Vornheim is Mine!

See?

Written by this chap and published by this fellow, Vornheim: The Complete City Kit is, as the title might suggest, a toolkit for running urban adventures, and over the past few months I have been waiting with considerable and increasing excitement for its release. Not because of its content, although I expect that to be of a high standard, but because of the ways in which that content is conveyed, presented and displayed; this may be one of the most revolutionary rpg products published in years.

A full review will follow, once I've read it cover to cover.

One Issue Campaign, UK Edition: Part the Second

Right, so in the first post, I went through White Dwarf #67 and pulled out most of the material suitable for use in a game; now I'm going to try to hammer it into a campaignish sort of shape.

Right away I realise I have a problem: I have no map. Of the games I have to hand, Rogue Trader has a starmap, but one that's already well stocked with detail, and I'm not that fond of the sample map in Labyrinth Lord; it's a decent enough campaign map, but I'm not getting the right feel from it in this case. Instead I'm going to see what I can build from the material in the magazine, which also lets me off the hook in choosing a system for all this, as I'm still not ready to make that choice yet.

So, what have we got? There's some setting information in the adventure A Murder at Flaxton; aside from the titular village, we're told of the towns of Brecor to the north and Zerler to the south, as well as another nation across the sea, called Veridor. So that's the starting point, and I think I'll also use that advert for Games Workshop stores -- the one with the parachuting pygmy orcs -- and convert the seven shops into settlements in the game world. Quick and dirty campaign map below!

I've already identified hobgoblins and orcs as major humanoid races in the setting, and there are enough dwarves in the magazine to make them the third racial group. Humans are conspicuous by their absence -- although I suspect distant Veridor is a human nation -- but we've got a barbarian culture to put somewhere, so let's make them humans.

For some reason, D&D hobgoblins have this east Asian -- Mongolian usually -- aesthetic, so let's use that and combine it with the samurai and ninja miniatures we uncovered in the previous post. Our hobgoblins then are generic Oriental types, which ties in with the Peking Duck adventure; we'll set that in our capital of Ravenscourt, which is cosmopolitan enough to have a hobgoblin restaurant, and the Tongs in that scenario are now a hobgoblin criminal gang. Let's also turn the scenario's mafiosi into dwarves; we'll call them the "Iron Ring" and their chief enforcer is a dwarf nicknamed "The Juggernaut" for his special ability to smash through any obstacle with ease.

The head of the Iron Ring is a dwarf named Silenjax, who has made many an enemy in his time. What follows is an actual classified advert from this issue:

Rukin, hobbit extraordinaire, seeks vengeance on Silenjax, dwarven scum. May your beard grow lice and wither, you disgusting relation to Jock the American.

These in-character small ads were a much-loved part of the old Dwarf, and they reappeared in the mid-1990's with the gaming magazine Arcane. Did Dragon have something similar?

Ravenscourt is also abuzz with talk of the upcoming election. The current Lord of the Living Stone -- essentially the dwarven king -- is developing a reputation for being rather addled and absent-minded, with the Stone Parliament grumbling incessantly -- behind layer after convoluted layer of etiquette, of course, because it just wouldn't be seemly to openly criticise the Lord -- about this or that gaffe he's made. The Iron Ring have no wish to lose the freedom they've enjoyed under the incompetent rule of the current Lord, so they'll attempt to rig the election so he stays in power.

As an example of the government's impotence, a village not two days' ride from the capital has been the subject of raids by a mysterious warrior, and the populace has had to resort to hiring mercenaries such is the lack of decisive action from the government. We'll slot Thrud and Lymara in here.

To the north, Broadmarsh is the site of the Monster Colosseum, where all manner of exotic beasts are brought to fight in the arena for the entertainment of the crowds. People travel from all over the kingdom and beyond to watch and take part, but there have been grumblings -- again, not open criticism, for we are dwarves, not uncouth barbarians! -- of late that the prices for entry are too high; a number of interested parties, including both hobgoblin Tongs and the Iron Ring, are looking to get involved in a rival setup, and players could take advantage by capturing monsters out in the wilderness and selling them to the highest bidder. They might even get involved in setting up their own arena. The smugglers/slavers from A Murder at Flaxton are probably involved somewhere too, and the highest bounty of all has been offered for the legendary, possibly mythical, Jabberwock.

Recently, two adventurers named Critchlow and Harrison, one a warrior and one a wizard, went to capture a green dragon for the colosseum. The manager of the arena took it as a bit of a joke at first, but is now a bit worried about them, particularly as the wizard Harrison is an impulsive sort given to random and unpredictable behaviour; we'll work up some kind of random table for him.

The dwarf kingdom exists in an uneasy peace with the hobgoblin nation -- which we will call the Western Court, after the location of Games Workshop's Birmingham branch -- while the human barbarian tribes wander about in the southern regions, and orcs roam across the northlands; the orcs have of late been using unusual tactics -- such as parachutes -- in their raids, the result of one of their chieftains being possessed by an insane spirit that is trying to turn the greenskins into an army of conquest. I'm thinking that it's the spirit of some old crackpot inventor who was never taken seriously in life, and is now exacting vengeance through weird science and gonzo tactics. The orcs don't mind that old chief Jukka -- name pinched from the classified ads -- has gone a bit funny, because the raiding and pillaging is even more fun as a result.

That spirit is not the only one causing trouble across the land. A banshee plagues the town of Arndale, her cries causing a death each night, while across the mountains in Goodramgate, the people not only have to contend with parachuting orcs, but also a spectral black hound with fiery red eyes and a tendency towards PSYCHIC VIOLENCE. Further south, not even the famed soldiery of Broadmarsh can do anything about the malevolent Will-o-Wisps haunting the town's outskirts, driving away trade and leading travellers to their doom. Even the capital itself is suffering, as poltergeist activity is on the increase in Ravenscourt, yet another crisis for the Stone Parliament to watch unfold, powerless to intervene.

These baleful undead should be trapped on another plane, locked away by the magic of the Vivimancer Agaard -- name borrowed from Paul Agaard, Games Workshop's new (in 1985) events manager -- but the Vivimancer has grown bored of his lot and has let these beings go loose, in the hope that they will be tracked back to him in his lair on the plane of Elysium and he can be given a final death. Agaard's house servant is a centaur called Cowley. Cowley likes to wear a bowler hat as he attends to the Vivimancer's flower gardens, and I imagine him to be your typical snooty and superior Jeeves type, only a centaur.
 
As an aside, I discovered that The Gameskeeper is still there today, so well done to them!

As luck would have it, deep in the barbarian lands to the south is a portal to other planes and dimensions. It is in the control of a beautiful but excessively violent woman named Ashley who goes to battle sky clad and swinging twin broadswords; she has managed to get the portal to work in one direction, plucking warriors from across the multiverse -- here are our GURPS lot -- to fight at her side, but her true goal is to use it to escape this world.

The other barbarian tribes are either unaware of Ashley's plans or are busy with other concerns; the fifty-year-long autumn is due to come to a close, and the druids and shamans are turning their spiritual energies towards preparing for the Long Winter to come, as they cannot merely flee underground like the dwarves. They also have to deal with a beast they call Hiihtajantie -- name again stolen from the classified ads -- a vast purple gargoyle-like thing which has of late been stealing livestock and even the odd tribesman. Hiihtajantie is the size of a dragon, and the glowing lights which orbit its head are said to have a number of magical effects, including hypnosis. As the barbarians are an insular sort at the best of times, the arena owners up north haven't yet heard about Hiihtajantie the Disco Beast.

That's enough to be getting on with, I think. I've used almost everything from my initial list, and I've discovered some more bits and pieces while doing so. I'd start the campaign off with A Murder at Flaxton, then there are plenty of options for the players to explore. They could get involved with the organised crime element, engage with the politics of Ravenscourt, or spend their time monster hunting for the colosseum. At some point they might run into the ghost problem, which would then lead on to some planar travel and a big fight with an astral hippie. As for a system, I still haven't made that choice, although I'm leaning towards some kind of BRP variant, perhaps RuneQuest or maybe the core BRP book itself. That said, there's enough common ground between BRP and D&D that one could convert the Call of Cthulhu and RuneQuest material over with relative ease.

So that's that. I have too much gaming on my plate as it is, so I don't think I'll be using this any time soon, and as such I release it to the community. Do with it what you will!

One Issue Campaign, UK Edition

I've decided to have a go at Jeff's brilliant idea. First of all, here are the rules:

1. Start with set of core rules, preferably one a small amount of setting material or a strongly implied setting. Too much setting info will spoil the soup I think, while none whatsoever will serve as an insufficient basis.
2. Get a single issue of Dragon or some other gaming mag.
3. Squeeze every possible of iota of usable information out of that magazine and nothing else to flesh out a campaign for your ruleset.

I don't think I've ever owned a single issue of Dragon, so I'm breaking the rules already. Delving in my rpg box, I have uncovered White Dwarf #67, from July 1985, somewhere in the middle of the magazine's Back When It Was Good period.

In this post, I'm going to go through the magazine and pull out the most useful material as it strikes me. In the next post, I'll try to meld it all together into a playable campaign.

Let's start with the cover, by Mark Bromley. We've got a warrior -- perhaps a proto-Warhammer Chaos Warrior -- bursting through a wooden door, only he's not. From his pose, we can see he's not moving forward with any great speed, and yet the door has been smashed to the ground, and one of the metal hinges has been bent out of shape. This suggests either that the warrior is moving through a gap someone else has already made, or he's of such great strength he doesn't have to take a run up to annihilate a wooden door. It's also not clear if he's human; there's an element of dwarfishness to him, but the door also seems to be scaled to his size.

