Original Roleplaying Concepts
Interesting one today. The alternate words are just as appealing to me as the main one.
Day 3 Tactic
I am currently in the different stages of a few very interesting and fun projects. A couple I hope to get you all soon and others I hope their respective publishers get to you.
Presently I am also rereading some texts from my grad-school days and one, in particular, is about course design. Now while books are course do not serve the same purposes they do have some similar design ideals. It should be noted in my day of writing course curriculum I run into peers and colleagues who also are professional game designers. At one point I worked with several fellow designers that were also game designers (or had been) for WotC, White Wolf, and Mayfair. The skills are similar. But I digress.
The tactics I use to design a course or even design a bit of game work are also similar.
Whenever I have an idea for something. I usually start with what I call a vision document or a notes document. This lays out some ideas and key elements I want for the book/project. Let's take an example for a project I recently opted to put aside for now. The project on my working projects drive was called "Demon City Tokyo: 2074" and it was going to be an anime-action "Night World" for Night Shift. The idea came to me last October and grew out of a few other ideas I had "on paper" at the time. It was going to be expanded on from these core ideas. So I took that all and placed it in my vision document with some broad ideas; New type of super-collider, Tokyo of the future, some ideas on mixing a lot a Japanese and English for words. I also linked in a bunch of maps, pages on the internet. Help pages to refresh my Japanese after not speaking any in nearly 30 years (I can still count though!) and more.
My next phase or tactic in this process is to create the "thick outline." This is exactly like outlining, save that I am allowed to include paragraphs and other details. This allows me to start seeing the material in order and allows me to move material around a little easier. I find doing the vision doc first gives me free-thinking room and then the thick outline focuses these ideas into a form I like.
Up next is detailed writing. This is where I am on the Basic Bestiary series and where Demon City died. Not because I did not have the details, but because Dyskami Publishing was coming out with their own Demon City that was WAY too close to mine. NOW please be aware I am not suggesting anything here other than we both had a common idea. Theirs is in Kickstarter now and it is likely to be very good. I felt the world did not need TWO Demon Cities. Plus as I was working on my detailed thick outline my lack of knowledge of Tokyo was becoming more and more obvious. At one point I even moved the whole thing to my more familiar Chicago, but it didn't have quite the same feel.
Basic Bestiary on the other hand moved forward to the detailed writing stages. Here my tactic has been to pull any and all material I already had and use it here. Demon City Tokyo lives on in Basic Bestiary III since a lot of the demons I researched for it are still fantastic demons. While I write a ton of material here, not all it sees the light of publication or blog posts, and some not in the way they were originally envisioned.
After that comes playtesting, editing, revisions, layout...but those are all tales for another post I think.
One of the nice things about #RPGaDAY for 2021 is we also get a set of alternate words we can use. Today is Day #2 and that is Map, but the other words are "Senses," "Plan," and "Voice." But I am going to go with Map.Day 2 Map
I adore maps. I knew very few role-players that are not fans of maps.
I talked about this in the past. A lot.
It is still a really fun map. If you look I have elements of not just Mystara and Oerth, but a little bit of Al-Qadim and even Gary's Necropolis. Let's me have all my cake and eat it too. A couple of things I would love to work into this map are Hyperborea (I already have a Boria) and maybe even a lost continent. I might need to make my world a bit bigger to fit it all in though. I have been playing with the idea that it is Ansalon there in the far south of the Far End Ocean. It would mean redoing large sections of Krynn to fit my world and it might not really even be possible. But then again my Zakhara does not look anything like the Zakhara from the Forgotten Realms.
I am still using Blackmoor as a common point of both worlds. I am also still wanting to make Hyperborea the land beyond the Black Ice. I am guessing it is about the size of Antarctica.
Not sure if I can cram everything in there.
Another map that I have been having some fun with is this Flat Earth map known as "The World Beyond the Ice Wall."
I have no idea who made it but I get the sinking feeling that Flat Earthers actually take this one seriously. I did find out who made it. It was made for a fictional sort of world, but it seems the Flat Earthers have adopted it as truth.
It does however reflect how I would do Hyperborea. A land beyond a wall of ice.
It is August and that means time for another #RPGaDAY from David Chapman and Autocratik. I look forward to this every year. Always some great writing prompts and I enjoy seeing what others come up with.Day 1 Scenario
I had something planned for this, but I started writing it, and explaining it all was taking way too long. Even then I wasn't getting to my point so I scrapped it.
One question I get asked every so often is why do I like to use published Scenarios, aka Modules.
Simple. Sometimes I like to use something where a little bit of the heavy lifting (map, NPCs, monsters) has already been done. But that is only the lazy reason. The reason I am doing it for campaigns like Come Endless Darkness and The Second Campaign is to give my players the full D&D Experience. For something like War of the Witch Queens it is more can I take everyone else's witch-based adventures and fit them to a campaign arc of my needs.
Mind you I am not opposed to my own scenarios or adventures. I did The Dragon and the Phoenix and The Season of the Witch campaigns for my Buffy games.
I enjoy reading other scenarios and I enjoy coming up with them.
Here's to a great #RPGaDAY2021 month!
Gary Gygax's Necropolis is an odd bit of my personal RPG history. About 25 or more years ago, before I had kids I was working downtown Chicago, this gave me access to the transit rail system and dozens of libraries. While Wizards of the Coast was scanning and putting up old AD&D modules for free on their website the number of scanned PDFs was non-existent. So I did what anyone with my resources would do. I checked out all the RPGs books I could from various libraries. I was young, just married, working on my Ph.D., and had no money. In my searches, mostly for books written by Gary Gygax, I found Dangerous Journeys. While the game system was terrible (sorry, it is) I loved the background fluff. So much so that I add his Ægypt to my own world. I read the Dangerous Journeys and Mythus version of Necropolis many times over. I even finally got my own copy (which I frustratingly can't find right now!!).
