[Characters] Lee Smith

Lee Smith joined the Miss de Meaner crew during the Mummy adventure. He proved his usefulness against the Nazi war machine and the raid on the slave camp.

Lee Smith (WC)

Agility d8 Smarts d8 Spirit d8 Strength d10 Vigor d10
Pace 6 Parry 7 Toughness 8 Charisma -0-

Hindrances: Vow (M), Death Wish, Vengeful.

Edges: Berserker, Brawny, Two-fisted, Improved Level Headed, Sweep, No Mercy, Giant Killer.

Skills: Fighting d10, Shooting d8,Guts d6, Notice d6, Investigation d6, Stealth d6.

[Savage Worlds] Winter War Campaign, Session 5: The Running Kind

Session five continued with the party trapped in an underground maze, menaced by ghoul children.

Two cut scenes occurred: In one, a Necromancer congratulated Colin on ridding him of the PCs and gaining the title of King of the Iron Crown for Malarky's gang. In the second, a white arm came out of the darkness and drained one of the civilians in the PCs' lair, killing him.

After fighting several waves of ghoul children, they discovered that all of them came back to unlife after each fight. A convincing persuasion roll managed to get the ghouls to go back to their master and gave the PCs some time to figure out a plan of escape.

The maze turned them around so they tied themselves together and wandered the maze blind in order to avoid the magical confusion trap. They kept their hands on the walls to keep their sense of direction. They made some good progress but stumbled upon a room larger than the tunnels and were forced to open their eyes because of an attack by a swarm of rats!

Using fire and magic, they managed to kill off the rats without taking too much damage but the ghoul children returned, bringing with them their master, a Greater Ghoul.

After some chitchat and insults back and forth, the battle was engaged. The Greater Ghoul was deadly in combat, able to paralyze them with a touch and doing extreme amounts of damage. They killed him once but he came back a second time, which they then killed. Before he "reformed," Nostro cast a Locate spell to find the exit and they RAN.

Near the exit they found an ancient gold-inlaid holy stone that prevented the ghouls from leaving the maze and were blessed by the holiness in the stone.

The exit turned out to be a cave that had some military supplies from Grath stored in it and they quickly took the gear and retreated back to their boat.

Next time: Return to the Smugglers' Cave

[Sea Roads] Book List

"He went straight to the shelf and took down the two Lore-Books, which Ogion had never yet opened in his presence." - A Wizard of Earthsea, by Ursula K. LeGuin, Chapter 2: The Shadow.

My inspirational book list for Sea Roads is as follows:

The Earthsea novels by Ursula K. LeGuin:

• A Wizard of Earthsea
• The Tombs of Atuan
• The Farthest Shore
• Tales from Earthsea, especially the short stories Finder and The Bones of the Earth and the article A Description of Earthsea.

I've chosen these specifically and not the later novels because I felt the trilogy pre-1975 was the best of the lot and the following two novels didn't speak to me as much as these did. However, I found myself enjoying the compilation Tales so I've added that book.

The Darwath novels by Barbara Hambly:

• The Time of the Dark
• The Walls of Air
• The Armies of Daylight

I like these Hambly books because they have a very similar flavor of wizards as Earthsea - a connection to spells, names and natural magic ability that I found very compelling.

Reference material:

• The Dictionary of Imaginary Places
• An Atlas of Fantasy

Both of these books are wonderful references, not only of Earthsea information but other fantasy worlds that will provide ideas for the setting.

[1938] Locations: the Four Roads

The Four Roads is located just outside of Port St. Mary, at the intersection of Plantation Road and Beach Road, and Station Road and Bay View Road. The Four Roads intersection is currently controlled by Platoon 3, Company B, of the BUF Solway Legion.

Commanded by Lt. Mulberry Hawk, the BUF soldiers support the rest of Company B located at the Port St Mary Railway Station, keeping the road open to the village. The BUF have dug full trenches along the roads and into the fields around. There are no nearby buildings, so the habitations are crude and rough, and the men are miserable most of the time. Couple that with the road being used (and most of the trenches below the raised roadways) makes the trenches hazardous as well as uncomfortable - two lorries took a dive into a trench last week during the rains, killing several soldiers. Resentment is starting to grow among the lower ranks.

