The Berserkers' Initiation (Pirates)

The Berserkers are the no good, rotten, bloodthirsty pirate crew that operate along the stretch of coast that includes Wyndhaven harbor (and their base is hidden in an ocean cave not far from there). They stand as the counterparts to the gentlemen privateers who sail the Crimson Gale. They are based unabashedly on Captain Hammerhand and his crew of ThunderCats fame (although only Hammerhand for sure is a direct analogue; Top Spin and Ram Bam are kind of stupid). The initiation into the Berserkers requires incredible strength, stamina, and insanity. The applicant must make his way onto the Berserkers' ship (not yet named) alive, last through battles against various members of the crew, and then survive The Drag. Still bearing the wounds from the fights, the applicant is scourged by Captain Hammerhand and then his wrists are bound with thirty yards of rope. He is then tossed overboard with the tail end of the rope secured to the back of the ship. Salty seawater burns in open wounds and the blood attracts sharks. One hour later (if they remember), the crew hauls the rope back onboard. If the applicant is still attached to the end, and still alive, he is a lifelong member of the Berserkers.

LordHawk likes me

In a post at Magi-Soft's forums, Anthon said that O-Gaming was no more and that MTGTemple should now replace O-Gaming's links on the MagicWorkstation pages. I went to visit MtGTemple and, while in their IRC chat room, met LordHawk, a player and judge I had known from Magic-League while I was a judge there. Another player, named Revik, entered the room and said "hi". I said hello back. He commented on me being a "random person". Then LordHawk awoke: "Revik Strovil would be staff here if he was coming here when we started this I like strovil good guy"   I happen to like LordHawk too. It was seeing his name on the MtGTemple homepage that made me investigate deeper.

AZ RennFest Pleasure Feast

I was at this feast:




I am only visible as an indistinct dark blur at 0:13 and 1:13 seconds. The tall guy in the white visible on the left side of the screen during each pan around the room when the camera sets still for a brief moment was sitting on my left (so I am just off-screen to the right).

The Whichblade & Last Breath

Courtesy of Ask ... A ... Nin ... Ja! The Whichblade is a legendary weapon. The only problem is, you never know what you'll get when you draw it. It could be a rapier, could be the corkscrew from a Swiss Army knife, it could be Marv Wolfman, etc. There is also the extremely, extremely broad sword. And the Sai of Sighs. One nick and all you can do is exhale. The Sai of Sighs would be a cool sword or dagger called Last Breath. It literally prevents you from inhaling after you take damage, so anything that requires breathing will suffocate if the initial wound is not enough to kill it. The legend surrounding the blade simply distills it into "anyone wounded by this blade has breathed his last breath." It is both literally (cannot inhale) and figuratively (is now dead) true.

Freakin' Scary Spider

As I was getting food from the drive-thru earlier, a tiny spider suspended on a line of web slunk down right outside the window of my car (and the window was open, so a slight breeze would have knocked it right on me).

This lead me to consider my fear of spiders and that, in turn, lead me to the following idea: a giant trapdoor spider that comes up from beneath a square of the sidewalk and pulls you under.

Himura's Justice

That particular name is a place-holder.

I was reading the section on nemuranai in the L5R rules and it addressed how nemuranai are empowered by the kami within the object. Since the kami come in one of the four elements or void, the effects that a nemuranai could produce were distributed among the elements.

After reading the different mechanical effects assigned to each element, I thought about a weapon and armor combo with the appropriate weapon or armor property from each element (the armor would grant a bonus to initiative from air and damage reduction from earth; the katana would gain a bonus to damage rolled from fire and a bonus to damage kept from water).

Then I thought about a unique power for an element. The scene of a Crab (in this case, a Himura bushi) being insulted by a Crane courtier at a court. The Himura really wanted to defend his honor against the courtier but the Crane was allowed to choose a champion. He had a Daidoji yojimbo who faced the Crab in a duel. However, the Himura's anger was so potent that when he struck at the Daidoji yojimbo, the blow passed through him on the whim of the air kami and struck the Crane courtier who was standing at the edge of the dueling circle directly behind him. Both the courtier and his yojimbo died in the single stroke of the blade.

