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Sons of Behemat
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Mar 29, 2021 20:08
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Cythereal posted:Sons of Behemat
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Mar 29, 2021 21:21
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It is kinda neat when a setting has secret lore you have to kind of work out through exploration and piecing together clues like in video games like Dark Souls or La Mulana, but sometimes module writers just plain forget to have the information be something the players can access at all. And I could even see maybe working up backstory that the players will likely miss, but you the GM know it so you can know how the NPCs are going to react to things and have things work "fairly" according to those rules (some horror movies are like that). But too often it just comes off as something that doesn't have any effect on anything.
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Mar 29, 2021 21:45
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Cythereal posted:Sons of Behemat Quotes about them from the new Bestiary. quote:‘This is the story as Great Gran Oggrag tol’ me — that the old mothers and fathers, they got tired and had a rest. Then Big Sparky’s shortlings came from the sky and said, “hur hur”, this a good place to put our circles, and never mind the trembles…’
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Mar 29, 2021 22:04
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The Maze of the Blue Medusa - A Retrospective, part 2 The book starts with a timeline that I'll squish down here: Psathyrella has existed basically forever, and her father was a devil whom she hates. She was involved in the development of civilization but not in any particular or specific way. There was a weird creature called the Elephant King that prophesied its own demise thanks to the Medusa's actions, and it conveyed this prophecy to the "Crazed Cap Nebularis." Eventually a lizard people empire built their imperial archives next to Nebularis. Psathyrella took over the archive eventually when the reptile empire started to fade, and imprisoned her dad there. The Torn Empire/Triarchy (the rotten empire that was built around the "perfect sisters" from last post) came into being and the reptile empire could tell it was messed up. Three conspirators kidnapped the sisters and imprisoned them in the Maze, themselves being imprisoned there as various Liches. Several factions (including descendants of the reptile empire and bird-masked thieves) infiltrated the Maze, and the maze started filling up with art that the Medusa collects to impress one of the Torn sisters. Rumors of the Maze start to spread across the world, the players acquire a painting called "The False Chanterelle," and the adventure begins.  The PDF version has a link to every room on it, which is nice. Wapole found the fastest route from the entrance in room 1 to the Medusa in room 304 that requires the fewest locked or secret doors- can you? This is followed by some guidelines on how to use the adventure. You're advised to read the whole thing before trying to run it, and to have the first few NPCs the players meet talk a lot about the general nature of the maze but not let secrets slip (this is at odds with basically every NPC's specific description, so it's up to the GM to decide which parts of the book they paid for to ignore). You're told to include a lot of random encounters so the players have stuff to do in the otherwise gimmicky rooms. There's an anemic nod to the fact that the dungeon doesn't have any mechanism by which difficulty can be balanced to party level, and some notes about how to convert the stats from Lamentations to other D&D or OSR systems. The system notes illustrate one of the weaknesses of the module from a "functionality" standpoint. There is a world of difference between something with five hit dice in BECMI and something with five hit dice in 5e D&D. If your GM isn't ready to re-write those stat blocks to fit with your chosen game, then combats that should be huge setpieces are going to turn into speedbumps at best.  An early example of the problem inherent in having all of your art fit onto a cramped dungeon map. What is this supposed to be? We'll wrap up with the first few entries in the all-important random encounters list. First are the Chameleon Women, who love to fight as organized teams and ambush the party when they're fighting something else. They also have the "Protocols of Antipathy," described in the overview as one of two Big Deals that can happen as the party explores. The protocols basically make it so the Chameleon Women will try to turn other NPCs against the PCs if the PCs thwart them too many times. They "may" be pawns of one of a couple of big bads imprisoned by the Medusa but their motivation isn't very well described. Personal Experience: When we were fighting through the Maze, we must have encountered Chameleon Women half a dozen times. It was actually a Chameleon Woman ambush that defeated our party and saw us stripped naked and dumped at the entrance to the dungeon (this ended the campaign for us). When I bought the book myself I was honestly kind of appalled at how much more attention was paid to their tactics and power and how little was given to what they actually wanted in the Maze. There's nothing in here about negotiating with them, nothing to stop them just kicking your party's rear end eventually as they get stronger every time you beat a group of them, and really not even much about how they'd actually interact with most of the stuff in the Maze. I guess all that's something the GM is supposed to cook up while they read the book, but unless you keep flipping back to the Random Encounters section as you read you could forget all about them after skimming their entry.[/i]  Looks more like a bear to me Next is the RatLeopard, a piece of living taxidermy from the Gallery section. It's part naked mole rat, part big cat. It tries to ambush PCs to eat them. Next! Personal Experience: This thing attacked us near the Dead Wedding area of the Maze, burrowing up out of the ground to try to ambush and eat one of the party members. My character was a paladin, and we started at 5th level (probably because the scant guidance in the system section gives the impression that mid-level PCs can probably handle the whole maze if they're careful). Between myself and the party rogue we blasted through this thing's five hit dice in two rounds- it didn't even have a chance to retreat. I wondered for a long time what it's deal was, but it doesn't have one. It's a taxidermy monster. Next, I said!  Hmm. Yes. A squiggy mountain. Very threatening Last for this section is the Negamancer and their Thrall Mammals. These are supposed to be from the same empire as the Chameleon Women and have similarly no concrete motivation for why they're in the Maze or why they hate the PCs. They have a bunch of rules-free powers that undo things that happen to them or let them transfer damage to PCs, so PCs have to beat up the mind-controlled apes (which may include "moronic humans," no further explanation) that accompany them instead of the Negamancer itself. An extremely annoying monster that doesn't lead to anything else, unless the GM wants to really spin the implications of the Reptile Empire having time magic and ape slaves into something of their own. Personal Experience: We fought this guy once. Beat up his mooks, then he ran away and we couldn't catch him (time magic). Not much to say, really. Next Time: More Encounters, There Are a Lot of Encounters
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Mar 30, 2021 05:05
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There are, in fact, a lot of encounters. Yet somehow out of these four we only ever ran into chameleon women. Luck of the dice, I guess. What number is Overdose again? Gotta have my post ready. (We ran via roll20, I might even be able to find the logs if campaigns stick around that long...)
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Mar 30, 2021 05:15
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SkyeAuroline posted:What number is Overdose again? Gotta have my post ready. (We ran via roll20, I might even be able to find the logs if campaigns stick around that long...) Part of #14, which I think is a couple of posts away. I didn't want to try to ramrod all of the random encounters through in one post.
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Mar 30, 2021 05:24
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Just Dan Again posted:Part of #14, which I think is a couple of posts away. I didn't want to try to ramrod all of the random encounters through in one post. Appreciated. I'm going to at least try to remember the events of our game, and I'll point my players at the thread if it's something I remember we did but don't remember the details. Overdose does not fit in that category. (Nor do the Oku, nor the climax of the campaign. Everything else... yeah.)
