Saturday, May 28, 2016

No Dragons. ...Ever?

Never to be encountered in my world!?!

One of the ‘conceits’ of my campaign world, is that the dominant integral species are insectoid. But due to my many years of management experience and an addiction to efficiency, I’m a firm believer in not re-inventing the wheel.  The GW boys made a damn good game with a very well thought out bestiary, so it doesn’t take much skimming to find a creature/humanoid that has the stat-line and special rules to something I’ve dreamed up, and only the description will need a quick re-skinning (and maybe a quick sketch) and my work is done.
A recent example was when the party had stumbled across an excavated starship that had, centuries ago, popped out of hyperspace inside the planet. Every space inside the craft was covered in Hypergeometric runes, so they had an idea something was awry. For the pilot and copilot I wanted a tough undead-sort, so I grabbed a couple of mummies, shaved off one of their attacks, and proceeded to watch the reaction of my players, as the blasphemy-mumbling crew members absorbed a couple of fireballs (reskinned into the ‘rending’ spell, just can’t help myself) and kept on fighting. Nothing too inventive, but it made for an exciting encounter.
A minimum of work with a high entertainment yield. Well, for me anyway.
So my players can expect to never encounter a dragon in this campaign, but they can bet their asses they better be careful of running into a massive, flying, fear/terror-causing, 6 attack, venom-spewing bug.

Monday, May 16, 2016

The Monk Faction and Careers

Why did I decide to cover Monks first? Just finished the pic.


Monk Technologists:
The Monks gather and hand down their knowledge, often providing their knowledge and services to the peasantry free of charge. Despite the Technophage that brought the Ancestors to ruin, the monastics squirreled away all the scientific knowledge they could, and seek to attain more through exploring ancient sites and studying the objects the Ancestors may have left behind. They do their most to utilize this knowledge to better the lives of those around them, working around the inability to use electronics as best they can. Their accumulated knowledge of firearms are highly sought after by the empire, even though the Monks keep the best technology for themselves. The Monks handcraft their items, eschewing mass production especially when it comes to items used in warfare, experimenting persistently and unceasingly. Sometimes their results are both unexpected and disastrous.
 
 
These are the careers available to those characters that choose to join the Monkhood, when using WFRP without using the Grim Hack rules.
 
For those using the Grim Hack, skill availability depends on the Faction Score of the character. To advance, the Monk character must learn all the generic skills, and all the skills in one of the paths, either Alchemist or Engineer. The paths are not exclusive to one another, and all skills are available, completing a path’s skills is only needed for promotion. Note: once enough faction points are gained, the Acolyte of Ancient Knowledge title is bestowed despite the fact careers are not used.
 
Skills listed under the Acolyte career are only available to characters that have officially joined the Monkhood, no matter what rule set used.
 
I will explain the rules, ingredients, and statistics for item recipes in a later post.
 
 
Initiate of the Sciences.
M
WS
BS
S
T
W
I
A
Dex
Ld
Int
Cl
WP
Fel
-
+10
+20
+1
+1
+3
+10
+1
+10
+10
+20
+10
+10
+20


Skills:
History
Read/write
Secret Languages- Monastic Technology
 
Alchemist Medic Skills:
Specialist weapon (explosives)
Cure disease
Heal wounds
Herb lore
Identify plant
 
 
Engineer Militant Skills:
Specialist weapon (firearms)
Blacksmithing
Mining
Marksmanship
 
 
Trappings:
Single round percussion firearm (rifle or pistol), 25 shots worth of caps, ball, and powder (in horn). Basic Alchemical supplies.


 
Acolyte of Ancient Knowledge.
M
WS
BS
S
T
W
I
A
Dex
Ld
Int
Cl
WP
Fel
-
+20
+30
+1
+1
+5
+20
+1
+20
+10
+30
+10
+10
+30


Skills:
Astronomy
Ancestor Technological Lore
Supernumerate
 
Alchemist Medic Skills:
Brewing
Surgery
Chemistry
Manufacture drugs
 
 
Engineer Militant Skills:
Specialist weapon (Ancestor firearms)
Quick Draw
Engineering
Metallurgy
 
Trappings:
Monk robes. Black powder revolver with holster. At least one item created by the character using
 
 
 
Alchemist Medic Recipes (Not a complete list):
Flame thrower.
Medications: healing, physical stimulants, mental stimulants, poisons, relaxation (defends vs hypergeometric encounters), visions (hypergeometric)
Explosives, napalm.
Food/water decontamination.
Batteries.
 
Engineer Militant Recipes  (Not a complete list):
Clockwork electrical discharge pistol.
Gunsmithing: percussion caps, revolvers, cartridges.
Inferno steam rifle: 30m, AoE
Aether lantern
Clockwork automaton
Exoskeleton.
Steam engines.
 
Faction points gained by:
·       Finishing the intermediate career
·       Acquire a piece of high-technology
·       Find an undiscovered Ancient or Predecessor Site
·       Help the local community through Monastic Technology
·       Tithe 100sp.

