I've been re-reading my copy of Paizo's Rule of Fear, a location-centered splatbook on the nation of Ustalav. Paizo's modus operandi is to give each of their nations a strong "hook" which roots it in genre or location specific tropes. For example, the Land of the Linnorm Kings is the Viking country, Osirion is the Egypt country, etc. Ustalav is the horror fiction country, and needless to say, it's one of my favorites.
So much so that, even though I've been developing this here DARK•HERITAGE setting for a long time, I'm tempted to propose as our next game (that I would run) an E6 3.5 D&D game--played fairly straight in terms of rules--that takes place in a modified version of Ustalav. I'd borrow quite a bit directly from the setting book, with really only kinda minor changes. The orc nation to the west would become a breeding ground of beastmen (a la Warhammer), I'd also borrow skaven and put them in the dark corners of much of the world, I'd borrow a bunch of stuff from the Iron Kingdoms setting (which as a d20 setting was quite a bit more horror and dark fantasy oriented than the later Warmachine and Hordes books made out. The success of those games and their style fundamentally changed the tone of the setting, and not for the better.) From Iron Kingdoms, I think a lot of the Circle Orboros faction is tailor-made for a horror campaign. And of course Cryx is as well, although they're a bit over-the-top, and have had the unfortunate habit of sweeping up lots of independent evils, especially of the undead or overtly horror style, under its wings in a way that's not satisfying to a fan of the roleplaying setting rather than the miniatures wargames. Many of the werewolf specific areas of Ustalav can instead of thick with Tharn, for instance, occasionally with Blackclad leaders. The Lord of the Feast is just plain terrifying, as are many of the other wilderness horrors detailed in the Monsternomicon books.
The Vampire Counts army from Warhammer has also evolved considerably in recent years, and fits hand and glove with Ustalav. I really like the variant vampires, and the devolved monstrous vargheists, varghulfs, the terrorgheist and more. Chaos in general is really dark and scary in Warhammer (except when it turns tongue in cheek, which thankfully it's been a little careful to avoid lately) and needs to be borrowed from a lot. After all, the Worldwound is not unlike the Chaos Wastes, and the Worldwound is supposed to share a border with Ustalav too.
Putting all of this into a kitbashers pot, and making sure not to drift too far from the original Ustalavic framework (which I should point out, is also surprisingly humanocentric for a D&D setting kingdom) actually makes for a quick and dirty setting that I actually think I'd really like to explore as a D&D player or GM either one.
Thursday, October 18, 2012
Tuesday, October 16, 2012
The Wild Hunt
For my first post about some specific "wights" of DARK•HERITAGE, I'm going to refer you back to the discussion I had earlier on the major portion of the pantheon of spirits that people in the Land of the Three Empires worship as deities. I'll also point out, however, that that was never meant to be seen as a comprehensive list of the "wights" that are known and receive at least some form of reverence, fear or propitiation, or who figure in the stories and folklore of the people who live in the area.
One specific other figure is Herne, the Green Man, a sometimes vassal of Selvans, the god of the wilderness. Herne appears as a man cloaked, hooded and masked in leaves. According to folklore, he was an indepedent deity of no mean strength who challenged Selvans for rulership of his lands. He was badly beaten and hanged from the tallest tree in Selvans forest for a thousand years, where the leaves grew over his body and merged with it, and the crows, ravens, buzzards and condors picked at his flesh incessantly. Finally released by Selvans himself, he is now a trucculent lord of the forest, who reluctantly comes when Selvans calls.
Other than this origin story, Herne is best known as a hunter. When not called by Selvans (which happens infrequently) he prefers to wander the mystical dark and tangled woodlands of his Otherworldly home hunting anything that passes through it. While doing so, it is said that sometimes his Otherwordly woods cross over into the real world, and Herne himself wanders the darkest, thickest and wildest of woods deep on moonless nights. His favorite prey is human trespasser.
In addition to hunting by himself, Herne is the kennelmaster of the Wild Hunt. The Wild Hunt itself rarely rides forth without it's true lord, none other than Selvans himself, at its head, but sometimes Herne can lead it too (it is said that before his defeat at the hands of Selvans, Herne was the Master of the Hunt, a title that he still retains in some tellings, although it is a vassalge title under Selvans now.) The Wild Hunt itself is made up of damned souls who fell deep in the wilderness to strange and Otherwordly predators--including Herne himself. Many of them retain much of their visage in life, although made more savage, feral, or decayed and rotted. These can ride Otherworldly horses or elk-stags, beasts that superficially resemble their real world counterparts but which often have a sense of wrongness or mutation to them. Some of them appear as little more than mummified or skeletal husks of beasts of burden, prompting some to posit a link between Herne and Caronte, the King in Yellow.
The more devolved predators in the Wild Hunt, any who run with it for too long, become first animalistic ghouls, and finally become black shucks--Otherworldly apparitions that look like massive black hounds or wolves with glowing red eyes.
It's not known if the hunters are damned forever, or if its a kind of Purgatory from which these poor souls can eventually escape and find their way back to the afterlife that they've earned. Depending on which occult expert you ask, you may get either answer.
One specific other figure is Herne, the Green Man, a sometimes vassal of Selvans, the god of the wilderness. Herne appears as a man cloaked, hooded and masked in leaves. According to folklore, he was an indepedent deity of no mean strength who challenged Selvans for rulership of his lands. He was badly beaten and hanged from the tallest tree in Selvans forest for a thousand years, where the leaves grew over his body and merged with it, and the crows, ravens, buzzards and condors picked at his flesh incessantly. Finally released by Selvans himself, he is now a trucculent lord of the forest, who reluctantly comes when Selvans calls.Other than this origin story, Herne is best known as a hunter. When not called by Selvans (which happens infrequently) he prefers to wander the mystical dark and tangled woodlands of his Otherworldly home hunting anything that passes through it. While doing so, it is said that sometimes his Otherwordly woods cross over into the real world, and Herne himself wanders the darkest, thickest and wildest of woods deep on moonless nights. His favorite prey is human trespasser.
In addition to hunting by himself, Herne is the kennelmaster of the Wild Hunt. The Wild Hunt itself rarely rides forth without it's true lord, none other than Selvans himself, at its head, but sometimes Herne can lead it too (it is said that before his defeat at the hands of Selvans, Herne was the Master of the Hunt, a title that he still retains in some tellings, although it is a vassalge title under Selvans now.) The Wild Hunt itself is made up of damned souls who fell deep in the wilderness to strange and Otherwordly predators--including Herne himself. Many of them retain much of their visage in life, although made more savage, feral, or decayed and rotted. These can ride Otherworldly horses or elk-stags, beasts that superficially resemble their real world counterparts but which often have a sense of wrongness or mutation to them. Some of them appear as little more than mummified or skeletal husks of beasts of burden, prompting some to posit a link between Herne and Caronte, the King in Yellow.
The more devolved predators in the Wild Hunt, any who run with it for too long, become first animalistic ghouls, and finally become black shucks--Otherworldly apparitions that look like massive black hounds or wolves with glowing red eyes.
It's not known if the hunters are damned forever, or if its a kind of Purgatory from which these poor souls can eventually escape and find their way back to the afterlife that they've earned. Depending on which occult expert you ask, you may get either answer.
Monday, October 15, 2012
Wights
Wights is an old English word (not Old English, or Anglo-Saxon--although it is descended from an Old English word, wiht) for a being. It is a cognate with other Germanic words, such as Dutch wicht, German Wicht, Old Norse vættir, Swedish vätte, and Danish vætte. Today, the word is a bit confused, depending on which language you want to look at. In Low German, it reportedly means "girl" (not being a speaker of Low German myself, I can't attest to the accuracy of that report.) In many of the other languages, it refers to various spirits, often mischievous or unfriendly--occasionally translated into English as imp, but bearing most resemblance to various little fairyfolk of English folklore; the elves of the shoemaker's fame being among the most famous (and pleasant.) The Old Norse word, vættr, in fact seems to refer to any humanoid spirit, and is an inclusive word that has under it's big tent not only the elves and dwarves, but the jotunns or giants, and the two families of gods, the Vanir and the Æsir. So to the vikings, not only would little nature spirits and dwarves be wights, but so would Odin and Thor.
Of course, in modern times, this usage has fallen out of favor and is only remembered by either historical or comparative linguists, for the most part. Rather, the word has taken on a new lease on life in the works of fantasy fiction, thanks to John Ronald Reuel himself, who of course, brought the word back into usage when he described the Barrow-wights—some kind of animated corpse. Curiously, Tolkien did not call them Barrow-draugs or Barrow-dréags (ideally, I would translate the Old English word from standard Old English to the Mercian dialect, which didn't really use the [éa] diphthong much--but I'm not linguist enough to know how to do that properly. Tolkien himself did for most of the Old English words he used.) I suppose it was because he was borrowing the usage of earlier proto-fantasty author William Morris who, although not responsible for bringing the word barrow-wight into the popular conscious, actually seems to have coined the term as a translation for draugr in the Grettis Saga, which he translated into English along with Eirikr Magnusson.) The concept behind the Barrow-wights clearly seems to be the Old English word dréag, better known to us through its Old Norse cognate draugr, or land-draugr, and the traits and abilities that the Barrow-wights display seem to follow the Norse concept of the land-draugr almost to the letter. (There were also sea-draugr, but other than their manner of death and place of burial, they seem to have been viewed as very similar.)
To be perfectly honest, I doubt many of my readers really care overly much about the linguistics involved. Why did Tolkien call his draugr Barrow-wights, thus ensuring that wights in games like D&D and Warhammer are forever considered undead creatures? And why did Tolkien also so casually give us the word dwimmerlaik (based on a Middle English attested word, dweomerlak) which has had no traction, even though it also means something animated by necromancy or magic? Well, who cares? The concepts are more important than the names, aren't they?
Probably so.
So, in that spirit, what do I want to talk about in relationship to the DARK•HERITAGE setting today? While I've often interpreted the setting as quite supernatural poor in relationship to much of fantasy, it's rather that the supernatural is more discrete and stealthy. Rather than there being extremely rare supernatural, a la Dracula, think of much more careful supernatural, a la The Dresden Files. There's not just one or two vampires, but you may be certainly forgiven for not really believing in literal vampires anyway in DARK•HERITAGE. Many people don't, Tarush Noptii notwithstanding. Dresden's stories are chock full of the supernatural, and yet they take place in the real world, where belief in the supernatural consists of dubious ghost and angel stories, and of course, religion and the occasional disputed Bigfoot sighting. There's precious little in the way of direct evidence of the supernatural, and even those who believe in it are more often than not sceptical about any specific claims of having witnessed it. In that sense, there are a great many wights, as defined by the Old Norse and Old English forms of the word, see above, that one may come across in DARK•HERITAGE. Many of them will not be native to the world, coming from one of the various places described in the cosmology, but many of them are simply discrete nature spirits, or Chthonic beings who dwell just out of sight. You may not see or hear of them much, but some of the old stories and ghost tales are quite true.
