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Honestly, given the mood of online nerdery these days, my first thought about the nerd outrage against the Realm in Exalted now being LGBT friendly was that people were upset the Realm wasn't being fascist enough for their liking.
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Apr 9, 2019 02:09
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PurpleXVI posted:I presume that if the PC's walk in on Karitamen with arms bulging with his treasures, he's going to be a lot less cooperative than if they show up empty-handed but mildly bloodied from traps and fights. In the general setting fluff, a good 80% or so of all incidents where Tomb Kings have actively attacked other races and nations have "You plundered my tomb and stole my stuff, I want it back" as the casus belli. IIRC the Tomb Kings even once attacked Altdorf, but the main attack was a diversion while their real goal - which they succeeded at - was hitting the Imperial museum of history with its "Wonders of Ancient Nehekara!" display.
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Apr 9, 2019 17:33
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Mors Rattus posted:Benthic Knifetooths are immense, 20-foot-long serpentine sharks that eat…well, just about anything. Their name is due to their unique teeth, each of which has a number of recurved hooks that snag in the flesh of their prey to prevent escape. Knifetooths hunt by night, and sailors are usually terrified of their large, distinctive gill-frills, which can be seen as they swim alongside ships. They mostly dwell in the deep Western oceans, but competition, curiosity or divine curses can lead them up to the surface to attack ships. They are very tough, but doing enough damage will send them fleeing. Due to their special teeth, they, like bears, can forgo Initiative on a Withering bite attack to reflexively grapple foes. They tend to swim around with their mouths open, camouflaging their teeth against their mouth flesh to fool prey into attacking them first, allowing them to clash the first attack a foe makes against them with a terrifying bite. They are very hard to notice when in the deeps of the waters below you, making them significantly stealthier than a giant eel-shark should be, and can see clearly in darkness. They also do not truly sleep, instead entering a sort of rest phase in which they remain conscious and mobile but can’t attack or do anything significant. Spending eight hours in this state is equivalent to a night’s sleep for them. Oh hey, it's a giant oarfish/viperfish hybrid.
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Apr 10, 2019 15:47
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Night10194 posted:Ptra is the Great Creator, the Sun, the first of all Gods to step foot on the earth. He looks like a human (he is the only God with no animal association) but his eyes contain the very void itself and can drive someone mad to look at. Ra quote:Asaph should be familiar to anyone who likes the Total Warhams Tomb Kings because she is the Goddess of Vengeance, Beauty, and Magic. She is a snake lady. She is also the patron of the famous Queen Khalida, cousin of Nefereta, who asked Asaph to replace her blood with crazy holy snake venom after Neffy tried to turn her into a vampire. It totally worked, and totally killed her. Then the Nagash stuff happened and it turns out being a holy crusading mummy that fights vampires for eternity while full of holy snake venom is great actually. The Khalida stuff isn't in here, of course, I just thought I'd put it in because it rules. Isis quote:Djaf is the God of Death, depicted with a jackal's head. I wish there was a little more on the Gods' personalities and not just how to recognize their image. Anubis quote:Khsar is the God of the Desert, able to appear as a desert wind rather than an animal form. Set quote:Phakth is the God of the Sky and Also Justice, and he is a BIRD PERSON. A big muscular man with a hawk's head. Horus quote:Qu'aph is the God of Snakes and also Subtlety. He shows up as a hooded human because he is actually a cobra, naturally. Meretseger quote:Ualatp is the God of Scavengers. No points for guessing that he has a vulture's head. Doesn't seem to have a clear Egyptian counterpart. quote:Sokth is the God of Scorpions, Poison, and Thieves. However, he hates tomb robbers (approved thiefing only) so if you see his sign on something, watch out. It means that this is going to vomit scorpions all over you. Deadly, deadly scorpions. Serket quote:Basth is obviously Bast. She is the Cat God, which also means the Goddess of Love and Grace. Nehekarans absolutely adored cats. They had cats everywhere. If you were a Nehekaran noble and you didn't have a bunch of pet cats you were a weirdo. She can appear as a woman, a woman with a cat head, or a very majestic cat. Bast, as noted. quote:Geheb is God of the Earth and Strength, and appears as a huge, muscular man-mountain. He can also turn into a big friendly dog. Geb quote:Tahoth is the God of Wisdom and Learning. He got a birb head. An ibis, to be specific. Thoth quote:Usirian is the God of the Underworld and is never actually depicted, as it was considered sacrilege. There are many invocations to him throughout the Tomb, but he is never actually shown. Osiris
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Apr 11, 2019 16:47
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I figured it was for the same reason that 'glaives' keep turning up in games as the damndest, most impractical weapons imaginable, not the very normal and effective blade at the end of a long stick they were in reality.
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Apr 15, 2019 00:38
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Eh, to me it feeds into how boring I find the Skaven. They're like Chaos or the Orcs - they're just there. You can stop their current scheme, maybe kill an up-and-coming champion, but there's plenty more where that came from and there's nothing you can do about them as a whole and it's always the same old poo poo (but now with zany antics!).
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Apr 15, 2019 16:55
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I vote for Fantasy Balkans.
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Apr 15, 2019 18:36
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The Lone Badger posted:I originally read this as "your troubles are driven by and lead to Adventurers" and pictured a game where you're a ruler who has to constantly deal with this sort of troublemakers and grows to absolutely despise them over time. There's a pretty compelling video game series about that called Majesty. Some goons did an awesome LP of it that got the game's main voice actor to join in.
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Apr 16, 2019 01:59
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Night10194 posted:I suspect the sheer amount of bullshit the Shallyans could get rid of is a big reason some people writing for the game hated them so much. They kick most of the game's most annoying systems in the dick. And yet, it's the first fantasy setting I've seen where "I'm the person who's really, REALLY good at healing" is a distinctive, flavorful, and useful character that the game doesn't assume will always be available. If I were to play another game of WHFRP, a Shallyan is at the top of my list of characters I'd want to play.
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Apr 17, 2019 02:32
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Xiahou Dun posted:Now I want a Prince who’s a Morrite Priest right smack next to a tiny, dilapidated Tomb King Princedom. And the one keeping peace between them is an Amethyst Wizard who just wants both to leave her alone.
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Apr 17, 2019 17:14
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Night10194 posted:Seriously, this stuff is wonderful to generate. As someone who mainly DMs, I love the ticking time bomb of Li Na in particular. Laws of drama being what they are, it's only a matter of time until people learn that she was once a Chaos marauder, and I find both the prospect of her as a villain, and the prospect of her as an antihero - exploring the idea that maybe not everyone in the armies of Chaos is a bad person - both interesting possibilities.
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Apr 17, 2019 23:22
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Night10194 posted:Also, Marauders and mortal soldiers are still usually people. It's when they get to being Warriors that they start getting overwritten. Yeah, I know, I'm talking from an in-setting perspective. I'm under the impression that pretty much everyone who's not a Norscan or the like assumed that everyone under Chaos' banner are like Warriors, and Li Na jumped out at me as a good way to introduce in-setting the idea that they're not.
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Apr 17, 2019 23:40
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For some reason I am now struck by the idea of a Shallyan priestess who was once a cultist of Nurgle. Her immediate superiors know about her background, but she has spells so Shallya doesn't seem to mind. Perhaps for those in the know, she's even privately held up as a "In your rotting FACE, Nurgle!" example, namelessly making her way into Shallyan mythology.
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Apr 17, 2019 23:52
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Chipping in with my plot sense here, I'd also say the alliance between Li Na and Renata also makes a hell of a lot of sense even aside from their personal relationship: Li Na has raw resources, Renata has the trade hub. Renata is strategically vulnerable, Li Na has military forces and experience, and that stone quarry means Renata could fortify if need be. Add to that the Shallyans, and I think Alaric's Myrmidians are probably well aware that these ladies are a much tougher nut to crack than they seem at first glance.
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Apr 18, 2019 16:34
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Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay 2e: Renegade Crowns Orcs, Vampires, and an Angry Ulrican I also happened to find this book in my local library's DnD section yesterday.  I'm terrible at making up names in fake-German, so sorry. I made up generic fantasy names for everything. The Bleak Hills are aptly named. This region consists of a fertile river valley flowing to the coast on the west, and a whole lot of hills and mountains further east. The mountains at least are forested, and there's another freshwater river coming out of a lake up in the middle of the mountains. Tradewind is the only town in the region, at the delta of the western river. It's a natural center of trade and the closest thing to a bastion of civilization in these parts. It has the region's only market, and is a natural hub of farming and commerce, but suffers for a lack of other nearby resources. It is, however, the domain of Princess Aurora a Bretonnian questing knight who got found out, exposed as a woman, and chose exile. She's brought a bunch of knights errant with her, and they rule out of Tradewind. Aurora is a basically honorable woman, but while she's incredibly good at killing things and has access to a number of armored knights who are also really good at killing things, none of them know much about how to actually rule a land. Aurora's chief advisor, who she relies on to do all the actual running of Tradewind and its surrounding communities, is secretly a cultist of Tzeentch and not the priest of Myrmidia he claims to be. Aurora being Bretonnian, she doesn't know Myrmidia from Grugni and lets him do whatever the hell he wants. The advisor knows about the same mysterious ruin on the outskirts of Aurora's land that Erik below is interested in, and has been trying to persuade her to send an expedition in. Captain Harald Kronn is the ringleader of a large bandit gang that runs the hills to Tradewind's north and northeast, in the shadow of the mountains. These hills have a lot of natural resources, mainly mineral, but the farmland is awful. Kronn's gang has mostly made their living raiding Tradewind's farming communities, but the arrival of Aurora and her knights has made that problematic and Kronn is reconsidering his options. He's decided he wants an alliance with Aurora, she can provide the people to mine the hills and provide some protection. The problem is, Kronn is is incredibly greedy and self-centered. He's always gotten by far the biggest share of the loot in his gang, which he gets away with because he's really quite smart and clever, and he's gotten it into his head that taxing people might be more productive than just robbing them. But unless Aurora makes a deal with him, he's stuck rustling cattle and robbing passers-by. Kronn's alternative is an abandoned dwarf-hold in the hills, which he's steered clear from since losing a lot of men to dwarf defenses in there. Kronn's sure there must be priceless treasure down there, but the one dwarf he got to read the inscriptions on the hold said the hold was abandoned due to pestilence, and Kronn's canny enough to realize that that might be a problem. Count Erik lives up in the mountains proper, and his people guard their secret source of fresh water jealously. Erik, no last name thank you very much, is a man with a problem. Everyone knows he's a wizard, and take his paranoia about anyone discovering his secrets as a matter of course (plus they really want to hide the fact that they have one of two reliable sources of fresh water in the region). Thing is, Erik is not the Amethyst Wizard from the Empire that he claims to be. He is in fact a fully fledged Necromancer who once aspired to become a Von Carstein, but inadvertently severely pissed off his vampiric patron back home and had to run for it. He still wants to become a vampire so he can live forever, and conducts secret experiments on his people, claiming that the... results... of his experiments are beastmen raiders. People believe him, and Erik thinks he's getting close to a solution: there's an old Strigoi ruin down in unclaimed territory near Tradewind. If he could only get at the trove of arcane knowledge inside, he might very well achieve his goal. Lady Elena Karl is the last Prince in the area, and she rules the hills and valleys in the south and southeast of the region. The land's terrible for farming, but the pasture and grazing is good, and there's a lot of villages sprinkled through the area. Elena is a priestess of Ulric, exiled from the church in the Empire due to some violent disagreements about certain obscure points of theology that make no sense to anyone but an Ulrican theologian. Her infamous temper probably has a lot to do with it, though: Elena isn't the badass that Aurora is, but she's certainly up there and has a habit of piking the heads of people who disagree with her. That being said, her people don't seem to mind. She gives them good government, she's organized a decent militia force, and so far she's kept them safe from the greenskins to the north - she was more or less made prince when she saved a village from an orc attack. She's principled for an Ulrican, and dreams of driving the greenskins out of the Bleak Hills for good... and then conquering or vassalizing everyone else. Why doesn't anyone settle along the eastern river out of the mountains? Orcs, and lots of them. They have free reign of the north and east of the region, and it's mostly a matter of luck that they haven't overrun Erik's mountains or Elena's pastures. They don't have a strong leader, and inter-clan rivalries keep the orcs divided and occupied fighting each other. If they do unite, though, the whole region's in trouble. There aren't many ruins in this part of the not-Balkans, but those that are, are concerning. This land was once ruled by the Strigoi vampires and the dwarfs, and for a time they managed to coexist relatively peacefully. Until one Strigoi got it in his head to turn dwarfs into vampires, and started with the main dwarf hold in the region. It was even looking to work, until a high priestess of Valaya cried out to the goddess, and the goddess responded with a terrible plague on the infected and the Strigoi responsible. A whole lot of killing later, and the dwarfs and Strigoi mostly wiped each other out. The surviving dwarfs abandoned their hold, inscribing warnings of plague-bearers (vampires) on the hold's entrance, and trapping the hold extensively against any surviving vampires. One Strigoi survived the fracas, too, and still waits in her former capital for her subjects to come back. Should Erik find the ruins and reach the old Strigoi, he quite likely will become a vampire himself. Meanwhile, Kronn has the issue that the pestilence in the abandoned hold works quite well against all non-dwarfs. If he presses too hard into the tomb, the whole region could be in danger. And of course the Chaos cultists in Tradewind would dearly like to uncork all of this. The region's surprisingly light on monsters beyond the orcs and vampiric creatures lurking around the old Strigoi ruins, though. Most prominently, some pegasi live up in the mountains in Erik's land. He pays them no mind, but if Aurora learns about them, she'll probably want one. Diplomatically speaking... Aurora and Elena are loosely allied, mainly on the principle of gently caress greenskins. If the orcs do attack, they'll probably join together to try to stop them, and Elena's been trying to convert Aurora to Ulric's faith. Given Aurora's bitterness about Bretonnia, it's working. Aurora's advisor really hates this, naturally, and is trying to have Elena assassinated. Aurora and Kronn are more or less at peace, on the basis that Kronn does not want to gently caress with a Bretonnian questing knight and her buddies, but Aurora refuses to have any formal negotiations with a mere bandit. Aurora and Erik also are informally at peace, for the moment. Erik actually knows that Aurora has a Chaos problem under her nose and has been trying to warn her about it, but Aurora doesn't trust him because death mage and male mage. Kronn and Erik hate each other, and the absence of open war between them is mostly because of the intervening terrain. Erik is genuinely attracted to Kronn, but Kronn was horrified at a death mage guy who's way too into studying the undead and firmly told him no thank you. These spurned advanced, coupled with Kronn's habit of raiding into Erik's territory, has lead both to treat the other as kill on sight even if they're not actively trying to destroy each other. Kronn and Elena have recently become very standoff-ish with each other. Kronn used to graze his horses in the lands that are now Elena, but Elena has told him on no uncertain terms to stop unless he can guarantee his men's behavior. Converting to Ulric would be helpful, too. Kronn has taken these demands as a personal insult, and their border is very tense. Erik and Elena despise each other. Erik sees Elena as a bloodthirsty barbarian, and Elena distrusts arcane magic of any kind intensely. If Erik succeeds in his plan to become a vampire, there's a pretty good chance all three neighboring princes would unite to destroy him. Cythereal fucked around with this message at 15:58 on Apr 21, 2019 |
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Apr 20, 2019 15:43
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The Lone Badger posted:I'm surprised there aren't more vampiric border princes actually. It seems like an excellent opportunity to rule over the foolish mortals without your drat cousins getting in the way. And once your brilliance unencumbered by their meddling inevitably causes the principality to rise into towering glory you can raise an army from it and seize your birthright. Deathright? Night10194 posted:I think it's mostly that Von Carsteins feel they'd be mocked for 'settling', Blood Dragons don't usually care about ruling stuff so much as continuing to be wandering This is why I went with the Strigoi for the Enigma in my slice of the not-Balkans. Had ruins of the right age, and a death wizard lord with a horrible secret so I decided the death wizard was actually a full-on necromancer here specifically for the old Strigoi ruins in the hopes of becoming immortal that way. Sure it's not the flavor of vampire he'd hoped for back home, but immortality is immortality in his book.
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Apr 22, 2019 00:32
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An ex-Guard ratling quartermaster who noticed and forged paperwork she wasn't supposed to notice or forge.
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Apr 27, 2019 04:54
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Wrestlepig posted:that fight should have been obvious with any playtesting at all. Seriously, if you're writing a module play it at least once. I have a feeling they did play it. Once. And revised the module based on that one group's experiences. Every group is different, not just in what characters but how the players themselves play and approach problems. Remember that a big part of the origin of Tomb of Horrors was to stop Gygax's son, who was a master of the "I will solve this problem by throwing hundreds of soldiers at it" approach to dungeons.
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May 1, 2019 21:15
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Night10194 posted:The sheer prevalence of Sexy Kill Trap Lady in RPGs will never cease to astound me. Goes all the way back to mythology. "Sexy woman who wants to have sex with you = evil monster" crops up in mythologies around the world.
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May 7, 2019 00:17
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Night10194 posted:As you might notice from this encounter, you know what's a bad idea? Throwing shitloads of attacks at the PCs that they can't answer. Sure, they're Damage 3, but Beastmen are WS 40, and add in Outnumber and Charge Bonuses and that first round can be brutal. Not to mention that sure the arrows are 15% to hit, but you're still playing with a bit of fire when the entire point of the encounter is just making the NPC bright wizard step up and you aren't meant to down PCs here. If I were running the scenario, I'd probably do something like engage the PCs fully with a fight, then have a group of Beastmen reinforcements turn up from another direction and have the bright wizard torch them.
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May 9, 2019 18:39
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Night10194 posted:You might notice this section on 'important people of Nuln' is actually extremely short, and that the most substantial part of it is 'that Countess sure is awful and stupid'. Get ready for more of that; there's a mostly-superfluous but very 'important' part of the entire backdrop of this adventure that only exists for that point, and that will reach real far to ensure things go according to plan to remind the reader that Countess Liebwitz is, in fact, v. dumb. Interestingly, a book in the war gaming part of Hamfan puts an interesting woman in Nuln: Elspeth von Draken, matriarch of the Amethyst College and thus the head death wizard of the Empire. A powerful noblewoman more or less above the law because the von Drakens are a powerful noble family in Nuln and the whole 'most powerful Amethyst wizard in the Empire.' Also, she has a dragon.
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May 24, 2019 02:39
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Nessus posted:Hence the name! Was she issued the dragon or is this just lucky branding? Not directly explained, but by implication it was instead "I am of the von Draken family, so I am going to get myself a dragon." Hers is a Carmine Dragon, stated to be closely tied to the Amethyst wind of magic.
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May 24, 2019 02:53
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Still, I think it's a neat twist that the ruler of the Empire's biggest industrial city is really big on the arts and public services rather than the corrupt person in bed with organized crime, the ruthless businessman, or the like you'd normally expect from such a place. I like that Nuln is portrayed as much more than just smog, factories, and oppression.
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May 24, 2019 17:56
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Night10194 posted:The End I've enjoyed your reviews a lot, Night! You single-handedly got me truly interested in Warhammer Fantasy as a setting, and I've enjoyed every review. I recently started a tabletop WHFRP game with my friends using some of the ideas you suggested, including the PCs initially being hired by what they don't know is a vampire and setting the game in Bretonnia. Thanks a bunch! Cythereal fucked around with this message at 23:20 on Jun 3, 2019 |
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Jun 3, 2019 22:57
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Night10194 posted:Part of the problem with coming up with Gorilla Warriors is the best names are all already taken. Pro Bono, Jammer lawyer.
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Jun 13, 2019 19:05
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Night10194 posted:Give me an Office and a class and I'll make a couple Agents to show things off, as per usual. A Soldier from the Basement. Someone's recycling their Hunter: The Vigil character.
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Jun 21, 2019 17:45
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Tibalt posted:What's a water-breathing mermaid issue? When there are no mechanics for something you should obviously be able to do. Like a game not specifying that mermaids can breathe both air and water.
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Jul 10, 2019 16:18
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megane posted:Man, "the worst part of Beast" is a tough competition, but the winner might how loving smug it is about everything. "Killing an innocent person in cold blood might sound bad. But have you considered that maybe the problem is that you're just not mature enough? Heh. Maybe when you learn to handle moral relativism you can play with the big boys This same attitude is a large part of what's turned me off on Warhammer 40k in the last couple years. I used to think that attitude was actually kind of cool. Now it's just obnoxious.
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Aug 22, 2019 18:47
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Young Freud posted:Thinking about it more, I'm reminded of how the anarchy in J.G. Ballard's High Rise, where the architect-owner is bribing the constable that checks in on a routine patrol to look the other way despite the building's infrastructure in several systematic collapse and the residents robbing, raping and murdering each other. China is what springs to mind for me, one of those empty high-rises built for money laundering and real estate scams that no one's ever lived in.
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Sep 1, 2019 02:41
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I like the Geryo from a story perspective at first brush. Think about how destructive and powerful werewolves are, then note that these are the toned down, hobbled second try of Wolf's at creating hunters. I could see the Geryo being played very effectively in that light for horror more than simple bad guys to fight.
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Sep 4, 2019 17:29
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Thinking about it a little more, if I was running a WtF game and wanted to use the Geryo, I'd probably have the pack run across one actively in the process of hunting something nasty that the pack would also urgently want to kill, putting them on a collision course with both hunter and hunted.
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Sep 4, 2019 17:57
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