Exodus

“We celebrate the leaving of the aelva danna by gathering with our neighbors and watching the stars, thus strengthening our alliances and making the blooded more strong.”

“And don’t forget the watching of the stars, that is important too.”

“Why?”

“To watch for signs that the wicked ones are returning..”

This is said to be celebrating the anniversary of the Sorcerer-King’s leaving shanri or the date when the blooded rose up under their banners and drove them out, depending on who you ask.

Exodus is celebrated by visiting a neighbor, making tight bonds and strengthening the ven.  Some think this strength must be present in order to defend the ven when the Sorcerer-Kings return.  These bonds are made during lavish feasts under the stars, during which the blooded make pacts with their neighbors and watch the constellations in the crisp autumn air.

It is an auspicious day for wedding announcements and the planning of as-yet unborn ven’s tutoring.

Swordsday

“What if the sword is not my strong suit?  What of ven who see their souls represented in a quill or a sorcerous tome?”

“Ven have always been artists and scholars.  That is fine.  But on this day we set aside those tools and remember why we are blooded and the martial responsibilities at the heart of our baronies, counties and duchies.”

“But what if-”

“Then you lie and pay homage to the sword.”

This is the day the blooded spend with their swords, remembering the weapon that represents their lordly power.  This is also the day when those who have taken the black and gone under a veil may return via Senatorial decree.  If a great martial deed was done, a sword might be officially named on this day.  If a sword was damaged beyond repair, it would be buried in the family plot, just like any other living relative.

Swordsday is an auspicious day for a duel and an inauspicious day, bordering on bad form, to take the red and set aside one’s blade for the weapon of revenge, the knife.  It is never an auspicious day for Mass Murder.

Thanksgiving

“Thank you for being my teacher.”

“No, it doesn’t work like that.  When one is poisoned at a Thanksgiving feast, the poisoned must thank the poisoner in some sincere manner in order to get the antidote.  I haven’t poisoned you.”

“Oh, I didn’t understand.  I’m sorry.  I didn’t understand.  You should thank me for being your student, as I just poisoned you.”

Thanksgiving is a time to gather with blood relatives and the best of friends in order to feast.  It is also a time to play cunning games, as a tradition is to poison someone you love.  It is bad form to let the poison run its course and allow them to die.  Instead, the poisoning must be announced and the poisoned is given the opportunity to tell the poisoner why they are thankful to have such a person in their life.

Very often, someone is poisoned because they have taken someone in their life for granted.

This is an auspicious holiday for breaking off romances in order to concentrate on one’s life at home.

Planning: Going to figure out a place to watch the UFC fights this weekend on Fox and send out some resumes.

Writing: Working on a few things with a couple of friends but nothing I can talk about just yet.  Other than that, just cover letters and a blog post about ven holidays that I might get up later today.

And you?

Check out Super Hero Necromancer’s amazing wilderness encounter mini-regions.  They are really fun.

• The Dominion of the Snow Elves
• The Blighted Rift
• The Ruin Sea
• The Spider Swamp

And a handy-dandy guide to using them.

Fun bits of useable bite-sized setting creation.

Am I allowed to run a Batman game with the Marvel RPG?

And that got me thinking about how to incorporate Wonder Woman, Batman and Superman in a game that is about Marvel and its big event comics.

In this world, the Trinity are obscure.  They never led any Justice League and were never invited to join the Avengers.  Maybe Ma and Pa Kent brought their child to the Baxter Building  to be tested, linking Clark to the Fantastic Four a bit.  Pa Kent told his son that if he was going to don a super-hero’s costume he should model himself on Captain America and fight for Truth, Justice and the American Way.

Batman was inspired to become a vigilante when Daredevil caught Joe Chill when he was still a boy.  Gotham City is an obscure, dirty city in Jersey, known for its insane crime lords and beautiful architecture.  I picture back -issues where Batman goes undercover in the Hand to learn their techniques while trying to figure out his route to being a vigilante.  Maybe Wayne hires Heroes for Hire every so often.  Moon Knight could probably use some restful time in a lighter security wing of Arkham Asylum.

Wonder Woman is in the United Nations, dealing with  ambassadors from places like Latveria, Genosha and Atlantis.  Namor served with Diana’s mother in the Invaders during World War II.  Obviously, she has brawled and then teamed up with Hercules from time to time (maybe in the pages of Marvel Team-up).