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Mar 30, 2021 05:27
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Aside from getting out of 1, the only required lock is in one of 224, 225, or 232?
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Mar 30, 2021 07:19
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The Killing Game, Prologue and Chapter 1 Our next tale of metaplot madness and grimdark cringe begins in Toulon, a city on the southern coast of Franka (France), along the Rhone delta. Basically, most of Franka is a hellhole ruled by the Pheromancers, Psychonauts that manipulate emotions and can turn anyone who cannot withstand their influence into slaves called Drones. However, Toulon along with 2 other cities on the coast has managed to resist the Pheromancers thus far. Why have they stood tall, while so many others have fallen? Well, there’s a Neolibyian by the name of Hamza who’s poured a significant amount of capital into the region, mostly so he can exploit the gently caress out of it. So far, he’s done pretty well for himself, the cities are bustling and his investments are really paying off. Enter the Chronicler Mirage. Mirage is a bit of a fanatic, totally devoted to the Chronicler cause and willing to wipe out anyone that slanders them. She goes to Hamza with a very reasonable proposal, they want a stable 1:1 exchange of drafts to dinars, and first right of refusal on artifacts. All in all, pretty reasonable. It wouldn’t really cost him anything to agree, and he’d avoid making an enemy of the Protectorate. So what does Hamza do? Well, he’s basically a giant dick who tells her that he has no need to help her, agree to any sort of deal, and she and the Chroniclers can get hosed, Africa rules! Mirage does not take this well. She puts Operation Mirage into gear, a full scale rebellion designed to wipe Hamza Abubakar III off of the map and erase any trace of a NeoLibyian from Toulon. The Senate is behind her, but they still want the fact that they approve of her future actions to remain secret. Enter Decoy 5, who’s the Chronicler clean-up man in this adventure. Now, you might look at this and think there’s two sides to this conflict. And there are, but the PCs can only side with Hamza, or half this book is outright useless. Anyways, the book begins with a short story where we meet these fellas.  The human is an Anubian called Nephraim, and Pheromancer is called Murankir. Murankir is essentially a vassal of King Machiawhen, the most powerful psychonaut in the area. Nephraim has coated himself in marduk oil and has come to bargain, after testing him in combat with a few drones (in which Nephraim actually uses a snake like a fuckin whip lol), Murankir says his king agrees to the truce, and they shake on it by eating some of King Machiawen’s nectar. Murankir agrees that the Pheromancers will stay in the swamps, and that Nepharim’s wasp tattoos are funny for some reason. The first chapter begins with an overview of the region proper, and some of the backstory of the coming conflict. It’s mostly what I wrote before, the Chroniclers are pissed that the Africans are bleeding Franka dry while cementing their claim to rule with the spoils of said exploitation. They've decided to do something about it. I’ll be honest, most of this chapter is rather dry, and I’ll be skipping a lot. The book is free on their website if you want to check it out yourself. Just don’t give these people any money.  The man in charge, Hamza Abubakar III. Southern Franka sucks. Millions upon Millions of insects darken the sky while Pheromancer vents puff mind-control pheromones into the air. Much of it has been terraformed into a bug-ish landscape inhospitable to regular humans. Resistance efforts from the Spitialians and their allies were of limited effectiveness, and things seemed pretty lovely overall I’d say. And then the Neolibyians came. They came in with resources and connections, calmed the feuds between the clans and “elevated the best of the natives to be their aides, advisors, and governors.” They didn’t try to force a religion on them, which is about the only non-colonialist thing they did as they assumed control over the region. The thriving trade has in turn lured a bunch of crime to the region, and many coastal settlements have popped that host collections of assassins, intellectual firebrands, and other outcasts. We get a bit on the Rhone river. The swarm does not settle upon water, so river traffic along the river is generally quite safe. However, it also feeds the swamp through its tributaries, so without it the Pheromancer breeding camps would likely not exist. The Rhone delta inself feeds into the Mediterrainian, creating an extremely diverse biosphere. Shitloads of seafood and birds feed the population of southern Franka. Most of the setting info is boring poo poo like this. There’s occasionally some good stuff, like how a flock of Apocalyptics has set up shop in an abandoned scourge tank that got stuck. They keep the Spitalians off their back by selling captured Pheromancer drones as lab rats to’em. That’s a plot hook, that’s something I can use. I don’t really care if the fishermen of Montipellier make a lot of money which they usually end up blowing at the NeoLibyian markets that encircle the harbour.  That’s a Drone standing in Front of an Icon, spoiler tags for full frontal nudity. The Icons are primitive carvings that serve as border markings for the various Pheromancer realms. Next we get some info on the spore fields. It's believed that there are nine big ones, but given the dangers of the swamp the Spitaliers haven’t been able to completely map them. The swamp itself is divided up into 5 zones of danger. 1 is relatively fine, 2 is where you really start seeing drones and swarms, in 3 you start seeing the signs of terraforming. Methane clouds hang around, and for some reason gas masks only partially protect you, if you walk into one you fall under the effect of a Narcotic drug. 4 is a mother spore field, only go here with a really good reason and a hell of a lot of preparation and equipment. 5 is Souffrance. It's hell, nobody goes there or they get eaten by palm-sized ants. Also, starting in 3 Unity (variant of Burn that makes you more social but unable to engage in violence) is present in the very air. You can only resist it with Marduk Oil, or with a Psy+Willpower (5) roll. Marduk oil makes you immune for six hours, unless your sweat mixes in with it. In a stressful situation, you roll 1d6 every 10 rounds. A 1 means it turns off and you get high as poo poo, and become visible to the drones, as well as vulnerable to being mind-slaved if a Pheromancer is nearby  There’s a bit more on the various spore fields/realms of the bigtime pheromancers, but it's still kinda boring and not very useful. They don’t really provide a reason to walk into these hells. Most of the time. There is something called Mercure’s Field Hospital. It's a comflagued Spitalier ship that sneaks through the swamp trying to figure out the Pheromancer’s achilles’ heel. They take a skeleton crew composed of the best of the best, and I could see the PCs fitting into that somehow. The Foster Woods are another possible plot hook. A variant of Pheromancers called fosters by the locals resides in these woods, they snatch kids basically. It's a pretty basic plot, but it works nonetheless. I’m not sure why you’d ever step foot in the Ninth Ziggurat, the City of Combs, or heaven forbid, Souffrance.  The next section covers east of the Rhone. As a quick aside, so far this book has talked at length about all the rich veins of scrap hidden in the swamps, and all the money everyone is making from finding and exploiting them. Yet, according to the salvage rules that JcDent went over recently, finding stuff in Franka is actually pretty difficult. I have yet to see any rules that modify this for Franka. They keep saying there’s a bunch of treasure to be found here, but I’ve yet to see any rules that reflect that. The first bit covers Hamza’s entry into Toulon. Basically, he assumed control by letting the local clans still run things as mayor, but over time (and with judicious gift-giving) he earned more and more economic concessions for him and his cult. He effectively controls the economic machine of Franka’s populated coast now, and nobody has a snowball’s chance in hell in the swamps without the Marduk Oil he can supply. Then there's a bunch of bring poo poo about the various waystations, roads, etc, manned mostly by the Hellvetics that I can’t be bothered to write up. A lot of these places mostly exist because NPCs interact with them, or I guess to make a seemingly more realistic world? I just don’t care though. SMV wastes a lot of page count on stuff that just isn’t very useful to me as a GM, even if I was running their plotlines. The next section covers land west of the Rhone. This region is mostly the dominion of the Jehmmadens, Clanners, and the Resistance. There’s a big city that had an oil spill, some Resistance training camps, etc. Stuff that might be useful as a setting Altas, but there’s not much in the way