It became a central part of my desert region, the Deserts of Desolation and Death, and merging it with bits of Dark Sun is has become the capstone adventure for my Second Campaign. Though instead of using the DJ version I am using the d20 version from Necromancer Games, published some 20 years ago. I should note that The Mystical Trashheap blog has a nice conversion of the DJ version to AD&D.
So imagine my excitement when Fog God launched their newest Kickstarter!
Necropolis: An Epic Adventure in the Desert Sands
So this is for 5e and S&W. While both are nice, it is the 5e version that I am going to use the most since the Second Campaign is a 5e game. Since it is the capstone I am going to have to make it a bit deadlier. I am just not sure if I need the hardcover version since I want to print it out to write notes on. BUT I also don't want that wear and tear on my printer.
Delivery is scheduled for the end of the year, so that works fine for me, even if it is a little late.
I just need to figure out which level to pledge at.
Escape the Dark Castle: The Game of Atmospheric Adventure brought the brutality of the Fighting Fantasy solo adventure books of the eighties to co-operative game play for up to four players in which their characters begin imprisoned in a tyrant’s castle and must work together to win their freedom. Published by Themeborne, with its multiple encounters, traps, monsters, objects, and more as well as a different end of game boss every time, Escape the Dark Castle offered a high replay value, especially as a game never lasted longer than thirty minutes. That replay value was enhanced with the release of Escape the Dark Castle: Adventure Pack 1 – Cult of the Death Knight, the game’s first expansion. It added new threats, new potential escapees, and more. The replay value of Escape the Dark Castle is further enhanced with the completion of the Escape the Dark Castle: The Legend Grows… Kickstarter campaign. This produced two new expansions, Adventure Pack 2 – Scourge of the Undead Queen and Adventure Pack 3 – Blight of the Plague Lord as well as a big box into which to store them along with the core game. The first of these introduces a whole a new Boss, fifteen new chapters which the escapees must face before they successfully flee the Dark Castle, three new escapees, four new items to find and use in the process, four new ‘item’ cards you do not want to draw (but will anyway) and come into play, and a new mechanic. The new Boss is the Plague Lord, a foul spreader of contagion and sickness who wants more and more to fall victim to his pestilence. Disease has come to the Dark Castle, and left its mark, for instead of encountering the usual dangers on their flight from the depths of the castle, the escapees will find themselves crossing plague pits, gaol cells full of trapped plague victims, plague-ridden rat swarms, mobs bent on preventing the plague from spreading beyond the walls of the Dark Castle—and more. Time and time again, the escapees will be faced with situations in which they may well catch the plague, the disease running its course and reducing their health until ultimately, in a final encounter, they face the Plague Lord himself. To escape the Dark Castle, they must defeat him, but he can increase the effects of the plague upon the already infected and infect those lucky enough to have got this far without being infected! And then, even if they do defeat the Plague Lord, do the escapees really want to flee the Dark Castle knowing that they carry a plague that could kill everyone they love?
It's been a while I figure today is a good day for another One Man's God. A brief review of the purpose and "rules" here.The purpose of One Man's God is to see how I can take the creatures of the various mythos as they appear in the Deities and Demigods and see how they could have been represented as AD&D demons. NOT Abrahamic religion demons, or even esoteric or occult demons, but AD&D demons as they appeared in and defined by the Monster Manual, Fiend Folio, and Monster Manual II.
That is my first rule. So no need to come at me saying "X culture did not have demons." Not only are demons in D&D not real, no demons are real, so by that logic no culture has demons, but all cultures have stories of demons and stories can be retold.
Also, this is NOT a criticism of the research methods of the original authors and researchers of the Deities and Demigods. It is easy for me to criticize sitting here in my office chair in 2021 with access to pretty every written book, scholarly article, and more in any language at my fingertips. They had the local library. So another rule is I can't criticize the material based on what I can research now. I can use research from now to help inform my opinions, but that is all.
I can look a little beyond my sources here (D&DG, MM, FF, and MM2) to see what could fit into these based on the rules above. But I am not going to add to much more beyond that. That's what Monstrous Monday is for.
Ok? Cool? Great!
Today I want to hit one that was HUGE back in the 80s. Japanese Mythos.
Growing up in the 80s you could not help be nearly overwhelmed with references to or from Japanese culture. Well...not real Japanese culture, a weird American version of it for mass consumption. Ninjas, karate, Richard Chamberlain running around in a kimono on TV in Shōgun, and more than I can remember. I even got caught up in it all and found some Japanese myths to read, in particular the tales of Momotarō (the Peach Boy).
It was odd that almost none* of what I read connected back to the myths in the D&DG. Now I see that their myths are too widely varied, complex, and even some had not been translated to an easily consumable English version. Some concepts in Japanese do not have good English equivalents. My first year in grad school I took Japanese as an extra elective, I found it extremely fascinating and remarkably difficult. The Deities & Demigods even touches on this with the concept of Kami. We would use the word like "god" or "spirit," even in the Goddess Amaterasu we get the word "Omikami" or more appropriately, Ōmikami.
*I will talk about what did connect.
The Gods and Goddesses
Despite how interesting these myths are and how much they were likely used, there are only five pages of them in D&DG and only 13 entries. There are heroes, which is really important for the tales, most of the stories of Japan are about the exploits of the heroes. Of these, I only recall reading about Yamamoto Date. But that has far more to do with Me not reading everything on Japanese myths.
