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It will probably depend on the setting and campaign. In the Phalanos setting I am currently working on a sorcerer needs some enchanted items, and with the rules from Mongoose Runequest II (Legend probably has the same rules for enchantments ?) this leads to a temporary loss of 6 magic points per en- chanted item as long as the item exists. With improvement rolls as the only way to gain more POW it could take a sorcerer a long time to make up for the magic points bound into his enchanted items, and he will probably find it difficult to also improve any of his skills.

I have also only found the rule for POW increase with Improvement Rolls, not the POW versus POW rule. Such a rule could perhaps be in the free Spirit Magic sup- plement, but I have not yet downloaded and read it.

That's why I prefer to dwell in an outer space environment - no sunset ...

Me not trolling, me not living under filthy bridge, me play science fiction, me has spaceship - me rancoring ...

The Beetle refers to our friendly forum landlord and his past adventures, but I do not know that story well enough to tell it. The numbers in the signature mean the ownership of a num- bered copy of the limited "Edition Zero" of BRP, the test edi- tion published before the Big Golden Book.

As for the adventures for this setting, I think it would be the best approach to switch between adventures at the seat of the order (e.g. conflicts with the church because of suspected heresy ...), adventures beyond the gate on the world Phalanos (mostly explo- ration adventures with environmental challenges) and missions to various parts of the setting's version of Europe. An example for the latter kind of adventure could be a diplomatic mission to the court of Emperor Frederick II in southern Italy in order to contact one of the Arab scholars who live there as the Emperor's guests and to gain his permission to copy some of his texts on astronomy and physics. This could be one of the excel- lent Arab star charts, which the order wants to compare the con- stellations of Phalanos' night sky with the known constellations of the Earth's night sky, in an attempt to determine where Phala- nos is in relation to Earth.

Thank you vey much. By the way, this is a first draft of what the world Phalanos will look like, somewhat similar to Mars, but almost all of this will of course be unknown to the characters - which enables me to add details as the characters discover them.

I think it would depend a lot on the specific setting. Up to the early modern times even a small injury carried a high risk to die of an infection or of what was considered as a medical treatment of the injury. Therefore the death ra- te in a historical or pseudo-historical setting should be comparatively high, although many people died days or weeks after the actual injury.

Meanwhile I have decided about the time and location of the setting, the Order of Phalanos campaign will start in 1220 near the city of Metz on the border between France and Germany. This will allow me to use the materi- al from some of the historical Alephtar Games supplements, too, especially from Stupor Mundi. As for spells and magic items, a new type of Sorcery spell for this setting will be Create (Substance or Condition), for example Create (Air) and Cre- ate (Warmth), because these are the things required for the exploration of the world Phalanos. The only "scholarly" spell I have designed so far is "Perfect Recall", it enables the sorcerer to perfectly remember something he has seen (like a page in a book or a constellation of stars in the sky) - the magical equivalent of a digital camera. I am still not very familiar with the Legend RPG, and there are some sys- tems I still have to find (or to houserule, if they really are not there), es- pecially rules for the research and development of new magic spells.

Yep, but one should perhaps keep in mind this information from the Wikipedia article (highlighting by me):

I am not so sure. In German a blackjack is called a "Totschläger" (a combination aus "tot" = dead and "schlagen" = to hit), which describes a weapon designed to kill with a single hit or a small number of hits. Looking at the description of a typical "Totschläger", basically a string of leather with a ball of lead in the size of a golf ball at the end, I would really hate to be hit by this. Still, it does not make a good weapon for the duel or the battlefield, it is rather short and the leather is easily cut.

A few more thoughts ... Since the "adventuring magic" is already well covered in MRQ II and Legend, I will first take a closer look at the kind of spells and items the members of the order will need to visit Phalanos, to explore it and to gain new knowled- ge about it - the things done with technology in a science fiction setting. The necessary "survival" spells (providing air and warmth) and "travel" spells (like Fly and Teleport) do already exist, I only have to design the correspon- ding magic items. Legend does not use permanently active items, they work only for a specific rather short duration and then need considerable time to "reload", so I will have to find some combination of spells and items for those "survival" spells to keep the explorers alive for more than an hour.The "travel" spells do not have this problem, there the aim is to make it possible to use them often with little effort. The "scholarly" spells are a more complex problem, because I first have to decide which questions a scholar would want to have answered, and which methods he would normally use to find the answers. The obvious things he probably would want to know are the location of Pha- lanos (is it near Earth or far away ?), the form and size of Phalanos (is it a sphere, and what is its diameter ?), the length of its year, and so on. Magic should help him to find the answers, but it should not provide instant answers, so I will have to do a little research on medieval scientific methods to figure out how magic could make the process easier without making it too easy. Other things I am working on (very slowly) are the world Phalanos itself and the order's "home base". For the latter I will use a version of Ars Magica's My- thic Europe, it covers the right time period and seems to have all the informa- tions I need, especially in its nice supplements like Covenants, City and Guild or Art and Academe. And then there is the more interesting "adventuring" part, from the rules for ex- ploration (JBE's "Book of the River Nations - Exploration and Kingdom Building" supplement seems to have good ideas I could "borrow") to the actual adventu- res ...

A Happy Birthday to the forum's friendly landlord !

Thank you. Yes, I have this excellent supplement.

Thank you very much, I will take a look at the material. Meanwhile I have found the rules for alchemy and the creation of magic items in the MRQ II Arms and Equipment supplement, so I will perhaps be able to design and post some spells, alchemical substances and ma- gic items for the setting.