Jeff's cover star became the main villain of his campaign, but I don't think this fellow is destined for that. Instead, let's say he is a dwarf, and let's also say that he's possessed of some kind of Juggernaut type ability with which he can deliver massive kinetic blows without a run up. Behold the Juggerdwarf!

Inside, we've got adverts for what appears to be a Games Workshop edition of Middle-Earth Roleplaying as well as Grenadier Miniatures' UK division. There's not much there to steal, although the Grenadier page has a photo of a samurai taking on two ninjas, and that's worth importing.

After that, there's a nomination form for the Games Day '85 awards, including an award for "Best Games Magazine"; given where the form is printed, and that Games Day is run by Games Workshop, I'd be surprised if the Dwarf did not go on to win this one. It does give me the idea of including some form of -- potentially rigged -- election or contest in the campaign.

After that there's the contents page and a superficial editorial from Ian Livingstone -- perhaps the above election is to install or depose a limp figurehead -- then a three page article on ghosts in Call of Cthulhu. Since this is actual game material we should use it, but it's also quite detailed, so ghosts will be a big part of the campaign and they'll have lots of special abilities as per the article. I am not turning down the chance to use a power called "Psychic Violence".

More adverts follow but there's little to swipe, aside from this delightful fellow from a strange graffiti-inspired advert for the UK series of D&D modules:

I'm not sure if this beast appears in any of the scenarios, but he's in the campaign, disco lights and all.

Reviews follow, for Star Ace, the second, third and fourth Dragonlance scenarios, and Monster Coliseum [sic] for RuneQuest. There's not much to borrow from most of the reviews, but the colosseum is in, so somewhere in the campaign setting will be a place where characters can fight captured monsters and perhaps gain employment; someone has to go out and capture the things in the first place, after all. Reviewer Oliver Dickinson has a moan about the price of the boxed set -- £16.96, or just over £40 in today's money -- so that'll be a feature of the campaign colosseum too; while it's a popular entertainment, it is considered expensive, but then it's the only game in town... until the players get involved.

Dave Langford's book reviews are next, and the most interesting thing here is the review of Brian Aldiss' Helliconia Summer, which makes me want to include great big century-long seasons in the setting. The next article is a piece on barbarian magic in RuneQuest, so we'll borrow that too, which means that we have to make room for a barbarian culture somewhere.

Thrud the Barbarian -- king of the aforementioned culture? -- follows, with Lymara the She Wildebeeste using her ample curves to distract some opponents before beheading them. That's all there is to the strip, but I'm sure we can find a space for Lymara and Thrud in our campaign. After that we have the first of the issue's scenarios, Peking Duck, a multi-faction brawl set in a Chinese restaurant in modern-day London, and with statistics for Champions and the mighty Golden Heroes, now known as Squadron UK. This may be difficult to include in a fantasy campaign without considerable modification.

Then we have an episode of The Travellers -- see a digitally remastered version here -- involving an NPC patron with arbitrary, dice-based reactions to the protagonists. Of course this is in. Facing this is a single page article on social customs in Traveller; it's basic stuff, but it prompts me to decide that social rules and customs will be a big part of this One Issue Campaign.

More adverts follow, then a mystery scenario for AD&D1, A Murder at Flaxton. Or rather, the first page of said scenario, then an early pull-out Citadel Miniatures catalogue. It features Citadel's The Lord of the Rings range -- I'm not sure if we can use that -- as well as some great hobgoblin and orc miniatures; as such, hobgoblins and orcs will be the major humanoid races in the campaign. As an aside, a set of three Citadel miniatures would have set you back between £1.50 and £1.95 in 1985, or about £5 in modern coinage. Hobgoblins are 60p each!

A Murder at Flaxton is an investigative scenario involving dwarf smugglers -- as in smugglers who are dwarves -- slavers and pirates. It's a low-level scenario, with the NPCs hovering around third level, but it might make for a good starting point. Aside from the maps, the main illustration is what looks like an early John Blanche piece showing dwarves drinking from bottles of Bugman's Best Rum, implying that the scenario is set in the Warhammer world. I don't think we'll go that far.

Even more adverts follow, including one with a picture of a nude woman with very 80's hair, make up and earrings, covered in blood and wielding two glittering swords. As a modern enlightened male, I of course deplore such horrible, exploitative cheesecake, but as a gamer I recognise that it's so over-the-top that I have to include it somewhere. After that there's the letters page, which like every other White Dwarf letters page in history is full of people moaning about how wrong White Dwarf is getting pretty much everything; the campaign will feature a bunch of grumpy old dwarves who can't stop going on about how rubbish everything is. They may be involved with the rigged election.

Following that, we have two pages on various different ways spiders in AD&D1 can kill a character. I doubt anyone has ever used this in the twenty-five years since it saw print, so let's be the first and make spiders a major hazard in this One Issue Campaign. Then we have more adverts, including one showcasing Games Workshop's seven -- yes, seven! -- shops, and featuring pygmy orcs with parachutes:

Holy Hecuba in a hairnet, these little chaps are definitely in.

The next article is the good old Fiend Factory but instead of the usual gonzo monsters, we're given the Vivimancer, an odd sort of prestige class for high level AD&D1 characters. It's not clear if this is intended for players, although since they are barred from the Prime Material Plane and only increase in level once every fifty years, I'd guess not. They seem to be a Neutral Good equivalent of the lich and use enchanted flowers to focus their magical abilities; even so, I think we have found our campaign villain.

More adverts follow -- and people say it became a glorified catalogue only after Games Workshop booted out all the rpg stuff -- but one has a picture of a centaur in a bowler hat, so he's in. Then there's Tabletop Heroes, which would eventually become the regular 'Eavy Metal modelling and painting pages, and is here hosted by Joe "Lone Wolf" Dever, although John "John Blanche" Blanche is hovering about in the shadows. There's little of interest here, although one of the figures covered is a Citadel Miniatures Jabberwock, and they're such great monsters that I have to include them in the campaign.

Then there's an article on magical backpacks, all of which have some kind of minor teleportation ability, and I can definitely see them getting some use. Then there's an advert for GURPS which is just pictures of a superhero, a Viking, a British "redcoat", a knight, two stetson-and-sixgun-toting Western characters, a Roman legionnaire and a couple of brutish monsters; this mismatched group will find their way into the campaign, I'm sure. After that, there's a news page, more adverts, the ever-popular small ads -- which could be a whole blog post in itself, although I will note for now that Jonathan Welfare of Tavistock Road is offering the all-new gladiator character class for the bargain price of £1 plus a stamped-addressed envelope -- then two colour adverts, one on the inside back cover for Citadel starter sets -- adventurers and monsters -- and one on the outside for Citadel's D&D miniature line; there are no examples of the latter, although the artwork looks like early Blanche again, and features a warrior and a wizard in mêlée with a green dragon. This pair of idiots may very well make it in.

So there you have it, White Dwarf #67 more or less cover-to-cover, with most of the playable material stripped out. Next up, I'll try to turn that lot into a campaign. I will also be choosing a ruleset, which I should have done at the beginning, but I'm a maverick, and if the pencil-pushers at City Hall don't like that, then they can shove it!

---

EDIT: The second part of the exercise can be found here.

Straying From the Path

I have been surprised with how much I've been enjoying Pathfinder. As I may have mentioned before, I've never really been a D&D player -- because, you know, Call of Cthulhu is better -- and I'd parted ways with the gaming hobby during D&D3's lifespan, so all I had to go on was stories of how popular the third edition was, how annoyed people were by the seemingly-opportunistic move from D&D3 to D&D3.5, and how the whole thing got a bit unwieldy under the increasing pile of rules supplements.

So when our group made the decision to move from D&D4 -- hereafter referred to as The Unmentionable -- to Pathfinder, I was wary, but I thought it was only fair to give it a try and see what it was like for myself.

The Pathfinder core book is a massive thing -- bigger than Rogue Trader, which was intimidating enough -- and the rules have a lot of working parts, and yet it remains quite fun to play. I suspect that this is because I've been playing as a monk, a relatively simple class; the two players who chose spellcasters are often wrangling with specialist rules and long periods of spell list preparation, all of which would be beyond my feeble mind. It's also perhaps significant that we've been playing for a while now -- we must be coming up for a year -- and we're still getting rules wrong, so it's fair to say we haven't mastered the game. Even so it has been fun, and I have no complaints, whereas by now I was ready to mutiny in our The Unmentionable game.

Paizo have just begun publishing a new Pathfinder campaign -- sorry "Adventure Path" -- called Carrion Crown -- I feel there should be a definite article there -- which owes more than a little to the old TSR Ravenloft setting, and as a horror fan, it did pique my interest just a tad. It was suggested that once we finish the Kingmaker cam... Adventure Path, we move on to this new one, and furthermore that I run it. This seemed like a fair idea.

Then I ran Carrion Hill.

What I discovered was that while I enjoy playing the game, I do not like running it in the slightest, as there's far too much stuff in there. Now, one might say that you don't have to know or use all that stuff, and that's true to an extent, but there is an undeniable feeling of obligation when you know that the rules are there, just waiting; what you get as a result is a tendency -- despite the best of intentions -- to pore through the massive four-billion-page Pathfinder rulebook to discover the correct procedure for applying fire damage to pickled gherkins, and then the game falls over dead. In other words, you could concentrate on getting the core mechanics of fighting, skills and magic right and just handwave the rest, but you'd know you were doing something wrong.

As such, while I would like to run (The) Carrion Crown, I would rather run it with something simpler like Swords & Wizardry or Labyrinth Lord -- the difference between them and D&D3/Pathfinder is more one of detail than mechanics -- but alas I know my group would never go for it, not in a month of Sundays. Not that I would use S&W -- for example -- as is; I'm quite fond of the options Pathfinder characters have, so my ideal situation would be to use the simpler game as a frame for all the major mechanics -- gherkins burn on a d6 roll of 5+ -- but front-load the complexity into the characters, perhaps even use the Pathfinder classes as they are, with minor tweaks for compatibility. I've even entertained the possibility of completely bespoke characters, so while there's no dhampir race or rogue class in S&W, I could build a one-off dhampir rogue for the player who wants one.