to talk about with regards to plot hooks and the like. Onto the Mediterranean. Near the Rhone Delta things are good, lots of marine life, etc. Go further south and you hit a lot of oil spills that were never really cleaned up, massive algae blooms, and even boiling water if you go far enough. The Reaper’s Blow exposed magma vents to the Med, and along with boiling waring comes large bubbles of gas that can poison the crew or capsize the ship. We do have a couple neat locations, The Black Nest has potential. Its massive collection of pointy rocks in the domain of the Purgan flocks. Callisto, leader of the Black Flock resides here. She and her Apocalyptics are known as very dangerous pirates in the region, and they make berth here. It's basically a scrap tower with machine guns bolted to every square inch of spare walkway. While it does have permanent residents, it’s also capable of hosting a thousand more Apocs for business talks and whatnot. The next section talks about Toulon in more depth. The Judges and Senate of the Protectorate hate the “largesse and lenient laws” of the Neolibyians and figure somebody oughta go in there and straighten them out, before their corruption spreads to the Protectorate. They talk a bit about Cour Argent, the port neighborhood of the city. Ships come in, people make money, ships leave, etc. It's mostly pretty dry stuff, but this caught my eye. ”Ugh, this book” posted:“With each and every one of those transport ships that leave Toulon‘s harbor, a piece of Franka‘s history and cultural identity dies” They really lay it on thick in spots with the whole “The Africans are violating mother Europe” type poo poo, and it gets worse later on as well. ”Just look at this poo poo” posted:At the same time, the university would be a great place to win the students over to the Neolibyan cause, to teach them profit optimization and the power of capital, all the while cleaning their heads of trivial nonsense like pride, homeland, culture and solidarity. Hamza and Zohra agreed on all this from the beginning. If the next generation of rulers, big landowners and Clan leaders were to grow up without prejudices the Neolibyans would be able to effortlessly loot Franka and expand the African influence to the Borcan border. “Lets corrupt Whitey’s kids with hyper-captialism so we can pillage their land and expand our influence without complaint.” There’s a whole district that lends people the money to go on scrapping expeditions, you pay them 40% of your profits from the artifacts and they buy you food, tents, marduk oil, all that poo poo. Still no word on how scrap hunting in the swamps works. After I skip some more boring poo poo regarding yet another harbour and a guard barracks we come to something interesting and useful, the laws of the Neolibyians. If you murder someone, they tie your hands behind your back and toss you off of a boat at noon. If you manage to swim back I think you’re acquitted, most die though. For other crimes you and your accuser gather before a judge in the won square and rant at each other basically. The public votes by dropping shards of soloured glass in a vase, and then the judge carries out the sentence. It’s usually a fine or forced labour, but the reputation hit is worse apparently. Now keep in mind, these are laws for non-Africans. If you do a crime towards an African, they toss you on the next boat to Africa and you die as a slave on a plantation somewhere. Yep. Anyways, there’s some more boring poo poo about customs houses and hospitals before we get to the Refinery. It's not an Oil Refinery like you might think. Most of their oil comes via tanker ships and is stored in two massive towers on the harbour. It’s actually the storehouse for cool artifacts, here they’re appraised, dissabled, fixed, etc. They’re especially interested in anything that thinks to the UEO (basically the EU) which has a bunch of locked up storehouses at whatnot, filled with cool Bygone gear. Europeans aren’t even allowed to work as assistants here, but its a pretty tempting place to raid is all I’m goona say.  That’s Hamza’s place, a super huge, well-defended, and extremely expensive fortress manor built upon a hill overlooking Cour Argent. It’s not completely finished, but there is potentially a lot of loot there to steal. Tons of resources, money, bygone treasures, but most importantly a fortune in Chronicler drafts. He uses the currency (some real, some counterfeit) to control exchange rates and manipulate them in favor of the dinar.  The Scrapper neighborhood of Ferrallies is detailed in the next section. Apparently prior to the Neolibyian arrival, this was the center of the artifact trade. Now it's a poor, stinking, squalid industrial hell that only survives as bulk scrap recycler foundry. The Africans are really loving the “European carrion crow’s collecting mania” but they still sometimes need parts from the Scrappers. Enter Diech, a scrapper and agent of the Justianian Cartel. He just loves pissing off the Africans to get the better of them in deals, and the locals love him for sticking it to those “drat africans.” There’s a bunch of other districts, but the main thing of note here is the Module. The Module supplies electricity to Toulon (they do have backups but the Module is the main source). It’s a massive oil-burning generator, any outages result in heavy fines placed upon the Iron Brothers (They’re the main Scrapper org in the region, they don’t outright say it, but I don’t think they let Africans in) by the Neolibyians. The Iron Brothers do pay, because apparently paying outrageous fines when your slapped together power plant goes down is better than being a plantation slave. Maybe its just me, but if I were a colonizer I might want to keep a closer eye on such an important utility, I might not trust it to the folks that are openly racist and hate me, but what do I know. Terres Putain is the district you go to to do crimes or get your rocks off. Gladiator fights, cock fights (both kinds), gambling, all that kind of poo poo is found here. It's basically a cultural melting pot as well. One funny thing is that this game will go on at length describing all the cool guns you can buy, but then pulls back to say that even in one of the biggest black markets in post-apoc Europe, ammo is limited. What the gently caress are all these assault rifles shooting then, prayers?  Port Lagagne’s most notable aspect is that now I want to eat some lasagna. Its yet another port with more craftsmen and ships, next!  Saint Chenil is the abandoned home of the Anabaptists (who left for Purgare in an exodus a while back) and the Spitalians (who were forced to consolidate in Montipellier after a disastrous expedition). It’s most notable for its orphanage, run by a former Preserve named Wachsmann, but his servant Opis runs things on the surface. All the children of the sex workers in Terres Putain go here, along with any other unwanted children from Toulon’s many districts. Wachsmann is hiding from his cult and doing some heinous experiments, and the Orphans are basically turbo-abused. The good ones get leases as slaves to the tannery, while the bad ones are basically imprisoned lab rats. He also has access to a UEO supply center, whenever the bounties he gets for the Orphans stop rolling in, he takes a few things and sells them on the Black Market. So far, only the general of the Resistance has questioned where he’s getting all of this top quality bygone gear. Next we get some info on the cults and how they’re managing in the region. It's mostly stuff you could glean from reading the book up until now, but I did notice something curious.  Apparently they both own Southern Franka, that’s not confusing at all. With that said, here’s a picture of two people making GBS threads at a public toilet.  This isn’t particularly relevant, for some reason it's the header image for the rumors section, which for some reason is placed two chapters before the adventure again. I don’t know why you’d put something that requires rolls pages and pages before its actually relevant, but these are the guys dead set against listing their cults in Alphabetical order, so I digress. We also have a timeline of background events prior to the adventure. It's mostly a summary of previously available info, but it's useful as a quick reference nonetheless. That’s chapter 1 complete. Chapter 2 is mostly a list of npcs and the factions, so it’ll be a smaller update next time. Hipster Occultist fucked around with this message at 20:27 on Mar 30, 2021 |
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Mar 30, 2021 13:48
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I got tired just by reading that post. Thanks for doing this so I wouldn't have to. SMV can't keep their setting straight at all - going by the main books, Chroniclers hate Africans just like you'd expect from internet racists. And they'd probably be gunning for the Refinery over anything else. Yeah, stuff like Souffrance seems like a place you'd adventure in with end-game characters in sealed FS suits and laden with flamers. Anyways, that's Degensis for you!
