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A Wizard A pleasant town I'll be going over a sort of readthrough of the material, plus how the players approached things and how I adapted it to the system and setting. It's remarkably easy to adapt! This is one of the strengths of this adventure. A friend who went over it after playing characterized the writing as very efficient and clear, and I think he's on to something with that. It doesn't need long descriptions and enormous sections to get across what it needs, and when the adventure is trying to tell you something critical it's very direct and easy to grasp. Which again, makes adapting and running much easier. You have an excellent, strong skeleton in the writing and then lots of space to add horrible blue flesh to it. The Town section is actually really fun and was one of the points where players got time to get into character, roleplay, and think about what was coming. It can be very short, but we spent about an hour in the town of Canny as they did the WHFRP dance of trying to investigate leads and ponder what might be the deal with A Wizard. The players naturally knew this was going to get crazy; the content warnings alone would demand that. But I added more stuff to investigate as a nod to what the game is usually like and to give Leopold and Dolwen some time to study stuff before they got into the action. Canny is meant to be a little unsettling; everyone is upset about the Wizard, but they can't really tell you why. But it's also pleasant; the people are friendly, there's enough food, it's welcoming and gentle. One of my goals in writing for the adventure was to make players have the same visceral reaction I had for the Wizard after reading the adventure, so Canny being a nice and friendly place whose people didn't deserve this bastard would be the first step in bringing in those stakes. Reading the adventure to come got a significant rise out of me, I'll admit. The Wizard has only a few bits of characterization but they hit everything that pisses me off and makes me want to see some smug bastard get curb-stomped. There's something about his exact form of cruelty that really made me mad while reading and I wanted to evoke that same sense in the players. I wanted them cautious and afraid, sure, but also determined to press on and put an end to this evil. It started with the local shopkeeper (who I also made the mayor) pointing out the reward and also shaking his fist in mild, unspecified anger at that dang wizard. The first hint you have that anything's odd is that the wanted poster (of a smug, grinning bastard of a wizard) has its eyes blacked out completely and Samuel the shopkeep can't tell you who drew it or why there's a bounty on the wizard. He just pointed the PCs to the Ranchers, who could tell them more. The Ranchers are a married couple of men (I gave them a shrine to Rhya in their home both because they're farmers and as a nod to 4e's stuff making Rhya the patron of all love) who live with their son and tend a farm and bakery. They are also the first sign something is really wrong. The mayor's behavior was a little odd, but the heroes were just assuming 'warlock' at that point. The Ranchers couldn't tell them exactly what had happened, just that they couldn't let it happen again (It's going to happen again is the first Wizard Interjection). They showed the PCs where their cattle had been mutiliated, 'peeled like an orange' to use the book's description. I told them certain organs (and the entire skin) had been taken, and gave Leopold the reasonable in-setting red herring that something ripping out a cow's womb for a spell component is a major component in raising a destroyed vampire. He'd know that kind of thing, being an aspiring Hunter. The Ranchers couldn't describe what happened, and because he's a doctor and immediately went to examine the bodies, I let Dolwen find that the cows had been paralyzed and sliced apart with no care for how much it hurt. A small sample of a strange spore on the bodies proved to be some kind of terrifying hallucinogen, such that it paralyzed the animals. I thought that would be a useful hint since it gave them a little warning to prepare against inhalation threats. Regina, being a veteran of the Storm of Chaos, suggested it might be something like Slaaneshi musk and that they all wear alcohol-soaked face protection when they got to the tower. I ruled that would give them some protection from some of the spore/curse threats that waited up ahead, because I wanted to make the clues here more than just window dressing. They also got the hint that Mia Forge, the local blacksmith, may have seen more. When they went to question her, as per the module, the line of inquiry about the Wizard gave her something of a panic attack and so they gently backed of on pressing and started to get the impression the town was being enchanted by this warlock. I also added a little subplot where the Apprentices in the tower were the town's small militia, because I wanted a bit more of a link with the town and the Apprentices, and I wanted to give Regina more to work with with her hook. I also wanted the lack of any militia or guards to be a sign that something was odd, partly because it's Hams and you want at least a few armed people to run off Goatman Prime. So Leopold noticed that Mia had a picture of a young militiaman (young enough to be her son) and discovered that was her son Stephen, who was 'missing' but she couldn't say where. They bandied about theories, but came to the idea that the strong terror reaction might happen in people who actually witnessed wizard crimes directly instead of being a victim more generally, given how Mia reacted. Which seemed to fit the text, too, so I'm going to say they were probably right. Helloise was naturally eager to go fight an Enchanter in a tower (goddamn Enchanters, always causing trouble) and Dolwen had gone from mocking how this local hatted nutter probably only knew of a single Wind to being fascinated by the spores and a little nervous. Regina wanted to find out what happened to the militia and if there was anyone to save. And Leopold was clear that some serious crimes were going on and needed restitution. Lacking further information in town, they set out to go run the drat warlock off. I changed something here; the tower is normally obviously organic from the outside, which I think tips the hand a little too early and makes it less reasonable the PCs would go inside. Showing them an ordinary-looking watch tower with 'flashes of blue' through the upstairs windows (which immediately got them thinking Tzeentch) made it more likely they'd enter. Leopold stopped to knock on the door and read out his warrant and call on the Wizard to come and answer some questions, and in doing they saw the door sucked into the floor, opening automatically despite appearing to be wood. It was a pretty fun moment as they both really realized something was wrong, but still decided to go inside. Which naturally led to the door slamming shut behind them. As Regina had pointed out, it did look kind of like a mouth... Canny is simple and effective enough. Like I said, we spent a little more time there because I was running this in Hams and 'investigating small hamlets with evil problems' is one of the core loops of Hams. Plus, seeing how terrified and pained and confused the locals were was step one in learning to hate The Wizard. Next Time: The Tower on the Hill
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Jul 7, 2020 14:25
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DigitalRaven posted:This may sound weird, but I find few things as relaxing and enjoyable to read as Night's reviews, and especially his descriptions of the characters he puts together. Something about the combinations of personalities and seeing the mechanics work is like settling down to a cup of tea and a biscuit while listening to the Archers. They hit everything that I want WHFRP to be, and make me sad that my attempts to get a game off the ground have faltered, both for people who know the setting assuming it's going to be far more grimdark, and those who don't know the setting at all being put off by the amount of material. I think it's because what the setting/system are for me, and this was really clear with Karl and company, is a setting where things are deeply imperfect but people persist. People don't quite get everything they wanted, or their lives follow a rocky road, but they're still strong enough to keep going. Add the color from the Career system and how people wander from one place in their lives to another, and it makes it really easy to write characters who feel like people. There's also a tendency in WHFRP's art and look to be busy, but in a way that makes people feel personal. Little details like Regina carrying the last toy she made for luck, or someone having colorful but patched up clothing they bought when things were going well all add to the impression. My GM was the first to get this across, I just took it and ran with it. Plus, in a world where being a chosen one doesn't matter, everyone can.
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Jul 7, 2020 14:32
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 The Dishonored Roleplaying Game DigitalRaven posted:
Once a liar... Yes, Dishonored has been updated again. The versioning in the filename tells me that this is the version 8 release. The version in my previous update (with the errata) was v3 (and v4 came out a few days after that), while the original book was v2. They're obviously internal version numbers, but it's still nice to have a) to see the differences and b) to make sure you're working from the right version. I'm not going to do one of these updates for every new version, but (as with v3) this one changes enough that I griped about in my previous review that an update is worth it. This new version of the book is eight pages longer than the previous. This is significant to me because any changes to an already-laid-out product are significant, because they require extra layout time and extra passes to make sure everything fits. I've previously had to be very careful when making corrections to laid out books in order that I don't force an extra line that would end up with a dangling orphan line on another page. At one point I had to check that the line lengths of the new text would be similar in the appropriate font, as it was wrapped around a piece of art. That Mophidius were willing to re-do the layout of the book (even if it is 'just' adding pages) is a big thing that I think people who don't know the inside baseball take wouldn't notice. As with the previous new version, this one has an included word doc that points out the major changes, which is a nice touch. It doesn't bother with each typo, but covers the significant stuff. Firstly, Void Points no longer fuel void powers. Instead, characters with the Mark of the Outsider gain a pool of Mana equal to twice their max Void Points (so 6 at character creation). Mana restores at the end of a scene, and each power has a cost that isn't just (old cost *2). As a result of this change, powers like Blink and Dark Vision — Dishonored's signature powers — are more available than before. While this does remove the Void Point pressure on characters with powers, it makes the power system even more detached from the rest. At the cost of a single talent, you get access to resources and abilities that no other characters have and that advance orthogonally to everything else. I've got a house rule in mind to allow characters without the talent to use Runes to make Outsider Shrines, which can give them Enhancements or extra Void Points depending on the number of Runes there, along with bits about tracking the Runes if they're stolen. That would let everyone tap in to the alternate advancement if they wanted. Next, tracks get an extra two full pages added at the start of Chapter 3, which make everything a lot clearer and give tracks more of an actual structure. It also gives a lot of ideas for integrating tracks with the other parts of the game, which is sorely needed. Stealth tracks (and the stealth mechanics in general, which plug in to the tracks quite heavily) have firmed up quite a bit from what they were, which is nice. To give you an idea, previously the section on in-character actions generating Chaos went from a wooly "think up world-changing events that will happen later on" to "when you have enough Chaos, use it to make a track leading to a world-changing event, and here's guidelines on filling it". This is an entirely positive change, and is something I'm really pleased to see. Focuses have changed. Instead of getting eight points between two focuses from a list, you instead get the four focuses of your Archetype, which you can switch out if you want. Though it looks like a tiny change, saying "here are your four unless you want to swap one" rather than "pick two from these five, or maybe from others if you want" makes character creation easier and removes a certain amount of decision paralysis. You're still told "eleven points, minimum 2, max 5", when the easier way would be to start the four at 2 and give players three points to increase them, but that's a presentational quibble. I actually feel a bit more positive towards the list of Focuses now, which I didn't think would be possible. The biggest addition is a whole six extra pages on "Heroic characters". These add an outlook on top of the character's Archetype. Each Outlook provides +2 to two Styles, and +1 to a third, +1 to two out of a list of three Skills, and one talent from three available to the outlook. I think my favourite is "Yes, I Am That Good", which lets you increase the difficulty of any Bold or Clever action by 1, and gives bonus Momentum if you succeed. Because doing something the easy way is for chumps. The outlooks do have some overlap in their descriptions, but each is different enough in mechanical effects to make it worth it. Using outlooks gives you a significant step up — they're worth about 80 xp, in addition to giving you three extra Talents to pick from — and I like how they're presented as something other than "here's a bunch of XP, enjoy". The equipment section adds a couple of qualities for weapons, but more importantly it trashes the entire section of equipment upgrades and blueprints, stating that it "will be expanded and developed further for inclusion in a later product." Which I've got to say is a good move, the system as it stood was barely a system and it will really benefit from re-working. The mention of future products leaves open the door for more expansion than is possible even from adding pages to the corebook, for example the inclusion of Outsider Shrines or power upgrades. Gripes These changes leave me with just two annoyances. The first is the orthogonal advancement for characters with powers, already mentioned. The second is that factions haven't seen any changes. They still don't have a defined code, nor do they have any definition for the benefits of a given rank. They remain the weakest and point in the game, with mechanics that hang off them despite the faction write-ups having less actual mechanical substance than cotton wool. But hey, at this point? It's a drat sight better than the book was at release.
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Jul 7, 2020 14:59
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Night10194 posted:A Wizard Like I said before, figure one of the points of The Abyss is to give PCs not perfectly set up to deal with A Wizard both useful information and some potential upgrades to be better suited to do so.
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Jul 7, 2020 15:32
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Had this gotten a physical release already? I mean, it is nice that they're going to stick lengths to fix it even if it shouldn't have been so sorry in the first place. But if I'd spent $60 on a book so crappy that within a year the publisher added whole pages and tore whole sections out, unless I got some coupon for a replacement I'd be more pissed than I already was about the state of the original book.