Superman is in Metropolis, a city in Massachusetts that never quite took off like it promised to in its 1920 World’s Fair…CITY OF THE FUTURE!  Maybe he is mentored by Gladiator who says he has some Kryptonian blood from a few generations back on his mother’s side.

The Watcher takes particular notice of them, sometimes pointing them at imbalances that revolve around gates to other worlds and alternate realities, knowing that they don’t belong here.

Now, thinking about the evens Cam tells us will be in supplements to come:

Civil War: They’d be fun in the Civil War because all together they are powerful, have very different ideas about how things should get done and would really alter the balance.  Also, the end of Civil War was not really satisfying, so it would be nice to see that altered.

Annihilation: If we could somehow link this event to the destruction of Krypton, maybe with General Zod and Ares, it could be an interesting galactic adventure for Kal and Diana but Batman’s a stretch.  That said, if the JLU and JLI taught us anything, its that Batman can be fun in this over-powered galactic adventures too.

That said, if we were tossing DC toys into the Marvel sandbox, I’d be tempted to go with New Gods on this one.

Age of Apocalypse: This is a tough one as none of them are really linked to mutants but it might be fun to send them into an alternate reality with growing hints that they don’t belong in this universe and alternate universe versions of themselves and maybe an evil Justice League hunting mutants with sentinel back-up.

I pre-ordered them game and look forward to devouring it and perhaps statting this idea up.  I’m intrigued and hopeful as the FASERIP Marvel game was my introduction to role-playing.

Planning:  Weekend with the lady-friend.

Writing: Brainstorming a gonzo sci-fi idea with an artist friend, talking with another about a comics pitch and trying to find my re-entry point on my wizard novel.

And you?

Freemarket.

I have this zany idea for a Lacuna play-by-post game that I might have to try at some point.

I’d like to play Technoir, fall in love enough to write up 9 transmissions for the cyberpunk solar system, vaguely inspired by the Takeshi Kovacs books.

I’d like to play the new Marvel Super Heroes RPG, because FASERIP was my first RPG jam and it’d be neat to play a game if they came out with a Mutant Massacre supplement. The first issue of the Mutant Massacre was my first X-Men comic right about at the time that Rob introduced me to role-playing games via Marvel’s RPG at the time.

I’d like to play Dogs in the Vineyard through 12 towns linked to holidays in the 12 months.

I know a few ladies who I think would really dig In a Wicked Age.

I continue to have the urge to play a nice long arc of Shock: Social Science Fiction and gather those scraps of paper minutae and turn them into a full on World Bible.

I’d like to write and play an Apocalypse World hack.

And you?

D&D is more than just a set of rules for fantasy gaming. It launched an entire gaming genre and played a pivotal role in creating the entirety of the gaming industry, both analog and digital. The game has lived and thrived because it has awoken a spark of creation, visions of daring adventure, wondrous vistas, and untold horrors that pull us all together as a community of RPG fans. It is the countless players and DMs who have brought it to life over the years. The game is at its best when it is yours.

For that reason, we want your participation. The goals we have set for ourselves are by no means trivial or easy. By involving you in this process, we can build a set of D&D rules that incorporate the wants and desires of D&D gamers around the world. We want to create a flexible game, rich with options for players and DMs to embrace or reject as they see fit, a game that brings D&D fans together rather than serves as one more category to splinter us apart.

NYT reports:

True believers have lost faith. Factions squabble. The enemies are not only massed at the gates of the kingdom, but they have also broken through.

This may sound like the back story for an epic trilogy. Instead, it’s the situation faced by the makers of Dungeons & Dragons, the venerable fantasy role-playing game many consider to be the grandfather of the video game industry. Gamers bicker over Dungeons & Dragons rules.

Dave over at Critical Hits says:

If you’d like to try the latest version of D&D, D&D Experience is coming up at the end of the month. Not only am I one of the special guest bloggers, both ChattyDM and I will be running several tables of it (as will actual WotC employees) so sign up now if you’d like to give it a try.

I like these quiet little moments before the storm.  It reminds me of Beethoven.  Can you hear it? Its like, when you put your head to the grass.  You can hear them crawling.  You can hear the insects.

- Stansfield

We finished up our Burning Wheel game, in which the players spent their dragon’s hoard, killed the serpent pope, unveiled the trinity who rule the Thieves’ Guild and started a wizard’s college founded on the concepts of adventuring, sorcery and carousing (its the wizardly party school, as per their whoring founder).  We stuck with Versus tests and it was good fun.