That was a cool unique weapon property and I immediately thought about using it in D&D. You just allow the strike to also target the next creature immediately opposite your initial target from you within X feet. Suddenly you have a spear or a longsword that, in the right circumstances, attacks two creatures (you could even go more cinematic with it and allow the sword strike to apply in a line or cone area of effect).

In fact, having just now thought that up, it would be a pretty cool 4e power.

Cults in Wyndhaven

1. I heard a song on my way home tonight that inspired a small, quick thought:

The song is December by Collective Soul. The opening line is "why drink the water from my hand, contagious as you think I am?"

I imagine cancer mages and other disciples of disease forming one of the myriad cults in Wyndhaven would initiate novice members by the ritual of drinking water (or some other liquid) from their hands. These novices would not necessarily know that they are being inoculated with a disease that would test their fortitude and favor with the dark gods of disease. To survive the course of the affliction would prove they were worthy to be indoctrinated further into the fold. Any disfigurements would be badges of honor. Those who died still served the cult's purpose, especially if they infected others before passing.

2. The second cult idea is stolen from Fall From Heaven. Since it is stolen so wholesale from the game, I will simply reprint the Civilopedia entry for the Zealot unit:

I have not been able to discern how the Cultists choose their zealots. Sometimes it is a vagrant, sometimes the son or daughter of a noble, and everyone in between seems eligible. He is abducted and taken to temple, usually on the night of the full moon. The hands and feet are bound. Sleep is induced. Some sects use various herbal concoctions; this one simply strangled the man until he passed out. He is laid in a shallow pool, submerged partially in sea water.
All night the Cultists gather around, listening for anything he might say in this sleep. This becomes the zealots new name. It is etched onto a clay jar, which is filled with sea water. I observed the names on some of these. "The Leviathan Trembles But Does Not Awaken," read one. "Pour the Blood of the Slaves Into the Styx," another. The victim tonight seemed to hear nothing, for he was silent as he slept, nearly until dawn. Should this be the case, the victim is drowned and serves in the undead army of the Overlords. Fortunately for this man, or perhaps not, he at last called out screaming, "The distant one has watching eyes!"
The Cultists nodded to each other and pulled the man from the water. When he saw them holding him, he cringed. They spoke not to him, but dragged him to the back of the temple. I was unable to follow, but observed the Zealot days later in sea colored robes. He had bloodshot eyes, and moved through the crowd in the town marketplace engaged in a constant dialogue with himself.

From chapter 7 of Reflections on the State Cults, by Elder Methyl of the Luonnatar.

3. I am also stealing the Mouse King from Kobold Quarterly #4, but that is more of a thieves' guild than a cult. Just thought I would mention it.

4. And because I am already making this post, other Wyndhaven cults obviously include the Sons of Wrath (followers of Rath and mechanically similar to Ravagers) and the Faces of Fear (followers of Saren Kollmer).

Bound-Spryte Magister

From the inimitable and laudable mind of Contraserrene (see the previous post on the boneshaper fae for another of his contributions):

For an upcoming campaign I've designed a human magister who's replaced his staff with a slave- he keeps a dominated spryte leashed to his wrist with an ensorcelled chain. When he casts spells he's channeling his power through the spryte, who provides the verbal and somatic components.

Mechanically, he can cast his spells without worrying about somatic components (allowing him, along with a feat, to wear armor without a spell failure chance). He also gets an extra pair of dull-but-obedient eyes and ears to watch for stealthy attackers. He also gains additional weaknesses- knock out the spryte or break the control and the magister has problems. He's not doing it for power; he's doing it to show off what a badass he is.

I was thinking of generalizing it into a feat with a less malevolent twist, but I haven't worked out the mechanics for that. It would be closer to a familiar than anything else, I suppose.

Edit: Needless to say, once this magister goes public he'll become something of a priority for the faen community...

