and the previously mentioned elf, but it won�t work (aside from giving them 1d8 corruption) if the PCs bind it and try to use it. Teara-Teena has written Anadea off (she assumes she�s dead) and also assumes that anyone trying to contact her is a card-carrying cult murderer.

Now having gotten what they came for, smart PCs would leave. However, some PCs might want to investigate the black crystal island sitting atop an underground lake, filled with manifested Wraiths swimming through it�s waters. Some PCs might not turn away as they hear an obviously creepy Witch singing to herself, alone. Some might keep going once the water starts forcing them to take corruption tests on Resolute, and a few still might decide to approach the evil witch sitting atop an island of solidified corruption that gives them goosebumps and forces more corruption tests. This bit is for those brave, yet foolhardy souls.

So, in ages past this island used to be what is referred to as a Power Node. A few of them show up in the adventures, we�ll see a pure one in the next book I believe. Basically, when you do magic near a power node, it absorbs the corruption for you, thus letting you channel Pure Magic. It�s not quite Arch Magic (that�s magic without corruption, this just shunts it off to the side), but it�s still pretty useful. Back before even the Empire of Symbaroum, this place was heavily sought after and fought over for that very reason. However, Power Nodes do have limits, and this one has become thoroughly corrupted and turned jet black, whereas it used to be a blue-ish white.. It can still be used as a power node for some reason, in which case it absorbs the corruption from the mystic power used. However, merely standing on the island forces Resolute tests every hour to not be corrupted, so it�s far from ideal. You can also accept temporary corruption from the island in exchange for dice buffs on your spellcasting (nice for Ash at least) and temporary armour + toughness.

The Wraiths swimming in the lake won�t attack unless given orders to do so by the Witch Bayela, and she isn�t immediately hostile so you can wade through the corrupted water if you want. If you have Loremaster or are a Barbarian and act respectful, she�ll answer a few questions about the Beast Clan (former Barbarian tribe that almost got wiped out by the Queen�s army and become corrupted cave dwellers to survive, they hosed off further into the forest after the sinkhole opened up, and Helionor is their chieftain), and she�ll tell you what the island is as well. She stayed behind because she was unwilling to leave the island.

She then makes a demand of the PCs, she tells them to convince those topside that there�s nobody down here anymore and the tunnels are thoroughly corrupted. I think the book forgot (almost immediately) that the PCs have an Adept Wizard attached to their party following them around and taking detailed notes, so despite the book literally saying;

�Wrath of the Warden� posted:

The smartest thing for the characters to doi s of course to agree to Bayela�s demands and swear that they will stop others from climbing down.

Complying with her demands probably means murdering an innocent man. If she doesn�t buy that you�re telling the truth or that you have the power/influence to ward off these caves, she�ll sick 30 wraiths on you. This seems really bad, and could be a TPK if the party tries to fight them. They�re hard to hurt (being ghosts), they ignore armour and drain your stats, and THERE�S 30 OF THESE FUCKERS!

However, they�re slower than PCs so you can literally just run away and they�ll never catch up. Or, you can kill the Witch. She�s reasonably dangerous, except she has a Quick of 7, Toughness 10, and no armour. Meaning she�s going to be pasted in seconds by our much faster party, upon which the Wraiths cease attacking because they don�t really give enough of a poo poo about the PCs to attack them on their own initiative.

Big Guy goes first, one shots her, and that�s all she wrote! Ash binds himself (the power node counts as an artifact, and in order to use an artifact you have to forge a metaphysical link with it) to the island in case he wants to come back here to do some big rear end rituals in the future or something, the corruption doesn�t bother him at all and the spellcasting bonuses might come in handy at some point. Keep in mind, there�s nothing that says you actually have to be on the island to use its powers. Common sense would say that of course you loving do, but strictly speaking I can�t see any rule that prevents using an artifact remotely.

That�s all that can be found down here, and to be clear nothing that happened on the island yet has any relevance on the plot itself. The main clue was the letter, and they found that a while ago. It gives them the name of her elf contact, and a hint to where they need to go. However, it�s not the whole picture, so we�ll keep on looking for more clues.

Next time we�ll see which clue we dig up when Sister Heals a Lot goes to her fellow priests within the Sun Church for help.

# ? Jun 23, 2021 15:18

Benagain: Oct 10, 2007; Can you see that I am serious?; Fun Shoe

One of my favorite things in Age of Sigmar has been the metal plant/dwarf unbreakable friendship bond.

# ? Jun 23, 2021 16:17

MonsterEnvy: Feb 4, 2012; Shocked I tell you

Benagain posted:

One of my favorite things in Age of Sigmar has been the metal plant/dwarf unbreakable friendship bond.

Yeah I like that Sylvaneth / Dispossessed location I covered a while back. With the Mossbeard pairings.

# ? Jun 23, 2021 19:13

Joe Slowboat: Nov 9, 2016; Higgledy-Piggledy Whale Statements

Hellboy 5e
Chapter 1: Origins (part 2)

You don�t have to be dead to work here.

Continuing through the Other Origins, we get to the Ghost, which is pretty interesting for being dead. The first paragraph of the Ghost starts off strong, but...

Hellboy 5e, p 18, posted:

In hindsight, death should always be in the top five of the worst things that could happen, at least twice, preferably. Regardless of how much you feared it or how careful you were, the fact remains that you are particularly, deceased or dead. Oddly however, this was not the normal ending that you had come to believe would be the natural progression that came with life ending.

...that paragraph really got away from you, buddy. Do you need a glass of water?

We get a general rundown of where ghosts come from (dead people, but especially those with unfinished business or who get caught up in the occult). Ectoplasm gets an odd definition as �a substance that allows the laws of reality to be bent� rather than what it is, which is a substance which ghosts can manifest through. That�s not bending the laws when ghosts are an accepted part of how things are! Ghosts that �move on� go somewhere unknown unless they go to Hell or vaguely Spiritualist otherworlds (the comics also have frog heaven, for frog souls, and it�s not a place you want to be). There�s also this baffling thing:

Is this meant to be genuine concern that ghosts will be offended by player characters not wanting to die? The Ghost section started off saying death is two of the five worst things that can happen to you! And earlier lore section even mentioned that ghosts helping out the Bureau is incredibly rare, so, what�s the intended tone here? Already these notes feel less like actual efforts to express the Bureau�s sensitivity towards Enhanced Talents Agents and more like a rather questionable parody of trying to be sensitive - Human Resources being officious and nosy without actually helping anyone. If it�s a joke, it�s not that funny and not in great taste; if it�s meant seriously, it�s baffling.

Tone issues aside, a Ghost agent automatically has access to some ectoplasm powers, which spend Ingenuity or Hit Dice to activate (and do not require any kind of check). They can puppet bodies, speak with corpses in classic D&D style, or go wandering away from their body/vessel to scout around in relative safety. They also (nominally) do not have hit points in the normal fashion, instead having Stability. You still make death saves to not �die� when reduced to zero stability, but these represent trying to maintain conscious cohesion, and you get limited effect from most kinds of healing because you�re a blob of ectoplasm (represented with the cute title, �What Biology!?�). For some reason, if you fail your death saves, you will come back 1D100+12 years later probably as something the Bureau will need to deal with, and I have no idea why this number is rolled or even specified.

There�s also something about Injuries here, but I�m leaving Injuries for much later - they won�t matter for a level one character anyways, because anything capable of giving you an Injury is likely to KO you instantly. But, generally, Ghosts and their incorporeality have been pretty solidly engaged with in their base rules. They can�t touch things normally, they don�t have normal bodies, but each subtype will provide ways around that. It�s all better thought out than psychics, at least.