Of the Gods the best known are the trinity of Amaterasu (the Sun Goddess, "the great august deity"), Tsukiyomi (the Moon God), and Susanoo (the God of Storms and Seas). Now, these are the stories I know well. I am remarkably pleased that the depictions and stats match up well with my personal ideas of what these gods are. Amaterasu is easily the most powerful god in this book, thankfully for the mortals, she is Lawful Good. In my games, there was no greater foe of the undead than her. And let me just say I am so pleased the authors did not take the easy way out and make Susanowo Chaotic Evil and went with the more appropriate Chaotic Neutral.
A couple of Goddesses that I remember reading about didn't make it in. I mean I easily see why, but still, it would have been nice to see them.
Ame-no-Uzume
Ame-no-Uzume is the Goddess of the Dawn and for her role in the story of Amaterasu and the Cave she is the Goddess of Revelry. In many ways the "darker" versions of Amaterasu and Ame-no-Uzume can be found in my "Nox" and "Syla" the goddess of the Dusk and Near Dark.
But back to Uzume. I am not the first to point this one out and many others more read than me have done a better job. But if you want to bring Ame-no-Uzume all you need to do is turn a few pages back to the Indian myths and bring over the similarity named Ushas, the Goddess of the Dawn. Her stats are pretty much perfect as is.
Mizo-GameOh, Mizu Game. How you have vexed me over the years.
So WAY back in the day I decided to take karate lessons, their was a local place that was offering Isshin-ryū Karate and I decided to join. I spent a couple years doing it. I was good, not great, but I felt like it achieved my then goal of getting some extra exercise. The important part for today is the Isshin-ryū patch. I was told that the half-woman/half-dragon goddess on the patch was Mizo-Game a Sea Goddess. So naturally, I wanted a character that worshipped her. But outside of Isshin-ryū I could not find out anything about her. And you know what? I STILL can't. Every so often I get the idea to search for her again and I have only limited success.
Now with this post, it's going to mess with my search algorithms even more!
I had hoped to find a goddess I could borrow from other myths, like I do for Uaume, but nothing came up. She would be a Lawful Neutral demigoddess of the sea. She related to dragons and to the other gods.
Demons
While this is all fantastic. There are no monsters here, let alone any demons.
A while back I talked about the Yaoguai or Chinese demons. The name means something like "strange ghost" or "strange devil." In Japan, similar creatures are called Yōkai. Which also means "strange apparition."
In my games, Yaoguai and Yōkai are both different lineages of demons that are related. There are no creatures listed in the D&DG that would count. The closest we get is the Ogre Mage, also called the "Japanese Ogre" in the Monster Manual. BUT that creature is obviously based on the Oni.
Are Oni demons or yōkai? I am going to say no. The tales of Momotarō, also known as the Peach Boy, feature many Oni, and while they are powerful and even a little supernatural, but they are not really demons. Sadly even branching out into the Oriental Adventures does not help here. Though there are also Ushi-oni that are very much yōkai and Oni are said to have come from the "demon gate/"
For demons and yōkai it would seem I am on my own and I have a lot more research and reading to do.
Expect to see some Yōkai in future Monstrous Mondays. Will I reclassify Oni as demons? No idea yet.
It's too bad that with all the material out there on Yōkai that so little to almost none made it into AD&D.
There is only one more set of myths left in this series and I am hoping it will be a big one!
I have been planning this review for a bit now, but upon hearing of the death of the creator, Dick Wulf, I am opting to move it up a bit. Full Disclosure: There is no way I can give this a complete review because I don't know enough about the source material. I mean I know it, but not enough to for the level of play this learning game would require of me.
I have mentioned before that I have known about DragonRaid since at least the mid-80s. I was both amused and fascinated by it then. When I learned more about it I was a little more impressed.
The Game
DragonRaid got a lot of grief in the gaming communities I was a part of. I had some Christian gamer friends that thought it was a cheap attempt to capitalize on their faith and some even did not want to mix their D&D and belief. As an Atheist, then and now, I thought it was interesting. As someone who was interested in psychology then and someone with degrees in it now I also thought it was an interesting way to learn something, in this case, Bible verses. I always wanted to see the game for myself.
One thing I have to keep in mind that this "game" is not really an RPG, but a teaching tool in the form of a role-playing game.
The game's author and designer was Dick Wulf, MSW, LCSW, who is, as his degrees indicate, a licensed Social Worker and holds a Master's Degree in Social Work. He had done a lot of work in psychotherapy and ministry. He also played D&D and Traveller. So it seems he actually likes and knows RPGs better than the guys who gave us Fantasy Wargaming!
Plus I have to admit the ads in Dragon Magazine always looked really interesting. I mean seriously, that is an evil-looking dragon and should be stopped and those look like the brave warriors to do it. Even if they need some more armor*. (*that is actually a point in the game! more later)
A while back my oldest son and I saw this game at my FLGS and I told him all about it. He is also an Atheist (as everyone in my family is) and he wanted to get it so we could play the other, evil, side. He wanted to do something with the dragons in the game (he loves dragons) and I of course wanted to bring witches into it (cause that is my raison d'être). Plus this copy still had the cassette tape in it. I mean that is just beyond cool really. So yeah I grabbed it with every intention of having a bit of a laugh with it.
I might be a witch-obsessed Athiest, but I am also an educator and not really an asshole.
The truth of the matter is spending this past week with the game I just can't take a piss on it. The author is just too earnest in his presentation of this game. There is love here, and scholarship, and frankly good pedagogy behind the design. I don't normally mix my professional education background with my game design work. Yes, they can and they do mix. But when I am writing a book on the Pagan witches for Old-School Essentials I am not trying to write a historical treatise on the pagan religions of Western Europe during the time of the Roman Empire. I'll try to keep my facts in line, but I can't serve two masters. I have to write what is best for a game.
