Classic Rant: An RPG Charter of Freedoms and Principles

We, the undersigned, in light of recent events in the RPG/gaming hobby and in 'geek culture' in general, wish to clarify our unwavering commitment to the following ideas:

0. The hobby is open to everyone. Everyone, regardless of race, gender, sexual orientation, or any other quality are welcome to participate in the hobby. Everyone has an inherent right to equal treatment, and we will condemn all instances of either discrimination or preferential treatment on the basis of race, sex, sexual preference, age, social class, ethnicity/nationality, or any other similar quality.

1. Everyone in the hobby has an inherent right to say and express what they want. We oppose censorship on principle, within the reasonable bounds of legality and only the most basic of requisites for the functionality of public spaces for debate. Everyone, regardless of any condition, has a right to speak/write about games, design games, criticize games, and present ideas about games and gaming culture. 

2. Everyone likewise has the right to criticize statements made by anyone else, to examine them for truth, to condemn them, so long as said criticisms and condemnation remain within the boundaries of legality and truthfulness. 

3. There is no right to lie. There is no right to attempt to censor someone else's expression for the purpose of not allowing third parties to make up their own minds. There is no "right to not be offended".

4. We oppose harassment, persecution, stalking, attempts to blackball any individuals in the hobby, and particularly any attempts to threaten their physical persons or expose details of their personal lives for the purpose of harassment or intimidation. Likewise the use of slurs/insults against a person's race, physical appearance, sexual orientation, gender or other inherent qualities of birth or personal characteristics irrelevant to a person's ideas.

5. The vigorous challenging of a person's ideas or statements in public and topical venues is NOT harassment. A person has no "right to not be questioned".


RPGPundit


(Originally posted September 2, 2014)

A Sample Medieval-Authentic OSR Take on a Familiar Monster

So, continuing from yesterday's post about giving OSR monsters a more medieval treatment, here's one example for you.  It's a fairly common creature, you probably had a character fight one (and possibly ride one) at least some point if you've been playing D&D for any length of time.

Yes, I'm talking about the Gryphon.

So, what's the medieval authentic take on this?

For starters, it's called a Griffin. Or Griffon. "Gryphon" didn't become popular in English until centuries later.

Here's a few points about Griffins:
-their eggs were considered a great delicacy fetching a huge price, enjoyed mainly by lords and kings (there's a slight chance these just might not have been real griffin eggs, but actually ostrich eggs instead).

-Griffins do like to eat horses. But they also like to have sex with them. Not quite sure which would be worse for a Player Character to see happening in the middle of the night as they're camped out in the wilderlands...

-When Griffins mate with mares, their offspring will be Hippogriffs!

-The claws of a griffin are powerful magic.  They can be used to Detect Poison.

-Griffin feathers are also magical. If a griffin feather is dipped in sacred oil and brushed over the eyes of a blind person it will restore their sight.


So anyways, here's what the statblock for "Griffin" will look like:

Griffin

Init:+1 AC:17 MV:30/75(fly) HD:7d8 SV:12 AL:N Ml:8 Att:2 claws (+8, 1d4 ea) + 1 bite (+8, 2d8)

Special: Griffins are creatures with the body of a lion, and the foreclaws, wings and head of an eagle. They are found only in isolated hills and mountains (central Wales, the Pennines, and Scots' Land). They will rarely go out beyond those regions to hunt or mate. Although they kill and eat horses, Griffins sometimes mate with mares, the offspring of this union are hippogriffs. Griffin eggs are known as a great delicacy worthy of kings. A griffin's claw is a magical object (see the Magic Items section, above), and a griffin feather, when dipped in holy oil, can restore sight to the blind.

Maybe, over time, I'll show some other examples (Giants and the Undead are my particular favorites among the monster selection).   Meanwhile if you want another example, check out the appendix on Elves in the Cults of Chaos book.  Elves will get their section in the bestiary in Lion & Dragon as well, where I'll be including Elf Maidens.

RPGPundit

Currently Smoking: Lorenzetti Solitario Poker + H&H's Chestnut

Medieval Monsters in my Upcoming "Lion & Dragon" Medieval OSR RPG

Another update on "Lion & Dragon":  work continues apace, and I've moved my way onto the Monsters section.