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Jul 7, 2020 15:40
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Uh, fair warning, the quoted picture of A Wizard from a couple pages back isn’t spoiled on my device. I don’t know if that’s intentional or... I sure do know what that wizard looks like now even though I was waiting until it reached that point in the review to look at it 
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Jul 7, 2020 16:08
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That Old Tree posted:Had this gotten a physical release already? I mean, it is nice that they're going to stick lengths to fix it even if it shouldn't have been so sorry in the first place. But if I'd spent $60 on a book so crappy that within a year the publisher added whole pages and tore whole sections out, unless I got some coupon for a replacement I'd be more pissed than I already was about the state of the original book. It's only out in PDF now. I'm pretty sure that they're not going to make further significant changes once it's off to the printer, to stop exactly that from happening (hence things like blueprints/upgrades coming in a future book, rather than being ripped out to be replaced in future).
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Jul 7, 2020 16:11
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Falconier111 posted:Uh, fair warning, the quoted picture of A Wizard from a couple pages back isn’t spoiled on my device. I don’t know if that’s intentional or... I sure do know what that wizard looks like now even though I was waiting until it reached that point in the review to look at it I went back and edited it in case it was me quoting the spoiler that caused it. I'm sorry if that's the case, it was completely unintentional.
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Jul 7, 2020 16:11
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Night10194 posted:A Wizard This was, admittedly, entirely because I wanted to get in the joke of Dolwen saying "this is not a wizard" and being both technically correct and also spectacularly wrong in the particulars. And also because elf snobbery is funny.
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Jul 7, 2020 16:22
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Man, I feel really bad if using Quote accidentally revealed a non-spoiled Wizard.
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Jul 7, 2020 16:54
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Loving these Silent Legions characters already. I hope they show up in handcrafted examples of play in future posts.BinaryDoubts posted:As you can tell, the Tough’s abilities are entirely combat-focused. The game hasn’t explained what Slaughter damage is yet, but it sure sounds nasty. After seeing all the fun possibilities with the Socialite’s abilities, it’s a bit of a letdown that the fighter equivalent is… just another boring fighter, especially in a modern-day occult game that emphasizes how rarely you want to be fighting. Interested to see when we get to the game's bestiary whether having a dedicated negotiator/social character is enough to get you out of trouble, or whether the investigators will be facing lots of monsters that can't be reasoned with and have to be shot.
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Jul 7, 2020 16:55
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mellonbread posted:Loving these Silent Legions characters already. I hope they show up in handcrafted examples of play in future posts. I'll use them in examples of play later for sure! Night10194 posted:Man, I feel really bad if using Quote accidentally revealed a non-spoiled Wizard. Ditto, I hope no one got spoiled due to viewing my post on a mobile device or something that didn't render the spoiler tag right. To be on the safe side, I replaced the image tags with direct links instead.
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Jul 7, 2020 20:02
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Night10194 posted:Man, I feel really bad if using Quote accidentally revealed a non-spoiled Wizard. Well, for whatever it’s worth the images aren’t showing up unspoiled now, so, you won! 
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Jul 7, 2020 20:51
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ESOTERIC ENTERPRISES PART 21: WRAPUP, HOUSE RULES AND EXAMPLES OF PLAY End of the line. Let’s get this thing wrapped up. OVERALL THOUGHTS Esoteric Enterprises is a real pain in the rear end. I know the game well enough that going back and re-reading the rules was an uncomfortable reminder of how many of its flaws I just accept or ignore now. But I can’t just straight up say it’s a bad game, because that wouldn’t be fair either. I told all my players that it was unfinished and they shouldn’t buy it, but they did it anyway. Now a couple of them are running their own campaigns. Let’s see how it stacks up. Pros
WHAT’S MISSING There are no rules for creating the surface of the city, other than the dungeon entrances. The random event tables strongly suggest that surface city play is intended to be part of the campaign, but the book provides no help for making it happen. I never thought I’d say this, but I found myself wanting rules for domain level play, and the game doesn’t have any. The pitch given in the first chapter is that the player characters are going to increase in power and become significant players in the underworld, but at no point are rules ever given for hiring even a single goon, let alone an entire criminal organization. For a game called Esoteric Enterprises, there is precisely zero mechanical support given for the enterprises part of the title. HOUSE RULES These are the rules that I use in my home game of Esoteric Enterprises. They’re based on about twenty sessions of experience with the game, most of them implemented much earlier than that. Skill Changes Everyone starts with 1 extra point in Athletics, meaning average characters have a 2 in 6 base chance. If this takes you to 7 in 6, you must put the extra point somewhere else. (This is a small change, but it makes it noticeably easier for characters to run away from a losing battle, something I want to encourage rather than punish) Class Changes The Bodyguard class has the option to take damage in lieu of someone else taking it. This is subject to narrative plausibility at the discretion of the DM. You can dive in front of a knife or bullet, you can't take the damage from poison if someone else drinks it. (This makes the Bodyguard even more powerful than the Mercenary than it already is and I don’t care. The Mercenary is redundant and the Bodyguard is more fun) The Mystic now starts with 3 in 6 Charm. Blessings do not require a roll on the Cost of Holiness table if the recipient of the blessing passes their Charm roll. (Mystics suck and need all the help they can get. This is an interim step that stops short of actually redoing the whole class to more successfully execute on the theme of beseeching divinity for spells, but I’m not interested in doing a full rework) The Explorer no longer takes a penalty to their damage die size in combat. (Explorers are already a worse version of the Criminal, the last thing they need is the damage penalty just because Basic Halflings had it) Advancement Changes Multiply experience gained from treasure by 5. (This results in the awkward expedient of dividing job rewards by 2 (since they give half XP), dividing that by the number of party members, then multiplying by 5. But it makes advancement fast enough to matter, instead of glacial. And it doesn't disrupt "balance", because the game has none and doesn't care) Your character's Resources value functions rules as written during character creation. After character creation, buying items is done with cash. It's up to the DM to come up with cash prices for items, but the book has some guidelines (ex pg 134 lists 300 for a handgun, 600 for a heavy weapon, etc). In addition to money from adventuring, you get a weekly influx of money equal to the "budget" for your Resources level on page 56. The Contacts skill is still used to find people willing to sell rare items. (The resources rules as written are bad because they don’t allow the players to actually spend their dungeon cash on goodies. The game already counts dollars and cents for XP purposes, counting them for spending money isn’t a huge stretch. It even gives weekly dollar amounts for each resource level.) Underworld Creation When rolling the map of the whole city, use only large dice, such as D20s and D10s marked with the 10s place. When connecting these complexes, ignore the miles and miles of identical sewer tunnels the game tells you are connecting them. Instead, each underworld complex is directly connected to its neighbors. When rolling up an individual complex, increase the portion of large dice, such as D20s and D10s marked with the 10s place (if the complex’s table uses such dice). If the complex has rules for passages connecting rooms based on the die size, ignore those rules and roll randomly to see which of those passages connect the rooms. Each complex connects directly to its neighbors by at least one door, passage, tunnel, hallway, etc, but usually two. Just draw two lines off the page in the direction of the other complex, and two lines coming onto the page from that direction on the connecting complex. When rolling the social underworld, use a smaller number of dice than you have complexes in your underworld. Add complexes to the underworld to accommodate factions generated in this phase that have their own unique complexes (such as Fairy Enclaves, Morlock Packs and Lithic Courts) but did not have those complexes generated during the dungeon creation phase. Domain Level Play This barely counts as a houserule, since it’s more like a new mechanic, but in brief: once you hit Level 3, you get a Crew. You can choose what NPCs make up your Crew, as long as their total hit dice is equal to or less than your Level plus your Contacts score. You can always pick mundane humans, like Professional Doctors, Mobsters, etc. If you know how to contact Wizards, Fairies, Morlocks, etc and they aren’t hostile to you, you can recruit from those factions. They come with whatever equipment is in their stat block, and you can give them whatever weapons items you want in addition to that. You can also have a tame monstrous creature that obeys your orders, if you know where to find it. When in doubt, you can use a Contacts roll to see if you know a guy. You don’t have to worry about paying wages for your crew, that’s handled in your weekly budget from your resources level. You can send your Crew to do errands during downtime, expanding the amount of stuff you can accomplish in a day. You can also bring your Crew with you into the dungeon or on other adventures. They generally do what you say and don’t have to test morale unless something really horrible happens. If a Crew member dies, you can replace them, but it depends on the circumstances of their death. If it was obviously your fault, or especially if you deliberately killed them, you have to make a Contacts roll or jump through some other hoop to find someone willing to work for you. (I’m toying with giving them a share of the XP, though I don’t know how much. Probably Half or One-Quarter of the XP earned by the player they work for, that way it doesn’t subtract from any of the other group members’ payouts) EXAMPLES OF PLAY There aren’t many out there. Here’s what I was able to find by searching the internet. If you know of more, don’t hesitate to post them.
For completeness’ and self aggrandizement’s sakes, here are my own Esoteric Enterprises play reports:
As aggravating as the game can be, I really enjoyed running it. It was a real eye opener to the reasons why people return to OSR games, despite the many things that suck about D&D. I'm going to put it back on the shelf soon, though. I've used basically every faction and complex now. And once you've squeezed all the content out of Esoteric Enterprises, you're left with nothing but a rind of not-particularly-appealing mechanics. Thanks for sticking with me for 21 posts. Keep being awesome, FATAL and Friends.
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Jul 7, 2020 21:11
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EE actually seems like a pretty interesting game, if held back by being OSR. We're going to be saying that a lot about OSR aren't we? Still, it gave us the Death Knight family of chivalry and dark murder, and for that I am grateful. Thanks for writing it up!
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Jul 7, 2020 21:15
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Manual of the Planes: 3.5E The Elemental Plane of Air Planar Traits: Subjective Directional Gravity, Normal Time, Infinite Size, Air-Dominant, Alterable Morphic, Enhanced Magic (anything to do with air), Impeded Magic (anything to do with earth) The Plane of Air is a limitless expanse of sky above and below. Clouds build in spectacular patterns, and all the weather that exists on the Material Plane exists here, with rain going every which way. Besides the elementals, magical flying creatures of all sorts call this plane home: dragons, pegasi, wyverns, rocs, sphinxes, and more. Anything with a fly speed can be found in the Plane of Air. The most famous and powerful of the non-elemental residents, however, are the djinn in all their Arabian Nights style edged hospitality. Notable guests include celestials and fiends - many such good and evil outsiders have wings, and the Plane of Air is sometimes used by them as neutral grounds for summits and meetings. However, dense pockets of non-elemental life are rare on this plane due to the scarcity of solid material to build nests and homes on. Life adapted to be completely on the wing can do fine here, but the general absence of solid ground means that non-magical fliers are a rare sight. Likewise, the plane is very unlikely to have seen any substantial colonization by races from the Material Plane - even if natural fliers exist (like the Avariel of the Forgotten Realms), they'd struggle to build much of anything here in the absence of powerful  Speaking of , however, the fact that the Plane of Air is downright congenial for an Inner Plane means that outposts from magically powerful planeswalkers are not uncommon. Some are built around motes of elemental earth (though these tend to be fiercely fought over), more commonly such outposts are created by magical means. Adventurers from the Material Plane who journey to the Plane of Air most likely do so to seek out one of these flying castles as either a diplomatic mission or a dungeon crawl, and the subjective directional gravity can make such outposts a disorienting experience to explore.Aside from the disorienting gravity, survival on the Plane of Air is simple enough. Water is readily available from the rain, and non-elemental life suitable for hunting is common enough. The Elemental Plane of Earth Planar Traits: Heavy Gravity, Normal Time, Infinite Size, Earth-Dominant, Alterable Morphic, Enhanced Magic (anything to do with earth), Impeded Magic (anything to do with air) Of all the Inner Planes, the Plane of Earth is the most mysterious, for the plane itself is solid earth, varying in composition from sand to soft dirt to solid stone to metal to crystal. Earth elementals and most other natives move easily and naturally through the solid substance of the plane, but many visitors have carved out caverns or taken advantage of naturally occurring voids to establish themselves. Planeswalkers are strongly advised to not take a portal to this plane unless they're confident about where it will exit, lest they emerge in solid earth and be entombed to suffocate (or at least be seriously inconvenienced, for warforged or the like). It's the resident visitors that travelers to the Plane of Earth are likely the most familiar with. First and foremost are the dao genies, a paranoid strain of slavers, but stone giants, dwarves, gnomes, goblins, and drow (or any other underground race the DM desires) have all carved out subterranean realms on the plane. Such realms are always precarious, as not only do most native elementals consider such excavations to be an affront to be sought out and destroyed but the plane itself is geologically active. These realms, then, tend to be perpetually busy repairing damage from natural and elemental-caused quakes and cave-ins. Subterranean monsters like gargoyles, ropers, and purple worms are also known to exist here. Within these cavern realms, however, life is no more difficult than in any setting's Underdark, with fungal-based food sources being particularly common. What most of these colonists are here for (and potentially adventurers) is the limitless mineral wealth of the plane. Not only is the plane and with it its veins of gemstones and precious metals infinite, but gems and metals can be found here that simply do not exist anywhere else in the cosmos. No specifics are provided, but the DM is encouraged to come up with something - if nothing else, exotic metals like adamantine and mithril can be found here in enormous quantities. Of course, older and fouler things than ropers and purple worms can be found in the deep places of the earth, and it's never possible to predict when a mine or tunnel excavation will stumble across something that should have stayed buried... Next time, fire and water.