Example faction benefits:
·       Technologist career
·       Technological recipes
·       Supplies discount
·       Access to Monastic Libraries and Forge Monastic firearms


Friday, May 13, 2016

A new piece

Narathul purges the Necropolis of Mageregime influence.


My players ran into a few Mageregime troops the other night in the game, so here they can see what the armor and weapons they picked up actually looks like.

Thul is in the far north of Anglypur, a small frozen community in the northern pass from the Central Empire to Anglypur. Serving as a semi-neutral buffer between the two great powers of the continent, Narathul has ruled over his innocent but primitive villagers there for centuries. He is rumored to be a vampire, but so the peasants have said about some of the Guildmasters, but who believes the wagging tongues of the unwashed, anyways? Maybe they had best curb their tongues.

I can reveal stuff like this, as the chance my players will hex-crawl 500 plus miles to Thul is quite slim.

That is, unless they can figure how to disassemble and haul out that Corvega they found in that crashed spaceship without the shoggoth getting them...
Main continent of Anglypur

Forgive the crappy labeling, but I wanted to put this up just so my players have an idea of where they are in my campaign world. Someday will actually fully label, border, and add a compass to it.

Someday...

As far as my campaign goes, here's the basic gist along with a mini-gazetteer:

The Central Empire is fairly new. Originally independent feudal Kingdoms and city-states, the player's characters are the children and grandchildren of veterans of the Unification War wherein the Kingdoms became Duchies under control of a centralized imperial authority. There are rumors that the "Great Peace" the characters had fled for a life of adventure may be fraying. How this may effect things in Crown's Hold have yet to be fully understood.

Anglypur was the 'Big Bad' nation of the Mageregime. A brutal totalitarian government ruled by Wizards that ruled with an iron fist. Approximately around the time when the idea of a Central Empire was just being realized by a few group of kingdoms, the Mageregime fell apart in a civil war the refugees could only describe as a nightmare. Now vast swaths of Anglypur lay uninhabited and in ruins. After almost a decade of silence from Anglypur, Crown's Hold has been established at the Anglypur side of the southern pass through the Dragon Spine mountains.

Crown's Hold is the base of the campaign. It is located in Anglypur's abandoned fortress that guarded the pass leading to the former Central Kingdoms. The operation is governed by the West Anglypur Company, a commercial endeavor sponsored by the various factions in the Central Empire pursuing interests as diverse as agriculture and mining to magical research and militant evangelicalism. The adventurers are hired on to explore the areas surrounding Crown's Hold and contribute to the safety of the enterprise, while dealing with the representative's of the Imperial Factions including the Inquisition, the Wizard's Guild, and Crime families, amongst many others.

Thursday, May 12, 2016

Art, Maps, and such.

Yes, I know, I should've scanned it...
 
 
All art and maps I post here are my own work. I'd like to post maps regularly for anyone's personal, non-profit use, but since the majority of my maps haven't been discovered by my players yet, I can't post 'em.
 
 
The above was an abandoned hold nestled away in the Dragon Spine Mountains formerly used by some particularly unpleasant individuals for  unsavory shows they would put on for a select audience. After cleaning out some nasty and strange stuff, my players have taken it over as their secret base of operations, gaining an genetically mutated (albeit weakened from long captivity) soldier as an ally in the process.

Wednesday, May 11, 2016

WFRP - the Grim Hack - the Rules

What my Warhammer games can look like.
 
 
Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay – the Grim Hack
 
This rules “hack” offers an alternative to the career advancement rules for Warhammer Roleplay first edition. I realize these rules may not be appropriate for all campaigns, but if you give them a try, please let me know.
 
Base rules as Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay first edition.
 
Character creation:
Role characteristics as normal except S, T and W. S and T are rolled 2d10 +20, the ‘tens’ space is used for the standard S and T values (ala second edition rules), while the full result is used for advancement. Ex: a roll of 35 for the S characteristic, 3 is the standard strength, while the 35 is used to roll against when trying to increase the attribute. W is rolled 3d10+40 and the ‘tens’ digit used as above.
 
Roll for starting career as normal, take your skills, trappings, and the free advance. Ignore the rest of the advance scheme and the career exits. This is now your background before you became an adventurer.
 
Character advancement:
While adventuring, make note of any meaningful successes (i.e. rolls that actually have negative repercussions if they are failed) made from rolls off of characteristics, only a single success counts for any particular statistic. Multiple successes only count for one advancement attempt. At the end of the session or adventure, roll d100 for each of these noted characteristics. If the roll is higher than the characteristic’s current value, add d6 points to it, up to the max value allowed as given below. Note: Initiative is used frequently for searching, hiding, surprise, etc., so the GM has to be judicious in deciding what a ‘meaningful roll’ entails.
 
Max 80% for all characteristics except S, T, which are 6. When rolling to advance these last two, the GM may require a re-roll for results above 70% to avoid these from being raised too fast. However, Strength tests may not come up much in a campaign, and depending how common poisons and diseases are used against players, there may not be many chances for these to go up at any rate.
 
W advancement occurs when a character gets knocked down to zero wounds and survives the encounter. The maximum value for Wounds is 10 (100).
 