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Mar 30, 2021 20:02
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JcDent posted:I got tired just by reading that post. Thanks for doing this so I wouldn't have to. Man, so much of the setting is just, so goddamn dry. They barely use any of the word-count to allow for PC interaction with the plot, instead foisting the task of actually making the adventure work off to the GM. The third time that I read about some portside marketplace with X vendors that make Y goods, I wanted to claw my goddamn eyes out. The racism in this game is especially maddening. Its like if I had a faction that said "all Mexicans are sleepy" and then the Mexicans themselves spent half the day asleep. Souffrance is something I might steal for a better game. The air so thick with spores it burns away the Marduk Oil on your skin, but you're not really attacked by any enemies. All the Drones just want to help you join the Unity, and they help you get rid of those troublesome gasmasks and the like. That's creepy and I could work with that as a GM, even if the PCs would only be going there with FS nanotech to plant a guidance beacon for Minerva Station's space to ground weaponry or something like that.
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Mar 30, 2021 20:40
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Age of Sigmar: Sons of Behemat The Sons of Behemat are gargants, which means giants. They are terrifying beings, immense beyond measure and stronger than anything that exists. Even daemons cannot match the biggest of them for sheer physical power. They claim descent from the godbeast Behemat, who was slain long ago. They hail from Ghur originally, and even there, they have no natural predators. They are simply so huge and powerful that they can do whatever they want. They primarily operate on their instincts and desires at any given moment, which tend to revolve around hunting for food, sleeping, eating anyone that annoys them, drinking as much as they possibly can of alcohol they have seized from others, burping, farting and smashing stuff for their own amusement. They tend to see smaller creatures as toys or pets at best, and often they see them as little more than a snack. Some gargants live alone, away from other people and content with whatever wilderness they have staked as their territory. Others move constantly, hunting for powerful foes because they are incredibly pored most of the time and like fighting. The largest of them are the Mega-Gargants, the high lords of their species, such as they are. When a Mega-Gargant goes on a rampage, they draw out other gargants with them, as even the most reclusive cannot resist the call of their biggers. The lesser gargants obey the greater, smashing whatever they are told to and becoming an unstoppable engine of death and destruction. They are never subtle, generally crude and more than a little stupid much of the time, but their sheer power should never be underestimated. Most gargants are largely incapable of telling smaller people apart - they can't really tell the difference between an orruk and an aelf. Too small, just a pipsqueak. The smarter gargants do figure out how to negotiate and make alliances, though, because it tends to get them good fights and shiny baubles to keep as their treasure. These negotiations often involve an army's paymaster having to climb a tower to be audible to the gargant, and for every one that succeeds, a dozen more fail and end with several people getting eaten. Fortunately, it's easy to avoid the average gargant - they can be heard from miles away due to their heavy feet and they're not generally good at handling small objects, allowing their grip to be escaped if you're careful and clever. This matters less on the battlefield, when they can just smash things and crush whatever they happen to grab. Gargants usually enjoy fighting. Their existence is typically one of hunger and annoyance or pain, as many of their natural habitats have been corrupted by the Age of Chaos and rendered unable to sustain the sheer amount of food a gargant needs to survive. In war, they can eat as much as they want of the dead and they can take out their annoyance on anyone close by. They sometimes scavenge old battlefields, but more often they make their own, hunting out armies to fight in the same way that forest tribes hunt deer. Often, the joy of combat becomes a reason in itself to keep going, as it lets them go from an existence of just a giant, starving beast aiming to survive to a demigod of slaughter, terrifying the pipsqueaks with their strength. Most gargants learn to recognize the tracks left behind by armies and will follow them over massive distances in pursuit of a good fight. It rarely takes long, given the state of the Mortal Realms, and the peoples of Ghur have learned that when you hear the rhythmic stomping of a gargant, you drop whatever fight you're in and get the hell out. Of course, their stride is exceptionally large, so outrunning them can be harder than it seems, especially if they decide to hurl rocks (or walls and broken ruins, for that matter). They aren't especially accurate, but even a glancing blow is enough to kill, generally. The gargants have an easy time among some species - orruks, for example, and others who believe that power is all you need. The gargants aren't technically greenskins, but most greenskins see them as spiritual kin due to their shared cultural values of might making right. When two gargants of relatively close size meet each other, they tend to get into a brawl or contest of strength to decide who's the dominant one, and many are obsessed with becoming bigger and stronger. This is likely tied to their relation to Behemat, the World Titan, who was said to be so huge that he could crack mountains in his hand...and yet, the gargants claim that Behemat was not the first of them. That, they say, was his father, Ymnog, who only ever lost a single battle - to Sigmar, specifically. The gargants say Ymnog was so large his head scraped the stars and that Sigmar had to rely on cheating and magic to win against him, for he would never achieve it by main strength. It's not totally clear if that's true or not - the battle is lost to history. Behemat lasted longer, and indeed, he was still alive until quite recently, making him much easier to revere. Of course, he spent most of the time since the Age of Myth in slumber, thanks to the beating Sigmar gave him and how long it took the World Titan to recover. He awoke only relatively recently, emerging from under the Everspring Swathe. Archaon attempted to enslave Behemat, though, and the Celestant Prime used Ghal Maraz to give the immense godbeast a mercy killing. His death has altered gargant society (insofar as that exists) forever, because everything about them was defined by their relationship with Behemat, Ymnog and Gorkamorka. For the gargants, Gorkamorka manifested as the Godstompa, and that's why they tend to be somewhat obsessed with stomping and kicking poo poo. They believe that size is the sole thing to determine respect, and that Gorkamorka the Godstompa is the biggest being that exists. The manifestation of the two-headed god's great green foot can be summoned by the shamans of the orruks, and the gargants have seen it plenty of times fighting alongside them. They point to it as