I had originally planned to keep it very small, probably just to copy some of the material I had on Elves from cults of chaos, maybe make a statblock for goblins, and then a few different types of human NPC archetypes.

But I got a bit more ambitious, and decided to expand it out a bit. The Monster section will now have 55 statblocks (not counting the added statblocks for Demons, Goblins and Homonculi in the Magic section).
These are organized into 7 sections: animals, dragons, elves, fantastical creatures, goblins and other humanoids, humans, and undead.

Most of them (excepting a few totally straightforward animals or human NPCs) will come along with a section explaining some of their medieval context and nature.

And really, it's surprising just how not-medieval most OSR treatments of classic monsters are.  Maybe I'll share an example next entry.

RPGPundit

Currently Smoking: Lorenzetti Oversize + H&H's Chestnut

Classic Rant: Fuck the High Road

It's hilarious to hear some of the architects behind the "Boycott Pundit and Zak" thing, that sent hundreds of mass (you could say spam) emails each to Wizards to create the impression of some mass protest in order to try to get them to publicly shun us, now complaining about how 'unpleasant' and outrageous it is that people are talking about engaging in email campaigns against them.

Kind of like how you have people who were very happy to spend hours looking through my blog entries from TEN YEARS AGO to try to find stuff to (mis)quote against me, or approving and sharing the same, now complaining how "unfair" it is that Zak is using a conversation from 2.5 years ago as proof of Tracy Hurley's bad behaviour.

Hypocritical fucking liars are funny.

Meanwhile, we have some no doubt well-intentioned but naive people poo-pooing my recent efforts to fight back against the Outrage Brigade's lies, claiming that it's unseemly to "stoop to their level", and that what we regular gamers should do instead is "just not engage". Because after all, just because they're being bad it doesn't mean we can't take "the high road".

First of all: it's probably easier for you to talk about 'the high road' when its not YOUR name they're trying to associate with transphobia, homophobia, racism, and other things you utterly abhor all over the internet. How about we wait until they make up some story about your having kicked a puppy to death or something, have it posted over and over again all over the social media you use, where your friends, gamer buddies, family, etc. can read it, and then see just how interested you are in the motherfucking 'high road'?

Second: The Swine LOVE it when the other side "takes the high road". They DEPEND on it.
They depend on the other side being far too well-behaved and well-mannered to effectively stand up to them and all their dirty-fighting tactics.
They depend on the other side saying "well, I'm not going to report you to the forum mods because I don't tattle", while they get everyone on your side banned by a flood of frivolous mod-reports and manipulation of forum rules to their own benefit.
They depend on the other side saying "well, I'm not going to hurl insults at these people or engage with them" while they take over the whole focus of the discussion.
They depend on the other side saying "I don't like the insulting jargon they use so I won't make any of my own as that would be the same bad behaviour as them" while they end up taking control of language as a way to artificially control the entire conversation.
They depend on you saying "I won't write to Wizards of the Coast to support their choice of consultants" while they write hundreds of emails each in order to create the impression of a flood of outrage.
They depend totally on your side saying "I won't stoop to say mean things or attack them because I'm above it all", while they stab you in the back and kick you when you're on the ground and destroy lives in order to meet their goal of petty power-grabbing at all costs.






So you know what? FUCK the 'high road'.

I could be twice as shitty as I am now and still be ten times more honorable than they are:

-I don't just Make Shit Up, I tell the truth about them. And not horrific fucking lies, which is what they rely on.
-I don't send death threats.
-I don't attack or harass my opponent's seriously ill girlfriend while she's in the hospital. 
-I don't pretend I want to debate and then run away and make up lies and use cheap smear-tactics to make my opponent look bad.
-I don't ever deny any of what I actually truly did.
-I don't censor my opponent's voice.
-I don't go back and try to delete evidence of things that I wrote.
-I don't try to put pressure on people's private lives; I don't contact real-world employers or friends; I don't use people's 'real names' if they are known to be private about them.
(another little Hypocrisy Point: All the Outrage Brigade expressing how horrible and harassing it is that Zak uses SA/rpgnet-troll Ettin's 'real name', while they gleefully post and +1 articles and entries that use my civilian name ALL THE FUCKING TIME) 

But within those rules of honor, I will be quite happy to use any rhetorical tactic they use against us. I will be as aggressive in my defense of the RPG Hobby as they are in their brutal assault on it.

