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Dallbun posted:330: Barrel of Red Herrings Forget the town guard. If I was her, I'd be more worried about the "less than gentle attentions" of angry PCs who want their poo poo back. In either case that's a hard Pass from me. Still, I can't help but imagine: GM: She told you where your stuff was and you got it back. Why did you murder her? PCs: She was a beautiful woman. So we just assumed she was some deadly monster like all the other times.
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Sep 12, 2020 14:50
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Notice we yet to see a man that's actually a deadly monster in disguise, it's always a drop-dead gorgeous woman.
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Sep 12, 2020 16:56
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Robindaybird posted:Notice we yet to see a man that's actually a deadly monster in disguise, it's always a drop-dead gorgeous woman. I believe a mimic pretended to be a dude once, but the odds are against it.
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Sep 12, 2020 17:12
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Age of Sigmar Lore Chat: Ossiarch Bonereapers The Ossiarch Bonereapers are a terrifying new form of undead, a legion that roams the Realms. Each population center they come to, they do not purge - not immediately. They are not the maddened, life-hating undead of yore. Instead, they make a simple demand: the Bone Tithe. They have no need for money or goods, nor a requirement for something esoteric like realmstone. They require only mortal bones. The amount of bone requested by the tithemasters is calculated based on the size of the population under threat, because Mortarch Katakros has ruled it foolish to exhaust supplies unnecessarily. A village might be asked only to deliver a few crates of bone each season, while a city is more likely to be given a demand measured in cartloads or mass graves. What do they want the bones for? Well, bone is what keeps the Ossiarch legions moving. The Mortisans do not simply reanimate their bones with Shyish's magic as necromancers might, however. The bones are heavily processed - raw bone is nearly useless. Bones have a strong natural resonance with amethyst magic, but they are brittle, porous, easily broken. The Mortisans reshape the bones and sculpt them into denser, harder shapes that are more suited to war. They're still obviously osseous monsters, of course, and the shapes of skeelton and skull are holy symbols to them, representing the might of their divine master, Nagash. But as bone shapes the bodies of the Ossiarchs, so too are their souls shaped. In battle, everything can be harvested. When the Bonereapers win, they take not only the skeletons of their fallen foes, but their souls, capturing them for processing. As with bone, the Ossiarchs have determined that souls are only materials, unprocessed and useless in their raw state. The souls they take are rendered down, blended together with pieces of other souls. The process is painstaking and even artistic, tailor-making a motive power and personality to the role of the bone-construct it will be animating. The necro-alchemy of the Mortisans treats personality traits as components to be mixed - the brashness of a heroic youth, the calm and dedication of a judge, the predatory instincts of a hunter. These they bring together to create the new mind of a perfected officer in their legions. Living beings, as a result, have no inherent value for the Ossiarchs any more than for Nagash. They are barely acknowledged as more than raw materials for the creation of the eventual perfected utopia of bone. When the demands of the Bone Tithe are rejected or failed, the Ossiarchs strike swiftly - a farm that produces nothing is worthless. They annihilate these failed bargains, wiping out every living soul without even a moment of regret. The concept of regret is largely foreign to the Bonereapers, really. They are creatures of perfected order, moving in unison and working together with nearly mechanical efficiency, despite the fact that each one is a thinking being, not a mindlessly obedient slave. The legions value both obedience and initiative, and each cohort ends up developing its own variations on the core tactics and fighting style of the Ossiarch Empire. All are created to be methodical, precise and to view themselves as pieces of a greater whole, an interlocking machine that cannot fail. Because the low ranks can be trusted to obey without question, their soul-mixtures are given a taste of freedom and independence. Not enough to allow rebellion, but enough to enable they understand the spirit of their orders rather than the mere letter. Thus, they can be trusted to pursue long-term goals without needing micromanaging. The Ossiarch legions aren't purely destructive, either. Many legions are given orders such as constructing new necropoli after taking a region. Within years of their conquest, they will create new, highly ordered cities, with heavily redeveloped lands around them. The Principia Necrotopia lays out their vision for the future - perfect, ordered roads built along geomantic lines, paved and given a veneer of bone. No living creature within their domains, all harvested to create the perfected utopia of death, their souls flensed and blended to create new Ossiarchs. Everything in its place. Perfect. Many enemies of Nagash believe the Bonereapers to be possessed of some kind of gestalt hivemind. They look practically identical, after all, and their unnerving perfection of movement and cooperation means that the subtle differences in individual behavior are easily ignored. They are terrifying monsters, and their discipline and civilized nature at home aren't easily noticed by the living. This isn't helped by the fact that most Bonereapers barely have a sense of self-preservation - if ordered to, they will generally happily march to their demise in order to achieve an objective, for Nagash demanded total loyalty in their design. Indeed, suicidal orders are often a key part of the Ossiarch military doctrine. Forcing a superior foe to remain in place by continuing to fight long after they know they will lose, purposefully drawing enemy fire to waste their ammunition - these are useful tactics when you can replenish your forces with the bodies of the fallen. Next time: The Empire of Bone
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Sep 12, 2020 17:34
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Robindaybird posted:Notice we yet to see a man that's actually a deadly monster in disguise, it's always a drop-dead gorgeous woman. There were a couple of mimics and that gnome that was an illithid. The key for me isn't gender but "beautiful." You don't have any "You see a really handsome guy with perfect teeth, a glowing tan and a really tight rear end heading toward you... Oh, nos, he turned out to be a rakhshasa/illithid/disguised beholder! Roll for initiative because he wants to eat your faces!"
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Sep 12, 2020 20:51
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What is this, some kind of Bone Mafia? La Cosa Skeletonostra?
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Sep 12, 2020 22:57
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Everyone posted:There were a couple of mimics and that gnome that was an illithid. The key for me isn't gender but "beautiful." You don't have any "You see a really handsome guy with perfect teeth, a glowing tan and a really tight rear end heading toward you... Oh, nos, he turned out to be a rakhshasa/illithid/disguised beholder! Roll for initiative because he wants to eat your faces!" I think it's both. It's fan service, and in 1994, TSR was still marketing AD&D primarily to straight men, so the encounters like that are going to be "There's this beautiful lady who's interested in you, and oh no, she;'s a monster who wants to eat your face." They're not going to do it with a hot man, because there's the assumption that the players, and therefore the characters, won't be receptive to a hot man who's hitting on them. It's unfortunate, but as somebody who was a gay AD&D player in 1994, that was pretty much the state of it. There wasn't a lot of official support or representation back them.
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Sep 12, 2020 23:01
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Mors Rattus posted:Age of Sigmar Lore Chat: Ossiarch Bonereapers Hi, Necrons.
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Sep 12, 2020 23:08
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Ironically, the Necrons became the Tomb Kings, and the rebranded Tomb Kings seem to have become Necrons.