A few notes on Trokair

Things I want to get down "on paper" about Trokair that I have been mulling over the last few days: 1. The game really wants a rumor table for players to roll on at the beginning. It helps suggest player-driven courses of inquiry and keeps me from herding them towards a specific encounter or goal (since part of the whole point of Trokair is that it is so versatile and adaptive). 2. Which group the players encounter on their first foray to Trokair depends on which path they take (which, in turn, would be influenced by the rumors they hear). Anyone entering by the shortest path will travel along the trade route and then head north as they pass by the city ruins. That is exactly where the bandits hang out and they are likely to find a few traps or even an ambush along the way. Players who travel through the foothills north of the forest are likely to encounter the orcs (although why you would approach the city ruins from that direction has so far eluded me). Finally, some players will want to trek through the woods from further east than the shortest path (perhaps starting at the Wanderer's Shrine after a tip from Yadri, since the road at that point curls south before coming back north at the shortest point). Such characters have a chance to encounter either/both the bandits or/and the orcs but most likely make it into the city without proper greeting. Their first NPC encounter would likely be with one of the necromancers (since their buildings stand out so much and because they spend more time traversing the sewers than either the orcs or the bandits). 3. Orcs and bandits can be encountered throughout the city ruins, both above ground and in the sewers (and, increasingly unlikely, further below). So too can the necromancers. In fact, some of the bandits or necromancers can be encountered in town between forays into the city (they need to buy stuff and keep up on the rumors too). 4. I really need to play up the intelligence of the humans and some of the orcs. The bandits are not going to throw their lives away on the players' swords after seeing that they are clearly outmatched. At the same time, I need to impress upon the players that having even as few as 5-10 crossbows aimed at you is a death sentence and not an inconvenience. It is only this that makes me feel d20 is not a particularly good system for my vision of Trokair. 5. Jhanzur can seal a door with his channeling (a rebuke undead attempt). A door so sealed requires either a sufficiently strong turn attempt, any old rebuke attempt, or a dispel magic effect (and possibly knock) to open. This allows me to seal off certain areas of the sewers and deeper until the characters are high enough level to overcome the seal or they befriend/negotiate passage with Father Quint. 6. I really need to copy over my notes from Venura before the boards disappear again. I have a lot of stuff there that I really do not want to lose (like the original spelling of Jhanzur's name, which I had to double-check for point 5 (although I did spell it right)).

Rainbow Brite's Girlfriend

Not the cartoon Rainbow Brite but my superhero character Rainbow Brite.

A while ago I found a slightly anime wallpaper/desktop image of a cute but rough girl wielding a stylized chainsaw against a hippy-inspired playground wall (bright blue with Beatles-esque cartoon imagery of clashing colors).

She is what I see when I think of Rainbow Brite's girlfriend. She is not the badass, foul-mouthed, ass-kicking machine. She is a sweet but strong girl who loves all the wonderful colors Brian can show her but she also likes hacking into mutant alien robots with a chainsaw.

If it were a television show, I can definitely see her popping up in the middle of a battle against mutant alien robots and cutting them down left and right. Afterwards, the party (or cast, if I am going with the TV metaphor) look at her standing there with a chainsaw, their mouths agape. Then Brian steps over, puts an arm around her, and (either sheepishly or proudly, depending on how things play out with him and the rest prior to her arrival) says, "Guys, this is my girlfriend." Then they kiss.

Later on, Brian describes her:

"I am Rainbow Brite.
She's more like Rainbow Six."

Reign of Steel - Kafka's Androids

So I was searching the web for Reign of Steel information as the urge strikes me every few months when I found a pdf copy of Pyramid magazine from 1996/7 (just before Reign of Steel was released).

One of the cover stories was Designer Notes from the author of Reign of Steel. I decided to pay the $5 for the download. It was then that I discovered the article was a scant 3 or 4 pages. And most of that was just describing what would be in the book, rather than something substantial and additional.

But it did offer a few campaign ideas, one of which resonated strongly with me. It was titled Kafka's Androids and the idea was thus: several AIs worked independently to plant android agents in a human resistance movement. Unfortunately for them, the resistance suffered heavy casualties soon thereafter and only the preternaturally tough android agents survived. So, the party consists entirely of double-agent androids working for separate AIs in what they believe to be a human resistance group. They continue to play their parts, fighting against the zone AI and helping human survivors and resistance, until the opportunity to fulfill their original subterfuge presents itself. Despite their enhanced abilities and senses (including scanners), none are aware that their compatriots are also androids because each was built to remain undetected in a rival AI's territory.

