Tuesday, July 30, 2013

Setting Depth

Yesterday I wrote about Setting Accessibility. Setting depth is a related, but not dependent, concept. Many deep settings are inaccessible (and here I mean require much work to access rather than impossible to access), but not all of them are. Warhammer Fantasy is a highly inaccessible setting (requiring a large amount of reading and training) with a huge depth. Shadowrun  is a much more accessible setting with a lot of depth in contrast. I'm not quite certain what makes certain settings deep and accessible and others deep but inaccessible. My current thoughts are that there is a third factor tangentially related to the way the deep parts of the setting are presented which affects how accessible it is: that is, the setting's learning curve and perhaps a fourth that we can call threshold required for play (which we can shorten to threshold).

So our definitions are...

Setting Depth: The total amount of information available about the setting. Setting depth is determined by the minutiae available, the options allowed in the setting, and all that stuff. It's the downwards information that doesn't broaden the setting (lots of places) but rather deepens in (lots of information on one place). It's a build-up of relevant info.

Learning Curve: How hard it is to learn new aspects of the setting. Shadowrun has a considerably easier learning curve than WHF or very accurate historical games (like Hârn). Stuff that is unlike our modern day or is not like any modern genres that we know tends to have a steeper learning curve.

Threshold Required for Play: How much of the setting depth you really need to absorb to be able to play comfortably. This implies a level of mastery with the basic materials good enough to pick up the deeper material simply through play (or extended study of the setting). The amount of depth and the learning curve steepness help determine the threshold, though not solely. Also of import is how much of the setting depth is actually used in day to day play.

I don't know if these concepts are at all helpful to anyone else, but I'm trying to sort through, logistically, the ways in which settings can be complex or simple, easy to learn or hard to learn, easy to pick up and play or difficult to. If others have any ideas, I'd be glad to hear them.

Monday, July 29, 2013

Setting Accessibility

So, with the release of Shadowrun Returns I gritted my teeth and realized that Jason (who plays Cain in the Hounds), who had said he was going to run Shadowrun last year at GenCon, was never going to get his game off the ground. Frank and I both had usable characters. What was left to do? Salvage one character, at least... and take over the duties of running Shadowrun. Does that make the millionth game that I'm running? Yes, it does. There are now three D&D games (one set in the Lamp Country, a Planescape game, and the Hounds), Gangbusters (haven't played in 2 weeks), and Shadowrun (so far only played with Frank). And this is the first time I've ever run or played Shadowrun even though I was really into it in high school. We never ever played.

Anyway, I'm not telling you this story to explain the crushing burden of gaming duties that keeps me running. I'm telling you about it to talk about setting accessibility. Shadowrun and D&D are closely related games. They play similarly, they have similar goals, and the PCs are similar types of people. In both Shadowrun and D&D the PCs receive missions or quests, attempt to do them in any way they can think of, and then get paid or not. The general thinking outside the box-ness of Shadowrun applies almost all the time in my D&D games. The problem is that when people play D&D with me, they usually listen to exactly what the questgiver says and then try to carry it out in the most straightforward manner.

But in Shadowrun, a game which we have never played, everyone is instantly able to recognize dangerous inside-the-box thinking (storming an Aztechnology compound from the front gate, for example) and try to think around it. Somehow, it's easier for people to understand Shadowrun than it is for them to understand the setting of the 10th Age. And that, I realize now, is completely my fault. I've spent my entire life alienating the setting from people. I've told people for hours that X doesn't work like X because that's something we expect in the modern day. I've made playing the 10th Age into a learning experience... which means that no one is comfortable believing they understand the general layout of the world, or at least it requires many games for them to come to grips with that information.

If I were to say "You have to recover something from the Mistuhama HQ in Seattle," the PCs would instantly have three or four plans. They would probe Mistuhama delicately, thinking of ways to get in. The variety of approaches would be endless. If I were to say a similar thing in D&D—"Go to this ruin and retrieve this thing," the only response would be to walk to the ruin and dive in, slaughtering everything they encountered (if they could handle it) and being slaughtered by anything too dangerous.

Of course, I am exaggerating. My players have attained a level of setting mastery with the 10th Age by now. But they are never completely comfortable with it. It's not like our everyday lives, which is part of the point of why I designed it that way. But now I see the drawback loud and clear: it's hard to know which parts of the setting you can really interact with, and in what ways. Everyone knows that if you want a job in Shadowrun, you see a Fixer. Not everyone knows how to find work in the 10th Age. I think I really might need to write up a Cultural Guide for New Players.

Friday, July 26, 2013

Shadowrun Returns

I've played 70 minutes of this game according to Steam. It feels JUST like Shadowrun (the pnp), if not in terms of actual rules than certainly in the way the game unfolds. Kill Switch, the campaign that came with the game, pulls on all of the great Shadowrun tropes. The storytelling aspect of the game is phenomenal so far; like games of yore, it doesn't really focus on High End Graphics™ or Branching Plots™. Rather, the game is all about the story and the NPC interaction. Like the games of my youth, most of it is really explored through text: all NPC dialog, all descriptions of items that you come upon, is written down. The graphics provide an entry point to the world and a way to see where you are when you're in combat, but the core experience is told through text dialog.

The combat is fun and reminds me a good deal of the current iteration of X-com games in terms of mechanics. The rules for character advancement don't exactly follow the deep complexity of the Shadowrun pnp -- but nor do they need to. Summoning spirits is fast and easy. Dialog options based on various attributes add flavor to the game and the various ways you can accomplish something make being a mage or a decker, a bruiser or a street samurai, fun and entertaining. Can't hack into a door? Perhaps if you have a high enough charisma you can convince someone to open it for you. That's the kind of thing that really does help emulate what a pnp feels like. Not that you can do just anything you want.

Yes, the game is on some strict story rails. But, you know what? It doesn't suffer for it. That's just the kind of game it is. It's a story game, not a true pnp, and in order to execute the story well they need to make sure it advances. The way they draw you in instantly is great, and the game never lets up with the traditional Shadowrun plot elements.

The game is heartily endorsed.

Thursday, July 25, 2013

Pixies Reworked

Danny Perdue, one of my longtime players, started playing with me as a pixie named Ilarion. I was new to playing D&D on IRC and inclined to be lenient and let people play strange and unpleasant things that I would never otherwise. Together, we worked up a strange pixie society and gave them a real place in the setting. Since the death of Ilarion, I have never let anyone play a pixie. All that may be about to change... as Danny has created an updated and expanded racial breakdown of the 10th Age pixies. Rather than confine them to the strange custom class we originally made, this allows them to be fighters, thieves, or fighter/thieves as well as have access to a pool of natural magical powers without overbalancing them one way or the other (I think).

Enjoy, all work by Danny Perdue.

Pixie Player Characters of all stripes may be classed either as Fighters (in which they can progress normally to the 7th level of ability), Thieves (in which they may rise normally to 12th level), or Fighter/Thieves. Their relatively low level limits are the result of a combination of reliance on their potent natural abilities and their congenital lack of strong commitment. For these same reasons, they require double the amount of experience points (2,500 for thieves, 4,000 for fighters, and so on) to advance in level.

All pixies may, once per day, produce the effects of Polymorph Self (which also automatically renders them visible for its duration), Know Alignment, Dispel Magic, Dancing Lights and ESP, cause Confusion by touch, become visible for any length of time*, and produce an illusion of auditory and/or visual nature, all of which function as if cast by an 8th-level wizard. One in ten pixies can also produce Otto's Irresistable Dance, and are considered 'noble' or afforded special respect and admiration, but these are never Player Characters.

Pixies of either class have hit dice of one step lower than normal: Fighters roll for HP on 8-sided dice, and thieves on 4-sided. Neither may wear armor nor use shields of any non-highly magical nature - indeed, armor in pixie proportions would not be sturdy enough to offer much protection - and may use only a limited range of weapons - small bows which they make themselves, darts which they will use spears and javelines, and daggers and knives, which they wield as swords. They can only use magic items suitable for their class and which can conform to their dimensions - ruling out a great deal of worn items that don't magically resize to fit a character even smaller than a halfling.

