smiorgan

Yes! the familiars from BGB have to be in. And Dreamlands can come in handy, for the cats, but also for Fey creatures.

Thanks a lot to both for the great answers! I think that I will let the players participate in the decision about the type of ship and adapt the scenario accordingly. If they chose the knörr there will be also trading involved, if they opt for the longship it will be pure raiding and a more perilous crossing to Ireland. This gives opportunity for a nice role-play scene when they discuss about the boat with the godi and the other participants. Plus, if they choose the dreki there will be the cool departure scene. It is great to have this community! Thanks a lot.

Here I will post ideas for cosmology and magic in a MW campaign set in (my version of) the Southern Reaches. Feel free to comment and elaborate upon. I freely use rules stuff from various BRP sources, most of this stuff will be in Advanced Sorcery. But note that I also plan to use: - The Big Gold Book (for the Magic rules, in particular) - The Chronicles of Future Earth (for additional demon powers and sorcery spells) - RQ3 Creatures (for additional tiny bits that are not in MW) - Corum (for Chaos Magic and Chaos creature magic) - Maybe CoC Dark Ages (for additional sorcery spells) - CoC Dreamlands (for cats, and faboulous creatures, maybe even spells) Let us start with the planes of existence. Here I take inspiration from various sources (including, strangely enough, D&D4): 1) The Spirit Plane is everwhere around our world. Spirits are summoned from here through the Summon Spirit spells. It borders Limbo and the Feywild. 2) Limbo also called Shadowfell, is a borderland, a prison and a wasteland. A plane of undeath, hunger, envy, sorrow. A bleak malignant place still close to our world, but leading into the Ultimate Abyss. Necromancy draws from Limbo and many of the demons that are summoned hail from here. People aligned with Shadow feel close to it. 3) The Feywild is the plane of the Fey: a place of wild magic, cold beauty, mad dreams and alien, inhuman amoral creatures. A place of sirens and ogres, multicolored birds inging in crystal cages, rainbow bridges, goblin haunted fungus forests, lush jungles under strange stars inhabited by lamias, manticoras and cannibals, headless horsemen, talking animals, ever changing landscapes where time flows in strage ways. Some of the "demons" summoned to our world, are, in fact, Fey creatures, especially if they are summoned through High Magic, the magic that draws its power from the Feywild. 4) The Elemental Fields ... 5) The Ultimate Abyss also known as the Chaos Realm, the Void, etc. ... 6) The Blessed Realms, The Land of Youth, here there is the Mighty Bastion of the Angels and the Houses of the Virtues. (to be continued)

Hi, I'm planning a short Mythic Iceland campaign, using both scenarios for Mythic Iceland and adapted stuff from RQ Vikings (basically you only need to adapt the magic). I want the PCs to go viking, and the RQ scenario 'Gone Viking' is nice. What I have to change is the starting point of the PCs, instead of sailing from Scandinavia, the PC will set sail from Iceland. But, in the scenario they are supposed to set sail in a dreki... can they do that from Iceland - given that a dreki is a coastal vessel? Or, should they go viking in a knörr? A knörr is fitting for ocean travel but ill suited for raiding... I guess the author can enlighten me... Smiorgan

This is very exciting. It looks like a really neat, self contained game line. Not that I would not like even more stuff for MW, but the corebook plus these 5 supplements really look like the complete package. What made me mad about the MRQ1 line was that after several releases it all looked incomplete, missing essential bits. I really hope the MW line is a smashing success. Smiorgan

Hi, I want to make a summary of what we know about the upcoming stuff. Please, correct and improve. I will integrate the info by editing the first post. Of course, Ben, feel free to reveal us all kinds of exciting news! 1- ADVANCED SORCERY (officially announced) contains: summoning rules and demon powers, demon breeds (from Elric! and Bronze Grimoire), rune magic (BG), necromancy (BG), herbalism (Melniboné), special focus skills (Gods of Law), High Magic (unknown East). That's quite a lot of stuff. [GM PACK. I guess the screen contains the usual tables etc. I hope it will have cool art (Ben: "I predict you’ll love the external art"). Ben also said it contains a booklet with the RQ Gamemaster Book (RQ3) and a very substantial NPC digest (from all Elric! books). I think this has been divided into two separate products.] 2-MW BESTIARY. I guess it contains monsters. Taken from what sources? Elric books? The old "Gateway Bestiary" for RQ2? Brand new ones? 3-CHRONICLER'S COMPANION. I' think this is the same thing as the GM booklet originally to be part of the GM pack. So, it's RQ Gamemaster Book (RQ3) + NPC digest (from all Elric! books). Plus, Ben said it contains a section on using Allegiance to create cults for MW. 4-CHRONICLER'S SHIELD- The other part of the GM pack. 5-UNTITLED SETTING AND SCENARIO BOOK. Part setting, part scenarios, tied in to the Southern Reaches. It takes a sandbox approach reminescent of Griffin Island. It does not say anything about the world beyond the Reaches, which is lefts to the imagination of GMs. -