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Sep 12, 2020 23:19
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  Feeding the River This adventure is for four 4th-level-level PCs and is inspired by elements of Cambodian and Khmer culture. It’s less linear than its predecessor in that while it has a clear start and end point, there’s a smattering of encounters both fixed and random which can happen along the way and grant additional rewards and information about the eventual goal. It takes place along the Kr nhaom River which various communities use for transportation along with typical fishing and agricultural pursuits. Unfortunately a form of supernatural pollution afflicting it threatens all those living off its waters: fish grow sickly and die, monstrous oozes crawl up on land to attack people, and the water levels remain unnaturally low even during the monsoon season. The PCs, whether for reasons of a moral or mercenary nature, are incentivized to find the cause of this malaise and put a stop to it. The bulk of the adventure takes place with the party on a boat ride (courteously lent by a local village) going down the Kr nhaom River, with an in-character map showcasing various settlements and other points of interest upon it. Their eventual goal will be the town of Pāk Lěb, whose magitech industry produces toxic byproducts which gave rise to a powerful spirit of pollution that is worsening things. There are 10 random encounters the PCs can find on the river, and not all of them are violent. A few act as stepping stones to future encounters and minor plots, such as an inhabitant of a stilt-village asking the party to find a lost wedding bangle in exchange for a minor monetary reward, or an apsara (water spirit) woman who when saved from a giant bat teaches the party a song to lead them to her people’s hidden grove in the Serpent’s Coil. Speaking of which, the Serpent’s Coil is a region home to spirits and is left virtually untouched by mortals. Four inlets sprouting from the river lead into respective groves which ease house various trials the PCs can help with: the spirits of nature have their hands full dealing with the unnatural pollution, and easing their burden will help return things to a relative sense of normalcy. One trial involves helping a group of apsara complete a dance to cleanse the grove, which is a puzzle mini-game where the DM tells the players a group of Khmer words. Going by memory, the players match symbols to the words as the dance progresses. The second and third trials are more straightforward combats, where the PCs aid a group of naga warriors* fighting mutated minotaurs, or clearing out a nearby farm of crocodiles and oozes at the request of local rice spirits. The fourth trial comes at the request of a catfish spirit, where the PCs must free the rest of his school from various dangers (discarded nets, trapped in a closed-off pond of polluted water, etc). The completion of each trial gives a riddle or direct advice as to the source of the pollution. *who are CR 1 humanoid shapechangers who can take a serpentine or hybrid form rather than the more explicitly magical snakes of typical D&D faire. The town of Pāk Lěb sits at the delta of Kr nhaom. It is separated into two halves, with a bridge spanning from west to east connecting both sides. The western section of town is new and mostly under construction, and so the only places to dock are on the east. The PCs will encounter a group of oozes of various types attacking villagers and a shaman by the name of Sothy. Said shaman will join the party as a DMPC, asking them to come with her west across the bridge in order to track down the spirit she believes is responsible. The western section of town is full of slime monsters, and Sothy can aid the party with some minor druid spells and summon her tiger spirit familiar. Said familiar can either manifest as a ghostly claw ranged attack, or beneficially possess party members to grant them the Pounce ability of a tiger and advantage on Stealth rolls. Pretty sweet. After some investigation, Sothy and the PCs reunite with the mayor and other villagers at the pollution’s source: a big iron and clay-producing factory. The PCs are granted 3 different suggestions of resolution: first, they can banish the spirit of pollution by destroying the physical objects binding it to this world so that Sothy can conduct a ritual to banish it; this option has the best long-term result for restoring the natural order. Alternatively, they can destroy the spirit like any other monster, which will halt the supernatural malaise but not undo the damage done. Finally, the mayor will offer more reward money than his initial offer if they find a means to enslave the spirit and force it to reabsorb the river’s pollution. Sothy is capable of enslaving the spirit, but will be against the idea unless a successful Persuasion check is made. The spirit is an aberration that can make multiple claw attacks, as well as summon gray oozes and can cast a limited allotment of Druid spells (thunderwave, enhance ability, hold person, etc). It should not be very hard to defeat in straight combat, although if doing the exorcism route the PCs need to protect Sothy from its attacks for 1 minute on top of finding and destroying the binding objects, which is significantly more challenging. Each solution grants an additional reward type: Sothy will grant the PCs a unique magical item (Fishing Cloak) that can transform into a binding net if exorcised; the PCs can harvest the spirit’s residue if it’s killed to imbue into a weapon or armor to grant additional damage or Resistance respectively regarding Poison; or they can earn 300 gp for enslaving the spirit on top of a 400 gp reward that the mayor gives regardless of the outcome. Each outcome also details what happens to the Kr nhaom region and how its people adapt: exorcism sees the waters restored to normal although Pāk Lěb hardly grows. Enslaving the spirit has the same result albeit the town becomes a major industrial hub, but the spirits of the land will leave. Killing results in the corruption being halted, but the tainted areas remain the same and the people adapt the best they can. Thoughts So Far: I like this adventure. The mixture of straightforward encounters along with minor plot developments gives a sense of natural progression and relative freedom on the PC’s part to handle tasks as they wish. Rather than being strong-armed into any single option, completion of said tasks and encounters gives rewards and makes their future endeavors easier. The multiple means of dealing with the pollution spirit are cool, even if said solutions are a bit obvious in the “immoral yet materially rewarding” or “moral yet impractical” outcomes. Join us next time as we explore an undead-haunted village in Drowned Souls of the Hidden Stream! Acknowledgements posted:This adventure draws upon on Southeast Asian folklore and spiritualism. Nature is more than just nature; it has a life force that allows it to exist. When it is tainted, it becomes corrupted and causes an imbalance in the world. I had a lot of fun creating the challenges within the Serpent’s Coil that was more than just combat as well as drawing upon Southeast Asian folklore. Thank you to my dad for helping me with the Khmer translation for the mini-game. It means a lot to have reflected on my relationship with Cambodia culture and the effects of that disconnect due to intergenerational trauma. Author Bio posted:Collette is a California-based writer and game designer. She has a strong passion for diversity and inclusivity either by creating or inspiring others to get into creating themselves. Her work can be found in Uncaged Volume 3, Book of Seasons: Solstice, and Friends Foes and Other Fine Folks. Follow her on Twitter @collettequach.
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Sep 12, 2020 23:30
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Age of Sigmar Lore Chat: Ossiarch Bonereapers BRING OUT YOUR DEAD Ultimately, of course, the goal of Nagash is to wipe out the bane that is sentience and free will from the perfected order of the universe. Ultimately. But in the short term, Nagash has decided that there are key efficiencies he can achieve by allowing a limited use of free will in his forces. Similarly, while mass death would give the brief satisfaction of a surge in deathly energy, it is ultimately a suboptimal use of resources - a short-sighted victory that means the ultimate necro-utopia will take longer to achieve. Rather, free will and life must be treated as a rancher would treat a herd. Farming and harvesting death - that is more efficient over the long term, even if it means greater costs in the short term. Therefore, the Bone Tithe. When a legion first encounters a living settlement, the Ossiarchs do not attack. Instead, they form up outside the walls, just within the range of visibility, and display their banners in perfect silence. A delegation is formed, generally Mortisans led by a Liege-Kavalos in case of military problems, and they go and approach the mortals. They do not demand wealth or even loyalty - just a precisely calculated amount of bone. A deadline is set. A Bone-tithe Nexus is built to be the receiving yard. Should the victims provide the required amount of bone within the deadline and place it at the site, the legion will leave without causing destruction. The terms are always very clear, very exact. The Mortisans maintain archives of souls organized by cultural traits, so that when they approach a prospective target, they are able to learn the customs and languages required as quickly as they can. Of course, these souls are often from a much older period, so it isn't rare for Bonereaper delegations to speak archaic dialects. If they prove entirely unable to communicate, they will find a way, which in the past has included killing someone on the spot and seizing their soul to serve as a translator. If the delegates are attacked, or if the Tithe is not paid in time, the Mortisans let forth a high shriek that signals the legion to attack. At that point, nothing will stop the assault until every living soul around is dead, the entirety of their settlement has been razed and all of their bone has been completely harvested. Mercy is never offered. Ever. These ruined settlements are a symbol of what happens to those that defy Nagash. The tattered, fleshy remains that the Ossiarchs have no use for are mounted atop long spears, left out on the ruins as a warning to others. Ultimately, while they prefer to take their Tithe, the Bonereapers aren't particularly bothered about whichever way it goes. Their empire expands. The Ossiarchs do not give any requirements on how the tithe is met, either. Some Shyishian towns practice a lottery system, in which a randomly selected proportion of their number are given up as yearly sacrifices