And if they depend on our larger numbers being silent while their smaller numbers hyper-inflate their apparent significance by aggressive and repeated lobbying, then we absolutely NEED to be doing emailing campaigns. 


This brings us to another point: more than a few people have commented on how "tired" they feel, even how "worn out" they are by the 'bullshit drama' about the D&D Consultants. Some have said this to me, as if it's in my power to stop it.

Gee, I'm sorry you feel vaguely tired about an entire group of people's ongoing and concerted effort to publicly LIE about me and FALSELY paint me as a homophobe, racist and sexist to try to make sure I NEVER WORK AGAIN in the RPG field.

I'm sorry it's inconveniencing you so much.


But you know what? You're talking to the wrong person just now. I'm not the one who can end this.
No, not the Outrage Brigade either; I mean obviously they COULD end it, just by NOT LYING ANYMORE, but they've made it pretty obvious they're not going to do that.


No. The person who can end this is YOU.


If you're tired of the attacks and counter-measures, or if you don't want the Tracy Hurleys of the world getting to be the only ones who decide what D&D should look like, then you NEED to go and make clear where you stand on this. You need to tell the Outrage Brigade to fuck off. Very publicly, and very loudly, until it becomes blatantly obvious that they do not speak for the hobby.

And you need to make sure Mike Mearls hears about this. Because part of the problem here is that the Outrage Brigade are very, very good at making their numbers seem artificially inflated and bombarding people with emails and expressions of their fake-outrage. The other side is usually not so good, because the other side are (with the exception of a couple of us loudmouths), just regular gamers who think that these guys are crazy but can't imagine they'd actually need to go and tell the suits at WoTC as much.

But you do need to. If you want to stop them in their tracks, or if you're really tired of the 'drama' of a group of people using lies to try to destroy the lives and livelihood of a pair of Old-School Gamers because they disagree with what they say about RPGs; if you understand that these have been lies (and there's been tons of evidence to that effect), then the best thing you can do is to write to Wizards of the Coast: write to Mike Mearls and make sure he knows what you think (as a D&D gamer and past, present or potential future customer) of the hatchet job being done against Zak and I by these people, and that you support us and Wizards, and think Wizards needs to keep on supporting us, too.

RPGPundit

(Originally posted August 6, 2014)

DCC Campaign Archive: He's the One With the Sombrero

Our last adventure saw the group in the city of Lol, home of the techno-walruses, the High Council of Wizards, and the Guardian Robots (suspiciously familiar-looking pepperpot shaped robots).  One or more of the council may be diabolists, there's a 'resistance' out to blow up the whole council, the wizard-robot BOLT-1 has made an alliance with the Guardian Robots to Exterminate all organic life, and the Daemon Sezrekhan is slowly taking over all of reality. That's a lot of problems building up all at once.

Now:

-Heidi gets to the palace of Cylor the Cyclops wizard. Bill is sent down to identify him as a party member. When Bill comes down, he's wearing a toga like Cylor does, but not knowing how to put it on, it looks more like a diaper.

-"I was kidnapped by rebels."
"Hey, welcome to the club!"
"They want to destroy the council."
"Them too?"

-Heidi reveals that the Archemaster has teamed up with the Rebels, and they're somehow planning to get themselves a bomb.

-"So now we're all together again, except Yarr who's staying at Fairywinkle's, and the 'handicapable' guy".
"And Morris."
"Wait, Morris isn't the guy we mean by 'handicapable'?"

-"So... your plan is to think about a plan later?"
"Yup!"

-Suddenly, someone notices Cylor's fountain, which was a gift 'from the grateful kingdom of Minotauria'.
"Wait.. Minotauria is real!!"

-the next day the group gets a note from Fairywinkle saying that Yarr the halfling is missing.

-"Dude, the Handicapable Mutant can take care of himself in Lol."
"YOU can't even take care of yourself in Lol! You got yourself encapsulated in 10 minutes!"
"Less than 10, actually..."