Because of their quasi-divine nature as a natural, uncreated race, all pixies have some latent spellcasting ability: at 5th level for warrior-pixies and 7th-level for thieves, they gain Minor access to the priest spheres of All, Plants, Elemental Air, Necromantic and Charm and operate as priests of their own level (minus four and six, respectively).

The vast majority of pixies live in the Barrowlands and pay fealty (nominally, unless some threat comes to invariably spark the intermittent pixie sense of community) to the King of Dust and Shadows who reigns there and functions as a kind of theocrat and living psychopomp. In idyllic woods all through the north, however, tiny claves of pixies (generally no more than twenty or so at any given time) are known to exist which function autonomously and some may pay homage to some Aelio (Aloran, Eminea, Aros/Anunia, Raya, or nightmarishly Sernis or Rhamna), Vinthar (Beryl Ironfoot, Pogrilius Tosscobble or Arina Songster), or the gigantine gods Omiros, depending on where they live and who they have come into contact with. In any case, all pixies of any alignment operate in essentially the same way, and all are beholden to a sort of 'code of honor', honor here used loosely.

All pixies oppose agents of Night - trolls, shadows, pact magicians, etc. that they discover with whatever means they may, and must operate against them to the fullest of their abilities, though not to the point of suicide.

Pixies all must oppose the destruction or debasement of natural things, and generally oppose new settlements near their lands, though they will gladly reclaim and inhabit constructions that have become abandoned and overgrown.

Pixies of all stripes scorn ideas of ownership and only keep what they may carry or personally oversee. In practice they may hide things for the pleasure of seeing others (nonpixies particularly) seek them, if such caches are found, or items taken, they are considered fairly won.**

Pixies can be warlike and must never suffer claims of cowardice - in pixie societies, such an allegation is made with uncharacteristic gravity. A pixie may NEVER forfeit a challenge fairly issued, though he is bound by no means to adhere to the 'spirit' of any such contest.

Those who do not cleave to these ideals generally lose their magical powers (they remain invisible, however - they lose the ability to become visible), any spellcasting ability they may have, and gain the mockery or emnity of all their kin.

*pixies can always see one another, but cannot necessarily see through any other kinds of invisibility - though it is rumored that pixies are not fooled by Dust of Disappearance produced from their ground wings, and may react very poorly indeed to individuals employing or carrying such a thing.

**pixies are aware that nonpixies DO truck with these ideas, and generally refrain from endless games of "What of yours is mine now?" with, for instance, adventurers they have taken to travelling with.

Wednesday, July 24, 2013

Golmarrageth's Gallery: The Staff and the Jug

More darks on the storehouse of weaponry made by Golmarrageth the Smith has surfaced this cycle. The chant's that the bubbers in the Whistles and Bells (Baatorians only, sorry berks) have been rattlin' their boneboxes about two of the stranger items in the old fiend's workshop. Whether or not they've made it out to the wider world or are stranded in that backplane pit of Pandesmos, this spiv don't rightly know.

Golmarrageth's Staff. This staff is invisible. It cannot interact with anything: when swung, it passes through its targets. It will not even so much as tip over a goblet. It leaves no sign of its passage, and there is no displacement of air. If placed in a large body of water, it will not make room for itself. If pushed under, water equivalent to its length is not displaced. No magical sight can get a fix on it, nor can any mortal or immortal. If detected for magic, it radiates nearly artifact level power, which is one of the only ways to be able to see it. If gripped, the wielder can feel the cool knobbed wood beneath his palm.

Golmarrageth's Jug. This jug is small, about the size of an aquamanila, and has a thin spout which is also the only way to put liquids into it. Tipping it to pour it will result in nothing. Golmarrageth was fond of remarking that the jug contained nothing rather than didn't contain anything. This seems to be true, for any liquid poured down its throat never comes back out again. All the canny bloods know that its impossible that the damn thing destroys it since things can never be truly destroyed. But who's to say what happens once you pour something down this spout? Not this spiv.

Tuesday, July 23, 2013

The Changing World

Many of the people I play with yearn to make a difference. That's really what separates D&D from conventional MMOs such as WoW. The temporal stasis of the MMO means that you can never really affect change in the world. No matter how many ravening beasts you stack up outside the king's door, there'll be just as many more tomorrow. No matter how many times you save someone from rats in their cellar, those rats will be back and they will be imperiled yet again. This strange world that actively resists alteration is one that we've all become familiar with. 1,001 solutions have been developed to try to work around it. Even single player video games struggle to have meaningful choices and altered landscape as you play through them.

This static landscape is infuriating. The real goal of any player of the 10th Age is generally not to achieve great new heights of power. That's a means to an end. The real goal is to change the setting. Players are never happier than when they see their old characters integrated into the world as NPCs. Even seeing prominent NPCs from previous games that are still around but have changed or grown (or not, it can be pretty easy to impress players with continuity stuff like this) generally elicits a deep reaction.

The reasons are, I think, two-fold. The first is the intimate growing knowledge of the world this implies. They, as players, are being brought into the fold. Each setting run by each individual DM is a unique creation, and as players become more familiar with that creation they become more integrated into the group, more in tune with the setting-as-run (which need not be anything like the setting-as-written) and are thus further introduced to the secret friend-fraternity of "people who know the setting," which can be a powerful organization indeed. The second is that sense of accomplishment that the growth of the world implies. By having an impact, even dead characters bring something to the table. No character is unmourned or unknown, though they may die far from home in a dark hole without a light. Everyone changed something somehow, even if it was only in a small way.

I posit that this, then, is the ultimate reward for playing a pen and paper game, particularly D&D or other setting-persistent games. Character goals (money, power, what have you) pale in comparison to the overall player goal of having made a difference. D&D provides a mirror of life but without the necessity of having to find your own personal angel Clarence to show you that the world really did change because you were alive.

As a side note, this is an interesting side-effect of the MMO Wurm Online, in which the entire game is about building, shifting dirt, and otherwise leaving your mark on the world. I've only played it for a few days, but it seems to share that sort of feeling, particularly the sensation common in earlier D&D of civilizing a wild place (or in the case of Wurm, re-civilizing, since there are so many abandoned homesteads and cities).

Monday, July 22, 2013

66 Random Deformities

66 Random Deformities and Interesting (gross) Quirks

01  squashed nose
02  cauliflower ear
03  bowlegged
04  rickets
05  pox-scarred face
06  missing digit (just the terminal knuckle, roll a d10 to determine which finger)
07  missing ear (50/50 on which ear, hearing permanently reduced by 20%)
08  missing nose (charisma cannot be above 6)
09  missing eye (to-hit suffers a -2 penalty)
10  milky eye (all thief skills suffer a -10% penalty)
11  shattered leg (dex cannot be above 7, movement reduced by 3)
12  shattered arm (dex cannot be above 10, to-hit with target arm suffers a -4 penalty)
13  cut ear (50/50)
14  sliced nostril
15  chipped tooth
16  snaggle tooth
17  buck teeth
18  ruddy complexion
19  oddly colored eyes
20  albinism
21  scar on the forehead
22  scar on the bridge of the nose
23  scar on the chin
24  scar on either cheek
25  scar on the throat
26  mangled off-hand (cannot wield a weapon with it)
27  missing off-hand
28  club foot (dex cannot be above 11, movement reduced by 1, init count penalized by 1)
29  droopy eye
30  wall-eye
31  lazy eye (-1 cha)
32  broken eye-socket
33  chest scar
34  burns on the arms
35  burns on the face or neck
36  fell into the fire - burns all over the body
37  twisted foot (dex cannot be above 15)
38  had brain fever (int -3)
39  had slow fever (con -3)
40  facial warts
41  genital warts
42  dry skin
43  balding
44  sores
45  leprosy (you are not allowed to track your own HP/wounds)
46  halitosis
47  hacking cough
48  bloody sputum
49  limp (other, no mechanical effect)
50  missing teeth
51  missing toes
52  missing fingers (1d4 of 'em)
53  major accident as a child (system shock check to survive, roll three more times on this table)
54  bad knees (max. press is one category lower)
55  bad back (max. press is two categories lower)
56  gouty
57  arthritis
58  nervous tic (1d4: 1 eye, 2 brow, 3 mouth, 4 hand)
59  ruined vocal cords (cannot speak above a hoarse whisper)
60  dead tooth
61  born under a bad starsign (you are just unlucky)
62  weak eyesight (cannot see as far)
63  bad hearing (reduce listen % by 1d3x10%)
64  kicked by a mule (-4 int, minimum of 1)
65  uneven gait (people will tend to remember you, -2 movement)
66  touch of madness (-2 wisdom)