No additional attacks gained with these rules. Merely additional attacks granted following this formula: second attacks in a round are at -25% of base WS, third attack at -50% of base WS.
 
Magic points are gained when Cast Spells: n Magic level x skills are gained, only counting at the first level power level they are received. So Cast Spells: Battle Magic level 1, 4d4 MPs are gained, but when a character later gets Demonology level 1, they do not receive any more MPs until the first time they reach a second level tier of spellcasting. On face value, it may look like spellcasters will advance in power/spells more rapidly, it is dependent on whomever is teaching them these skills, whether they will teach them or not. Good reason for earning favor with people.
 
2d4 MPs when learning the Petty Magic skill, and 4d4 MPs each when learning levels 1-4.
 
Acquiring new skills, find someone willing to train that skill and pay them. Usually cash is hard to come by in my campaigns, so 100gp seems a good base rate, modified by Faction standing and favors done or owed.


WFRP - the Grim Hack - My issues with WFRP

Beware the sign of the Hidden!
 
 
My issues with WFRP primarily stem from the fact that (I know, it's an unthinkable blasphemy), I do not use the Old World in my campaigns.
 
Well, I did with the first, but not with the other three. I developed my gaming world along with a comic book I made back in the late '90s called Korvus. Please don't look it up. Artistically, not by best work by far (cut too many corners to try and go fast), and I tried to tell a long over - arching story without telling episodic stories each issue that the medium really requires. Ugh.
 
Anyway, I digress (a lot).
 
Here's the issue, my world of Anglypur exists in the far future as a quarantined planet within Corporately controlled Space. So adding the occasional Sci-Fi piece of equipment, alien, or renegade robot wasn't an issue. But if I wanted the boys to escape in the long run, or, if they found a Sci-Fi enclave and wished to either make a new character from there or join a career from there, I had to make new careers. And as I love these base WFRP rules, what if I decided to run a campaign purely in Corporate Space? Note: this was long before the FFG's 40k games were published, in fact before FFG even existed, so I didn't have anything to turn to other than my loved and read to rags Rogue Trader.
 
So in my two-inch stack (plus) of gaming notes and stuff, you bet I have a pages and pages of modern and Sci-Fi careers converted over from first edition WFRP. Not a one 100% completed. Hmmm...
 
My longest running of the older campaigns I learned that I both loved and hated the career idea. As a background to where your character came from it was awesome. As a vehicle for role playing hooks, I always had something to throw at the characters. I still remember Dale's brothel, "Charlotte's Harlots," with both a smile and a shudder.
 
However, where things start sticking in my craw is that the players really aren't Engineers, Pharmacists, Judicial Champions, etc. damn it.
 
They were adventurers.
 
I would hand wave off-time back in town with "You all continue with your careers, but your character, Dave, has found something strange on your patrol with the city watch." So it did help to add hooks, but other than the particular stat advances, one skill out of ten, or the career exit they wanted, their career was something else entirely. What their current career was, was certainly something that didn't pay the bills, earn them fame, or exercise the abilities they actually wanted/needed/used.
 
So began my experimentation with house rules that lasted for years, and ended up with something I've decided to call the Grim Hack.
 
These rules will theoretically be in the next post...
 
PS: For those of you still playing D&D based rules, be sure to check out the Black Hack by Gold Piece Publications. Their advancement mechanics are pretty damn close to what I finally decided on, plus, it looks fun as hell.

Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay - the Grim Hack - My history with WFRP

Death rules the underworld, or so the rumors say.
 
 

I still remember picking up WFRP for the first time, sometime in the late '80s at my (now defunct) local hobby shop (I'd later pick up both RoC hardcovers there, too). My mind had been recently blown by the Realms of Chaos miniatures with their thick baroque detail, so I was keeping my eye out for anything Warhammer related. I'd recently been (honorably) discharged from the Marines, and I think the grim perilousness of the world spoke to my post-military state of mind at the time. I flipped through that thick soft-cover, the illustrations, the careers (Marine!!!), the actually effective Necromancer (I'm glaring at you, TSR), all these had me hooked.
 
 
I would end up running 4 WFRP campaigns of varying length throughout the years, including the one I'm running now. I'd ran various adventures for our gaming group through the decades (we'd often trade off who ran our D&D campaigns) including Queen of the Demon-Web Pits, and I ran a few Call of Cthulhu adventures (but the boys never really dug it, being more action-oriented players at the time), but I keep coming back to WFRP.  The combat system seems so natural to me. Percentiles to hit, damage reducing armor, gore-laden crit tables, and evocative magic system, particularly the necro raise skeleton and demonic power spells, equals deliciousness!

However, WFRP, particularly my beloved first edition is not without it's faults. To be continued...

Tuesday, May 10, 2016

Welcome!

A Northman veteran of the Frozen Wastes.

My name is Mick Fernette. I'm starting this blog to have a place for my rpg campaign notes, discuss my house rules and home-brew universe, post some tools and tables I use in my games that others might find interesting if not useful, and to post some of my maps and artwork that I do. Thank you for reading!