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Thank you very much for the new version. :thumb: I am currently a bit away from science fiction (see the "Age of Musketeers" thread ...), but I will doubtless return to it in the not so far future, and I am looking forward to using your material then.

Yep. The first task of the knights probably would be to "get their act toge- ther" and to prove to the suspicious locals that the order is able to beat the pirates and to defend the island - and not just to make the pirates more an- gry. This would require both local preparations for the defence of the island and missions to aquire equipment (arms, gunpowder, ammunition ...) and perhaps to hire some mercenaries for the time until more knights have arrived on the island. And then, of course, a first epic battle against the invading pirates ... >:-> Afterwards the knights would have to make plans for the development of the island, depending on the available money (not much, at least in the beginning) and manpower: Rebuild the town and its fortifications, establish a market and trade, build or buy some ships to protect the fishermen from the pirates, in- vite suitable settlers without alienating the locals, and so on and on. However, these would mostly be background events for the characters, for them I would need some more adventurous missions to keep the players hap- py. Examples could be a "counter offensive" to take the war to the pirates and their supporters (and to gain money by raiding the pirate bases ...), missions to find and free the islanders that have been enslaved by the pirates and to return them to the island (winning the gratitude of the locals ...), plus the diplomacy, church politics and other ideas mentioned in the first post. Since I prefer a "sandbox" style of roleplaying, much would depend on the in- tentions of the players. I would expect them to go for the combat oriented possibilities of the setting, but they could just as well decide to show more interest in church intrigue - or even in the administration of the island. Therefore I would develop the setting without too much depth and detail, and later add what is needed according to the route chosen by the players. So, the first things needed - apart from the general background (BRP profes- sions, equipment, etc.) - would be the organization of the order (easy to co- py from the real Maltese order) and a good description of the island and of its important NPCs (knights as well as locals). Next would be the "enemy", the pirates and - in the background - a kind of powerful "evil counterpart" of the knights, perhaps something like the medie- val Assassins, plus some "neutral" powers to make things a bit more compli- cated (other knightly orders, the Jesuits, various nations' "secret services" - greetings from Cardinal Richelieu - with conflicting aims and interests). The most difficult part of this currently seems to be the naval warfare - the ships and their guns, boarding actions and thelike in BRP terms. Since I am probably too lazy to design this, I could wait for the announced Pirates supplement for BRP to "borrow" some basic material from there, as it seems to be almost exactly the same time period. Well, it seems I am already working on this setting ...

Thank you all for the comments, ideas and tips - and especially Dredj for the many interesting links. As for the female characters, I still hesitate to create a mixed knightly order, but of course there could be an associated female order ... While I am still not really working on the setting, I have begun to collect some ideas. For example, this is a "first draft" of how such a campaign could begin: The order is in serious decline. It has lost its previous seat to the heathens, and with it the order lost both its purpose and most of its prestige. There are even rumours that the Pope intends to disband the order and to give its property to the Jesuits. Then the good news arrive: One of the great kings of Europe has died, and in his will he gave a new seat and a new purpose to the order, a small island on the naval frontier with the heathens. The various priories of the order immediately send small groups of knights (one such group are the characters) to the island to prepare it for the arrival of the order's hierarchy and main force. When the characters arrive on the island, they have to realize that this gift is a very mixed blessing. The island's population has been decimated by pirate raids, the only town of the island has been burned down by the pirates and has only been partially rebuilt afterwards, the island's fortifications are both outdated and ruined, the island produces hardly enough food to feed the locals and has no trade con- nection with the mainland - and the next pirate raid is likely to happen very soon. Moreover, the locals are not exactly welcoming, their religious practices bor- der on the heretical, and the various national groups of knights from the dif- ferent priories do not get along with each other very well - the French dislike the Spaniards, the Spaniards dislike the Portuguese, Germans and Poles dis- trust each other, and all of them maneuver for the control of the island until the order's Grand Master arrives. In short, there are more problems (and far more pirates in the area) than the- re are knights on the island, and the characters have to decide and act very quickly to prevent the situation from becoming a desaster. Well, this is how I would imagine the beginning of such a campaign ... >:->

While playing the ruler of Malta in the Europa Universalis - Magna Mundi com- puter game I had the idea that this background could perhaps be made into an interesting roleplaying setting. The characters would be members of an order of knights, which would provi- de them with both equipment and missions. The order's base would be a remote island, small enough to develop it in so- me detail (maps, important NPCs), but the order would also have priories all over an alternate Europe, giving the characters opportunities for travel and various kinds of related missions (for example diplomacy, church politics, he- resies and strange events in remote priories ...). The order would of course also have an army and a navy, and its "frontier is- land" would rather often be under siege by heathen invaders or under attack by equally heathen pirates, to offer the characters more than enough com- bat opportunities. All this would happen in an alternate world in the period between about 1550 and 1650, the "Age of Musketeers", with early firearms, rapiers, and perhaps some rather weak "evil" magic for the "bad guys" and probably some "scho- larly" magic for friendly NPCs. I think I would also use the personality traits option to encourage the play- ers to play their characters "in a knightly fashion", not that much different from Pendragon knights (misbehaving knights will reduce the order's income from donations and make the grandmaster really grumpy ...). A little problem are female characters, which do not fit into such an order very well, and I do not yet know whether I could make them possible in this setting. I am not yet sure whether I will really turn this idea into a BRP setting ("so many projects, so little time ..."), but just in case: Has anyone already done some "BRP work" on the period in question (professions, arms, equipment and thelike) that I could "borrow" - and that would prevent me from re-inventing the wheel ? Oh, and comments and ideas are of course most welcome. Thank you.

Yep, Howard wrote his Conan stories as his contribution to Lovecraft's Cthulhu mythos, and one could therefore even consider them as a "ca- nonical" part of the mythos.