Friday, July 19, 2013

Encounter Tables and Time Management

I've been going over dungeon encounter tables again recently because I seem to have veered off in an insane random direction at some point in the 11th grade and begun my own hyper-aggressive encounter tables. It's only just recently that I've scaled them back again to be more in line with the guidelines suggested in every sourcebook. I didn't even realize I'd gone so off the reservation, but I think dwelling on what led me there might be a source of enlightenment.

Encounter checks are meant to be made, in a dungeon, once every "turn." That's an hour-long period. At some point in high school, my players were invading a monastery that was very much not a ruin. Instead of a 1 on a d10 every hour, I increased the encounter rate to 1-3 on a d10 every ten minutes. If they were spotted, that went up to 1-5 as the alarms were sounded. It also changed over most of the encounters from monks in twos or threes to whole squads armed with staves and pitchforks looking to do them in. What kind of monastery was it? I have no idea, but clearly not a very nice one.

Somehow, I forgot the division between wandering monsters and lairs after this. I made all my encounter checks 1-2 or 1-3 every ten minutes. I've been doing it, literally for years. It was only recently that I realized encounter checks weren't supposed to happen so damn frequently, particularly in ruins which are the standard "dungeon" setting. And you know what? Hour-long encounter checks suddenly make a whole lot of stuff more viable.

Searching (not using your brains, but rather using the thief rules) a large room for traps is suddenly possible (though still not desirable; it can take much longer than an hour and result in many encounters). The speed with which the party moves is also now a major factor. So is light, and so are long duration spells like bless (or blessings from altars which last 24 hours or longer). A whole new world of temporal possibilities has opened up to me again. I missed it. Don't make the same mistake I did and close yourself off to it. Not every dungeon site is packed to the brim with ravening monsters.

This, of course, also lends some more use to "empty" dungeon rooms. They eat away at time, players explore them, take up valuable minutes that lead to more encounter checks. When the difference between an encounter or not is 10 minutes, the number of checks they are going to make overall would change by a large amount but the difference wouldn't be felt as much as the difference between 1, 2, or 5 hour-long encounter checks.

And it makes moving loudly, fighting, or otherwise drawing attention to yourself much more (relatively) dangerous, since early encounter checks are now coming FIFTY MINUTES early, rather than 4 or 5.

Wednesday, July 17, 2013

Making the Proper Sacrifice

The ancient world was full of blood offerings. Doves, goats, bulls... these things gave the gods pleasure. Their spirits took the prayers with them and ascended into the heavens on columns of ash. What animal was chosen to bear this message was important indeed. Since I don't have a sourcebook on hand of the meaning of ancient sacrifices, I've been mulling over the potential meanings of 10th Age sacrificial offerings. Without a good source, I'm relying on the vague knowledge of sacrifices I've accumulated over the years.

Only the evil gods accept the sacrifice of sapient creatures; in this case, Talleal is somewhat like Moloch, the devourer. Blood sacrifices are preferred by the mannish gods. The "airy soul" of the animal sacrificed brings the prayers to them, and so praying without making a sacrifice is, as Orijen wrote, "like striking sparks without fuel for a fire." Sacrifice can only be properly sanctified if it is made by a priest.

The elvish gods accept sacrifices of artworks, which gathers their attention. The destruction of fine carvings or small statuettes is common in elvish worship.

Purchasing of sacrifices is normally up to the temple: the worshipper may pay the priest a denomination of gold or silver for the prayer, and some of that is used to purchase the sacrificial animal. Many times, the animal is sacrificed on the exterior altar so that the petitioner can watch and know it is done. Some sacrificial rites (particularly those anointing a soldier for war) require the supplicant to touch, or be daubed with, the animal's blood.

Birds

  • Doves
Doves are commonly sacrificed to Vaela or other messenger gods. When a new enterprize is begun, doves are often sacrificed as part of a mass-offering. Sacrifice of a dove may also represent purity, or the quest to attain it, and dove's blood is used by Eleian priests to consecrate mannish marriages when they are performed ceremonially. Red doves are commonly sacrificed before going to war, or on it's eve, particularly by generals. The cost of a white dove is generally around 25 silver pieces. Red Doves cost upwards of 5 gold pieces each.
  • Crows/Ravens
Crows and ravens are favored sacrifices of the warlike gods as well as Quilian Knowais and Akem. They are thought to be the most intelligent of the birds, and are particularly blessed. Librarians of Quill keep massive rookeries to supply them with sacrifices as well as feathers for quills. The penraven that they breed is especially well suited for this and it's name is a pun on the ancient Weylic term for "king." Normal crows or ravens cost between 5-15 copper pieces, while penravens can cost anywhere from 3 to 25 gold pieces.
  • Owls
Owls are favored by Vaela, Halor, and Quilian as the bearers of wisdom. They are rarely bred in captivity. Those seeking a wise course of action or, truly, any advice from the gods often sacrifice an owl. The different colors are held to be honored by different gods: White owls are the province of Vaela, brown of Quilian, and grey of Halor. Owls purchased for sacrifice must be done so through hunters (who often trap owls explicitly for that purpose) where they can be bought for 2-4 gold pieces.
  • Cockrels/Chickens
The most basic form of sacrifice, the humble chicken is appreciated by all the gods. It is extremely cheap (2 coppers) and considered a very perfunctory sacrifice indeed. It is common, if this be the animal of choice, to sacrifice them in groups of ten. Sacrificed chicken meat is often used by the temples sacrificing them as food thereafter. Eleia particularly favors such barnyard animals.

The cockrel is somewhat more expensive (8 coppers) and specially raised black cockrels (5 silver) are beloved by Talleal and are sacrificed in honor of many dark and unpleasant gods.
  • Partridge
Slightly more expensive than a chicken (5 coppers) this is considered the minimum sacrifice that any self-respecting freeman can make to any god.
  • Rainbow Doves
Also known as peacocks, rainbow doves cost 1 gold piece or more and are imported from the southlands. Ostentatious gods and goddesses such as Raya prefer rainbow doves, and they often signify charm, joy, and freedom.
  • Geese
Considered by many to be either a horrible pestilence or worthy of being eaten as a delicious supper, geese are favored both by Hasht and Heimir. They cost 5 copper pieces each, and priests quite enjoy their sacrifice, for they provide a fine meal afterwards.
  • Swan
A high offering indeed, swan are difficult to catch and given often to Avauna in exchange for cures or healing. Along with other white animals (doves, sheep) these signify purity. They cost between 5-10 silver pieces each.
  • Gulls
Only the sea gods care for these birds. They are 2-5 copper pieces each, and sometimes used to consecrate sea-voyages or appease the wrath of Vodei.