From �Seed of Destruction� (1994). Abe Sapien briefly got possessed by a New England whaler and impaled Rasputin yes that Rasputin on a harpoon. Why does Elihu Cavendish not get a stat writeup?

However, like Jacob Marley�s chains forged in life, the Ghost wears their subtype in death: The Bound and the Wandering Spirit both manage to undermine the Ghost Origin somehow. The Bound take a hard turn back towards the human norm, with a physical body or containment suit modeled off of Johan Krauss from the comics that can touch things and receive first aid normally. On the other hand, the Wandering ghost type really goes in for it: You can have an NPC agent (different every mission!) whom you can possess to talk and take actions - or you can use a PC agent as your �voice vessel,� which honestly seems like it could be a fun dynamic in a non-5e system. You take damage when they get hit while you�re possessing them, and you also get a limited number of 10-minute possessions before you need to return to base, as well as controlling them in combat. As a final way to actually interact with the setting, you can manifest physically a small number of times per Case File/story, taking damage over time to do so.

This set-up where the Ghost�s ability to interact with the world at large is gated by vessels and manifestations is something I�m torn about, because it�s a legitimately interesting idea but the implementation seems like it�s going to mostly be about keeping close track of when you�re allowed to be personally present. If they just shifted it to �very few things can do damage to a ghost, but it costs you a little Stability to be physically present, so you�re shepherding that resource� or some other way of simplifying and integrating it, then you could have a real sense of your available tools. In practice as it exists, I imagine it would end up either trivial or deeply irritating, with only a sliver of a goldilocks zone between them.

That�s still better than the wandering spirit�s real problem, though, which is their bane: Vengeful.

Hellboy 5e, p 21, thoughtlessly posted:

When you generate Doom, the GM can immediately spend it to activate this bane. While under the effect of this bane you become single minded in the pursuit of one creature or goal determined by the GM, imagined or real.

From �Conqueror Worm� (2001). The Lobster is the obvious inspiration for Vengeful, given his obsession with justice. Don�t worry, that was a Nazi.

You have about a 15% chance of generating Doom whenever you roll a die, and a number of other ways to do it as well. The GM has total control over this effect and I�m not aware of any way to mitigate it. This is not a power you should give the GM, designers! The player is going to be dragged into having to play out an obsession that could be a total waste of time, resources, and even their ability to physically interact with the world, with no buy-in from them. And since it�s framed as an antagonistic GM action, part of the game�s balance and conflict, GMs are implicitly encouraged to use this to make as much trouble as they want. And why are there so many banes that encourage the GM to try to take over the player characters? The vampire one was alright but the rest have been steadily getting worse.

However, with that done we can lay the ghost to rest. I have no idea how the Wandering Ghost type is supposed to work in play (even ignoring the Vengeful problem), but it�s at least gesturing at interesting ideas. Not interesting enough to update the counter, though.

Our last Origin is Fae Influenced. (No definite article, unlike The Cursed. Pick a lane, Hellboy 5e!) Fae Influenced bothers me, because like the vampire Cursed background, this is something that theoretically could have happened in the comics, but never did: An agent who is either a changeling or someone who spent time with the faeries. However, this is not going in the �useful new ideas� category, it�s going in the �lore pedantry� category, because this is clearly meant to just be Alice Monaghan, who was never a Bureau agent. And they�re just using this idea to have elves! This is the elf option, and it�s not really that interesting of an elf, given the actual folkloric and mythic weirdness of the fae in Hellboy.

This chapter has almost run out of steam, but not yet, so have the third page of �The Varcolac� (1999) to tide you over.

Fae Influenced have extra movement speed, always speak Gaelic, and can generate Doom to reroll a twenty-sided die. They also have immunity to aging effects (something that doesn�t show up anywhere in the book, and also nearly every Origin is immortal or ageless, so that�s an incredibly irrelevant power to have) and are vulnerable to iron. Most irritatingly, they generate Doom whenever a Fae Influenced character breaks or goes back on their word, as determined by the GM. There�s no positive side to this, like �you get advantage to carry out your promises� or anything like that, you just should never ever say you will or won�t do anything, as a Fae Influenced character.

The two subtypes are humans who have been around the fae a lot, and actual changelings (the Replaced). The second is much more interesting than the first: As a fae changeling sent to replace a human infant, or possibly a human who returned after being abducted fully, you can sprout natural weapons like claws or tusks, shrink yourself to a smaller size category, and hide behind nearly anything as long as you break line of sight briefly (so a changeling can hide behind a lamp post like a cartoon character). Alright, the changeling has enough going on to increment the �useful new ideas� counter. (New to Hellboy, not new to tabletop games, since you�re basically playing a very basic version of a Changeling: The Lost character this way.)

From �The Corpse� (1995). The game book uses the panel after this, where the changeling baby has already been caught in tongs, which is much less entertaining.

We�re now done with the Origins, but not with Origins: We still have a few steps left, somehow. Though the Life Before the B.P.R.D. section was covered previously, there�s two further life steps that everyone, not just Remarkable Humans, go through: Recruitment and Time Served. Once again, each one gives you a handful of tiny powers and effects, resulting in a pile of exception-based rules.

To run through them quickly: Recruitments are things like �discovered as a case� or �recommended from another organization� or �left the Bureau and came back recently.� All of them give you two Proficiencies and a power you can use occasionally. Most powers are once per Case File or refresh when you return to base, so they�re not quite restricted. Some are once per Graphic Novel (campaign). Some are quite fiddly, and some are quite effective, while others seem very anemic (I�m reasonably certain that getting a one-time bonus to how much gear you can bring on a mission once per Graphic Novel will never be as good as getting to increase your AC multiple times per Case File).

Every Time Served gives you a single unique power you can use once per outing, then refresh when you return to base.

From �Hell on Earth: The Reign of the Black Flame� (2014), from the B.P.R.D. spinoff series, illustrated by James Harren. It feels like blatant false advertising to put this picture on a page explaining how to make level one 5e characters, frankly. You are not going to be agent Ted Howards storming a machine gun nest with a sword anytime soon.

Now that we have Origins mostly handled, let�s look at Drive, Hellboy 5e�s answer to character concept or motivation in other systems.

Hellboy 5e, p 27, posted:

Knowing they are facing the worst terrors to plague humanity and reckoning with the fact that each Case File could be their last, exactly what is it that drives an agent to keep fighting? Every agent should carry a core drive. Whether something to prove, an inherent belief or faith, a drive to protect someone or something, or a conviction that they hold�often to the detriment of themselves and others. Agents have something that keeps them on task long after others have fallen by the wayside. In mechanical terms, an agent�s drive is an ongoing ambition, responsibility, or belief that can be drawn on to provide additional Ingenuity.

Cool, that makes sense. You have a Drive, you get extra Ingenuity (the positive metacurrency that will be fully explained in Chapter 8, but I�ll pull up details from there to give this context) when you act in accordance with that drive. Seems like a useful character asset to have and a lot more expressive of specific identity than anything else we�ve seen so far. Let�s continue:

Hellboy 5e, still Drive, posted:

Beyond the two player-facing benefits, drive also provides the GM with a method for flavouring generic Doom spends [...] It's this core drive that provides the mechanical benefits discussed here [...] Evolving or resolving a drive is a personal and emotional moment for any agent�and likely you, too. As such, the GM should consider awarding multiple points of Ingenuity as a minimum. Such a momentous moment may also warrant a milestone in terms of experience.