DragonRaid also doesn't serve two masters. It serves one and makes that work for both pedagogical reasons (to help young people understand Christianity and their Bible better) and game design reasons (to have a fun roleplaying experience).
For this DragonRaid succeeds in a lot of ways. For this, I simply can't do anything else but admire this game and its design. So no playing dragons here, or me coming up with a witch class to fight the characters. I might do that at home, but I am not going to be a jerk about it.
Besides look at everything, you get in this box! I mean seriously, this is some value.
I even got the cassette tape! I don't have anything to play it on though.
This company is all in on this game and I have to admit I totally admire them for it.
Final Thoughts
As I discussed back in the Character Creation challenge, a lot of the very random rolls you make can really help define who your character is. That is great, but it also confines your character in certain ways. There are ways to increase abilities you want over ones you don't want, but this game like many others, has you play to your strengths. Sure in the early 80s people were fine to have a character only defined by the numbers on the sheet; today? Not so much.
I will admit that I never felt "talked down to" as a gamer while reading this. Yes, it is designed for someone with far less experience than myself or my readers, but all the same, the advice in the game always came across as helpful and never condescending.
Also, I never felt "called out" as an Atheist here. Sure by the game's standards I am one of the DragonSlaves and even though I consider my life to be good, great even, it is not truly so. Ok. Whatever. I am also not as attractive as an elf, strong as an orc, or interesting like a tiefling. Though my lack of experience with Bible verses and my complete lack of desire to ever memorize any will limit my involvement with this game. Likely to just this review.
The quality of the materials is top-notch. I am not sure which "printing" I have, but no dates are past 1984 on my books and it still has the cassette tape. I did notice when doing some research that my box did not have a copy of the purple cover "The Moon Bridge Raid" nor did it have the stickers. Maybe because I didn't buy it directly from the publisher? Looks like that the Moon Bridge Raid is in later editions/printings and these also included a CD. So I am really rocking it old-school!Note: A little digging online tells me there was a newer printing with 1998 and 1999 dates on the books. Likely this is the printing that had the CD.
Digging deeper EdenAgain seems to be a planet that humans crash-landed on. Looking at the art one assumes it was only white people on the ship. They had a copy of the Bible on their spaceship. So is this one a post-apocalypse game? Could characters from my Star Trek: BlackStar or Star Trek: Mercy games find their way to EdenAgain? I mean that is not to different than the Star Trek Discovery Season 2 episode "New Eden." Except the people of New Eden, aka Terralysium, combined all of Earth's faiths including Christianity, Hindu, Judaism, Bahá'í, and Wicca into one. Not very much in line with what DragonRaid would have wanted. Discovery Season 2 was fairly heavy with religious symbolism.
One thing implicit in the game is that all other creatures except for humans do not have souls and can't be saved. I did not get a clear read on animals and talking ones in particular though I know the rules are in there somewhere. So ALL creatures would be considered evil; in fact the manifestation of sins. That giant destroying a village? Evil. Kill it! That dragon eating all the maidens in the country? Evil. Kill it! That orc sitting on a rock picking his nose? Evil. Kill it! Sleeping baby troll? Evil. Kill it! Get the idea? There are no shades of grey here. A human OnceBorn in charge of a child slavery ring is not to be killed. The goblin that did nothing else but let you know about it so it can be stopped has to be killed. That goblin isn't a real living creature but sin-made flesh. Which is kind of cool if you think about it, but also a little too conservative for my tastes. Combat is physical and is lethal. Combat can also be spiritual.
One facet of this game that can't be ignored is the production value. While the art has not aged as well it is still objectively good. The layout is clean and easy to read. The material is grouped together well. The redundant text isn't really redundant at all since this is designed to teach. The box is sturdy as hell, and mine is still in fantastic shape. No idea about the cassette tape, but everything else in the box is top-notch. A spiral rules guide for the game table is something that makes so much sense other companies should have been doing it (I know...cost).
While character creation can be a chore, the core rules are pretty simple. Percentile rolls vs some cross-referenced charts based on abilities. Roll high. With players using the d10s, sorry, StarLots and the bad guys using the ShadowStones (d8) advantage always goes to the LightRaiders.
In the end, I am glad I purchased this game even if it took me forever to do anything with it. I am never likely to play it or run it, and while there are some great ideas here I am also not likely to mine it for any. I have to give the late Dick Wulf major credit. He had a vision and a love for this game and it shows on every page.
Links
Here are some collected links if you want to learn more about this game.
I celebrated my 26th wedding anniversary over the weekend. I have now been married for over half my life! We went downtown to see the Immersive Van Gogh Exhibit. I got us the Premium tickets, and glad I did, we sat through the whole thing twice! It was completely amazing. We ate at a new fusion Thai place and of course, no date night is complete for us without a stop at a bookstore.Since so many of the bookstores we used to go to over the last three decades are closed, we stopped at Half-Price Books.
I found this little gem, SPI Demons.
At first I thought it was an add-on or supplement for the DragonQuest RPG. They look rather similar really. But closer examination revealed that it was really a board game.
In any case, I could not say no to this. Besides, look at that cover! That demon is fantastic!
I got it home and since it was late I let sit on my dining room table for a bit. I finally got around to looking at it yesterday. Turns out that only is this game whole, and unpunched it looks like it is near mint condition!
It is a rather attractive game in a late 70s War-Games-bleeding-into-RPGs way.