Animals
  • Sheep
A basic animal sacrifice, sheep cost 2 gold pieces a head and are frequently sacrificed in large numbers on festival days. Every god welcomes the death of sheep, though Eliea is most fond of them. In her case, one might sacrifice a lamb (3 gold pieces, as it has yet to produce offspring) for particular favor.
  • Goats
Female goats (1 gold piece) are sacrificed to all the gods as well. This general sacrifice usually is called for when asking for great favors, or for strength or endurance to bear through some trial or trying time. Goats are often sacrificed in braces of five.
  • Rams
Rams (4 gold pieces) are a more substantive sacrifice than goats and are frequently made to be the bulk of regular offerings. Rams and sheep can be sacrificed together, particularly by adventurers or nobility, as they signify a great amount of devotion to the gods.
  • Kid
Kids, ie baby goats, are 2 gold pieces each and are generally sacrificed only when the life of a child is in danger.
  • Bull
Bulls cost a great deal (20 gold pieces) and are the so-called king of sacrifices. Haeron prefers red bulls, Talleal black, and other gods white or brown. Bull sacrifices are the heart of state sacrifice in the empire, and the emperor would never be expected to sacrifice less than ten bulls at a time. This sacrifice is a real and substantive devotion, and is looked upon with great favor by the priesthood. Large amounts of bulls may be sacrificed in order for powerful priestly magics to be enacted.
  • Cattle
Cattle (10 gold pieces) and calves (4 gold pieces) were once sacrificed in great numbers in antiquity. However, time and tide has turned against this type of sacrifice as particularly heathen or barbarous, perhaps because it was a sign of devotion to the Aspect-Gods to burn great flocks of cattle at the foot of the pillar hill before the empire's conversion to the religion of the north. Cattle are still sacrificed upon occasion, but rarely in numbers greater than 20, as opposed to classical times when herds of 100 or more might be consigned to the flames.

Tuesday, July 16, 2013

The Southmen

There's not a lot of African folk in fantasy. Exceptions can, of course, be found. There are Summer Islanders in GRRM, who have dark skin, there are Tom-tom and One-Eye in Glen Cook... but again, they're more the exception than the norm. I hope the same cannot be said in the 10th Age. I've placed Zesh, the origin of mannish magic and much of its culture, quite far from the main framing of the setting. However, sea-routes do exist and have been used from the Iron Cities and the Zeshimite interior to the north. There are a number of important NPCs who are Zeshimite, the most obvious being Wah Khar One-eye, the pirate-captain turned High Master of Essad.

But trade between the Onyx Cities and the north is probably more prevalent than I've yet let on. Khewedi ships pour into Miles every month to bring grains from the desert land. Onyx Cities ships should be docking with great frequency at Noranos to exchange the secret products of the jungle lands with the men of the north. The fruit of strange trees, onyx, obsidian, and other things which can only be found south of the Red Desert fetch humongous prices. Milean nobles are particularly fond of the plumage of the rainbow dove.

The lands around the Onyx Cities are politically unstable. Oruna, the great veldtland to the south, produces great numbers of tribal warriors who upset the balance in the Cities. The Zeshimite interior is home to other hungry tribes that beset their walls. Each of the great Onyx Cities has their own standard, their history, and their own traditions. Like the infamous Free Cities of the East, the Onyx Cities also universally lack something: their own armies.

In this case, however, they pay tribal mercenaries to go to war with one another or proxy-states to do battle with their foes. They hire Mugharians and ogres, the last of the great Giants from the Iron Waste in Oruna, or northerners who can fight their wars for them. They elect powerful sorcerer-generals to lead these sellsword armies... but this tradition bears upon the north not for its effects on the cities of onyx themselves, but rather for the militarization and mercenarization of the landscape that surrounds them.

Onyx Cities Mercenary
Men of all stripes and nationalities fight for the Onyx Cities. However, a character taking this kit is most likely of Zeshimite, Mugharian, or Orunan heritage as those who come from abroad are usually higher than level one and have their own backgrounds to go with them. To become an Onyx Mercenary, a character must have a strength of at least 12, and a constitution to match.

Role: The mercenaries of the Onyx Cities cut their teeth fighting wars for their "more civilized" patrons, the Zeshimite men of the Onyx Coast. They can double as policing forces in times of peace, but they are just as frequently bandits, highwaymen, and harassers. It is difficult indeed for a LG character to maintain his beliefs as a member of one of the standard companies.

Equipment: Onyx Cities companies are outfitted in all manner of ways. Some have rigorous company standards, while others wear strange piecemeal garb and do not look at all alike. Whenever someone plays an Onyx City Mercenary, it is up to them and the DM what company garb looks like. In fact, they should create the flavor of the entire company together.

If the company requires a certain set of equipment, the PC may purchase it at half price.

Special Benefits: The Onyx City mercenary has the following benefits:

Onyx Cities Mercenaries may specialize for free in one of the following weapons: Shortbow, spear, javelin, longspear, club, large flail, bolas, net, or trident.

Additionally, as long as they remain with their company they receive free room and board (sometimes in the form of a tent and camp rations, sometimes based on the company contract).

Special Hinderances: Onyx Cities Mercenaries are obviously people who live by violence. They have a -2 reaction penalty amongst civilians, a further -2 reaction penalty against hostile city-states of the Onyx Coast. They are easily identified as mercenaries when in their garb. They must also follow the orders of their company commanders, lest they be expelled.

Wealth: These mercenaries start with 8d4x10 gold.

Races: Only humans may be Onyx Cities Mercenaries, and they must be of Mugharian, Zeshimite, or Orunan origins.

Monday, July 15, 2013

Golmarrageth's Gallery: Introduction

Golmarrageth. The name sends ripples throughout the planes. The infamous smith, the dangerous madman, the rogue gehereleth who built a smithy in the bleak reaches of Pandemonium. Golmarrageth is known by his insane creations, magical items with no apparent use or purpose or of forms so bizarre and incomprehensible as to tear at the very mind of those who consider them. He was raised in the art of Smithcraft by the Titans of his home plane of Carceri, and soon became infamous for creating clever weaponry. His craft was most valued in Acheron and the Grey Waste, and was of great use to the Yugoloths who paid him handsomely for his machines of war. At some point in his career he became a little too famous. Offers came from the Abyss and Baator that were contradictory, and in some cases threats came with those offers. Work for the Nine or die screaming, work only for the Abyssal Lord of the 987th Layer or be wiped from existence... these things Golmarrageth could not abide.

He withdrew from Carceri to an even more remote place in Pandemonium and used the treasurehouse of wealth that he had accrued through his long years of service to the Yugoloths and the Orcish powers to make a smithy the likes of which had never before been seen. Finally left to his own devices, Golmarrageth began to experiment even farther from the norm. He made things widely considered impossible, useless, improbable, or insane. His workshop was filled with devices beyond the comprehension of not only mortal men, but of the greatest and wisest sages and deities of the planes themselves.

He was finally slain by the Pit Fiend Malphegor who said of Golmarrageth that "he was just too much damn trouble." Of course, rumors persist that he survived the attack and continues to make weapons in some even more remote locale, but in all likelihood Golmarrageth is no more.

The Sword Mace. This weapon appears to be a mace and functions as one in all cases. It is a heavy thing, made of green Acheronian steel. Its head is flanged and barbed, its length is polished black Bilewood from the Abyss, and its pommel is capped with more green steel and a ring for hanging it. The thing about the sword mace is that it is not a mace. It is a sword. Though it is, in outward appearance, a mace for all intents and purposes, Golmarrageth always insisted that it was simply a sword which looked like a mace. Those who argued with him found themselves thinking hours later of the fabulous sword that Golmarrageth had shown them... only to be brought up short in the realization that the sword was shaped and weighted exactly like a mace.

This weapon is a favorite subject of the Bleakers, demonstrating that we cannot even determine what a thing is simply by its shape. The Sword Mace has been lost for countless ages, but rumors say that it is at least a +3 weapon in the Outlands, making it potent indeed. Those who have seen it wielded (mostly fiends) swear that anyone reaching for a sword or a knife would invariably find their hand going to the Sword Mace if they wore it, for it was so much a sword that their very body betrayed them.

Friday, July 12, 2013

Ancient Architecture and Building Design

Ancient Greek temple architecture, used a lot in my games
It's been a long time since I've interacted with maps from official D&D products. Or rather, it had been a long time before Thursday. I started playing some Planescape with the remnants of the Gangbusters group who were eager to do more Gangbusting but who I also was afraid to allow to get too far ahead of the rest of the gang. Since fully half the players had never played Planescape before, read the setting books, or played Planescape: Torment, I decided to start them all on Toril. That meant I could quickly go to the resources I knew: Shadowdale and the maps of the various buildings within. I went to go look at the Twisted Tower of Ashaba and I discovered...