Next up for us is Houses of the Blooded.  I read over the descriptions of the counties and we agreed to set the game in Dawn County.

Dawn County

Description: These islands are on the easternmost face of Shanri.  The seas beyond Dawn County are guarded by ferocious orcs, bred by the Sorcerer Kings to both guard their eastern shores and thwart the escape of their slaves by boat.  The county seat is a sprawling port city called Garshan di’Nathorc Haas (Where Slaughter Rests) or as the peasants call it, Scabbard City.  Unethen I’ilinnen (High Kings Sword) is the river that runs from the capital city in central Shanri to the east coast.

Nickname:  The Sunrise Barons

Count: Your countess is a fearless admiral of a fleet.  A baron would have a difficult time figuring out where she might show up as she is often out hunting sea orc or whaling or using one of these pretenses as an excuse to visit one of her barons without warning.  She is an old ven, the crone of the sea, who will likely fade from the world before too long.  Some say she will become a suaven prayed to by sailors and fisher-folk.

Her husband is Blooded of the Bear and rules the city with an iron fist while raising their many children.

Aspects:

Sea Falcon
Invoke: You gain 3 dice when you are traveling by sea, braving Shanri’s tides.
Tag: Your opponent may gain 2 dice when they use stone terrain against you.
Compel: Feels compelled to risk life, limb, ship and crew while at sea for glory.

Morning Ven
Invoke: You gain 3 dice when you awaken at first light to get work done.
Tag: Your opponent may gain 2 dice when they are in a conflict with you late in the evening.
Compel: Feels compelled to take terrible risks at first light.

We’ll make characters next week and until then, there isn’t much to do.  I’ll dig up a map of the county’s islands, maybe have some island outlines, the coast with the river and county seat.  Rather than have a hard and fast map, I’ll likely have some islands to choose from and the players will choose them, place them on the coast and we’ll make the map as we go.

I’ve got some details to daydream about – an adventurous elder countess/admiral, her hardy husband, their many children, a sprawling port city, the river that leads past the River Barons to the capital city, the Hub of all Revenge.  Fun toys.

The nice thing about having a menu of counties is that I not only have ideas for the county where the players will have their baronies but I have rough concepts for other neighboring counts and such.

Anthony was in the original playtest group and Aaron has read the book but the other two players are not familiar with the setting at all, which will be fine.  I’m thinking about a primer for setting info:

• Revenge/ Love, same word, different inflection.
• A timeline with Sorcerer Kings gone, High King mad and deposed, return of the Falcon, modern day…
• Meaning behind wearing different colors
• Sub systems: Dueling, Mass Murder, Romance, Insults, Art,  Season Actions
• Little details to pick up in play: Sorcery, Armies, Senate, Shanri as enemy, Revenge, Opera

That is what’s brewing on the winter gaming table.  I’m eager to see it all come together.

Links for my own storage:

Scabbard City

River City

Planning: This weekend will be resumes, poker, the gym, cleaning the room, and assessing boxes f books.

Writing: I started writing an obnoxious short story about going back in time in order to stop a trio of friends from getting into marriages that the future-friend knows end in poisonous divorces.  Its about as awful as it sounds, more like exorcising a stupid demon than like actually writing something.

And you?

P.S. I’m listening to Bret talk about The Final Girl over on the Nerdaverse podcast while I post this up.  I was living with Bret while he was developing the game and got to playtest it.  If you like horror movies or fun, check it out.

Happy birthday, John! Wear some purple and be entertained!

We’re considering what to play for our Thursday game once the latest Burning Wheel mini-campaign is done and one of the games on the table is Houses of the Blooded.  This always get’s me thinking of ways to make the game a little easier to ease into.

I wrote two previous posts on color aspects based on what different colors mean to the ven and past job quasi-lifepath aspects based on the different vassals barons can have working for them.  My next aspect post will have childhood aspects.

Hopefully, having menus of aspects will allow players to not only pick and choose if they want but will give them models of solid aspects that are also cliff notes for ven society and culture.

I like having the barons be related through some kind of geographic feature, some way to bring them all together under one count.  Houses of the Blooded, just through its dice, estate management and initial set-up has enough situation so that the county itself really just needs to have color and not impending doom dripping from every word.

Once everyone made up their baronies we’d likely make a rough map of the area.