On both sides of the Four Roads, the Manx forces are arrayed. To the west along Truggan Road, Lt. William Guppy commands the 1st Union Mills Platoon, 1st Douglas Company. To the east, along the Beach Road, Lt. Richard Payne commands the Castledown Militia, Castledown Company. These platoons have better accommodations, including actual buildings, but they have set up a half-dozen trenches in their area. Morale is rather high for both as well.

The fighting here is not as intense as at some other places, but shots do ring out on a regular basis.A push to cut off the Port St. Mary Railroad Station is in the works, and tunnels to the intersection have been underway for some time.

Tonight, we're making the push - can you take that trench over there while the Castledown Militia makes a feint? Good chaps!

[Characters] Diego Jackson

Diego Jackson is the pilot for the battered Lockheed Electra Miss de Meaner and the gruffest of the lot. He's got a good heart but can be rather harsh, especially when dealing with threats to his plane and his crew.

Diego Jackson (WC)

Agility d8 Smarts d8 Spirit d8 Strength d8 Vigor d8
Pace 6 Parry 5 Toughness 6 Charisma -0-

Hindrances: Enemy (M), Loyal, Quirk: Always wears flying togs.

Edges: Ace, Quick, Two-fisted.

Skills: Fighting d6, Piloting d8, Shooting d8, Guts d6, Notice d6, Stealth d6, Repair d4, Driving d6, Knowledge (Occult) d8.

[Atomic Thursday] The Final Countdown

Another vid from the 80's that got us thinking about the end of the world.

[Resources] Propp's Morphology

Vladimir Propp was a Russian literary theorist who wrote Morphology of the Folktale (1928), which broke up the structure of the folktale. Though unknown in the west until the 1950s, Propp's treatise includes 8 characters and 31 functions.

The 31 functions of the folktale are step-by-step, allowing for jumps forward but no regression. They include (to name a few) absent family members, the villain's reconnaissance, villainy, receipt of a magical agent, pursuit, transfiguration of the hero and the villain punished.

Take at look at the morphology. It may help your game.

[Savage Worlds] Winter War Campaign, Session 4: Suffer Little Children

Session four continued where session three ended off: The party went ashore to find the useful military equipment that Joe's "friend" Colin stashed.

They noticed that the land they entered was diseased and that disease was not of natural origin. Colin led them through the woods, about five miles from the coast, where they found an old shack, built partially from the ruins of a tower. After listening at the door, Colin led them inside. The inside wasn't much better. It looked long abandoned. Colin fetched a hidden lantern and lit it, turning towards a barred cellar door. He explained that he and Steve had found the place and hidden the loot in the caves beneath the cellar.

He led them down into the cellar (which was filled with junk, probably of the same era as the tower) and through a stone door. The door opened into a cave and Colin stopped to listen but didn't hear anything. The group trouped through the door and the sudden click behind them as the door shut told them that things were about to go rapidly wrong.

The door completely disappeared and Colin looked at them funny before collapsing into a pile of clothes - an enchantment! The lantern went out as he dropped it and for a short while there was a scramble to get light. The PCs found a carved chess pawn with mystical writing on it in the clothes, which turned out to be rotted and useless, as well as "Colin's" equipment - a pitted and rusted longsword and a useless bow.

The party found themselves trapped in a series of tunnels and spent some time trying to get out. They heard children playing in the darkness and before long they were attacked by child ghouls (which freaked them out). The child ghouls attacked them twice, each time wandering off after a round or two. One of the PCs was paralyzed by their ghoulish touch but Father Ashley managed to bring him out of it.

The session ended with the party wandering in circles, finishing the second fight with the child ghouls and no obvious way out!

Next time: ESCAPE!

[Resources] The Society of King Charles the Martyr

The Society of King Charles the Martyr is an Anglican group dedicated to "intercessory prayer for the defence of the Church of England against the attacks of her enemies."