That the place was laid out like a late Tudor manor house. It felt more like Downton Abbey than it did a medieval fortalice. There were lots of hallways and rooms that branched off of them. There were big hallways that served no function other than to impress those coming through them. I was asked by a player as I described the entrance hall: "Are there any trestle tables in here?" Stunned, I answered no. Why did he react that way? Because for five years I've been totally insulated from old D&D standards and designing all of my buildings based on medieval and ancient floorplans.

These are the models I've been working off of, and it has been hard as hell. I only now realize why I've been struggling to design dungeons that are varied, interesting, and challenging: they were never meant to be designed as though they were the ruins of real ancient structures. But nevertheless, I've managed to create my own lingo of dungeon, castle, palace, and temple design based on ancient sources. Most temples, for example, are either hypostyle halls or tholoi in the 10th Age. This means that there are no twisting corridors or back rooms: there is an exterior pediment, an interior space, and a sanctum sanctorum. Anything else I have been putting underground because it simply doesn't fit in the layout of an ancient temple.

Tholos type temple construction
Hypostyle hall (Egyptian) with egyptian/early Milean pillars


Of course, I also use a lot of medieval stuff as well; manor houses and the like are based off of real medieval models. Depending on the technology level of the civilization and the flavor, these may be of varying designs. Trade Sea style halls tend towards mediterranean villas (though there are a number of "manor" type houses in the Milean Empire as well).

Low-tech (Weylish, Cymballene) manor house
Medieval castles were not lavish palaces, but rather fortresses with various buildings inside that mostly served one or two functions each. Hallways connecting rooms were almost unheard of.


I know that there's no real NEED to have very historically accurate things such as these dot the landscape. But I LIKE designing them that way. These intricate many-halled buildings that populate adventures and town layouts are reserved for the mighty palaces of great rulers. Most humble barons would have access to the more simple structures I've shown here.

Yes, it is fantasy. Yes, I want to add a fantastic element. But I also prefer the fantastic grounded in the historical, using history as a foundation. Places like the Imperial Domus are much more like the many-roomed Tower of Ashaba... but they are the exception, not the rule. They are the Palaces of the Blachernae, not the domains of local lords.

Blachernae, the home of the Byzantine emperors


Thursday, July 11, 2013

The Travelers

Actors, jugglers, tumblers, travelers. Mobile festivals, road-worn thieves and highwaymen. The road is a dangerous place, and one filled with the kind of people you don't really want to interact with. Since time immemorial, traveling actors have been lumped in with the worst of the worst of all humanity. Theater troupes were considered unclean as far back as Ancient Rome. In the Middle Ages, actors were classed with prostitutes. This class of wanderer is perfect for an adventuring party considering how outside of the rest of society they were. They lived beyond its borders, away from the normal ebb and flow of social norms. None were so hated, yet permitted such liberties as to stay in castles and manors to entertain.

There is a certain truth to this that we have forgotten. When one hears about how much actors were reviled, it seems a quaint antiquitism. However, the theater troupes and traveling fairs of the ancient and medieval world weren't so much like fine playhouses. The Globe isn't what we're talking about here. They were more like modern-day carnivals that come and set up in a parking lot. The people that were mistreated weren't so much like grand Shakespearan actors of stage and screen, but rather more like carnies running old rickety rides.

Traveling theater and traveling fairs serve a minor social role in Arunia, mostly fueled by the gnomish and halfling urge to wander. Gnome wagons on the road in long caravan foretell the coming of a festival to town: archery contests, and minor enchanters. Singers, and jugglers, and other such entertainments are sure to follow. But like any good American carnival, there's also hangers-on, thieves, and sideshow entertainment. I've never seen concrete evidence pushing the tradition of the carnival back to the middle ages, but nor have I seen any good refutations.

Just being someone who travels the roads opens you to suspicion. Decent, gods-fearing folk don't go tramping from place to place. The lowest grade of people travel constantly. These are temporary workers during the harvest seasons (of which we do know many many existed), the rootless survivors of wars, mercenaries, highwaymen, bandits, and drifters. This class of folk is where adventurers fall in the Arunian mind and in the minds of many in settings like Greyhawk.

Of course, there is something redeeming about these kinds of people as well. Adventurers aren't just highwaymen—they're Bonnie and Clyde. They aren't just festival folk—they're P.T. Barnum. There is an undeniable attraction to the illicit and forbidden, and adventurers skirt the line where the forbidden touches the mundane, as do carnivals and festivals. It's quite natural, then, that they should travel in each other's company or otherwise intermingle. Of course, this isn't always how it works out: frequently, adventurers may in fact shun festival folk on the grounds that they are therefore elevated by having someone below even them.

Wednesday, July 10, 2013

More Monsters from Arunia: The Salt Lich

CLIMATE/TERRAIN: The East
FREQUENCY: Very Rare
ORGANIZATION: Solitary or Enclave
ACTIVITY CYCLE: Night
DIET: Nil
INTELLIGENCE: Supra-genius (19-20)
TREASURE: A
ALIGNMENT: Any evil
NO. APPEARING: 1 (or 2-4)
ARMOR CLASS: 0
MOVEMENT: 5 walk, 15 (hover maneuverability A)
HIT DICE: 15+
THAC0: 6
NO. OF ATTACKS: 1
DAMAGE/ATTACK: 1d10 or by weapon +3
SPECIAL ATTACKS: See below
SPECIAL DEFENSES: +1 or better magical weapon to hit
MAGIC RESISTANCE: Nil
SIZE: M (6' tall)
MORALE: Fanatic (17-18)
XP VALUE: 11,000

The so-called Salt Liches of the East are rarely found outside of the Plain of Sorrow and the isles of Aellonia. Legend has it that they were an ancient order of magicians that was founded during the Pillar Age and that they owe their origins to the city of Byblos when it was still an island and the Plain of Sorrow was still a shallow sea.

If myth can be believed, many of this order (who history has called the Aidic Magi, the Serpentine Order, or the Asocrians) gathered together on the island of Sintarra in the Sword Age and made of it a haven for wizards, where ultimate authority was portioned out according to mental acuity. Sintarra, itself perhaps only a myth, represents the ultimate end of all wizardly enclaves: it supposedly consumed itself in the petty struggles of vain mages and vanished from Arunia forever.

Those of the Aidic Order left behind became cruel and withdrawn, insistent upon controlling the city-states of Aellonia and the kingdoms of Llernea, Old Lllynder, and Byblos. Ancient Aellonian texts describe the fear of Aidics as so great that their symbols were stricken from the monuments they had once helped to raise and the Byblian Republic expelled all the Serpentine Magi in a great edict.

As their numbers dwindled, the Aidic Order sought ever to preserve itself so that they could one day recover the glory that had been theres before the vanishing of Sintarra. The final end of these Classical Era efforts was finally found in the golden breath of Khewed: the adoption of Lichdom.

Unlike the continental Liches of the north, the salt-liches of the Aidic Order have been preserved in brine and nitre and spent centuries in seaside caverns. They are an ancient brood, with access to spells not seen since the Classical Era in Arunia.

One side effect of the Aidic preservation process is that their slumber is longer and more difficult to penetrate that that of other liches. Every several decades they must enter a sleep of 1d10x10 years to replenish their life-energy. If an Aidic lich refuses to enter its slumber, it loses 1 hp for each month of activity until it drops to 0 and is forced into a catatonia. It must then spend 10 years for each lost hit point in sleep before it may awaken.

Aidic Liches all share a single type of phylactery, which is the legendary serpent-collar that they wear. These are powerfully enchanted magical items that appear as a double-headed serpent coiled around their necks made of bronze with chips of tourmaline as eyes. The collars can be hacked apart, but if they come into contact with anyone but an Aidic wizard, they will spring to life as fully formed and venomous double-headed snakes of bronze.