Hey, uh, Hellboy 5e, I�m... not seeing those �two player-facing benefits� anywhere? They�re definitely not in this section. They�re not in Chapter 8 either (�Drive� doesn�t show up in that chapter.) In fact, nowhere does the player seem to have any way of using their Drive at all � there are two benefits, but they�re both �you can get milestones or better clearance at the Bureau for fulfilling your Drive.� This section insists that Drive can do something it simply has no mechanics for! It�s wildly disorienting to read through and realize that this whole character element doesn�t do the thing the game is saying it does, but never gives enough detail to actually make that a rules passage in itself. There are no player-facing benefits, there is no mechanical benefit, the game is just lying. (No counter, because I need to believe this only happens once.) The only explanation I have is that the entire actual mechanical impact of Drive was accidentally deleted during editing, and somehow nobody caught it, because any alternative is much weirder.

After that I guess there�s a list of Languages. There�s a D10 table for suggested languages. It feels as vestigial as this sentence. The only thing of note is a genuinely fun little optional rule, I like it better than the normal D&D approach to languages:

Finally, the Origins chapter ends with an explanation of experience and Levelling (sic) Rules, which are basically �level up after each Case File for the first four, then proceed according to milestones.� Each level after 6 takes more milestones to reach, Case Files grant milestones equal to their Difficulty Rating (maybe we�ll find out what that is, together, because I�m not sure how to calculate that), as well as certain achievements outlined � they�re things like �save more civilians than were lost� or �recover an artifact� or �complete the Case File with fewer agents than recommended.� What really strikes me about this is that it implies they expected to produce a wide variety of pre-made Case Files, or will provide tools for rating a Case File�s DR separate from the monsters in it. We�ll see how that goes.

And at long last, we�re done with Origins. God help me, classes are next.

Chapter Breakdown: Chapter one gets us halfway through character creation, and it�s not a good half. Some thought has gone into making it possible to play a B.P.R.D. agent, but not enough thought has gone into supporting really widely different character concepts. The Remarkable Human Origin wants to be a flexible base you can customize into representing much more than it does. Instead we get a series of origins that try to pigeonhole a specific archetype or Hellboy universe idea, but can�t be flexible enough to really capture it all. Abe Sapien and Roger the Homunculus both don�t really fit into the categories provided by this chapter. This isn�t helped by some of the Origins, like psychic, being just significantly worse than others, to the point that a psychic is really only playable if you build your entire character around making it work (and even then, I wouldn�t).
The other major issue is the sheer number of powers you�ll get from this half of character generation alone, many of which are nickel-and-dime use-once-per-mission effects that would be incredibly easy to forget about. A Remarkable Human starts with something like ten of these little modular effects. Once you can swap them out or change them around, a starting character is likely to be extremely finicky.
All in all, Origins in Hellboy 5e are extremely laboriously trying to create a system that lets you assemble your character�s background yourself without breaking with the 5e norm, but end up being both overly complex and still not even close to flexible enough. There�s a feat we�ll get to eventually that summarizes my whole thought process here: Defy Classification. It�s a feat that lets you be something that isn�t explicitly one of these Origins, and if the origin set-up were better, it would have no reason to exist.

From �Seed of Destruction� (2004). Abe Sapien, everyone�s favorite fish and one of the core trio of characters in early Hellboy, was found in a tube. He specifically can only be modeled with the Defy Classification feat, and by normal rules I don�t think a character can start with that at level one.

Art Review: Not much here. Nice to see Howards, I guess.

Running counters:

Useful New Ideas: 2
Nazis Handled Well: 1
Nazis Handled Poorly: 0
Lore Pedantry (Mine): 4

Next time... the �class� half of character creation, and incrementing the pedantry counter.

Joe Slowboat fucked around with this message at 04:21 on Jun 24, 2021

# ? Jun 23, 2021 19:38

Night10194: Feb 13, 2012; We'll start,
like many good things,
with a bear.

Language rules are often annoying since they're usually just interacting taxes/guessing which one will come in handy (Ooooh, bad luck, you know how to study medieval Spanish manuscripts, but this adventure is in Portuguese!).

I suspect the sidebars about sensitivity training stuff are about trying to establish a tone of 'this stuff is normal for us, even though it is not generally normal or mundane' but not doing a great job of it. Like, a brief guideline on how to deal with ghosts in a polite manner to avoid unnecessary haunting or blood curses in the field with an attached reference of who to talk to about further information on various styles of ghosts or some reference materials might work better for what they're going for. "This is just a normal problem you'll run into in this line of work, here's some of our agency's expertise on it." might work better.

# ? Jun 23, 2021 19:49

Joe Slowboat: Nov 9, 2016; Higgledy-Piggledy Whale Statements

Night10194 posted:

"This is just a normal problem you'll run into in this line of work, here's some of our agency's expertise on it." might work better.

Agreed, definitely. By making this about internal affairs, it really skews it towards a certain tone.

# ? Jun 23, 2021 19:51

MonsterEnvy: Feb 4, 2012; Shocked I tell you

Soulbound Bestiary

Disciples of Tzeentch

Chaos is a word that evokes fear in the Mortal Realms, images of cults, sacrifices and corruption come to mind. While the primary Chaos gods number five, only one represents Chaos in raw form. Tzeentch the Architect of Fate or the Changer of Ways, embraces change in all forms and his ambitious disciples thrive in the destruction and chaos his changes create. Magic changes the realms, and so it changes the disciples, each changed in some fashion by the arcane might of Tzeentch, whether through their bodies warping or them gaining magical power.
To Tzeenche's Disciples, all power stems from the arcane, and physical power is but a supplement. Using a sword or gun, is crass and simple like a child playing with a stick. For their aim is to warp reality itself, and no blunderbuss or sword alone can do that. Many of them still carry a weapon for protection, but their first instinct is almost always to use magic.
Tzeentch also favours secrecy almost as much as change and ambition, and so tends to make his devotees gifted spies and infiltrators. Many Arcane institutions and governments in the realms have felt their touch at some point. Still while the lower acolytes look like normal people, Tzeentch likes to gift his favored with bizarre mutations. Still no matter what they are all of Tzeentch's favoured are gifted with magic and mayhem.

Using Them In Your Game
Because they are secretive, both from each other and the world at large, the Disciples of Tzeentch make excellent secret villains. Many Soulbound have come to a city to drive back an obvious threat only to discover that Tzeentchian cultists were the true threat behind the strings. The faithful of Tzeentch like to weave elaborate webs of secrets and lies, with cultists keeping quiet until their mutations are revealed.
Anyone who desires change can fall victim to Tzeentch, but he holds more influence over mages that delve too deep into dark secrets. Once under his spell, they become obsessed with furthering his goals, and sometimes not even realizing it. A young but ambitious Battlemage early in their studies may take part in Tzeenchian schemes without actually being drawn into his actual worship.
The Disciples of Tzeentch tend to form hierarchies based around Tzeentch's blessings, with the most 'gifted' at the top. still few remain the leader for long. The only constant is change, and a change in leadership can be counted on.