Also, this kind of thing is helpful to have around so that I can have an idea of the larger world outside of the players baronies, with outlined counts and other baronies around shanri.  This was a whole lot of fun to write up, so I’ll likely bang out six more in the coming weeks.

Here are half a dozen counties, roughly sketched out so that we can flesh them out through chargen and play.

Dawn County

Description: These islands are on the easternmost face of Shanri.  The seas beyond Dawn County are guarded by ferocious orcs, bred by the Sorcerer Kings to both guard their eastern shores and thwart the escape of their slaves by boat.  The county seat is a sprawling port city called Garshan di’Nathorc Haas (Where Slaughter Rests) or as the peasants call it, Scabbard City.  Unethen I’ilinnen (High Kings Sword) is the river that runs from the capital city in central Shanri to the east coast.

Nickname:  The Sunrise Barons

Count: Your countess is a fearless admiral of a fleet.  A baron would have a difficult time figuring out where she might show up as she is often out hunting sea orc or whaling or using one of these pretenses as an excuse to visit one of her barons without warning.  She is an old ven, the crone of the sea, who will likely fade from the world before too long.  Some say she will become a suaven prayed to by sailors and fisher-folk.

Her husband is Blooded of the Bear and rules the city with an iron fist while raising their many children.

Aspects:

Sea Falcon
Invoke: You gain 3 dice when you are traveling by sea, braving Shanri’s tides.
Tag: Your opponent may gain 2 dice when they use stone terrain against you.
Compel: Feels compelled to risk life, limb, ship and crew while at sea for glory.

Morning Ven
Invoke: You gain 3 dice when you awaken at first light to get work done.
Tag: Your opponent may gain 2 dice when they are in a conflict with you late in the evening.
Compel: Feels compelled to take terrible risks at first light.

Dusk County

Description:  The westernmost edge of Shanri is where the Sorcerer-Kings are said to have sent their failed experiments and is infested with orc of all kinds who have bred and roared in the western lands for centuries.  The lands beyond these shores are unmapped by ven.  The county seat is the count’s own modest castle with a village built up around it.  The castle’s most notable attribute is a watch-tower, built by the Sorcerer Kings that reaches into the clouds.

Nickname:  The Frontier Barons

Count: The count is a quiet sorcerer, Blooded of the Serpent, who studies the orc and any markers left here by the Sorcerer Kings, sending his findings back to the capital.  As taciturn and introspective as he is, his wife is a vibrant ven, Blooded of the Fox.  Born and bred in the capital, she is often throwing parties to show off her husband’s latest discoveries, admiring art and hatching conspiracies.

Aspects:

Gaol County

Description: The senate has bound something fell in the middle of your county and it is your duties to keep it imprisoned.  The county is a valley, surrounded by natural boundaries upon which each of your baronies are founded.  The county seat is a nearly deserted city that has not been fully populated since the days of the Sorcerer Kings.

Nickname:  The Wardens

Count: Why in all of the hells won’t the Senate replace this count?  The agents of the senate in silver and black who are sent through here to inspect the seals and wards refuse to take any part in county politics but it is clear that your count is mad.   His Falcon wife never seems to be around long enough to notice how erratic his behavior has become.

Aspects:

River County

Description: Unethen I’ilinnen (High Kings Sword) is the river that runs from the capital city to the eastern edge of Shanri.  It is a mighty river that brings fast travel, floods, trade and piracy.  The county seat is a raucous river city through which every craft shanri has to offer is bought and sold.

Nickname:  The Drowned Barons

Count: Your count is of House Wolf and is obsessed with hunting the river pirates and seeing them all dead, often traveling to the senate and demanding that his personal guard be allowed to be expanded so that he might keep the river traffic safe.  His martial mind means that his wife, a more sensible ven of House Serpent, sees to the trade.

Aspects:

Hub County

Description: These are the barons who guard the capital city, well positioned to know the going’s on all over Shanri.  These baronies surround the capital city monitoring all traffic in and out.  They also take a particular interest in any ven whose ambitions give them delusions of high kingship.  Wars that attempt to turn coronets into crowns cause bloodshed in Hub county more than any other.

Nickname:  The Hub Barons

Count: Your count is an overly ambitious Blooded of the Elk, married to another overly ambitious ven of  the same House.  He has made no secret that he does not plan to be Count for long and is hatching plans to claim the Elk’s Ducal seat.  The baron and baroness have made it plainly know among the Hub Barons that they will raise up any who aid them along the way.

Aspects: