Monday, April 17, 2017

Almanac of Thrend, Part 27

I have worked on a couple of these 'weird Americana' series of monograph-type things, since it pleased me to lay things out in a clever, pleasing way, and offer them for a pittance.  But I really do believe more content ought to be shared around for free, and not gussied up in fancyboy PDFs and on-demand prints.  They are loosely based on my early life in various bits of Florida, as well as the dreams that I have.  You might say that Thrend is a rough analog of my Dreamlands South-Eastern U.S. populated by anthropomorphic animals and wicked fairies and absolutely no fucking orcs or goblins or other standard fantasy bad guys.  I note with some irony that Today, the day of this post's posting, is actually Emancipation Day for real.  Gods Bless Robot Lincoln and his push for freedom for all robots, constructs, golems, androids, subandroids, and crafted persons

If I had bothered to put in some pictures, just imagine some seedy Key West equivalent, or maybe Saint Augustine, or like the Peace River, Dismal Key and the Ten Thousand Islands area...

closed for repairs

Almanac of Thrend, Part 3

I was looking through my notes.  I was going to make a full scenario follow up to my DCC solo module, but I am not interested in it anymore.  So here you go, the brief write-up I did that includes the plans for NPCs/Patrons/Monsters/spells, whatever.  Make of it what you will, but don't sell my stuff, if indeed any of the stuff from my brain can be called mine and not some 3rd generation iteration of Arneson's.  This one had some political statements to make, I guess, but owing to geopolitics I'm no longer interested in making any points life that...

By the by, a young guy in Spain has turned Hounds of Halthrag Keep into a phone app, or so he says.  The thing is done, he just wishes to improve the art before release.  I admire it - it's gone beyond the realm of WHATS IN MY HEAD to WHAT STARTED IN MY HEAD, and I think that's cool

HH1 – RELEASE THE HOUNDS
THE STORY SO FAR

Marbourg is a town with a rich and checkered history.  Centuries ago, when The Comet struck Halthrag Keep and put an end to the interminable wars in the region, Marbourg was a bustling and successful cosmopolis.  It traded with the Sultanates of Korim for spices and silks, the <<PAUL WOLFES>> Ketsu Empire for meteoric steel and exotic weapons, and did booming business with the Underkingdoms of the Lightless Lands Below.  Farms prospered, Justice mostly prevailed, artists and craftspeople thrived, and (aside from scorching magical warfare nearby) people were content.

Then some fool caused The Comet to hurtle out of the Aether and crash into Halthrag Keep!  Some still dispute whether Halthrag himself wished to put an end to his feud with the Sizzling Geomancers this way.  It is conjectured (correctly) that Halthrag was dead when the comet struck his castle and that his lieutenants brought the thing tumbling down to Aereth.  The Comet, when it exploded, showered the land with debris of strange origin, including glowing blue-green rocks and shards of crystalline metal that sometimes seemed to have a life of their own.  All who approached these were sickened, and some went mad, and the whole of the region was covered in flakes and chunks of them.  Cattle wasted and crops rusted; generations of monsters were born to pious women of the region.

Marbourg dwindled and almost vanished, and many of its well-made buildings stood uninhabited, for the inhabitants at that time were skilled builders.  The population moved away and sometimes dwarves moved in and claimed empty town-houses, and faeries infested the sewers, and mutants and foul things ran roughshod through grand libraries.  When the Gorgrin Wars began many centuries later, the refugees of the Eastern regions found a welcoming, albeit dangerous place where Old Marbourgers fought sternly and practically (and without complaint!) against frequent minor incursions of terrible horrors.  The New Citizens and the Old learned quickly that together they might quell the awful things and build Marbourg into a bustling metropolis once again.

That was a half dozen years ago, and until relatively recently things were beginning to look up.  Scavengers and rogues became honest tradesmen, learned to repair the salvageable or leave what was best left alone, and together the Marbourgers established a thriving community in the wreckage of an ancient and once-respectable city.  Punctuated by infrequent dimensional incursions and the occasional Zombie Plague, life was relatively sane and predictable.