True, of course. I am just too lazy to work on a project when there is no "deadline" for it, and without an Asornok campaign on the horizon and the Mythic Iceland supplement unlikely to be published this year, I will hardly be able to convince myself to work on a conversion - especially when it includes a lot of translation (I used the German version of Mongoose Tra- veller, but there is no German version of BRP ...).

Having (almost) finished my Asornok setting ("Inuit and Greenlanders", from the point of view of a fictional Inuit nation) for Mongoose Traveller - begun as an idea to demonstrate that this system can be used for fantasy, too - I am now very much tempted to convert it to BRP. This would enable me to use the Mythic Iceland supplement, once it is publi- shed, for the Greenlander part of the setting. However, while converting the background information would be very easy (it is already "systemless"), the conversion of the game mechanics part would require some effort ... :ohwell:

It seems a nasty case of bad timing that WotC has withdrawn the PDF of the Viking source book from Drive Thru RPG only recently ... :mad:

Thank you very much, I will take a look at them. I have also ordered a copy of GURPS Vikings, because most GURPS source- books I know also contain quite useful material.

Are there any news about when - approximately - Mythic Iceland will become available ? I am currently working on a "reconstruction" of an old setting of mine, which features a fictional Inuit like culture on Baffin Island, the Asor, and their en- counters with the Norse settlers on Greenland. While this setting will probably not use the BRP system, I would be most in- terested in any good roleplaying information on the Norse culture of the time around 1000 AD, and while the old Avalon Hill RQ Vikings box is doubtless ve- ry good, it does not include much information on the Norse of the far west - and most other Viking roleplaying material describes the Norse according to the "cruel raider cliche" only.

Thank you very much, it helps to give some structure to the culture's description.

Having a little time to spare, I am currently working on a "comeback" of an old alternate earth campaign that featured an arctic Inuit-like culture on Baffin Island and its contact with the Greenlander northmen. Unfortunately I have lost almost all of my old RQ material, and also most of the old campaign notes, including the descriptions of the cultures of the set- ting (Asor/Inuit, Canadian Indian and Northmen). I seem to remember that at least one version of RQ had a kind of generic "template" for the description of cultures that included all of the really im- portant informations, and that it proved very useful for this campaign, so I would like to use it again - but I do not remember what it looked like or whe- re to find it. Just in case that such a "template" really existed, could someone please give me a hint where to find it ? Thank you very much.

I do not see it as a problem. The roll for attributes is a part of the character generation process, while the skill rolls are a part of the roleplaying process - they do not get in each other's way.

Yep, and thank you for reminding me - I need earthquakes, too, of course.

Well, I am quite confident that this will be the last desert world they will ask for, because this time I intend to really torture their characters with all the nasty things a desert has to offer ... >:-> They will be stranded, the supply ships will not be coming, their own starship will be damaged beyond repair, the native life forms will be hostile and dange- rous, the neighbouring aliens will be bizarre and incomprehensible, the Colo- nial Office supervisor will be a walking blunder ... yep, I will have fun ...

Thank you very much. This should be precise enough for my purposes, I think. :thumb:

Well, Buridan's Ass has kicked me again ... :eek: The players of my campaign obviously cannot decide what they prefer, a water world setting or a desert world setting. We started with a water world setting, Pharos IV, then moved to a desert world setting, Enki II, and then to another water world setting, Anuira - and now I have been asked to write yet another desert world setting. To hear is to obey, with swiftness and kindness, and so I will indeed write a new desert world setting, although this time a rather nasty one that is intended to make the characters' life quite miserable (if I have to do the work, I also intend to have the fun ...). A side effect of this all is that I will once again have to change my equip- ment design schedule: No more water vehicles for now, ground vehicles instead. So, perhaps you could tell me the latest version of your ground vehicle for- mula, especially the version for all terrain vehicles (wheeled and tracked) ? Thank you very much. :)

Congratulations ! From what I hear, the success is well deserved. :thumb:

No need to wait, you can have it all right now ... http://basicroleplaying.com/forum/basic-roleplaying/1302-so-how-do-you-handle-contest-skills.html

Thank you very much again. :thumb: I think I should name my setting's chief engineer after you for all the effort you have put into providing the colony with useful vehicles. The next time the players mention their airship idea, I will ask them for a detailed description of the airship's payload and then give them a copy of your design sequence to let them decide what exactly they want - and how they plan to finance it.

Well, they are still doing it, the Zeppelin saga is not yet over: Zeppelin NT - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

I suspect the players got the idea from the German version of this Wikipedia page, which describes a project of a stratospheric airship - at least they mentioned that project as an example of what their characters would like to build or buy: Stratellite - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Yep, the material would be no problem. However, I think that in this case the endurance would be more important than the speed, so normal (hydrogen ? - there are lots of it available ...) engines would do.

Thank you very much indeed. It seems "my" players are convinced that manned or unmanned airships would be a nice alternative for both high altitude (too nasty weather at lower alti- tudes) observation aircraft and satellites, because of their higher endurance than aircraft (they can stay aloft for days) and greater versatility and lower technology requirements than satellites (they are easier to move where they are needed, instrument package modules are easier to exchange, and they do not need a way to reach an orbit).

It seems that my campaign's players fell in love with the idea to have an air- ship, so I wonder whether your aircraft formulas will also include airships ?

Your rule seems a bit tough to me. With a 50 % chance to be unable to sleep, the character is very likely to suffer many strings of very bad luck and accor- dingly low skill rolls - even five bad results in a row and a modifier of - 100 % would not be extremely unlikely. I would probably prefer a 5-6 result instead of the 4-6 result for a night of very vivid nightmares, unless I wanted to make that character almost unplay- able much of the time.