-"The Archemaster is with the rebels."
"What?!"
"Didn't you know, Cylor?"
"No!"
"Shouldn't we help them?"
"What?!"
"They want to destroy the council.."
"I'm ON the council!"
"Ohh... sorry. Still, though..."
"Wait, Cylor's on the council?"

-"Bill is your leader, it's his job to give you things, not mine!"
"He doesn't have anything!"
"Hey, I do too!"
"Please, you're wearing a diaper!"

-"We should all go, so you stop annoying Cylor"
"We're not annoying him!"
"Yes, you are."

-"Why do you want to find the rebels?"
"Well, because I am one!"
"What?!"
"Um, I just want to mention I barely know these guys, Cylor..."

-Cylor lends Bill his most attractive catamite to act as a tour guide.
"So...um... do you and Cylor... um.."
"Wrestle? Oh yes, he's a mighty wrestler!"

-"You know, now that I'm with your new characters, I even miss Ack'basha!"

-Bill and the others get to the Dancing Harpy tavern, where Jal'udin is waiting to parley with him.
"Ok, you guys stay here while I go talk to him, alright?"
They all follow him.

-"There's a single empty chair in front of Jal'udin, he gestures for Bill to sit down"
"That's fine, the rest of us get empty chairs from other tables and bring them over!"

-"You are surrounded by imbeciles, Bill. I am not your worst problem right now."
"tell me about it."

-Bill and Jal'udin can't come to an agreement about how to handle the Sezrekhan issue.  Fundamentally, Bill doesn't trust Jal'udin; if Jal'udin steals Bill's phylactery, Bill fears he'll just destroy it. Heidi has a plan:
"What if half of us go with Jal'udin, to make sure he doesn't try anything?"
"Ah yes! That is a very good idea, my friend. Surely you will be able to stop me if I try anything!"
"Um.. is Jal'udin actually giggling, or is that just you?"
"No, it's not just me, Jal'udin can't help but giggle at your suggestion."
"I think we should just leave the phylactery where it is."

-"Maybe we can Encapsulate Sezrekhan with the Guardian Robot technology?"
"That would work!"
"I really do not think that would work."
"We could ask one of the Guardian Robots... there's probably one right outside, I noticed they were following me on the way over here."
"What?? This meeting is over!"

-After Jal'udin vanishes back into the shadows, Teal goes outside, and indeed there's a Guardian robot there. He goes up to talk to it.
"Sezrekhan is a danger to all of Lol"
"WHERE IS HE SITUATED?"
"He's not in the city; he's in the Crown of Creation."
"THIS MUST BE DISCUSSED BY THE GUARDIAN WAR COUNCIL. YOU WILL BE TAKEN TO THEM. OBEY OR BE ENCAPSULATED! OBEY! OBEY!"
"Hey guys, we've got to go to a meeting with the supreme council of robot dudes.. guys? Where did you go? Aw, fuck you guys!"

-"Are you some kind of Mighty Wizard?"
"Well, define 'mighty'.  Also, define 'wizard'. Also, define 'kind'."

-Bill purchase 23 prisoner-capsules from a suspicious old woman on the street.
"What's your name, suspicious old woman?"
"Grizelda!"
"Well that's even more suspicious now!"

-Bill gets to the library and sends Cylor's catamite to go decapsulate the 23 capsules while he starts researching Emirkol's Maelstrom.
"So you're going to free 23 criminals to join your cause?"
"How is that any different from my current party?"

-Meanwhile the farmer and the blacksmith went ahead to the Mausoleum
"Hi, can you take me to see Frijole the Wizard?"
"His statue is over there; he's the one with the sombrero."
"I should have figured."

-The Farmer and Blacksmith find out they can't access the brain-jars in the Mausoleum, because they aren't wizards.
"Just out of curiosity, do you have any secondary entries or exits?"
"Only the windows, I suppose."
"Oh I see. And do you know where I could buy rope?"

-Teal is led into the headquarters of the Guardian robots.
"So just wondering, do you guys have any weaknesses?"
"THE GUARDIANS HAVE NO WEAKNESSES! THE GUARDIANS ARE SUPERIOR IN EVERY WAY!"