And I like incorporating some elements of classic mythology and folklore to the setting. It's always been one of the great attractions of fantasy, and I love the notion of the "dark fairytale" lurking just behind the Disneyfication. This doesn't represent a change in direction to the tone of DARK•HERITAGE at all, but I do want to spend some time going over what kinds of "wights" one could expect to possibly come across in the setting. I've created a new heading, and in honor of my linguistic nerdery, I've given it the tag of wights--but this isn't Warhammer wights, or D&D wights, or barrow-haunting wights--this is an exploration of some of the non-human, supernatural creatures that hide in the quiet or dark places of the world. Although to be fair... some of them could be draugr-like creatures as well, in which case, yeah, they would be wights after all.
Heh. Linguistics. Anyway, here's a picture of a Barrow-wight molesting a hobbit. Just because after all that, you deserve it.
Of course, in modern times, this usage has fallen out of favor and is only remembered by either historical or comparative linguists, for the most part. Rather, the word has taken on a new lease on life in the works of fantasy fiction, thanks to John Ronald Reuel himself, who of course, brought the word back into usage when he described the Barrow-wights—some kind of animated corpse. Curiously, Tolkien did not call them Barrow-draugs or Barrow-dréags (ideally, I would translate the Old English word from standard Old English to the Mercian dialect, which didn't really use the [éa] diphthong much--but I'm not linguist enough to know how to do that properly. Tolkien himself did for most of the Old English words he used.) I suppose it was because he was borrowing the usage of earlier proto-fantasty author William Morris who, although not responsible for bringing the word barrow-wight into the popular conscious, actually seems to have coined the term as a translation for draugr in the Grettis Saga, which he translated into English along with Eirikr Magnusson.) The concept behind the Barrow-wights clearly seems to be the Old English word dréag, better known to us through its Old Norse cognate draugr, or land-draugr, and the traits and abilities that the Barrow-wights display seem to follow the Norse concept of the land-draugr almost to the letter. (There were also sea-draugr, but other than their manner of death and place of burial, they seem to have been viewed as very similar.)
To be perfectly honest, I doubt many of my readers really care overly much about the linguistics involved. Why did Tolkien call his draugr Barrow-wights, thus ensuring that wights in games like D&D and Warhammer are forever considered undead creatures? And why did Tolkien also so casually give us the word dwimmerlaik (based on a Middle English attested word, dweomerlak) which has had no traction, even though it also means something animated by necromancy or magic? Well, who cares? The concepts are more important than the names, aren't they?
Probably so.
So, in that spirit, what do I want to talk about in relationship to the DARK•HERITAGE setting today? While I've often interpreted the setting as quite supernatural poor in relationship to much of fantasy, it's rather that the supernatural is more discrete and stealthy. Rather than there being extremely rare supernatural, a la Dracula, think of much more careful supernatural, a la The Dresden Files. There's not just one or two vampires, but you may be certainly forgiven for not really believing in literal vampires anyway in DARK•HERITAGE. Many people don't, Tarush Noptii notwithstanding. Dresden's stories are chock full of the supernatural, and yet they take place in the real world, where belief in the supernatural consists of dubious ghost and angel stories, and of course, religion and the occasional disputed Bigfoot sighting. There's precious little in the way of direct evidence of the supernatural, and even those who believe in it are more often than not sceptical about any specific claims of having witnessed it. In that sense, there are a great many wights, as defined by the Old Norse and Old English forms of the word, see above, that one may come across in DARK•HERITAGE. Many of them will not be native to the world, coming from one of the various places described in the cosmology, but many of them are simply discrete nature spirits, or Chthonic beings who dwell just out of sight. You may not see or hear of them much, but some of the old stories and ghost tales are quite true.
And I like incorporating some elements of classic mythology and folklore to the setting. It's always been one of the great attractions of fantasy, and I love the notion of the "dark fairytale" lurking just behind the Disneyfication. This doesn't represent a change in direction to the tone of DARK•HERITAGE at all, but I do want to spend some time going over what kinds of "wights" one could expect to possibly come across in the setting. I've created a new heading, and in honor of my linguistic nerdery, I've given it the tag of wights--but this isn't Warhammer wights, or D&D wights, or barrow-haunting wights--this is an exploration of some of the non-human, supernatural creatures that hide in the quiet or dark places of the world. Although to be fair... some of them could be draugr-like creatures as well, in which case, yeah, they would be wights after all.
Heh. Linguistics. Anyway, here's a picture of a Barrow-wight molesting a hobbit. Just because after all that, you deserve it.
Friday, October 12, 2012
Creepy RPG fodder?
I'm not normally one to post this kind of stuff, but someone pointed me towards these videos. And look! Three times in one morning, I've posted off-topic posts! I'm clearly having a day where I'm not in the mood to be very productive.
I'm also not really a fan of dubstep, so the songs are weird and... not my style. But these really surreal videos strike me as great RPG fodder of some sort or another. The little girl who baits pedophiles and then kills them with her demon powers has got to make an appearance in DARK•HERITAGE somehow.
I'm also not really a fan of dubstep, so the songs are weird and... not my style. But these really surreal videos strike me as great RPG fodder of some sort or another. The little girl who baits pedophiles and then kills them with her demon powers has got to make an appearance in DARK•HERITAGE somehow.
Separated at birth?
I have a bunch of pictures of mountains that cycle through as my wallpaper on my computer. That shouldn't be surprising. :) Anyway, by coincidence the following two pictures, both cribbed off of Wikipedia some time ago, came up back to back earlier today, and I was struck with how similar the two mountains appeared to be in shape, color and contour. What do you think? Separated at birth?
Reynolds Mountain in Glacier National Park, up in the Lewis Range, part of the Rockies, in Montana near the Canadian border.
And Banner Peak, in the Ritter Range, part of the Sierra Nevada in California, the Ansel Adams Wilderness, very close to Yosemite National Park.
Maybe I'm just a bit mountain happy these days. Thousand Island Lake in front of Banner Peak also gives it a very distinctive look compared to its Rocky Mountain counterpart... although I should point out that Hidden Lake is just beyond the scope of the shot of Reynolds Mountain too.
Reynolds Mountain in Glacier National Park, up in the Lewis Range, part of the Rockies, in Montana near the Canadian border.
And Banner Peak, in the Ritter Range, part of the Sierra Nevada in California, the Ansel Adams Wilderness, very close to Yosemite National Park.
Maybe I'm just a bit mountain happy these days. Thousand Island Lake in front of Banner Peak also gives it a very distinctive look compared to its Rocky Mountain counterpart... although I should point out that Hidden Lake is just beyond the scope of the shot of Reynolds Mountain too.
It's the little things...
Just a quick, weird little aside. I was looking at an article on MSNBC's website this morning about the vice-presidential debate last night. The author, one Michael O'Brien, made an aside that the President's performance a week or so ago was laconic.
What? Laconic? Clearly neither the author nor the editor actually knows what the word laconic means. I mean, opinions will certainly vary on the performance of the various debators, but I don't know anyone who has made the claim that the President was dry, pithy or sarcastic, and it's clear from context that O'Brien wasn't trying to say that either.
In fact, it's pretty clear that what he meant to say was lackadaisical, but only got as far as lac- and then faltered and picked the first word that started with lac- that he could think of. And this is a journalist? And this article went through an editor? That's depressing. Words matter. You can't just substitute one for another when they actually mean something completely different.
Clearly editorial careers in the world of journalism have devolved significantly. I'm trying here to come up with a way to compare them to malarkey, and not quite getting there, so I'll quit while I'm ahead.
What? Laconic? Clearly neither the author nor the editor actually knows what the word laconic means. I mean, opinions will certainly vary on the performance of the various debators, but I don't know anyone who has made the claim that the President was dry, pithy or sarcastic, and it's clear from context that O'Brien wasn't trying to say that either.
In fact, it's pretty clear that what he meant to say was lackadaisical, but only got as far as lac- and then faltered and picked the first word that started with lac- that he could think of. And this is a journalist? And this article went through an editor? That's depressing. Words matter. You can't just substitute one for another when they actually mean something completely different.
Clearly editorial careers in the world of journalism have devolved significantly. I'm trying here to come up with a way to compare them to malarkey, and not quite getting there, so I'll quit while I'm ahead.
Thursday, October 11, 2012
On the importance of being E6 (apologies to Oscar Wilde)
Although I've long been a fan of the E6 tophat, I was reluctant to advise using it specifically with any d20 game except D&D itself (with or without other houserules.) Looking back at it now, I'm not sure what the source of this reluctance was. I've now decided that any d20 game--from D&D to d20 Modern to Pathfinder to d20 Star Wars to... well, like I said: any d20 game at all, can benefit from being played with E6.
Here's why.
The D&D game--and the rest of it's d20 derivatives by default, can be divided (by design, in fact, according to Ryan Dancy) into four quartiles, each corresponding roughly to five levels of play. You can break down, if you like, the "genres" which each quartile best serves as follows:
- Levels 1-5: Grittier, low fantasy
- Levels 6-10: Classical sword & sorcery or high fantasy
- Levels 11-15: Much larger than life heroes; Achilles, Gilgamesh, Sigurd, or wuxia characters
- Levels 16+: The Justice League or The Avengers in fantasy drag
Think of things this way. Most of the regular people in your average setting will have a level or two of an NPC class, right? Mostly 1st level commoners, with fewer 1st level experts and warriors. Only a rare few will have a second level, and an even rarer few--typically--have any levels in a PC class at all. From the perspective of a 1st level commoner or expert, any character of even 1st level in a PC class is already pretty cool. A character of 5th or 6th level is a hero of nearly legendary prowess. Using standard D&D to illustrate:
- A 6th level wizard can incinerate your entire house and most of the villagers too (if they're packed closely together) with a gesture and a few mumbled words (fireball spell). He can summon horrors that can kill you and most of the villagers you know easily (summon monster III). He is an epic character to be feared and respected.