proof of the god's immensity, for if his foot is enough to smash entire dragons in one blow, how big must he be in total? Thus, he is to be worshipped as the biggest. Some gargants actually reject the idea that there's anything but feet to their god. They say Gorkamorka is not actually humanoid, but rather a pair of giant feet - the Gorkfoot, which is stompy but kicky, and the Morkfoot, which is kicky but stompy. Even Behemat and Ymnog swore allegiance to the Godstompa, and in the Age of Myth, Behemat named Gorkamorka his big heel, swearing to fight as his champion. For centuries, the World Titan fought alongside Gorkamorka, until the coming of Chaos. At that point their friendship became a violent rivaly. See, the great Waaaaagh! energies are contagious amongst the peoples of Destructio, and the gargants are no exception. They love fighting, after all, and the energies of Gorkamorka awakened in them an aggression and violence that was rarely seen except in the Mega-Gargant rampages. While they're not so strongly affected as the orruks or grots, they are easily swept up in a Waaaagh!, forming up into small tribes to smash anything that moves. They become highly competitive with each other, performing great feats of strength and destruction. And that? That was reflected in Behemat. The Chaos Gods whispered to Gorkamorka, telling him that he was slaving himself to Sigmar, but allowing Behemat to do whatever he liked. Gorkamorka grew resentful and jealous, and he tore himself in two, then reformed under the Bad Moon, having convinced himself that Behemat was no longer his true friend. Whenever the two met, Gorkamorka would issue a challenge to his champion, who would never refuse him. The first task was to make a flood that would destroy a city. See, one time, Gorkamorka slew a massive monster in the deserts of Hysh, and to sate his thirst after, he drank up so much of the Gleaming Bay that the sea level dropped until he left, then surged back and destroyed the port of Omnitopia. Gorkamorka wanted to see if Behemat could do the same. He managed it, though accidentally, by tripping over a fjord and falling into the Girdlesea near the Hyshian city Araxia, which was flooded by the tsunami that the fall caused. Behemat seized their shiny treasures for himself, and some say that this is the reason the Idoneth now live under the sea, that they might never have to deal with this poo poo again. Gorkamorka accepted Behemat's success, if with poor grace, and turned to slaughtering the gigadroths of the Great Parch, saving the local civilizations from being burned by their flames. Gorkamorka challenged his champion to match him by stopping up the massive volcano named Vulcatrix's Lair so that more gigadroths could not be born. Behemat tore out the top half of Mount Krolosid, flipped it upside down and shoved it into the caldera as a cork, which led to the Fyreslayers rising up in battle against him. Behemat smashed them flat with little effort, and the gargants say this is why duardin are so short. Later, Dracothion decided to take vengeance on Gorkamorka for wounding him in the Greenskin God's original battle against Sigmar. He called forth a rain of meteors to strike Gorkamorka in his sleep, though it did little actual harm. Gorkamorka told Behemat he should weather something similar, so Behemat climbed atop an Azyrite mountain and began shouting insults at Dracothion until the godbeast hurled another storm of meteors at him. Behemat took several without blocking, but eventually it began to hurt too much, so he used his club to bat the last one back at Dracothion, knocking out several of his scales. The gargants claim this is what formed the Seraphon, who attack them out of vengeance. At this point, Gorkamorka wanted to directly compete, so he challenged Behemat to an eating contest. They started in Ghur, where Gorkamorka ate all the monsters he had ever slain, even those long since rotted. Behemat couldn't match his pace, but he did manage to eat his way through the Greedmouth Realmgate into Shyish, where he began eating the ghosts of those monsters, and thus ended up with a higher total at the end. It wasn't a very filling meal, though, so he also ate an entire nation of dead men. The gargants say this is why there are skeletons now - the men of Shyish no longer have any meat left on their bones. Next time: Gorkamorka grows frustrated.
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Mar 30, 2021 22:49
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About Lair of the Blue Medusa. So, a while back I was looking for some game ideas and I got interested in mega-dungeons so I went over to rpg.net and skimmed the threads in the D&D area. LotBM got mentioned and I only saw high praise so I picked it up. It was overall good, but also it was incredibly obvious that this was some guy really pushing hard to look cool in front of the nerds. It was almost painful really and it was full of obvious signs that whoever wrote it was a poo poo head DM that liked power-tripping on their players. But there were some good ideas mixed in and the idea of a dungeon art museum is one that I still find very attractive. Plus, I love Doom Patrol and this sort of reminded me of that so I decided to see what could be salvaged. Then I got to the garden, read less than five minutes and said "this dude is a sex offender" and decided to move on. About a week later I heard that Zak S was a rapist. Not a surprise.
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Mar 30, 2021 23:38
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Hipster Occultist posted:Man, so much of the setting is just, so goddamn dry. They barely use any of the word-count to allow for PC interaction with the plot, instead foisting the task of actually making the adventure work off to the GM. The third time that I read about some portside marketplace with X vendors that make Y goods, I wanted to claw my goddamn eyes out. It's honestly so heavy handed it's not even remotely funny. I wish I still had my writeup going in depth on Degenesis' Germanic-superiority fetish and the other weird racist, sexist, etc poo poo that goes on throughout. Not a part of the server I wrote it up in any more and not sure I could redo the whole thing from scratch without a whole system review (and I've got enough on my plate), it's just pervasive in a way I hadn't recognized on first pass. (Different continents and different cultural backdrops might do that.)
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Mar 30, 2021 23:57
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...gargants are honestly kind of a letdown, I was really hoping the AoS thing of mythic scope would be great for the giants of Warhams, who were presented as the melancholy and feral remnants of a grand civilization destroyed by the Ogre Kingdoms. It gave them a certain sympathetic side, that their rage, smashing, and desire to get absolutely wasted on anything available all represented the long, miserable hangover of their ancient society. Much like the dragons and Dragon Ogres really.
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Mar 31, 2021 01:38
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I love giants too but I hate when they go the lazy route of make them just big dumb cavemen who can barely dress themselves. Give me clever giants with magnificent cloud castles any day!