This would be the best of both worlds for me: lots of options for the players to mess around with, but the minimum of fiddly bits for me to wrestle with as a GM, so I can get on with the plotting and the silly voices. At the end of the day though, it's all theory and wishful thinking, as I don't think it'll fly with my lot. On the plus side, it means I get to play in (The) Carrion Crown; I'm considering a wererat barbarian or -- if I can get away with it -- some sort of zombie.

The Golfbag of Avalon

Here's a quick follow-up to the last post, with Guy providing some more data from his researches. He confirms that the first edition of RuneQuest has near-identical wording to the second edition regarding the experience system, but he has also been looking at the oft-forgotten stepchild of BRP, the wonderful and brilliant Pendragon:

Pendragon 1st edition (1985)
all skills: success + stress + referee discretion
- Requires success *and* gamemaster decision for adding a check mark: "There are times during play when the gamemaster tells the player to check one of his character's skills. This means that the character has used the skill in a time of crisis and may lean from the experience. This box is marked with a check-mark only when the skill is used successfully, and only when the gamemaster says the player may do so." (Experience Checks, Player's Book, page 39)

The second/third edition has almost identical wording, and my memory of the fourth edition is that it uses the same experience system, although I don't have a copy at hand.

Golfing: 78% (or, Familiarity Breeds Confusion)

One persistent criticism of Chaosium's Basic Roleplaying system in its varying incarnations over the decades is that of "Golf Bag Syndrome", but it's not something I've ever encountered in all my years of playing BRP-based games, so I've often been baffled by how pervasive the criticism is.

BRP works on a percentile roll-under system, so a character might have "Shotgun 57%" on their sheet, which means that the player must roll 57 or less on a d100 to succeed with that skill. The sheet will also have a little box next to that skill, and this tiny box is part of the subsystem used to simulate character development.

(I'll try to make this as not-boring as possible, but there's only so exciting this stuff can be.)

Under certain circumstances, this box is ticked -- "checked" if you're a Colonial -- and then at the end of the session or scenario,
the player rolls a d100 against any ticked skills; if they roll under the current value -- a "success", although there's no actual skill test being performed -- then there is no change, but if they roll over -- a "failure" by normal in-game rules -- then their score in that skill increases by a certain amount. This represents the character learning from their experience, in particular their mistakes, and the more competent a character becomes, the less they have to learn.

It's quite an elegant experience system, but it's been misrepresented or misunderstood over the decades, and it's this confusion which leads to Golf Bag Syndrome. The idea is that a player uses a skill, gets a tick, then pulls another skill out of their "bag", gets a tick, and so on until everything is ticked, and the game becomes some bizarre collecting exercise.

The thing which always confused me was how these players were getting ticks with such ease, when all the incarnations of BRP I knew placed all kinds of restrictions on how the ticks were awarded. I have three versions of the system to hand at this precise moment -- the Games Workshop-published third editions of both RuneQuest and Call of Cthulhu, and Chaosium's fifth edition of the latter -- and all three are quite clear in stating that ticks are only given when a skill use is successful in a stressful or notable situation, and even then only at the GM's discretion. This is far from the automatic collection of ticks outlined by the Golf Baggers. Fifth edition Cthulhu suggests that ticks be given by default for a skill roll of 01 -- a critical success, more or less -- but that's also not quite the same thing.

(I was surprised to discover that Cthulhu doesn't give a tick for a critical failure, as it's something I've always done when running the game.)

It's not, I admit, an exhaustive sampling of BRP's many guises, but it's still interesting to see that there is no sign of Golf Bag Syndrome in these version of the rules. So where does it come from?

Stormbringer, apparently.

Guy Fullerton of Lord of the Green Dragons -- although everyone in the western hemisphere is a member of that blog -- and Chaotic Henchmen Productions did a very decent thing, and instead of following the standard operating procedure of the internet and throwing his toys out of the pram, went to his books and dug out actual quotes and references to the old Golf Bag. Guy's a veteran Stormbringer, er, guy, and he's seen this glitch in action many times over the years. With his permission, I'm going to relay his findings:

Stormbringer (2nd edition boxed, 1" thick box, 1985):
- "If … your player-character scores a hit, then your character will have a chance to improve his weapon skill with the weapon that scored the hit. If you score a hit, but it is parried, you did not truly hit, and so there is no improvement by experience in such cases." (Section 3.3.1.1, Players Book, page 37)
- "If your character uses a skill while playing a game of Stormbringer, note that he has done so, and when the game is over you will have a chance to see if his skill has improved." Note that the rule does not explicitly require a successful use; it only says "use". However, the example of improvement shows a character successfully using a skill. (Section 4.1.2, Players Book, page 50)
- I looked through the gamemaster sections for additional requirements/prerequisites for gaining of a chance, and I found nothing.

So, in 1985, Stormbringer was pretty lax on experience requirements. The next two editions are more or less the same, according to Guy, except these particular rules change their positions within the text.

The only version of the game I've played is 1993's Elric! which I've always liked for the unnecessary exclamation point. Of this edition, Guy says:

- Requires success and gamemaster decision: "Sometimes, but not always, your gamemaster will instruct you to check a skill just used successfully in play." (Experience, page 51)
- Offers guidance for the gamemaster decision: "When an adventurer succeeds with a skill in a dangerous or stressful situation, the gamemaster may grant the player an experience check on the adventurer sheet." (Experience Check, page 151)

This is very close to what Call of Cthulhu fifth edition says, which suggests that there was either some attempt to consolidate BRP in the mid-1990's, or this edition of Stormbringer borrowed its text from Cthulhu rather than RuneQuest; I do recall that the layout and format of this edition was quite similar to fifth edition Cthulhu.

Guy also has a copy of the bog-standard setting-agnostic BRP core rules from 1981, and its only requirement for a tick is a successful use of a skill.

Some more data, again from Guy:

RuneQuest 2nd edition (from 1979-ish):
- Weapon skill rolls don't require an unparried hit to garner a check mark; any hit will do: "During the bookkeeping phase of each melee round (see Chapter III) the player should keep track of whether the character managed to land a blow with a weapon (it doesn't matter if it does damage, bounces off armor, or is parried) or managed to parry another attack." (Learning by Experience, page 23)
- Other skills: "To learn a skill by experience, a character must use it successfully in conditions of stress." (Introduction, page 44)

Call of Cthulhu 2nd edition (1983):
- "When a character uses a skill successfully during play, the keeper may allow that character's player to put a check by that skill." (Rewards of Experience, page 15)
- There is no separate weapon skill section.

Basic Roleplaying (2002)
- Requires success on a skill for a chance of improvement: "… check over [the] character sheet to see what skills were used during play. If your character succeeded in using skills, they should have been marked on the sheet." (Experience, page 8)
- The rest of the text content of the book looks largely similar to the 1981 version.

One could argue that Chaosium were cracking down on the Syndrome by the mid-90's, but BRP's backtracking means that it's all a bit inconsistent, and it becomes apparent that there is a possible reason both for the prevalence of Golf Bag Syndrome as a criticism of BRP, and my complete inexperience -- heh -- of the phenomenon. I first encountered the system through Call of Cthulhu, which is more strict than most versions of the game -- although the 2004 quick start rules allow a tick on any successful skill use -- while Guy got in through Stormbringer and proceeded to Golf Bag his way through the 80's and 90's.

So it seems to be that BRPers tend to pick up their habits from the first version of the system they encounter, and carry them through to other versions. I have seen this in action: my first Cthulhu GM, despite using the fifth edition rules, kept on bringing in things from RuneQuest and Cthulhu's fourth edition, entirely without conscious knowledge. I wonder if the broad similarity between BRP flavours also has the downside of concealing the -- sometimes important -- differences between them?

(Of course, sometimes you do want to mix and match, and the close familial similarities are more helpful there; I use the Elric! serious wounds table in my Cthulhu games, for example, and the recent big yellow BRP book is a wonderful toolkit for players of any of the variants.)

So I wonder how many people out there think they're playing fourth edition Stormbringer but are really playing the second edition? Or think they're playing Call of Cthulhu but are really playing RuneQuest, only with librarians? Not that there's anything wrong with any of that of course, but perhaps we should be more observant and discerning when using our chosen rulesets, if only to avoid missing something cool; the upcoming seventh edition of Call of Cthulhu apparently has some clever new rules ideas in it, and it would be a shame if they were overlooked simply because BRP is so very familiar.

Thanks again to Guy for being a good sport and digging out all the data.

EDIT: There's been an update on all this, drawing in some data from Pendragon.

Tarzan of Lothlorien

James Maliszewski said:

Here's what I'd love to see propagate across the old school blogs: an example or two like the one I posted above about orcs. I love hearing how referees have made the raw materials D&D offers their own, especially if doing so draws on longstanding information or images associated with the game. The examples don't have to be long, unless you want them to be; all I ask is that they reveal a little bit of that do-it-yourself spirit I think is so representative of our corner of the hobby.

Now this isn't really an old-school blog, and I have an on-again-off-again relationship with D&D itself, so I'm probably not qualified to comment, but I do have one hat to throw into this ring.

I've never been happy with the traditional fantasy elf. They seem too easy somehow; they're fast, intelligent, better at magic than everyone else, and are usually immortal. It's Superman Syndrome, and like Superman, there's no edginess to them, nothing to grab and twist and make interesting; the closest you get is some ill-defined malaise, like the ennui which affects Tolkien's elves, the harmful decadence of Games Workshop's Eldar, or Moorcock's Melnibonéans -- though not elves per se -- which combine both. This is of course a sweeping statement, and I'm not nearly well-read enough to identify the exceptions, of which I'm sure there are many.