Rumors posted:

�Go back for him? Are you mad? They turned his legs to insects! If he isn�t dead by now, he�ll wish he was.�
� Alfie �Ale Thief� Aaelenhad, Notorious Thief of Ale
�Never let your guard down around these daemons! You see one beast, giggling and pink? I see seven.�
�It�s a truth most malign that the Architect of Fate delights on preying upon the hopes and dreams of mortals. Thus, we must be wary of seeking that out with our station.�
�Too many a great mind has set out on the path to enlightenment with the most noble of questions, only to end their days mutated and misled by the very answers they uncover.�
�It was a big flapping bird shooting fire out of its beak! No, I wasn�t snorting deffcaps again, I saw the sword bird opening portals!�
�Water, salt, or blankets may do for your everyday fires, my love, but the only dealing with blue flames is to run as fast as your legs can take you.�

Using Them In Combat
The Disciples are primarily magical antagonists, they only get close to their enemies when necessary. Though there are a few exceptions to this like Flamers, and Ogroid Thaumaturges, Flamers love to the get into the fray, and Thaumaturges prefer to stand back and cast, but once in battle can't help themselves.
High-Ranking Disciples can fly due to taming daemons converted into Discs of Tzeentch. They take advantage of this to stay well out of melee combat, and to create hazards on the battlefield.
Daemons themselves fight fearlessly, for they can't die and instead return to Tzeentch to be reborn into a more dangerous and chaotic creature. Tzeenchian Daemons keep track of who killed them in battle for when they eventually return, so they can hunt them down and obtain their revenge.
The Disciples of Tzeentch while skilled on the battlefield, generally try to avoid being forced into a fight. They prefer to manipulate things from behind the scenes. It is rare to find them alone, for the powerful plot in small groups, and the minions appear in near unending swarms.

Discs of Tzeentch
Each Disc of Tzeentch used to be a Daemon called a Screamer. Powerful disciples bind these daemons to their will, then alter their shape into one more pleasing and battle-ready. They are rendered harder then steel, and tend to be covered in spikes, teeth, blades, eyestalks and other things. They fly through the air on magical winds and ectoplasam, and only truly powerful mages tend to be able to command them.
But for the most part the Discs tend to have only a tenuous relationship with their rider. If the rider dies they tend to just go back to the Realm of Chaos and revert back to their original form, unless a powerful mage comes to them they deem worthy. While their riders tend to either be deamonic or heavily mutated, there are rare sorcerers who have taken one as a trophy from a slain foe.

The Blue Scribes

Are the only named characters in this book. Every once in a while Tzeentch creates creatures for specific role, and elevates them above the screaming rabble. P'tarix and Xirat'p the Blue Scribes are examples of this. Similar in form to normal Blue Horrors, their purpose is to travel the realms and find all spells in existence. While they work together, both of them dislike and distrust the other. When he created them, Tzeentch infused them with jealousy towards the other and but bound them together cause they can't do their job alone. P'tarix can write the magical symbols, but is incapable of casting them, while Xirat'p can read and cast the symbols but can't understand their meaning. As a result they fly around being grumpy while fulfilling their purpose, recording every spell that has been or will be.
The Blue Scribes are Medium Daemons (Disicples of Tzeentch) Chosen. They have Average Melee and Defence, and Good Accuracy they don't barely use. No Armour, 10 Toughness and a Mettle. They are not overly stronger or fast or impressive. Their only attacks are to toss Sharpened Quills or let their Disc Bite people (Which is stronger attack then they can do) Their Traits are Disc of Tzeentch they ride around on top of a Disc, and can use an action to have it attack with it's Teeth and Horns. Scrolls of Sorcery As an action the Blue Scribes can cast one random spell using one of their scrolls. This does not require a test and is successful at the minimum number of successes needed, and the spell can't be unbound. Frantic Scribbling One per turn when a spell is cast, the Blue Scribes can make a Mind Arcana Test as a free action the DN being the same as the spell cast. If successful they record the spell and can cast it using their Scrolls of Sorcery instead of a random spell. Lastly Spellcasting they known every spell of the Common Lore not just the four basics, 5 other spells of any Lore, and Boon of Tzeentch (If cast servants of Tzeentch in the Blue Scribes' zone get +3d6 to Channelling Tests. Extra successes increase duration). Also they can unbind.

Curseling

Wizard-Warriors blessed by Tzeentch with a second body and consciousness growing out of their torsos. They are called the Eye of Tzeentch by fellow Cultists, and were once mages who delved too deep into forbidden knowledge, this then festered into a daemonic spirit called a Tretchlet. The Tretchlet forms a symbiosis with their host, feeding on their flesh, while granting extra power and encouraging them to seek greater mysteries. They tell their host dark secrets while devouring spells and spitting them out to protect their host. A Curseling is also valuable as an inquisitor as Tretchlets can taste lies on the air and can pull secrets out of the unwilling.
A Curseling is a Medium Humanoid (Corrupted by Chaos) Champion. They have Good Melee and Accurcy, and Average Defence. Heavy Armour, 10 Toughness, and a Mettle. They are perfectly normal in terms of speed as most Tzeentchians are. They are armed with two weapons a Blazing Sword that Rends, and a Staff. For Traits they have Additional Limbs They can Dual wield their two handed staff and sword at the same time. Disrupter of the Arcane When unbinding they double Training in Channelling, and if they unbind a spell, they can cast it as a free action using the same result as the unbinding roll. This spell also can't be unbound. And Spellcasting they have a slightly different loadout then the basics. Arcane Bolt, Arcane Wave (Deal Damage to all creatures in the casters zone), Mystic Shield and their unique Glean Magic (Read the mind of a spellcaster, learn one of their spells and cast it as a free action). Naturally they can unbind too.

Flamer

Bizarre looking conical daemons. They fly around by shooting wyrdflame out of the toothy maws located around their bodies, cackling loudly. Their greatest joy is setting everything on fire and will attack near anything to do this. Their flames also form into replications of their victims' death throes, and will continue screaming and burning even long after a Flamer has been slain.
A Flamer is a Medium Daemon (Disciple of Tzeentch) Warrior. They are Average in all stats. They have no Armour and a fairly low 5 toughness. While they can fly they have low Initiative. Their weapons are their Flaming Maws which are Magical, and their Capricious Warpflame a Medium Range weapon with Magical and Spread. For Traits they have Born of Warpflame which makes them immune to both magical and non-magical heat and flame. Guided by Billowing Flames If two or more Flamers are in the same zone it's a Major Hazard. And Touched by Fire if hit by a melee attack their attack suffers 2 damage.
Flamers also have a Variant in the Exalted Flamer. Which makes a Flamer a Champion with 1 Mettle. And it's Capricious Warpflame attack is replaced with Billowing Warpflame which does extra damage loses spread, but the Zone it's target is within becomes a Major Hazard that ignore Armour, and at the start of the next round the Hazard shifts to a random adjacent zone.

The final five of this section have a complicated writeup so I will finish Tzeentch next time.

# ? Jun 23, 2021 21:28

JcDent: May 13, 2013; Give me a rifle, one round, and point me at Berlin!

Man, those Symbaorum adventures are definitely very Degenesis without sex nonsense in tone. The whole Beast attack almost feels incidental to the plot you're following, especially since we're told that the showboating lady will not be appearing in the adventure.

# ? Jun 24, 2021 07:22

illhousen: Jun 12, 2021

Joe Slowboat posted:

Hellboy 5e

Is this meant to be genuine concern that ghosts will be offended by player characters not wanting to die? The Ghost section started off saying death is two of the five worst things that can happen to you! And earlier lore section even mentioned that ghosts helping out the Bureau is incredibly rare, so, what�s the intended tone here? Already these notes feel less like actual efforts to express the Bureau�s sensitivity towards Enhanced Talents Agents and more like a rather questionable parody of trying to be sensitive - Human Resources being officious and nosy without actually helping anyone. If it�s a joke, it�s not that funny and not in great taste; if it�s meant seriously, it�s baffling.