to the Bonereaper emissaries. In Aqshy, some human tribes place an age cutoff of forty years, with anyone older than that slain and given to the Ossiarchs so that the next generation may still live. Other vassals of the Bonereapers off up a finger or toe of each citizen in their settlement - better to live mutilated than to die. Of course, ultimately, both the Bonereapers and their vassals know that these arrangements are temporary. The Tithe is not sustainable. It's not meant to be. They may view it in terms of farming, but Nagash's forces ultimately do not care for the cycle of life and death that is taught by Alarielle or even Nurgle. Eventually, all life must end. Permanently. Only in death, only bound in slavery to Nagash, can true order be achieved. All living things are ultimately just resources for the Ossiarch empire, and when the Tithe goes unpaid for a season, when the mortals decide it is all too much - well, the Bonereapers are entirely ready for it...mostly. See, there is one flaw on them: the Ossiarchs do still contain emotion. They remain flawed individuals. This is inevitable, no matter what Nagash wants, because Nagash was once a man as well, and he cannot escape his own humanity, his own hatred. He positions himself as being a cold creature of logic and pure ambition, but his hate drives him in equal measure, and he will never admit that he, too, has the flaws of humanity, or that he passes them along to his creations. They do their best to hide it, though. The cities and fortresses of the Ossiarch are all practically identical, built according to the plans of the Principia Ncrotopia. There's room for flexibility to ensure optimal results from the landscape, yes, but there's some things that never change. Bone is one of the primary materials used in construction, given the ease with which the Mortisans can shape it. It is both useful and decorative, reinforcing stone and metal and also looking sharp. The first sign of their construction is the creation of the formal Bone-tithe Nexuses, where the vassal-mortals leave their offerings and make their deals. These sites are protected by obelisks or mystic statues, which keep scavengers, bugs and plantlife from claiming the bones left there. Not long after, the Ossiarchs begin constructing small fortifications on defensible spots. As the years pass, these forts become the keeps of larger constructions. Within these, the Mortisan workshops are built, often extending deep underground. The pyramid is a key shape, and they are frequently adorned with pyramid-capped braziers that burn with a light that imprisons captive souls. As the Ossiarchs expand, more buildings go up, with each shipment of bone feeding the whole thing. Strongholds, forges, foundries, storehouses - they all go up according to the predetermined designs. The oldest fortresses have huge spires and towers designed after Nagashizzar itself. Not that even those are especially old - the Bonereapers have only existed since the Age of Chaos, and for all of that time, they were hidden underground, in mausoleum-cities prepared across the Realms by Nagash: Heliocarnum in Aqshy, the Ebon Citadel of Ossia, etc. By use of soul fragments trapped in gems of grave-sand, Nagash prepared the minds of his warriors, stripping souls of emotion and fear and leaving behind skill, knowledge, courage and loyalty. Only by the breaking of the gem that houses their soul could one of these perfected warriors be permanently destroyed. However, Nagash realized that his Mortarchs were not able to lead his new army. They were capable, of course, but none of them could stand as a true strategic mastermind. Arkhan was too important to Nagash's magical work. Neferata and Mannfred were both too obsessed with their own intrigues to be trustworthy. He would need someone else - but the only possible candidate had been destroyed centuries ago by Sigmar...or, at least, so Nagash had believed. The Necroquake revealed that he had been wrong, for its magical power overloaded the Penumbral Engines that had kept Sigmar's Stormvaults hidden. These ancient storehouses had been made in the Age of Myth to contain things too powerful and dangerous for Sigmar to allow to exist, but too potent or valuable to destroy. The Stormvault under the city of Lethis, one of the most prominent strongholds of Order in Shyish, contained an energy familiar to Nagash - an energy he had been convinced was lost forever. Enraged by Sigmar's treachery, Nagash realized that the spirit of one of his original Mortarchs, Katakros of the Necropolis, was contained in the vault. Katakros had been, in life, a genius of war, so obsessed with the perfection of military strategy that when Nagash offered him the chance to be immortal in return for eternal service, he accepted gladly. He was one of the greatest weapons of Nagash, and had been the original prototype of the Bonereapers. Nagash had believed him destroyed by Sigmar after Nagash abandoned the Pantheon of Order at the start of the Age of Chaos. In truth, he was instead imprisoned in the Midnight Tomb, the Stormvault under Lethis. Nagash quickly set the Mortarch of Grief, the ghostly Lady Olynder, to free his servant. It was a hard-fought battle, but the Anvils of Heldenhammer could, ultimately, not stop the ghostly general from breaking into the Mifnight Tomb, allowing her companion to escape. Katakros destroyed much of Lethis as he broke out, fighting his way free to return to Nagash's side. He was given total command of the Bonereapers, then, to get his revenge on Sigmar. Next time: Who Is Katakros?
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Sep 12, 2020 23:53
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 Conclusion  I loving knew it. The appendix is an extensive guide to role-playing political games in Vampire: the Masquerade, laying out an in-depth approach to how different parts of VtM’s system and setting mesh when fighting for control of a city. It boils a complex mass of concepts down to discrete categories; it presents you with lists of different categories of influence, political relationships, power struggles, and even scenes, all presented logically and interconnected. Even has advice for running games where PCs can stab each other in the backs without the group imploding. While clearly designed for use in Chicago (as the plentiful and informative (if often kind of stupid) examples illustrate), the section is rules-agnostic and was designed to apply to other cities, or even, with adaptation, other games. Which is why I won’t review it. Rolls or not, it is the book’s mechanics section. And… And I don’t want to spoil it in case somebody wants to use it. God help me. I will, however, mention there’s an ad for the soon-to-be-released first edition of Mind’s Eye Theater in the back. This book predates Vampire LARPs. I got vertigo when I realized that.  I just… I feel so ambivalent about this book. I shouldn’t, I suppose; it’s got some real loathsome stuff hiding in its pages. There were a couple sections I had to force myself to close-read, then regretted it afterwards. Even a lot of the more neutral stuff grated. It wasn’t even righteous Chicagoan rage that got under my skin half the time; it treats the people it discusses so roughly and as so disposable. Which, granted, it’s Vampire, what do you expect, but there is a sense of unconscious cruelty that runs under its description of every part of the city and every person in it. I hate that. I hate it so much, it makes me despise the authors a little bit. Like, I can’t see myself getting angry at them in person, but I sure don’t want to read anymore oWoD city sourcebooks anytime soon. But hate is not ambivalence. If I love a game, I love gushing about it; if I hate the game, I piss on its ashes. But I can’t make myself hate this book as a whole. For all the poo poo, there are a few diamonds I can’t entirely disregard; the appendix is the best example, though, with Point du Sable and Lodin’s legacy standing out.  On that note, I remember someone in the thread noting that a lot of city sourcebooks modeled themselves on Chicago, especially with an ancient, invincible prince. Having read this game, Lodin was anything but. If you took him at his word, definitely, he was all-powerful and supremely skillful manipulator who ruled the entire city with an iron fist. He absolutely wasn’t, though. Lodin’s story is a tale of pride repeatedly coming before a fall. He was the Vegeta of vampire Chicago. Every time he came out on top, he secured his power, leaned back, and gloated for a while until something he missed grew out of control and bit him in the rear end again. He never learned. Lodin was someone PCs could reasonably expect to beat, given his history of close shaves. Of course, the book never makes this explicit, instead portraying him as the sort of mastermind he seems to have thought of himself as. I get the feeling that if it had, it would’ve saved a lot of people a lot of trouble. But I digress. I can’t force myself to despise this book. Probably a little Stockholm Syndrome here, but… I think it’s because this game feels primordial, somehow. Despite the fact that Vampire had already been around for years, something about this book feels exploratory and almost innocent, like a lot of the horrible stuff the authors wrote came from biases that had never been challenged (which, given the circumstances, was likely largely true). For all the stereotypes they deal in, their portrayals of victims of oppression are sympathetic almost to a one. It kind of got lost in the full-time job exhaustion, but there were several prominent characters from minority groups whose backgrounds influenced them but didn’t define them – most notably Nicolai’s lieutenant and Maldavis’s sire, a politically foiled black lawyer turned Tremere magus. Plus, I have to draw attention to the GM advice scattered through the book, which is the sort of excellent, collaboration-focused advice you’d expect to find in something 25 years down the line. There’s something commendable here.  But I think the heart of my ambivalence is the degree to which I do not care about the setting. If I cared about Vampire, I’d probably find this setting extremely compelling, but I don’t. I just… don’t care. This is gonna be a real  wrap up because I ran out of things to say. Also because I am so tired, it has been years since I last worked full-time and I don’t have the energy left for longform reviews. I’m going to chalk this one down as an extremely weak recommend. There’s a lot of awful to wade through here, but the appendix alone is worth a couple bucks. So take that for what it’s worth.It’ll probably be a while before I post another review, but if I do, I may break out this monstrosity:  Or maybe do something a little less  , who knows. If there’s an appropriate way to bid goodbye in Vampire, imagine I just used it.
