[Atomic Thursday] Blackstar!

Blackstar was not quite post-apocalyptic, but had a sciency-fantasy mix that a friend included in a Gamma World setting he ran in the early 80s.

[Resources] Stage Combat Workshop at Eureka College

Eureka College (Ronald Reagan's alma mater) has a stage combat class. Stage combat is a skill that may be useful to characters - the ability to fake a fight, while making it look good, could be used in a number of ways, including faking out an enemy, performing for a village fair, or trying out a new technique.

In terms of Savage Worlds, stage combat can be performed at one-die type lower than the Fighting skill or using the lesser of Performance or Fighting skill. Failure results in an unconvincing fight while a critical failure ends in pain (and possibly death).

[Quotes] Eternity

"Eternity is really long, especially near the end." - Woody Allen.

[Resources] Matt Wagner's Mage

Matt Wagner is an excellent comic artist and author. In the 1980s, his work graced gaming books like FGU's Psi World.

But he's more well known for the two Mage series (15 issues each), Mage: The Hero Discovered (1984-1986) and Mage: The Hero Defined (1997-1999). Wagner paints a wonderful and magical world filled with heroes with magic baseball bats, villains and monsters, ghosts and myths, all mixed together in the modern world.

An annotated website for the first series is available online. I urge you to check it out!

[Savage Worlds] Winter War Campaign, Session 7: Come Take A Trip In My Airship

After taking the Necromancer's ship in the last session, the PCs worked to gain full control. With their ship damaged and enemy nearby (but stuck on a sandbar) flying Malarky's colors, they quickly checked out their new ship - Joe and Sir Aerik, along with their crew, started transferring their cargo to the new ship. Mort looked at the two ballista on the deck and McFee worked on the rigging while Nostro found a strange device in the captain's cabin and started fiddling with it.

Nostro's actions caused the new ship to rise up out of the water, dragging their old ship with them, and started moving around. It didn't take long to figure out how to use the device to allow their ship to fly through the air.

Leaving their old ship anchored, they manned battle stations and flew to the grounded vessel. Bandits with Malarky's Crew fired at them but failed to gain any sort of success. A few ballista bolts through the deck and the majority of the bandits took to the jolly boat to escape. Five, however, stayed behind and, shouting defiance ("Get bent, McFee!"), they went below deck.

Sir Aerik, McFee, Joe and Nostro boarded the vessel, with Rick manning one of the ballista, while Mort ran the machine to keep the ship up in the air. McFee detected two of the bandits below deck and stabbed them to death through the deck with skill. The others came up in "surrender" but Rick skewered them with a ballista bolt before they could attack.

Searching the ship, they found no-one on board, so they went after the jolly boat with their flying ship. Hovering over it, they dropped their sea anchor through it, killing and drowning the rest of the evil crew.

Taking their old damage ship and the other pirate vessel in tow, they headed back to the smugglers' cave. Searching the Malarky vessel, they found a strange metal coffin. Opening it, they found an old friend from Gath, one who all the PCs knew. She was Sir Aerik's childhood friend and was being converted into one of the necromancers by the coffin.

Nostro figured that it was impossible to remove her from the device without killing her and also that it looked impossible to reverse the process. A necromancer's helmet in the coffin, if placed upon her head, would make the conversion complete (which no one wanted to do).

The crew all agreed that it would be most humane to kill her while Sir Aerik dissented, loudly stating that he'd fight any who sought to harm her. The other PCs took the initiative to shoot the coffin with the ballistas, destroying it and her while Sir Aerik attacked McPhee to stop him firing. The fight was interrupted by the coffin making "Hi, I'm a 30 second time-bomb" type noises and the crew, still fighting Sir Aerik, pushed the coffin overboard.

But was it in time? Not quite. An explosion produced a skull-shaped mushroom cloud, bathing the ship in eldritch radiation. Sir Aerik, Nostro, Rick and Joe fell to the deck, knocked into comas by the evil cloud. Thankfully, McFee and the rest of the crew avoided any bad effects (for now).

The rest of the session was spent awaking the comatose PCs and checking them for any changes that may have occurred, either in their psyche or physically. Sir Aerik awoke last, after having a particularly different experience - his friend's spirit visited him in the last momemts and thanked him for his loyalty but agreed with the rest of the PCs that death was the only solution. She also passed on the fact that Sir Aerik's dead brother, the one he killed in a duel, was the cause of her situation out of revenge. Obviously, in a world of walking dead, this comes as no real surprise.

Next session: Fight on the home ground.

[Resources] Door

Doors are cool. They tell many things about the places they seal. Dungeons are filled with the standard wood-banded door or stone doors or even metal doors. Spaceships are protected by air-locks and doors that go *swoosh*.

They close off temples and jails, open into castles and subway trains, transport adventurers through magical and sci-fi means, and are filled with history and fantastic tales.

Think about your game's doorways. Make more of your doors.