Even so, it's difficult to translate these social and psychological aspects into a game about kicking in doors and killing stuff, so my thoughts have tended to follow a different, more practical, path. Taking the forest-dwelling aspect as my starting point, I've expanded that along somewhat realistic lines, influenced in no small part by an old White Dwarf article -- in #69, by Peter Blanchard -- about how underwater societies would develop without access to metalworking (no fires, see) and other such markers of civilisation.

So my forest elves would be agile and stealthy, as comfortable in the canopy as they are on ground, somewhere between the alien in Predator and your average wuxia showoff. They probably wouldn't have metalworking, since mining seems out of character and you don't want to be setting up furnaces if you live surrounded by trees; so there's no elven steel, no mithril, or any of that extraneous bling. There might be the odd item that they've stolen or traded, but for the most part these elves are using sharpened stone, bone, the odd bamboo spear here and there, and probably their fists too, as unarmed combat seems a logical consequence of a dearth of proper weaponry. On a similar note, they'd probably be nomadic, as carving homes into the trunks of trees seems too destructive, and the typical Ewok village type treetop construction would be saved for the odd meeting place rather than each and every settlement. I want them to wander the forests and not be tied down, so that when outsiders come into the woods, the elves seem like ghosts, difficult to pin down and predict.

So essentially my elves would be barbarians -- with a touch of monk -- in D&D terms, one part archetypical jungle savage, one part Princess Mononoke.

Despite their long lives, they'd have a society based around impermanence, with little in the way of metal and probably no paper, although they'd probably make use of standing stones and the like. They would be shamanistic and their magic would be based on illusion and druidery, with a fair smattering of earth-based spells in there. I'd also place more importance on their alliances with other forest dwellers, such as earth elementals, shambling mounds and even sentient animals, again like Princess Mononoke. Their utter rejection of the --literal -- building blocks of human society would make them seem more alien than the usual Immortal Skinny Bloke, and I'd consider giving them penalties when in urban situations, and perhaps full-on panic attacks when in a dungeon.

I'd keep the immunity to ghoul paralysis though, as I've always liked how strange and unexplained it is.

Oh, and no dark elves, sorry. The idea that you can tell the a "good" elf from an "evil" one just by looking at them appals me -- yes, even in a game about kicking in doors and killing stuff -- and I won't have it. You can tell my good elves from the evil ones by seeing whether they frighten off the loggers, or just skin them alive on the spot.

Pending

I have a number of useful resources to share with you all, but alas they're all tied into my upcoming Savage Eberron scenario, so I have to keep them under wraps for the moment. Look out for scans of my game notes, a handy play aid -- I don't want to say more about this one now as I want to surprise my players -- and what will, I hope, be a fun little subsystem.

Here's a hint:

Savage Eberron: Dragonmarks (Part 2)

Following on from the first part, here's the second instalment of my rules for emulating Eberron's dragonmarks in Savage Worlds. This time, I'll be looking at the individual marks and their game effects.

I've followed the general advice given by the Savage Worlds core book and have tried to use existing rules rather than create new ones. As such, most of these abilities are covered in the Savage Worlds Explorer's Edition (SWEX); a smaller number come from the Fantasy Companion Explorer's Edition (FCEX) -- which I'd recommend to anyone running a fantasy game for the system -- and two are borrowed from the Hellfrost Player's Guide (HFPG).

Each mark has two abilities: one general Trait bonus that is always active, and a special spell-like ability that can be activated at least once per day.

MARK OF DETECTION

• +2 Notice.
• Detect/Conceal: as Detect/Conceal Arcana (SWEX, p89), except limited to a specific object, which must be specified at the time of activation.

MARK OF FINDING

• +2 Tracking.

...I must admit I failed to find an existing Savage Worlds equivalent to the original Mark of Finding, and I am reluctant to simply build one. If any Savage Worlds fans out there have a suggestion, do let me know in the comments.


MARK OF HANDLING

• +2 Ride.
• Beast Friend (SWEX, p86).

MARK OF HEALING

• +2 Healing.
• Healing (SWEX, p89).

MARK OF HOSPITALITY

• +2 Charisma.
• Feast (HFPG, p88).

MARK OF MAKING

• +2 Repair.
• Reconstruct: as per Healing (SWEX, p89), except it only works on items like barriers, armour, weaponry, and so on. It also works on warforged and constructs.

MARK OF PASSAGE

• +2 Survival.
• Speed (SWEX, p94).

MARK OF SCRIBING

• +2 Charisma.
• Speak Language (SWEX, p93).

MARK OF SENTINEL

• +2 to resist Taunt/Intimidate actions.
• Armour (SWEX, p86).

MARK OF SHADOW

• +2 Streetwise.
• Darksight (FCEX, p33) or Obscure (FCEX, p40)

(One might want to split the two powers between Houses Phiarlan and Thuranni, but it might be more interesting and organic to not do so.)


MARK OF STORM

• +2 for Agility tests involving balance.
• Environmental Protection (SWEX, p90).

MARK OF WARDING

• +2 Notice.
• Lock/Unlock (HFPG, p90).

The Ministry of Blades : The Madness of Angels, episode 5

Prentiss flattens a steward; Curruthers shoulders the load.

Played

3rd February 2011.

Dramatis Personae

Lady Antonia deVore - a Heavily-armed Aristocrat (player not present).
Captain Benson Curruthers - a Military Policeman.
Doctor Zephaniah Pleasant - a Sinister Surgeon.
Miss April Sharpe - a Self-taught Inventor.
Jack Prentiss - a Dodgy Pedestrian.
Mr Erasmus Rooke - the Boss.
Henderson - a Dedicated Cryptologist.
The Chief Verger of St Paul's Cathedral.
Several Members of Staff at the Capitoline Club.
Lewis - an Unsuccessful Burglar.

Plot

Following their rebuff by the President of the Capitoline Club, Captain Curruthers and Prentiss determined to enter the premises by other means, opting for the hitherto-unheard-of disguise of workmen making a delivery. Acquiring some work clothes from a nearby shop, along with a long crate, they returned to the rear entrance to the Club. Knocking on the door, they informed the steward who opened it that they had a delivery for the Very Reverend Greenfield. When the confused young man disappeared off to confirm this, they sidled in and, using the crate as a cover, headed towards the front of the building. Finding their way up to the first floor (lounges and games rooms) and then the second (bedrooms), they were caught trying door handles by one of the stewards. Their attempt to explain that they were trying to make a personal delivery was justly ignored as they were ordered back downstairs. Prentiss lost interest and knocked him out. They dumped the unfortunate man in one of the bedrooms they’d discovered, taking his keys, but further explorations proved pointless as they were unable to discover anything new.

Curruthers and Prentiss returned to the Ministry just as Miss Sharpe and Dr Pleasant returned from their own excursion. Meeting with Lady Antonia, they found she had continued her research and had turned up some interesting information concerning Wren’s interest in sacred geometry, although it seemed he was less interested in using it for power, more as an architectural aid. They discussed the day’s discoveries and learnt of the collapse of another Wren church, before being interrupted by the somewhat manic appearance of Henderson, waving some paper about. It transpired that he had decoded some of Greenfield’s notebook, having solved a kind of enciphered shorthand. He had broken his usual habit of waiting until he had finished the whole job before reporting the results, realising that this was quite urgent. Looking at the most recent entries first, he had discovered that Greenfield had been suspicious of the activities of one Dr Jacob Sorenson, the Head Choirmaster, who had been appointed about six months earlier. While Dr Sorenson had acquitted his duties as Choirmaster admirably, he had also taken a very intense interest in the structure and history of the building. He was forever being encountered in obscure corners of the galleries, taking rubbings or drawing sketches; once or twice, he was found knocking on wooden panels and listening to the echoes. He did nothing that was actually inappropriate, at least by the [INDECIPHERABLE]'s standards, and Greenfield had been advised to wait and watch by his colleague 'ER', but then his name turned up authorising a docket for work on the walls: Greenfield had been a bit bemused by this, as that should have been the Verger's responsibility. The last entry in the diary mentioned his plan to investigate the site of the works after the masons had gone home to see if there was anything odd about them.

The team now realised that Greenfield had merely discovered the plot, not instigated it.

With time ticking on to their appointment with the employer of Lewis, they collected the luckless criminal from his cell and headed for the indicated tavern. Upon entering, they seated themselves around the lounge so as to have all fields of view covered. Curruthers then became aware that a familiar figure was trying to catch his attention from an inner doorway: it was Erasmus Rooke. Bringing them all into the private room, he paid off Lewis and sent him home. Sitting down, he explained that he had been the one that hired the burglar. Rooke and Greenfield, it appeared, were both members of a group dedicated to keeping the world safe from supernatural dangers, although Rooke refused to give any more information on this. Realising that Curruthers’ investigation would lead him to search the Dean’s home, and believing that the regalia associated with the organisation would cause an unnecessary and pointless diversion, he had arranged to remove them. Unfortunately, Lewis had been caught before he could finish the job, instigating the very situation his employer had been trying to avoid. With the most recent reports from the team indicating the scale of the situation, Rooke had decided to reveal what he knew. Between his information and what the team had discovered, they figured out the story.

It appeared that Sorenson had realised that an archangel was bound to the cathedral, in order to prevent its elaborate structure from collapsing. That archangel was also lending its strength to the rest of Wren’s London churches. Over two centuries of captivity, however, the archangel had become somewhat insane and was trying to escape. Sorenson wanted to release it and bind it to his own service, which would both collapse the churches and give him great power - assuming the archangel didn’t break free and lay waste to London first.

The team decided it was time to track down Sorenson. Heading immediately for the Cathedral, they contacted the Chief Verger, discovering that Sorenson had vanished the day the Dean died. Obtaining his home address, they gained entry to the premises, finding that they had been deserted. Curruthers did discover a map, with a crude pentagram drawn out on it, centred on Lincoln’s Inn Fields.

Suspecting trouble, they gathered weapons and headed for Holborn becoming aware of choral singing as they arrived. Venturing into the park, they saw torchlight at the bandstand, which was surrounded by choirboys, while two hooded figures were chanting in the bandstand itself.

Finding their lines of fire obstructed by apparently innocent choirboys, the team closed for hand-to-hand combat. Pleasant did his best to put the choirboys, who appeared to be possessed, out of the fight bloodlessly, while Prentiss found himself engaged in a fistfight with the larger of the two hooded figures. Curruthers brought down the chanting Sorenson with a double shotgun blast, in spite of his magical protection, but it was too late, as a misty figure began to form over the carved stone block at the centre of the ritual. Miss Sharpe’s orgonator now became useful as it wore down the spirit’s still coalescing physical form, allowing Curruthers to disperse it with a final blast from his firearm.

With the choirboys apparently safe and both villains under control, the team returned to headquarters with the stone, apparently the focus for the spirit’s bindings. The heroes passed on responsibility for the stone to Rooke who ultimately returned it to the church, in order to shore up the cathedral until it could be strengthened physically.

Notes

This episode started out fairly rushed, as I had promised to finish the whole thing this week. This meant that a number of investigations had to be completed in quick succession and I was worried it wouldn't be possible. Luckily, despite the vast amounts of exposition, the players put the details together very quickly. The final fight was nice and quick.

Next time, my investigative plots will be better planned: I'd got so far with this one, then dropped the ball, having to play catch-up. Given that the original idea was to not railroad the players, it came dangerously close towards the end.

Savage Eberron: Dragonmarks (Part 1)

Ever since I got it in my head to run the Eberron setting using Savage Worlds I knew I had to one day try to fit dragonmarks into the game. It was fortunate that none of the players requested a dragonmarked character, which has allowed me some extra time to come up with the following rules. These are the general guidelines for using dragonmarks in Savage Eberron; specific rules for the individual marks will appear later.

Dragonmarks are purchased as Edges, per the usual Savage Worlds rules, and there are four varieties: Least, Lesser, Greater and Aberrant. A character selecting an aberrant mark cannot ever choose another type of mark, nor can a bearer of a standard mark ever pick the aberrant mark.

Similarly, those with a standard mark chooses from one of the twelve dragonmark families and can never change or choose a second mark at a later date. While dragonmarks work like Arcane Backgrounds in some ways, there is no such thing as the Arcane Background: Dragonmark Edge, and the bearer of a mark may also choose an Arcane Background as normal.

Each of the standard marks provides a bonus to a Trait roll, as well as a magical ability which can usually be used at least once a day; aberrant marks lack the Trait bonus, but do bestow a magical ability. In both cases, this ability costs no power points, uses no components and operates as if the minimum number of power points had been spent; for example, the Mark of Handling bestows the Beast Friend ability as if 3 power points had been expended. Dragonmark abilities use their own skill and have no linked attribute, just like superpowers; this skill starts at 1d4 and can only be increased by upgrading the dragonmark itself.

Bearers of the standard dragonmarks are almost always members of one of the great dragonmarked houses, but receive no special treatment unless they also have Edges like Noble or Connections. On the other hand, it is possible to have Connections within a dragonmarked house without yourself manifesting a mark.

LEAST DRAGONMARK
Requirements: Novice; Human, dwarf, elf, gnome, half-elf, halfling, half-orc.
Choose one of the twelve available dragonmarks; you gain the bonus associated with the mark, and may also use the mark's spell-like ability once per day.

LESSER DRAGONMARK
Requirements: Least Dragonmark; Seasoned.
Your mark is more powerful than normal. You may choose one of the following effects:

• You may use your dragonmark ability once more per day.
• You may increase your dragonmark skill by one die type, up to d12.
• Your ability is enhanced; increase the duration or effect as if one extra power point were spent.

GREATER DRAGONMARK
Requirements: Lesser Dragonmark; Veteran.
Your mark is among the most powerful known. The effects of this Edge are identical to, and stack with, those of the Lesser Dragonmark Edge, above.

ABERRANT DRAGONMARK
Requirements: Novice; Human, dwarf, elf, gnome, half-elf, halfling, half-orc.
Your mark is strange and unusual and resembles none of the standard twelve dragonmarks. Your mark mimics one of the following powers (roll 1d6):

1. Armour (Savage Worlds Explorer's Edition)
2. Detect/Conceal Secret Doors (SWEX; as Detect/Conceal Arcana, bar the obvious difference)
3. Elemental Manipulation (SWEX)
4. Fear (SWEX)
5. Light (SWEX)
6. Wall Walker (Fantasy Companion Explorer's Edition)

It's not all good though; here's a Hindrance to go with the Edges:

DRAGONMARK OUTCAST (MINOR)
For some reason, your connections with your dragonmarked house have been severed. You may have been thrown out for some indiscretion, or perhaps they are simply not aware of your existence. You cannot call in any favours from the family, but other houses will still see you at best as a rival and at worst as a spy, so you cannot go to them either. When interacting with the dragonmarked houses, you operate as if you have the Outsider Hindrance.

Brain Eater

My primary artistic influence has always been comics. I devoured them as a child, reading them cover to cover then grabbing a pencil or pen and drawing my own stories on any bit of paper I could find. It's fair to say, however, that I was also influenced and inspired, in no small part, by the imagery of fantasy gaming. Now, since I was a bit of a solitary sort, this meant that I spent a lot of time reading issues of White Dwarf with no real understanding of what the articles were about, as I wasn't playing the games. For kids like me, there was also Fighting Fantasy, which allowed us to pretend we were playing Dungeons & Dragons, even if we had no mates. The books also had some great art -- and let's be honest, the art was often much better than the story/game in the text -- and because the British game industry was a bit isolated and incestuous back then, you'd see the same artists popping up in different publications from different companies. As a result, British gaming products of the time developed a unique look, quite distinct from the visual style of the American gaming culture.

So while the Americans would be getting this:

We'd be getting this:

No contest.

One of my favourite artists from that time was Russ Nicholson, whose work combined an eye for fine detail with a talent for making the fantasy seem eldritch and strange. His style wasn't all that similar to that of John Blanche or Ian Miller, but they all shared a proper evocation of the weird that you just didn't see in American fantasy art.

I was pleased to discover that Nicholson was not only still working, but had started a blog, and when he ran a competition to win a piece of original art, I jumped at the chance.

I won:

I've never been one for chasing original art, and I'm not sure why, as it's great to have a piece by one of my favourite artists. Thanks Russ!

The Ministry of Blades : The Madness of Angels, episode 4

April spies a spirit; Dr Pleasant meets an eccentric.

Played

27^th January 2011.

Dramatis Personae

Lady Antonia deVore - a Heavily-armed Aristocrat.
Captain Benson Curruthers - a Military Policeman.
Doctor Zephaniah Pleasant - a Sinister Surgeon.
Miss April Sharpe - a Self-taught Inventor.
Jack Prentiss - a Dodgy Pedestrian.
Mr Erasmus Rooke - the Boss.
Sir Colin Mortimer - an Eccentric Architect.
Henderson - a Dedicated Cryptologist.
Lord Abergavenny - an Irritable Noble.
William Body - a Timid Workman.
Charlie Body - another Timid Workman.
The Chief Verger of St Paul's Cathedral.
The Distraught Vicar of St Ninian's Church.
Several Members of Staff at the Capitoline Club.
Lewis - an Unsuccessful Burglar.
The Corpse of Martin Geffey.
A Young Constable.
Two Athletic Bobbies.

Plot

Following the examination of Martin Geffey’s body, the heroes reassembled at the Ministry. It was late, but before turning in for the night, Curruthers wrote out his report of the day’s events, while Lady Antonia and Dr Pleasant both made attempts to decipher some of the Dean’s books.

The following morning, Curruthers led the charge to the breakfast table where news was spreading of the sudden collapses of St Ninian’s and St Colstan’s churches in North and South East London, respectively. Rumours were also circulating of paranormal events at the Cathedral. Accordingly, they decided to pay a visit to St Paul’s, pausing to deliver Greenfield’s enciphered diary to Mr Henderson, a somewhat unusual, but very talented, individual.

Arriving, they found the building empty, with staff, worshippers and onlookers surrounding it in a big circle. They were hailed by the Chief Verger, who explained about strange figures in the aisles, mysterious shrieks and whispering in the galleries and odd lights under the dome. They decided to enter and, despite their efforts to avoid notice, were cheered on by the crowds.

As they entered, they became aware that the building was much darker than it should have been. It was also cold and, as they left the porch, the main door shut with a loud bang. Prentiss and Miss Sharpe were somewhat shaken by this, but decided to press on. They were greeted by odd noises, but were unable to trace the source and, advancing to the space under the dome, they caught a glimpse of a faint figure just beyond the range of their torchlight. Miss Sharpe turned on her Detecteronatron and saw a demonic face screaming in the smoke, bearing a similarity to the face she had seen the morning before in the roof. They became aware of a shaking in the floor and dust began to fall from the arches. A brief attempt to investigate the upper levels was thwarted by the sudden appearance of a huge crack across the floor and they decided discretion was the greater part of valour, resisting the urge to flee outright as a sudden cackling emanated from the air around them.