Within the past 2 or 3 years, the lonely bones of Halthrag Keep – unnaturally preserved and still shunned by the locals – have begun to stir again.  Monsters flit in the moonlight, and the Keep gathers to itself the lingering remnants of the Marbourg Undercity and the wild Forest <<<I FORGET THE NAME>>>.  Were-beasts, goblinoids, undead, and Things From Beyond stalk the Keep AND the City, too, and dishonest men flock to the <<<WOODS>>> from farther up on the Verlash River.  None know why these brigands have come, but in desperation the Marbourger City Council elected to parlay with them some months ago; a considered strategem and one that under normal conditions may have been advisable.  But these Jackals (for this is what the bandits call themselves) have not only settled in to Marbourg and arrested its financial and cultural recovery, but have taken up residence and infiltrated the City Council itself!  They are akin to guests that overstay their welcome and eat all the food in the pantry, and then charge you for their company.  It is now unclear what the Citizens of Marbourg ought to do – for a scheme has been hatched by the Bandits and their allies to radically alter the pleasant environs nearby with a great project that relies upon the evil stone and twisted metal The Comet scattered here so long ago.

The occasional wild-eyed adventurer that wanders to Marbourg from the Keep tells harrowing tales of hideous monsters, otherworldly abominations, glowing blue stones, and leering ruffians that force them to collect the stones on pain of death.  There is nothing still or peaceful about the ruins of Halthrag Keep, now, and something needs be done.  But first and foremost, the community leaders - especially Chairman Diptherio - must not find out, since it is his plans that the party must undo.  Whispers suggest he has some radical alliance with twisted things to forge evil metals and deliver magickal energy to his masters in the North.

FACTIONS

Marbourgers – divided into Old and New Citizens.  The Old Marbourgers are fae-touched and sometimes goblinoid beings, not necessarily immortal but long-lived and wild in the way that Faeries can be.  They welcomed the humanoid immigrants from the East during the Gorgrin Wars, and the New Citizens established a firm footing in town with the more respectable contingent of less violent beings.  Much of Old Marbourg is left unexplored and uninhabited, but sinister glowing at night suggests that much Space Rock may be found in the ruins, if any were inclined to sortie out.  The Marbourgers wish to live unharried and rectify the strange forces that work on the region, for the most part.  Owing to the free interactions between the humanoid Easterners (dark of hair and prone to romance) and the Faerie and demi-Faerie beings, all kinds of interesting half- and part- human faerie folk thrive here.  It is speculated that those in Marbourg without Faerie blood in their veins make up a minority, but the Council has only begun to keep records within the past decade or so.  They do brisk trade with Helix to the northwest and Helleborine to the northeast.  The ruins of Marbourg still hold treasures from quaint periods in the past, and the undercity sewer realm is mostly sealed to prevent incursions from below.  Minor protests regularly erupt in town against the notion that literal bandits now control Marbourg’s politics, but the Town Watch cracks down and those honest men who comprised it in the past have been driven out.

The Jackals – The aims of the honest Marbourger Citizens are undone by the Jackals, who (under the weak prospect of a protective alliance) have infiltrated the City Council and bent the resources of the town to their own ends.  Namely, to fashion a pipeline for baleful energies from Space Rock and Hyperidium – resources that are relatively rare elsewhere on Aereth but ominously abundant in this region.  They cause work-crews to clear forests toward the Keep, they divert and exploit travelers to explore the Keep (these are known as The Hounds), and Citizens regularly go missing – especially ones that are too vocal about the Council’s influence and ties to banditry.  They are led by Diptherio – as suspicious and perfidious a man-thing as ever was known.  He is definitely of lycanthropic extraction and a minor spell-caster who has some control over his powers.  He struck an alliance with the twisted Undercity inhabitants as fast as possible upon his arrival in the region.  He is clever but weak of will and vain, and the pawn of the Cyberlich of Planet Nebulmor - a terrible undead being who is luckily far away in time and space.  His flock of human and demi-human scum is comprised of were-beasts, humans, and the occasional necromantic experiment.  In a twist of narrative, the Jackals have been infiltrated by a New Marbourger group, The Last Honest Men, led by one Ian Gram.

The Undercity Realms – the Trolls and Dwarves and spiteful Goblins that reside beneath the city are only too glad to ally with the Jackals, having been driven below and sequestered from the town above.  There are several levels of sewer complex between them and the Marbourgers, and many of the passages have been destroyed and magically blocked.  Their Undercity connects directly to the Lightless Lands – a cavern complex that spreads far to the east, north, and delves deeply downward.  Halthrag Keep is situated directly on top of one entrance to the Lightless Lands, almost directly on the shores of a vast Underocean.  The nominal leader of the Undercity Realms is an agent of the Elf King, as is his brother - a well respected Elf in Marbourg.  They have unremitting enmity for each other and work at cross purposes without understanding the way their actions fit into the Elf King’s plans.