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Sep 13, 2020 03:52
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I got the same sense out of Hunter, I think it's just a part of Old White Wolf. The sense of cruelty and everything being disposable and people mostly being story props, I mean.
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Sep 13, 2020 03:56
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Libertad! posted:
This must be a typo.
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Sep 13, 2020 04:30
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Xiahou Dun posted:This must be a typo. It is. I meant Jin-Zhi as is the case in the rest of the chapter.
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Sep 13, 2020 05:06
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 Drowned Souls of the Hidden Stream This adventure is for 4-6 1st level PCs. It takes place entirely within Songxi, a low lying village near a bridge-dam known as the Hidden Stream. The avaricious Emperor Xie desired to build canal projects from the local river to create more farms and villages to exploit and tax the natural resources in spite of the risks, but fatal construction errors resulted in the flooding of Songxi. Those unable to escape the sudden rushing waters in time became caught between the realms of the living and undead, existing as semi-aware husks that seek to drown the living. The solution to the woes of the flooded village lie in a dearly-departed couple. Leping was guardian to the local temple which housed the legendary Sword of Jixia, which he tried and failed to save from the flood. His wife, Duan, climbed to the temple’s roof to await her beloved but died of dehydration. Both became undead, and depending on how the PCs deal with them may determine whether or not the rest of Songxi’s souls will find true rest. The adventure opens up with the PCs heading to Songxi for whatever kind of business would summon them to such a town (4 sample hooks are provided). Their first obstacle is the bamboo forest known as Fanyang which smells of rotten mulberry that a Religion check associates with an omen of flooding.* Survival checks are necessary in order to avoid natural hazards, which range from Exhaustion-generating dehydration to visibility-reducing heavy rain. *the author notes that the phrase “mulberry fields” is an historical Chinese term associated with unstoppable changes to the world and how nature is beyond man’s control. The village itself is thoroughly flooded, with only multi-story buildings poking up from the waterline. The stench of corpses and the faint sounds of crying in the surviving vine-choked structures can be heard. Proper skill checks will notice an absence of aquatic life, as the magically-enhanced plant growth catches fish and feeds upon their bodies once they starve to death. The PCs can traverse the village via jumping and climbing between the taller structures or swim, although a group of drowned souls will stalk the party throughout their travels. Said monsters number 4 to 10 depending upon the size of said party and how merciful the DM’s feeling. Exploration and the proper skill checks in some places can uncover minor belongings such as a Wand of Frost, and also uncover the sense of spiritual unease in the form of phantom noises of those in their final moments. The Drowned Souls are new undead monsters in this adventure. They are not very strong, but they can cause an adjacent target to drown via 1d10 bludgeoning damage on a failed Constitution save instead of a normal slam attack which is quite deadly to level 1 characters. Although they can swim and fly, they must remain within 30 feet of a water source which can limit their mobility if PCs can reach a sufficiently tall building. Exploring Songxi Temple will attract the attention of Duan, who is not immediately hostile and if approached nonviolently will tell the characters of what happened; they can also gain visions of those who died in the village via her Aura of Sorrow on a failed save. She’ll also add that the imperial rangers betrayed the people, slaughtering fleeing survivors under a hail of arrows. She begs the party to retrieve her husband and perform the proper funeral rites to lay him to rest. The rite involves the use of food offerings, cremation, incense, and joss paper which is automatically part of a Priest Pack for characters from a Chinese setting, but can also be found as items elsewhere in the temple. Leping’s corpse can be found underwater, pinned beneath a pillar as it grips a sword wrapped in fine silk. Unfortunately he’s not as reasonable as his wife and will attack the party as a spirit on the first round of combat. He will then possess his own corpse on the second round, lifting the pillar off of his body effortlessly. He is a pretty tough ‘boss encounter’ for 1st-level PCs, being Resistant against nonmagical bludgeoning/piercing/slashing damage and against a variety of common energy types (acid, fire, lightning, cold, thunder). In ghost form he has a 1d8 necrotic touch attack that can grant half its damage as restored hit points. He’s actually less powerful when inside his corpse, although he can unleash foul gasses and fluids that impose the poisoned condition to nearby targets on a failed save whenever struck by an attack. Leping cannot move more than 50 feet from this corpse as a ghost, but both forms can fly meaning that a tactical retreat is unlikely. If properly laid to rest, the remaining undead become inanimate corpses. The party may claim the Sword of Jixia as loot, which while it’s non-magical it ignores damage resistance that blocks against slashing attacks. Future plot hooks are hinted at in the conclusion, such as finding the sword’s paired dagger to “form a key to heaven,” or finding some incriminating orders upon the corpse of a ranger implicating Emperor Xie. Thoughts So Far: I’m not as fond of this adventure as I am of the previous two, although that is more due to my biases against level 1 play. Beginning PCs are notoriously frail, where every attack can spell defeat. Although death saves and the Healing Word spell mute this lethality a bit, it is very possible for players to TPK from the Drowned Souls and unlike Through the Dragon’s Gate there’s not really a non-violent solution to bypassing the undead menaces save for Duan. Duan herself has stats and is tough yet manageable at this level, but I can see most PCs choosing to parley with her. But overall the encounters in question are brief and there’s more emphasis on exploration and atmosphere, which is a good way to go about things. Join us next time as we pull off an artifact auction heist in Bamboo in the Dark! Author’s Notes and Acknowledgements posted:One of the major experiential inspirations for this game’s setting was Songxi, a fully restored Tang and Song Dynasty village in Pujiang China. Faithfully restored by the Chinese government, this village is home to a modern rural population that I had the honor of visiting during my time working in China as an archaeologist. Inspiration was also drawn from Houtouwan, a fishing village on the Chinese island of Shengshan. It was made a ghost town after the fishing supply was depleted by trawlers originating from Shanghai. About the Author posted:Daniel Kwan is a Toronto-based podcaster, developmental editor, game designer, and educator. He is the co-host and GM of the ENnie Award nominated Asians Represent! Podcast (@aznsrepsent). As a designer, Daniel has published Zany Zoo, Wolf of the South, and Ross Rifles – a game he successfully funded on Kickstarter in 2019. He has also written for games like Haunted West and FlipTales. Daniel is also the cofounder of Level Up Gaming, an organization that provides adults with autism and other disabilities opportunities to develop their social skills through group gaming experiences.