I posted some pictures of this over the weekend and I was reminded that TSR bought SPI back in the day and absorbed them. WotC who now owns all of TSR's IP also owns SPI. They could rerelease this if they wanted to. Sadly there is really no reason to. The cash cow in that arena is D&D and even DragonQuest, who could do well, suffers from comparison. TSR, like them or not, straight up murdered SPI and the body is too dead to Raise Dead.
BUT that doesn't mean *I* can't perform a bit of Necromancy myself!
This game could feed into my "Traveller Envy" quite well.
The obvious thing to do here is use that Demons map of Albania and do it as a DragonQuest Hex crawl. And I mean a proper Hex crawl that also just so happens to be filled with demons and wizard hunters. The magistrate or wizard hunter's angle of the game also made me think of THIS unholy abomination.
Maybe instead of "EdenAgain" the DragonRaiders are in the old country fighting demons? That one is a bit of stretch really. Also I would need some sort of converter to sit in the middle; likely D&D. Though these both will contribute to my War of the Witch Queens campaign.
These two games share a lot of similarities in tone and publication time. Both are essentially the bridges between war games and RPGs as board games. Both feature a wilderness area to explore, monsters (demons) to defeat, and treasure to collect. Slightly higher on the complexity scale than Dungeon! but not quite full-blown RPGs. You can read my overview of Warlocks & Warriors here.
These two do not have a lot in common other than name and subject matter. But both would be equally fun resources in my games.
Like I say though I might not figure out how to get these to all work together (or even some of them) but it will be fun trying.
Here is another monster that has been rolling around in the back of my head for a bit. I am fairly certain I came up with this one while reading old Dragon magazines back in the day. It is not 100% original, but then again nothing ever is. My take on it though I think is unique or at least new enough to merit a posting of it today.
I imagine this creature is distantly related to the Displacer Beast, but for OGL reasons I can't claim that.
Artwork © 2021 Eric Lofgren, used with permission.
All rights reserved.Shadowcat
Large Beast, Magical
Frequency: Very Rare
Number Appearing: 1d4 (1d4)
Alignment: Chaotic [Chaotic Neutral]
Movement: 120' (40') [12"]
Flying 180' (60') [18"]
Armor Class: 1 [18]
Hit Dice: 7d8+7**** (39 hp)
Large 7d10**** (46 hp)
Attacks: 2 claws, 1 bite
Damage: 1d6+2 x2, 1d8+2
Special: Fly, etherealness, hide in shadows (90%), magic resistance 30%, senses (night vision, smell), speech, telepathy
Save: Monster 7
Morale: 10 (12)
Treasure Hoard Class: None
XP: 2,050 (OSE) 2,100 (LL)
Str: 16 (+2) Dex: 18 (+3) Con: 13 (+1) Int: 12 (0) Wis: 12 (0) Cha: 14 (+2)
Shadowcats are, as the name implies, great cats from the plane of shadow. They manifest in physical form on the mortal planes but can become ethereal at will. They appear as large cats, usually panthers or lions, with shadow black coats and large bat-like wings. They can walk or fly as they choose. Shadowcats have telepathic abilities they use to communicate amongst themselves and can use it to learn the language of anyone they come in contact with. They can then speak using human languages. Despite appearances, Shadowcats are not related to Lamassu, though they may be distantly related to sphinxes.
Shadowcats are experts in stealth. Their superior abilities to sense prey via smell, night vision, and even taste means they can surprise on a roll of 4-6 on a d6. Likewise, they are only surprised themselves on a 1 on a d6. Shadowcats come to the mortal realms to hunt prey. They are carnivores and prefer to hunt magical beasts though they have been known to hunt humanoids from time to time.
They are intelligent creatures but driven by the hunt. They will attack with a claw/claw/bite routine, often stalking their prey on the ground and then using their wings to jump and attack from above. When fighting they typically keep their wings folded up to prevent them from becoming damaged.
A group of shadowcats is called a "pard" with an alpha female, 1 to 2 breeding males, and the rest younger male and female offspring. Both males and females will hunt, only the alpha female does not hunt. A pard will venture to the mortal planes to partake in a hunt that usually lasts 2 to 3 months then they will return. Younger males are always challenging the older male for breeding rights and if a single shadowcat is encountered it will be an outcast male. Shadowcats have no need for or interest in treasure.
Sometimes a shadowcat can be employed by a chaotic wizard or demon lord of sufficient power. As natives of the plane of shadow any spell that can bind a creature from other planes can be used on a single (usually independent male) shadowcat. Members of a pard cannot be bound. These bound shadowcats will typically agree on a length of service if they are also allowed the freedom to hunt as they choose. Larger specimens can be used as mounts.
Shadowcats and Shedu despise each other. This has little to do with alignment. The shadowcat's telepathic abilities can be heard by the shedu and vice versa. Heard might be putting it mildly, the abilities of one interfere with the other. Also, the shedu are often offended at the actions of the shadowcat; choosing prey to hunt. Shadowcats find the shedu to be pompous and arrogant. While their fights will rarely become more than grandstanding threats, a large pard has been known to attack a shedu. Often the shedu's greater magical ability, and their ability to make strong allies, give them the edge.
Much like the Miskatonic Repository for Call of Cthulhu, Seventh Edition, the Jonstown Compendium is a curated platform for user-made content, but for material set in Greg Stafford’s mythic universe of Glorantha. It enables creators to sell their own original content for RuneQuest: Roleplaying in Glorantha, 13th Age Glorantha, and HeroQuest Glorantha (Questworlds). This can include original scenarios, background material, cults, mythology, details of NPCs and monsters, and so on, but none of this content should be considered to be ‘canon’, but rather fall under ‘Your Glorantha Will Vary’. This means that there is still scope for the authors to create interesting and useful content that others can bring to their Glorantha-set campaigns.