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Mar 31, 2021 02:02
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Joe Slowboat posted:...gargants are honestly kind of a letdown, I was really hoping the AoS thing of mythic scope would be great for the giants of Warhams, who were presented as the melancholy and feral remnants of a grand civilization destroyed by the Ogre Kingdoms. It gave them a certain sympathetic side, that their rage, smashing, and desire to get absolutely wasted on anything available all represented the long, miserable hangover of their ancient society. Much like the dragons and Dragon Ogres really. I love all my sad ancients. It was also heavily implied that gravity itself meant they had serious joint problems and were drinking for their arthritis. As a sufferer of arthritis, I empathize.
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Mar 31, 2021 02:06
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Joe Slowboat posted:...gargants are honestly kind of a letdown, I was really hoping the AoS thing of mythic scope would be great for the giants of Warhams, who were presented as the melancholy and feral remnants of a grand civilization destroyed by the Ogre Kingdoms. It gave them a certain sympathetic side, that their rage, smashing, and desire to get absolutely wasted on anything available all represented the long, miserable hangover of their ancient society. Much like the dragons and Dragon Ogres really. Gatto Grigio posted:I love giants too but I hate when they go the lazy route of make them just big dumb cavemen who can barely dress themselves. Clever Giants are a thing in the past. But the Gargants had a similar fall as the old world giants (At least some did. It's implied there are still clever enlightened Gargants around, but they feel no need to lower themselves to the others level.) They also can dress themselves it's just hard cause of how big they are. Still the gargants did realize the importance of making sandals during the war against chaos and chaos' love of pointy things. (Which they dubbed the Sole Wars)
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Mar 31, 2021 02:07
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MonsterEnvy posted:Clever Giants are a thing in the past. But the Gargants had a similar fall as the old world giants (At least some did. It's implied there are still clever enlightened Gargants around, but they feel no need to lower themselves to the others level.) The trick with Old World Giants was that they were all clever giants, all the same basic being as the noble ancient mountain-lords. But they've had their collective spirit broken by a thousand years of painful retreat and lonely stumbling about in the world of pipsqueaks. As opposed to 'there are still clever giants out there' - that's not the same kind of melancholy, imo.
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Mar 31, 2021 02:19
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I remember back when degenesis was new and there were constant threads for it on /tg/. It seemed really lovely and racist, almost designed to appeal to the worst people.
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Mar 31, 2021 02:33
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'tis is a pity your write-up is lost, could make a good addendum to my my review - as we can see, I'm not fully capable of grasping the full scope of racism at play. Mors Rattus posted:cannot resist the call of their biggers.  IIRC the WFRP write up here, giants drinking was all due to their size making them hurt all the time. Speleothing posted:I remember back when degenesis was new and there were constant threads for it on /tg/. They were really keep on the, uh, 'mature' art of the game.
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Mar 31, 2021 05:37
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JcDent posted:'tis is a pity your write-up is lost, could make a good addendum to my my review - as we can see, I'm not fully capable of grasping the full scope of racism at play. I'll see what I can do to recover it, a few other goons were present and might have it saved or searchable. /tg/ occasionally had good insights (the faction analyses that I moved over to 1d4 before the threads disappeared are still some of the better breakdowns out there) but /pol/ took those threads over far too quickly for comfort. Unsurprisingly, really. I guess it's a game I shouldn't even look at through the lens of "how to fix it" any more. Just scrape the good ideas and move along.
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Mar 31, 2021 05:53
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Well, /tg/ is still prefaced with boards.4chan.org, and nothing on 4chan is ever /pol/-free. Cue the olds on /hwg/ (historical wargame thread) whining that women shouldn't wargame because that's their escape from their wife lol
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Mar 31, 2021 06:00
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I recall the WFB Giants' deal was that most are basically miserable, homeless alcoholics and often inbred due to there being so few of them left, and the ones in the Ogre Kingdoms are actually enslaved rather than just being mercenaries. Rather disappointing to basically make them oversized Orcs.
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Mar 31, 2021 06:01
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JcDent posted:Well, /tg/ is still prefaced with boards.4chan.org, and nothing on 4chan is ever /pol/-free. Cue the olds on /hwg/ (historical wargame thread) whining that women shouldn't wargame because that's their escape from their wife lol Pre-2016 was something of a different beast. Turns out the whole writeup was in a Steam chat over a year ago, so lmao, that's gone. The highlights pretty much all circled around SMV portraying Borca and particularly the Spitalians as the bastion of civilizaton and heroism, while reducing every other region and ethnicity to its stereotypes; France just rolled over and surrendered and lets foreigners pillage it minus the totally-not-French-Resistance, Poland and Eastern Europe are backwater messes running on caveman logic (right up until the clanner hordes start gathering), Italy... has already been covered, the Balkans get the usual, and Spain is the most transparent by way of its Reconquista (and crusade) analogues combined with "modern" approaches. Meanwhile the Degenesis version of Romani are literally a memetically-programmed cult that prostitutes out their children, are effectively incapable of not committing crimes against others, and are near singlehandedly responsible for preventing the world from recovering before Primer really got its hooks in for the sole sake of pleasure. And then Africa, most of all, catches the double barrel of ignorance and racist treatment - instead of doing even the tiniest shred of research, SMV's answer to "how do we respectfully portray African people" is "uh... Mind virus wipes out all linguistic and cultural barriers so they all unify into a monoculture instead!" The biggest distinctions of that monoculture from the others being "uhh, lion headdresses and tribal hunting packs as a method of war" combined with "Africa's raiding and enslaving Europe out of jealousy for their success and revenge because they're white, how dreadful, it's morally good and right to exterminate them with no questions asked at all". Reduced from the entire northern half of a continent with hundreds (at least) of distinct cultures with deep histories to pull on, to a caricaturized mirror of colonialism (while ignoring all the actual drives of colonialism in favor of "uh, greed and racism so they want our stuff") behind a veneer of "stereotypical Africa aesthetic, let's get some furs and spears in with our combat armor". Degenesis tries to play the 40k game of "fascism and genocide are justified when the whole world is out to get you", completely missed the satirical elements of 40k, and actually thinks that genocidal scientists/doctors, corrupt authoritarians, and pesudochristian Crusaders are the paragons of morality. It falls flat with satire and it falls even flatter when taken dead seriously. It's just a vehicle for the authors' unsubtle messaging at some point, and all of that messaging points right back to SMV's home country (and immediate neighbors) as a beacon of civilization in a savage world, full of (white Germanic) heroes protecting (white Germanic) people from the ravening (nonwhite or non-Germanic) hordes of tribes, monstrosities, and colonialist bastards. I wouldn't be surprised if SMV's physical studio was in Justitian's footprint. Kind of stream of consciousness summarizing what I remember writing, and doing so from a poor platform for editing. Happy to go into more depth but may need to actually revisit my books for that. It's been quite some time since that deep dive amd I had sourced a lot of it back then. This setting aside taking several steps past Koebel directly into "play out a sexual assault with one of your players in private, with no warning and no safety measures, and prevent them from telling their friends what happened", which... I'm pretty sure is well into the legal definition of sexual harassment. A whole separate barrel of fun from the racism.