I really, really like this idea. It allows all the players to think they are the special character with the juicy secret that leads to backstabbing.

In my Reign of Steel campaign, they would be part of the Human Liberation Army in zone Vancouver. One of the agents will be Vancouver's own android, sent to gather intelligence on the HLA in its own territory. Another would be Moscow's, sent to keep an eye on Vancouver as well as coordinate with human resistance to divert Vancouver's resources away from the covert operations in Siberia. Both Denver and Mexico City are also direct neighbors of Vancouver and, thus, likely candidates for android spies. However, I see a more human-hating AI with an agent instead of the all-life-hating Mexico City. For example, I see Manila's agent revealing the locations of human hideouts as he travels through the zone, allowing Overmind to send another covert agent in its wake to wipe them out. Or, more accurately, I see Manila's agent as the android equivalent of a homicidal maniac or serial killer, wiping out survivors when he has the chance and allowing the "clean-up crew" to get those he cannot.

Moscow is my favorite idea so far because it just makes a lot of sense but Manila's agent has the strongest visuals in my mind.

Quick Questor Idea Jot-down

1. Magic is like breathing to the elves of Mahuul Maakh. They do it all the time, without thinking. Few, however, put the time in to "practice" doing it "right."

2. Humans, elves, dwarves, and orcs all have their own racial personality. As Quentyn was surprised by the sudden, bold determination of the Duke and his men, humans differ in their racial outlook and response from elves, and they from dwarves, and so on.

3. Dwarves are very stoic, possessed of great emotional mass and inertia. They take abuse heaped upon them for years before their ire is finally raised. They serve as near slave labor and endure second-class status. That their work is of superior quality is no reason for human respect.

4. Elves are otherworldy, like the fey. They follow strange rituals that make little to no sense to outsiders. They are very calculating.

5. Humans are very quickly organized and boundless in courage and spirit ... when the right leader arises. Otherwise they grow fat, corrupt, and lazy.

6. What the crap are orcs if that is how the humans act?

Isawa Mizuka

This is a character I created earlier tonight for a proposed Rokugan (Legend of the Five Rings d20) game. I have always said that in a Rokugan game I would play either an Isawa Shugenja with the fire element focus or a Kakita Iaijutsu Master. I was close.

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Name: Isawa Mizuka
Race: Human
Clan: Phoenix, Isawa family
Class: Shugenja 2 (Water)

Background: Tadaka wandered away from home one day as a young boy. His impromptu poetry had enticed a water kami from its nearby stream and, when the kami startled the boy and silenced his musings, it retreated back to its home. Tadaka followed, hugging the banks and watching for the unusual bobs and swells that marked the novice shugenja's sight of the kami amidst the gently rolling water. The chase and the mystery banished any sense of time from his mind and he realized only hours later that he had pursued a series of kami through the forest, losing sight of the water kami as an air kami passed before him and later a trio of earth kami lying none to far apart in the rocky soil at the base of a cliff. Lost and alone, Tadaka wearily made his way up the twisting paths of the cliff in the hopes of seeing the river that would lead home, as the earth kami refused to speak to him and, in fact, bullied him with jeers of "pretender". At the top of the cliff, Tadaka sighted not the river he had followed hours ago but Yobanjin Mura, the secret trading post of the Phoenix and the Yobanjin barbarians.

Since that day, Tadaka showed an insatiable interest in the dealings of Yobanjin Mura and the barbarians. This proved to be a great difficulty for his parents and teachers as the outpost ranked among the Isawa family's most closely held secrets. His persistence, however, won out and he has since paid two more visits to the city, both on market day.

At his gempukku, Tadaka shamed his family in choosing the name Mizuka, or "water practitioner." In doing so, he all but dishonored his ancestors by shunning their names and creating his own. And this after bearing the name of Isawa Tadaka, the great Master of Earth who sacrificed himself to defeat Fu Leng and save the Empire. The arrival of an Imperial messenger seeking audience with Isawa Mizuka thus came as an incredible surprise to the Isawa and the riddle posed by this turn of events delighted the water kami in the garden pond to no end.