-Teal tells them about Sezrekhan.
"SEZREKHAN IS THE ENEMY OF THE GUARDIANS. HE MUST BE EXTERMINATED!EXTERMINATE! EXTERMINATE! EXTERMINATE!"

-Teal learns that Bolt-1 is allied with the Guardians. Bolt-1 shows up to ask him some questions:
"YOU WILL TELL US IF BILL THE ELF KNOWS OF OUR ALLIANCE AND PLAN TO EXTERMINATE ALL ORGANIC LIFE ON LOL!"
"No, and I've already forgotten too!"

-At the library, Bill meets Grizlor the Archivist, who watches over the entry. He's a classic wizened sage with a long white beard.
"Is this 'heidi' your apprentice?"
"No, he's a... companion."
"I see, well, he may enter with you, but NO hanky-panky in the library aisles!"

-Entering into the restricted area of the grand library proper, Bill meets Grezlor the Librarian, who looks even more wizened and has an even longer white beard.
"Wait, aren't you the receptionist?"
"No, that's my grandson!"

-Teal is kept alive by the Guardian robots, for now. He's dumped into a cell with a really weird guy with crazy white hair and odd taste in clothing.
No, not that guy.
"So um, what's your name?"
"The Guardians once called me the Oncoming Storm."
"But what's your name?"
"I have many names."
"I'll stab you!!"
"You may call me... Roman. Roman Beckett"

-"I can modify your dagger to penetrate the Guardian Robots' Guardanium-Metal shells."
"That's an awful name."

-Roman has a sonic tool to open the door, because of course he does.

-There's a guardian robot right at the door!
"Stab it in the eyestalk my boy! That's its weak spot!"
"They lied to me!!!"

-As soon as Teal starts to engage with the Guardian Robot, Roman bravely runs away abandoning him.
"Oh, fuck you!!"

-Meanwhile, the Resistance is in open revolt on the streets!
The Farmer tells the rebels he's looking for Myla and will be found at Cylor's tower.
"Are you going to kill Cylor?"
"No, I'm with Bill."
"Is Bill in the revolution, comrade?"
"Bill's a revolution in himself."

-"Hey, those are the humans over there, we should try to avoid them seeing us!"
"Bill, you're in the body of a radioactive mutant. You literally glow. You're pretty hard to miss."

-Despite their best efforts to avoid them, Bill & Heidi meet up again with the human farmer and blacksmith. They all go together to the Mausoleum, where Bill helps the farmer commune with the brain of the deceased wizard Frijole. He reveals the location of the last possible surviving batch of his magic beans.

-The brain of the deceased Wizard Emirikol allows Bill to commune with him. "I like the cut of your jib, youngster. You're a source of mayhem."
"Apparently, Emirikol was the Bill the Elf of 1000 years ago."

-"You have but 1 question left."
"Wait, you said I could ask 3 questions, and I only asked 1 so far!"
"That's why they call me Emirkol the Chaotic."

-"So you want to get to the Crown of Creation; but you can't get the Libram of the Ten Spheres?"
"Nope, I gave it to Sezrekhan."
"Alright... do you perchance have an Ancient?"
"No. I had one, but I killed her in a magical rage."

-"You could go through the abyss."
"Good."
"But everything that goes into the abyss is annihilated, it will tear apart the very fabric of your reality."
"So, sort of like living with Bill!"

-Suddenly, the PCs hear an explosion in the distance!
"That sounds as though it came from the direction of the tower of the High Council!"
"Wow, the Archemaster actually managed to find a bomb after all.."

-It turns out that the PC's carelessness with Cylor alerted him to the rebels' plans, and the High Council was waiting for the Archemaster. They defeated him easily and put him in the Infinity Pit. The bomb did no real damage, and they are now hunting down the rebel leaders.
The council is concerned about why the Guardian robots did not stop the mobs on the streets, however.

-"Bill, can we try to find Myla?"
"That woman is trouble."

-An apprentice gives Bill a message, inviting him to a private meeting in the high wizard Bellmunster's tower.
"Wow, we're getting to see all the towers! If we actually go to every one of them, I think we'll get a free t-shirt or something."

-Bellmunsters tower is full of weird stuff.
"This place reminds me of the Curiosity Shop."
"I can't tell if Bellmunster is a great collector of powerful magic objects, or just a hoarder."