Halthrag Keep – Halthrag once dealt directly with Old Marbourg and advised them and provided them with trade goods From Beyond, but his traffic with Aetherial and Daemonic entities (malevolent and benign ones) erupted into full-fledged war with several other great wizards.  The Wizard Wars came to a climax at Halthrag Keep, where monsters and legions of humanoid soldiers clashed in a terrific battle.  Halthrag was beaten, executed, and exiled to another dimension, and his guard Captain and most trusted lieutenant called upon a Weird Foreign God for aid.  The best help the God could offer was to crash a passing meteor into the place.  Sadly, the meteor had an other-worldly passenger (inscrutably strange but not necessarily evil) and the meteor itself was composed of chunks of a far-off planet that carried twisting magical radiations.  These centuries past, the Alien Being slept and repaired itself, and when it awoke it set events in Halthrag Keep into full swing: the engines of its craft twist reality around it, and it prompts the dessicated frames of the dead to hunt out the Space Rock to fuel its departure.  The Jackals will not enter, since the more of them approach the more resistance they meet from the magical beings that are called from nearby to station there.  They have taken to sending small teams of innocents inside with the dubious promise of escape and freedom.  Certain promising individuals are welcomed into their ranks.  Also, a terrible Manticore and his pet human boy have taken up temporary residence in the dungeon portion of the Keep.  At the time of the party’s arrival all of these inhabitants of the Keep and its environs are waiting for something; or perhaps something just happened - the events are loosely framed by play in HHSOLO The Hounds of Halthrag Keep.

NPCs

Diptherio – Bandit Leader
Mr. Harlowe Fluggins, Esquire - Lawyer, financier of The Last Honest Men
Osmonda Porprian – Head of the Marbourg Department of Education, Corrupt, Enchantress
The City Council of Marbourg
The Gram Brothers – Ian, Urod, and Krez; Half-Elves; deposed watchmen and sons of the deceased former head of the Marbourg Watch
Titus Penflit – Silk Merchant; Elf; Old Citizen of Marbourg.  Agent of the Elf King.
Gervid Penflit – Blacksmith and Metallurgist; Goblin; jealous leader of the Undercity faction.  Agent of the Elf King.
Faranid of the Thieves’ Guild; Shapeshifter and Spy for the <<<FAR AWAY>>>
Hrost
Phanstein
Ouncey – Owner of the Curious Museum of Curios
Campion Pelaghast <<<David VC>>>  Steamblimp Captain
Captain Romajj – Captain of the Purple Sorcerer that plies the Undersea
Bishop Lindelman
Grrranvargyld, The Shadow of the East, and his boy Mathuse

Areas to detail/write up (with the exception of the Undercity and Marbourg, these have already appeared in HHSOLO1, sort of)

Halthrag Keep (practically done!)

The Jackal’s Camp

Marbourg - downtown

Some of the Undercity Sewer region – Home of the DungMother (new monsters: drowned dead, mud mephits, scat demons, sewer elementals)

Some of the Lightless Lands (new monsters: Croaklings with snippet tongue attack, Radrakes i.e. radiation breathing dragon, Moon Elfs, etc.)

Spells:
Flitterblit (sort of displacer field but maybe not so great on reality)
Wereform (high levels of corruption incurred, except under the light of the moon, depends upon moon stage somehow)

Patrons:
(Half-Patron) The Passenger (interdimensional alien being and tourist)
(Half-Patron) The Dungmother (wise old woman/man/otyugh composed of sentient Elfin trash)
(Full-Patron) The Cyberlich of Nebulmor! – he drives the building of the Ominous Alloy Pipeline to the coast, where the Cult of the Fishmen rout the power to a dimensional portal

Class:
Werebeast (-vulture, -jackal, -rat, -spider, -bat, -boar, -hound, -shark, -toad) – the evil version of Daniel Bishop’s fae animal
Agent (Ian and his brothers, for example)

Bonuses:
Random ruin generator for Marbourg
Random sewer generator for Undercity
River Nymphs

Wednesday, March 22, 2017

Weird Americana HH Monographs

I am working out an effective (to me) and easy-on-the-eyes 6x9 (possibly poorly layed-out objectively and subjectively) little thing.  I call it a monograph style, but these aren't REAL PLACES, they are only little locales for use in games.


The feel and flavor is a little bit DCC, a little bit Wampus Country by my associate and pal +Erik Jensen . Something like Wind in the Willows, Bioshock, and Thundarr smooshed together.  I'm going to offer them on G+ as feeblies/freeblies as I diddle with them, and maybe if there is a good response then to gussy them up and offer them as PWYW on RPGNow.

Just as motivation for myself, and if anybody bites the hook and Pays What They Wants, then it allows me to use that as credits for buyin' other peoples' stuff.  I think it's a fair idea, on paper.