Personality: Mizuka is a dichotomy of childlike wonder, innocence, and spontaneity contrasted with the wisdom, gravity, and onerous responsibility of an Isawa shugenja. He harbors an intense curiosity for the world around him and the worlds just out of his sight (both the kami and the barbarians) and sometimes allows it to get the better of him. On the other hand, he has learned from his past mistakes and exercises immense restraint, especially when he remembers he represents the Phoenix and the Isawa to those outside the clan.

Description: Mizuka is typical for a Phoenix - smaller and thinner than most Rokugani, he nevertheless possesses a quick, athletic build from years of swimming and physical conditioning as prescribed by the Tao of Shinsei. Unlike most Isawa, who either wear their hair long or shave themselves bald, Mizuka cuts his hair short and gathers some into a topknot in imitation of the Yobanjin barbarians. He favors the yellow and orange clothing of the Phoenix but often accentuates it with blue and green embroidery or ribbons.

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I chose the water element focus because it provided the best support spells for a party that was almost entirely samurai charged with exploring the lands outside the Empire. The other applicants proposed a Hida (Crab) samurai, an Akodo (Lion) samurai, a Daidoji (Crane/Scorpion) samurai, an Otomo (imperial family) courtier, and a Nezumi ninja. The water schools offer healing and movement. Even at second level, Mizuka could cast multiple Cure Light Wounds to heal the party and Speed of the Waterfall to triple its movement rate. Castle of Water is an excellent self-defense spell, offering cover, immunity to missile weapons, and pushing nearby attackers away and outside the wall.

That last paragraph was as much for my own benefit in consolidating my spell choices and potential party members as anyone else reading this.

Roleplaying Forum System

Venura was the best roleplaying forum I had ever seen. The support for multiple characters, intuitive layout, nested forums, and the realms were all wonderful. Having started a list below, allow me to do so up here as well:

1. Multiple characters under the same account - using a drop-down menu, you could always post under your character's name in the in-game thread no matter how many games you were in as how many different characters. This also allowed a GM to post as NPCs.

2. Realms. While each realm was essentially just another subforum on the mother forum of Venura and, thus, all the customization in appearance and permissions could be duplicated on another forum system, the manner in which realms were set apart reinforced the idea that you were in a different game with different rules.

3. Subscribing to a realm. Outside of the GM assigning you a higher rank, players earn rank through post count and longevity in a realm. It duplicates a reputation system.

4. Watched threads. You click "Watch" at the end of a thread and any new post will show up as a lightbulb on your control panel. You can then jump directly to that new post and, if you are watching several threads with new posts, you can jump to the next in turn.

5. Custom titles. Forum systems tend to grant a title based on post count or show a custom title (either granted by the admin or chosen by the user). Venura does all three. You default to your reputation title in the realm (based on post count and longevity). The GM can also set custom titles but they appear in a drop menu so you can choose which to use on each post.

6. Hidden threads/forums. This is something I know you could do in EzBoard but it was difficult compared to Venura. Select a thread or an entire forum and click Hide. Now only the GM can see it. You can also set it up so only certain people can see it. I did this in my Reign of Steel realm so each player would have his own subforum.

But it did lack certain features of other, more consistent roleplaying forums (though Venura's lack of consistency was due to server trouble rather than lacking these features).

1. A built in dice roller.
2. Hidden/private text (only viewable by the GM and the intended recipient) within a thread. You could hide a particular post in a thread but only those with admin-level permission could see them. So you could not hide text for more than one person as they would be able to see each other's hidden posts.
3. Post editing.
4. Enter thread at your last post.
5. A built-in or more update-friendly map system (I ran a D&D game on Venura using the built-in image hosting for realms but that meant erasing my old map for each update; anyone reading through the game after the fact would have a link to the map from the end of the game at every combat post).


And the reason I wrote this post was an idea I had last night. We were discussing a massive play-by-post game and Kadh mentioned several ideas from his own play-by-post forum to facilitate gameplay. Rather than just an in-character and out-of-character thread, he counseled:

"a combat thread to keep track of initiative and active effects,
a spell thread to keep track of who has what spells available and how many of them have been used,
a discussion thread,
a gameplay thread,
a q&A thread so that the GM can answer questions without them filling up the gameplay or combat threads,
and a map thread if a map is hosted on some other location you'll want an easily updatable link that doesn't slow down any of the other threads."