Though they are stick-thin and often twined with strips of red cloth, Aidic Liches may move with great speed. They are rated as having a hover movement, but they cannot rise more than a half inch from any surface. This does allow them, however, to surprise their foes with great bursts of speed.

All Aidic wrappings are magical in some way or another, and most of these liches are in possession of numerous powerful magical items. Staves from ancient Byblos and wands from the forgotten North are common.

Combat
In combat, Aidic Liches are fearsome foes indeed. They do not radiate a fear aura like Aquilian liches. Rather, when roused to anger they can cause the very air around them to become suckingly, parchingly dry. This affects an area of some 50' in diameter. Moisture is drawn out of all objects in that region, causing leather to crackle and become useless after 1d6 rounds, cloth to become brittle, and all living beings to suffer a -1 penalty on all combat related rolls.

Their very touch drains moisture from the living, dealing 1d10 points of damage. In addition, the victim must save vs. spell or find a limb or extremity touched in this way withered as though by a Staff of Withering.


The Aidic Liches retain all the former power of their living spellcasting might, and none were less than 12th level upon assuming their undying forms. Additionally, their command of Classical Era magic is augmented by the knowledge of a some Elder Magic (which cannot be dispelled or saved against) though the particulars of this knowledge are left to the DMs discretion.

Tuesday, July 9, 2013

The Life of the City

If Italo Calvino has taught me anything, it's that cities are like people. Each has its own distinct characteristics that makes it stand out from the crowd of other cities. Each has a unique history and a confluence of circumstance that proves its past in its very structure. No two cities are completely alike. Thus, when designing cities (whether it be for Gangbusters or for AD&D or something else entirely) it's important to take these things into consideration.

Structure is the first thing to think about. The physical layout of a city, as well as the buildings which comprise it, plays a huge role in what it feels like. Whether the entire place is wattle and daub (High Medieval London) or built of plaster and brick (Ancient Rome) or sheathed completely in marble (Greece) or made of concrete and I-beams (Prohibition New York) is the very first consideration. Cities built of permanent stone are more present, more lasting, and stretch back further into an antique history than those made of temporary materials. Looking up the great stele and temples of a stone city isn't simply looking at the achievements of man, it is peering into the glorious past of that city and seeing the city's fathers. Wooden halls, no matter how glorious, speak only of the present. Stone structures speak of the power of the present extended into the past as a trail of history and extended a well into the future as a promise of solidity.

The physical layout of the city plays into this as well. Cities are like eggs: they start out small, surrounded by a wall, and then shatter their wall and grow larger, leaking out of the "shell." Sometimes a new one is built, but that two is often shattered. At the end stage of their growth they're "scrambled," completely without reference to where their walls once were. Medieval cities tend to be in either stage one (walled), stage two (walled but breached), or stage 2a (walled, breached, re-walled) and to repeat that cycle. However, even when walls are breached they may be retained to form older districts -- and if they aren't, those precincts may still be remembered culturally. For example, the capital of the Third Milean Empire, Miles herself, was once a settlement on a hilltop. This settlement was walled, and still is: but now it is the district known as Pillar Hill, and the gates remain to remind the populace of the powerful imperial presence atop it.

Dividing a city into districts is a good way to get a handle on what may otherwise seem an amorphous mass. These are often known as Quarters in medieval and fantasy sources: the Merchant's Quarter, the Temple Quarter, etc. However, these need not be as cut and dry as the name makes them sound. The Temple Quarter could easily be a long relatively slender portion of the city, representing a few streets where most of the major cults have congregated. The Merchant's Quarter may be a maze of alleys where the mercantile warehouses are located.

Cities also get their character from the physical makeup of roads. In cities of the ancient world, roads were always very wide to allow for processions, which was a key element to the makeup of political power. Processing was an opportunity for classical rulers to see the populace and be seen by them. This means that wide avenues were vital to the political health of ancient cities. However, as the ancient world crumbled and the mechanisms of public power shifted away from the urban centers, the processions fell into disuse. Power resided not in the urbanized population, but in the palaces and the rural settlements in the countryside from which food could be raised. This meant that ordinances providing for wide streets fell into disuse and the great avenues were crazily filled in by new building.

Roads also help determine major trade routes, as do the presence of rivers. Most ancient cities relied on the presence of large bodies of water to connect them to the outside world. Those that didn't had to make do with subsidiary cities that were connected to the water: eg, the Roman docks at Ostia.

Lakes, rivers, and seashore help affect the makeup of cities. Paris has the Seine, Rome has the Tiber, London the Thames. These cities are partially defined by the character of the waterways which they inhabit. This harkens back to the city divisions, as the river is a natural division which easily demarcates different districts or regions.

As far as trade routes go, economy plays a huge factor in the feeling of cities. Ancient or Classical cities, those which serve as major political urban centers because they are cities (Athens, Sparta, Carthage, Tyre, etc.) tended to bend trade to them rather than the other way around. They were wealthy not because they were necessarily well-positioned, but rather because their political and social structure allowed them to become so. An important question indeed is whether a city has become flush with gold because it lies on a trade route... or whether the trade route passes through the city because of its power. The economics of trade can be thought of in a way that is similar to modern descriptions of gravity: a rubber plane over which trade flows, with more and more concentrations of it causing divots, which in turn bends other routes towards those divots. Wealth can accumulate because trade routes cross in a region, but it can also accumulate because a city is mighty and demands tribute, or hauls the riches of conquered nations to its gates.

The populace itself should always be considered: who lives in this place? They need not be the same men who always lived there. In the 9th century, Londonwic was a wooden town built outside the old stone Emporia left behind by Rome. (The question of whether the so-called Anglo-Saxons had completely displaced the native Roman Britons or whether their culture simply changed to be Saxon is beyond the scope of this argument) Cities long dead can be rebuilt by others, or left to crumble.

At the end of the day, great cities should have a character as discernable as any NPC or supporting character, for they are themselves living things comprised of long histories. They are as storied as any individual man, and the scars they bear may last out centuries while their triumphs can be recorded for all time.

Monday, July 8, 2013

A Map of the Lamp Country

The eventual goal for the boxed set was (is) to provide several books. Two of these have already been made available as text, namely the Atlas of Arunia Ecumenia (a guidebook with general overviews of the entire setting) and Cults and Temples of the Middle World (which deals with gods and goddesses that would be encountered by the PCs). The final set was (IS!) laid out to have several other companion books.

These were A DM's Guide to Arunia, the Handbook of Habits and Clothing, a short adventure, and a single slender book presenting a detailed description of one of the setting regions for play to begin in. Rather than a howling wilderness (of which Arunia has many) or the edge of civilized lands (the same), I thought it would be really interesting to present a guide for adventuring somewhere in the heart of the old empire. Thus, the final book in the set was always meant to be A Traveler's Guide to the Lamp Country. This region of the empire is a semi-independent province that was given over to the administration of halflings and gnomes during the Pillar Age. It is, in a sense, the 10th Age Shire, though it has its fair share of dangers.

I've decided to skip the more quotidian books for now and begin immediately on the Guide to the Lamp Country. For that reason, here is a preview of a hex map I made for my own use. The scale is 1 hex to one Imperial Rod (mile). The towns are numbered, not labeled, but I am hoping to have this map redrawn for the Guide so it will be present in both in-game fancy hand-drawn versions and more useful ones with optional hex sheets.