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Jul 7, 2020 23:59
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Silent Legions: Character Creation (Part Two) Richard Parker had two births. His first was in a clawfoot bathtub ringed by his three mothers and the cult’s elders. His second happened exactly twelve years later, in a cave in deep Montana, when the cult tried to awaken him to his prophesied destiny with vicious knives. He broke free, ran and crawled and clawed his way down a narrow tunnel, too small for the Brothers of the True Dawn to follow. He curled up in the darkness and waited to die. When that didn’t happen, he staggered to his bloody feet and followed a distant breeze to freedom. He bounced through the foster system for years until he found his final home: the quiet and God-fearing Parker family. Their religion never bothered him, even if he didn’t believe. He’d seen true religion first-hand and was happy enough to mouth along to the milquetoast Catholic church’s prayers every Sunday. The Parkers scraped together enough cash to send him to college, where Richard began a fervent study of history with a focus on religion and apocalyptic cults throughout history. He wears long sleeves and threadbare suits to hide the scars on his arms, and a wide smile to hide the scars on his soul. His best friend, Jamie Kamil, introduced him to Arch during two-dollar tequila shot night at the campus pub. Arch and Parker didn’t remember the night, but they did remember the long, quiet conversation they had lying in bed together the next morning. A cautious romance grew between the two, despite each person’s gut-level fear of, well, being honest with another human being. Parker’s hidden his early life from Arch, deflecting their questions with jokes and sharp stares. When Arch mentioned a library, and a peculiar book emblazoned with a blood-red sunrise, Parker knew he had to see it for himself. Let’s roll up his stats: code:code:Parker’s class is an obvious pick: Scholar. The key attributes are Intelligence and Wisdom, so let’s go ahead and bump Wisdom up to that sweet 14. For starting skills, he gets Research (“library use, net searches, questioning locals, and other efforts at interrogating their available sources”), History or Science (I picked History), one class skill (took Research again, to represent his obsessive focus on learning all he can about, well, everything occult), and any skill. I chose Stealth, figuring he picked up a few tricks in avoiding the cult and keeping a low profile over his tumultuous life. At first level, Parker gets Deep Gnosis, which lets Parker spend an Expertise point to gain an automatic success at any knowledge-based skill he possesses. Unfortunately, it doesn’t apply to the Occult skill, and can only be used once per day. I’m not sure if Research counts as knowledge-based (the example given is a scientist who uses Science to succeed at analyzing a chemical compound), but I’d rule that it does since, well, there’s already too many limitations on this ability. Also unclear is if you can use it after rolling and failing, but once again I’d just rule in favour of the player. At third level, Parker can protect his sanity and take no Madness from a Horror source by spending an Expertise point (again, only once per day). At seventh level, Parker can “gain a sense of the purpose of an occult object or perceptible enchantment,” which can even be used to distinguish fake artifacts from real ones. Finally, at tenth level, Parker can basically call up Pokedex entries for monsters, letting him identify the “type, powers, behaviour, and special weaknesses of a supernatural or unearthly monster on sight.” Unique or utterly unknown monsters are immune, but the book says you can still kind of guess at weaknesses. So, the Scholar’s abilities. They’re more interesting than the Tough’s, but seem like they’re not going to drive the narrative like the Socialite’s. “Good at knowing stuff” is a fun enough niche, so I’m not particularly down on the class overall. As for the rest, Parker has a paltry 1d4 hit die (although given how badly I’ve been rolling for HP, it might not matter), +0 to attacks (he alternates between getting +0 and +1 every level), and good Magic and Luck saves, awful Physical Effect and Evasion saves, and average mental effect saves. As far as I can tell, this isn’t one of those OSR games where the different classes get different save progressions – every class has the same starting and max values, just distributed in different orders. Parker’s final stats code:Her distant and disinterested parents tried a few doctors, none of whom could prescribe the thing that would take away her dreams. She learned to choke down her waking screams, to flip her sweat-stained pillow, and to pretend that everything was OK. Her parents smiled at her in their strange way when she told them the dreams were gone, and left her alone again. She left home, left college, restless and rootless, tired of her dreams and the enormity of a directionless life stretching out ahead of her. She wound up a bartender in some shithole New England town, drinking away the long shifts with the few regulars who hadn’t made a pass at her. She didn’t drink because of the dreams; she drank because it made being awake feel like something. Eventually, she made a friend in Jamie Kamil, a fellow drop-out whose quiet support made quitting seem like anything but impossible. Jamie helped Emma to take her first steps outside the fog that’s hung over her entire life. Her dreams, the uncanny things she’s seen in shadowed alleys, the whispering stars that seem to speak to her in the still moments between one midnight and the next – it’s all connected, somehow. Emma’s eyes are open. She’s going to find out what it all means, and then she’s going to punch that stupid sun right in its loving face. Rolling for Emma’s stats: code:Her class (the last of the core four) is Investigator. The core attributes here are Wisdom and Charisma, and given Emma already has a pretty great roll for Charisma, we’ll bump her Wisdom to 14. Her starting skills are Perception, Research, any class skill – I picked Computer (an ex-girlfriend taught her a few things, and now she sometimes hangs out on weird hacker forums during sleepless nights), and any other skill – let’s say Persuade, something she knows a lot about from hustling drunks out of the bar after closing. Her starting ability, Leading Whispers, is basically a “free clue” button. By spending an Expertise, she gets an “intuitive insight or contact who can lead to further information about a chosen topic or person.” The book notes that these insights might not be the clearest and that contacts may be hard to reach, but even so, this is a surprisingly GUMSHOE-like (or hunch roll-like) ability for an OSR game. It’s easy to flavour it as anything from prophetic dreams to a Twitter alert and isn’t loaded with too many restrictions. The higher-level abilities are a mixed bag. The third-level ability lets her filter out red herrings and coincidences as well as to discern if evidence is of significant importance to an investigation. The red herrings part doesn’t seem too useful – as a GM, I rarely include pointless information since it’ll always just lead to tire-spinning and wild goose chases, so I guess I’d have to start adding more bullshit to a given adventure so the Investigator can feel smart when they use this ability? On the other hand, at seventh level, they basically get a lie detector ability, which does feel useful in this kind of game. You can even use it after an entire conversation and know which specific statements were made with the intent to deceive. Finally, at tenth level, you can spend Expertise and fifteen minutes of examination to discover any and all hidden features or clues in the area (the ability works on spaces up to the size of a single-family home). Again, this feels very GUMSHOE-like, which I like! At tenth level, you should be able to case a joint in fifteen minutes without breaking a sweat. As for the other bits and bobs, Emma gets a middle-of-the-road 1d6 hit die, +1 to attack every other level (starting at 1st), great Evasion and Luck, mediocre Mental Effect, and bad Physical Effect and Magic saves. Emma’s final stats code:Next time: The rules of the game.