Anyway, the setting and the actual adventures are implied rather than explicit, and revealed in small bits in the descriptions of NPCs and monsters. This last one I cooked up on a slow workday is more sort of Deep Ones/Crawdads/Academia than anything else, but I forget why I made it that way.  The thing is inspired by frequent dreams of mine where I am wandering around a U.F./F.S.U. simulacrum of 20+ years gone by, fretting about missed classes and the state of my apartment... Why did I always miss class? Well, Professor, it's like I told you, some nefarious beings made me forget.  Can I get a passing grade rather than a flat F? For the record I never tried this approach after the first time I tried it because, uh, lesson learned.



Monday, February 20, 2017

The Dread of Beginning Anew

February 20, 2017. About 11:30

The weather is amazing for February, a nice spring day.  Clear sun, nice clouds.  Fantastic breeze.  Strange. Unsettling.  As I drove in a weak theta/alpha/low-beta zone to work today (not thinking about Neurofeedback but instead of RPGs, Zak Sabbath's latest hubbub, and the State of Our Fragile Union) - I heard this show on my local NPR affiliate, which is 88.1 if you're curious.  The show On Point with Tom Ashbrook - he of the sexy voice and sort of modestly-leftish politics, I think.

how I imagine tom ashbrook
The topic today was 'Personal Reinvention' and it was about what people do when they are able to escape their dreary/trying day to day lives as (insert awful day job here) and become more fulfilled as (insert new character class here).  I think we as a culture, that is we as in RPG players, really thrive on this feeling.  Why, the whole of DCC is practically founded on it!  What's this? You hate being a Sheperd?  Try being a Wizard, instead!  We also enjoy hordes of zombies (i.e. easy objects of violence), hoards of treasure (enough to never work again) and the ruins of ancient cultures (those people had it made and why did they fuck it up, again?)

I don't know.  I feel like you better learn to do something with your time. The robots are almost here - that's right, I just predicted it.  Robots gonna put you out of work, meatbag, and I hope you've monetized your blog and figured out how to drive eyeballs to it, 'cause even our modest service industry about to get destroyed by mindless labor.  If you ain't prepared to fix a robot, decorate a robot, re-program a robot, or destroy a robot with a gauss-blade, you're fixing to be out of work in a few years.  Time for reinvention!

Cosplay project accomplish
 A client has arrive - BRB

1:31 PM Same Day

So, where am I going with this?  Oh yeah.  When I put out the Space Dungeon DCC funnel generator, I was inspired by Jez's (I don't know if it's +Jez Gordon, but he's pretty terrific) lists on there.  The greatest thing about them is, in my opinion, AMBIGUITY.  That is, you get 4 weirdos and what they are is going to be determined by you, probably within about 10 minutes of play, maybe after the first 1 or 2 die hilariously. There's no prep, really.  There's no feats or builds or other bullshit  - hey man, or woman, if that's your game then great but it's not how I play. The game is about what's happening to these hepcats while we are playing, and if 'Nipple Spooner' was your previous profession, then NO WONDER you're trying to be a thief, now.

I modeled my professions on the Space Dungeon lists with some focus on pop culture - things like Star Wars, obv, and old Sierra adventure games, and space movies (I think 'Ice Pirates' was a big influence,obviously).  +Jon Marr was wise enough to scrub all the copyright-infringing references I put in there, but you can see 'em if you squint a little.  I can't tell you how many times people said "WAIT - ROBOT REPAIRMAN. DOES THAT MEAN HE'S A ROBOT THAT REPAIRS THINGS? OR IS HE A GUY THAT WORKS ON ROBOTS?" I take it back, I think I could, it was probably 15 or so in a couple of months of play.

This is exactly the feeling I was trying to capture with Space Dungeon.
 Going back to the previous earlier text, you're going to have to answer that one yourself, pal.  Why not discard these previous conceptions of what your job is, and learn to use your skills to make your way in this cold, hostile, hilariously fucked up universe? Also, since the robot uprising is nearly upon us - I mean this in the fantasy RPG sense and also in the sense that jeezus have you seen these YouTube videos these days? - you'd better get ready for some radical perceptual shifts, and also, the powers that be are going to make you fight for every motherfucking morsel, if you get my meaning.  I don't just mean the Awful King in Yellow when he comes across the Lake of Hali with his robot troops, but also...  You get me, right?