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Sep 13, 2020 07:05
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Age of Sigmar Lore Chat: Ossiarch Bonereapers Alexander The Great, Immortal Skeleton Orpheon Katakros was born in the nation of Fleizch in Ghur, back near the end of the Age of Myth. He was obsessed with personal excellence and mastery of warfare, so obsessed that he considered the idea of "fun" to be a weakness to be purged. He enrolled in the Fleizch Echelon, where he first encountered the art of strategy and found his true calling: conquest. He became convinced that it was the purpose for which he had been born, and his rise to political power was purely so that he could enact his personal vision of the world on every land and people he came across. He rose through the ranks quickly, his natural confidence serving him well. He lacked compassion and mercy, however, considering them merely obstacles and indulgences in the way of true power. He spent his time analyzing and defeating others in training duels or studying the atlases and bestiaries in the libraries of Fleizch, achieving a new complete understanding of the terrain and megafauna around his home. He studied any books he could find on war and wrote several of his own, inventing specially everburning tallow lamps to enable himself to work deep into the night. Knowledge of war was the most valuable thing to him, for it improved his own supremacy. With every tribe or monster he defeated in the field, he felt vindicated. When beastmen of the Gharrack Coast Allherd attacked the outskirts of the region he was stationed in, Katakros saw his chance to prove himself further. He led the Fleizchian Elite against a force many times their numeric superior, but he won anyway. He used the flight patterns of birds to judge the movement of winds, then set wildfires that burned out the lairs of the Allherd, forcing them to flee into his men's ambush. He hoped to finish things with a chariot charge to run down all the survivors...but unfortunately, Katakros' men couldn't keep up. He found himself alone in combat against a Ghorgon, and for all of his tactical genius, one man against such a beast is bad odds. He pierced the creature's heart with his sword, but it survived and tore him to pieces. He died without achieving his dreams of perfect war. In death, Katakros' spectre awoke in the underworld of Ossia, a place of perfect order and purity. The Fleizchians believed in hard work and dignity at all times, and their underworld in Shyish mirrored the graves they built in Ghur, allowing them to commune with the dead without risking the travel to Shyish. By constant maintenance and vigilance from the dead of Fleizch, Ossia was preserved and kept safe as a place of contemplation and rest, a place where death need not be feared. Those Fleizchians who believed in an afterlife of luxury, on the other hand, went to the underworld Necros, north of Ossia. While the Ossians labored even in death, the Necrosans feasted and partied forever. Katakros found this imbalance grating, and he was driven to join the Ossian Echelon, a military force under the Graven Tutors, a cadre of fallen generals who led Ossia in celebration of the virtue of hard labor. However, while the Tutors loved to drill and train, they found Katakros inhuman, repellant, lacking in virtue and hoping to fill the void within him with personal excellence. It disturbed them, reminding them of the hated overlord Nagash. Despite the disdain of his leaders, Katakros earned great honor in the ritual duels of rank. And yet, he was unsatisfied, for his dream was the perfection of war, not reveling in defense nor feeling the thrill of obsession. He was instead interested in war as an abstract science, a cold and passionless thing. As he rose to the rank of general, his mastery of martial theory became clear, and he proved able to defeat any foe on any terrain, defending Ossia well. At last, he earned the rank of High General, despite the objections of the Graven Tutors, for his development of the formations of the Ossian Shield, the Aegis Immortal and the Katakrosian Deathglaive, each developed to mix specialized and flexible troops together seamlessly. Katakros used his legion of aides to ensure he could always focus on battle, for he knew each as well as his own sword. Any failures or betrayals ere punished severely and creatively. The Ossians knew Katakros to be callous and without mercy, but they thought they understood him, and certainly, his command saw them never lose against the dangers of Shyish's wild lands. After Nagash was freed from his prison and claimed all Shyish, he sought to conquer Ossia and Necros and bring them into his empire, for they weren ot far from Nagashizzar. For a while, Ossia was able to hold them back, but it was clear Necros would never do the same. Necros had no army, its people absorbed in their hedonistic paradise. Katakros saw his moment, and he ordered that Necros be annexed by Ossia for the good of all, forming a single necro-national unit with shared defenses. For a time, it worked. Necros was conquered and the Ossian Echelon lasted for years against thousands of undead seeking their doom. So long, in fact, that Nagash personally noticed. As soon as it became clear to Katakros that Nagash's personal command of the undead meant he could never beat them permanently, his mind was made up. He traveled to Nagashizzar to make a proposal to the God of Undeath - and because of his reputation and skill, Nagash not only listened but took him up on it. Katakros would serve Nagash forever, in exchange for the chance to lead his conquering armies against all existence. Katakros' dead soul was taken in to be remade, becoming the first prototype of the Bonereapers and being made Mortarch of the Necropolis. As Nagash spent centuries developing his creations further in secret, Katakros consolidated his power in the ranks of the Mortarchs and conquered a full dozen underworlds completely. It would have gone on longer, had Nagash not failed to honor his alliance with the pantheon of Order when Archaon came in war at the dawn of the Age of Chaos. Sigmar was so enraged by this betrayal that he fought his way too Shyish itself, where Katakros met him in battle despite knowing he could never win. Nagash willed it, and so Katakros had to try. Despite all his clever schemes and genius maneuvers, he could not stand against the raw fury of Sigmar. At last, Katakros was forced into single combat against the god, and the duel was intense but short. Sigmar devastated the shade-general, but could not destroy him, even with the power of Ghal Maraz. Thus, Katakros was sealed in the Lethis Stormvault, trapped there for centuries until his tomb was revealed by the Arcanum Optimar and cracked open by the Mortarch Lady Olynder.  Once freed, Katakros' soul smashed its way back to Nagashizzar, consumed by rage and pride. It screamed tis way down to the depths of the Shyish Nadir, where Nagash himself came to claim it. He took the spirit and remade it, flensing it of unnecessary emotion - but leaving the rage and hate of Sigmar intact, along with the personal knowledge of Sigmar's own fighting style and war-form. Katakros was reborn in Nagash's dark reflection of the Reforging. He was given the glaive Inda-Khaat and the Shield Immortis, forged by handmaidens of Olynder herself. His armor was enchanted by Arkhan the Black as Nagash recited the sixth hexagrammical rite of the Liber Necros. Katakros emerged from the labs of Nagashizzar whole, celebrated by the Mortisans as Katakros the Undefeated, the prophesied return of their great leader. Orphen Katakros has decided not to correct their belief, as technically his current body hasn't been defeated before, but he has vowed to actually earn the title and refuses to allow his new form to be destroyed even if he knows he can be rebuilt. Now, the Katakrosian legions emerge from their hidden tombs. Katakros sees the Stormcast as a challenge to test himself, and he relishes facing off against the Anvils of the Heldenhammer especially, for many of their members are known to him from the Age of Myth, warlords of Shyish he had worked with or faced off against long ago. Katakros has taken personal command of the Mortis Praetorians, the legion he considers the best of the Bonereapers, and begun his deathly crusade. He began by tracking down the Stormcast under Thranus Greygaunt as they sought to defeat the ghost armies besieging Sendport. The Stormcast fought well, but Katakros proved too much for them, slaughtering the Greygaunts and forcing their spirits back to Azyr until only Thranus himself remained. Katakros gave him the honor of a personal duel, disarming him systematically and then putting him to death as a message to Sigmar. From there, he moved on to facing the forces of Chaos in the shape of the Molten Horde of Hagran Four-Eye, a united force of human Chaos tribes and Chaos-following duardin that had taken over the city of Praetoris in old Ossia. It was a point of pride for Katakros to retake Ossia first, aided by the Petrifex Elite that served the Mortisans. They were slow to arrive to his call, but they came, building huge bone boats for the Bonereapers to cross Dead Man's Blight and enter Praetoris by sea. Katakros fought his way up the Necrach Coast, aided by his Arch-Kavalos Zandros enclosing the region from the other side of the continent. By taking the coast, they cut off Hagran's raiding fleets from providing reinforcements. Hagran sought to conquer Hallsot with the aid of a Khorne cult to forge an alliance by force, but in doing so, he left the forces of Praetoris without a leader, which Katakros could exploit. The Bonereapers conquered the land piece by piece, harvesting the bones of the Chaos armies as they went. By the time Hagran's lieutenant, Beastlord Garha the Horned, was able to mount a solid defense, the armies of Chaos were surrounded. The Battle of Lake Elverin was a grand slaughter, with tens of thousands of Chaos warriors dying to the Bonereaper advance and Katakros personally decapitating Garha and impaling his head on his own chariot. Hagran returned from failure at Hallost to find his army gone and another legion under Katakros' suboridnate Vokmortian arriving, their power enhanced with the bones of the Tarkan Warglutt they had recently slain. It didn't take long for Hagran's personal forces to be worn down and ridden to their deaths on the plains around Hallost. The Chaos duardin of Anadiria fell before the legion of the Null Myriad, their mystical lava unable to pierce the magical resistance of the legion's Mortek Guard. The Stalliarch Lords tore through Equuis Main, wiping out the Khornate fortress of the Brass Monoliths, while the Crematorian legion built bridges of bone to destroy the coastal citadels on Mausol Sound. At last, all of the old Ossian Empire was reclaimed, made into the heartlands of the reborn Ossiarch Empire, with a hundred thousand corpses ready to fuel its expansion. Next time: Legions of Bone
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Sep 13, 2020 15:40
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Mors Rattus posted:The souls they take are rendered down, blended together with pieces of other souls. The process is painstaking and even artistic, tailor-making a motive power and personality to the role of the bone-construct it will be animating. "Using our hard to make elite shocktroops as expendable chaff" is peak GW. Still not as dumb as 30K's Iron Warriors being "what if attrition tactics, but with Space Marines" when that same books says that even with all the shortcuts that made the IW induction process fastest among the legions, it takes 2 years to make one. E: But such is life in the ranks of Primaris Skeletons 