-"...the tower smells of pipe tobacco and wizardry."
"So, like the Pundit's house?"

-"Bill, can your servants be trusted?"
"Eh, sure, why not?"
"We can be trusted about as much as Bill!"
"Trusted for what? Because if it's to leave you the fuck alone, then no."

-"I think Cylor is the diabolist, Bellmunster."
"How do you know this?"
"A street waif told me. And he seems too trustworthy."

-"Bill, is there anything you wish to tell me?"
"I wish my brother Ted hadn't died... oh, wait, you mean about our current situation?"

-Bill and Bellmunster discuss how they might be able to reach the Crown of Creation.
"What if we used the Ancient's body?"
"Possibly. Where is the Ancient's body?"
"She died in the Palace of the Presbyterian Church. Are they still around?"
"No, they were conquered by the Sky Nazis."
"Would the Sky Nazis possibly collaborate with us?"
"Usually the Sky Nazis are the ones who make you collaborate with them!"

-"I never thought I'd be suggesting an alliance with Sky Nazis!"
"Don't worry, it's very normal; this is what happens when you spend any time around Bill."
"He's a Black Hole of Moral Degeneracy, and we're all just in his event horizon."

-"The Hippomagus was last seen in a nearby floating island called Ansuz, and he was in possession of a powerful object known as the Sun Staff."
"I had nothing to do with that."

-"Bill, I need 101gp to pay some debts."
"I also want 50gp to screw around with."
"What am I, your dad?!"

-Teal was defeated by the Guardian Robots, after Roman abandoned him. But instead of Exterminating him, BOLT-1 interrogates him and makes him an offer.
"YOUR ONGOING EXISTENCE WILL DEPEND ON YOUR USEFULLNESS"
"Well, I'm totally doomed."

-Teal tells BOLT-1 that Bill wants to destroy Lol, is in league with Sezrekhan and BOLT-0, and that he'll willingly work for BOLT-1 if he's spared. In other words, an unending stream of total bullshit.


-"HE SHOULD BE EXTERMINATED! EXTERMINATE!"
"NO. HE WILL BE OF USE TO US. PROBE HIM AND RELEASE HIM OUTSIDE."
"WE OBEY!"
"oh yay, probing..."

-Teal agrees to serve the Guardians and BOLT-1; he's told he'll be implanted with a listening device on his right wrist which will allow him to inform BOLT-1 of anything Bill and the other people around him are doing.

-The humans find the hovel that Frijole the magician had mentioned he'd hidden the last jar of magic beans in. They find it occupied by a young drug dealer, and buy some drugs off him to get access to his outhouse (where Frijole said it was hidden). The blacksmith gets bitten by some hideous sewer lizard-rat, but they get their jar of beans.

-Teal wakes up in an alley.
"I press my wrist to tell BOLT-1 I'm ok!"
"You know you're pressing the wrong wrist, right?"
"I do, Teal doesn't."

-Teal ends up spotting the handicapable yellow mutant who has been lost wandering through the city all adventure long. Unfortunately, Teal is the only party member who had never actually met that character, so he walks right past him.

-Teal does spot, and recognize, Roman Beckett! He's in a very poor disguise (basically just a top hat and a fake beard, over his real beard).  Teal tries to attack Roman, but Roman knocks him over with some "Venusian Aikido".

-Teal agrees to take Roman to Cylor and warn everyone about Bolt-1. They get to Cylor's tower.
"I want to speak to Mr. Big eye... I mean Cylor."

-One of the two humans immediately recognizes Roman as his quirky uncle that he hadn't seen since childhood. Curiously, Roman doesn't seem to have aged a day.

-It turns out Cylor cut a deal with the mercenary, Malaprex the Violent; freeing him (after having captured him last session) in exchange for him being in charge of wiping out the Resistance. Malaprex managed to slaughter most of the Resistance's leadership, but Myla escaped.

-Teal immerses his left wrist in the Minotauria fountain.
"Ok, listen, the Guardian robots put an implant in my right wrist, but I think I'm blocking it"
"That's your left wrist, dude."
"My left..? Oh shit!"

-"BOLT-1 and the Guardians plan to exterminate all life on Lol? I find that hard to believe."

