Over the years, I have only used one avatar for soltakss for all my profiles on various sites.
However, once I started publishing Jonstown Compendium titles, I have changed my profile picture to be one of the faces from the illustrations in the supplement.
I am so glad that I could change it from the Spiderling picture from Holiday Dorastor: Spider Woods, as that picture always creeps me out when I look at it.
My current picture is the Book Wyrm from Secrets of HeroQuesting.
Skills are important to a Mythras game. Yet there is an opinion that some skills are less useful than others. Skills such as Acting, Bureaucracy, Customs, Ride, Swim, Seduction, and even Teach are regarded by some as being unnecessary, and only a handful of skills - Athletics, Brawn, Combat Styles, Evade, Endurance, Willpower - are essential for play. Even Unarmed has sometimes been neglected in the rush to make Adventurers as skilled as possible in an exceptionally narrow range of skills, suite
Taxes, Re-building and the Ale of Alnoth
Wulfhere decided that when he returned he would travel his lands to see what changes had occurred over the year. He was met by delegation after delegation of Farmers on his travels. Many complained that there had been a bad growing season due to adverse weather conditions and many of the crops had rotted in the fields which left them with little surplus to pay their rents for the year. Others said that they had been forced by Aldfrid the Hlafweard1 t
In my previous post, the creation of magic items was addressed. Various mechanisms were looked at, from the use of the sorcery skill Enchant (Object) through to the creation of religious artefacts and relics, and spirit fetishes.
This blog looks at the magic items themselves, and the impact they have in game.
Significance
No enchanted artefact should ever be insignificant. Every artefact carries with it the power to affect the outcome of an Adventurer's skill checks, if not the st
With this article, we begin a look at the artefacts of magic, and their influence on the cultures of the settings of Mythras. The Core Rulebook places the emphasis on the player characters, their native wit and their acquired magical powers or connections to the spirits and/or gods, rather than on magic items and enchanted treasures.
Enchantments
Enchantment is defined as a feeling of great pleasure or delight, as well as the state of being under a spell or magic. This blog could focus
Restoration and Divorce
It took a week to travel from Anderida to Hrofnacæster. The Hrothgarsons had travelled along the Roman road using Way stations or staying at Steadings along the way. Northern Ceint was rich and fertile. Ruins of Roman houses were everywhere. Some had been scavenged for stone and others were intact apart from the roofs which had fallen in. Dunstan thought of himself as a builder and he was intrigued to see how the Romans had built their farms and dwellings. He discuss
[Image is "Summoning," by Joseph Springborg]
Here is how Mythras, page 113, defines sorcery:-
Sorcery is the manipulation of underlying laws that directly control the very fabric of creation. These formulae are complex equations: a mixture of mathematical, psychological, existential, and supernatural principals [sic] that allow the sorcerer to grasp a portion of reality and bend it to his will. Sorcerers do not need to rely on gods for their powers; nor do they need to engage with spir
The Disappointing Meeting
The Hrothgarsons returned to Hambladensted and set the lands in order. Dunstan’s steward, Aldfrid, had done a good job in collecting the rents and administering justice but he had been unable to convince the farmers to work on the fortifications. Dunstan said that he was concerned that the building of the stockade at Pontes was not going as quickly as he would have liked. He discussed it further with his farmers who said they would do what they could. Dunsta
This article is about spirits, and animism, and animists, and about animists in a Mythras game.
Here's what the Mythras Core Rulebook has to say about animism.
Animism is magic worked through communion with spirits and the spirit world. It is the magic of shamans and spirit walkers. Such practitioners do not treat with gods or learn their abilities from books or tomes; instead their powers come from the myriad spirits that inhabit the spirit realms, and interact occasionally with the m
Of all the rules of Mythras,the chapter on Theism has the potential to provide the greatest contention, because it covers the topic of the player characters' religion.
Devotion is one of two non-mundane skills used by theists. The other skill, Exhort, is used to invoke Theistic Miracles.
But what exactly is Devotion about, anyway?
Holiness
Can people really measure someone's holiness by a number? Could a religion's Pontiff really throw down some badass righteous smiting from
This article takes a look at an aspect of each Adventurer's makeup which is rarely used, except in dire circumstances as an "extra save roll" when the resistance skills have failed, and before the player uses up a Luck Point to make the problem go away.
This article is about Passions.
Core Rulebook
Mythras, page 282, has this to say about Passions. Bolded parts highlighted by me.