- A 6th level fighter can fight with preternatural skill. His ability to hit and damage opponents in melee (or ranged) combat is unparalled (total to hit modifier of close to +10, probably doing damage enough to kill a 1st level NPC twice over regularly--three or four times over with a good, critical hit.) He can roll with hits that would kill an entire platoon of lesser soldiers (hit points probably in the 50-60 range, compared to a 1st level commoner's hit point total of... 3 or so.) In fact, he can be expected to take on an entire platoon of well-trained soldiers (1st level warriors) and kill them all, and at the end of it, still barely be breathing hard. He is an epic character to be feared and respected.
- A 6th level cleric can commune with deity. He is a being of unbelievable holiness, who can heal the sick and afflicted, bringing them back even from the brink of death, curing them of diseases (or inflicting them,) create food and drink to sustain himself from nothing, cure blindness, deafness, and literally walk on water. He is an epic character to be feared and respected.
I could do more, but surely you see the point. You don't need to be really all that high level in D&D to be a thoroughly intimidating and larger-than-life character compared to the masses of characters that are out there. The spiritual ancestor to E6 was an article published in Dragon back in 1977 that posited that Gandalf was only a 5th level magic-user. In context, it kinda punctured the bubble that a lot of power-gaming folks had made prevalent in the days in which it was written. Curiously, the power-gamers seem to have won that in the long-term, so if anything, that sentiment is even more relevant now then when it was originally written. Although I'm not certain that the original author of the piece was really trying to make that point specifically. E6, by playing with only the first six levels and then having feat-based continuous (but much more modest) advancement keeps the game firmly in the first two quartiles of play. It can approach the 3rd quartile in power and efficacy levels of the PCs, but never really cross into it.
Mostly I like E6 because it keeps the game much more firmly in line with the fiction that we read. The higher level D&D type stuff doesn't feel like anything other than itself. To me, that's a major bonus. I'm always a bit non-plussed when I hear D&D players who seem unable to grasp the concept of fantasy that little resembles D&D. Especially given that such players are at least sometimes, maybe even often, fans of fantasy literature. Although I can think of plenty of reasons why people may prefer a more superheroic fantasy game than that offered by Tolkien, Leiber or Howard, I can't think of any reasons why anyone would dismiss the notion of gaming in that vein out of hand. It is, after all, the exact same foundation on which D&D was supposedly built in the first place. But if you need some other reasons to take a look at E6, here's a few from the designer and author who came up with the concept--paraphrased and added to by me:- System never gets "big" or complex enough to bog down play.
- Focus on planning, not levelling. To take on really monstrous monster, like a CR 10 beastie, the PCs will need help, special resources, and/or inside information.
- A low magic game that everyone feels comfortable playing without lots of reference to rules. This also leads to much quicker prep for GMs, who also can find it much easier to run on the fly with less prep, for that matter.
- Encounters are rarely if ever meaningless. Nor do they drag out to consume an entire session (or more.)
- Classic monsters stay classic throughout the campaign; even wild animals are dangerous. Creatures like chimeras or vampires will always be challenging, even to higher level characters.
- Even legendary heroes remain mortal; sure they're tougher than the NPCs around them, but they can't act with impunity and expect to pull that off for long. Large groups of even weak minions will always a a threat that can't be ignored.
- Market research Wizards of the Coast did back to support the design of 4e suggested that most people played shorter-lived campaigns that focused on these levels (and a little above them) anyway, and rarely played in the higher levels. Possibly because they didn't have good options to do otherwise, rather than continue playing as the game got higher in level, they started over.
- That same research suggested that many people preferred those levels anyway, and that it was commonly believed that the higher levels of play didn't work all that well, and never have in any edition of D&D. Plus, they were widely considered very difficult to run effectively, because the game just got too darn complex at higher level.
Wednesday, October 10, 2012
High Sierras
The mountain hiking season is coming to an end, really, as the early winter starts to settle in at higher elevations.
Sigh.
I did get to do a few fun outdoorsy things this year, but as always, not nearly as much as I'd have liked. This looks like my dream. The PCT is probably too ambitious--I can't imagine ever having six months to spare to go hiking from Mexico to Canada (and I don't really relish the idea of having to be in such a rush the entire time either, rather than being able to slow down and enjoy the journey) but the JMT? That I could do.
Sigh.
I did get to do a few fun outdoorsy things this year, but as always, not nearly as much as I'd have liked. This looks like my dream. The PCT is probably too ambitious--I can't imagine ever having six months to spare to go hiking from Mexico to Canada (and I don't really relish the idea of having to be in such a rush the entire time either, rather than being able to slow down and enjoy the journey) but the JMT? That I could do.
Tuesday, October 09, 2012
I is for the Inquisition
One hundred and twenty years ago, the ruler of the Terrasan Empire--which had a greater claim to the title of Empire in those days than it does now, convened a quorum of experts on matters occult and theological. While there isn't an official church or religion in the lands of the Terrasan Empire, culturally the people recognize a common pantheon of divine beings who influence the lives of mortals in ways both subtle and--occasionally--less so. Small churches attended by decentralized friars, have sprung up over the centuries all throughout the area to cater to the spiritual needs of the people. While the empire has resisted allowing these churches to centralize too much, or to gain too much political power, in reality, many such friars have evolved into advisors for local leaders--mayors, lords, dukes, and even kings. As they've done so, they've managed to become very wealthy, and their small churches have evolved into massive cathedrals.
While they remain politically impotent as a group, individually, many of them are among the most politically powerful men in the land.
That original quroum of learned individuals was called the Inquisition, and their original purpose was to inquire (hence their name) into matters occult. Terrasa was rocked by a series of occult scandals, including the revelation that the king's own brother was possessed by a daemon, and the putting on of a play, of all things, called "The King in Yellow." This play was maddening; most of the audience that saw its only known performance went violently insane and rioted; killing or consigning to an asylum many of Terrasa's cultural elite and leaving their ranks thinned for generations.
The recommendations of this body to the king were that some occult threats were too dangerous to be allowed to fester, and that the King should take a stronger hand in preventing them before they came to be scandals or crises like the two that rocked the capital that year. And so, in a strange joint venture between these academics, clergymen, and the King's own Guard, the Inquisition was formed, a secret police dedicated to the rooting out of occult and supernatural threats throughout the empire.
Their mandate was, of necessity, somewhat secret, and although the rumors of a militant Inquisition that act as a secret police are not uncommon, few really know much truth about the organization. And the fact of the matter is, that the body is very constrained anywhere except in its strongholds in the capital and a few other large cities of the Empire; beyond that, the only authority that Inquisitors possess is that which they can demand by nature of their strength of will and arms. In fact, in many areas, they openly clash with other bodies of authority, who do not recognize them at all.
In this way, the Inquisition is less politically powerful in DARK•HERITAGE than in some other settings... and yet, they are if anything, perhaps even more sinister. Lacking overt political power, they are the masters of subterfuge and espionage, and consider themselves above any law. And while, of course, many Inquisitors are less kind-hearted than one would like, they serve mankind as a whole, preventing forces which would otherwise overwhelm the fledgeling mortal race from doing so, at least for a time. If a few innocents have to be sacrificed along the way--or even if many innocents have to be sacrificed along the way, the greater good stipulates that such sacrifices are necessary and should not deter them from their task.
And if the Inquisition must utilize the weapons of its enemy to serve the greater good... they do not shy away from that either.
While they remain politically impotent as a group, individually, many of them are among the most politically powerful men in the land.
The recommendations of this body to the king were that some occult threats were too dangerous to be allowed to fester, and that the King should take a stronger hand in preventing them before they came to be scandals or crises like the two that rocked the capital that year. And so, in a strange joint venture between these academics, clergymen, and the King's own Guard, the Inquisition was formed, a secret police dedicated to the rooting out of occult and supernatural threats throughout the empire.
Their mandate was, of necessity, somewhat secret, and although the rumors of a militant Inquisition that act as a secret police are not uncommon, few really know much truth about the organization. And the fact of the matter is, that the body is very constrained anywhere except in its strongholds in the capital and a few other large cities of the Empire; beyond that, the only authority that Inquisitors possess is that which they can demand by nature of their strength of will and arms. In fact, in many areas, they openly clash with other bodies of authority, who do not recognize them at all.
In this way, the Inquisition is less politically powerful in DARK•HERITAGE than in some other settings... and yet, they are if anything, perhaps even more sinister. Lacking overt political power, they are the masters of subterfuge and espionage, and consider themselves above any law. And while, of course, many Inquisitors are less kind-hearted than one would like, they serve mankind as a whole, preventing forces which would otherwise overwhelm the fledgeling mortal race from doing so, at least for a time. If a few innocents have to be sacrificed along the way--or even if many innocents have to be sacrificed along the way, the greater good stipulates that such sacrifices are necessary and should not deter them from their task.
And if the Inquisition must utilize the weapons of its enemy to serve the greater good... they do not shy away from that either.
Monday, October 08, 2012
What to read next...
Other than posting book reviews from time to time, I rarely talk about my reading list. I do have a separate page for my reading list. One quick glance at it will indicate that I'm a bit of a compulsive book buyer, and I can't keep up with reading all that I buy. Much of this is because I also get lots of books at the library, which interrupt my reading of my own books. I also have a friend who likes to lend me stuff. And, let's face it, I just don't have as much time to read as I used to and as I'd frequently like. So what happens is that I make little progress in my mountain of "books that I own but haven't yet read" stack. At current counting, it was 63 titles (although that includes books that I read as borrowed books before and subsequently bought copies of because I liked them a lot and figured I'd want to read them again sometime.) Because I don't tick titles off of the list fast enough, I tend to buy them nearly as fast as I read them, keeping the number very near the same.
In any case, here's a small discussion on my reading plans for the next month or two.
I'm currently re-reading the Dresden Files books, since I bought most of them in paperback relatively recently. I'm on Changes now, so I'm nearly caught up--just Side Jobs and Ghost Story to go. Of course, very soon now, Cold Days will be out (in November, if I remember correctly) so my timing is pretty good in terms of getting done before the new one is out. I actually haven't bought the next two yet, because Side Jobs' only paperback release has been in large trade paperback size, and Ghost Story's mass market paperback release just happened recently. In any case, I'll finish Changes and put Side Jobs and Ghost Story on hold at the library, hopefully to finish both before Cold Days comes out--which I've also got on hold from the library as soon as it's released, processed and ready to go. I only buy them in mass market paperback format, but I don't want to wait a year until it's released in that format to read it, of course!
Meanwhile, I'm also reading the four volumes of the Write Great Fiction series.. although slowly. I may have to take those back to the library before I finish. Although I have read them before in the past.
Once I finish Changes and am still waiting on more Jim Butcher, I've also got Poul Anderson's Three Hearts Three Lions on hold and waiting for me, which I've never read, but which is considered a classic of the genre before it got to be big and mainstream. It's also considered to be a pivotal and important book in Gary Gygax's own lexicon, and imnportant to the formation of D&D, so... I also have an academic curiousity about it as well.
After that, though, other than the Butcher titles, it's time to read more of my own books, or books borrowed from my friend. In fact, the latter will get priority; I've borrowed the first three Monster Hunter books from him, which he's heartily recommended to me as being likely "very much up my alley." There's a fourth one of those too, I see on Amazon, but given that I haven't read the first three yet, I'm not too concerned about getting that right away.
I happen to have a lot of tie-in fiction, and after reading several books in a row of non-tie-in fiction, I'll probably be due to read some of that and get a bit caught up there. Although my mind may change by the time I get there, I'm thinking that first I need to read the last volume in Don Bassingthwaite's Legacy of Dhakaan series, then I'll start one of two Warhammer fantasy trilogies--either Steven Savile's Vampire War trilogy (which I have in omnibus trade paperback format) or Mike Lee's Rise of Nagash trilogy which I have in three mass market paperbacks.
I hesitate to project too far beyond that already, though. Heck; I hesitate to project as far out as I have, and I may yet see major changes to the schedule based on whatever piques my fancy between now and the time I get that far. That is, after all, 13 titles of projection already. But those will most likely get me as least as far as Thanksgiving, given my current reading pace.
Although with any luck, I'll actually be able to pick up the pace as high school football season starts to wind down in a few weeks. And I've got five vacation days that I have to spend this year so I don't lose them; I may use them mostly at home recovering from an elective surgery. Or, if not, at least I'll use them mostly sitting at home relaxing.
In any case, here's a small discussion on my reading plans for the next month or two.
Meanwhile, I'm also reading the four volumes of the Write Great Fiction series.. although slowly. I may have to take those back to the library before I finish. Although I have read them before in the past.
Once I finish Changes and am still waiting on more Jim Butcher, I've also got Poul Anderson's Three Hearts Three Lions on hold and waiting for me, which I've never read, but which is considered a classic of the genre before it got to be big and mainstream. It's also considered to be a pivotal and important book in Gary Gygax's own lexicon, and imnportant to the formation of D&D, so... I also have an academic curiousity about it as well.
After that, though, other than the Butcher titles, it's time to read more of my own books, or books borrowed from my friend. In fact, the latter will get priority; I've borrowed the first three Monster Hunter books from him, which he's heartily recommended to me as being likely "very much up my alley." There's a fourth one of those too, I see on Amazon, but given that I haven't read the first three yet, I'm not too concerned about getting that right away.
I happen to have a lot of tie-in fiction, and after reading several books in a row of non-tie-in fiction, I'll probably be due to read some of that and get a bit caught up there. Although my mind may change by the time I get there, I'm thinking that first I need to read the last volume in Don Bassingthwaite's Legacy of Dhakaan series, then I'll start one of two Warhammer fantasy trilogies--either Steven Savile's Vampire War trilogy (which I have in omnibus trade paperback format) or Mike Lee's Rise of Nagash trilogy which I have in three mass market paperbacks.
I hesitate to project too far beyond that already, though. Heck; I hesitate to project as far out as I have, and I may yet see major changes to the schedule based on whatever piques my fancy between now and the time I get that far. That is, after all, 13 titles of projection already. But those will most likely get me as least as far as Thanksgiving, given my current reading pace.
Although with any luck, I'll actually be able to pick up the pace as high school football season starts to wind down in a few weeks. And I've got five vacation days that I have to spend this year so I don't lose them; I may use them mostly at home recovering from an elective surgery. Or, if not, at least I'll use them mostly sitting at home relaxing.
Tuesday, October 02, 2012
New Star Wars RPG
I'm currently in a Star Wars game with my home group. I may have mentioned that a time or two here before. We're using a brusque house-ruling of d20 (not the d20 Star Wars game, mind you--the SRD. D&D houseruled to be Star Wars, in other words.) I also have two of the three Wizards of the Coast produced d20 Star Wars games--the original and the Revised. Although the third, the SAGA edition seems to be widely considered to be the best of the three, given that I still haven't played with either of the two I already own, buying a third version of the same game using basically the same game engine seems... foolhardy, at least. The closest I ever got to doing so was playing the older Knights of the Old Republic games, which use a slightly modified version of that system to represent your player characters.
I never played the WEG d6 version, although it seems to be fondly remembered by many gamers.
So... I'm not sure if I should be a little bit excited about this or not. I really don't need another Star Wars roleplaying game... yet at the same time, I never thought that the d20 version quite got it right--although they did a number of things really quite well. My biggest concern, of course, is that I'm not actually playing much Star Wars... and now that I finally am, it's house-ruled D&D fer cryin' out loud. (And frankly it works about as well as the d20 Star Wars game does IMO anyway. Frankly, it's not really all that different.)
And yet, on some level, I can't help but be a little excited. It's Star Wars, after all. It's got great production values. It looks slick. And I'm still excited about hopefully making some time to explore the all new free-to-play Old Republic option here soon.
I never played the WEG d6 version, although it seems to be fondly remembered by many gamers.
And yet, on some level, I can't help but be a little excited. It's Star Wars, after all. It's got great production values. It looks slick. And I'm still excited about hopefully making some time to explore the all new free-to-play Old Republic option here soon.
Monday, October 01, 2012
Houserules doc
Although my houserules can be referred to easily on a single sheet of paper (i.e., use d20 Modern, "Shadow Stalkers" campaign model, reference to my gun rules, my chase rules, the Madness rules, Incantations. and E6) my houserules aren't really that short of a document if I actually put all of the texts of most of those modules in one place. I recently did so, referencing all of the text of all of the rules except those that are specifically part of the MSRD. I thought this was a more convenient place to house them.
I still think it's more to swallow at one time than many gamers would prefer, but for that, I've got the summary above. This is the more inclusive document that, along with your copy of d20 Modern, and your character sheet, I'd expect most gamers would actually bring to the table with them.
Anyway... for the heckuvit... here it is.
http://users.wowway.com/~jdyal/Houserules.pdf
EDIT: Link got moved. The wowway service was cancelled.
http://jdyal.webs.com/Houserules.pdf
I still think it's more to swallow at one time than many gamers would prefer, but for that, I've got the summary above. This is the more inclusive document that, along with your copy of d20 Modern, and your character sheet, I'd expect most gamers would actually bring to the table with them.
Anyway... for the heckuvit... here it is.
http://users.wowway.com/~jdyal/Houserules.pdf
EDIT: Link got moved. The wowway service was cancelled.
http://jdyal.webs.com/Houserules.pdf
Thursday, September 27, 2012
Dice
I like dice. I have more sets than I need. A lot more. And I like aesthetically pleasing dice. The conceit behind, say, Gamescience dice doesn't appeal to me. The randomness is not sufficiently significant that I'm concerned about rounded corners from tumbling causing lack of randomness in my games. If there is such a lack of randomness, it's imperceptable to me. (Plus, one of the things Gamescience fans continually talk about is the fact that they stop rolling much more quickly--something that casinos strongly discourage. Why? Because it's not random if they don't roll all the way to the tend of the table and bounce off the back wall!)
Themed dice are kind of fun. I was poking around the Paizo site, and saw this complete list of Adventure path themed dice; one for each of most of the adventure paths that they've done so far. I like quite a bit of them, and for $12/set, I'll probably eventually get around to picking some of them up. My particular favorites are the "gothic" Carrion Crown dice, the colorful Legacy of Fire dice, and the (also colorful) Serpent Skull dice. I can't wait to see what comes out for Skull and Shackles, though.
Themed dice are kind of fun. I was poking around the Paizo site, and saw this complete list of Adventure path themed dice; one for each of most of the adventure paths that they've done so far. I like quite a bit of them, and for $12/set, I'll probably eventually get around to picking some of them up. My particular favorites are the "gothic" Carrion Crown dice, the colorful Legacy of Fire dice, and the (also colorful) Serpent Skull dice. I can't wait to see what comes out for Skull and Shackles, though.
Wednesday, September 26, 2012
Dark fantasy gaming
As I reminded myself in my last post, my tagline is "d20 rules, Call of Cthullhu paradigm." The only reason I didn't use D&D rules is because I've focused my efforts on d20 Modern, but realistically, d20 Modern uses the D&D rules too, after all. It's not a really significant change to the "engine" of the system.
It's been a while since I talked specifically about how to incorporate that "Call of Cthulhu" paradigm to the D&D rules. I've blogged a bit here and there about how to limit power and magic, but that's only one part of the whole. Coincidentally, I found myself thumbing through my copy of Darkness & Dread, a Legends & Lore series entry from Fantasy Flight Games written by Mike Mearls back in 2004. I bought it when it was still fairly new, read through it, and then haven't looked at it much again. Much of this is because what it offered I already have solutions for in other formats. And the GMing advice, which was reasonably nice, paled next to the GMing advice by John Tynes in the d20 Call of Cthulhu game itself. But, like I said, I was recently re-reading it, and because it's focus is specifically on modifying D&D to provide a dark fantasy or horror fantasy approach, I found that it was fun to refresh my memory on it. In particular, I think its organization is well done, and making a "checklist" on how things work in a horror d20 game led me to believe that I might actually have left out a hole or two that needs patching. So let me get to it: what things do you need to do to make D&D (or another d20 game, like d20 Modern in my case) work as a horror fantasy game?
Characters
Something needs to be done about characters; specifically the classes that they can pick. D&D characters are designed to be heroic, competent, and basically to "win". From a flavor perspective, some of them don't fit into a dark fantasy tone either, because they're basically superheroes. My solution to this was to leave the D&D classes behind. By using the d20 Modern/Past approach with the "Shadow Stalkers" campaign model, I have characters who are arguably fairly swash-bucklery and competent (for their level) but who are also designed specifically for a low-magic, grimmer and grittier approach that's best suited for a horror game.
Horror House Rules
Mearls gives several optional house rules at this point. He calls them optional templates that can be added to the game much as templates are added to monsters to change their attributes. Here's my approach and/or thoughts to each. Again; I actually don't necessarily prefer the options in the this book, but having some kind of option, or some reason specifically to eschew the option, is a good idea if a horror tone is desired.
Health vs. hitpoints. Escalating hit points is one of the main problems with D&D fitting into horror. Many people (who don't actually know what they're talking about, but that's another problem altogether) assume a priori that the d20 Call of Cthulhu game can't work the same as the BRP version because of levels and escalating hitpoints. That's a strawman, because it's not true that there's an inherent assumption that you'll have a high level investigator ever, but it is true that high level characters have a much harder time fitting into a horror tone. Mearls' approach in Darkness & Dread is to create a health mechanic that is basically your Con score plus a size modifier, plus your hit dice. They operate otherwise as hitpoints, but when you level up, you only get 1 to add to your total (because your hit dice changes) rather than a die roll plus your Con score. I actually prefer using E6 to naturally limit the "height" of the levels that can be achieved. The problems with high level in d20 are not just limited to the runaway hit point totals, after all--although that is one of the biggest ones.
Death spiral. Mearls also introduces a death spiral mechanic; you know, one of those mechanics where when you take damage you actually become less effective in combat (which means you're more likely to take more damage, then become even less effective, and then take more damage... etc. until you're dead or the other PCs manage to save your bacon. Hence the name.) While I agree that such a rule does indeed mimic some horror gaming tropes, and makes combat much more scary to get into, I find death spiral effects are more tedious than anything else. I avoid them. No thanks, Mike.
Fear checks. My madness rules include a fear mechanic, but I actually quite like Mearls' Fear check, and his rules for determining the "fear check DC" for any creature in the game is quite handy. The only problem I have with the Fear checks listed here are that they are based on Will saves. This means that tough, burly warrior types are more likely to be afraid than bookish scholars, since warrior types tend to have poor Will save and nerdier types do not. I'd prefer to borrow the modified level check from resisting an attempt to Intimidate (as per the skill) instead. Not because I like the proliferation of a rule that's basically a Will save but not, but because the Will save doesn't quite render the "proper" results. This works quite well in a situation in which you don't have Madness or Sanity rules of some kind, or in which your Madness/Sanity rules don't have any Fear effect.
Madness. The Madness rules in Darkness & Dread are too complex. They feel like the overly complex and clinical Sanity mechanics from Cthulhu. I greatly prefer the simplified, yet similar in result, Madness rules that came out in the d20 Freeport book. Freeport is, after all, pretty much a Lovecraftian dark fantasy setting in its own right, at least in the mind of its creator.
Research and Investigation
Mearls makes the sensible point that in a horror game, combat is often secondary to good research; if the characters can figure out some weakness or vulnerability of the horrible supernatural monstrosity, that's a much better strategy then confronting it in open combat anyway. He makes a few suggestions on how to facilitate this with the d20 rules.
Knowledge skills collapse. The various Knowledge skills end up becoming somewhat esoteric. He recommends collapsing them all to a single Knowledge skill, and making types of knowledge have a DC based on category. While this is a nice idea, for Knowledge skills that get little to no use in a typical D&D game, they do get more use in a d20 Modern game, plus it gives the Smart Hero something to spend all those crazy skill points on. While this isn't at all a bad idea, and I'd use it for a D&D base, I don't need it for d20 Modern/Past. He also suggest revising Knowledge to let it work more like the Research skill in d20 Modern--naturally, I don't need to do that if I'm already playing d20 Modern.
Tomes. This quintessentially Lovecraftian element is added, pretty much exactly the same way that it is in the Cthulhu book itself. I've already got a few; I really should come up with some more. But I can also borrow titles from Lovecraftiana anyway.
Libraries. Again, this is the Research skill from d20 Modern. Although new to D&D in 2004 when Mearls wrote this book, it is pretty much exactly the same as an existing mechanic in the other d20 games already.
Black Magic
Mearls rightly points out that magic in a horror game is different than magic in a high fantasy game. Here, he still has regular D&D magic (I don't) although it's reduced, and adds an element of "darkness" to some of the spells. In DARK•HERITAGE you can plausibly claim that all magic is black magic. This is an idea that I took from the Cthulhu game; I actually think that the d20 Cthulhu game handles magic better than the BRP game. Plus, it's more compatible with other d20 games, so I can adopt it as is much easier.
Turns out I don't need to, because Incantations with their cost and backlash are pretty much equivalent to Cthulhu spells already. So I just use them, although sample Incantations are pretty thin on the ground in the books that have them. I need to probably manually make up some more to have in my hip pocket for later on when I need them.
Pacts and Corruption. Mearls has infernal pacts with evil outsiders--Faustian bargains, quite literally. This is a really nifty mechanic that I should borrow in my game. I had kind of forgotten that it was in this book. He also has Corruption as a mechanic tied to pacts. I think his corruption is a little bit muddled, though. Plus, I kind of like the Taint mechanic from Unearthed Arcana instead--which I believe was borrowed from Oriental Adventures where it originally appeared. It somehow seems just a bit meatier.
Forbidden Magic. Rather than classify some SRD spells as "forbidden" as opposed to others, by making almost all of my magic come via Incantations, it all takes on the aspect of being forbidden, dangerous, and somewhat insane to use. I've got this one well covered.
Monsters
Mearls believes that D&D monsters are too familiar to D&D players to serve in a horror game. I'm actually going to reverse the order of the two sub-headings here, just because I think it's easier to talk about them this way.
Monster familiarity and customization. I actually disagree with Mearls on this one. I don't think he's wrong exactly, but I think that you have to be careful and deliberate in how you use monsters to make them work in a horror setting. After all, actual horror games tend to use very familiar monsters--to the point of over-use. Lovecraftian tentacled entities are almost like "comfort food" in horror gaming by now, and vampires still get plenty of traction. It's not a question of using or not using familiar monsters, it's a question of how they're used. But I've blogged about that before, so I won't get into it too much again in this particular post. But his rules for customizing and "reskinning" monsters are nice.
Abominations and godlings. Abominations are basically home-made monsters of frightening mien. In this case, it felt like a brusque re-telling of the monster creation rules which we already have in pretty robust form in plenty of d20 games including D&D and d20 Modern both. And godlings are monsters that don't even have stats--because basically you don't fight them in the traditional sense. They're more like specialized hazards that need to be addressed first via research, to find their weaknesses, and then via other checks that banish them, or otherwise cause them to go impotent--if you're lucky, and naturally after a tense encounter.
I think that advice on both is fine. The godling paradigm in particular is useful. But I've got plenty of monsters. I've probably got more monsters than I have any other rules element--mostly because I like monster books and I have quite a few of them. Many of them are beyond the scope of being beat in fair combat in an E6 game, especially one with sharply reduced access to magic relative to D&D normal. So rather than create my own, why not just pick one of the many, many monsters I've already got, reskin it flavor-wise if needed, but otherwise use as is?
The last two chapters of Darkness & Dread I'm not going to get into, because they are more about adventure construction, and a sample mini-setting, and this particular post is about mechanics. But again, I found if nothing else that the organization of this book was very helpful. And skimming through it and reading some of its sections again, I was reminded that I may not really be covering all of the facets of making d20 play like it's got a Call of Cthulhu paradigm after all; I'll probably officially incorporate pacts and taint into my rules set.
It's been a while since I talked specifically about how to incorporate that "Call of Cthulhu" paradigm to the D&D rules. I've blogged a bit here and there about how to limit power and magic, but that's only one part of the whole. Coincidentally, I found myself thumbing through my copy of Darkness & Dread, a Legends & Lore series entry from Fantasy Flight Games written by Mike Mearls back in 2004. I bought it when it was still fairly new, read through it, and then haven't looked at it much again. Much of this is because what it offered I already have solutions for in other formats. And the GMing advice, which was reasonably nice, paled next to the GMing advice by John Tynes in the d20 Call of Cthulhu game itself. But, like I said, I was recently re-reading it, and because it's focus is specifically on modifying D&D to provide a dark fantasy or horror fantasy approach, I found that it was fun to refresh my memory on it. In particular, I think its organization is well done, and making a "checklist" on how things work in a horror d20 game led me to believe that I might actually have left out a hole or two that needs patching. So let me get to it: what things do you need to do to make D&D (or another d20 game, like d20 Modern in my case) work as a horror fantasy game?
Characters
Something needs to be done about characters; specifically the classes that they can pick. D&D characters are designed to be heroic, competent, and basically to "win". From a flavor perspective, some of them don't fit into a dark fantasy tone either, because they're basically superheroes. My solution to this was to leave the D&D classes behind. By using the d20 Modern/Past approach with the "Shadow Stalkers" campaign model, I have characters who are arguably fairly swash-bucklery and competent (for their level) but who are also designed specifically for a low-magic, grimmer and grittier approach that's best suited for a horror game.
Horror House Rules
Mearls gives several optional house rules at this point. He calls them optional templates that can be added to the game much as templates are added to monsters to change their attributes. Here's my approach and/or thoughts to each. Again; I actually don't necessarily prefer the options in the this book, but having some kind of option, or some reason specifically to eschew the option, is a good idea if a horror tone is desired.
Death spiral. Mearls also introduces a death spiral mechanic; you know, one of those mechanics where when you take damage you actually become less effective in combat (which means you're more likely to take more damage, then become even less effective, and then take more damage... etc. until you're dead or the other PCs manage to save your bacon. Hence the name.) While I agree that such a rule does indeed mimic some horror gaming tropes, and makes combat much more scary to get into, I find death spiral effects are more tedious than anything else. I avoid them. No thanks, Mike.
Fear checks. My madness rules include a fear mechanic, but I actually quite like Mearls' Fear check, and his rules for determining the "fear check DC" for any creature in the game is quite handy. The only problem I have with the Fear checks listed here are that they are based on Will saves. This means that tough, burly warrior types are more likely to be afraid than bookish scholars, since warrior types tend to have poor Will save and nerdier types do not. I'd prefer to borrow the modified level check from resisting an attempt to Intimidate (as per the skill) instead. Not because I like the proliferation of a rule that's basically a Will save but not, but because the Will save doesn't quite render the "proper" results. This works quite well in a situation in which you don't have Madness or Sanity rules of some kind, or in which your Madness/Sanity rules don't have any Fear effect.
Madness. The Madness rules in Darkness & Dread are too complex. They feel like the overly complex and clinical Sanity mechanics from Cthulhu. I greatly prefer the simplified, yet similar in result, Madness rules that came out in the d20 Freeport book. Freeport is, after all, pretty much a Lovecraftian dark fantasy setting in its own right, at least in the mind of its creator.
Research and Investigation
Mearls makes the sensible point that in a horror game, combat is often secondary to good research; if the characters can figure out some weakness or vulnerability of the horrible supernatural monstrosity, that's a much better strategy then confronting it in open combat anyway. He makes a few suggestions on how to facilitate this with the d20 rules.
Knowledge skills collapse. The various Knowledge skills end up becoming somewhat esoteric. He recommends collapsing them all to a single Knowledge skill, and making types of knowledge have a DC based on category. While this is a nice idea, for Knowledge skills that get little to no use in a typical D&D game, they do get more use in a d20 Modern game, plus it gives the Smart Hero something to spend all those crazy skill points on. While this isn't at all a bad idea, and I'd use it for a D&D base, I don't need it for d20 Modern/Past. He also suggest revising Knowledge to let it work more like the Research skill in d20 Modern--naturally, I don't need to do that if I'm already playing d20 Modern.
Tomes. This quintessentially Lovecraftian element is added, pretty much exactly the same way that it is in the Cthulhu book itself. I've already got a few; I really should come up with some more. But I can also borrow titles from Lovecraftiana anyway.
Libraries. Again, this is the Research skill from d20 Modern. Although new to D&D in 2004 when Mearls wrote this book, it is pretty much exactly the same as an existing mechanic in the other d20 games already.
Black Magic
Mearls rightly points out that magic in a horror game is different than magic in a high fantasy game. Here, he still has regular D&D magic (I don't) although it's reduced, and adds an element of "darkness" to some of the spells. In DARK•HERITAGE you can plausibly claim that all magic is black magic. This is an idea that I took from the Cthulhu game; I actually think that the d20 Cthulhu game handles magic better than the BRP game. Plus, it's more compatible with other d20 games, so I can adopt it as is much easier.
Turns out I don't need to, because Incantations with their cost and backlash are pretty much equivalent to Cthulhu spells already. So I just use them, although sample Incantations are pretty thin on the ground in the books that have them. I need to probably manually make up some more to have in my hip pocket for later on when I need them.
Pacts and Corruption. Mearls has infernal pacts with evil outsiders--Faustian bargains, quite literally. This is a really nifty mechanic that I should borrow in my game. I had kind of forgotten that it was in this book. He also has Corruption as a mechanic tied to pacts. I think his corruption is a little bit muddled, though. Plus, I kind of like the Taint mechanic from Unearthed Arcana instead--which I believe was borrowed from Oriental Adventures where it originally appeared. It somehow seems just a bit meatier.
Forbidden Magic. Rather than classify some SRD spells as "forbidden" as opposed to others, by making almost all of my magic come via Incantations, it all takes on the aspect of being forbidden, dangerous, and somewhat insane to use. I've got this one well covered.
Monsters
Mearls believes that D&D monsters are too familiar to D&D players to serve in a horror game. I'm actually going to reverse the order of the two sub-headings here, just because I think it's easier to talk about them this way.
Monster familiarity and customization. I actually disagree with Mearls on this one. I don't think he's wrong exactly, but I think that you have to be careful and deliberate in how you use monsters to make them work in a horror setting. After all, actual horror games tend to use very familiar monsters--to the point of over-use. Lovecraftian tentacled entities are almost like "comfort food" in horror gaming by now, and vampires still get plenty of traction. It's not a question of using or not using familiar monsters, it's a question of how they're used. But I've blogged about that before, so I won't get into it too much again in this particular post. But his rules for customizing and "reskinning" monsters are nice.
Abominations and godlings. Abominations are basically home-made monsters of frightening mien. In this case, it felt like a brusque re-telling of the monster creation rules which we already have in pretty robust form in plenty of d20 games including D&D and d20 Modern both. And godlings are monsters that don't even have stats--because basically you don't fight them in the traditional sense. They're more like specialized hazards that need to be addressed first via research, to find their weaknesses, and then via other checks that banish them, or otherwise cause them to go impotent--if you're lucky, and naturally after a tense encounter.
I think that advice on both is fine. The godling paradigm in particular is useful. But I've got plenty of monsters. I've probably got more monsters than I have any other rules element--mostly because I like monster books and I have quite a few of them. Many of them are beyond the scope of being beat in fair combat in an E6 game, especially one with sharply reduced access to magic relative to D&D normal. So rather than create my own, why not just pick one of the many, many monsters I've already got, reskin it flavor-wise if needed, but otherwise use as is?
The last two chapters of Darkness & Dread I'm not going to get into, because they are more about adventure construction, and a sample mini-setting, and this particular post is about mechanics. But again, I found if nothing else that the organization of this book was very helpful. And skimming through it and reading some of its sections again, I was reminded that I may not really be covering all of the facets of making d20 play like it's got a Call of Cthulhu paradigm after all; I'll probably officially incorporate pacts and taint into my rules set.
Honing in on houserules
I've long bounced around between a few similar rulesets as the "default" rules for the DARK•HERITAGE setting. My house-rules wiki specifies three variants specifically, while there is also a capstone houserule set that you can add (or not) to further modify the feel of the game. While I'm not going to undo that flexibility, I am going to settle on what I think is specifically the houserules that I prefer. I might even end up modifying the wiki to only show this.
The preferred ruleset to play DARK•HERITAGE is d20 Modern + d20 Past + Urban Arcana using the Shadow Stalkers campaign model and the E6 capstone. d20 Past is not open content, so you actually have to have that book, or if you ignore it, just use the Shadow Chasers campaign model (which is the same thing) and ignore any feats, class abilities or skills that are obviously irrelevent to a technology level that's more or less equivalent to the Old West or the Golden Age of Piracy.
Other than d20 Past, the open content is available via the Modern SRD here, or via searchable html here. The specific list of how to modify it is also here on the wiki. E6 is listed here. And add the Madness rules, and the DARK•HERITAGE races, and you're mostly good to go.
How does E6 work on d20 Modern? Obviously the advanced classes will only show a few levels. Class abilities for advanced classes (or core classes, for that matter) can be converted into feat strings. Class features converted to feats must be taken in the order that they appear on the class list (although that doesn't mean that a character can't take other feats in between converted class ability feats); i.,e. in other words, the prerequisite for any given class ability converted to a feat are the other class abilities that precede it on the list of class abilities (the exception being bonus feats class abilities.)
Magic is obviously not going to be very D&D-like. In fact, it's going to be mostly Incantations. You can do a bit with the Occultist advanced class, too. To do just a little bit more with magic, I'd also make three Rogue abilities from Pathfinder into feats. Because I've got the OGL on the blog too, I'll reproduce them here.
This will reap the flavor benefits of the E6 system plus the flavor benefits of the Shadow Stalkers campaign model. Since this will naturally not play much like D&D (and in fact, many D&D exclusive players will, in many ways, believe simply that it's impossible to play this way--which is patently false, but neither here nor there) you'll need to remember that this is is, as the tagline of the blog says, a game that reuqires a Call of Cthulhu paradigm. Don't be fooled by the fact that it uses d20 rules into thinking that it's D&D, or that it plays like it either one.
Other than d20 Past, the open content is available via the Modern SRD here, or via searchable html here. The specific list of how to modify it is also here on the wiki. E6 is listed here. And add the Madness rules, and the DARK•HERITAGE races, and you're mostly good to go.
How does E6 work on d20 Modern? Obviously the advanced classes will only show a few levels. Class abilities for advanced classes (or core classes, for that matter) can be converted into feat strings. Class features converted to feats must be taken in the order that they appear on the class list (although that doesn't mean that a character can't take other feats in between converted class ability feats); i.,e. in other words, the prerequisite for any given class ability converted to a feat are the other class abilities that precede it on the list of class abilities (the exception being bonus feats class abilities.)
Magic is obviously not going to be very D&D-like. In fact, it's going to be mostly Incantations. You can do a bit with the Occultist advanced class, too. To do just a little bit more with magic, I'd also make three Rogue abilities from Pathfinder into feats. Because I've got the OGL on the blog too, I'll reproduce them here.
This will reap the flavor benefits of the E6 system plus the flavor benefits of the Shadow Stalkers campaign model. Since this will naturally not play much like D&D (and in fact, many D&D exclusive players will, in many ways, believe simply that it's impossible to play this way--which is patently false, but neither here nor there) you'll need to remember that this is is, as the tagline of the blog says, a game that reuqires a Call of Cthulhu paradigm. Don't be fooled by the fact that it uses d20 rules into thinking that it's D&D, or that it plays like it either one.
Minor Magic: A character with this feat gains the ability to cast a 0-level spell from the mage spell list. This spell can be cast three times a day as a spell-like ability. The caster level for this ability is equal to the character's level. The save DC for this spell is 10 + the character's Intelligence modifier. The character must have an Intelligence of at least 10 to select this talent.
Major Magic: A character with this feat gains the ability to cast a 1st-level spell from the mage spell list two times a day as a spell-like ability. The caster level for this ability is equal to the character's level. The save DC for this spell is 11 + the character's Intelligence modifier. The character must have an Intelligence of at least 11 to select this talent. A character must have the minor magic feat before choosing this talent.
Familiar: A familiar is a normal animal that gains new powers and becomes a magical beast when summoned to service by a sorcerer, witch, wizard or whatever label you wish you use for magic-user.. It retains the appearance, Hit Dice, base attack bonus, base save bonuses, skills, and feats of the normal animal it once was, but it is treated as a magical beast instead of an animal for the purpose of any effect that depends on its type. Only a normal, unmodified animal may become a familiar. An animal companion cannot also function as a familiar. You can use any Small or smaller animal with a CR of 1 or less as a familiar. Unlike in D&D and other d20 games, gaining a familiar does not affect the stats or abilities of the master in any way; it's a good enough benefit to have one as it is.
Familiar Basics: Use the basic statistics for a creature of the familiar’s kind, but make the following changes:
Hit Dice: For the purpose of effects related to number of Hit Dice, use the master’s character level or the familiar’s normal HD total, whichever is higher.
Hit Points: The familiar has one-half the master’s total hit points (not including temporary hit points), rounded down, regardless of its actual Hit Dice.
Attacks: Use the master’s base attack bonus, as calculated from all his classes. Use the familiar’s Dexterity or Strength modifier, whichever is greater, to get the familiar’s melee attack bonus with natural weapons.
Damage equals that of a normal creature of the familiar’s kind.
Saving Throws: For each saving throw, use either the familiar’s base save bonus (Fortitude +2, Reflex +2, Will +0) or the master’s (as calculated from all his classes), whichever is better. The familiar uses its own ability modifiers to saves, and it doesn’t share any of the other bonuses that the master might have on saves.
Skills: For each skill in which either the master or the familiar has ranks, use either the normal skill ranks for an animal of that type or the master’s skill ranks, whichever are better. In either case, the familiar uses its own ability modifiers. Regardless of a familiar’s total skill modifiers, some skills may remain beyond the familiar’s ability to use.
Familiar Ability Descriptions
All familiars have special abilities (or impart abilities to their masters) depending on the master’s combined level in classes that grant familiars, as shown on the table below. The abilities given on the table are cumulative.
Natural Armor Adjustment: The familiar gets a +1 natural armor bonus when the master is 1st or 2nd level, a +2 natural armor bonus when the master is 3rd or 4th level, and a +3 natural armor bonus when the master is 5th or 6th level.
Intelligence: The familiar's intelligence is 6 for a 1st or 2nd level master, 7 for a 3rd or 4th level master, and 8 for a 5th or 6th level master. On rare occasions where the natural stats for the animal that is serving as a familiar is higher than that, use the higher number.
Alertness (Ex): While a familiar is within arm’s reach, the master gains the Alertness feat.
Improved Evasion (Ex): When subjected to an attack that normally allows a Reflex saving throw for half damage, a familiar takes no damage if it makes a successful saving throw and half damage even if the saving throw fails.
Share Spells: At the master’s option, he may have any spell (but not any spell-like ability) he casts on himself also affect his familiar. The familiar must be within 5 feet at the time of casting to receive the benefit.
If the spell or effect has a duration other than instantaneous, it stops affecting the familiar if it moves farther than 5 feet away and will not affect the familiar again even if it returns to the master before the duration expires. Additionally, the master may cast a spell with a target of "You" on his familiar (as a touch range spell) instead of on himself.
A master and his familiar can share spells even if the spells normally do not affect creatures of the familiar’s type (magical beast).
Empathic Link (Su): The master has an empathic link with his familiar out to a distance of up to 1 mile. The master cannot see through the familiar’s eyes, but they can communicate empathically. Because of the limited nature of the link, only general emotional content can be communicated.Because of this empathic link, the master has the same connection to an item or place that his familiar does.Deliver Touch Spells (Su): If the master is 3rd level or higher, a familiar can deliver touch spells for him. If the master and the familiar are in contact at the time the master casts a touch spell, he can designate his familiar as the "toucher." The familiar can then deliver the touch spell just as the master could. As usual, if the master casts another spell before the touch is delivered, the touch spell dissipates.
Speak with Master (Ex): If the master is 5th level or higher, a familiar and the master can communicate verbally as if they were using a common language. Other creatures do not understand the communication without magical help.
Improved Familiar: If a character takes the Familiar feat, but does not select a familiar right away (or if he dismisses his familiar, or his familiar is killed) the character may take the Improved Familiar feat and get a more powerful familiar. An improved familiar works exactly the same as a familiar, except that it does not need to be an animal; any small or smaller creature of CR 2 or less can serve as a familiar. The "classics" are imp (or quasit), pseudodragon, and homunculus--but any creature of CR 2 or less (including templates, if any) can serve as an improved familiar.
Monday, September 24, 2012
D&D's Demon Lords and Dark•Heritage
DUNGEONS & DRAGONS® should probably really have been called Dungeons & Demons. The game certainly features plenty of dungeons, but demons seem to be a much more prevalent and common antagonist than dragons. Some of the most iconic adventures of the game are also centered on the machinations of demon lords; Zuggtmoy in The Temple of Elemental Evil, Graz'zt, Fraz-Urb'Luu and Baphomet in The Lost Caverns of Tsjocanth, Orcus in the Dead Gods adventure, Demogorgon in the Savage Tide adventure path, and many, many more examples. Demons are great antagonists, and demon lords in particular, as unique creatures, have a lot of personality that a typical (or even atypical) Type VI balor would not. They made a significant dent in the pagecount of the original Monster Manuals as well.
Demon Lords are, of course, only one of the many varieties of archfiends, as demons are only one variety of fiend in the D&D game. The Archdevils, the lords of the daemons, and more. Of course, the variety and diversity of fiends in D&D is somewhat bizarre and hinges heavily on the philosophy of nine-point alignment being a driving force in the campaign settings that are built around the game. Although sure, there are a few minor statblock differences to set them apart, including what energy immunities they have and what their alignment says, how does one really distinguish between a devil and a demon? Or between either and a daemon? Or demodand? Or rakshasas or hags? What about critters like the efreet and the slaad? Not actually fiends, but conceptually (and in every other way) how do you tell the difference, really?
Looking at fantasy settings that are not based on D&D exactly, but are clearly very, very similar to it (such as the Warhammer world) we get Daemons of Chaos--which, again, are conceptually very difficult to tell apart from fiends in D&D. We even get the Bloodthirster, who is almost identical to the balor (who in turn is almost identical to the balrog of Tolkien; the obvious immediate point of inspiration for both.) In Cthulhu Mythos terms, we get the entities of the mythos frequently described as demons, and behaving in many ways exactly as such--yet in D&D, they are from the Far Realm and--again--are therefore, not fiends. And if you go in for the Pathfinder setting, you've got to add divs, asuras, qlippoth, oni, kytons, and more.
More and more, I see fiends in D&D becoming insular, Byzantine and esoteric. What is the purpose of all these divisions? And if we have all of this, why is it that the demons seem to get the most use?
Personally, I don't think that there is a valid purpose anymore to the esoterical divisions. I think a lot of that is legacy stuff that has lingered due to tradition and inertia, frankly. And I think demons have the most popularity because they are, in some ways, the most straight-forward to use. Their more open heirarchy, with rival lords ruling over a balkanized Abyss, also makes it easy to slip in all kinds of things without feeling like there is a potential domino effect on established canon--something that's harder to do with the more heirarchical devils, for instance.
I'm a huge fan of these monstrous, Machiavellian outsider lords. Between D&D and Warhammer, I've long found the notion of named, powerful, fiend lords to be a compelling and intriguing concept. Not only that, much of the "lore" we have for these fiends comes from not just pagan mythology, but esoteric Judeo-Christian traditions. Many of the archdevils and demon lords are not unique to D&D (or Warhammer) but are in fact demons and devils from Biblical or extra-Biblical sources, or from the pagans that surrounded the Bronze and early Iron Age Israelites, and thus were temptations for them to avoid. Archfiends such as Beelzebub, Asmodeus, Demogorgon, Pazuzu, and others fit this bill. This rich legacy, coming as it does from our own cultural roots, makes them even more iconic as villains and antagonists to be feared in the game. Given the problems I noted above, though, when migrating the notion of fiends and their lords into DARK•HERITAGE, needless to say, I did away with some of the esoteric and arbitrary divisions between the groups, and adopted a more balkanized, "open" format for their various courts and kingdoms that more resembles the Abyss from D&D than it does any other lower plane. Fiends can freely mix and mingle in any given court, driven more by what makes sense given the proclivities of the court's lord and the environment of his particular realm than by any division or label created by the game.
The other major change I've made is based on an almost throwaway comment in Erik Mona's Armies of the Abyss, a Green Ronin sourcebook for 3e that was later updated and omnibused as part of the Book of Fiends for 3.5. Frankly, much of the material there was brought over with little change into Paizo's campaign setting as well. This throwaway comment was after detailing various demon lords and pointing out that with the exception of Law and Good, all of the core domains were represented, meaning that an entire pantheon of demon lords could create a nice dark fantasy feel to a campaign setting, where there are only dark patrons, and not good or kindly deities to worship. Dark fantasy? Cha-ching, went the wheels in my mind. So, some of the demon lords and archdevils were immediately reskinned into being the pantheon for an early iteration of DARK•HERITAGE. This has since evolved somewhat, but the notion of a pantheon that is propitiated in fear and awe rather than worshipped in love and reverence remains, and gods that are based on Biblical, mythological and Lovecraftian prototypes remains an important part of the identity of DARK•HERITAGE even today.
Demon Lords are, of course, only one of the many varieties of archfiends, as demons are only one variety of fiend in the D&D game. The Archdevils, the lords of the daemons, and more. Of course, the variety and diversity of fiends in D&D is somewhat bizarre and hinges heavily on the philosophy of nine-point alignment being a driving force in the campaign settings that are built around the game. Although sure, there are a few minor statblock differences to set them apart, including what energy immunities they have and what their alignment says, how does one really distinguish between a devil and a demon? Or between either and a daemon? Or demodand? Or rakshasas or hags? What about critters like the efreet and the slaad? Not actually fiends, but conceptually (and in every other way) how do you tell the difference, really?
Looking at fantasy settings that are not based on D&D exactly, but are clearly very, very similar to it (such as the Warhammer world) we get Daemons of Chaos--which, again, are conceptually very difficult to tell apart from fiends in D&D. We even get the Bloodthirster, who is almost identical to the balor (who in turn is almost identical to the balrog of Tolkien; the obvious immediate point of inspiration for both.) In Cthulhu Mythos terms, we get the entities of the mythos frequently described as demons, and behaving in many ways exactly as such--yet in D&D, they are from the Far Realm and--again--are therefore, not fiends. And if you go in for the Pathfinder setting, you've got to add divs, asuras, qlippoth, oni, kytons, and more.
More and more, I see fiends in D&D becoming insular, Byzantine and esoteric. What is the purpose of all these divisions? And if we have all of this, why is it that the demons seem to get the most use?
Personally, I don't think that there is a valid purpose anymore to the esoterical divisions. I think a lot of that is legacy stuff that has lingered due to tradition and inertia, frankly. And I think demons have the most popularity because they are, in some ways, the most straight-forward to use. Their more open heirarchy, with rival lords ruling over a balkanized Abyss, also makes it easy to slip in all kinds of things without feeling like there is a potential domino effect on established canon--something that's harder to do with the more heirarchical devils, for instance.
I'm a huge fan of these monstrous, Machiavellian outsider lords. Between D&D and Warhammer, I've long found the notion of named, powerful, fiend lords to be a compelling and intriguing concept. Not only that, much of the "lore" we have for these fiends comes from not just pagan mythology, but esoteric Judeo-Christian traditions. Many of the archdevils and demon lords are not unique to D&D (or Warhammer) but are in fact demons and devils from Biblical or extra-Biblical sources, or from the pagans that surrounded the Bronze and early Iron Age Israelites, and thus were temptations for them to avoid. Archfiends such as Beelzebub, Asmodeus, Demogorgon, Pazuzu, and others fit this bill. This rich legacy, coming as it does from our own cultural roots, makes them even more iconic as villains and antagonists to be feared in the game. Given the problems I noted above, though, when migrating the notion of fiends and their lords into DARK•HERITAGE, needless to say, I did away with some of the esoteric and arbitrary divisions between the groups, and adopted a more balkanized, "open" format for their various courts and kingdoms that more resembles the Abyss from D&D than it does any other lower plane. Fiends can freely mix and mingle in any given court, driven more by what makes sense given the proclivities of the court's lord and the environment of his particular realm than by any division or label created by the game.