My first thought reading it was that it suggested not to ask what's the worst that could happen because the ghost would inevitably answer, "Well, you could die, return as a ghost, continue working for the Bureau, and then they'll cut your paycheck in half because 'you don't have living expenses anymore'" and ~~it's against the Bureau's policy to discuss salaries between employees~~ that would just bum out everyone.

Or something along those lines: not that you would offend the ghost, but that the ghost can tell you exactly how bad things could get.

Your interpretation is probably more valid in light of previous context, though.

quote:

And at long last, we�re done with Origins. God help me, classes are next.

How do you even do classes in Hellboy? Admittedly, I didn't read much of the comic, but from what I've seen, agents tend to be broadly competent in agent-like work (they're good at investigating stuff and not freezing up in a fight, basically), and then it's down to whatever your powers (origin) gives you. The big guy himself is mostly just a regular two-fisted detective, it's just that his right fist is indestructible.

And with this stuff being determined at Origin section, what's left for classes? Soldier/scholar/spy?

quote:

All in all, Origins in Hellboy 5e are extremely laboriously trying to create a system that lets you assemble your character�s background yourself without breaking with the 5e norm, but end up being both overly complex and still not even close to flexible enough. There�s a feat we�ll get to eventually that summarizes my whole thought process here: Defy Classification. It�s a feat that lets you be something that isn�t explicitly one of these Origins, and if the origin set-up were better, it would have no reason to exist.

What I get out of it is that Hellboy RPG really needs a system where you can just come up with some oddball concept on the fly and then make it work mechanically. Either something abstract like Over the Edge where individual powers don't really matter mechanically, or something effect-based where you assemble your powers out of building blocks.

(Horrifyingly, it means GURPS actually was a fairly logical choice for the previous incarnation of the game. Certainly, as we see here, there are worse options.)

illhousen fucked around with this message at 07:39 on Jun 24, 2021

# ? Jun 24, 2021 07:37

The Lone Badger: Sep 24, 2007

illhousen posted:

What I get out of it is that Hellboy RPG really needs a system where you can just come up with some oddball concept on the fly and then make it work mechanically. Either something abstract like Over the Edge where individual powers don't really matter mechanically, or something effec-based where you assemble your powers out of building blocks.

(Horrifyingly, it means GURPS actually was a fairly logical choice for the previous incarnation of the game. Certainly, as we see here, there are worse options.)

Atomic Robo has a fairly similar kitchen-sink-style approach to setting, and it encourages unique characters. You could presumably hack it to do Hellboy.

# ? Jun 24, 2021 07:39

JcDent: May 13, 2013; Give me a rifle, one round, and point me at Berlin!

From Hell pt. 19: Dushani

Degenesis Rebirth
Katharsys
Chapter 10: From Hell
DUSHANI

Maaan, I remember scoring a primo threesome after a Voice of Decay concert back in 1992.

Dissonance

Preservist Schake is taking part in blowing up a stele that probably doesn't have have the integrity to stand on its own anyways:

quote:

Smooth granite, as high as the portal of the Hall of Judgment in Justitian, but no thicker than an arm, engraved with circles and wave patterns.

High, thin, engraved? Probably not gonna withstand the elements and fatter pigeons for long. :grovertoot:

Anyways, this brings out the Dushani which immediately turn Shake�s commander into so much mist, and mind control her.

quote:

Hours later, a constant up and down wakes her. She is walking. Only it�s not her. Her eyes see the forests of the Balkhan, see her arms that do not obey her anymore. Something�s inside her head, feeling very much at home there.

No, the Dushani don't have any outright mind-control powers. It�s somewhat dumber than that.

But at least it won�t be used for sex weirdness! :comfysamus:

Yo, this dude has tied three meters of old USB cord to keep his boner from flopping around. Click for uncensored.

Strengthening

quote:

The Dushani sheds the last remnants of humanity and rationality. He is free, a creature of instinct, with a heightened perception that registers smells, sounds, air pressure, cold sweat, and even emotions. He�s the perfect predator.

Overload raises dushani's INS skills, which he already has 8D in. He does it when he detects a disruption in the �sound carpet,� forcing him to go on a hunt, and it lasts for an hour. Not sure if that will ever be relevant.

So yeah, Instinct is the dominant attribute for the Dushani.

Focus

Dushani do geoscaping to improve ~~feng shui~~ the sound carpet. They sense soundwaves and also use sound as a weapon.
They can also do off-brand memes.

quote:

They also affect the archetypical deep structures of the brain, reducing humans to a prehistoric state and making them speak in tongues. The Dushani call this the primal language that links all creatures across hundreds of millennia of evolution.

Hey, it's how they handwaved away the African language barrier removal! I guess you can give props for that non just being a bit of �Africa weird�, I guess? :shrug:

Dushani may be the �perfect predators,� but they're also monkeys �that are creative and curious: they follow interesting sounds or can be mesmerized by a demagogue�s voice,� so get the Scrapper to make a music box and leave it on an IED.

The Dushani chakra is the throat.

Focus

Even a despored Dushani talks in the primal language everyone understands. Must be nice to working on the kernel level, I guess. :eng99:

Symbiosis

quote:

Their homes are the dark forests, high mountains, and deep lakes of the Balkhan. The creatures they command are creatures of the deep and dark, too: Bog Krakens, jellyfish, crab, and bats.

Yes, the Dushani are the first Aberrant (and the only, if memory serves) that can command mammals. It's either that or Marko believes bats to be bugs.
The Earth Chakra is the Usud crater.

KNOWN PHENOMENA

Is the �known� bit there because of futureproofing/to give themselves more space to just pull dumb powers whenever plot requires?

Lords of Second Plague � Level 1

Dushani use dogwhistles to attract [s]white supremacists[/b] �shadows of the deep � creatures who are just as strange as the Psychonauts themselves.�

One animal comes per point of overload to give +2D to phenomena (up to +8D) by accompanying Dunshani's Disney mockbuster songs. It's difficulty 4 to hit and kill the animal... but as we'll see in the stats, you're better off just icing the Dushani.

Echolocation � Level 4

Gee, I wonder what this does? At least it says that Dushani use their eyes if there's enough light.

quote:

Voivodules, however, report encountering Dushani with full masks that rise high above their shoulders, with only the mouth left open.

So not all Dushani are cyber perverts? News to me. Also, the reason for the masks is never addressed.

This Phenomenon needs no activation, makes night look like the brightest day and, ugh, reduces poor visibility penalties by overload? And here I thought that pitch darkness was already peak visibility impairment.

Speaking in Tongues � Level 5

Memes the power:

quote:

The Dushani speaks in tongues. The primal language seems like a meaningless string of syllables and gutturals. Humans understand it, though. Not the rational, thinking part of the mind: the subvocal sounds pass the barrier of consciousness, latch onto basic archaic patterns and rob the human of his freedom of thought. He now obeys the Dushani�s will.

Why... why would some primeval language be like opening the human command line? :psyboom:

It's still just language, it's not like more archaic languages are more persuasive, with the oldest language being just outright mind control, Snow Crash be damned!

Then again, if you think that having memes makes you into Yuri from Red Alert 2, you can probably believe this nonsense as well.

quote:

A human can defend against the Phenomenon with a successful PSY+Willpower/Faith (overload) roll. If the roll fails, all dams burst. The Psychonaut demands; the human obeys: the Dushani takes control.

Hope you pumped Willpower/Faith!

Luckily, the power stops working once the Dushani is out of hearing range� which implies that if a Dushani makes your Anabaptist attack you, just loving run until your friend can�t hear them anymore.

I've watched enough hentai to know where this is going!

Resonance - Level 5

If the Shroom Daddy didn�t love you, you probably have this power instead of the equally-costed mind control. This does Overload in Ego Damage if the enemy fails a PSY+Fath/Focus roll. Woo, sure love burning my power points to get a power that�s much shittier!

Tongues of Babel - Level 6

A metagame skill! If the players fail the same saving roll as with the past two powers, they can�t talk to other players. Not characters! Players.

quote:

No one understands anyone else. The players whose Characters are affected may not coordinate their Actions anymore. This Phenomenon lasts for 4 combat rounds.

Or maybe that just doesn�t allow you to do assists, in which case� literal mind control is still cheaper. :effort:

Wave Crest - Level 7

Barney-level of purple in the prose describing sound powers, this time for the ability that disintegrated the Spitalian in the intro fiction:

quote:

The songs of the Dushani superimpose each other and compress to a stationary wave. Dust rises; little stones follow trembling and swim through the compressed sound. An invisible wave peak looms, engulfing the song, keeps charging up�

The compression is transparent and only announced by a soft rustle. Around it, other sounds fade, the teeth ache, and breathing becomes difficult. Those who try and touch the wave peak feel a sharp pain in their bones. The callus is milled from the fingertips without any resistance and dances through the Phenomenon as dust: the high frequency oscillation tears organic tissue

The WAVE PEAK WAVE PEAK WAVE PEAK takes several turns to build up. �Every successful activation� raises the level of the Phenomenon by 1, increasing the diameter and damage by 1 as well. Armor doesn�t work against that!

The book notes that this is usually done by several Dushani at the same time to build up the crest in 1 round.

quote:

A wave peak must be kept up by at least 1 Psychonaut, or it shatters with the sound of a thousandfold splintering.

Foul Seed - Level 10

Fail the test like in all previous powers, and the Dushani implants a command that will resurface weeks later. Then you get to do the test again, and if you fail, well, you�re the Dusharian Candidate.

This power is just there to gently caress with players long after the Dushani issuing the command is dead, because I can hardly see where a situation would arise where the Dushani would encounter the group in a non-combat scenario or survive a battle.

quote:

Its next chance to resist only comes when the foul seed forces it to act against a typical way of thinking or acting. People with low Willpower or Faith are lost

What happens if it implants some scummy idea in an Apocalyptic, who�s scummy by default? Does he get to resist?

Mountain Slide - Level 16

This allows the Dushani to cause an avalanche, actual proximity to any sort of mountain be damned.

quote:

This Phenomenon tears apart all Dushani songs for kilometers around. Like a bee that stings only once and will then die, a Dushani will use this Phenomenon only in a moment of sheer desperation and overload it to the max, for all Lesnje in the vicinity will then hunt him.

Outside this bit of fun times, a char has to roll AGI+Mobility (overload) or suffer 1D+(overload) damage. For desperate action, that sure seems to imply a high degree of control over the avalanche from the Dushani. Oh, and overload goes down one per round until it reaches 0, at which point the avalanche ends.

VARIANT: VODJANOI

They�re like the drowning demons of folklore, in that they live near lakes and stuff.

quote:

According to research by the Spital, the Vodjanoi join the songs of the Dushani Mokosch and amplify it.

The �the� before �Dunashi Mokosch� implies that there�s only one, but we get a Mokosh variant later, so supposedly there are several.

pre:

P R O F I L E : V O D J A N O I
INITIATIVE: 6D / 2 Ego Points
SPORE INFESTATION: Max. 18, currently 18
SPECIALTY: swarm strength 2
(+4D to Phenomenon activation)
ATTACK: Embrace, 8D, special: The Dushani embraces his victim and jumps into a body of water with it. Rules for drowning apply. 
The victim counters with BOD+Force or AGI+Mobility.
DEFENSE: Passive 1
Melee active -
Ranged combat active -
Mental 2D (no effect in primal phase)
MOVEMENT: 5D
ARMOR: Amplifier mask
(+1D to Phenomenon activation), Armor 1
CONDITION: 12 (Trauma: 6)
SPECIAL DEFENSE: Ink cloud
The Vodjanoi emits a violet aerosol from his hose mask that clings to him in veils for seconds and that swirls up
with every movement. His passive defense rises by 4 until his next Action. The activation takes up no Action. 
He can use the ink cloud up to 4x.

It�s cool how the Vodjanoi�s sole attack is trying to hug and drown someone, distance to water be damned. Also, notice how Vodjanoi are somehow immune to drowning themselves.

As for the ink cloud� where do the Dushani get all those techno reiver masks? That stuff looks fairly modern and of advanced manufacture, so where do they come from? Is it the same factory that produces giant axes for Biokinetics?

None of that really matters, because a Hellvetic or any other ranged character will 360 noscope his non-defending, Armor 1, 12 wound rear end.

VARIANT: LESNJE

A Lesnje looks identical to a Vodjanoi, but can be found wandering the wilds instead.

quote:

Every dissonance catches their ear, and they track it down. Humans or animals in the Mokosch sound funnels are killed, but misguided and decoupled Vodjanoi also have to fear their spear.

We don�t even know what the sound funnels are yet.

quote:

They are the Earth Chakra�s immune system and keep the Mokosch sound matrix clean.

Man, �x is the immune system of y� is just the comparison that every hack writer goes for, ain�t it?

pre:

P R O F I L E : L E S N J E
INITIATIVE: 8D / 3 Ego Points
SPORE INFESTATION: Max. 18, currently 14
SPECIALTY: INS+Perception 14D
ATTACK: Shear sickle, 9D, range 2 m, damage 7, cutting (2T, +1D damage)
DEFENSE: Passive 2 (erratic movements)
Melee active (Block), Melee 9D
Ranged combat active -
Mental 4D (no effect in primal phase)
MOVEMENT: 9D
ARMOR: Armor mask, Armor 2
CONDITION: 14 (Trauma: 6)

A bit less of a blood sausage waiting to be popped than the Vodjanoi, but probably even easier to kill due to not having funky ink powers. On the other hand, it has enough Truffel Spunk to reliably mind-control your dudes forever.

VARIANT: MOKOSH

quote:

The Mokosch wanders the Balkhan off the beaten tracks, crossing forests and climbing mountains. The hoses of his masks coil like snakes. His hands move through the air, separating and modeling sound streams.

Where did he get the mask anyways?

Anyways, a Mokosh searches for �a natural sound box� and starts doing geoscaping as soon as he finds one:

[quore]
He will build clay walls to eliminate sound blockers and channel water into caverns to vary the timbre.
[/quote]

After hanging up a �Live, Laugh, Chakra� sign, the Mokosh will start boosting the local Dushani song. The humans have grown used to it to the point where they ignore it as background. But if you go up to the mountains, you return changed.

quote:

The Mokosch has implanted him with alien memories, maybe one person�s, maybe a dozen�s. According to legend, the Mokosch once created human culture through this inspiration.

This again implies that there�s only one Mokosch, but why isn�t he then presented as an actual character, and not a variant? Anyway, why would anyone go into the mountains to be reformatted? Bad love? Shame? Big desire for der funky beats? And how come this reprogramming is the only off-screen Psychonaut power that fittingly doesn�t get any rules?

pre:

P R O F I L E : M O K O S C H
INITIATIVE: 7D / 4 Ego Points
SPORE INFESTATION: Max. 28, currently 28
SPECIALTY: Swarm strength 4 (+8D to Phenomenon activation)
ATTACK: Only uses Phenomena
DEFENSE: Passive 2 (erratic movements)
Melee active -
Ranged combat active -
Mental 3D (no effect in primal phase)
MOVEMENT: 6D
ARMOR: Mokosch mask (rises above the torso,
hoses are like a curtain, +2D to Phenomenon activation), Armor 4
CONDITION: 16 (Trauma: 8)
SPECIAL DEFENSE: Ink cloud, see Vodjanoi
ALLIES: Several Lesnje are close by and protect the Mokosch.