Throughout all kinds of fiction, and especially in fantasy, passion drives the plot. The desire t
[Cover image is from https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/b6/Atelier_von_Rahmenmachern_und_deren_Werkzeuge_im_18._Jahrhundert.jpg]
One of the more overlooked issues about Mythras adventuring is what equipment the Adventurers are carrying while out on a campaign. The basic tool lists on pages 60, 61 of Mythras and page 88 of Fioracitta are good guidelines as to what one could expect to take on an adventure, but there is still a need to plan in advance for the adventure.
The
Here we go, final entry for the Bardori campaign. This will be a long one, the Storm Season arc was something like 4-6 sessions, comparable to our Prax and Pavis episodes. The last few sessions occurred right at the beginning of the pandemic, so we had to adjust to online play.
After the horrible events of Dark Season, everyone's main concern was purifying the clan of the sins of Chaos and kinslaying. The Clan Ring and chieftain consult with Ynga the Rock, the Storm Bull representative on
The Adventurers are the core of all games. As games have developed, adventure modules have been less about pre-packaged mazes full of hazards and more about dramas and conflicts, with the Adventurers at the heart of driving the changes.
As adventures have developed from their implausible "mazes full of traps and horrors" to more nuanced scenarios and dramas, so too have Adventurers. Modern Adventuring parties now more closely resemble bands of roaming mercenaries, military units or hunting
Okay, so... my Dundealos campaign ended nearly 2 years ago. I might be starting a new campaign soon, and as I was thinking back on this one, I felt bad that I never did a recap for the ending. So here it is, nearly 2 years late! This is going to be pretty bare bones, because now I only remember the broad strokes.
My players and I went through 2 more seasons of 1626, and decided to wrap things up at Sacred Time. I've saved our old character sheets in case we want to revisit them, but I don'
[Featured image taken from Monster Wiki - https://monster.fandom.com/wiki/Dragon?file=DragonRed.jpg]
This post is a hard one to write, and not for the reasons you might think.
Dragon slaying, noble questing knights, castles ... they are all such staples of fantasy, it's hard to get away from such tropes. From Anne McCaffrey's Dragonriders of Pern, through to more modern incarnations in popular media such as Kilgarrah (voiced by the late, great John Hurt) in the TV series Merlin, the dr
Lord of the Endless Surf
Born the very hour that the Sun first appeared in the Sky at the Dawn, Indlas Somer found a new world of oppressive rules and stifling traditions. He rejected the depressing vision of the dogmatists and the judges of morality, and sought a life of hedonism and enjoyment. He quested mightily, and succeeded in carving his own place out of the world: a place for friends and celebration of the good things Life has to offer.
Members of the cult enjoy fast chario
With apologies to Greg Costikyan
"In elder days, no rags were offset
and Lord Mimeo reigned supreme.
Prozine was then a dirty word;
Urf Durfal... still a pleasant dream.
"Yet abysmal worlds spawned forth a horror!
OFFSET, challenging mimeo's rule.
Clear printing, yes, but what price glory?
Dare we abandon our god-sent tool?
"Arise ye men of mildewed minds!
Destroy yon evil process offset.
There is no god but GREAT GESTETNER,
and Costikyan is his only prophet."
In the first age, the region now called Balazar was part of what everyone called the Elder Wilds. The indigenous people call their traditions the Elder Wilds Tradition, and it dominates the area. The people live by hunting and gathering. The primary female practice is Hearth-Mother. The primary male practice is Foundchild the Hunter, although some woman become hunters and join this practice instead of Hearth-Mother. Your hero is probably a spiritist of the tradition, and so gains the benefit of
Song of the Forests
In the beginning was the One. Boundless and, yet, constrained, it contained the limitless All. All that was, and All that was Not. Being and non-being. This paradox, the Paradox of Self, fragmented the One, and it became Two: Grower and Taker.
The Grower contained within it all potential. This potential took the form of the Seed. This was the beginning of the First Plantings, the Age of the Grower.
From within the One, the fluid parts separated, and thus came th
The World Machine
In the beginning, there was the World Machine. A device of wondrous complexity, It encompassed the entirety of the Universe, somehow becoming something greater than the sum of Its parts. Self-created, it contained all possibilities within itself. It remains beyond the comprehension of lesser beings, but it may be termed Mostal. Three components were of special interest to dwarf lore: Helper, the first tool; Linchpin, the central support; and the Mostali, independent repair an