(More about the towns pictured can be discovered at the 10th Age Obsidian Portal website here)

Click or view original to enlarge

Friday, July 5, 2013

News of Arunia, 503

SPRING, 503
Ho, there lad! I just come from Tyrma where the ships are setting out again and the masts have been socketed. Trade resumes, but the city swarms with refugees. That’s right – foes from the south, Theraz goblins all gathering by Arvorienna and making a nuisance of themselves. The streets are clogged with ilmai farmers and freeholders who’ve been displaced by the knights of the king or the forces of the goblins.
They say the elves have ringed Arvorienna round and that the forces of the Alcosa are even now being called to repel the goblins and fight side-by-side with the free companies of the King. Mercenaries are drawn to the war like flies. Though garlands of flowers all white and blossoming bedeck the ancient stones of Tyrma, its streets are flooded with Brighthearts in red surcoats clamoring Talifer’s call to war. The free folk gather and groan, eating from the king’s own table and the banquets laid out for them by the temples.
The Talifernians, now… they’ve begun a resurgence in those parts. Once they were quite famous. The coast was dotted with shrines. But as time wore on, their order withdrew to the Mede of War. Not so any longer! The remains of Tyr Valaniera have been recovered from their age-old shrine and translated to Tyrma herself, where pilgrims now swamp the Talifernians. Their numbers grow day by day, and they shout of fielding free companies to fight under the king’s banner.
War stirs in these parts, friend. There’s money to be made, and glory to be had… if you can but reach out and take it.

Thursday, July 4, 2013

Cults and Temples

As promised, here is the link to Cults and Temples in the Middle World. It's a bit of a mess in terms of format and, like the previous Atlas of Arunia Ecumina has no artwork whatsoever. Any artists who are inspired to populate the world of Arunia with depictions of the gods are more than welcome to and I'll gladly include them. If pay is an issue... well, if I ever get around to selling the boxed set we can discuss some percentage of total income, though really I'm not doing it for the money but just as a labor of love.

Wednesday, July 3, 2013

Rules and Otherwise

When running AD&D, I've not been much for elaborating complex rules schemes. I've always felt that rulings, in the past, trump rules. However, having experienced Gangbusters for two weeks, I can now see how rules allow people to get a firm grasp on what they want their characters to do, particularly when dealing with abstract and alien concepts such as running a manor or a bootlegging business. What do these two things have in common? The players have no idea how much they're supposed to be taking in, they have no idea what "reasonable" rates look like, etc. This isn't a slight to them—they simply didn't grow up in a fantasy or Prohibition economy. The stuff is so far out of the realm of their experience that they aren't sure what constitutes good decisions. In times such as this, rules do help.

For example, Gangbusters has concrete rules that describe how much booze can be produced in a still every week, and how much that booze should go for. This is a huge boon to the criminals in my game because they need to know if they're getting a reasonable price when they sell it. Once they've determined that, they can start to make plans far in advance because they know the general status of the booze economy, as determined by the bootlegging rules.

When there are no rules to support things like this, the players have no resources to fall back on to make sure things are generally happening correctly. I know that earlier editions of D&D had more concrete domain management rules than AD&D does (ie, any) and I know that I've been designing domain management rules myself so I can present a packet of information that will allow them to function in the economy. It doesn't matter if they know that a sword is 25 gold pieces if they don't know how many gold pieces nobles regularly have to dispense. They can't decide if a job is paying a decent wage if they can't compare their wage to the jobs other mercenaries do (and the total amount that the hiring party has).

These sorts of numbers, I realize now, are important for players to have a sense of scale. Just as installing a history provides a textural background for players to latch on to, so does installing a functional economic system that they can examine. In the case of Gangbusters, these are mostly integrated with the rules. Which is good!

With that in mind, my work at fleshing out the Arunian economy (and the sub-economies of each nation and race) must continue apace.

Tuesday, July 2, 2013

Additional Gangbuster's Careers: Lawyers

Some preliminary notes for adding Lawyers (and perhaps later Politicians who aren't just high level criminals :V) to Gangbusters.

CAREERS IN LAW

Lawyers

Qualifications. In order to practice law, lawyers must have no criminal convictions on their record. In addition, they must have the new skill Law. Judges may rule that characters with an Observation of 50+ may have the Law skill at character creation if they so choose. The Judge should have the character make a Luck check to see if he's been born into a family wealthy enough to pay for his schooling. If he fails this check, he cannot be a lawyer.

To become a lawyer later in the game the PC must have observation 85+ and $1,000 for law school which takes 2 years, during which time the lawyer is still his previous class.

Powers. Lawyers have the following powers:

1. They may delay or speed the acquisition of any warrant based with a successful Law check by a number of days based on their Presence score. (It's a assumed that they get word of the warrant through their channels in the legal community and then use their Presence and Legal Score to oppose its issuance). In order to discover a warrant has been issued, the Judge may make a Luck check modified by the Lawyer's Presence and Level.

2. They may legally practice Law within the state where they received their license.

Options. Independent Practitioner, Public Defender, Firm Work

Salaries. Attorneys fees are generally based on their clientele, which in turn is based on their level. Lower level lawyers will attract considerably less wealthy clients.

Independent Practitioner Salaries:

Start at $2,800 a year and end at $12,000 a year
Level 1 -- $2,800/year and $55/week
Level 2 -- $3,000/year and $58/week
Level 3 -- $3,300/year and $63/week
Level 4 -- $3,800/year and $73/week
Level 5 -- $4,000/year and $77/week
Level 6 -- $4,400/year and $85/week
Level 7 -- $6,000/year and $115/week
Level 8 -- $6,400/year and $124/week
Level 9 -- $7,000/year and $135/week
Level 10 -- $7,500/year and $144/week
Level 11 -- $8,000/year and $153/week
Level 12 -- $9,000/year and $173/week
Level 13 -- $10,000/year and $192/week
Level 14 -- $11,000/year and $212/week
Level 15 -- $12,000/year and $231/week

These salaries are dependent upon the lawyer working for the week. If they choose to do something other than work, they make no money that week. It's important to note that most lawyers will want to rent offices, which cost $30/week on top of their normal rent. These costs completely negate their income ($5 in taxes, $20 in rent, $30 in office rent) unless they supplement their income.

This income assumes that the independent practitioner does not take any criminal cases, but rather deals only with civil suits. Taking criminal cases increases the lawyer's intake by 10%, effectively canceling the effect of taxation (an extra $5/week at level 1, etc.)

Encounters. If the lawyer is open to taking criminal cases, there is a 25% chance per week (or session) that they will be given a special case. These cases are intense and deal with major issues and should be created by the judge. Criminals may feel inclined to pay the lawyer a bonus if he represents them (based on their own level and income). If the lawyer has influence within the political structure, he can sometimes be assigned as a special prosecutor for the state (a 5% chance).

Money paid (IE, the hourly rate) by criminals for special cases must be determined by the Judge and the Lawyer at the time the case is taken. Lawyers may employ PIs or even bribe the police for assistance with big cases.

Experience for lawyers
Succeeding at a special case = 2,000 xp x level of defendant (if successful defense or prosecution, depending who the lawyer represents)
Per dollar earned in reward = 1 xp
Per dollar earned working criminal cases = 1 xp

Monday, July 1, 2013

An Elaboration of Calvert City

Last week I cut short my blogging schedule for a strange and powerful reason: the IRC group started playing Gangbusters. So instead of talking about gods and goddesses of the 10th Age (never fear, Cults and Temples of the Middle World is coming in its text format) I'm going to talk about the lords and ladies of liquor, the kings and queens of booze, the great masters of Gangland murder and exactly how that has played out.

We've never played Gangbusters before. I had never even REALLY thoroughly read the book before. I have a pdf of the thing, not a hard copy, and the OCR is quite atrocious. We were hanging around in IRC, not doing much, and someone (I believe a fella by the handle m4) commented that we should just create a D&D game for every possible combination of available people. That way, we would never be stuck with our thumbs up our asses when we wanted to play something. I said, "Hell, instead we should just play Gangbusters. It's a perfect system for not everyone being around." And I was right.

Gangbusters is like Birthright (or perhaps its more accurate to say that Birthright is like Gangbusters) in that it takes place at a more tactical level than I'm normally used to playing AD&D. When someone wants to find information in AD&D, I force them to roleplay out the encounter with the various people in the city. When someone wants to make some quick gold, they roleplay that too. Each individual instant of life that we can capture is usually expanded into an opportunity to get lost in the alien world of the fantastic. That's not the way that Gangbusters roles.