The neighbouring threads about organizations for the Legend RPG reminded me of an old project of mine, a crossover between fantasy and science fic- tion about a kind of "magical space research program". My original notes we- re for the Harnmaster system, but it does not seem difficult to "translate" the basic idea into the Legend system. The description of the Order of Phalanos below includes only the "bare bo- nes" of the idea, because I was too lazy to try to translate more, but I think it gives an impression of the concept. Some parts are still missing, especially the order's specific magic (I do not know the Legend RPG well enough to design them) and the alchemical and magical items of the order (I have not yet found out how alchemy and item creation work in the Le- gend RPG). The Order of Phalanos The Order of Phalanos is a small society of scholars and sorcerers dedicated to the exploration of the strange world beyond the ancient Gate of Phalanos disco- vered by the sorcerer Mirdan of Thole. The order began as a small circle of Mirdan's friends who shared his fascination with the gate and the strange place it led to. When Mirdan failed to return from one of his visits to Phalanos, his daughter Anryn took the lead of the circle, first with the aim to find and rescue her father, and later to continue and expand his studies of Phalanos. The silver left behind by her father and contributions from the members of the circle enabled Anryn to buy a small rural manor as her new order's base, where she moved her father's library as well as the ancient Gate, which is now set into the wall of a room in the manor's basement, from where it leads to the order's small outpost on Phalanos. Most of the order's members still live at the nearby towns, but they meet at the manor ar least once per month to prepare their voyages to Phalanos, to use the Gate and to record and discuss the new knowledge gained on Phalanos. All of the members of the order contribute to the order's finances, and Anryn oc- casionally sells some of the strange gemstones found on Phalanos to pay for ur- gently needed equipment, knowledge or services. The Members and Missions Most of the order's members are scholars or sorcerers, but there are also some alchemists, craftsmen, engineers and explorers among the members. While the order has no ranks, Anryn of Thole is the respected and undisputed leader, and there is an unwritten seniority based upon a member's number of visits to Pha- lanos. The order occasionally hires outsiders for various tasks, usually for missions to aquire some rare ingredient or uncommon knowledge urgently needed for the development of a spell, item or mechanism. Trusted friends of the order are so- metimes asked to take part in a voyage to Phalanos when there is a need for their rare skills there, and after some such voyages they may even be asked to become members of the order. The Order's Magic Phalanos is a cold world of deserts of sand and rock and high mountain ranges, with a poisonous air and very little water. The members of the order need magic to visit and explore it, and over the years they have accumulated a grimoire of the most common and useful spells of Common Magic and Sorcery, which can also be learned by new members of the order. The first sorcery spell learned is always Abjure (Air), other often used spells in- clude Fly, Project (Sight) and Teleport. - list of other and more specific spells developed and used by the order - description of magic items developed and used by the order The Order's Skills The order teaches its members the skills required to visit Phalanos and explore it, especially Craft (Cartographer) and Lore (Phalanos), and helps the members to improve their magical skills Manipulation and Sorcery (Phalanos Grimoire). - additional skills taught by the order Well, this is what I have at the moment about my little "Magicians to Mars" idea. Comments and ideas are as always most welcome.

For piloting small ships and fighters I use INT+DEX, but for piloting big ships I use INT+EDU. With something which reacts much like a modern supertanker dexterity does not influence the ship's movements significantly, there a good knowledge and understanding of the ship's design and systems seems more useful to me.

The OpenQuest SRD does not have any modern weapons, but I do not know whether there are any in another version of OpenQuest.

While BRP uses only D6, the actual damage bonuses of BRP are higher than those of GORE. For example, while in BRP a STR+SIZ of 41 to 56 gives a da- mage bonus of +2D6, in GORE a STR+SIZ of 61 to 70 is required for the sa- me damage bonus, and while in BRP a STR+SIZ of 150 gives a damage bonus of +8D6 with an average result of 28, in GORE the same STR+SIZ of 150 gi- ves a damage bonus of +4D10 with an average result of only 22. While there are differences in the damage values of specific weapons, I do not think that GORE weapons are generally more damaging than their BRP counterparts. For example, in GORE an AK 47 has a damage value of 2D6+1, while in BRP an Assault Rifle has a damage value of 2D6+2, and BRP's Sniper Rifle does a damage of 2D10+4, more than any GORE rifle. All in all I think that there are no real differences in the lethality of the two games' combat systems.

It is still a very nice story.

Yep, although in this case the author of the story would have got both the century and the title (count, not duke) wrong. Edit.: After a little more research, I found this in the French Wikipedia: http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charte_angoumoise As for the story about the duke, this sentence is the key: "Cette anecdote est néanmoins totalement fictive." - The story is a complete fiction.

Hmmm ... an interesting story, but not without some minor problems. Looking at the list of Dukes of Angouleme, there was only one "Duc C. d'Angouleme" in the 16th century, Charles de Valois: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Counts_and_dukes_of_Angoul%C3%AAme This Charles died rather young (and in a rather stupid way) at the age of 23, and he seems to have been quite active until his end: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_II_de_Valois,_Duke_of_Orl%C3%A9ans The story could still be true, but I tend to be somewhat sceptical.

It would certainly be possible, but it would require a new method to handle the relation between characteristics and skills, the usual skill category bo- nus system would no longer work.

In my opinion it looks even better now.

Well, actually ...