Now, my idea stemmed from this. What about a forum where all these threads were one. I pictured the main thread being the roleplaying/"in-character" thread and being completely unmarred. You could read through it like a story without a single mention of initiative or facing or questions. Then, hidden behind or to the side, would be one or more little tabs where all the out-of-character crap would go. You read the guy's post, you need to know where he ended up after charging, so you click on the map icon on the right side of the post and the map field heads to the top of the stack. It could overtake (completely cover), overlay (partially cover), or deform (share space with) the in-game post. There would also be tabs for combat, spells, or whatever you needed. And these tabs could be configured to stay with each individual post or be thread-wide (clicking the tab changes all the posts to the appropriate tab).

This removes the need to jump from thread to thread or open multiple windows just to keep track of the entire game while still leaving the default thread an uncluttered, unbroken, in-game read.

The Black Parade

This idea came while listening to a song on the radio (I later found out it is called Welcome to the Black Parade by My Chemical Romance). It is not particularly original, as I mostly attempted to make the lyrics at the beginning of the song make sense literally. I just now combined it with another idea I had after reading reports from the Realms Beyond Adventure: Boudica the Great for Civilization IV.

The opening of the song:

When I was a young boy,
My father took me into the city
To see a marching band.
He said,
"Son when you grow up, will you be the savior of the broken,
The beaten and the damned?"
He said
"Will you defeat them, your demons, and all the non believers, the plans that they have made?"
Because one day I leave you,
A phantom to lead you in the summer,
To join the black parade."

In my head, the marching band was not made up of musicians but the unique warriors of a reviled but misunderstood nation. These warriors act as hosts for phantoms, disembodied spirits that grant fantastic powers. They render their hosts ageless and effectively immortal barring some accident. Unfortunately, the phantoms also utilize their hosts to wage and unending war on demonkind, so often do they come face to face with fatal accidents.

The phantoms live on unscathed by the death of the host. I have not determined how sentient and conscious the host is in the partnership. Does he yield both body and will to the phantom, effectively ceasing to be? Or are they partners in a symbiotic relationship, each offering their strengths to the other?

Regardless, these phantoms and their hosts gather each summer in the capital of the nation and create the Black Parade. They march throughout the entire land when demonkind is at its weakest and least active, bolstering the will of the people. The citizens of this nation know the immortal phantoms by sight, glimpsing them in two ways. First, much like the spirit of wrath that possessed Orson in Record of Lodoss War: Chronicles of a Heroic Knight, the phantoms loom transparent above their hosts. Then, also like that spirit, they burrow their way inside the body and elicit a physical change. Where the spirit of wrath caused Orson's muscles to bulge and his eyes to roll back until only the whites showed, these phantoms can cause drastically more extreme changes. Some hosts expand to 10 feet in height while others grow multiple sets of arms and sprout horns. All of them adopt fanciful coloration (not necessarily colorful; even a harlequin is fanciful in but black and white) and accouterments. These forms are unique to each phantom, and thus they relay at each year's Black Parade that while the human hosts may differ, the ever vigilant phantoms remain the same.

How does this combine with Civilization IV? In any game of Civilization, you play as a particular leader, such as Boudica of the Celts or Isabella of Spain. But the game spans more than 6000 years of time, so how is it that the same leader traits characterize your civilization's leaders throughout that entire period? Obviously it is an abstraction in the game, but the concept of the phantoms allows for that to be true.

This nation is ruled by a phantom who possessed one host after another from time immemorial. All of its hosts in the recent past (several generations) have been willing, allowing themselves to be possessed in service of their countrymen. Whether this was true in the past is unknown. I will note here as well that the phantom population at large possesses willing hosts, often with a form of heredity mixed in (such as the singer receiving the phantom from his father; this would also imply a level of symbiosis between host and phantom rather than the phantom completely taking over the host's body and quashing his will).

Enough for now, time for bed.