rust

It is Christmas Time, and I am planning to get rid of a bishop during the introduc-

tory adventure of the Thule campaign ...

The Grandmaster of my Pruthenic Order wants one of the Franciscan Spirituals

who accompany the knights to Thule to become first Abbot of the monastery at

Gardar and later on Abbot-Bishop of Thule, as this would ensure that the church

on Thule would be friendly to his various projects and support them, and it would

reduce Norway's influence on the events in Thule.

Unfortunately a certain Norwegian priest named Birger Olavson has already been

invested as Bishop of Thule several years ago by the Archbishop of Nidaros. Be-

cause of the dangerous situation in the Thule colony Olavson never went there,

and his see at Gardar remained vacant for all practical purposes. But now, with

the knights and the new settlers there, Olavson is very much tempted to travel

to Thule and collect the Tithe there.

The Grandmaster wants Olavson to resign as soon as possible, before he can go

to Thule, and so asks Bernhard von Sterneck, the leader of the last group travel-

ling from Prussia to Thule, to use the group's stay at Bergen in order to take a

close look at Olavson's life and to see whether there is anything in the priest's

past that could be used to convince him to resign.

Since Bernhard von Sterneck is busy with lots of other tasks, he in turn asks the

player characters to investigate Olavson's past. This gives them an opportunity

to learn a bit more about life in Bergen and Norway, and with a little luck they

will discover that the money collected by a Norwegian monastery to support the

monastery of Gardar on Thule never arrived there, because Olavson used it to fi-

nance his own luxurious lifestyle, which included a concubine.

This little plot will replace my original idea for the events in Bergen, a conflict be-

tween the order and the Archbishop of Nidaros because of the heretical tenden-

cies of the Franciscan Spirituals. I think it will be better to use that plot later in

the campaign, when the Grandmaster will attempt to have one of the Franciscan

Spirituals accepted as Abbot and then Abbot-Bishop, leading to a diplomatic mis-

sion from Thule to Nidaros in Norway.

If you should ever feel an urge to get an impression of what utter confusion is

like, try to research medieval ship types ...

There is few doubt that the Norse used Knarrs or very similar ships to establish

their colony on Greenland, that the Hanse used Cogs and the Scots preferred

Birlinns. It is obviously much less well known what a Knarr, Cog or Birlinn exact-

ly looked like, and how long these types remained in use. For example, the Nor-

wegian ship sent to Greenland around 1380 AD was named the "Greenland Knarr",

although it is highly unlikely that it was a real Knarr of the type used by the Nor-

se.

Beyond Knarr, Cog and Birlinn things get even worse. Other ship types of the pe-

riod are named Buss, Hulk, Nef or Roundship, but the experts are completely un-

able to agree what these names did mean. Nef and Roundship are treated both

as generic names for all kinds of merchant ships and as specific ship types, and

a Buss can be everything from a river boat to a small fishing vessel to a big car-

go ship. A Hulk usually is a type of Cog that is slightly different from a Cog.

Originally I just wanted to find out which ship type the merchants of Bristol used

for their well documented trade with Iceland. After my research I have now deci-

ded that the type they used was the Nef, which looked exactly like a Cog with

some features of a Buss, resulting in a Hulk-like kind of Roundship. Well, if the

players doubt this, they can always do their own research ...

Yep, "Frohe Weihnachten" (or whatever you prefer to celebrate) to everyone here.

By the way, a good source of informations about the time and region is the Eng-

lish translation of the King's Mirror, written around 1250 AD to give a Norwegian

prince the basic knowledge of the Norse lands and its inhabitants that he would

need as a king - it even includes many informations about Greenland (the Thule

of my setting).

If you want to take a look at it, click on "PDF" in the box on the left side:

http://www.archive.org/details/kingsmirrorspecu00konuuoft

The main difference to the original concept is probably that the Norse settlement

on Thule has not become extinct. Under the pressure from the Inuit the settlers

had to give up their northern settlement, and in the southern settlement only 177

settlers at 24 steads and 8 monks at Gardar are left, but the Norse settlement

does still exist in 1294 AD when the knights of the order first visit Thule.

This means that the knights do not go to Thule to found a new settlement, they

go there as vassals of the Norwegian king with the mission to secure and expand

his remote province, the "furthest outpost of Christendom", as they see it. And

since this now happens in 1300 AD instead of 1240 AD, the Prussian settlers they

bring with them are slightly more peaceful and Christianized than in the original

concept.

There is also a small group of Christianized southern Inuit, so this Thule colony

will consist of four population groups with different cultures, German knights, Nor-

se and Prussian freeholders and friendly Inuit, each of the groups with different

expectations and ideas how things should be and be dealt with - enough internal

conflicts for a couple of adventures, I think.