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Jul 8, 2020 06:48
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A Wizard Squish squish The moment they made it into the tower they knew something was really, really wrong. The interior of an old watch tower isn't usually covered in strange growths of blue flesh, nor let by faintly glowing, organic bulbs. The 'doors' within were like stretched sphincters of muscle, which opened when someone got close. And curious 'vents' that seemed like intestines or veins covered the walls. Whatever the case, they were trapped in here now, and wouldn't be leaving until they took care of this goddamn Wizard. Their first assumption (being Warhammer characters) was obviously Chaos, and that's not exactly a stupid assumption considering that's usually what causes a tower full of weird cancers in this world. From the vents, you might realize the Wizard is watching the players. This is the case through the whole adventure: He scampers around the vents, periodically watching, noted by the vent dripping translucent slime. This is perfectly normal wizard behavior, ask any weaver of the mystic arts. More importantly, if players split up and anyone is alone in a room where the hidden trait is 'the Wizard is watching', he picks them off. "Something runs at you very fast, and you're dragged into the vents." There is no need to worry about them anymore. This was, in fact, Heloise's special ability: She had Fleet and Flee! so I thought it'd be neat if she was immune to getting picked off by the Wizard, since she's so fast she could escape through a door to another room just in time. I had sort of hoped to use that to give them hints of the Wizard, just vague impressions of something fast and terrible from the vents, but she was also the one who talked the party out of splitting up at all the one time they considered it. Which was good play, and Heloise was still very useful as a skilled warrior, so it wasn't a huge deal that her personal ability never came up. Plus, this being Hams, any PC could Burn Fate to just narrowly wriggle free and escape at the last second. Burning Fate is kind of a big hit, but it's better than being Wizarded.  One of the things I appreciate about A Wizard is that it doesn't really bother being a maze. There also aren't a lot of filler rooms. Almost every room has something interesting in it, and the few that don't are used to build tension. Still, it's a tower. There isn't a lot of room for a huge maze. Every room's entrances, exists, what's locked, what isn't are well described. You get an excellent rundown of what players can find the moment they enter, plus what they can see if they hunt around for hidden stuff, clear descriptions of traps and encounters, it's all very well laid out to make it easier to run. While the descriptions are economical, they're precise. They give you everything you actively need to know, they give you an evocative starting point, and they let you do the rest. It's excellent as a guide to the adventure. On floor 1, they found doors leading left, right, and ahead. This would be a pattern, one Heloise noted at a critical moment that helped the party quite a bit. Leopold and Regina took the lead, holding up the party's lanterns and getting spooked when the doors opened automatically; the first thing they found was the staircase leading up on the left. Covered in bizarre, web-like tendrils, making passage up very difficult. They decided not to poke that yet and kept going on floor one, finding the room on the right led to a room with 4 blue robes and a sticky note that said "PREPARE". Dolwen voiced his expert opinion that putting the robes on was a bad idea, and they found some broken or discarded militia equipment in the same room, plus the first incident of Wizard slime from the vents. Dolwen took a sample and when the slime hardened quickly, realized it was the same material as the note. Oh dear! Checking the last door, they found it locked, needing some kind of bulb or indentation, and Leopold's excellent perception picked up someone crying inside and praying to Shallya. They tried to cut open the door only to find it regenerated, and he yelled to the person inside they'd come for them as soon as they found a key. He also briefly considered that maybe putting on a robe would open the door, but was talked out of it. Which is good, because the robes fuse to you and try to make you an Apprentice. You don't want to be an Apprentice. Still, it was a brave thing to consider. I am always glad when players try to be heroic or care about trying to help people. Besides, getting into that room is critical to getting the Good Ending+, so it was a good idea anyway. Next they had the matter of the tendrils. They thought it might signal a monster or something if they were disturbed, which would attack while they were climbing. A not unreasonable assumption, but incorrect: The Tendrils will grab a PC who fails an Agi test while climbing the stairs, and if they aren't rescued with Str, Agi, or an ally cutting the tendril (which might make them fall 30 feet) they get dragged up to a locked room on the second floor and suspended above an acid bath/digestion pool for one of the Wizard's children, taking light damage (1 wound) per minute from the vapors even if they hang on and don't fall in. Thankfully, our heroes didn't find that out, because they hit on the reasonable strategy of tossing some of the spare militia gear from the preparation room into the tendrils, trying to trigger 'the spider' or whatever to come down and fight them off the stairs. When it made the tendrils withdraw to deposit what they caught, they seized on clearing their path with thrown refuse and then climbing up without needing an Agi test. This is when I started thinking they were going to do well. That solution obviously wasn't in the module, but it's clear you're meant to try to think of things like that to improvise your way around obstacles. If you just roll saves every time you run into a hazard, bad things are going to happen. In general the players played very cautiously (without bringing the game to a halt at any point) and watching them come up with solutions and figure out dangers was definitely one of the pleasures of running the module. You need to be ready to say 'yes' or 'yes and' a lot, but letting them come up with clever ways past dangers was really fun. Climbing up, they found the first militiaman. They had their names and descriptions and would recognize them, and they saw the boy Thinnus dressed in a blue robe and running towards them, his veins bulging. Screaming he had a mystical message from his master. Which consisted of trying to vomit blue, acid-spitting tendrils all over Regina (who Dodged, look for Regina's Dodge skill to save her life multiple times this adventure) before she put him down with her hammer and he exploded from the Room 8 on the right would have been a danger except it requires you to 'breathe unprotected' and they'd been forewarned by their investigations to wear their masks. Otherwise the spores and flashing lights were designed to sicken and debuff characters, but they negated it by having investigated properly in the town and prepared a countermeasure for spores. Encounter 9, just past it, is the first thing I seriously changed. The normal Room 9 encounter has one of the Apprentices, Sam, left as an offering. Looking heavily pregnant and badly hurt, with a sign saying 'KEYS' and next to the locked door to Room 6, the acid bath. The idea being that a PC might well be slowly dying in there and they have to mercy kill/open her up to get the keys out to save their friend. As I said, I don't get a Magical Realm vibe from anything in this adventure, but that encounter felt a little gratuitous compared to the others. I decided to tone it down (well, for certain values of the term) and have her instead already split open, with the lungs replaced with the two key bulbs she has (one to room 6, one of the isolation room downstairs), and set up as a trap: If they just reached in to get the keys without thinking, her chest cavity would grow teeth and go after them like that doctor in The Thing. Dolwen being a doctor, he noticed the teeth in time, and forceped the keys out before the party figured out the poor militiawoman's lips were mouthing 'kill me'. They were pretty down about having to mercy kill two young soldiers at this point, but considered it the right thing to do, making it as painless as possible. I think framing it as a mercy that Sam was asking for was a little better than 'you have to cut her belly open to get the keys' and pregnancy imagery in horror is sort of overdone anyway. Getting the keys, they opened the bath and dodged the acid spilling out, then were astonished to discover the half-formed Wizardling in the bath, screeching and mewling. A hideous, alien thing, resembling the tendrils that were inside Thinnus, with too many limbs and many half-formed eyes, its carapace still dripping with the acid bath. They killed it, and immediately heard a ragged, angry breathing from the vent above them as slime dripped down again: The Wizard did NOT appreciate that. Dolwen sent an arrow into the vent (hitting nothing, but making the Wizard scamper off) and they decided against splitting up, going back down to door 3 on floor 1 immediately with the second key to try to free the prisoner there. You're meant to find Mia's son, Stephen, in the isolation room, his flesh melting from his robe. He's meant to be dying, being punished for defying the Wizard, and the PCs have to mercy-kill him and take his medallion to give his mother closure. However, they'd moved quickly and the mood was a little grim after having to put Sam down, and they had an excellent doctor. I decided it wouldn't change anything structurally if they found that Stephen had mostly managed to tear his robe off and was slowly being burned by what parts remained. They held him down while Dolwen debrided the hell-robe, narrowly saving the badly wounded young man. He was able to tell them a little (warning them about not being alone) and kept repeating that they'd tried and he was sorry. With no vent in the room, and no way to get him out yet, they locked him in there for safety for now, promising to get him out after they opened the doors, and Regina left him her hand weapon to protect himself, using her Great Axe the rest of the story. They'd tried really hard to get in there and save whoever was in there, they had the means, and it fit with 'Stephen angered the Wizard' for him to have almost escaped. And structurally it fit the same role of giving them a chance of giving his mother relief from the Wizard's torment. They'd earned a win. Going back up, because they chased the Wizard off earlier, he did not take the body of the slain Wizardling, letting Dolwen analyze it. The first horror was realizing this thing wasn't discorporating or vanishing like a demon. It had to be a living creature. It also obviously wasn't a former human, and all the mutations they'd seen so far were far less random and more directed, bodies being made to accommodate...something. Dolwen came to the conclusion they were dealing with some kind of parasites, and more horrifyingly, even the half-formed Wizardling (not that they knew these were Wizard children yet) had ten eggs in its body. I wanted to hint early they should be looking for eggs. The thing also had a terrible, rictus grin on its teeth that never faded, even in death, even when it was cut apart. Grimly, they realized they had to stop these things from spreading. What the hell was this Wizard up to? They headed up to the third floor... Next Time: More Tower
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Jul 8, 2020 11:50
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For what it's worth, as someone who knows nothing about A Wizard but is pretty familiar with Warhammer Fantasy, my guess at this point with Chaos seemingly out of the picture, and not knowing that this is a setting-agnostic adventure, would be that the party is dealing with Skaven, specifically Clan Moulder. Weird fleshy magic and body horror seems perfectly up their alley, especially if I've noticed the slime and the vents - not hard to picture a Grey Seer or other sort creating vents small enough for a Skaven to scamper through while observing the latest test subjects to enter their domain.
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Jul 8, 2020 12:29
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A Wizard Life grows within the womb of these walls. If you harm them, I will rend you apart and set you separate Room 10 is where they almost ran into serious problems. It isn't really in the adventure outside of the Wizard yelling in bold text that if the players slaughter the Wizardling he'll do the same to them, but I decided that the Wizard was going to really ramp up trying to pick them off or kill them personally because they'd wasted one of his young. At first he was playing around, having fun, and feeling in control. He still felt in control, but now he was mad and had BIG PLANS for these Soon-to-be-Apprentices. Room 10 contains a bunch of hypnotic patterns that force a save or you become woozy and suggestible. I ruled the Wizard was going to try to order anyone who got caught into adjacent rooms, alone, so he could maybe get one of them. And three players failed the save. Cue spending a lot of Fortune and a moment of panic and only two of them making it, but two was enough, as each unhypnotized PC grabbed one of the entranced ones and stopped them. Dolwen and Leopold shook the other two out of danger, and they got themselves together to press on. The next room held two apprentices standing guard at a locked door, plus plenty of living, writhing tentacles all around the floor. They quickly deduced that was a deathtrap and decided to explore other sections first, and come up with a plan to draw the Apprentices out rather than fighting them in the Tentacle Field. This was a very good idea, BTW! If they'd fought them in the Tentacle Field, the upcoming fight would have been extremely hard since the Tentacles would be contributing to outnumber and trying to weakly grapple PCs, which would really get someone killed if they got unlucky and got held. Once again, an extremely dangerous set-piece avoided by the PCs actually being smart about what they were dealing with. Though Regina almost blew it when she tried to call to the Apprentices in case they were sane, but thankfully they wouldn't attack unless the PCs threatened their charge or shot at them. She did notice their necks seems to break to snap to staring at her, though! Fun times in Wizard town. Moving to the room opposite that one, they found a mystical magical treasure chest. Not being particularly dumb (though being a little adventurous) Regina poked it with a spear, and was horrified as a very young Wizardling popped out and tried to facehugger her. The spear gave her just enough time (bonus to Dodge) to drop the spear and stumble away, and before the thing could leap, Helloise skewered it and saved her companion. Everyone took a moment to calm down; if the baby Wizardling from the chest had gotten a PC, it would have attached to their brain and needed to be carefully removed by Dolwen's Surgery skill (a failure would kill the PC/cost Fate). While attached it would let the PC see through darkness and illusion, but seriously debuff their mental stats because mental parasite, attached to brainmeats! Thankfully, they avoided the drat thing. Leopold found the only content of the chest was a little smiling note that said "BE SEEING YOU" He decided he really hated this pointy-hatted bastard. Added bonus: Heloise could mark she was the first Bretonnian Knight to slay a facehugger. Big achievement! The team decided that the level of protection on the Tendril room strongly suggested this might be where the hatchery or egg chamber lay, which was a very good (and very correct) guess. Their other theory was it might be the Wizard's personal lair, but Leopold (correctly) deduced that the Wizard was too invested in the cliche of being a tower wizard not to be at the top. They set up and took shots at the Apprentices from the treasure chest room with Dolwen's bow and Regina's crossbow, and wounded one of the Apprentices. Note this was the only arrow Dolwen hit the entire game, and it did 0 Wounds. Dolwen was a valuable member of the team, but mostly for his healing and knowledge, not his combat skills. Now, the encounter with the two Guardian apprentices (who promptly exploded at their middle, their entire torsos becoming many-toothed mouths to attack with as spider legs exploded from their bodies to run along the walls, like you do) was already the first serious combat encounter, and caused Fear in everyone but the two warriors. But I had already planned a surprise that would make it even worse, since the Wizard was mad. As they engaged the Apprentices, Leopold actually failed a Per test (still panicking, I guess) but Dolwen noticed something wet and slick descending from the vents. Not the Wizard, but an adolescent Wizardling, bigger than any of the individual PCs, rearing up on its many limbs and ready to engage. He stopped it surprising them, and as Regina and Helloise struck down one Apprentice, Regina ran to help the Hunter and the Doctor fight the terrible thing while Heloise held off the remaining Apprentice. This was a pretty brutal fight, and they discovered the other terrible effect of a Wizardling: Their claws cause the Curse spell if they do any damage (they cause Curses if they hit you in the book, it was an easy way to implement this). -10 to everything, +1 to damage on all attacks that hit you, last until the Wizardling that hit you dies. It quickly cursed Regina, but Heloise hacked the other Apprentice in half and came to help her, and together they and Leopold managed to prevent the thing escaping and kill it. I'm not sure they realized: If it had escaped, Regina would have remained cursed until they tracked it down and fought it later. Wizardlings were meant to be dangerous enemies, so I gave them WS 50, SB 5, TB 4, Wounds 20, and AV 3. They'd have also had Daemonic Aura (representing having no idea where their biology was vulnerable) IF Dolwen hadn't successfully autopsied the one in the bath (or the first one they killed). 2 points of DR knocked off an enemy that dangerous was a big help. If the Wizard was pissed about them chasing down and killing another of his young, he was about to be completely enraged. They made their way to the locked door to incubation, and I had long planned this: Normally you have to go up a couple levels to get the key, but I wanted the Pick Lock skill to be useful ONCE at least, damnit. Leopold took one of the bulbs they already had and pared it down with his lockpicks, making the organic growth fit into the door (Failed his first check, Fortuned it into a 37, hitting exactly what he needed) and tricking it into opening. Inside, they found a statue of Leopold in blue chitin, with its eyes torn out. He nearly made the huge mistake of attacking the mockery (it would have tried to eat him) but the others got him to move on, and into the incubation chamber. Where six dozen Wizard eggs gestated. They could hear the creature breathing in the vents, ragged and upset, realizing they were about to attack his eggs. They spread much of their lantern oil over the area and set it ablaze, the Wizardlings chittering and dying as the hellish nursery burned. They didn't know it, but they'd now prevented the Bad End. If you kill the Wizard but not his eggs, he's reborn as one of his children in the ending and leaves the PCs a note saying he'll be back. Danged Wizards. But by killing the eggs, they'd given him nowhere to run. And REALLY made him mad. From this point on, they had the impression the automatic doors were actively trying to split them up. The Wizard was done playing around. These adventurers were not just toys or amusements, they had done actual harm to him and his, and he was going to kill them. Since we were skipping the Abyss, we skipped floor 4 (which is mostly only about getting into the Abyss) and moved right on to floor 5, the final floor. The lair of the Wizard. Next Time: HE WEARS A POINTY HAT
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Jul 8, 2020 13:04
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Yeah, at this point my instincts would be screaming that this was a rat Nazi Dr. Frankenstein hiding in the vents, experimenting on townsfolk and working on creating a horrible new monster, but still too cowardly to emerge from his observation points to engage. Only thing that would make me think otherwise is an uncharacteristic lack of taunting.