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Mar 31, 2021 06:30
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Ghost Leviathan posted:I recall the WFB Giants' deal was that most are basically miserable, homeless alcoholics and often inbred due to there being so few of them left, and the ones in the Ogre Kingdoms are actually enslaved rather than just being mercenaries. Rather disappointing to basically make them oversized Orcs. It's probably also a side effect of the dumb decision that every Destruction faction have to worship Gorkamorka in some form. It doesn't give them coherency, it's just boring.
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Mar 31, 2021 06:33
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Degenesis doesn't have much of a presence anymore, communities like the Degenesis reddit are basically dead. For example, the Justianian sourcebook got only got a few comments when it released and the longest threads on r/rpg are those where people stepped in to call out the game's flaws. /tg sees threads now and then I think, but they're fairly short as well. Most of their community is centered on their discord, which has become an echo chamber. If you're thinking "hey, maybe these people will get better over time and learn from their mistakes," you're sadly mistaken. The only people playing/reading their game nowadays believe SMV can do no wrong and its literally the best game of all time, and are obsessed with unveiling the metaplot like its an ARG or something. There are some elements of the setting I've been intrigued by. I think metaplot is a mistake, but the stuff around Gerome Getrell could be an interesting arc to run in a post apoc game. He's a villain I could see building an arc around, but having to read 5 books to learn half of the poo poo he's been up to is just dumb as hell. SMV has adopted a model that basically requires a supplement treadmill, and they have one auteur writer and a game that didn't make money even when it was new on the scene. I might steal parts of this setting for the Apocoylse World game I want to run at some point in the future though Hipster Occultist fucked around with this message at 11:13 on Mar 31, 2021 |
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Mar 31, 2021 06:47
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SkyeAuroline posted:Degenesis tries to play the 40k game of "fascism and genocide are justified when the whole world is out to get you", completely missed the satirical elements of 40k, and actually thinks that genocidal scientists/doctors, corrupt authoritarians, and pesudochristian Crusaders are the paragons of morality. It falls flat with satire and it falls even flatter when taken dead seriously. Hey now, to be fair, 40k can't even do the satirical elements of 40k, it's only reasonable that anyone trying to copy 40k will fail in the exact same way.  (Because, of course, the satirical edge of WH40k isn't that it is justified, it's that it isn't: the immeasurable brutality of the Imperium of Man is completely unjustified and the satire is that we're supposed to laugh at how completely dysfunctional it all is.)
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Mar 31, 2021 08:18
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Ghost Leviathan posted:I recall the WFB Giants' deal was that most are basically miserable, homeless alcoholics and often inbred due to there being so few of them left, and the ones in the Ogre Kingdoms are actually enslaved rather than just being mercenaries. Rather disappointing to basically make them oversized Orcs. I think I kind of miss the Soul-eating Fish Elves. But yeah "In those days there were Giants in the Earth. And those Giants were a pack of miserable, violent, alcoholic morons" does not really do much for their "cool factor."
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Mar 31, 2021 10:38
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LatwPIAT posted:Hey now, to be fair, 40k can't even do the satirical elements of 40k, it's only reasonable that anyone trying to copy 40k will fail in the exact same way. The official publications often fails but 40K at least provides plentiful setting materials to build a campaigns on from hive gangers to galactic battle fleets and even cosmological intrigue. Though you might want to switch rulesets to accommodate different styles of play. Degenesis doesn't have a lot of material at this stage an unlike 40K didn't start as a satire that got worked over by hacks and crypto fascists. Degenensis started this awful. See also every other grimdark game ever.
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Mar 31, 2021 11:09
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Suddenly remembering the advertising image the Degenesis devs posted a while ago that had a bunch of scaremongering headlines about immigration and so on and them going "We called this!". Yeeeaaah, that certainly makes you look great guys. Real great.
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Mar 31, 2021 12:14
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The Killing Game, Chapter 2 Chapter 2 is mostly a npc background/statblock section, so I’ll mostly be doing an overview of the various factions tied up in the civil war, npc descriptions themselves will come when I get to the adventure proper. We begin with a brief overview of why Operation Mirage is being launched.  The reverse racism alone is enough to make me gag, but what makes it worse is that if Hamza wasn’t such a greedy idiot his crown jewel wouldn’t be about to go up in flames. Sure, the right of first refusal on artifacts might mean that they’d lose out on some good poo poo to the Chroniclers, but isn’t not making a powerful enemy and keeping the locals pacified worth it? I mean poo poo, he’d still be making money hand over fist. He doesn’t even attempt to argue over terms, there was probably some wiggle room there. Mirage is almost just as bad though, her response to Hamza’s “get hosed lol” is basically to clam up and leave. Time to go plan a civil war that will drown the region in blood, it's not like the mind control mutants next door are a threat or anything. Even if Operation Mirage was a guaranteed success, it’d still be fuckin’ stupid idea. Mirage has been planning this operation for about a year. She’s been planting explosives, stockpiling weapons, exacerbating tensions, and making alliances. First among the factions are the rulers of Toulon. Mostly they’re related to or have served under Hamza Abukar the III, they’re the scions of a vast and wealthy Neolibyian lineage. Success has blinded them, and they no longer see the dangers of oppressing whitey. They’re rich, fairly powerful, etc. Next we have the Iron Brothers, they’re the European scrapper organization in Toulon. It doesn’t explicitly say that they have a “no blacks allowed” policy, but the previous section points out that all the African Scrappers are led by a Scrapper by the name of Orma, who is loyal to the Hamza administration. They get all the Marduk Oil and best supplies, while the Europeans get jack poo poo. The Iron Brothers got effectively sidelined when the Africans arrived, and most lived a life of constant drudgery while blaming the Africans for everything that went wrong. The entire situation is a powder keg of racist/classism anger, and even without the advantage of surprise they’d still outnumber Hamza’s Scourgers. They’ve also been infiltrated by a group of Scrapper Cartel thugs from Borca who want to steer the Iron Brothers and channel whatever revolution that does happen towards their own benefit, and they have orders to kill any Iron Brother that tries to stop them. My favorite is a lady named Hurlant. She found the journal of a Preserver lost on an old expedition into the Spore Fields, and it has meticulous notes that include passwords for a UEO supply depot. It’s written in Borcan, which she does not read or speak, so she uses it as a cutting board instead of getting one of the numerous Borcan-speaking Scrappers to translate this weird book she found.  