The player characters will enter this picture rather late. They will belong to the

last group of knights travelling to Thule, the group that has the task to "wrap up"

the order's holdings in Prussia and hand them over to the Teutonic Order. When

they finally arrive in Thule, much of the basic work to secure the colony will al-

ready have been done - a "fortified" port, three new tiny fishing villages, six new

manors ...

The first adventures on Thule will be designed to make them familiar with the new

environment and its human and non-human inhabitants, like an exploration along

the northern coast, a polar bear and walrus hunt, a voyage to the Forest Coast

(= Labrador) to bring some wood, the annual Thing, and so on. The next major

event will be a "crusade" to reconquer the lost northern settlement area from the

Inuit and to build a fort there as the first step to resettle the region, and later

adventures could include diplomatic and trade missions to Iceland, Norway and

Scotland.

I think that the "style" of the campaign will be quite similar to that of a Pendra-

gon campaign, only more gritty and less romantic than the usual Pendragon cam-

paign. And there will be no magic, at least no "high magic", and no monsters.

After some months spent on other settings, mostly science fiction ones, I am

now back to the work on the Thule setting.

As the result of a little more research I have changed the date of the setting to

1300 AD and also made some other, minor changes, and the system used is now

a modified version of the one from the German Middle Ages supplement for Call

of Cthulhu combined with the economy rules (price lists, sea trade, etc.) of the

Harnmaster system.

One of the advantages of a pseudo-historical setting on an alternate earth is

that I have to describe much less than I would have to do for a fantasy or sci-

ence fiction setting, so the basic framework of the setting with the necessary

maps is now just 27 pages.

Right now I am doing some more research to fill in more details, especially about

the differences of the various cultures of my Greenland-Thule, and the next step

will then be the introductory adventure that will take the characters from Thorn

via Danzig, Lübeck, Bergen and Iceland to Thule, and then the important parts

of the setting's background history.

Thank you very much.

After working on other settings for several months, I have now returned to my

Thule setting, the one with the knightly order from the Baltic coast that reloca-

tes to Thule / Greenland.

Norway will be the most important secondary location of this setting, for trade

as well as diplomacy: Bergen is the nearest major port and market, the knights

of Thule will be vassals of the Norwegian King, and the church on Thule is under

the control of the archbishop at Nidaros.

I would like to get my description of Norway in 1300 AD approximately right, but

it seems there are not that many sources, and those I have found are more con-

fusing than helpful.

My two main unsolved problems are:

Is Norway in 1300 AD a feudal society with the typical nobles and knights, not

very different from the European "medieval mainstream", or are there significant

differences between the Norwegian "high society" of the time and their southern

counterparts ?

Are the Sami in 1300 AD a part of the Norwegian society, or are they considered

to be enemies and to be fought or avoided (my setting would have use for some

experienced Sami reindeer breeders ...) ?

Any help with this would be most welcome - thank you.

I just asked a friend of mine who teaches English which term she would use to

describe this kind of ability of a character. She almost immediately answered:

"This could be an aquired trait."

i guess what i was getting at was Is MRQII Basically a BRP setting book with different switches turned on?

In my view, not really, I would see MRQ II more as a close relative of BRP. There

are some significant differences, for example in the way the skills are based upon

the characteristics and in the combat actions. While it is not difficult to "transla-

te" one system into the other, one could not play one system's adventures with

the other system "out of the box".

I am afraid my English is not really up to the task. A thesaurus offers these as synonyms for approximately that kind of ability:

aptitude

art

bent

capability

capacity

competence

expertise

facility

finesse

gift

knack

mastery

proficiency

prowess

qualification

savvy

talent

technique

The only thing that comes to my mind is the Ringworld RPG that used "Root Skills"

and "Branch Skills", although with a different mechanism than the one you use

for your system. If it were Traveller, the Traits would be called "Specializations",

although it is also not exactly the same mechanism.

I am very interested to read it, but cannot open it. Zip files are the bane of my exsistence. Is it available elsewhere in another file format?

You could use Filzip, it is small, reliable and - best of all - completely free:

http://www.filzip.com/

From what I have seen so far (not much, real life currently keeps my busy), the

system looks good. My only problem with it right now is also the term "Traits",

which is often used differently in other games, and therefore is a bit confusing

for me.

I started with rules light systems, Runequest and Traveller, and grew tired of ha-

ving to make up too many house rules for my kind of game. I then fell in love with

AD&D, which seemed "just right" for me at the time, and later on with more simu-

lationist games like GURPS - it felt nice to have a rule for everything. However,

after a while I came to the conclusion that such a level of detail can also be a

nasty straightjacket that hinders creativity instead of supporting it, and also ta-

kes too much time for dealing with numbers than actually roleplaying. At the mo-

ment I use the Call of Cthulhu system with some added BRP options, a system

that in general has even less rules depth than BRP, but more detail in the areas

where my kind of setting and campaign really needs them. Things may change

again, but right now I could not imagine to play something as complex as D&D 4e.