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Jul 8, 2020 13:26
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Cythereal posted:Yeah, at this point my instincts would be screaming that this was a rat Nazi Dr. Frankenstein hiding in the vents, experimenting on townsfolk and working on creating a horrible new monster, but still too cowardly to emerge from his observation points to engage. Obviously he lost his tongue in a freak warpstone accident and thus unable to speak. Or the tongue mutated into something unmentionable and rendered him unable to speak.
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Jul 8, 2020 13:31
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A Wizard You join hands, so you are not lost Now, I cut a lot in the 5th floor, because they already knew about the eggs (since they were a burning wreck) and we'd been playing quite awhile. I wanted to accelerate the encounter with the Wizard, since he was trying to kill them and they were out to kill him. So I cut the Beacon room on 18 and had the staircase open up into the most dangerous encounter in the adventure (aside from the actual Wizard battle). The doors opened into darkness, and the door behind them vanished. Only their lanterns lit the way, and only barely. As they looked, they saw odd ropes dangling from the three doors before them...Leopold quickly realized those weren't ropes, those were legs! Wizard legs! At which point the Wizard began to shuffle the doors, trying to catch them with them and pull them through alone. Realizing he was trying to separate them, the heroes grabbed hold of one another and Heloise (noticing the pattern of which door tended to be progress) yelled to get through the middle door as fast as they could. Dodging the Wizard legs and shuffling doors, and spilling themselves out into darkness. Even the lanterns barely worked here. Only Dolwen could guide them as strange, sharp things brushed against their legs and he got an impression of a large creature with A PERFECTLY ORDINARY NUMBER OF LIMBS hunting them in the dark. They ran for their lives, not wanting to fight in darkness. If you try, the Thing in the Dark is real dangerous, and you can't see because of the Wizard's magical darkness. He was actively trying to drown them in it. They pressed through into his trophy chamber, avoiding the Thing in the Dark, and this is normally where you get the key to go back to the nursery. I added a bit of actual treasure to the trophies here, because I felt the team might really need a little help with the Wizard; you normally find a beautifully made sword the Wizard has snapped in half. Here, though, even the Wizard couldn't break a Gromril longsword with the Rune of Striking on it, so Heloise took it to go with her shield. Though they did notice the thing had managed to slightly damage and nick the blade, which was a frightening thought. They also found The Grub. Now, in the normal adventure, you have to attach the little grub to your eye. If you do, you can see through the Wizard's darkness, and even strike his main body directly in the final battle. But there was just no good way I could hint for players to think of doing that. So I decided on something else: The little grub was carefully contained here, and it wasn't blue like the Wizard's other toys and tools. Leopold took it in a little jar and found it glowed brightly, driving back some of the Wizard darkness. He took the little guy to light their way, hoping it would be enough to let them see when they confronted the beast. This is also where Heloise made a mistake that almost got her killed: One of the doors out of this room was labeled 'EXIT'. She made the mistake of cautiously trying to peep through. This resulted in the door becoming a great maw and a blue tongue catching her and trying to drag her in. Being strong as hell, she managed to break free. Had she not, she'd have taken a Damage 10 hit and been spat back out. Probably surviving! But man would that have hurt. The Exit Door leads to Only Good Things. Normally there'd be an encounter with Klaus, the last apprentice, who dispenses hints and is also in many pieces. But they knew what they needed and I wanted to accelerate the final encounter, so they pressed on into Room 23, Scuffle. This is normally the first encounter with Wizardlings. In my original notes, there were going to be two as per the normal adventure (one guarding the door to dad, one sneaking around the vents to ambush during the fight) plus potentially a third showing up if it took more than 3 rounds to kill them. That was written when they had 5 players/3 Fighters, so I toned it down. There was only the one, since they'd killed his partner. In a short fight, Leopold struck home with the Sword of Justice (Verenan, it's what he called his sword) and killed the thing with a brutal pair of hits, and on they went. To the Wizard. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yP4u8QYJmO0 I don't usually do music links or something, but c'mon. It was perfect for The Wizard. They had an impression of pools of blackness and a ragged, bearded man, before that pulled back into the blackness. The Wizard intended to drown them in darkness and kill them, but the Grub lit the way just enough to see parts of him descending from the ceiling until Leopold held it up and revealed the entire horror while reading the warrant for the Wizard's arrest or destruction. Instead of a single foe, I split the Wizard's attacks up into 4 separate creatures (Feeding Tendril, Birthing Sac, Perfectly Ordinary Number of Limbs, and Wizard Fingers) that would descend from the darkness and shift what the players could target and what was attacking them, while damage dealt to these pieces did damage to the main body. https://i.imgur.com/3deYNeU.png Behold, the Wizard. He wears a pointy hat. Heloise had had time to pray to the Lady and grant her sword Impact before they entered (using her last Fortune), and she and Regina quickly realized the danger of the Wizard Fingers when they 'cursed' Dolwen. None of the Wizard's 'magic' used the magic system. After all, it was hallucinogens, spores, and bioweapons. Not the winds of magic. Dolwen seemingly went mad with terror, screaming and running in circles and suffering heart palpitations as he felt like he was drowning in blue spores. Heloise and Regina hacked the Fingers off, and like the Wizardlings' curse before, they broke the spell on their doctor. Leopold's grub lit the thing up enough that the two warriors could guess the Birthing Sac was coming down next (The Wizard normally has the ability to just spawn Wizardlings. Every turn. In the normal module. You'll be overrun). I had made that a weakpoint, but also his most dangerous attack because they were in enough trouble without goddamn Wizardlings. The two warriors hacked the awful thing off, with a heroic Fury cutting the sac and the creature gestating inside it down. Meanwhile the Tendrils and Limbs attacked the two squishier characters and dropped Dolwen to the ground, bleeding but alive. The two physical bits descended onto the warriors and got unlucky, only landing one hit each, but the one Limb hit to Regina took out over half her wounds. Considering the Limbs has WS 60, Damage 6, and 3 attacks (and the Tendrils had 3 attacks, Damage 4, but healed themselves and the main body for every wound they did) they were pretty lucky not to get more shredded. Leopold, Regina, and Heloise struck at the bits they could see, and started the Wizard bleeding as they landed some telling blows. Though they critted him multiple times, they just couldn't seem to seal the deal against his unnatural resilience, until he dropped on the 20% chance he'd Bleed Out from his injuries. As the gargantuan beast began to curl up like a huge, dying insect, the tower began to rot around them. They fled like mad, rescuing Stephan and escaping as the tower collapsed and died, leaving behind the huge corpse and the people of Canny staring at the body of their tormentor, now able to register what he was. That was no goddamn Wizard. Or was it? A powerful, vicious thing that does things for arcane reasons, using its immense power to torment a community from a tower on the hill? That sure sounds like a Wizard to me. They reunited the wounded, traumatized Stephen with his mother, comforting the villagers as the mayor told them 40 crowns could never be enough but it was all they had. They decided to burn the body, to warn the world in case there were more of these accursed beasts, not knowing they had already stopped it. That was the first, you see. They had prevented an alien invasion, without really knowing it, destroying an out of context problem before the parasite could breed and spread all over. The Wizard was dead. He would not be reborn. And he did not win, not even with Mia who he had wounded so deeply. The people of Canny would grieve and process and eventually return to life. The Wizard would not. They took the grub with them to study, curious what the helpful little creature was, exhausted and unsure what adventures lay ahead. But whatever came next, at least they'd killed that bastard. It was a ton of fun to run. The heroes were fun characters, the players played cautiously but still made a few mistakes that they thankfully survived, and while I think I made combat a little too easy overall, it still felt right and that's kind of the key to WHFRP combat. The adventure's guidance was easy to translate into a system I knew well, and the adventure was easy to transplant into Hams and let the heroes kill a terrible parasite of unknown origin before it spread. It was a great time and I'd strongly recommend it. It took about 5 and a half hours played in text over Discord, about the right length for a longer one-shot. Next Time: Wrapping Up
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Jul 8, 2020 14:04
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Okay, I was not expecting an outright alien invasion. I was expecting the module to want you to fit it into something that could logically turn up in your world - in Warhammer Fantasy, a Clan Moulder or perhaps a Necarch experiment.
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Jul 8, 2020 14:26
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Cythereal posted:Okay, I was not expecting an outright alien invasion. I was expecting the module to want you to fit it into something that could logically turn up in your world - in Warhammer Fantasy, a Clan Moulder or perhaps a Necarch experiment. Well, that was my decision. The module doesn't tell you what A Wizard is. There's no Deep Lore, no explanation. He's a terrible thing from beyond (that also acts like a Wizard when you drill down to it), but I thought some kind of actual alien that these 17th century weirdos managed to put down before things got worse fit just fine. This is one of its strengths, I think. It's up to the group what the hell this thing was. E: Besides, this is hardly the first time aliens have hosed up Hamsworld. Just ask the dragons how things were before the Old Ones decided to move the planet and ruin everything for them.
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Jul 8, 2020 14:28
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Or the Ogres and the Great Maw.
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Jul 8, 2020 14:36
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A Wizard He is just that. He wears a pointed hat So, it should probably be clear I was balancing my run through A Wizard to give the players a reasonable chance at beating him. This is because I think the actual Wizard fight in the original module is sort of one of the weakpoints. There are ways to fight him, certainly, and you can always get lucky, but with no guidance on what level of PCs are meant to come into this module and with the Wizard being suggested as a 10 hit die enemy with two turns per turn, high damage, etc there's a good chance that a team that makes it all the way to him will just die during the Wizard fight. The strategy is mostly 'get lucky enough'. There are elements of the Abyss where you get 'hints' about the Wizard, suggesting the GM is meant to come up with ways for the PCs to make the fight a little easier, but I find that part rather unsatisfying. The basic idea of the Wizard fight is fine; I was able to make it work, after all. But getting all the way to the pointy hat and then very likely losing because he's insanely powerful, can spawn additional dangerous monsters every turn, etc feels a little unsatisfying. I do greatly appreciate the lack of Deep Wizard Lore. The Wizard doesn't need an explanation. He's a monumental jerk and you get enough characterization for him, but it's up to you if he'll talk to the players and taunt them all the while or just remain silent and alien and hateful like my Wizard did. You can put hints about where he's from or what he's up to, sequel hooks, etc in your game if you want, or you can be content with the Wizard getting wrecked and that being the end of the bastard. The lack of Deep Lore but the evocative characterization from the Wizard Interjections really does the module good. The Abyss is fine on its own but I think it's overall a weakness in the module and I'm glad I cut it out. If you want more weird horror fantasy feel free to use it, or to use it as a sequel or something, but I really think it messes up the relatively tight plotting and pacing of the Tower on the Hill. Horror works best when it's relatively concise, it's not a tone you can easily sustain for hours and hours of play at a time. The baffling, terrible tower gives you just enough time to get used to its awfulness and have some idea what's coming even as it keeps throwing curve balls at you. I also think the system agnostic element adds more than the OSR stuff. The OSR stuff is so, so basic that it might as well not be there. I don't think Old School Renaissance really defines this product so much as it's defined by being a tight, efficient, well-written horror story about an outside context problem. It is pretty fun to imagine how differently this would play in other systems, though. I could totally see this as a Call of Cthulhu module or something. Really, the biggest thing that set the Wizard's personality for me is what he claims in the Good Ending, where the players kill him and the eggs but don't find Stephan. "Those who lost things or people to the Wizard grieve, but are able to move on. Except Mia. She closes her shop down. The Wizard won with her, because he will ALWAYS win, and she will never be the same." His little whining insistence there, that despite being destroyed he still won because one more person was hurt, one more life was ruined, one more sorrow was inflicted, was why I had such a visceral reaction to that bastard. loving Wizards. It's that mix of pettiness and hateful cruelty that really sells it. Overall I strongly recommend A Wizard. It's not hard to adapt to whatever you want to run it in, it's easy to make your own changes to, it's got a strong plot and an excellent writing style, it's certainly a weird Indy horror story worth your time. The End
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Jul 8, 2020 15:03
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Thank you for the write up. from the amount of time we've seen something interesting get stymied by a terrible game engine its a breath of fresh air to see something that focused on just getting the scenario right and trusting the GM to use a system that fits for their group.