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What is it?Who do you play?
At least one Herder. In addition, an Assistant Shaman or Priestess will be useful, as will a Hunter or other Player Character with the Tracking skill. A Lhankor Mhy priest or scholar may find some of the background to one of the scenarios to be of interest. In addition, Player Characters with the Passions ‘Hate (Trolls)’ or ‘Hate (Telmori)’ will be challenged by the events of one or more of the encounters.
We live in The Extant, an isolated bastion of light and creation. It sits in The Nether, a seemingly endless sea of primal chaos whose ectoplasmic forces known as shadow or umbra constantly washes up and crashes down upon The Extant. A veil known as The Curtain protects us, not just from the ebb and flow of the umbra, but also from what lies in the Echos, the distorted, memory-altered reflections of The Extant which sit on the other side of The Curtain, and then beyond that, the Cosmos, dream worlds and nightmares—if not both. Out in the Echoes live ghost-like ephemera, thoughtforms, and further out reside aberrations with alien minds, and then, visages further out, stranger still, mythical even… And oh so many of them want to play in The Extant.
Warpstar! is the sister game to Warlock!, and much like Warlock!, it looks like just another Old School Renaissance Retroclone—and it is, but not the sort you might be thinking of. Published by Fire Ruby Designs —previously best known for Golgotha, the Science Fiction retroclone of far future dungeon scavenging in shattered battleships—Warpstar!makes its inspirations known on the back cover blurb which reads, “Warpstar is a rules-light science fiction roleplaying game that aims to emulate the feeling of old-school British tabletop games of wondrous and fantastical adventure in the depths of space.” Now there is a slight disconnect here in that there are no such ‘old-school British tabletop games of wondrous and fantastical adventure in the depths of space.’—or at no such roleplaying game. In the case of Warlock!, the inspiration is Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay and Maelstrom as well as the Fighting Fantasy solo adventure books which began with The Warlock of Firetop Mountain. So what then is Warpstar! inspired by? In fact, the original inspirations for both Warlock! and Warpstar! are both miniatures wargames. For Warlock! that inspiration is Warhammer Fantasy Battles, and then the roleplaying game, Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay, which would be derived from it. For Warpstar! that inspiration is Warhammer 40,000: Rogue Trader, a miniatures wargame which actually had strong roleplaying elements, but was not a roleplaying game. Indeed, it would be another twenty-one years before the setting of Warhammer 40,000 would receive its own roleplaying game with the release of Dark Heresyin 2008. So the claim that Warpstar! is a rules-light science fiction roleplaying game that aims to emulate the feeling of old-school British tabletop games of wondrous and fantastical adventure in the depths of space.” does feel slightly disingenuous. However, if you instead see Warpstar! as a roleplaying game inspired by a roleplaying game of grim and perilous adventure in the depths of space and the very far future that never was (but which would have been the Science Fiction equivalent of Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay and likely would have been as popular) then Warpstar! feels as if it comes from something material rather than the ineffable.
As with its fantasy counterpart, Warpstar! is a Career and Skills driven game rather than a Class and Level game. A Player Character has two attributes—Stamina and Luck, but unlike in Warlock!, does not have a Community, such as Human, Halfling, Elf, or Dwarf, which grants societal benefits rather than mechanical ones. Instead, he has a Talent, an innate, biological, or mechanical ability which provides an in-game benefit. For example, Natural Charm or Sleep Anywhere. These can be used to model alien races along with whatever cosmetic aspects that a player decides his character has, but despite this, the setting for Warpstar!, the Chorus of Worlds, does not have any Player Characters races detailed in the core rulebook. He also has thirty-two base skills, ranging from Animal Handler, Appraise, and Astronav to Thrown, Warp Focus, and Zero G, and all of which range in value from one to twenty. To create a character, a player rolls dice for the two attributes, selects a Community, and sets ten skills at a base level of six and another ten at level five. The rest are set at a base level of four. The player then rolls four six-sided dice. These generate the four choices he will have in terms of Basic Career for his character. Once selected, a Career provides four things. First a quintet of skills which can be increased during play whilst the Player Character remains in that Career and a maximum level to which they can be improved, either ten or twelve. For example, the Ganger receives Medicine 10, Sleight-of-Hand 10, Intimidate 12, Small Arms 12, and Thrown 12. The player divides ten points between these skills up to their maximum given values. Second, it provides a sixth skill, named after the Career itself, the level for this Career skill being the average of the other skills the Career grants. Third, it provides some standard equipment, and fourth it gives a pair of background elements specific to the Player Character’s time in that Career, both of which are generated randomly. For example, a Ganger’s two die rolls would determine what he did to earn him a criminal record and who hunts him. Lastly, a player picks three personality traits for character.
Name: Gottschalk Einstein
Community: Human
Career: Warp Touched
Past Careers: —
STAMINA: 21 LUCK: 11
TALENT: Sleep Anywhere
ADVENTURING SKILLS
Animal Handler 04, Appraise 06, Astronav 06, Athletics 05, Bargain 06, Blades 04, Blunt 04, Brawling 05, Command 04 (10), Diplomacy 05, Disguise 04, Dodge 04, Endurance 05 (10), History 05, Intimidate 04 (12), Language 05, Lie 04, Medicine 05, Navigation 04, Persuasion 10 (12), Pilot 06, Repair 06, Ship Gunner 06, Sleight-of-Hand 04, Small Arms 05, Spot 06, Stealth 04, Streetwise 05, Survival 05, Thrown 04, Warp Focus 12 (12), Zero G 06
CAREER SKILLS
Warp Touched 7
POSSESSIONS
Cloak with mathematical emblems, metal staff affixed with an opening eye, several books on warp theory, pills and tinctures to ease the pounding headaches.