JcDent fucked around with this message at 18:00 on Sep 13, 2020 |
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Sep 13, 2020 17:10
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The ancient wisdom of the orient is encoded within The Deck of Encounters Set Two Part 67: The Deck of Wu Jen and Witches 339: The Scroll of Nine Dragons Takes place in “murky swampland studded with the stone ruins of a primordial temple.” Cool. “The PCs are scouting land for a new fief and…” wait, less cool. Why are you telling me why the PCs are there? They could be in the swamp for any number of reasons, thank you. And it really doesn’t matter for the encounter itself. In any case, they hear “the screeching cry of large reptiles” and stuff, but if they continue on they run into a wu jen digging up a stone cairn magically, who shouts at them to go away. (The reptile sounds are just an audible glamour meant to scare people off.) He’s looking for the titular scroll, which “contains spells for controlling dragons,” but he’s not going to share that information willingly, and “won’t let the scroll go without a fight.” Kind of neat. Sweet treasure, anyway. I’d probably treat it as a set of powerful charm-type spells, one use each per dragon type, with some of the ten having been used long ago. Probably there would be other powerful wu jen trying to track it down as well. Maybe there’s a pressing need for it back in their home. Good potential for plot hooks. Keep. KIT CORNER: Wu Jen (PHBR 4: The Complete Wizard’s Handbook, mislabelled here and every other time as PHB4 (Priest)) A wu jen is a wizard from an Oriental Adventure, basically. The conceptual difference between them and a regular wizard is pretty fuzzy - unlike samurai, they don’t usually serve a master, just like a traditional D&D wizard. They tend to live somewhat apart from the common folk, just like a traditional D&D wizard. I guess there’s a suggestion of asceticism here, but that’s about it. You need a 13 intelligence (and if your wizard has a lower INT than that, you might want to rethink things anyway). You must be human unless you’ve got culturally-East Asian elves or whatever in your setting. You can’t be Lawful for some reason. Finally, you need to take proficiency in the blowgun, short bow, dagger, dart, or sling, or optionally the bo stick, boku-tou, jitte, or shuriken; and you get a +1 to hit with the weapon you select. We all know that pro wizards go for the jitte. That’s just a weird aside, though. Here’s your main benefit: once per day you can “summon massive magical energies” that let you maximize a spell three or more levels less than your class level. (So a 5th-level wu jen can turbo-charge a level 2 spell, and by 6th level they can do it to any spell they can cast. Kind of strange.) That maximizes the range, duration, damage, etc. You know, whatever you roll for. In exchange you have to abide by some sort of taboo - or actually, one taboo and another one per five levels above 1st. Stuff like “can’t wear a certain color” or “must bathe frequently.” Violating them lets the DM gently caress with you - taking levels, making you sick, or even killing you if they feel that is the proper punishment! Yeesh. By the way, the book suggests that you work out a reason with your DM as to why you’re travelling far from home. “Whatever the reason, the Wu Jen should add a touch of oriental intrigue and exotic culture to a western-based party.” It goes on in that vein for a bit. 340: Ding Dong - The Witch is Dead? The PCs have a job to kill a witch terrorizing a small village - cursing townsfolk and such. That’s what 14th-level spellcasters do for fun, I guess. She has a confusion effect set up around her cottage, though “counter-magic undoes her spell.” If they investigate the cottage there’s an old woman laid out unconscious on the bed. I guess the implication is that they’ll murder her? On the way back, they’ll be joined by a young woman picking flowers in the woods. And we all know that young women by themselves in the wilderness are generally murderous fiends. In this case the woman has been possessed by the witch using "soul jar" (magic jar, I assume?). The townsfolk know that she’s been missing, but it's not clear that they mentioned it to the PCs. “She attacks the PCs if the opportunity arises. There is a wand of wonder hidden in her flower basket.” I certainly hope those two statements are unconnected, because when you can cast disintegrate, attacking a party of adventurers with a wand of wonder is the height of suicidal tomfoolery. Logically, the witch would not attack the dangerous adventurers, but would instead abscond quietly with her new young body. But that would be an unsatisfying encounter. Hmm. Maybe just pass instead. P.S. Where’s the magic jar with the girl’s soul in it? You’d think that’d be mentioned. KIT CORNER: Witch (PHBR 4: The Complete Wizard’s Handbook Kits are crazy. The 2nd Edition designers just had no consensus on what the design space was at this point. Sometimes kits are like the Spy, which is a mechanic-less background to add flavor to your character, and sometimes they’re the Witch, which is to Mage what Paladin is to Fighter: a subclass with more restricted access than the base one, with essentially the same core abilities, but who accumulates a set of additional bonuses as they go up in levels. So. Witches. Not gender-restricted; you can be a Warlock. Which is consistent with the terminology of future D&D editions, because the flavor of the kit is that you’ve made a deal with some kind of extraplanar entities for your magical might, just like the 3E-and-onward Warlock. If you ever leave the kit, you lose two experience levels as they withdraw their patronage. You need a 13 Intelligence, Wisdom, and Constitution, The only weapons they can buy to start are dagger, knife, sling, or staff sling - witches don’t use staves or darts, that would be silly. They also do not get weapon proficiencies - period. So what weapon you take seems pretty academic, honestly. You do get Herbalism and Spellcasting as bonus NWPs. "Spellcasting?" Do you mean Spellcraft? Equipment-wise, they also get to start with up to 1,500 xp worth of magic items from tables 89 (Potions and Oils), 91 (Rings), 92 (Rods), 93 (Staves), 94 (Wands), or 95-103 (miscellaneous). Woah! Going magic item shopping with complete freedom is a rare treat in AD&D 2E! Cloak of the Bat, Deck of Illusion, Ring of Invisibility, Helm of Comprehending Languages and Reading Magic… there are some excellent utility options within that price range. RAW, you can’t choose from table 104, though, so I guess your witch can’t have a Crystal Ball. Also, you can’t afford a Broom of Flying.  And now, the other benefits. You know read magic and detect magic for free, in case your DM is a jerk and won’t give them to you for free already. At 3rd level, you can find a familiar without the 1000 gp of material components. At 5th, you can brew a sleep potion from commonly-found forest ingredients. At 7th, you can do the same for class L poison (that’s a contact poison, which is good, and causes 10 damage in 2-8 minutes on a failed save, which is… not.) At 9th, you can cast beguile for free just by pointing at someone. At 11th, you can brew flying ointment, which gives flight to somebody for 24 hours! At 13th, you can try to put a curse on somebody just by pointing, inflicting a random, but mostly combat-applicable, effect. Okay, this all sounds good. I wasn’t going to use weapons anyway, if I could help it. So where’s the real catch? Well, you have to be single-class (like a paladin), and people generally hate and fear you. “If the NPC is uneducated, comes from an extremely superstitious or unsophisticated culture, or has low Intelligence and Wisdom (under 10 for both), the Witch receives a -5 reaction roll.” Of course, intelligent people from civilized cultures know that there’s nothing wrong with making deals with shady extraplanar entities for worldly power.  Seriously though, it’s so bad that the book gives a 20% chance of a small mob forming to eject the witch every time she spends a day in a community.Finally, some nights (the DM is given a few suggestions for determining which nights), the witch is struggling with the extraplanar forces that she’s bound to, and receives minor maluses of some kind. So witches are, on average, more powerful during the day. Go figure. And of course, there’s the whole matter of what entities the witch has a deal with, which is fruitful plot fodder. On the whole, if you’re going to be a single-classed, antisocial jerk wizard, take witch as your kit. It pays. 341: Waiting for Moonrise The PCs are hunting werewolves near a small forest hamlet with famous knight Sir Peter Tothkin and his crew, because I guess this is the Deck of Opening In Medias Res now. They don’t turn up any lycanthropes, which makes Sir Peter shout at the party for being useless and say he’ll continue alone. Hey, don’t blame us, we didn’t even get to roll anything! People keep getting murdered in the night, and PCs might notice that it only happens when Sir Peter isn’t with his men, and that each victim is missing a different body part, because the dude is a secret necromancer gathering materials for a half-finished flesh golem. Which he’s… working on in this hamlet? And he fears exposure and will kill anyone who he thinks learns his secret. So… why did he hire some loose cannon adventurers? Did he hire them? Why are the PCs even here? I don’t know! Pass. Incidentally, Sir Peter is decked out with a ring of protection +4 in addition to some lesser items. Nice. KIT CORNER: Militant Wizard (PHBR 4: The Complete Wizard’s Handbook, mislabeled here as PHBR4 (Priest)) Do you want to be a gish in AD&D 2E? Then get out your Complete Book of Elves and grab that Bladesinger kit! Or I guess there’s this kit, too. Technically. Militant Wizards are from warlike cultures where it’s not okay to not know how to hack someone to death. You need a 13 Strength, and you can’t be an enchantment/charm or illusion specialist. You get Endurance as a NWP, and in-class access to warrior NWPs. You also get a bonus weapon proficiency from this very non-standard wizard spell-list: battle axe, bow, crossbow, dagger, javelin, sling, spear, sword, or warhammer. If you take dagger or sling I will slap you. What’s the catch? Well, if you’re a specialist wizard, you get additional banned schools according to a special chart. Ouch. If you’re a generalist, the DM picks one of the following: either you still get banned from three schools at random (so if your DM’s gonna pull that, just be a specialist); or you’re at an effective -2 Intelligence for learning spells; or you can never learn 8th or 9th-level spells. None of which sound fun, but remember: you get proficiency in a Fighter-y weapon! Except you still have 1d4 hit points per level, no armor, and a lovely THAC0! So why are you bothering?! I don’t know! Go multi- or dual-class, instead! BTW, “Though male Militant Wizards will be more common, female Militant Wizards are allowable as well, unless the DM's world specifically forbids them.” Getting paid by the word, I assume? Dallbun fucked around with this message at 19:31 on Sep 13, 2020 |
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Sep 13, 2020 17:12
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8one6 posted:And that's the story of how the new guy learned to wait for a room's description to finish before reacting. I hope it was also a lesson for the GM to say "hey, wait until I finish saying what you see, because you do not see a bear, you see a bear skin rug and your character would know the difference" and to not be a poo poo.