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Jul 8, 2020 15:31
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Maybe I could spring something like this on my group in a game of Stars Without Number as some kind of horrible Stephen King bullshit. Some dudes in a shuttle land on a low tech agricultural society to be shown a wanted poster "for, I poo poo you not Jeff, a pointy hated wizard. Like from one of those terrible fantasy books. Did you just land us in some reality TV show?" e: but no, it's some horrible alien, or insane posthuman we: also not 'spring' I'd ask them about if they were okay with the stuff sleepy.eyes fucked around with this message at 15:52 on Jul 8, 2020 |
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Jul 8, 2020 15:50
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they'll regret leaving the bulky hazmat suits in the ship. and the tactical nuke.
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Jul 8, 2020 15:57
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I suspect it's part of why the scenario doesn't try to pretend everything is normal longer; the players were going to know something was up from the word 'content warning' and not doing the content warnings on this one would be massively irresponsible.
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Jul 8, 2020 16:04
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Manual of the Planes: 3.5E The Elemental Plane of Fire Planar Traits: Normal Gravity, Normal Time, Infinite Size, Fire-Dominant, Alterable Morphic, Enhanced Magic (anything to do with fire), Impeded Magic (anything to do with water) The Plane of Fire is a limitless expanse of flame and magma, with the ground consisting of burning coals of similar consistency to the top, black layer of a still lava flow, and the sky is superheated (at the DM's discretion, the air on this plane may be outright poisonous in addition to the normal Fire Dominant problems). It's the least inhabited of the elemental planes, and the native environment is very dangerous. That's not to say that the Plane of Fire is without non-elemental life. Anything that's immune to fire can be found here: dragons, pyrohydras, salamanders, fire giants, and so on and so forth, though the absence of water and extreme scarcity of food without assistance means that most such beings are themselves of one sort or another. To this end, the locals on the Plane of Fire tend to be more cautious and courteous towards travelers than the locals on the other elemental planes - they know that it takes a non-trivial degree of aid to not only get here but survive here, and most have realized that few travelers who aren't natively immune to fire come here without a particularly good reason.That reason may have to do with the ifreet genies - the City of Brass is a major trading hub on the planes and suppresses the fiery traits of the plane (though food is never served anything less than well done, and drink is always piping hot) - or with powerful who have established outposts on the plane, most of which also suppress the fire-dominant trait inside their walls. Celestials and fiends also sometimes use the plane as a neutral ground for meetings, similar to the Plane of Air, due to fire immunity being common among the various types of celestial and fiend. Legendary smiths also travel to the Plane of Fire with some regularity, using the hottest, most primal fire imaginable to forge weapons of legend on their native plane - PCs might well be here escorting a smith on such a journey.Still, have a care when dealing with locals on the Plane of Fire. They may be more willing to talk first than the denizens of other planes, but everyone who lives here for long seems to develop a short temper if they didn't have one to begin with. The Elemental Plane of Water Planar Traits: Subjective Directional Gravity, Normal Time, Infinite Size, Fire-Dominant, Alterable Morphic, Enhanced Magic (anything to do with water), Impeded Magic (anything to do with fire) The Plane of Water is an endless ocean above and below, most of it lit by an uncertain glow that seems to manifest from the plane's own waters, though there are reaches of lightless abyss. The nature of the plane is eternally in motion, driven by relentless and fluctuating currents, and while much of the plane specifically consists of relatively warm salt water, any given area could be brackish or fresh, boiling hot or frozen solid. By default, water pressure is not a thing here, though at the DM's discretion it might apply in the abyssal regions. Solid matter is much more common here than on the seemingly similar Plane of Air, often in the form of immense magical coral reefs or shipwrecks that somehow transported to this plane, and the Plane of Water is the most heavily populated of the elemental planes by sentient races, including but not limited to sea elves, locathah, sahuagin, merfolk, and the marid genies. Due to the drifting currents and unpredictable nature of the plane's conditions, most of these communities are either nomadic or have magical protections in case they drift into an abyssal or frozen region. Any sea creature that doesn't require air (so no seals, whales, dolphins, etc) can potentially be found here, including sentient ones like aboleths, krakens, sea serpents, dragons, and dragon turtles. Most of these locals tend to be friendly to travelers, or at least more friendly than the normal assumption on the Material Plane would be, though they may regard travelers who need aid to breathe water with disdain. Naturally occurring bubbles of air, typically natural vortices to the Plane of Air, are almost always colonized by locals and travelers as natural trading posts.The Manual also gives a plot hook for the Plane of Water, your mandatory ghost ship. Except this one seems to be a submarine that looks and acts suspiciously similar to the Spelljammer of the eponymous setting, and no one knows who crews or controls it. Mysterious. Next time, positive and negative.
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Jul 8, 2020 16:27
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BinaryDoubts posted:At first level, Parker gets Deep Gnosis, which lets Parker spend an Expertise point to gain an automatic success at any knowledge-based skill he possesses. Unfortunately, it doesn’t apply to the Occult skill, and can only be used once per day. Looking forward to the rules explanation.
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Jul 8, 2020 17:06
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Silent Legions: The Rules Let’s finish up the Character Creation chapter and then skim through the rules. This won’t be exhaustive, since a lot of it is pretty standard D&D stuff, but I’ll mention what’s different or fun as we go. As you might have seen in the character creation posts, after you finish your class stuff, you get to pick from one of the three wealth levels (Struggling, Average, and Affluent). Your wealth level gives you the ability to buy stuff from a given price level (a different set of tiers than the wealth levels – see below) or under without straining your finances. At Struggling wealth, you can only buy Cheap goods and services (stuff that costs ten bucks or less) without dipping into your actual funds, you’re probably homeless or close to it, but you get a free skill to represent your learned resourcefulness. At Average, you’re average, and can buy Common stuff or cheaper without worrying about it (five hundred bucks or less). You probably have an apartment/mortaged home and a car. Finally, at Affluent, you can comfortably afford Expensive stuff ($10,000 or less) and definitely own a home and several cars, at the cost of beginning play with 10 Madness. There are tiers above and below the starting three – Penniless, below Struggling, and then Rich and Plutocratic above Affluent. There’s no strict guidelines for raising or lowering your Wealth through the narrative aside from GM fiat, although you can put yourself into debt to buy something of the next category up at the cost of temporarily lowering your Wealth for the next month, or even permanently burn a level of Wealth to buy something two steps up. Thankfully, there’s no limits on buying stuff for your teammates, but bulk purchases treat your Wealth as one step lower – you can outfit your poorer friends, but can’t set up a Costco. The game assumes you have all the trappings that would make sense for your background, with the example given of a helicopter pilot who starts in possession of a helicopter (that they’re probably still paying off in the narrative). I love that you don’t have to go gear shopping when making a character, since you just get what makes sense and then pick any extras that your Wealth level can support. Since we’re talking gear, Crawford drops in the game’s encumbrance rules here: You can carry a number of “readied” items equal to half your Strength score (sigh, we could have gotten rid of the stupid scores except for this!) and a number of additional stowed items equal to the full Strength score. Stowed stuff takes an action to get out; readied stuff is close at hand and can be used immediately. The book doesn’t bother listing out much in the way of everyday stuff – there’s a short table of weapons, armor, useful adventuring gear, vehicles, and that’s it. Since it’s set in the present day, if you need to know how much something not listed costs, you can probably look it up pretty easily. Item costs aren’t given in dollars, but instead on the Cost scale (Struggling-Cheap, Average-Common, Affluent-Expensive, Rich-Extravagant, Plutocratic-Priceless). Also tucked away with the Wealth rules are the weapon rules: you roll a d20 plus the relevant Combat skill (which means all of our characters without any Combat skills are going to suffer -1 to hit), your attack bonus, and the enemy’s AC. If you manage 20 or more, you hit. You add your attribute (but not your base attack bonus or Combat skill, I think) to damage rolls. At the same time, you roll the weapon’s Slaughter die and deal a whopping triple damage on a six or more. Did we mention that combat was lethal yet? Ranged weapons have effective and maximum ranges and you’re supposed to track every shot fired and reload when you’re empty. I get the impulse to have ammo tracking in a horror game but man, there are so many better ways to build tension with ammo than by having every player methodically count each bullet. There’s some fiddly extra weapon rules I won’t dwell on – you can use burst fire, suppressive fire, or spray and pray with burst weapons, unarmed attacks do more damage and get a better Slaughter die based on your Combat/Unarmed skill, sniper rifles need to be aimed for a full round… Nothing too exciting. The weapon list isn’t very long, although it probably doesn’t need stats for a break shotgun, a pump shotgun, and a combat shotgun, or for a knife, a club, a sword, and a spear. It covers all the bases you’d expect from bare fists to rocket launchers, although surprisingly there’s no flamethrower. Armor is armor, it gives you a better (lower) base AC. I’m not sure if the game assumes your players will be running around in full leather armor (or the modern armored longcoat, which has the same stats but is way, way more expensive and works against firearms). I didn’t bother giving any of the characters armor since it didn’t make sense for them to own recreation mail armor or expensive ballistic vests, so I hope the combat math doesn’t rely too heavily on everyone rolling up in head-to-toe armor. (Also, you’re supposed to subtract your DEX mod from AC, which I think I forgot to do on Arch’s character – oops!) There’s a list of basic gear, stuff like fake IDs, emergency kits, ammo, gas masks, and so on. We also get the vehicle rules in this section: vehicles have a Speed rating, and you use the difference between the speed of two chasing vehicles as a modifier to any Vehicle skill checks made to close distance or escape. It’s automatic to hit vehicles with attacks from within ten feet, or AC 9 minus both vehicle’s Speeds beyond that point (assuming everyone’s in motion). Vehicles also have Armor (different from AC, of course) that’s subtracted from incoming small arms fire, and HP, which forces passengers to make a Luck saving throw or take the vehicle’s max HP in damage when reduced to 0. Finally, there’s rules for using mounted heavy weapons, which I can’t imagine will ever see any use. quote:The statistics are not provided for a tank’s main gun, because any normal living creature hit by it will be vaporized. Even unearthly abominations may be temporarily discomfited by such trauma.  The Actual Rules Chapter Yeah, everything up there? That’s all just stuck in the end of the Character chapter. I’m not a fan of the creation-then-rules format, and especially not with how only some crucial info is explained, and even then in incomplete form. Fortunately, everything is repeated and expanded upon in the rules chapter, so you don’t have to go hunting for the one paragraph that describes how something works amidst the character creation rules. Skill Checks Work like I’ve described before: 2d6 plus the most relevant ability modifier, plus your skill rank (-1 if you don’t have that skill). The GM can then apply further positive or negative modifers (up to +/-3) as they see fit. You have to meet or beat a difficulty set by the GM, ranging from 6 (“a trained person can usually expect [to succeed]”) to 15 (“when a master tries something that sounds barely possible in a strictly theoretical sense”). There are the usual elaborations: opposed skill checks (beat the other guy’s roll) and extended checks (succeed at a set number of checks). An optional rule suggests that missing the target by three or less should be a partial success/success at a cost, which is something I might use if I ever ran this. Saving Throws 1d20, try to roll equal or over to the appropriate save. As always, there’s annoying overlap (where does “mental effect” end and “magic” begin? Why do we need both Luck and Evasion?) but at least it’s a roll-over thing that’s easy enough to understand. There’s only two natural hazards listed, for which you use Luck to halve falling damage and Physical Effect to avoid falling unconscious while drowning or suffocating. NPCs thankfully don’t have unique Save values – they just get 15, minus half their hit dice rounded up for all five categories. Expertise Expertise is the meta-currency that you use to activate your class abilities. You start with a pool of 2 and your max goes up by 1 each level. The book says you can use Expertise to try and accomplish “other special feats,” which just sounds like a nightmare to adjudicate, but at least it notes that “[GMs] should be careful not to make Expertise use a prerequisite of accomplishing anything unusual” and that good ideas should be allowed without a tax on their Expertise. You get back spent 1 Expertise per night’s rest, and the book warns us that most adventures should only allow for a few chances to recover Expertise – while you’re resting, your enemies are enacting their awful plans. You can also use Expertise to reroll class skill rolls (and attack rolls, if you’re a Tough). Only one retry allowed, though. Finally, Expertise is used to fuel your sorcerous abilities, of which we’ll talk more later. Combat quote:While combat is a staple of heroic adventuring, it is also an excellent way to die young. The monstrous foes of human heroes are often far more than they can hope to best in direct conflict, and even strictly human cultists present a lethal peril with their knives and guns. Despite this, even the most cautious and clever band of heroes must sometimes find themselves forced to turn to violent ends. Some of them even survive to regret the cost. Encumbrance quote:In most cases, encumbrance won’t be all that important to a hero. Thoughts so far: I've made my feelings on having half-complete versions of the rules scattered throughout the character creation chapter clear. As for the rules overall? They're decently straightforward, but man just use 2d6 or 1d20 for everything! Stop wasting our lives on fiddling with different dice!! I'd hoped to fit this all in one update, but even in hyper-condensed form there's still a decent number of rules to chew through. Next time: Madness, levelling, injuries, and sorcery!