As they emerged from the South Door, they were hailed by the Chief Verger, who immediately introduced them to the Bodys. The workmen had finally emerged from hiding and were desperate to relate their tale of uncovering a stone block bearing a carving of a Green Man. Not long afterwards, a number of odd events had occurred, culminating in the appearance of a ghostly figure in the cavity within the wall. They had fled, although Geffey had attempted to face down the entity before chasing after them. They had seen him collapse in the alley behind them and had assumed he’d been attacked and killed, hence their hiding.

Returning to the Ministry, Curruthers sought out Mr Rooke, asking him about the Capitoline Club. Rooke expanded a little on the establishment, explaining its status as a gentleman’s club, and told him that his Ministry status wouldn’t get him in. Curruthers and Prentiss decided to try anyway and, after briefly calling in on Henderson and getting the impression he did not want to be disturbed, they headed for Kensington. They were invited into the lobby and were shown to a side room, where they were met by the President of the Club, a curmudgeonly noble known as Lord Abergavenny. He flatly refused to help them, so they left, circling around to the rear of the building, where they debated forcing an entry.

The other three heroes opted for library research. After a brief and unsuccessful investigation of possible rituals that might prevent the collapse of St Paul’s, Pleasant joined Miss Sharpe in examining the history of Green Man carvings. They discovered that they were common in medieval churches and were apparently placed by professional masons. Theories connected them to a pagan underground and they may have had some ritual purpose: either protecting the building from vengeful local spirits or possibly binding the church with the power of those same spirits. Interestingly, they discovered that Christopher Wren flatly refused to include such carvings in any of his buildings, regarding them as pagan abominations (a not uncommon opinion in the aftermath of the Commonwealth). Lady Antonia investigated Wren’s career and the building of the cathedral, unearthing his connections to Isaac Newton and to a more mystical intellectual tradition.

Miss Sharpe and Pleasant then visited the site of the collapse of St Ninian’s, one of Wren’s other London churches. Talking to the vicar, they found out that the building had no history of instability, but were then approached by a somewhat crazed individual who informed them that Wren had been up to no good, using “occult practices” to shore up impractical designs. Despite his introducing himself as Sir Colin Mortimer of the Imperial Institute of Architects, Pleasant dismissed him as “odd”.

Notes

This game was a lot of fun from my point of view, despite the lack of actual action. For some reason, I was finally able to over-emphasise the peculiarities of some of the NPC’s (Mortimer and Henderson especially), which seemed to go down well. I intend to try this more often, it’s frequently offered as a way to make sessions more memorable.

On the downside I didn’t get as far through the investigation as I would have liked. This led to some compromises in the effort to finish the story the next week.

Sun, Sea and Cyberware

Well, I wasn't intending for this to be Shadowrun Week at the blog, but what the heck.

When Tim went off to university and took his Shadowrun campaign off with him, I attempted to fill the gap. We played a few generic, disjointed sessions, but in the end we moved on to different games, and my custom setting never saw the light of day. The notes are long lost now, but I can put together the basic elements from memory.

Since I was barely out of my teens, all vim and swaggering arrogance, I decided I wanted to subvert the usual gloomy trappings of the cyberpunk genre, and as such swapped the dirty alleyways and torrential rain of the urban sprawl for the sub-tropical splendour of Bermuda.

Perhaps taking the infamous Triangle as inspiration -- which strikes me today as being quite clever, although I'm not sure I intended the metaphor back then -- I set up a three-way power struggle. Before the Awakening, the Bermuda Triangle was known as one of the world's hotspots of the weird, but with the return of magic to the world in 2011 (!), the weird became manifest. Storms of unnatural strength and size battered the islands and cut them off from the outside world, while strange things fell from the clouds and crawled from the sea.

Prior to 2011 (!) Bermuda was an important offshore financial centre for many corporations, a result of its favourable taxation system. As such they were quite keen to get back in touch with their offices there, and when the eldritch storms finally subsided, the mega-corporations raced each other -- and the British government, as Bermuda was still a British territory -- to the islands, only to find them wild and lawless, and ruled -- if that is the right word -- by a cadre of newly-empowered and quite militant shark shamans.

Today, Bermuda is officially under British rule once more, although stable government is confined to a few key locations, most notably the northern islands of St George's and St David's, with much of the rest of the land a wild zone full of wandering Awakened creatures and independent settlements. The capital -- and all that valuable financial data -- is in the hands of the shark shamans, and negotiations continue between the shamans -- who demand an independent magical state like those seen elsewhere in the Awakened world -- and the British, with the mega-corporations waiting on the sidelines, their impatience growing by the day.

There you have it, as best as I remember, anyway. There's potential for the traditional Shadowrun political and corporate intrigue, with a number of factions jockeying for position, but with all sorts of weird stuff slithering in from the Bermuda Triangle, there's also a chance for a good old-fashioned monster hunt. There's even room for some D&D-eque ruin exploration, as those abandoned corporate facilities are bound to be full of the kind of stuff that would command a high price on the shadow markets.

And of course, there's always room for speedboat chases.

Maybe That Dragonlance Movie Wasn't So Bad After All

After watching this, why wouldn't you want to play Shadowrun?



If only so that you could do it better.

Thanks to sirlarkins for the link!

Running From the Past

I blame the internet.

Stuart started it in his review of Interface Zero; a casual mention of Shadowrun got me thinking about the game again, but it wasn't until JB started a series of posts on the game that I caught the bug and dug out my copy of the second edition.

Shadowrun was my first proper role-playing game. I'd played a bit of the multiplayer Fighting Fantasy, and I was aware of the hobby, but I was more interested in Games Workshop wargames at the time. My main gaming buddy at the time introduced me to Tim, who showed us this box of miniatures he had; they were fantasy types, orcs, dwarves and the like, but they had sunglasses and machine guns. Tim told us that they were from a game called Shadowrun, and invited us to play. From that point, we played Shadowrun for about three years, although oddly enough, I don't think we ever used the miniatures.

Through Shadowrun and Tim, I discovered more games, including my first -- and until a couple of years ago, only -- encounter with D&D, and a disastrous dalliance with Traveller: The New Era. Somewhere in there, I fell in love with Call of Cthulhu, but Shadowrun was always a constant, and it was only really Tim's departure for university that ended our time with the game. I played a bit of the third edition when it came to be my turn to enter higher education, but it didn't click with me and I left it behind. Up until a couple of days ago, that was the last time I looked at a Shadowrun book.

Looking at it now, I'm surprised at how much of the system we didn't use. It's what would be called "crunchy" nowadays, in that it does not attempt to have a rule for everything, but goes into great -- and likely unnecessary -- detail on the situations it does cover. Given my tastes of late I'm almost certain that if I ran it today, I would not make use of this detail, but that's not to say that I wouldn't run it at all, as there's still a lot to like.

The central mechanic is elegant and quick, one result of which is an unobtrusive close combat system which does its job without fuss. The drain mechanic -- the downside to spellcasting, in which casters risk taking damage from their own powers -- is a great idea, and is perhaps my favourite part of the entire system. The second edition also contains almost -- there's no adventure included, which is a shame -- everything you need to play, and all in a book about the same size as a D&D player's handbook; now Shadowrun was also the first time I encountered power creep, and Tim had a stack of supplements about a metre high, each of which gave one type of character an edge over the others, but none of them were necessary, and the game runs just as well from the core rules alone.

Except for decking. The computer hacking system in the second edition rules is a mess and while it was improved by subsequent sourcebooks, it never quite worked, and I can see why so many GMs just dumped the entire aspect of the game. It's a shame, as it's one of the key topoi of the cyberpunk genre, but the game is perhaps better off without it.

One other criticism of the game, in particular the older editions, is that it's dated, and it is true that there's a definite 1980's feel to the setting, but to me that is part of the charm.



It's more a product of its time than an accurate prediction of the future, but that doesn't make it of any less value as a setting, just as the outdated notions of the 1930's and 50's don't make a rockets-and-rayguns setting any less fun today. Any game which lets you play a grenade-launcher-wielding elven rock star or a motorcycle-riding ork wizard is just fine by me.

The Ministry of Blades : The Madness of Angels, episode 3

Dr Pleasant shows his power; Prentiss is nearly brought down by a garden implement.

Played

13^th January 2011.

Dramatis Personae

Lady Antonia deVore - a Heavily-armed Aristocrat *.
Captain Benson Curruthers - a Military Policeman.
Doctor Zephaniah Pleasant - a Sinister Surgeon.
Miss April Sharpe - a Self-taught Inventor.
Jack Prentiss - a Dodgy Pedestrian.
Rodney Marsh - a Partially-reformed Thief *.
Lewis - an Unsuccessful Burglar.
The Corpse of Martin Geffey.
A Young Constable.
Two Athletic Bobbies.

Plot

Prentiss was running as soon as his feet hit the path, chasing after the burglar he had seen dropping past the study window. Unfortunately, it was dark in the yard and an unseen rake nearly knocked him out. The thief took the opportunity to try and climb over the back wall, but his initial leap fell short, squandering his advantage.

Curruthers, having ascertained that the thief was being chased, headed for the front door, intending to cut the villain off at the end of the alley. Dr Pleasant and Miss Sharpe followed, leaving Lady Antonia to keep an eye on the study. That they might not pick the right end of the alley did not occur to them.

Hitting the ground on the far side of the wall, Prentiss doggedly renewed his pursuit, catching the burglar in a bear hug after he skidded in a puddle. Curruthers and his team appeared at the nearest end of the alley, having made the right decision, just as the thief broke loose, sprinting in the other direction. Pleasant reacted immediately, calling on Malphas, the Tower Builder, to intervene: a burst of blue light and an accompanying thunderclap nearly stunned the villain, but he shook it off and ran on. Curruthers calmly put a bullet in his shoulder, slowing him down enough for Prentiss to catch him again.