In time I suspect that people will migrate from 4e and its ilk when they become tired of rules, regulation and balance and just want to experience a looser more intuitive game based on "my character jumps on the table and kicks the bulky barbarian's drink from his hand. What should I roll?" as opposed to "I leap on the table using my Salmon Leap feat, swinging a foot utilising Boot Sweep feat combined with Unarmed Disarm ability and then Backflip Into Striking Pose granting my party members an additional +1 on whatever for the rest of the melee". Eventually everbody tires of such pointless b***ocks. Keep it here, keep it simple and they will come. Those with any sense anyway.

Some players just want, even need, precise rules for every eventuality, and some

distrust the referee's abilities so much that they do not want to allow him to ma-

ke up any rules on the spot. There are enough of both kinds that I have no doubt

that D&D 4e will survive and do well.

The closest I ever came to playing a modern military campaign with a BRP game

was with the adventures from the German Cthulhu supplement "Niemandsland -

Grabenkrieg und Heimatfront" (= roughly "No Man's Land - Trench Warfare and

Home Front"):

http://www.cthuloide-welten.de/747+M5a8c52eac7f.html

The supplement contains detailed informations about military history, military or-

ganization and military equipment of the First World War, and one of the adven-

tures takes place in the trenches of the Western Front at the height of the war.

Since this supplement uses its own military combat system based upon the Cthul-

hu rules (which could well be adapted for BRP without major problems), my expe-

riences with this system will be useless for you. Just let me mention that it was

extremely lethal.

From my point of view the main difference to a normal combat heavy game is the

military hierarchy that turns freewheeling adventurers into slaves who have to

follow orders instead of making their own independent decisions what to do and

how to do it. This does not necessarily go down well with all players, especially

if one of the characters is the officer or NCO who gives those orders.

It is also a bit difficult to come up with a series of truly interesting scenarios, be-

cause in the end most combat scenarios turn out to be rather similar in style. We

soon concentrated on the non-combat parts of the adventure more than on the

combat scenes, but this may have been a matter of taste.

Knowledge (Blasphemous Lore) could cover all the Mythos-related knowledge that

costs SAN to learn, while Knowledge (Occult) could cover all the occult subjects

that do not come with a SAN loss (e.g. Astrology, Kabbala, Tarot, Voodoo ...).

My current thinking on the subject is now maybe allowing anyone to take low levels of The Art (Hedge Magic), but requiring a minimum EDU score to increase your skill level beyond a certain point. Does this sound plausable at all?

It is one of many possible ways to handle it, but it is not without problems.

The EDU stat covers both formal education and general life experience, but in a

very unspecific way. Peasants rarely have much formal education, and their ge-

neral life experience is not directly connected with magic - the peasant with the

greatest life experience and therefore EDU stat of the village may have it becau-

se he is the one who knows most about barley and sheep, or because he has

travelled a bit and has seen some big cities, but this does not necessarily make

it easier for him to learn magic.

So, if you want a game mechanic requirement for peasant magic, I think POW is

more closely connected with the ability to do magic than EDU, and would there-

fore seem more plausible to me.

In my view it would depend on the setting. If certain forms of magic are a part

of a peasant's everyday life, used by everybody and his brother, it should requi-

re no more EDU than making a living as a peasant does - it is just a part of it. If

peasant magic is more rare, known only to the wise men and women of the villa-

ge, an EDU requirement could make sense, although I would prefer to handle it

through learning opportunities within the setting instead of character statistics -

for example, a peasant character would have to earn the respect of the village

elders to be allowed to learn the magic, no matter how educated he may be.

Who is spreading the lies ? Where are they being spread and what is the actual impact ?

I do not know what RosenMcStern is referring to, but I did read the argument

that d100 is an outdated system quite often, mainly from the fans of Savage

Worlds and similar newer generic systems.

Right... And everybody knows about the BRP Quickstart rules

Yep, I made sure that is the case, through forum posts and links.

Edit.:

Just looked it up, my home forum's download section counts 110 views

for the BRP Quickstart rules, which is not bad for an English system on

a German forum ...

... whereas most gamers have heard of RQ2!

At least where I live this is not the case, RQ 2 is almost unknown here.

I rarely use the Mythos and the Sanity rules in my Call of Cthulhu settings,

they are mostly pseudo-historical ones without a Lovecraftian horror element.

In the few cases where I use Sanity, a failed Sanity roll only means that the

character becomes temporarily insane, there is no permanent damage that is

carried over from one adventure to the next. The character is considered to

recover or to be healed between the adventures. The one exception is the

Cthulhu Mythos skill, which lowers a character's Sanity permanently and so

makes temporary insanity more likely.

However, I think this makes only sense in campaigns with a lot of downtime

between the adventures, in my campaigns of this kind there is usually about

one year between the adventures, so the characters have a plausible chance

to get back to normal within that year.

I have to admit that I rarely read descriptions of actual games, most of the few

examples I tried to read where not really interesting and tended towards a "Look

how great my character is" writing style.