GLYPHS
Burnout
TRAITS
Charming, Faithful, Unfriendly
NOTES
Where have you been? – The Fighting Maze of Fellus IV.
Where have you seen? – Beautiful fractal patterns of the Warp?
Character generation is for the most part straightforward, as is character progression. A Player Character should receive one, two, or three advances per session. Each advance will increase one of a Player Character’s Career skill by one level, up to the maximum allowed by the Career. As a Player Character’s Career skills rise, so will his Stamina, representing him becoming tougher and more experienced. When a Player Character reaches the maximum skill level, he can change Careers—this will cost him a total of five advances. Whilst this grants him access to other skills, it will not increase the cap on the ones he already has. For that, he needs to enter an Advanced Career, such as Assassin, Cult Leader, Duellist, Lawbringer, or Warp Lord. This raises the maximum skill levels to fourteen and sixteen rather than ten and twelve for Basic Careers. There are thirteen Advanced Careers in Warpstar! and twenty-four Basic Careers. In general, a Player Character will be undertaking two or three Basic Careers before entering an Advanced Career—probably ten or fifteen sessions of play or so, before a Player Character is in a position to do that.
Mechanically, Warpstar! is simple. To undertake an action, a player rolls a twenty-sided die, adds the value for appropriate skill or Career and aims to roll twenty or higher. More difficult tasks may levy a penalty of two or four upon the roll. Opposed rolls are a matter of rolling higher to beat an opponent. Luck is also treated as a skill for purposes of rolling, and rolled when a character finds himself in a dire or perilous situation where the circumstances go in his favour or against him. Combat is equally simple, consisting of opposed attack rolls—melee attacks versus melee attacks and ranged attacks versus the target’s Dodge skill. Damage is rolled on one or two six-sided dice depending upon the weapon, whilst mighty strikes, which inflict double damage, are possible if an attacker rolls three times higher than the defender. Armour reduces damage taken by a random amount.
Of course, Warpstar! has to take into account Science Fiction weaponry, so there are rules for slug-firing guns, laser weapons, pulse guns, needlers, and more. They each have a code attached, such as ‘S1d6+1P’, which in turn indicates the size of the weapon, the damage, and the type of damage. It looks a little complicated and is at first, but once you get used to it, it is easy enough. Damage is deducted from a defendant’s Stamina. When this is reduced to zero, the defendant suffers a critical hit, necessitating a roll on a Critical Hit table. Warpstar! has four, for slashing, piercing, crushing, and energy damage. Of course, the precedents for Warpstar! had more, and more entries on them, but for a stripped back game like Warpstar!, they are enough—and they are brutal. Damage below a defendant’s Stamina acts as a modifier to the roll on the table, so once dice are rolled on the critical damage tables, combat takes a nasty turn.
For example, Gottschalk Einstein is aboard a D-Class Charger, the Stolen Dodo, when it is boarded by pirates and he is spotted trying to hide by two pirates—Wilmar and Bruna. Both have clubs and slug pistols (S1d6+1P), and 14 Stamina, a Blunt skill of 3, a Dodge of 4, and a Small Arms skill of 4. The two pirates are under orders not to kill any of the passengers as they can be ransomed off, so raising their slug pistols, they demand that Gottschalk Einstein surrender. The Game Master assigns them an Intimidate skill of 4, and adds four to account for the fact that there are two of them and they are pointing guns at Gottschalk Einstein. His player will simply be adding Gottschalk’s Intimidate to the roll. The Game Master rolls five and adds the eight to get a total of thirteen. Gottschalk’s player rolls fourteen and adds Gottschalk’s Intimidate skill to get a result of seventeen. He is not surrendering any time soon!
Combat then ensues… Both sides roll Initiative. The Game Master rolls a four and Gottschalk’s player rolls a three. Wilmer will act first, followed by Gottschalk, and then Bruna. The Game Master will roll Wilmar’s Small Arms skill and Gottschalk’s player his Dodge skill. The Game Master rolls three and adds Wilmar’s skill of four to get a result of seven. Gottschalk’s player rolls eight and adds his skill of four to get twelve—Gottschalk has clearly ducked back into hiding. It is his turn though, and Gottschalk’s player will roll his Small Arms skill versus Wilmar’s Dodge. Gottschalk’s player rolls seventeen and adds his skill to get a result of twenty-two! The Game Master rolls just two and adds Wilmar’s Small Arms skill to get a result of just six! This means that Gottschalk’s result is three times more than Wilmar’s and counts as a Mighty Strike. Which means that the damage from Gottschalk’s laser pistol (S1d6+2E) is doubled. Gottschalk’s player rolls a total of eight—maximum damage, which is doubled for an end result of sixteen damage! Fortunately, Wilmar is wearing light armour, so the Game Master rolls a three-sided die and reduces the damage by the result. She rolls one and Wilmar suffers fifteen damage! This reduces his Stamina to minus one and counts as a critical hit. Gottschalk’s player rolls two six-sided dice and adds the one negative Stamina as a bonus to get a result on the ‘Critical — Energy’ table. The result is ten—which is ‘Skin and bone seared, dead.’ Bruna looks around nervously as her colleague has been blasted dead in front of her!
Being a Science Fiction roleplaying game, Warpstar! has rules for spaceships, but in keeping with the design, the rules are simple. Spaceships travel the Warp and although heavily automated, including having an intelligent computer or Mind aboard, which can perform many functions, the various positions aboard need to be manned to be used effectively, quickly, or at critical moments. For example, the Mind, which will always maintain contact with its crew if it can, can initiate the Warp engine, it takes time. The positions aboard are Pilot, Gunner, Scanners, and Astronavigation. Ships are rated for their Manoeuvrability, Ship Gun (of which a ship only has the one), Anti-Personnel Gun, Scan, and Astronav Computer—all of which provide a bonus or penalty to a Player Character’s skill. Armour and Structure work like Armour and Stamina for Player Characters, but at a ship’s scale, as do weapons, which of course have their own weapon codes.