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Sep 13, 2020 18:25
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Dallbun posted:
I mean it would be a good joke if just out of nowhere, as pcs are hunting for werewolves after seeing some local posters about "500 gp if the beast of this woods is slain", an unmentioned extra that has been following them without the party noticing suddenly shouts "YOU ARE TAKING TOO LONG" and storms off in a fuss, leaving the pcs very confused, and likely curious as to what the gently caress is that all about. Especially as they don't find any werewolf tracks anywhere.
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Sep 13, 2020 18:31
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JcDent posted:"Using our hard to make elite shocktroops as expendable chaff" is peak GW. Still not as dumb as 30K's Iron Warriors being "what if attrition tactics, but with Space Marines" when that same books says that even with all the shortcuts that made the IW induction process fastest among the legions, it takes 2 years to make one. In fairness, unless you find and break the jewel containing their soul, the body's fully replaceable.
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Sep 13, 2020 18:44
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Re: the discussion of seduction skills, apart from all the heteronormative baggage and weird Murphy's rules stuff often going on with them, it really makes no sense to make it a discrete skill apart from other social skills. My friends are starting a 4E L5R game soon and it cracked me up that "Temptation" is a separate skill from Sincerity (which governs both sincere emotional pleas and duplicity) and Courtier (which governs more traditional diplomacy). It's like the "Thief Problem" in D&D; its existence as a specific skill is the only reason anyone would assume you couldn't seduce someone with the others. Why would a player ever take it, unless they wanted to lean into a specific creepy cliche? It's just a less broadly-applicable social skill. I realize all this is redundant but drat this is a thing in so many games EDIT: It's weirder because I'm pretty sure "Seduction" was an explicit skill in the game at some point and "Temptation" was an attempt to make it slightly less creepy/more generalized instead of just axing it Baku fucked around with this message at 18:50 on Sep 13, 2020 |
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Sep 13, 2020 18:47
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Age of Sigmar Lore Chat: Ossiarch Bonereapers The Skeleton Foreign Legion  The Ossiarch Empire covers a bunch of the land east of the Prime Innerlands, which is where Order is strongest in Shyish. Ossia and Necros were the core of it, but they have since expanded out to cover quite a large amount of land, with several new Necropoli such as Cartoch, Gothizzar, Thetzar Ti, Tova Hin, Obedia, Nerozzar and Lindl. Fortresses are built along geomantic leylines between the necropoli, guarding Realmgates and other magical areas of import. The conquest of the Bonereapers follows the paths of these leylines, which means they often deliberately take routes that are much harder and more dangerous than they'd get by following normal roads, because the magical networks are more important than the monster-haunted wastes, seas of tar and other bizarre landscapes that they must fight through. The geomantic lattice formed this way helps empower Nagash, and that is far more important than the practical realities of easy travel. Ossiarch society is extremely caste-based, following lines set down by Nagash when he first created the Bonereapers and further crystallized and consolidated over the centuries of hiding. The entire society is militarized, so the armies of the Ossiarchs follow the exact same codified structure. At the top caste, the royals of Nagash's undead society, are the Mortarchs. Their cartouche symbol is worn only by Katakros, however - Arkhan the Black is much older than the Ossian symbols the Bonereapers use, and he's the only other Mortarch that'd even consider it. Ultimately, the non-Ossiarch Mortarchs are simply too proud to accept the icons of Ossiarch culture as their own. Beneath them are the Emissarians, the religious caste of the Ossiarchs. They study necromancy and the perfection of death magic, glorify Nagash and oversee the negotiations of the Bone Tithe. Their official leader is Arkhan the Black, and they are equal in status to the Panoptic caste, the noble rulers of the legions who manage grand strategy and plan the empire's wars. Underneath both are the Priad caste, specialist warriors constructed for specific battlefield roles. These include the immense Morghast Harbingers and Necropolis Stalkers as well as the artillery-role Mortek Crawlers. Each is a powerful warrior in their own right, though their specialization means they rarely command the lower ranks. They largely on equal footing with the other major castes - the Ossifacts, who harvest bone, craft it, raise the Necropoli and otherwise handle the adminsitrativen eeds of the Empire, and the Thoracs who serve as teh rank and file of the legions. Of all the major castes, the Thoracs suffer the most losses, being the foot soldiers and general troops, but they also are the ones that exist in the highest number. Below these are the Mornial caste, constructed to be menial servants and laborers. While a Bonereaper may advance within their caste, they can never move beyond it. Upward mobility in the Empire is exceptionally limited - at most, an Ossiarch can hope to rise in the ranks of their caste, but not beyond the station they were built for. The only shift in caste that exists is downward, as punishment for failure. A Liege-Kavalos that fails in a way considered minor might be demoted to a simple Kavalos Deathrider of the Priad, while a major failure might lead to a reconstruction as a Mornial servant or even having their soul flensed and used as part of the slurry that animates the undead steeds of the Kavalos. The worst-case scenario for an Ossiarch, however, is to suffer extreme censure and be selected to become of the Parrha caste - the Shattered. The Parrha are broken down to their constituent parts and exiled from the Empire, forsaken forever by Nagash. They are outcasts, considered by ranking Ossiarchs to have less value even than mortal chattel. Very little text is spent on them, but I'm very interested in the story possibilities of these exiles.  From here, we get into the specific named Legions of the Ossiarchs.  The Mortis Praetorians are known also as the Necrotopian Guard, the Ten Thousand Cohorts and the Katakroi. They are the chosen legion of Orpheon Katakros, and they were forged according to his precise philosophies of war and martial truth. The personalities of their leadership are chosen and shaped from the souls of the generals that once served Katakros in Ossia, torn from their mausoleums and given to the Mortisans. It should be noted that no one general animates a single body - instead, their souls were torn apart and painstakingly recombined with each other in a process known as spiritual distillation, so that each officer of a chosen cohhort could contain a part of their wisdom. The Jakaqian Cohort of Cadaveris, for example, each contains a tiny part of the soul of Jakaq the Wise, while Xanda's Serpentine Column contains within it fragments of the soul of Djuxanda of the Weaving Blade. (Often these fragments are extremely upset by their current state, but that feeling is overridden by the rest of the soul distillation within the Ossiarchs.) The Mortis Praetorians maintain a constant standing of ten thousand members regardless of how much they fight and how many losses they take. They create reinforcementsi n the field, recovering the gravesand gems of their fallen and the best bone from their enemies to reform the slain. If this is not possible, they will forge new warriors to replace them as quickly as they can - which is very fast indeed, thanks to the strong necromantic links between the line officers and their Mortisans. Once a new unit arrives to replace the lost, the Soulreapers of the Legion gather what residual essence, bone shards and spirit remain and meld them into the new Ossiarchs to infuse them with the nature of their predecessors. Thus, they remain at the same strength no matter what. It requires inhuman dedication, but the Praetorians have that in spades. The primary mission of the Mortis Praetorians, at this point, is to be the banner of Nagash's undead utopia. They have been selected by Nagash to increase his glory and prestige. This means that the lower castes of the legion spend most of their time between battles building things - not just military forts, but civic improvements and even just aesthetic improvements such as statuary, gardens and triumphal arches. All are still made from the bones of the fallen, of course - fear and beauty are seen to go hand in hand. Nagash is extremely protective of these glories to his power, so the fastest way to piss off the Mortis Praetorians is to mess with their statues and gardens. Next time: Undead Titans Mors Rattus fucked around with this message at 20:45 on Sep 13, 2020 |
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Sep 13, 2020 19:11
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JcDent posted:"Using our hard to make elite shocktroops as expendable chaff" is peak GW. Still not as dumb as 30K's Iron Warriors being "what if attrition tactics, but with Space Marines" when that same books says that even with all the shortcuts that made the IW induction process fastest among the legions, it takes 2 years to make one. It's super easy for them to make new bodies for their soldiers. Only destroying the Soul Gems actually affects their work.