The team assembled and examined their captive: a shabby looking little man with oddly rodent-like features. They found themselves reminded of Marsh, although this was definitely not him. Attempting to get some information out of him, Curruthers attempted to persuade them that things would go better if he talked. All the while, Prentiss loomed over them in an intimidating manner, although this was compromised somewhat as Dr Pleasant attended to his developing black eye, muttering about tasks that were “beneath him”. Eventually, offered a deal, the criminal, Lewis, admitted to being hired by a mysterious figure. He had broken into the house to steal several specific objects and had been permitted to take anything else he wanted in order to muddy the picture.

He produced a bag from under his coat and revealed a number of odd objects: two sets of elaborate black robes, an elaborate chain of office (although not for any recognisable organisation), a private journal. He also had jewellery and other items of value. He was supposed to locate a small silver key, but had been unable to find it.

Extracting the location of the pub where Lewis had met his patron and where he was due to hand over the loot, the team headed back towards the West End. As they passed the Cathedral, they were accosted by a constable, who informed them that they’d found the body of Martin Geffey. Pleasant and April went with him while the others took Lewis on to the Ministry. The body lay in an alley near St Paul’s, at the end of an increasingly wild set of tracks, as though he had stumbled the final steps. Like the good Dean, it bore an expression of terror. Pleasant rapidly came to the conclusion he had died of a seizure, probably brought on by fear. Miss Sharpe used her Detecteronatron, to hunt for spirits, but was unsuccessful.

As the pair returned to the Ministry, they caught a glimpse of Marsh. As they attempted to hail him, they heard whistles and the pounding of heavy boots. Looking wildly around him, Marsh fled into the fog!

Notes

This was the first time I had attempted to use the chase system, widely touted as one of Savage Worlds’ more useful features. It was a little confusing at first, as the whole thing is written in terms of car chases, even though it was explicitly for foot chases as well. I found myself having to decide exactly what “Seriously Out of Control” meant for a pedestrian (stumbling) and exactly how climbing a wall might affect proceedings. I’m still not sure the system reflected Prentiss’ superior pace well enough or the effect of attacking while running, but it’s another system that will benefit from practice. Next time, there will definitely be more obstacles!

Had Marsh been present, he would have recognised Lewis as a former associate and probably have gotten more information out of him. As it was, it was largely irrelevant.

(* - player not present.)

The Ministry of Blades : A Frosty Reception at the Ministry (an Untold Tale of the Ministry)

April blows up a door; Antonia kills a chair

Played

16^th December 2010.

Dramatis Personae

Lady Antonia deVore - a Heavily-armed Aristocrat.
Captain Benson Curruthers - a Military Policeman.
Miss April Sharpe - a Self-taught Inventor.
Jack Prentiss - a Dodgy Pedestrian.
A Bad-tempered Norwegian Sprite.
Assorted Notables and Minions of the Ministry.

Plot

It had been a warm, wet winter and it was particularly foggy as the team returned to the Ministry on Christmas Eve. Delayed by the wrap-up for a persistent case, they were anxious to get back into the warmth, where the annual Christmas Dinner was being held. They were somewhat bemused to discover the building dark and locked-up.

Trying the front door, they became aware that it was much colder than the outside air. It was locked. The windows were dark and, on close examination, seemed to be frosted on the inside. Finding the main gates to the yard locked as well, the team ventured to the alley behind the building with the intention of climbing over the wall. The yard itself seemed fine, if quiet, and the horses in the stables were wrapped up warm against the cold. Checking the carriages and other equipment, they uncovered some warm clothing and blankets and, assuming the cold extended throughout the building, undertook appropriate preparations.

The back door was locked, but Prentiss had little difficulty forcing it open, letting the group into the kitchen. The room had been abandoned, although half-prepared food lay on the tables. The oven was cold and there was no sign of the staff. Everything was covered in frost. Choosing a door at random (this not being an area any of them were familiar with), they ventured into the central lobby of the building. Everything was covered in a thin layer of ice and the carpet crunched underfoot. The gas lights were turned on, but no gas issued from the tubes and they were cold and dark.

Curruthers took the lead as they headed for the main staircase to the first floor and was the first to be attacked by the zombies. Prentiss, at the rear, found more and battle broke out. The walking dead were frozen solid and difficult to damage, but tended to shatter when a solid hit was made. Making short work of the corpses, one of which was recognizable as the werewolf they killed in Highgate Cemetery, they reached the balcony. The ice was thicker here, coating the doors, walls and other woodwork. It was several inches thick on the doors to the Library and Council Chambers, which is where the dinner was to be held.

Deciding they needed heavier tools, they headed for the basement stores, getting distracted momentarily by the possibility of getting gunpowder from the armoury. Unfortunately, the doors were too well secured, so they fell back on the original plan of making use of picks and hammers.

Returning to the Library door, they set to work. Prentiss smashed a lot of ice off the door, fatiguing himself, but allowing them entry. The ice inside was thicker towards the door of the Council Chamber, but nothing could be heard. They spent some time examining the room for signs of summoning or of other dodgy books, but it seemed Madame Delgal had been tidying with her usual efficiency.

They began taking turns hacking at the Chamber door. After a couple of attempts, a head formed from the ice and, after giving them all a disdainful look, told them to stop making so much noise and go away. Further attempts to remove the ice resulted in the arrival of a four-foot tall figure of ice, which they smashed. This was followed by a series of lethal eruptions of ice shards. Dodging the bursts, they managed to remove a panel of the door and Prentiss packed it with black powder from his blunderbuss. Miss Sharpe then ignited the powder with a blast from her gun, blowing the door off its hinges.

Inside, they found the rest of the staff frozen at the table and covered in thick ice. While they stared at the scene, Miss Sharpe used her detecteronatron to locate a spirit sitting in a frozen chair watching them. She pointed it out to the others and large chunks of ice began to fall from the ceiling, narrowly missing several of the heroes, as Lady Antonia unloaded her LeMats at the chair. While the chair was completely demolished, the spirit appeared to be completely unaffected; worse, it was audibly cackling at them!

While various weapons discharged around him, Curruthers looked for the thickest concentration of ice, spotting it on the specially-imported Norwegian Spruce. Assuming a connection, he led the others in launching a hail of fire at it, eventually resulting in its destruction. The spirit promptly dissipated and the ice began to sublimate into the air.

Sensing an opportunity, the heroes started to decorate the frozen staff in a comical fashion, intending to blame the spirit when they woke up…

Notes

As a mostly-improvised session (I had a basic idea of the plot, plus a rough idea of the layout of the building), this worked very well. I hadn’t planned how they would defeat the spirit, but I love the solution they came up with and just ran with it.

This is the first time I’d ever run a seasonal special and, although Christmas is particularly important in a Victorian setting, I didn’t want to fall into the usual cliché of the Christmas Carol rip-off. If it’s not clear, the spirit was the Scandinavian equivalent of a dryad, connected to the imported Christmas tree; it wasn’t happy with the noise and heat and decided to freeze all involved.

One thing I discovered with this game is that sometimes miniatures are very important, even in simple fights. Confusion rained during the fight with the zombies as to who was where and next to whom…

Back to the Stolen Lands

After a few weeks of one-shots and even a couple of weeks without any gaming at all -- gasp! -- we returned to our regular Pathfinder campaign this week, with games on Sunday and Friday. After a bit of wandering about our lands dealing with what would be called sidequests in another medium, the plot has us exploring further afield, and despite some allusions to Roanoke that are about as subtle as a volcano, it's been a pleasure to return to a more sandboxy type of play. This week's sessions featured a lot of rulebook page-flipping, but I'm not sure if that's due to the increasing complexity of the game as we get to eighth level, or a lack of familiarity with the rules after weeks away.

In other news, production has begun on Savage Eberron III: The Riddle of the Forgotten Hoard. Samuel L Jackson is expected to reprise his role as diminutive dinosaur rider Galaxy Jones, and an open casting call has been put out for short, bearded actors.

Savage Eberron II: The Jewel of Galifar

Last summer, my regular group decided to devote a weekend to gaming. The event came to be kown as "BenCon", because who can turn down a good -- or bad -- pun? Over the two days, we played a big game of Twilight Imperium, were introduced to the wonderful Cold City, and got in a couple of sessions of Savage Worlds, one of which was my experimental mash up of that pulp-flavoured ruleset with the pulp-flavoured setting of Eberron. While the two seemed to work well together in terms of tone, I wasn't satisfied with how the game went.

As it became clear that our schedules would align to enable another gaming day, we decided to have a Winter BenCon during the Christmas break. This slipped back as real life got in the way, but we managed to organise one solid day of gaming to take place in the new year, and three games were arranged: Stuart was set to run a RuneQuest scenario using Mongoose's samurai sourcebook, and I'm sure he'll be reporting on that soon enough, while Dave was going to run us through a Trail of Cthulhu investigation, and I had planned a sequel to the earlier Savage Eberron adventure. As it turned out, Dave had decided to move back to Vancouver and so was neck deep in packing, unable to devote time to preparing a game; as a result, the schedule for the day was curtailed and became a simple double bill.

My scenario was a loose sequel to the earlier game, not a direct continuation but a new adventure featuring the same player-characters, although the format did allow for new characters. As such, we welcomed Galaxy Jones, a halfling dinosaur rider with the personality of a Blaxploitation character, complete with afro hairstyle and leopard-skin coat. Galaxy turned out to be something of a glass cannon, dealing out massive damage from the back of his mount, Shep, but proving to be quite fragile when unseated. Stuart developed Fibulon, a professional duellist, and passed his previous character, warforged soldier Tactica-206, to his son Sebastian. Aside from Tactica-206, also returning from the previous episode were Dave's half-elf bushwhacker Kawa, and Ben's deaf dwarf artificer Stones McGuffin, while Manoj was unable to attend due to illness, so his half-ogre vuvuzela-toting bard stayed at home.

