Kickstart Your Weekend

This one seems like a no brainer to me.

Globetrotters' Guide to London

A Gothic Guide to Victorian era London?
YES PLEASE!

RPG a Day 2015, Day 28

Day 28: Favorite Game You No Longer Play

There are actually a few.

I would have to say Mage: The Ascension.

I didn't play a lot of it, but what I did I really enjoyed.  Have not had the chance to play it the last 10 or so years.

PWWO: Dark Albion and War of the Witch Queens

I mentioned previously Dark Albion and Fantastic Heroes & Witchery by their very natures are compatible with a wide variety of games and game supplements.  So doing a "Plays Well With Others" sort of post seems a bit redundant.  But that doesn't mean I can't try something a little more different.

 

One thing I always wanted to do was run a dark age WitchCraft RPG game.  Set in the 1600s it would deal with rival factions of the Gifted fighting each other while Europe descends into the Burning Times.  It struck me how close that idea was some things I was also planning in my War of the Witch Queens adventures.

Reading over Dark Albion I kept thinking that while the Rose War is cool and all but later periods are much more fun.  Setting it in the later later ages, say the Elizabethan or even during the time of King James I, gives another backdrop. During Elizabeth England was very stable, but during James that is gone. 

Take some of the ideas from Dark Albion but advance them to 1580 or so during the reign of King James.  This is also the height of the witch craze in Europe.  This allows me to use William Shakespeare and John Dee.  I might make Dee an Occultist.  Seems right.  Plus I can take the occultist class and make it into a passable Occult Poet.

Another point of commonality is Astonishing Swordsmen & Sorcerers of Hyperborea. I wanted to use it as a game system for both Dark Albion and my witch adventures.  I think it would work out well.  I need to find locales in "Dark" Europe for all of these adventures.

It would be one of the ultimate tests of the whole OSR ideal. Can products written for different games and different times all work together?

System: Astonishing Swordsmen & Sorcerers of Hyperborea and Fantastic Heroes & Witchery (to smooth out the rough edges)

Setting: Dark Albion
Adventures:
A3 Wicked Cauldron (C&C)
B7 - Rahasia (Basic D&D)
Fane of the Witch King (3.0/d20)
Night of the Spirits (C&C)
No Salvation for Witches (LotFP)
Saga of the Witch Queen (DCC)
The Dancing Hut of Baba Yaga (AD&D_2e)
The Ruins of Ramat (S&W)
The Stealer of Children (LL)
The Witch Queen's Revenge (Pathfinder)
The Witchwar Legacy (Pathfinder)
The Manor Issue 6 (OSR)
Witch of the Tarriswoods (OSR)
Witches Court Marshes (AD&D_ish)

I might thin this list a bit since I am only dealing with levels 1-13 or so.

RPG a Day 2015, Day 27

Day 27: Favorite idea for merging two games into one

I have had a few to be honest.  In fact they get their own label here, Plays Well With Others.

My favorite though is "Black Rose", my mixing of Blue Rose with Ravenloft.

Here are some of the posts from back then.

• Black Rose, Part 1
• Black Rose, Part 2
• Black Rose, Part 3
• Black Rose, Part 4

It was a lot of fun.

Class Struggles: The Occultist & Skylla

Fantastic Heroes & Witchery has crazy number of classes. There were  so many to choose from and this is even given the fact that there is no "cleric" class to speak of.    I wanted to address this and talk about the Wiseman/Wisewoman and maybe I still will, later down the road.  But today I want to focus on the Occultist.

The Occultist is a magic-using character that ends up having a lot of dealings with various fiendish creatures.  The class is one of the "Weird Tales" era classes presented in the book, but there is no reason it could not be used with other dungeon crawling types of classes.  It is not the strongest character on the block and it's spell selection and use is a little limited, but it has some nice features.

To begin with the Occultist will be the undeniable expert on anything fiendish.  Demons, Devils, whatever your world has, they will know about it.  They can add their level to any skill check involving demonic/fiendish lore.  This applies to any skill. The example given are survival checks when crossing a hellish-plane or a charisma check when dealing with demons.  Not too shabby really.
At third level then even get secret knowledge of the demon slayers to aid them.
As the occultist gets higher levels they can even banish a demonic creature al together. Much like a cleric turning undead.

But all of this comes at a price.  The occultist is tainted by corruption.   The abyss staring back at you.
As they earn higher levels they have to make a Wisdom save vs. corruption or move closer and closer to chaos.  A nice idea really.

Occultists learn spells from books or other occultists.  But unlike wizards they do not have a number of spells per level they know, but rather a total number of spells and the highest level they can learn.  So a 7th level Occultist knows 7 spells and the maximum spell level of 4th.  Of those seven spells all can be 1st level or some other mix. It depends what the occultist can find in their travels.
Personally I would modify that up based on Intelligence, but that is me. The Occultist uses "Black Magic" spells, but I wonder if starting occultists could get away with using Grey magic too.  At least until they fail more saves and become chaotic.

In many ways this spell casting system is the same as what you see in the Witch from The Complete B/X Adventurer.  There are in fact many similarities in tone and the manner in which they get spells.  I can see some overlap in these classes.

Which gives me an idea.

Skylla, 7th Level Occultist

Strength: 9
Dexterity: 11
Constitution: 10
Intelligence: 12
Wisdom: 14
Charisma: 13

Hit Points:  20 (d4)
Alignment: Chaotic
AC: 4 (Ring of Protection +1)

Special Abilities
1st: Dark Lore (+7 to fiend-based/related skill checks)
3rd: Secret knowledge of demonslayers
6th: banish fiend 1/day

Spells
Maximum Spell Level: 3rd
Number of Spells known: 6
1st Level: Read Magic, Cause Fear, Chill Touch, Find Familar
2nd Level: Black Lightning
3rd Level:  Bestow Curse

Not bad, I only gave her the minimum spells, but she would likely have more secreted away in a tome for later learning.

Monstrous Manual for 2e

The Monstrous Manual for 2e is now out.

DMG is out next week!

RPG a Day 2015, Day 26

Day 26: Favorite Inspiration for Your Game

I have said it before, but I am heavily influenced by music.  What ever album, CD or playlist I am listening to has the next adventure idea for me.

Also I have been undoing influenced by Hammer Horror, B-grade horror movies, 70 Euro-trash horror and 80s slasher flicks.