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Jul 8, 2020 23:08
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I definitely appreciate the A Wizard write-up. I agree the Abyss is kind of a weird addition because it's just such a mixed bag of strange encounters, but some of them are very useful. Little bits of "treasure", secrets, buffs and bonuses that can help you win, and there's some fun encounters there. I especially enjoyed that there's a vast, inhuman, and sinister alien being that somewhat mockingly tells the characters about how much danger they're in and how they really need it's help, and offers to "improve" them and guide them. And if they accept then... it does. It buffs the characters, gives them advice, and helps them on their way, with absolutely no ulterior motive or lies or sinister agenda. It's just genuinely a big alien thing that sees some puny mortals in trouble and decides to lend a hand.
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Jul 8, 2020 23:26
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Manual of the Planes: 3.5E The Positive Energy Plane Planar Traits: Subjective Directional Gravity, Normal Time, Infinite Size, Major Positive-Dominant, Alterable Morphic, Enhanced Magic (positive energy), Impeded Magic (negative energy) Of all the Inner Planes, the Positive Energy Plane is widely considered the most dangerous, and with good reason. Positive energy is the very source of life, color, and light, but conditions here are like the heart of a star, and far beyond what mundane life can tolerate. The Positive Energy Plane is almost entirely empty. Solid matter here is rare, similar to the Plane of Air. But where the Plane of Air at least has rain and, well, air, the Positive Energy Plane does not. There is no air to breathe outside vortices to the Plane of Air, no solid matter outside vortices to the Plane of Earth, no water outside vortices to the Plane of Water. There is only the inescapable, killing radiance of the plane that will rapidly overwhelm and kill any normal (and most abnormal) biology. So powerful is the very stuff of life on this plane that an unusual threat to travelers is present: their own possessions are liable to gain a limited intelligence and wander off, or even turn against them, per the animate object spell. Indeed, animated objects left behind by other travelers are among the few things you're likely to encounter here. The others include the strange outsiders known as ravids (from the 3.5E monster manual) that are native here, and the energons (elementals, but energy) known as the xag-ya. are liable to set up shop here as they are anywhere in the Inner Planes, but the Positive Energy Plane has particularly little to recommend it as an extraplanar haven.The only plot hook for coming here is the existence of stable patches of the plane where the radiance decreases and the plane merely counts as minor positive-dominant and thus won't kill you, and that some people (up to you whom, remember that this plane has no alignment) have set up a hospital here. The Negative Energy Plane Planar Traits: Subjective Directional Gravity, Normal Time, Infinite Size, Major Negative-Dominant, Alterable Morphic, Enhanced Magic (negative energy), Impeded Magic (positive energy) Like its twin, the Negative Energy Plane is an empty void. Here, though, the void hungers and thirsts. Negative energy is the animating power of the undead in 3.5E, and where the Positive Energy Plane overloads mortal bodies with the raw power of life until they explode, the Negative Energy Plane drains life away, oftentimes to rise afterwards as undead. Unsurprisingly, undead are very common in the plane, though not those that need to feed on the living like vampires due to the rarity of prey. Energons known as xeg-yi are the only known 'life' forms native to the plane. The darkness on this plane is more than natural. Vision is drastically reduced, even with magical aid, and color simply does not exist here. In places, the darkness congeals into solid forms called voidstones, a featureless black crystal. Contact with a voidstone isn't guaranteed to be instantly lethal, but it's likely, and voidstone is widely believed to be a core component of building spheres of annihilation and umbral blots (AKA blackballs). If true, handling voidstones is spectacularly dangerous as it does not respond to mental commands. Bring a like you weren't already.Still-living travelers are decently common in the Negative Energy Plane, many of them necromancers on the quest to become undead themselves (they tend to get their wish here, one way or another), but others - such as the PCs - are probably heroes tracking a powerful undead foe back into its extraplanar refuge. Many powerful undead from the Material Plane do build vacation homes and fortresses here, especially liches and magically inclined vampires. A couple of suggestions for powerful undead based on the plane are given out as plot hooks. While the Negative Energy Plane is not evil in itself - negative energy is a fundamental part of the cosmos - the fact that it's so hospitable for a common strain of evil means that many evil beings are fond of tossing powerful good-aligned, holy, and positive energy artifacts into this plane for safekeeping or to never see again. PCs could come here in search of such relics that were cast into the void, or perhaps to break open a prison in a minor negative-dominant patch to free prisoners of the undead. Unlike the Positive Energy Plane, the Manual here very much expects players to come here, though the premise is mostly limited to undead themed dungeon crawls. Next time, the Outer Planes.
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Jul 8, 2020 23:28
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 Magic! This is the third of the books, The Way. The magic system for Invisible Sun is fairly loose and freeform. This is a tricky one, because in a game as focussed on magic as this you would think there would be more detail applied to it; but at the same time, the exact fact that magic is so loose, creative, and freeform is what makes it so significant in the setting, so the rules are reflecting that. It is a bit awkward that it does also make use of a ton of cards, though, but we have to justify that price tag somehow. Before that, let’s have this absolutely representative quote:  Yep, “a wizard did it” is an accepted standard part of the setting in this book. (Which I suppose it actually would be in a high-magic world, but still.) So. Let’s cast something. The rules are quite simple, but overcomplicated by the use of annoying artificial words added to the RPG. When you do magic, you’re performing a practice (casting a spell is one form of practice, but there are others). Each practice has a level, which represents both the strength of the effect and its venture, which is the number you add to the roll to see if it works. Usually, the level is also the number of Sorcery points you have to spend. You can then spend bene (which means more Sorcery points, in effect, except there’s other rules that relate to spending “bene”) to increase its power further, but how you are allowed to spend this depends on which By default, you can spend 1 bene to increase the Venture by 1 point, but nothing else. One set of secrets will let you spend between 3 and 10 instead, but only on increasing the Venture; and another will let you spend between 1 and 6 more to increase the level of the spell, which increases its Venture as well. In most cases this is just strictly better. The target number, sorry, the Challenge, is the level of the thing you’re casting on - unless you’re casting on yourself, on a willing target, or something that isn’t significant enough to have a level. As always in Cypher, only players roll, so if a spell gets cast at a PC they resist it with one of the standard defenses - Dodge, Resist, or Withstand. If a PC happens to chuck a spell at a non-willing other PC then the system breaks and presumably the GM is just supposed to stop the game and tell the players not to PvP. Each spell is also governed by one of the nine Suns, and associated with it by colour. And the colours are.. Ok. I read this, and then I cringed, and then I checked it, and then I cringed again. So you might want to brace yourself for the disappointment coming. Ready? Silver is Conjuration. Indigo is Divination. Grey is Illusion. Pale is Necromancy. Red is Evocation. Gold is Transmutation. Invisible is Abjuration. Of the remaining two that aren’t just the spell schools from D&D, Green is “movement” and Blue is “the mind”, which are kind of divisions of Enchantment I guess. Ahem. Right. The real point of the Suns is the Sooth card mechanic from the last post; if you cast a spell from a Sun that’s got a bonus, it gets +1 to its level or costs 1 less Sorcery point to cast, your choice. If you cast from one with a penalty, it gets -1 or costs 1 more. That’s it. It’s a bit tricky to work out what a typical Sorcery score would be - it’s one of the eight stat pools created at character generation, but there’s limits on how far you can focus on a single pool, so maybe 3-4 points if you spread evenly (which is silly) or 12 if you minmax all the way, and 15 if you’re an Apostate too. You might think it would be a good idea to just look at the pregenerated characters, but they don’t have pools - they just have “Certes” and “Qualia” which are the two higher level stats which are distributed to make the pools. Or I think they are. Just like the business with the cards, in spite of searching The Key several times, it says that your pools have starting values that are set when you distribute your stat points but never actually tells you to do that. It does say 8-10 is average, although that’s way higher than an even split, so, um.. Anytime you do anything with magic, if you roll a 1 on the dice you trigger a Magical Flux. You also trigger a Magical Flux if the GM feels like dumping a Magical Flux on you for the lulz. The level of flux depends on how many dice were rolled and what level of spell you were trying, and it’s essentially a D&D wild magic table, although without any numbers on it because the GM’s just supposed to decide what happens. And yes, there’s a few that just completely screw you over, like “You misplace all your ephemera,” and “You go blind.” Now we can get into actual stuff magic can do. The first category is Minor Magic, which encompasses a whole bunch of trifling effects, although they’re then further divided into other practice types. You don’t even need to be a vislae in order to cast these, and since they’re level 0 you don’t even need to spend any points. First category is Cantrips - temporary effects. Assistance gives someone “+1 to an ongoing mundane action” (the book doesn’t mention +1 what, but we presume venture), and Facilitate speeds it up by 50%. Coldtouch produces a handful of ice, and Conjure Sweet makes a piece of candy or pastry appear in your hand. Chocolatiers and bakers do very poor business in Actuality. Crimson Eyes turns your eyes red. Oo. Edgy. Or maybe you’d prefer Gaze of the Void, which turns someone else’s eyes black. You would think there would be some significance to this, but there isn’t. Display Ephemera is an obvious narrative bodge. You’ll remember that Ephemera is the Invisible Sun term for Ciphers - quick limited-use magic items - and normally you can have only a limited number at once. Display Ephemera lets you have ten, far more than normally allowed, but only if you are intending to sell them rather than use them. Vislae have not heard of Kavka’s Puzzle. Also, it cuts off at sunset, so presumably as soon as your ephemera store is closed for the day it just explodes. Dream Gift and Sweet Slumber both help someone else sleep or give them nice dreams. Reverie gives someone else a happy recollection. Fingerflame gives you a flame on the end of your finger, and I’m pretty sure is just from the Order of the Stick prelude episode. If you don’t want to burn stuff, Warm the Chill makes your hands nicely warm and radiant. Hang makes a 1 pound object levitate. Husbandry and Verdancy make either animals or plants shrug off disease and prosper even with no food or water. Pet food sellers also do very badly in Actuality. Melophilia and Serenade create music, either generally nice music from nothing or enabling an instrument to play itself. So we add Musicians to those who do very poorly in Actuality, and in a world with Melophilia it’s not clear who would actually make a musical instrument. Pleasant Odors, Presentable Figure, and Tidiness all tidy up either smells, you, or your room. Quick Change switches your outfit for another you’re carrying. Quiet Crowd lets you talk to someone in a crowd. Mystic Umbrella keeps the rain off, duh. Pay Your Due at last answers us the question if vislae are actually walking around with giant sacks full of glass orbs in order to buy stuff. No, they’re not, because this spell lets you transfer money directly between accounts across the Noosphere, and also deposit orbs into your Noosphere account (we don’t find out how, but I sincerely hope it involves shoving the orb into your ear). There’s nothing about how you get orbs back, as I doubt there’s like wizard ATMs anywhere, but it’s reassuring to know that the poor old child laborers who work making glass orbs are actually just wasting their