[Sea Roads] Magic

Magic is a very personal thing in the Sea Roads and everyone, trained or untrained, is bound by it. While very few are formally schooled wizards and sorcerers, many people learn a single rudimentary craft, and even some are the equivalent of witches or hedge wizards. Apprenticeships are most common.

There are nine lores of magic: weatherworking, illusions, healing, transformation, summoning, naming, chanting, patterning, and finding. Most self- or apprentice-taught barely learn half of them, and many just a few. Wizards are skilled, at least minimally, in all of the nine lores.

There were five schools of wizardry cast among the sea, one in each part of the Archipelago. Some were destroyed by trechery or dragons, some are poor in knowledge and others still are finding that the growth of formalized magic is changing their original character.

The ruins of the most prestigious school, the School of Nyekundu, is in the Inner Sea. It was destroyed by dragons over a century ago. It is called the Lost School by mages to this day. The island, Nyekundu, is now just a barren rock and left uninhabited. Most people avoid the island, in the belief that the ghosts of the dead or a perhaps even dragon still exist there.

The Middle Sea hosts the School of Nyeupe. Several surviving mages from Nyekundu made this school their home after the destruction of the Lost School. Over time, their knowledge and their influence has increased the prestige of the school. There is, however, a contingent there who want their school back, apart from the influence of the Lost School.

The Reach Schools are much poorer, in knowledge as well as skill. The School of Njano, in the Deiseil Reach, has few wizards of power as Masters of the school and few wizards of note are thought to have come from there. The one with the darkest reputation is the School of Nyeusi in the Spinward Reach. Forbidden acts are reputed to be taught to the least ethically-challenged of the students.

The School of Kijani in the Widdershins Reach was betrayed by rogue wizards and destroyed by pirates in the last century, leaving no one alive. Kijani, much like Nyekundu, is a barren island and avoided for much the same reason.

[Atomic Thursday] Thundarr the Barbarian!

Sadly, the days of Saturday Morning Cartoons are long gone. But one great series was Thundarr the Barbarian!

You can play it, though, with the Under the Broken Moon RPG!

[Blogs] Destination Unknown

UPDATE: Destination Unknown is back. And, like Greg over at Dark Horse Design and Lowell over at Age of Ravens, I am Christian.

I had planned to write a post on DU for a while but I guess that's not going to happen, given the circumstances.
Destination Unknown was a great blog that I hope returns soon. Written by Christian, it was a continuation of his previous paper zines, Scrollworks and Iridia. It had great stuff that is now gone, stuff that I loved to read and planned on using in some games.

Destination Unknown, as a resource, as a gamer's journal and journey, and as a view into other worlds, will be missed from the blogosphere as well as from the wider gaming community.

Christian, I hope that this doesn't prevent you from continuing the hobby you love.

[Resources] Magic Circle

Most fantasy games have instant spellcasting of fireballs, lightning bolts and mass destruction. Some have ritual spellcasting, taking hours or even days to cast. All of these ritual spells need a magic circle though sometimes the rules don't include that.

A magic circle either provides magical protection or creates a sacred space for the magic to occur. A combination of physical marks on the ground, which can include chalk marks, blood, candles, bones, ashes, bitumen, or holy oils, or spiritual or magical blessings in the space is required to trace the boundary.

Circles can be a wide variety of sizes, from personal to gigantic, containing dangers for those outside (like a tricky demon trapped within) or the same for those inside (like a field of ghosts waiting for instruction).

Think of what would happen if your players encountered a magic circle on the ground. How would they know if it was "active" or just some old marks? That could lead to an exciting adventure!

1776! The History Books

"It doesn't matter. I won't be in the history books anyway, only you. Franklin did this and Franklin did that and Franklin did some other damn thing. Franklin smote the ground and out sprang George Washington, fully grown and on his horse. Franklin then electrified him with his miraculous lightning rod and the three of them - Franklin, Washington, and the horse - conducted the entire revolution by themselves." - John Adams, speaking to Benjamin Franklin, 1776.

1776! The Egg

"The turkey is a truly noble bird. Native american, a source of sustenance to our original settlers, and an incredibly brave fellow who wouldn't flinch from attacking a whole regiment of Englishmen single-handedly!" - Benjamin Franklin, 1776.

1776! Sit Down, John!

"For ten years, King George and his Parliament have gulled, cullied, and diddled these colonies with their illegal taxes! Stamp Acts, Townshend Acts, Sugar Acts, Tea Acts! And when we dared stand up like men, they have stopped our trade, seized our ships, blockaded our ports, burned our towns, and spilled our BLOOD! And still, this Congress refuses to grant ANY of my proposals on independence, even so much as the courtesty of open debate! Good God, what in hell are you waiting for?" - John Adams, 1776.

1776! Cool Considerate Men

"You cool, considerate men. You hang to the rear on every issue so that if we should go under, you'll still remain afloat!" - John Adams, 1776.