Whoa, that’s loving deep you guys. Anyways, our next faction is Commando Requiem. The Fuse Factor lends a group of 24 Shutters (Chronicler spies). They do all the high tech spying, surveillance, explosives planning, and general infiltration and smuggling duties. They also put pressure on the Senate back home in Justitian, and got a Black Judge named Arcville along with 30 other Judges assigned to their efforts. Sadly, Fuse is an idiot and has fallen to the one weakness all spies share. Pussy. He’s having sex with one of the Rattler’s Magpies and is talking way too much  I feel like I should write about Mirage a bit here, because boy, she is something else. She was taken from her parents at a young age, and grew up in the Aquitaine Cluster. As she matured she proved to be a prodigy, mastering the ways of the Chroniclers with little effort. She’s also fiercely loyal to the Cult, you’re either in support of the Chronicles (the last great hope of civilization) or you’re a barbarian that deserves only death. She’s completely given up human emotions and has thus given her life over to the cult. So the fuckin turbo nerds turned her into a diplomat. Look at this poo poo if you think I’m exaggerating.  Chronicler 1: “Hey Chronicler 2, you know what’d be a good idea? Let's put our emotionally stunted fanatic at the forefront of all tense diplomatic conflicts with other Cults that despise us.” Chronicler 2: “I agree fellow Chronicler, that sounds logical and totally unlike a moronic decision that will blow up in our collective faces.” Chronicler 1: “Now that business is taken care of, you wanna go boot up the static stream and masturbate to anime porn drawn centuries ago?” Chronicler 2: “Boy, do I!” Anyways, our old friend Decoy 5 is here, disguised as one of Acville’s judges. He infiltrates Commando Requiem on the orders of the Central Cluster, they don’t want any word of their involvement getting out. Plausible deniability and all that. If Mirage makes a mess, he’s supposed to clean it up. If the Operation fails, he’s got orders to kill everyone involved so they don’t get tortured for information. He’s on thin ice due to his failure to get anything useful in Lucatore, and this is basically his last shot. The Black Flock is our next faction. These Apocalyptics form a 700-strong core of mediterrianian pirates, living fast but short lives preying upon Neolibyian shipping lanes. However, recent pulls from the Tarot have set the Abomination above the Creator, which only happens when some seriously bad poo poo is about to go down. It's only been pulled 3 times in history, the day before the Eshaton being the most dramatic example. So, in response they’ve all piled in their boats and have started making their way to southern Franka, to stop the worst from happening. The Firebirds are also Apocalyptics, but they’re not your standard drug dealers, sex workers, theives, and murderers. They’re more of a small revenge cult. They’re led by a man named Rattler, sometimes known as the Phoenix. At some time somebody tried to kill him, but they never quite finished the job. Almost dying had some profound effects upon his mental state. He loving hates the Apocalyptics for taking him from his mother, destroying his innocence, and teaching him to kill for memes. He figures that if he turns Toulon into a pyre, eventually the other, proper Apocalyptics will come swooping in to roost and salvage. Then he’ll kill them all, every single last one for what they did to him. He’s gathered about 20 others like him, and has convinced them to find redemption by butchering the people that hosed them up. I kinda like this guy, he’s interesting at least. He’s also recruited a Hellvetic deserter by the name of Baptiste, who looted an entire Hellvetic storage unit, and aside from being heavily armed they’ve planted enough explosives in Toulon to turn it into an inferno. He’s allied with Mirage for now, but that’ll change as he wants to cause as much chaos and bloodshed as possible. Rattler himself is a boss later on, and he’s kinda hosed. In addition to having almost as many health levels as the goddamn Archon Pyschokentic from In Thy Blood, he suffers no wound penalties due to trauma and mental attacks automatically fail because he’s always in some weird mystical trance. He also has not 1 (but 2) potentials that gently caress up dice math if you happen to be facing him. Rorschach removes sixes from your dice pool when you attack him (making triggers impossible to get and botches more likely) and Bad Luck triggers an auto-botch when you encounter him if you don’t succeed on a PSY+Willpower/Faith (4) roll. Damage wise he’s nothing to sneeze at either, 11D with a damage 10 sawed-off shotgun, and 9D with a damage 8 chain. The Cauldron is the last faction, and they’re just sort of a catch-all for any and all independent players. They include the Resistance and the other clans, as well as independents like Wachsmann. They don’t have a stake in the planning of Operation Mirage, but eventually they’ll get involved.  That’s Nestor with his literal Gears of War Lancer on the left (leader of the Iron Brothers), and Eisenhauer (smuggler and bodyguard for Nestor) on the right. That’s it for Chapter 2, onto Chapter 3 and the Adventure itself next time! Cooked Auto posted:Suddenly remembering the advertising image the Degenesis devs posted a while ago that had a bunch of scaremongering headlines about immigration and so on and them going "We called this!".  All I can do is laugh and laugh Hipster Occultist fucked around with this message at 15:39 on Mar 31, 2021 |
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Mar 31, 2021 13:25
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Wow. I'm not sure how I missed that particular ad. When the hell did that happen? (Also, in things I actually DID find: the entire session log start to finish for our Maze campaign. Some side chat missing but everything in character. Cool! Helps inform my peanut gallery commentary.)
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Mar 31, 2021 15:31
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SkyeAuroline posted:Wow. I'm not sure how I missed that particular ad. When the hell did that happen? 28 days ago according to Reddit. Just imagine using 200,000 US Covid deaths to promote your ttrpg
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Mar 31, 2021 15:33
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A lot of the art that keeps getting posted for Degenisis isn't awful (other than the poop and fart joke stuff), but I can't seem to actually give a poo poo about any of the people involved. Other than wanting them all to please leave.
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Mar 31, 2021 18:48
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Hipster Occultist posted:
lmao gently caress these clowns. right in the left nostril.
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Mar 31, 2021 18:54
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Josef bugman posted:A lot of the art that keeps getting posted for Degenisis isn't awful (other than the poop and fart joke stuff), but I can't seem to actually give a poo poo about any of the people involved. Other than wanting them all to please leave. That's ultimately the conclusion I drew. I kept my folder of the official art and still update it when new content comes out, because for the most part it's good visual design and inspiration for other post-apocalypse material (one day I'll get round 2 of Legacy). But the game itself... pass. Hard pass.
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Mar 31, 2021 18:59
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SkyeAuroline posted:That's ultimately the conclusion I drew. I kept my folder of the official art and still update it when new content comes out, because for the most part it's good visual design and inspiration for other post-apocalypse material (one day I'll get round 2 of Legacy). But the game itself... pass. Hard pass. There seems to be some legit good art for Legacy or a more "realistic" Apocalypse world game. It's just bolted to a system that makes anything associated with it feel slightly tarnished.
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Mar 31, 2021 19:03
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Hipster Occultist posted:
Love how half of these headlines have no direct relation to their fungal post-apocalypse Europe.
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Mar 31, 2021 19:04
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