Outside of having ablative Lesnje for defense, the Mokosh is extra hosed if someone gets close, since he can�t defend from melee. He�s also hosed in ranged combat, but which one of these rave wieners isn�t?

Eidolon

Dushani determine seniority by how stupid their masks are

A side-saction that, sadly, isn�t about the dumbest high-ranking officer in the Emperor�s Children Legion:

quote:

He is the voice. The voice that created the world, that keeps it alive, and that will destroy it one day. He is Eidolon, the higher self of the Dushani, the vibration that all others of his Earth Chakra can only modifyto a tiny degree.

His home is the concrete monoliths at Laibach. If only Triglaw would finally accept that and free the life he has been holding prisoner in his rotten heart for centuries.

The final confrontation is unavoidable. Laibach will tremble.

I have no idea what the thing about Triglaw means. :shrug:

In conclusion: Dushani
The Dushani at least have powers tied to their noise control abilities. But as we saw, they�re badly balanced, and easily punkable by a character who invested in Focus/Faith (which is starting to feel like the God-stat when it comes to dealing with Psychonauts) or earplugs or guns.

An optimized player party ambushes a Mokosh

That the literal mind control power costs equally or less than other attack powers is amazing.

It doesn�t help that the Dushani are paper thin, like, starting-character-level weak.

And where do they get their loving masks, and why? :psypop:

Next time: the logical conclusion of PUA pheromone tricks

# ? Jun 24, 2021 08:58

Loxbourne: Apr 6, 2011; Tomorrow, doom!
But now, tea.

illhousen posted:

Mind, some combinations are still loving weird, like high Gentleness low Kindness

Sounds like Granny Weatherwax from Discworld - cannot be having with your crap, but will solve your problems with genuine selflessness. Just brutally, with a rusty hatpin.

That "give counsel to resist bad things" mechanic is actually an interesting and thematic idea. With a more solid set of game mechanics, you could get an interesting system with a genuinely Biblical tone out of that.

# ? Jun 24, 2021 11:43

Hipster Occultist: Aug 16, 2008; _{He's an ancient, obscure god. You probably haven't heard of him.}

JcDent posted:

Man, those Symbaorum adventures are definitely very Degenesis without sex nonsense in tone. The whole Beast attack almost feels incidental to the plot you're following, especially since we're told that the showboating lady will not be appearing in the adventure.

It's a lot more up front in what it is, which doesn't make it better but it is at least refreshing? (It's also definitely not filled with sex-based squick, which is a welcome change) Degenesis pretends to be this amazing sandbox a gm can tailor to their liking, while Symbaroum straight up tells you it's on rails. As far as the narrative goes, I do like some of the NPCs and twists the narrative takes (mostly in future books), it'd probably be a solid Netflix series. As a game? Not so much.

JcDent posted:

Eidolon

Dushani determine seniority by how stupid their masks are

A side-saction that, sadly, isn�t about the dumbest high-ranking officer in the Emperor�s Children Legion:

I have no idea what the thing about Triglaw means.

I kinda glossed over it in Justitian: Moloch, but Triglaw has Eidolon captive in an underground chamber in Laibach. Triglaw had been broadcasting radio interference that was preventing the Needles from carrying out their plans, but then by coincidence Eidolon tuned himself to that frequency and cancelled it out. It's not clear, but I assume that's when our techno-zombie friend captured Eidolon for loving with his poo poo. Eidolon has a remote controlled Spitalian hiding amongst the Defilers (sewer canal homless) in Justitian apparently trying to figure out Triglaw's weakness or something.

# ? Jun 24, 2021 11:56

By popular demand: Jul 17, 2007; IT *BZZT* WASP ME--
IT WASP ME ALL *BZZT* ALONG!

Loxbourne posted:

That "give counsel to resist bad things" mechanic is actually an interesting and thematic idea. With a more solid set of game mechanics, you could get an interesting system with a genuinely New Testament tone out of that.

<>

The old Bible is all about smiting or getting smote and only occasionally getting a reasonable explanation why.
Which is pretty darn close to DnD actually.

# ? Jun 24, 2021 12:16

JcDent: May 13, 2013; Give me a rifle, one round, and point me at Berlin!

Hipster Occultist posted:

I kinda glossed over it in Justitian: Moloch, but Triglaw has Eidolon captive in an underground chamber in Laibach. Triglaw had been broadcasting radio interference that was preventing the Needles from carrying out their plans, but then by coincidence Eidolon tuned himself to that frequency and cancelled it out. It's not clear, but I assume that's when our techno-zombie friend captured Eidolon for loving with his poo poo. Eidolon has a remote controlled Spitalian hiding amongst the Defilers (sewer canal homless) in Justitian apparently trying to figure out Triglaw's weakness or something.

I think you did mention something like it.

The "remote control Spitalian" thing kinda demonstrates how vague the effects of the deep mind insert power is, namely, how complex can the instructions be? And how long does it last?

# ? Jun 24, 2021 12:48

illhousen: Jun 12, 2021

Loxbourne posted:

That "give counsel to resist bad things" mechanic is actually an interesting and thematic idea. With a more solid set of game mechanics, you could get an interesting system with a genuinely Biblical tone out of that.

The game in general has some cool ideas sprinkled throughout that I dig: the focus on mental threats, the concept behind dragon battles, BEAR PRIESTS, etc.

It's just that on one side it's saddled with being an extremely old school game in the worst ways for no gain, and on the other side we have rancid ideology, so ultimately it amounts to little more than an object for mockery with an occasional "hey, I bet it would work in a better game that is not DragonRaid" thing thrown in for flavor.

# ? Jun 24, 2021 14:03

Halloween Jack: Sep 12, 2003; Can't post for 15 hours!

I'm sorry but Technoboner is hilarious.

# ? Jun 24, 2021 15:31

SkyeAuroline: Nov 12, 2020

So who's reserving the rights to the Pneumancers supplement that just dropped yesterday? Ready for more coal guns and dumb poo poo...

# ? Jun 24, 2021 15:53

JcDent: May 13, 2013; Give me a rifle, one round, and point me at Berlin!

It's between you and HC, I'm not touching any Degenesis after I'm finished with Katharsys.

# ? Jun 24, 2021 16:00

Hipster Occultist: Aug 16, 2008; _{He's an ancient, obscure god. You probably haven't heard of him.}

SkyeAuroline posted:

So who's reserving the rights to the Pneumancers supplement that just dropped yesterday? Ready for more coal guns and dumb poo poo...

I skimmed it, but I'm probably going to stay with to Symbaroum for now.

I'll probably do the next big book, but that won't be until 2022.

# ? Jun 24, 2021 16:18

SkyeAuroline: Nov 12, 2020

JcDent posted:

It's between you and HC, I'm not touching any Degenesis after I'm finished with Katharsys.

I've got RM to finish still and I don't have nearly the insights y'all do. Guess this one can languish a while.

# ? Jun 24, 2021 16:30

Everyone: Sep 6, 2019; by sebmojo

JcDent posted:

It's between you and HC, I'm not touching any Degenesis after I'm finished with Katharsys.