-Just then, Teal explodes! When he does, Roman was already running like hell for the exit, having apparently realized what was about to take place.  A couple of the PCs were trying to stop him, so they were near the door when the blast went off.

-"They put a bomb in me?! Man, BOLT-1 is an asshole, just like his dad..."

-"BOLT-1 betrayed us after all. We have to stop the Guardians!"
"Ah say we kill everyone! That what Teal would have wanted!"
"Actually.. that probably is what he would have wanted."

-Heidi convinces Cylor to call together an emergency meeting of the council, to alert them of the imminent peril, and to try to take out BOLT-1.

-"We need to evacuate the population!"
"There aren't enough sky-ships to evacuate the entire population of LOL."
"We could have them go into the towers..."
"..our towers?"
"Yes."
"I don't think so.. they'll touch my things."
"Maybe the sewers? They might be safe there, for a little while?"
"Ah yes, the sewers! That's a much better place for the commoners to go!"


-The farmer and the blacksmith, Cylor, "Uncle" Roman, Heidi and Malaprex all head to the High Council tower to meet with the other great wizards, after sending all of Cylor's remaining catamites to alert the population to evacuate or flee into the sewers.

-Meanwhile, Bill is in the Library, totally unaware of the new crisis, engrossed in studying for his new spell.
"Like a NERD!"

That's it for this session. Will the PCs be able to save Lol from the robot menace? Will they be able to form a coherent plan with the world's mightiest wizards to find a way to stop Sezrekhan from assimilating the entire universe? Will Bill finally learn his new spell? Or will they just fuck everything up as usual? Tune in next time to find out!

(but let's face it, it'll probably be 'fuck everything up' time)


RPGPundit

Currently Smoking: Mastro De Paja Rhodesian + Image Virginia

Break Monday: Famous Places that Never Were

Look, you've probably heard about all these places.  But you probably don't know the whole story about them.  Find out about how a parable, a typo, a flawed scientific theory, a flawed archaeological theory, plus a bunch of crazy Irishmen and some Nazis helped to invent some of the most famous places in history that never really existed.

If you liked it, please feel free to reshare!

RPGPundit

Currently smoking: Ben Wade Canadian + Image Latakia

Working on Medieval-Authentic Magic Items

Not a big post today because I'm hard at work on my upcoming "Lion & Dragon: Medieval-Authentic OSR Roleplaying".

As of right now I'm working on the section on magic items. It won't be a huge section, but it will include a few of the items from the Dark Albion and Cults of Chaos books (in most cases slightly altered to fit the changed system of magic), and then about 20 or so brand new items to act as examples and inspiration for the GM.

The key to making magic items seem "medieval authentic" is that you can classify medieval magic items into three types:

a) Types made intentionally by magicians: these are things like astrological talismans, alchemical objects, cures, demon-summoning sigils, etc.

2. Objects created directly by beings of chaos (demons, elves) or by divine beings (the Unconquered Sun), or theoretically by the 'old gods', which are infused with the force of pure chaos, law or the elements of nature (like the waters of sacred springs). These are generally epic artifacts, at least the ones of Law almost always are, things like the Lance of Mithras in Albion.  Or Excalibur.  Objects of Law can usually only be handled by the holiest of people, those who are strongly devout.  On the other hand, objects of chaos will have great power given easily but will inevitably corrupt the user's mind, body and soul.

3. Objects that were once non-magical but their involvement with legendary events have given them such significance that they take on magical qualities.  There are two common forms of this category. The first are weapons or armor that were involved in some important way in crucial battles (the weapon of a great hero might become magical, but even lesser objects, like shields used by crusaders or bows used at Agincourt might become objects of minor magic).  The second are the important objects of great holy men and women (Saints), associated with their miracles. The church calls these "second-class relics" (the bones or blood of the saints themselves are 1st class relics); and may include the clothing, prayer beads, holy symbols (sun-disks, in Albion), staffs, weapons (if they were Cleric-saints or warrior-saints), or other objects especially associated with them.

(the cloak of St. Clara of Assisi):

Anyways, that's it for now. Let me know what you think about the directions I'm taking Lion & Dragon!


RPGPundit

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