Numerous example spaceships are detailed, many of which can be taken by a crew of Player Characters, some only by NPCs, and once they get into spaceship combat, there is a ‘Critical — Ship’ table. Vehicles are given a similar treatment.
Spaceship travel involves travelling through the Warp and some, when exposed to the Warp, learn how to channel it in their mind in certain patterns, known as Glyphs. They are known as ‘Warp Touched’ and considered all but insane, though it is possible for anyone to learn Glyphs through time and concentration. It costs Stamina to cast a Glyph, whether it is successfully cast or not, and if a one is rolled when a character manifests a Glyph, the Warp Touched suffers ‘Warp Bleed’. Their manifestation is not only a failure, that failure is deadly. The effects of which might be minor, such as the caster’s hands catching fire and inflicting Stamina damage, but they might be a warp mutation—for which there are tables—or being swallowed by the Warp! Some thirty-six Glyphs are listed, their effects ranging from the minor to the major, such as ‘Burnout’, which burns out small electronic devices, and ‘Stutter’, which stutters a target out of reality and freezes them in place for several rounds.
The setting for Warpstar! is drawn in broad strokes. Humanity has spread out across the galaxy from the lost cradle of Earth in a rough sphere of space called the Chorus of Worlds. It is ruled by the Autarch from the world of Jewel, from which he creates and dispenses Cadence, the drug-like material which extends life and enhances the senses. As the only source of Cadence, the Autarch’s power is balanced against the Hegemony, the military might of the Chorus with its deadly Nova Guard star marines, the Merchant Combine, the economic might of the Chorus, and the Warp Consortium, its scientific might. Worlds are ruled by lords and ladies as they see fit, who pay planetary tithes in return for Cadence, whilst the individual worlds are home to billions upon billions.
In addition to the description of the politics and structure of the Chorus of Worlds, there is a discussion of its currencies and its technologies—robots, weapons, armour, communication, and more. Only an overview is given of its worlds and the Warp, more specific details being given for its various denizens and how to design them. Examples include Anthromorphs—hybrid species based on animal DNA from Old Earth, Fruiting Dead—undead humanoids infected with a soporific fungal spore spread via the Warp, and Kronux—a species with acidic blood which aggressively attempts infect other lifeforms with its DNA! Several creatures from the Warp are listed also, including the Warp Dragon, Warp Entities, and Warp Ticks.
For the Game Master, there is decent advice about running Warpstar! from handling the rules to establishing the tone of the game and setting. It discusses what the Player Characters do, such as exploring the galaxy, fighting evil, solving mysteries, and generally adventuring—essentially little different to almost any Science Fiction roleplaying game, all the way back to Traveller! The advice highlights the fact that Warpstar! is not a hard Science Fiction setting and its technology should be interesting in terms of its storytelling rather than its mechanical effect. Overall, the advice is decent enough, and like Warpstone!, what it comes down to is that Warpstar! is designed to be hackable, and given how light the mechanics are, that is certainly the case.
Of course, Warpstar! lacks a scenario, much like Warpstone! Yet in some ways, Warpstar! has a huge library of adventures to draw from in terms of other Science Fiction adventures, so many of which would be easy to adapt, whether that would be mechanically or storywise. Traveller, for example, being Imperial Science Fiction in tone and feel would be a ready source of adventures, but then so would something like Star Frontiers. Even the publisher’s own Golgotha could serve as inspiration for taking a starship crew of Player Characters far out beyond the borders of the Chorus of Worlds. Plus, the simplicity of Warpstar! makes adapting them easy.
Warpstar! is a buff little book, starkly laid out and illustrated in a suitably rough style which feels suitably in keeping with the period inspiration. It is very handy and especially combined with the lightness of its mechanics, makes it easy to reference and to run from the book.
Warpstar!brings the simplicity and tone of Warpstone! and its inspirations—Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay and Fighting Fantasy to a Science Fiction setting, a galaxy of grim and perilous in the very far future. It is again lean and fast, often brutal, but again with plenty of scope for the Game Master to easily develop her own content. Overall, Warpstar! is easy to pick up and play, presenting a quick and dirty Science Fiction roleplaying game that will tick many a gamer’s sense of nostalgia.
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SquareHex is best known as the publisher of The Black Hack and the fanzine, Black Pudding, but the publisher also does a wide range of gaming accessories and square and hex pads, the latter for drawing floorplans and area maps, all of which are aimed at the Old School Renaissance and Dungeons & Dragons-style retroclones. The very latest in this line is the Dungeon Master’s Little Black Book. Funded via the Dungeon Master’s Little Black Book 2021 Kickstarter campaign, it comes part of a combo package that provides both content and blank space to be filled in with content, or alternatively, each of the parts is available separately.A few Kickstarters today that look like a lot of fun.
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1955128460/heroes-of-tara-players-guide?ref=theotherside5e? Irish myths? Yes, please! I mean what else do I need to know here? No. That's pretty much all I need!
Pixies, Wyrms, Demon City – Three Mini Role-Playing Games
While Dyskami Publishing has some issues left over from the Guardians of Order days and...I am not quite sure how I feel about that, I did love BESM. These new books for TriStat are exactly the sort of things I loved. Hell, I even had my own Demon City in the works, but I am happy to put that down of other projects.