The party had been hired by a self-titled "collector of curiosities" named Jobar Lenskin, who had heard rumours of an item called the "Jewel of Galifar". This was a treasure of which he'd heard nothing before, and his regular sources and contacts were also baffled, all of which made him want this Jewel even more. As such, he tasked the player-characters with finding out more about the item and if possible to retrieve it for his collection. The characters followed their leads to the gnomish nation of Zilargo, and the canal-crossed city of Trolanport. There, they headed to the home of a local businessman named Arno Salvatore, as they'd heard that he might know more about the Jewel.

The game began with the player-characters in a boat outside Salvatore's front door. They knocked and, receiving no answer but hearing the sounds of someone running within, broke the door down. Inside was a courtyard with what looked like some disused boats covered with tarpaulin, and steps heading to an upper level on which could be seen an open door. The team went for the stairs, only for the tarpaulin to be flung aside, revealing a huge warforged with four spider-like legs and massive stone axes instead of hands. A short fight ensued -- despite its high stats, the warforged was an Extra and required only two hits to incapacitate -- and the party rushed upstairs to find a small library on fire and a tall, athletic man standing by the window. He smiled at them, gave a mock salute, then leaped out the window, across the canal outside, and on to the roof of the building opposite.

I had designed a fun parkour-like chase across the rooftops which would then evolve into an elemental speedboat chase along the canals of the city. What in fact happened was that every single character who attempted the jump made it with ease, and they caught up with their quarry in short order. A quick tussle on the roof ensued, but with no way out, the man surrendered, and the complex map I'd drawn out on the tabletop went unused. Sigh. During the brawl a crowd had gathered in the piazza below and Kawa decided to pose as a member of the Trust -- Zilargo's secret police agency -- in an attempt to explain the party's unusual behaviour.

Dragging their captive -- who claimed to be Arno Salvatore -- back to the house, the player-characters went through the documents he had attempted to destroy, and also had a go at interrogating the man himself. He proved resilient, and it seemed as if he was more frightened of someone else than he was of the characters, but they did manage to find out that while he did have the Jewel at one point, he had passed it on to his associates, who had either taken it to, or were based at, a location in the forests to the south of Trolanport. It was also implied that he did not know what the Jewel was, as it was sealed inside some kind of container.

Dave then attempted to derail the adventure further when an agent of the Trust came snooping around and his character Kawa decided to not only threaten said agent, but knock off his impressive stovepipe hat to punctuate said threat. The players were convinced to allow the agent to speak to Salvatore, and although the captive attempted to paint the player-characters as villains, the gnome seemed to know that not all was as it seemed. He indicated that he had some previous connection to the characters' colleague Eddie Stone -- Rick's character in the previous game, a changeling private eye with a shady past -- which was enough to save their lives, but that they should leave town if they valued their ongoing health. A couple of the party members had spotted evidence of what might have been snipers surrounding their current position, so the group decided that the gnome's advice was sound, and leaving Salvatore in his custody, they headed to the docks and boarded a ship heading south.

A day or so later, the characters were dropped off at a nondescript stretch of coastline and headed into the forest. After a while they found the tracks of a group of humanoid travellers and followed them until they picked up the sounds of loud voices talking in the goblin tongue; McGuffin knew a little bit of the language and thought that the goblinoids seemed to be drinking and having a laugh, and were not on high alert. There was some brief discussion on whether or not to rush the camp, but in the end the party decided that the goblinoids were not an immediate threat and that since their own destination was in a different direction, a fight would be an unnecessary diversion at that point.

The trees began to thin out and ahead of them, across a stretch of featureless terrain, was a small two-tier fortification. It appeared to be a remnant of the old hobgoblin empire and despite being thousands of years old, was still in fair condition; McGuffin assured the rest of the group that no goblinoiod structure could possibly last so long and that dwarves must have had a hand in its creation, but it sounded to them like the typical ravings of a Hobgoblin Denialist. The player-characters didn't think running across all that open ground in broad daylight was a good idea, so sat down in the cover of the treeline to observe the tower, picking out a number of green-clad guards patrolling the battlements.

Night fell and a rain storm swept in from the coast, all of which was deemed enough cover to make a move on the tower. Galaxy and his dinosaur went first and made it to the outer wall of the fortification, then the woodsman Kawa followed, but something about his approach alerted a guard and a crossbow bolt flew out of the darkness, striking the half-elf and bringing him to the ground. At this, the rest of the party abandoned stealth and charged up to the walls.

The outer walls were ruined in places, allowing easy access into the yard within, where the team discovered a group of guards -- I described these as wearing green ninja-like pyjamas, because a horde of ninjas is almost as good as a bunch of Nazis when you're running a pulp game -- and a handful of snipers atop the battlements of the tower itself. The party tore through their opponents -- as expected, as they were Extras -- with Galaxy Jones and Shep proving quite deadly, and gained entrance into the tower. More of the green-clad warriors were stationed on the stairs and landings within, and so began a running battle up to the roof, with only a brief pause to block the door to the battlements, trapping the snipers outside in the storm.

Up on the roof, the party encountered more of the warriors, as well as one who wore a carved metal facemask instead of the cloth masks of his followers, and who stood alongside an iron casket covered with runes and decorative carvings. By this time, the rain had become torrential, and in a bit of an old-school touch, I threw in a bit of randomness by declaring that when the four of clubs was drawn from the initiative deck, a bolt of lightning would strike the tower, centred on the character of the player who'd drawn the card. I did not expect this to come up much, if at all, but it happened four or five times during the battle. Apparently, it was quite the storm.

This became something of an epic confrontation, with bennies being spent left, right and centre, and the player-characters' luck failing them at key moments. Highlights included Kawa's knockdown brawl with a bog-standard mook, a fight which lasted the entire length of the battle and beyond; the arrival of a manticore just as the player-characters thought they might have the upper hand; and Fibulon sliding along the rain-slicked stones of the roof, between the legs of the combatants surrounding the casket, tripping up the leader, and just catching himself on the edge by one hand. In response, the masked figure used the Havoc spell -- from the Fantasy Companion -- to knock the player-chracters around and send the duellist over the edge. Fibulon survived the fall, landing on the lower battlements, right behind the snipers the party had left trapped there! There was a brief moment of uncertainty as Fibulon and the surprised crossbowmen eyed each other, then the duellist leaped off the lower battlements -- again suffering no damage -- and began his ascent back up to the fight above.

Reaching the roof, Fibulon got his revenge on the masked mage by running him through, but the manticore battled on, as did the nameless minion tussling with Kawa and, by this point, Stones McGuffin. Fearing defeat, the player-characters changed tack and got the casket off the roof and down the stairs; the manticore, too large to follow, took flight and disappeared into the thick cloud cover, while the lone henchman dodged through a number of attacks to follow the casket. He would likely have followed the party all the way home had Tactica-206 not shoulder-barged him off the stairs to his death two storeys below.

Safe if only for a moment, the party stopped to catch their collective breath. Galaxy Jones' dinosaur mount had been killed, he had suffered serious injuries, and he'd laso been blinded by the manticore's venom. The half-elf woodsman attempted to administer first aid, which resulted in the halfling bleeding out and suffering permanent organ damage, losing one level of his strength attribute. Nonetheless he survived the medical attention and was just about fit enough to make the mad dash across open ground to the relative safety of the forest. Luck was on their side, as the crossbowmen remained occupied with their attempts to get off the lower roof, and while the manticore had returned to track them from the air, it lost sight of them as they got deeper into the forest.

The team made it to a small village, and from there obtained passage back to their base of operations, where the injured could recover and McGuffin could examine the casket. The old dwarf figured out that it seemed to be under the effects of a permanent Time Stop spell, and rigged a device which would interrupt the magic long enough to open the container. Inside they found a girl, little older than ten and in a deep sleep. She seemed familiar somehow, and some of the party members thought she had a noble look to her features. When the girl woke, she seemed confused by her surroundings, and claimed she was Jenna ir'Wynarn, the oldest child of King Jarot, the ruler whose children's disagreements over the proper order of succession had led to the century-long Last War. All of which was very interesting, as there was no historical record of a Jenna ir'Wynarn.

If her story was true, then the girl would be a person of great importance to the whole of Khorvaire. The party decided to keep her existence secret until they knew more, so sealed up the now empty casket and delivered it to Lenskin, who seemed disappointed that the Jewel turned out to be a unique but unexciting magical item.

---

I enjoyed this session much more than the game I ran at the summer event, I think because I managed to better capture the pulp feel of the setting. I was disappointed to lose the chase sequence, but the battle up and atop the hobgoblin tower was worth it, with the tide shifting a number of times, and all sorts of unexpected and unique events occurring over the course of the fight. The players were challenged, and there was a serious danger of characters -- perhaps the whole party -- being killed if the team hadn't made the wise decision to get the casket -- and the focus of everyone's attention -- out of the picture. This caused the manticore to withdraw to reconsider its position, and allowed the party the breathing room to escape.

The big fight atop the tower did go on a long time, and the session ran over by ninety minutes, in part because the manticore was so difficult to hurt. Its Parry score was not impressive, but it had a Toughness score of eleven, which soaked up all but the most damaging effects, although in fairness it had used all its bennies and had suffered a wound by the end of the fight. The players, Dave in particular, were cursed with poor damage rolls in the later stages of the battle, and found themselves unable to put down a nameless mook, let alone the big boss monster; as such I'm reluctant to put the grind -- I say "grind", but I don't know if anyone really felt like that, as everyone seemed alert and interested -- of the fight down to a flaw in the Savage Worlds system. In the previous adventure, the players chopped through all their oppenents at great speed, so I'm almost certain it was just bad luck. We'll see how Savage Eberron III goes!