The Society is dedicated to the only King of England to be executed, Charles I. Canonised by the Church of England after the English Reformation in 1660, he was considered the first martyr because he was unwilling to "abandon the Church and give up episcopacy" (High Anglicanism).

The modern Society has a variety of objectives, including getting the Feast of St. Charles (January 30th) reinstated, intercessory prayer, and support to dedicated churches.

The Society can be used in a modern-era game as a group working against the player characters, a patron in a post-Reformation campaign or part of a conspiracy in a Victorian-Era mystery.

[1938] Mort's Blog

The Battle of Henton

When I joined the Edward VIII Cocktail Bar forum over on the Gentlemans Wargames Parlour, Mort was one of the first fellows to welcome me to the fold of 1938: A Very British Civil War.

Mort's 1938 Scrapbook blog is excellent, providing great pictures of miniatures, a look into his 1938 notes  and the war games he gets into over in England.

It's so good, I included it in my blog roll. Check it out!

[Sea Roads] Introduction and Inspiration

"The oarsmen were coming aboard now, for the ship was to go out into the roadstead before night fell, and sail with the ebb-tide near dawn."  - A Wizard of Earthsea, by Ursula K. LeGuin, Chapter 2: The Shadow.

Yes, I'm at it again. I'm creating a new Savage Worlds campaign called Sea Roads. It will be a human-centric, magic-filled setting, in the spaces between a gigantic sea and the archipelago of islands strung within.

The primary inspiration for this was the Earthsea series of books by  Ursula K. Le Guin. After re-reading (for the umpteenth time) A Wizard of Earthsea recently, I searched the internet for any RPG that was similar and found only a few threads here and there, so I decided to do one on my own.

While this campaign setting will be an homage to the Earthsea world, it won't be canon. I'm keeping the sea and the islands, true names and true speech, but leaving behind the Dry Lands, the male-centric (and celibate) wizardry and some of the other bits.

There are other novels that I'll use for inspiration as well and I'll mention them in another post and why I'm using them. For place names and more, I'll be using Google Translate to get English words converted into a real-world language that has some linguistic consistency. I've decided to use Swahili for those words.

I think this campaign setting is an opportunity to move away from the standard fantasy tropes, avoiding the Middle Ages and Europe, elves and dwarves and orcs, for something different.

We'll see how it turns out.

[Resources] Shepherd's Crook

A shepherd's crook is a staff with a hooked end, that's used to hook sheep on the legs or neck. A more formalized version, the crosier is often used by priests in religious services.

The usefulness of this hook in a combat situation, above the standard staff, could, in the hands of a skilled practitioner, not be understated enough.

Here's the staff for Savage Worlds:

Shepherd's Crook
Damage: STR + d6; Wt.: 8#; Reach: 1; Notes: Parry +1, +1 to Agility Tricks, 2 hands.

[Atomic Thursday] 99 Red Balloons

One of the vids from the 80's that exemplified the expected Nuclear Apocalypse.

[Characters] George McJiminy

George McJiminy is a lucky fellow. The seventh son of the seventh son, he is the younger brother to Angus, Brian, Charles, David, Everett, and Francis. The PCs in my Distinguished Flying Cross Pulp Savage Worlds campaign met Francis a while ago and didn't have a good impression. George, however, is nothing like Francis. While Francis is a liar, a cheat and possibly a white-slaver mercenary, George is a stand-up guy, forthright and (fairly) honest, especially in regards to the job the crew of the Miss de Meaner is doing.

George McJiminy (WC)

Agility d8 Smarts d6 Spirit d8 Strength d10 Vigor d6
Pace 6 Parry 6 Toughness 5 Charisma +4

Hindrances: Enemy (M), Loyal, Quirk

Edges: Common Bond, Attractive, Luck, Great Luck, Two-fisted, Charismatic, Connections.

Skills: Fighting d8, Shooting d6, Knowledge (Accounting) d6, Guts d4, Notice d4, Persuasion d6, Throwing d6, Taunt d4, Pilot d4, Intimidation d4, Investigation d4.