time. Alternatively, you could just take a cheque, in which case the oddly specific cantrip Verify tells you if a cheque is good. Preservation makes food and corpses not rot. Sorcerous Maintenance fixes minor things. Savory Enhancement and Sugary Enhancement both automatically improve meals. Rapid Read reads a whole book in one minute. Tied with a Bow ties a bow knot in a rope. And Telegnosis gets you the current time and weather report. Watchmakers also do badly in.. huh. Next up, Charms, which last about a day each and give things minor power gains. Function Charm and Trusted Object prevent things breaking or breaking down. Repel Dirt stops stuff getting dirty. Favored Charm stops stuff getting lost. Hesychia calms a person down. Natal Ward makes a developing fetus “more likely to be healthy when born” (we don’t know when during pregnancy this has to be cast), Animal Charm makes an animal better at defending itself, and Encomium is a formality charm used as a complement or congratulation which doesn’t do anything other than making the target feel honoured, although whether this is by magic or not is not clear. Signs are symbols you write on surfaces to boost your defenses. They only work on you - not the thing you write them on - and they all do the same thing, which is to give +1 venture to defence actions based on what you’re defending against. They’re quick to complete and have to be refreshed every hour, but there still seems to be very little reason why any given vislae shouldn’t just keep every single Sign written on a bit of paper in their pocket at all times. And finally, Hexes are minor attacks that do goofy things like "someone gets a headache", "someone needs the toilet" or "someone yawns loudly". They're still venture 0, but they have a +1 "enhancement die". This means that you roll an extra dice when casting them. The only exception to this is the Evil Eye hex, which gives -1 level to an NPC on a random action, or 1 vex to a PC. This would be interesting if it wasn’t for the fact that there are still no rules for how you deal with resistance when casting a spell on another PC. Now, to get to some bigger stuff, there’s General Spells. These guys have cards and levels and they take actual Sorcery points to cast. There’s a ton of them, and trying to display all of them would take way too long, so we’ll have a few highlights. Many of them are fairly plain effects written in fancy language:  Some of them are obviously not designed to fit onto cards:  And also, some of them are just bloody D&D spells, like Psychokinetic Hand (Mage Hand), Psychic Missive (Message), Phantasmal Environment (Hallucinatory Terrain), A Simple Repast (Create Food and Water), Soundplay (Ghost Sound), Witchstep (Teleport Without Error), Respire (Time Stop) and so on. But you probably suspected that, and to be fair to Monte, most of the D&D spells that are copied are classics which D&D by no means invented. Oh, and Vanish From Sight makes you invisible, apparently forgetting that “invisible’ seems to be just another colour in Actuality. So, a few more interesting or just busted ones. First of all, let’s talk about the black cube! Did we mention it’s a thing that actually exists in-character? Because it is. There’s a whole chain of spells relating to it: Call the Black Cube, Entreat the Black Cube, Control the Black Cube, Master the Black Cube, Bind the Black Cube, and Merge with the Black Cube. You would think these all do different things, but they don't, they all do the same things: summon a Black Cube which you have to solve a puzzle to open, and if you do, you can take what’s inside. The only difference is what’s inside and how difficult the puzzle is. What’s inside can be a random ephemera, an ephemera of your choice up to a certain power level, a character’s secret, or the true name of an angel or demon, depending on which variant you cast. There is also a spell Shadow Box which summons up a box that looks like the Black Cube but contains a random useless object such as “a microwavable dinner, a carburetor cap, or a tube of toothpaste”. Yes, this spell is literally just for trolling people. What do you expect from a people who highly value invisible chairs in their houses? While you’re thinking about being a trolling rear end in a top hat to folks you’ll also want Calligraphic Display which lets you write in the air above someone and the writing follows them around for at least an hour. Attaraxia makes a creature unable to take hostile actions unless someone takes a hostile action against them “or does something to do them that they do not want” - but, “in such a case the spell’s victim gets to act first”! Of course, this triggers all of the infamous problems with an action being dependent on a future action (I’m going to attack you. You act first. You kill me. Now I am not going to attack you any more, because I am dead. But since I am no longer going to attack you, you could not have killed me.) Chronomania makes an opponent become obsessed with checking the time, and angry at anyone who is late. This drops all their actions by a level. It would seem a bit weird that no vislae would have made a charm that always tells them the time, given that there’s already a minor spell that does it, but this is so obviously a dig at someone in the playtest group. Confused Allegiances causes an enemy to confuse friend and foe, and “the voices of their real allies seem to be coming from their enemies and vice versa, so reasoning with them does not help”. One would think that this could be pretty easily avoided by, for example, saying “I am wearing a blue cloak” when no enemy is doing so. But, hey, vislae. Conjoinment causes two “beings” to fly together and stick to each other for the duration of the spell. Conjured Lover.. uh.. yea. It calls up a simulacrum of any form you choose to have sex with you, or somebody else provided they’re down for it. The card has a note saying that vislae “have been known to become addicted to the Conjured Lover spell”. I would have thought the note mentioning the X-card or at least an age limit would have been more appropriate.. Corpse Whisper makes the corpse of a creature you killed repeat the same phrase over and over until the next sunset. This would seem to be much more useful if it didn’t have to be you who killed it. Curse of the Closed Eye makes you invisible to someone, and they become invisible to you. Again, it seems this could be mundanely worked around and would be insanely dangerous to use. Deliration gives you an extra point in all your pools, but whenever you take an intellect action, the GM can give you an automatic success in exchange for having you act crazy in the following round. This seems like table drama in a nutshell. Emotional Inversion inverts the emotion that someone else is feeling, which seems ridiculously powerful. Someone hates you? Now they love you! That said, it has a random chance of wearing off each round, so it could create some really bizarre results. Hey, have you noticed something yet? Almost none of these actually refer to their level. Some of the dull damage spells that I’ve left out do, but by far the majority of spells don’t do anything with their level, which means that the whole Sun system is purely about Sorcery discount. Exacting Eye gives you 3 bonus Accuracy bene. It would be a strange choice to cast when you could cast Eye of Immanis which is exactly the same level, but gives you 3 bonus Accuracy and turns you into a beast who can make more powerful melee attacks. Fictional Savagery gives you a basic D&D style familiar, but it can be any creature from a story that you choose. It doesn’t change anything about what it can do, though. Found Wanting highlights an opponent if they’re lower level than a level you name. Yes, levels actually physically and clearly exist in-universe! And this is just basically the “consider” action from an early MUD! Illuminist Challenge triggers a supernatural quiz show. Seriously. It makes a question on a lore topic appear in the head of both you and your target, and whoever can’t answer it takes damage. There’s an actual note saying that since NPCs don’t have lore skills, it’s completely up to the GM’s judgment who wins if this is cast on an NPC. Um, or if an NPC casts it on a PC, because same problem. Imbue Knowledge specifies that the next person to visit a location or trigger an event learns something you specify. I actually like this. Implication Aversion is Shift Blame from Knights of the Dinner Table. Any further spells you cast will have their caster identified as another vislae of your choice. Annoyingly, the card doesn’t say who the target is - the other vislae, yourself, the person/people you want to fool, etc - so we don’t know what level we’re rolling against. Leitmotiv gives you a theme song. Seriously. Whenever you enter a room, someone says your name, or you cast a spell, your musical theme plays. We don’t know if you can cast this on someone else and name Never Gonna Give You Up. Mind’s Eye Theater makes your, or someone else’s, thoughts appear as a visual performance around this head. I like this, too. Obtrusion just lets you force someone to share your opinion on a topic, with a chance to dispel each hour. Like Emotional Inversion, this seems like a really easy encounter ender. Plentiful Pockets makes pockets appear all through your clothing that can store ridiculous amounts of anything, but you always know where everything is. It also wears off after time and we have no idea what happens to all the stuff when it does. Quiddity of Truth can only be cast on any given person once, ever, but it makes them believe something you say without any roll against them. Obviously something like “You have agreed to serve me for life” just seems like a giveaway here. Relentlessness of the Clock lets you move a short distance in addition to your actions in a round, and continues to do so as long as you move in the same direction without stopping or slowing down! Cue goofy images of vislae smacking into walls, especially when there’s at least one spell that summons a wall. Rhapsodic Moment makes the target be incredibly happy about whatever they do next round. We don’t find if this makes any difference. Sealed with a Kiss is one that’s horrific. Kiss someone and their mouth seals up, leaving them breathing only through their nose and unable to speak until they slice themselves a new mouth. It’s a good horror image, but doesn’t really fit with the tone. Subtle Vislae requires no sound or movement and makes all of your other casting undetectable for a variable number of rounds. Again, we don’t find out who is considered the target, so we don’t know what level to check against. And that’s basic spells. But there’s still the special ones for the orders, which we shall come on to..
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Jul 8, 2020 23:36
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Wow! That's a great module. Now I do want to adapt it to Call of Cthulhu though I am not sure exactly how. I'm thinking a 1970s genre piece, perhaps with a suggestion that the wizard is some kind of New Age guy who's really twigging to the True Magic.
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Jul 8, 2020 23:56
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Silent Legion, to Manual of the Planes, to Invisible Sun is some serious whiplash. Thanks everyone for contributing.hyphz posted:Pay Your Due at last answers us the question if vislae are actually walking around with giant sacks full of glass orbs in order to buy stuff. No, they’re not, because this spell lets you transfer money directly between accounts across the Noosphere, and also deposit orbs into your Noosphere account (we don’t find out how, but I sincerely hope it involves shoving the orb into your ear). There’s nothing about how you get orbs back, as I doubt there’s like wizard ATMs anywhere, but it’s reassuring to know that the poor old child laborers who work making glass orbs are actually just wasting their time. Alternatively, you could just take a cheque, in which case the oddly specific cantrip Verify tells you if a cheque is good.
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Jul 8, 2020 23:59
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Glagha posted:I definitely appreciate the A Wizard write-up. I agree the Abyss is kind of a weird addition because it's just such a mixed bag of strange encounters, but some of them are very useful. Little bits of "treasure", secrets, buffs and bonuses that can help you win, and there's some fun encounters there. I especially enjoyed that there's a vast, inhuman, and sinister alien being that somewhat mockingly tells the characters about how much danger they're in and how they really need it's help, and offers to "improve" them and guide them. And if they accept then... it does. It buffs the characters, gives them advice, and helps them on their way, with absolutely no ulterior motive or lies or sinister agenda. It's just genuinely a big alien thing that sees some puny mortals in trouble and decides to lend a hand. Yeah, I genuinely love the idea that for once something that sees you as an ant is the kind of creature that would help a struggling ant along because they think ants are cute.
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Jul 9, 2020 00:09
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