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Sep 13, 2020 19:30
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I feel like every time we discuss the forces of Death I just spend the entire reading of it rolling my eyes at them.
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Sep 13, 2020 20:16
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Uh, point of order GW, cartouche has a very specific meaning when discussing hieroglyphics, and that symbol is not one. Hell, given it's supposed to be used with pharaohs, only Nagash should technically be using a cartouche probably.
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Sep 13, 2020 20:21
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KittyEmpress posted:I feel like every time we discuss the forces of Death I just spend the entire reading of it rolling my eyes at them. They suffer a great deal of Capitalised Proper Noun Syndrome, and the writing style likes to talk about their inevitable victory a lot.
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Sep 13, 2020 20:25
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The Shattered sound really interesting. Also, Gothizzar.
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Sep 13, 2020 20:39
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90s Cringe Rock posted:The Shattered sound really interesting. Also, Gothizzar. Gothizzar was actually first mentioned in the Legions of Nagash book, it also seems to be where the Bonereapers first emerged from.
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Sep 13, 2020 21:02
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JcDent posted:"Using our hard to make elite shocktroops as expendable chaff" is peak GW. Still not as dumb as 30K's Iron Warriors being "what if attrition tactics, but with Space Marines" when that same books says that even with all the shortcuts that made the IW induction process fastest among the legions, it takes 2 years to make one. There's been real-world armies that threw their well-trained soldiers away on risky frontal attacks. It's dumb, but the kind of thing people who worship death in the battle as a means unto itself do.
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Sep 13, 2020 21:33
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I understand and even like Chaos more than I like Undeath in this game. I really dislike nagash because he's a pompous, stupid, up-himself skeleton. He's anti-papyrus and I want him ground to pieces and run over in a hover chair. I think the big issue is that Nagash lies to everyone, especially himself, about how he's transcended death and become "something more" and blah blah. He's every dickish neckbeard who believes himself perfectly logical and ordered, but is just a petty sack of poo poo with no sense of drama or weight. In a way I have to applaud GW for actually creating a Death God I don't like.
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Sep 13, 2020 21:38
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Loxbourne posted:They suffer a great deal of Capitalised Proper Noun Syndrome, and the writing style likes to talk about their inevitable victory a lot. Seraphon and Kharadron are the only books Mors has covered so far that feel like they couldn't just print  on every page and be done with it.
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Sep 13, 2020 21:45
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Didn't AoS as a whole come from their 'we need things we can trademark', or am I getting that mixed up with something else?
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Sep 13, 2020 21:48
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Some Goon posted:Didn't AoS as a whole come from their 'we need things we can trademark', or am I getting that mixed up with something else? Partially. Suffice it to say End Times and Age were in a weird as gently caress time period for GW. The subsequent decision to do a whole load of changes to Age stuff and a few other deals has meant things have been a bit different as of late. Cythereal posted:Seraphon and Kharadron are the only books Mors has covered so far that feel like they couldn't just print How dare you miss out the Gloomspite Gitz!
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Sep 13, 2020 21:51
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I think part of my issue with the AoS writing is that while I can get into some of the specific personalities and ideas, but with all of the locations I just do not give a gently caress about them. None of them have a personality. I feel about as much connection as if I was reading about a raid instance in an MMO. In Warhammer Fantasy if Kislev is under siege by Chaos or Dark Elves or whatever it's like "dang, I know this place and care about these people and I can imagine how a Large Bear is going to dunk on a raptor being ridden by someone with a hat three feet tall and covered in spikes." I'm not sure if it's a matter of age or size, OG Warhammer just feels much more... concentrated. AoS has probably about the same amount of content but pasted over a much more vast world.
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Sep 13, 2020 21:52
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Josef bugman posted:How dare you miss out the Gloomspite Gitz! Didn't read that one because I wasn't interested. PurpleXVI posted:I think part of my issue with the AoS writing is that while I can get into some of the specific personalities and ideas, but with all of the locations I just do not give a gently caress about them. None of them have a personality. I feel about as much connection as if I was reading about a raid instance in an MMO. Warhammer Fantasy felt like a fantasy setting. Age of Sigmar feels like a video game setting in the worst way. I think part of it is how every book is covered in superlatives over how this group is the BEST AND SMARTEST AND STRONGEST EVAR. The same thing in 40k was a factor in my disillusionment with that setting. Cythereal fucked around with this message at 21:57 on Sep 13, 2020 |
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Sep 13, 2020 21:54
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PurpleXVI posted:I think part of my issue with the AoS writing is that while I can get into some of the specific personalities and ideas, but with all of the locations I just do not give a gently caress about them. None of them have a personality. I feel about as much connection as if I was reading about a raid instance in an MMO. That is part of the problem. It's starting out with something unfamiliar and filled with a lot of Proper Nouns. It tends to be a bit weird. That said, at least from my own perspective, I do think that things are okay with AoS. I wouldn't buy/play it but I no longer have the same visceral hatred towards it as I did to, say, End Times and all of that ridiculous bollocks. Yeah, I agree with Cythrael a little bit. It doesn't feel like a fantasy setting. But that is okay, there are lots of those. I like the weird ideas that they are trying out, even if I think most of them are daft, because it's nice seeing something new and different. It often just kind of sucks, but it's still an attempt that, again only personally, I like seeing. Josef bugman fucked around with this message at 21:58 on Sep 13, 2020 |
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Sep 13, 2020 21:55
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Cythereal posted:I think part of it is how every book is covered in superlatives over how this group is the BEST AND SMARTEST AND STRONGEST EVAR. The same thing in 40k was a factor in my disillusionment with that setting. Similarly: WHF did a good job of laying out the terrain and giving you a sense of the various factions' territories and the key locations therein. But the Mortal Realms (and, indeed, the 40K universe) are a bajillion miles across and consist of endless lists of wacky fantasy terrain elements that are just floating around somewhere. Any time something happens it's in a crazy new place we never hear about before or after. Where the gently caress is everyone? Are the Airplane Dwarves anywhere near the Bone Mafia? Where are all these towns that are getting blown up by Mushroom Goblins all the time, and why does their destruction not actually impact anything?
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Sep 13, 2020 22:53
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I'm just amused by the thought of the Bad Moon getting in a fight with a Protoss-- er, Seraphon ship.
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Sep 13, 2020 22:53
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