So did J. R. Ward consult on Degenesis? Katharsys seems in line with her goofy naming system.

# ? Jun 24, 2021 16:45

Hipster Occultist: Aug 16, 2008; _{He's an ancient, obscure god. You probably haven't heard of him.}

You should read the "Agathopoiia" (greek for right action) section in Pneumancers though, apparently the highest Sleeper Cascade are partial clones of Gerome Getrell made through Nanomachines, and that's what cashed to Earth in Nupellia.

# ? Jun 24, 2021 16:49

JcDent: May 13, 2013; Give me a rifle, one round, and point me at Berlin!

Exactly in tune with what Space Musk would do, so very stupid.

# ? Jun 24, 2021 17:21

Joe Slowboat: Nov 9, 2016; Higgledy-Piggledy Whale Statements

illhousen posted:

And with this stuff being determined at Origin section, what's left for classes? Soldier/scholar/spy?

(Horrifyingly, it means GURPS actually was a fairly logical choice for the previous incarnation of the game. Certainly, as we see here, there are worse options.)

The only sane response here is horrifying, maniacal laughter.

The Roles (the game's term for classes) are going to be a combination of 'I'm glad you can be Kate Corrigan' and 'I'm going to be a huge lore pedant about these other classes' with just a dash of 'why is being a psychic only viable if you're in HR.' There are three 'Departments' and each one has two Roles in it. Much like Origins, they're trying to put together a really wide variety of possibilities in a framework that isn't really about that.

The three departments are 'Field Operations,' 'Research and Development,' and 'Internal Affairs.'

# ? Jun 24, 2021 18:12

Halloween Jack: Sep 12, 2003; Can't post for 15 hours!

I have a lot of respect for GURPS as a product line. No other company would give us books based on everything from Discworld to the Book of the New Sun and Tschai. But the system? No, thank you. It's not terrible, just old and clunky, and if I'm going to use an old system that's fine I would probably go to BRP first. Or just find a way to do it in the Black Hack or FUDGE, honestly.

# ? Jun 24, 2021 18:26

PoontifexMacksimus: Feb 14, 2012

JcDent posted:

Eidolon

Dushani determine seniority by how stupid their masks are

A side-saction that, sadly, isn�t about the dumbest high-ranking officer in the Emperor�s Children Legion:

I have no idea what the thing about Triglaw means.

I must admit, the "song" based psychonauts originating from "Laibach" is funny

# ? Jun 24, 2021 18:47

Joe Slowboat: Nov 9, 2016; Higgledy-Piggledy Whale Statements

Halloween Jack posted:

I have a lot of respect for GURPS as a product line. No other company would give us books based on everything from Discworld to the Book of the New Sun and Tschai. But the system? No, thank you. It's not terrible, just old and clunky, and if I'm going to use an old system that's fine I would probably go to BRP first. Or just find a way to do it in the Black Hack or FUDGE, honestly.

I personally want a Dying Earth system game for New Sun, really. But I may have to check out Hellboy GURPS just to see what the lore is like there.

# ? Jun 24, 2021 19:17

mellonbread: Dec 20, 2017

I wasn't impressed with the GURPS New Sun book. It has a lot of advice for recreating the exact things that appears in the novels, but very little original content or tools for creating your own. The whole reason Solar Cycle, Dying Earth and other stories are fun is the mix of the familiar and unexpected.

IMO GURPS Chtorr is the gold standard for adapting and expanding a published setting, with a mix of canonical content and stuff made up for the sourcebook.

Joe Slowboat posted:

I may have to check out Hellboy GURPS just to see what the lore is like there.

I believe the GURPS Hellboy was written very early in the comic's run, and doesn't have most of the plot beats or lore elements from Plague of Frogs, Hell on Earth, or anything after the first few years.

# ? Jun 24, 2021 20:11

Joe Slowboat: Nov 9, 2016; Higgledy-Piggledy Whale Statements

mellonbread posted:

I wasn't impressed with the GURPS New Sun book. It has a lot of advice for recreating the exact things that appears in the novels, but very little original content or tools for creating your own. The whole reason Solar Cycle, Dying Earth and other stories are fun is the mix of the familiar and unexpected.

IMO GURPS Chtorr is the gold standard for adapting and expanding a published setting, with a mix of canonical content and stuff made up for the sourcebook.

I believe the GURPS Hellboy was written very early in the comic's run, and doesn't have most of the plot beats or lore elements from Plague of Frogs, Hell on Earth, or anything after the first few years.

Fun fact, GURPS New Sun was written by the same guy as the Lexicon Urthus, a fan compilation of interesting words in The Book of the New Sun. Which gets a few important things wrong! Gene Wolfe scholarship is a net of thorns.

And so I have no interest in the sheer paucity of the world that the GURPS version broadly displays, rather than a more sprawling 'Wolfean science fantasy universe' game or a like... cultural deep dive into the Commonwealth of Urth and the experience of a person there. I could go in for a very, like, En Garde! style Career Simulator in the Commonwealth or a similar setting, with less focus on grand adventure or Severian's pilgrimage, and more focus on the rich texture of the world. You'd need to fill out the setting a lot, of course, to go off Severian's path.

# ? Jun 24, 2021 20:23

Night10194: Feb 13, 2012; We'll start,
like many good things,
with a bear.

My one experience with reading GURPS setting writing is GURPS Myth: The Fallen Lords, because I had to see what the heck that was all about.

My impression is that GURPS setting writing is written with the assumption that most of what happens in a setting is designed around producing a GURPS game, with the assumptions of the system (and that players are interested in gaining power and increasing stats) informing the takes on all events, but also that they need to write so that the widest possible array of characters and things that show up in the setting are theoretically playable, which inadvertently led to a lot of interesting 'Well, are these Dark creatures really evil? How would one join a PC party? How would they account for a sentient suit of armor going rogue with its vengeful spirit and asking the Dark Fantasy PCs if it can join them so it can get revenge on the wizard who created it'? While at the same time talking about the studies of wizards in terms of the cost-benefit ratios of factory production of magic items for cash. It was certainly interesting.

# ? Jun 24, 2021 20:36

Humbug Scoolbus: Apr 25, 2008; The scarlet letter was her passport into regions where other women dared not tread. Shame, Despair, Solitude! These had been her teachers, stern and wild ones, and they had made her strong, but taught her much amiss.; Clapping Larry

mellonbread posted:

I wasn't impressed with the GURPS New Sun book. It has a lot of advice for recreating the exact things that appears in the novels, but very little original content or tools for creating your own. The whole reason Solar Cycle, Dying Earth and other stories are fun is the mix of the familiar and unexpected.

IMO GURPS Chtorr is the gold standard for adapting and expanding a published setting, with a mix of canonical content and stuff made up for the sourcebook.

I believe the GURPS Hellboy was written very early in the comic's run, and doesn't have most of the plot beats or lore elements from Plague of Frogs, Hell on Earth, or anything after the first few years.

The Riverworld and Humanx Commonwealth books are also pretty good for GURPS

# ? Jun 24, 2021 23:51

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# ? Apr 28, 2024 13:46

Tibalt: May 14, 2017; What, drawn, and talk of peace! I hate the word, As I hate hell, all Montagues, and thee

The GURPS original settings are also refreshingly original, in my opinion. For example, while GURPS Voodoo aged pretty poorly, the result was more grounded, more coherent, and a lot more original than World of Darkness.

Edit: THS and Fantasy II (aka The Madlands) also have some problem areas but are also pretty great.

# ? Jun 25, 2021 00:04

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