What I predict is that within about 10 years, you and me are going to have to come to grips with changes in the workforce.  These dead, glassy eyed motherfuckers in Congress are being led by a nutter who is convinced that the old ways are better, and who is hilariously underprepped to handle current sorceries.  The funny thing about pop culture memes - The Walking Dead in particular - is that your job is dead already and you just don't know it, yet.  You have a zombie job, probably.  There are robot cooks that can cook meals, robots that will build cars, robots that will pick strawberries, robots that will teach kids.  Aggressive AIs, AI that can make people fabulously wealthy in the spaces between thoughts, AI that can recognize your face on a blurry video.   So many things you can lose your job to, now, that I hope you can't wait to (like many of us on G+!) monetize your blog to make tens of dollars every year!  I think what we're seeing is a President of The Universe, and a Congress of Zombies, that are fundamentally unready to change the way they think about how shit should be and are cranking down to prevent the flow of humans/human capital so as to sustain the Old Ways that lead to ruin. Maybe we'll get lucky and it won't be all THUNDARR the barbarian (sadly I don't think that thinking about living in a post-apocalypse is sufficient preparation) and I don't even think that the Post-Apockyclipse means that the moon will shatter and there will be ionizing radiation everywhere.  It means that technology/sorcery will sneak up and bite you on the ass and change everything about the world.

I don't know where I am going with this.  There seemed to be a point in the alpha/theta/low beta state I was in on the ride in to work today.  I thought PARALLELS BETWEEN LIFE AND GAMING!  POINTS TO BE MADE ABOUT JOB AMBIGUITY/STRESS AND OPPORTUNITY FOR RADICAL GROWTH AND CHANGE! OPPRESSION, CONFLICT, IMMINENT CATASTROPHE.

#joesky content (as if the previous content was not content-laden enough!)

DEPRESSED ROBOT FOOTSOLDIER/WORKER: Init -5; Atk existential depression (special); blaster +1 (2d6) OR crushing grip +1 (1d8); AC 14; HD 1d10;SV Fort +5, Ref -5, Will Variable (1d6-1d4); AL L

Jonny 8 pauses from senseless murder to consider his position in the proletariat
Depressed Robot Footsoldiers, or Depressed Robot Workers, typically slog through their orders, only pausing from dealing out high damage just long enough to consider their existential plight.  These mental tics are programmed into their directives as a safety measure to prevent uncontrollable rage, or else are products of hacking or programming errors.  Their Will saves are variable, and in any given encounter DRFs may be very resistant to mind control/reprogramming or else totally open-minded and gullible.  They learn quickly, but are usually only entrusted with the most meaningless violent or monotonous tasks, despite having very expensive hardware and enchanted silicoid positronic networks where a human might have a brain and heart (meaning, a metaphysical heart).  Often, they only want someone to listen and they utter the most dreadful and plaintive complaints through their vocoder units, mostly in the binary language of simple machines. If they have an opportunity, they can complain in a way that will actually temporarily prevent the use of beneficial Luck effects within their vicinity as a simple action (meaning no PC can burn Luck of any kind during an encounter). Anybody who can hear the complaints, whether they understand them or not, must make a DC15 Will Save, or else Luck points burned AFTER their complaint are simply unspent with no effect. This complaint lasts until the end of the round, whereupon the effect ceases and then must be renewed again.









Friday, January 27, 2017

High Speed Death

I pre-ordered the Gangs of Commorraghkkkkytjkjl from my club +Beer and Bolters 40K . Not because I dig on Dark Eldar, but the fluff is kind of cool and I need to stretch my wings a little now that the airbrush is arrived.  It's because it seems a distant offshoot hybrid of Necromunda and that Tie Fighter game, and for the price you get some nice models. Also, I'm not a great painter and my experience has mostly been basecoat/wash/drybrush highlights, ink wash the flesh, yadda yadda yadda.  Picking a new army or force would allow some different finishes and looks that might prompt me to do some new stuff.  I guess, in short, that I am bored at the moment with Space Marines, Sisters, and Imperial Troops generally (you might remind me that I am taking my sweet time with the Genestealer Cult - more on that, later)

The models look great! 😍  The terrain looks hideous 😲😒😒 Note: I don't expect much when I pay 45 bucks for 16 figures on stands with all kinds of cool options









Anyway, I thought of a pretty interesting 1-point perspective trick that I can use to make a 2x2 foot game board for my High Speed Pain-Addicted Perverts to zip around on, and in addition to this it will give me an excuse to make terrain that fits the bill.  I'm thinking a long drop into nothingness, clouds, some faux brushed metal towers, skulls, and polyfill.  More later, but this inspiring thing out:


It occurs to me that the Haemonculi and the retinue of the Archons are pretty cool; maybe I will try Dark Eldar out in the coming year... Need to practice my hideous runes and evil sigils!

Buy 'The Hounds' - Click Here