Instead, the basic unit of action is a week. Not all the players are on the same team; some people play beat cops, others Prohibition Agents, and still others play reporters or criminals look to make a quick score. At the beginning of each week, everyone says what they want to accomplish that week, and then I decide how to break that up into scenes—and whether or not that causes everyone to interact with each other. For example, if criminals rob a jeweler along the beat of some of the city cops who are PCs, I may check to see if they're around to help put a stop to it.

Why is this perfect for a mass group of people who aren't always online all at once? Well, because a lot of the time, people can say what they want to do for their week and then do it without interference from anyone else. The "teams" are very small: two criminals, for example, or two beat cops. ONE reporter. Two Prohis. This means that when they want to accomplish something, they can often jump ahead of the other players so long as they don't directly interact with them. This is perfect for the sometimes-there sometimes-not IRC group. As long as everyone shows up a few times a week, the game can go on.

Of course, I've been heavily involved in creating the setting for them to play in as well. When I took a poll of what type of city everyone was interested in (you know, East Coast-West Coast-Great Lakes sort of question) Baltimore came up almost unanimously on account of the Wire. I was prepared to make a fake Maryland city until I read that Maryland alone among all the states heavily resisted implementing Prohibition and declared itself "Wet Maryland." So instead I took my city modeled on Baltimore and plopped it down on the New Jersey coastline, north of Atlantic City.

Calvert City is a shadow of Baltimore mixed with some New York and Atlantic City. Because Baltimore has the iconic Domino's Sugar factory, I opened with an iconic factory of my own, this one slightly more industrial: The American Atlantic Copper Refining Company. The ACRC became the core of the city's detail, and I expanded out from there. With the copper company representing the political and economic backbone of Calvert City, it was easier to anticipate how the rest of the place functioned. Thanks to the Wire, I have an understanding of modern(ish) American cities as vast interconnected web of interests all playing off of one another. In fact, this understand has been the basis of my city design since I watched the show even in D&D. I'm thinking of writing another essay on what makes a city a city, since you want flavor which makes each city it's own town.

The game mostly takes place in Calvert City's 6th Ward, Little Italy, because it's easier to confine the creation of a city to a single district.

The Dramatis Personae
Agent John Farkas... a strict Prohi Agent who doesn't believe in the Prohibition per se but believes in the law.
Agent Olive DeWitt... a temperance league woman who believes strongly in the end of alcohol
Eugene "the Flash" Gordon... a heavyset newspaper man who works for the Calvert City Chronicle
Patrick Brennan... a good-hearted irish beat cop down in the 6th Ward
Sid O'Connor... another beat cop, fought in the war and is a crack shot
Seamus Finnegan... a local good ole irish lad looking to get into some trouble
Terry O'Doyle... the same, but only 15
Louie Delvecchio... a short-lived Italian "driver"


So far, here's what's happened...

January, 1920.
Week One
Eugene was told by his editor, Willie Vance, that there was something going down on Lombard Street in Little Italy. How he knew this was not exactly clear.

Meanwhile, John Farkas was dispatched by the Commissioner of the Prohibition in the city to the 6th Ward to investigate the sale of the Redbrick Brewery and Distillery as well as to make a show of force to prove that Prohibition was no joke. He went to go and get help from the Captain of Police there, and was introduced to the local Master Patrolman, Tommy O'Doyle.

Eugene went to go have a drink in Cosimo's Cafe when he saw Officer O'Connor (who had been assigned to the Lombard beat in the area) going to get himself a coffee. Both were given free coffee by a kid named Alfonse. They chatted for a while before a thin weasel-faced man came in with a pair of bodyguards and sat down. His bodyguards left, and Alfonse begged them to "eat faster" but Sid didn't catch the meaning of the plea. With his thugs outside smoking, a huge guy in a fur coat came into the Café, saw the cop, asked "Che cazzo è un poliziotto fa qui?" then drew a handgun and said to the guy in the back, "Figaro dice ciao," and shot him in the face.

Eugene snapped a series of pictures while Sid fired at the assassin, striking his shoulder before he disappeared into the kitchen.

Terry and Seamus hyped themselves up, got the help of a local Italian named Louie. The first week, they watched the routine of a local Orthodox Jewish Jeweler -- particularly how he emptied his safe on Wednesday and carried the money to the Banca Stabile through back allies. They planned to ambush him the following week.

John Farkas inquired about where the booze was gonna be, getting Tommy O'Doyle's opinion as a 40-year-veteran of the police force. He reluctantly said that the coffee and pizza shop Siciliano was probably going to be wet that night. He phone Eugene (who he had heard of through the cops) and got him down to write an article when they busted the joint—which they did, storming it and arresting an old Italian named Manzinni.

Week Two
The robbery of the Jew is undertaken. He laughs at the gunmen at first, warning them "You don't vant to be doing dis!" but eventually gives up his case. Once the three crooks start walking away, he runs out of the alley and calls a cop over, shouting "Call Moishe Edelson!"

The cops (Sid and Pat) pound after the crooks. They split up at the other end of the alley, leaving Louie with the bag of money. He's eventually chased down into a tenement building and throws the case down and turns himself in. When the cops take him in they find the concealed pistol in his pocket. He gets arraigned, and put in jail awaiting his trial. The Public Defender begs him to plead guilty and roll on his friends. He does not.

In the holding cells, a cop calls him over to the bars. "Be a mensch," he says, "and come over here. I have something for ya." When he gets near, the cop claps his hand over his neck and stabs him in the thigh, whispering "This is from Moishe Edelson, cocksucker." Louie bleeds out on the floor of his cell.

Meanwhile, Farkas and Eugene start digging, hunting for names of bosses in the neighborhood. Eugene discovers that Alfonse is an informant for Vance, and starts paying him to give HIM information. Farkas questioned Manzinni in prison, warning him that he would do everything he could to get the names of his bosses out of him. Manzinni affected not to care, saying firstly that he had led a good life, that he was better off now than he had been in Sicily, and that the Prohibition Act had no teeth. He did imply that his old boss, Danny Zambrano, had died a few months back and sold Siciliano to him. Farkas is beginning to put together a pattern with this fellow named "Figaro" and those who work against him.

Sid and Pat walk their beat as normal, but Sid is now the renowned "Hero Cop" who shot an assassin, participated in a raid on Siciliano for liquor, and helped chase down a criminal who stole from a local jeweler.

Eugene's talk with Alfonse in the Calvert City Graveyard (the kid didn't want to talk in Cosimo's, where he works as a waiter) led to him explaining why "Meester Figaro" was so mad at Liuzzi (the guy in the restaurant) and Zambrano: they had both arranged to purchase the Redbrick Brewery out from under Figaro in October of 1919, secretly swooping in to buy it when Figaro wanted it.

Week Three
Farkas spent Week Three digging into the County Records to see who owned what. He discovered that the Redbrick Brewery and Distillery (actually registered as the Rotembackstein Brauerie) was sold by one Friedrich Schultz to an Anthony Avolino Esquire in October of 1919. Furthermore, Siciliano was sold by Daniele Zambrano to Audio Manzinni for a paltry sum around the time of the mobster's death. He requested a warrant from the Commissioner to raid the Rotembackstein Distillery, and was informed that the warrant would come through on Wednesday of the following week.

Seamus broke into the abandoned Distillery that Tuesday to see what he could find. He recovered a letter from A.A.Esq. to Friedrich Schultz as well as three cases of Rotemback Whisky and spirited them back to his house. He then went and sold a case to Big Dan McShane for $73 and a shot of whisky.

At the end of the week, an ACRC copper truck skipped the curb and hit a kid on Lombard street. The driver was fried on booze. Sid and Pat responded, but Tommy O'Doyle and his younger cousin Mickey (a sergeant) arrived and warned them not to touch the truck. Fancy ACRC lawyers soon showed up and spirited the driver off.

Eugene spent week 3 expanding his contact network.