The other major change I've made is based on an almost throwaway comment in Erik Mona's Armies of the Abyss, a Green Ronin sourcebook for 3e that was later updated and omnibused as part of the Book of Fiends for 3.5. Frankly, much of the material there was brought over with little change into Paizo's campaign setting as well. This throwaway comment was after detailing various demon lords and pointing out that with the exception of Law and Good, all of the core domains were represented, meaning that an entire pantheon of demon lords could create a nice dark fantasy feel to a campaign setting, where there are only dark patrons, and not good or kindly deities to worship. Dark fantasy? Cha-ching, went the wheels in my mind. So, some of the demon lords and archdevils were immediately reskinned into being the pantheon for an early iteration of DARK•HERITAGE. This has since evolved somewhat, but the notion of a pantheon that is propitiated in fear and awe rather than worshipped in love and reverence remains, and gods that are based on Biblical, mythological and Lovecraftian prototypes remains an important part of the identity of DARK•HERITAGE even today.
Sadly, some of the ideas spawned by D&D are too intimately associated with D&D to really make an appearance outside of it. Graz'zt I can adapt, since the Black Man of earlier witchcraft folklore, combined with the Lovecraftian entity Nyarlathotep already gets me most of the way to Graz'zt already. For an "original" D&D demon lord, his resemblance to folkloric "Old Scratch" is remarkable. Orcus is an obscure Roman god, associated with Pluto, the god of the underworld. Curiously, the word orc, coined by Tolkien, is based on obscure Anglo-Saxon words which derive from this god's name. His iteration in D&D is very specific, however, and unlike his appearances elsewhere. Too bad; it's a great concept. Demogorgon, another of the "Big Three" in D&D demonology is also derived from early Christian writers, and his name makes an appearance in Paradise Lost, The Faerie Queen, Prometheus Unbound, Moby Dick, Faustus and even Orlando Furioso, by which point the name was already old. The two-headed baboon with tentacles and scales is, however, a D&D original, and so closely tied with the identity of the demon that it's hard to remove it in my own mind. One of D&D's greatest creations, in my opinion, is unfortunately too closely tied to D&D specifically itself to be used outside of that context.
Thursday, September 20, 2012
H is for the Heresiarchy of the Twelve
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| Bartolommeo, the Many-angled |
Luckily for everyone else, that same sense of paranoia means that the most powerful students of the magic arts tend to keep a low profile. That hasn't always been true, and in the past, powerful magi ruled great empires, and pitted them against each other to the ruination of all concerned. Powerful evidence that the "Cold War" status that exists between major power brokers is the smartest approach after all.
Despite this mutual antipathy, the sorcerers of the world do know each other, or at least know of each other, and occasionally interact in a nominally non-hostile fashion with each other. They even informally belong to a group, called the Heresiarchy of the Twelve, a somewhat pretentious name, probably not of their own fashioning. This group is merely a convenience, given to indicate informal membership in a very exclusive club; those who have enough magical power to fear few if any mundane threats. And because one of the first thing a sorcerer of sufficient power to be considered a member of the Heresiarchy does is prolong his or her life, and find ways to cling to it unnaturally following massive injury, turnover of the members of the group is not frequent. The current detente and status quo has been in place in the Land of the Three Empires for over fifty years without any appreciable change. Membership in this group hardly means that they are issued a card, have a clubhouse, and get together for board meetings, though--it's more an aknowledgement that they are operating on a different plane in terms of power and amorality than everyone else.
Few of these names are known to the common people, or even sages. Fewer still of them are actually the names of these individuals, rather than nom de plumes chosen for convenience. Some of them take modern names in various languages (including Terrasan) to appear less conspicuous, while others take names in the language of daemons, or even names made up wholly without any basis in any known language. Only the most vile of scholars are familiar with the blasphemous works and studies that these incredibly powerful sorcerers have wrought, or otherwise are familiar with them in any fashion. But some of them do in fact rule secretly, or at least are major movers and shakers in both magical as well as political fields. The interests and desires of the Twelve are esoteric, varied, and inscrutable at the best of times.
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| Siggeir Sherihum the Sangremancer |
The following are considered to be members of the Heresiarchy. By tradition, they are often better known by their self-styled titles than by their names. I've given their names, their self-styled titles, the prestige class or concept around which I based the idea of the character, the book in which I read that prestige class or concept, and a brief description of the character. What? Prestige class? you may ask. Yes, indeed. There are a lot of great concepts in D&D for powerful magic-users after all, many of them evil and unnatural to the core. Of course, there really aren't any prestige classes in an E6 game, especially one that even further reduces magic by almost completely eliminating spell-casting classes except under the most generous of circumstances. Simulationists may balk at the notion that my NPCs don't follow the same rules as the PCs have to (although I see no reason why they should need to myself.) However, these characters can be created under the rules (whichever set you use) if you try hard enough.
For an E6 game where spellcasting comes mostly through the use magic device skill plus incantations, I imagine that all of these powerful sorcerers do, in fact, know and use a bunch of incantations. They have also used many to permanently alter themselves into something transhuman. Consider them 6th level E6 classes that have had access to dozens, maybe even hundreds of additional feats added over the years. Consider them having used the equivalent of permanency to give themselves fast healing, regeneration, every one of the ability augmentations, mage armor, natural armor, stone skin, etc. Consider them having created phylacteries or horcruxes or something similar. Some of these incantations don't yet exist in the sourcebooks (which are notoriously light on published incantations, actually) but the rules for creating them already exist, so knock yourself out if you really wish to stat these guys up. Personally... I don't care to. It's enough for me to have given a little bit of thought to how they became as they are, and that's it.
- Bartolommeo the Many-angled -- Alienist (Tome and Blood, and Complete Arcane). Bartolommeo is a disturbingly post-human creature, made up as much of hissing, whirring metallic parts as flesh and blood. He appears vaguely as a Gigeresque grafting of an ancient, withered man bolted to a golem-like frame. Bartolommeo is completely insane, but luckily spends most of his time in a torpor-like slumber.
- Esmeraude, She Who Ushers In the Apocalypse -- Elemental Savant (fire) (Tome and Blood). Esmeraude, despite her Terrasan name, appears to be from al-Qazmir. She claims, even, to frequently visit the mythical City of Brass, from which the jann claim their inhuman heritage comes. Whether this is true or not, she clearly is obsessed with fire, and has an unnatural control over it. There is still a city, located in the Golden Triangle, that is nothing more than blackened ruins and molten stone, supposedly the target of her ire many years ago. Esmeraude is a girlish, exotic beauty in appearance, but fickle and short-tempered.
- Sébastien, He of the Beast Aspect -- Acolyte of the Skin (Tome and Blood, and Complete Arcane.) A oily-skinned, slippery post-human demon, Sébastien is a predator, who loves eating his victims, and in doing so, retains his immortality.
- Kefte Taraan, Mistress of Forgotten Secrets -- Pale Master (Tome and Blood and Liber Mortis). A beautiful young woman, at least to appearances, this vile necromancer has an unnatural affinity for--and some say, perverse attraction to--the dead. Her association with the long dead and restless spirits has, however, granted her access to a wealth of knowledge that her collegues can only dream about.
- Kadashman, He Who Peers Into the Void -- Alienist (Tome and Blood and Complete Arcane). Much more contemplative and outward looking than Bartolommeo, Kadashman rarely acts in this world. His efforts and energy are spent peering into the Spaces Between, and he claims to frequently travel the Realms Beyond. Accompanied by a variety of mind-blasting servitors, Kadashman is the most disquieting and bizarre of the major sorcerers.
- Djemaa Mennefer, the Gnomic -- Fate Spinner (Tome and Blood, Complete Arcane.) A cautious sorceress who spends her time plotting massive webs of conspiracy that stretch for centuries. Her apparent lack of overt action has caused many to underestimate her power. She is the most driven by fear; fear of death, fear of loss of control.
- Amrruk the Ancient -- Oozemaster (Masters of the Wild). His actual race and culture are unknown. Amrruk may be the oldest of all sorcerers, a primal magician who existed before any of the modern nations even had their roots planted. Some even believe him to predate the existance of humanity altogether; either as a Neanderthal or even some older, more primal being. His involvement in affairs is rare, but his strange and bizarre tastes and appearance make him, along with Kadashman, the most disturbing to behold.
- Jairan Neferirkare, the Soulless -- Infernalist (No Quarter #14). An alabaster woman of unearthly, unbelievable beauty, Jairan is most known for her long and fertile association with daemons of various kinds. Fickle and vain, Jairan can also be among the most charismatic and charming of the Heresiarchy, when she so pleases. In the past, she ruled a kingdom on Cannibal Isle, and the inhabitants thereof still bear the curse that she left upon that island.
- Arzana, Clad in Black -- Blighter (Masters of the Wild). Arzana appears as a girl, little more than 12 or 13 years old, running naked and filthy through the wild places of the world, or clad in shadow and a black cloak, and her long, matted black hair. She rarely speaks in words that anyone else can understand. Nobody knows the source of her fury and paranoia relative to the forest, but she seems especially keen to destroy it whenever possible. She makes no home, that anyone knows about anyway, but is most frequently spotted in the desert, or high in the mountains above the treeline.
- Siggeir Sherihum the Sangremancer -- Blood Magus (Tome and Blood, Complete Arcane). This barbaric sorcerer hides his ruinous disfigurements behind armor, robes and clothing. Siggeir is rumored to have battled another major sorcerer while still young in his career, a powerful figure equivalent to a member of today's Heresiarchy. Although he remains broken and maimed by the encounter, his power and reputation are undimmed.
- Shimut the Flesheater -- Flesheater (Dragon Magazine #300). This savage beast was once consort to Jairan Neferirkare. When he was freed of her domination, he hid until he was able to amass sufficient power to challenge her. Their battle ruined and cursed the Cannibal Isle to this day, but Jairan was overthrown from her throne. Despite this, the two remain somewhat fond of each other. They don't trust each other, certainly, but they remain uneasy allies in many things. Shimut also seems to suffer from the curse of ghoulism, but rather than wilt under the appalling things he is made to do by the curse, he embraces them as the source of much of his power. Shimut's flesh is cracked and bronzed, and his hair and eyes are solid white.
- The Master of Vermin -- Vermin Lord (Book of Vile Darkness). Surrounded by filth, insects, spiders, and rats, the nameless Master of Vermin is another disquieting and disgusting member of the Heresiarchy, who rarely appears in his natural form. What exactly his concerns are, or what his intentions, plots and conspiracies may be geared towards, are anyone's guess. Like Amrruk the Ancient, he seems almost beyond (or beneath) concerning himself with the world of mortals, and lives a more primal existance.
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| Jairan Neferirkare, the Soulless |
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| Shimut the Flesheater |
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