The Dreamlands book is probably my favorite. I own both the second and the fourth edition, and I love both with their slight differences in tone and presentation. The fourth edition packs more content and is great for Dunsanian dark fantasy adventures in the Dreamlands, but the second has more charm with a truly beautiful map (fourth edition map is OK) and great scenarios such the Land of Lost Dreams. I hear that 5th edition has the scenarios back in and is a hardback. Get it. 'Secrets' of Kenya is a great book as well. You can use it also as a non CoC BRP sourcebook for adventure in East Africa. Great stuff. Alone on Halloween from Pagan publishing is also worth getting. Not much for the big solo adventure (which is good). But for the 'Old Dark House' mini-scenario which is simply one of the best scenarios ever written for any RPG. I've used it several times to generate exilarating one shots (typically culminating in TPK). Smiorgan

What do you mean by "corrected"? I have played Elric! for ages but I had never noticed there was a bug in the combat matrix. Please, tell me I'm curious ... Smiorgan

I'm glad I waited to buy this one. I had vague fears it was going to end badly. Sadly, this is one of several missed opportunities in the history of MRQ/Legend. Mongoose revived RQ when nobody had any hopes of that happening and hired talented people like Loz, Pete as well as Gareth Hanrahan who wrote great stuff, but quality control has always been ... let's say their weak point. If I ever buy TSGB it will be the D&D version.

This is very cool. Really. I've always mixed RQ3 stuff in my Stormbringer. Having this kind of blend already set up is great.

Scenarios and simple setting material for the mini-setting. Maybe a short monster book tied to the setting (with adventure hooks). Maybe something more ambitious à la Griffin Mountain. What I'm not very interested in is alternative fantasy settings. I'd prefer MW to stick to 1 setting and nominally set everything in it, even if it's rather generic and portable (think of Questworld). I also prefer short-medium scenarios to long adventures. Finally, I'd like to see some cool themes from Sapkowski's witcher novels explored. A dark fantasy scenario pack based on twisted fairy tales. A monster hunters scenario pack full of irony and unexpected twists (complete with Latin names for monsters). A supplement of wizards, their colleges and their machinations. I have no idea if this fits with the setting.

I started playing D&D because a friend of mine stumbled in a red box in a family-oriented games shop. But it was 1985 and D&D was at the peak of its worldwide popularity. Now many of those shops do not exist anymore and many of those that exist do not carry D&D anymore, let alone other rpgs. So, I believe this scenario is unrealistic for any d100 product.

For one, I am happy that the BRP ruleset exists and that there is still a BRP CoC (at least until 7th edition comes out). Stormbringer was dead dead dead since around 2001. If it lived a second life it was thanks to the license moving to Mongoose. Among other things this gave us two very nice games 'MRQ1 Elric' and 'MRQ1 Hawkmoon' (I do not like that much MRQ2 Elric: it's a bit bloated). As for Stormbringer's mechanics, I'm glad they will relive in Magic World. I believe that the D100 Renaissance was triggered by two independent events. In order of importance: 1) Mongoose releasing MRQ1 and especially the MRQ1 SRD; 2) Chaosium letting the BRP BGB happen. Without the first event we would not have had any renaissance. Without the second it would have been very different. As for Chaosium... I am not privy to their books (in the accountant's sense), but it seems to me that they have never been in better shape since around 1996. I remember very well when they were a CoC only company and most of their output consisted in d20 conversions of old books and in horrid tape-bound photocopied monographs. Now, they fare much better, it seems. Are they a very creative or innovative company? Not anymore. I feel they have somewhat lost connection with the design aspects of their games after so many years relying on freelances. Also, they don't seem to communicate a lot with fans (on forums, blogs, etc.). Compare with Mongoose's Matt Sprange popping here and there inforums to defend his games, defending the broken combat system or the sturdiness of their in-house hardcovers. Recently, Chaosium have released one err... somewhat broken product: The Magic Book. Zomben, who is a freelance, has apologized and taken responsibility for the errors ... but Chaosium? The accident apparently did not even register with them.

Seneschal, I think that making BRP / d100 visible on the shelves is an hopeless battle. 90% of RPGs on the market are in the same situation. If it's not Pathfinder or D&D chances are people get to know it from the internet, from fellow gamers, from conventions. Mongoose tried to compete in that game but they had to drop the ball. I think it is inevitable that d100 games are a niche product catering for existing gamers.

That would have been nice to have. I agree. BTW, I have still to look closely to the CoC Dark Ages rules and scenario. It seems very well done and flavorful, but personally I am not that interested in an Icelandic CoC game. I wonder how well the scenario can be adapted to the default Mythic Iceland setting.

Hi, I really do not have much to say other than complimenting the author. Mythic Iceland is probably ... no certainly ... both the best BRP/BGB supplement published up to now and the best Viking d100 supplement ever published. It has the depth of the excellent BRP Rome and the friendly play-me-now attitude of Future Earth. And I like it better than Vikings for RQ3 and for Mongoose RQII, which are both very very good. Here is where I think Mythic Iceland excels: 1- History. It's an amazing read. You can forget it's a gaming book and just enjoy the well researched and well written stuff about Icelandic history, myth, culture and folklore. 2- Iceland as a quasi-sandbox setting. You create a farm for the PCs and just let them live their Icelandic life. Every valley and fjord is an adventure hook. The only thing missing is a digest of statted generic NPCs. But here I plan to plunder RQ3 vikings. Actually, I think I will use part of the RQ3 scenarios together with those in Mythic Iceland (Trouble with Neighbors, Yule Cat). 3- BRP rules implementation. Mythic Iceland extracts the most from the BRP/BGB system without wrestling it. I love how it marries simulationism with narrativism. You cannot play the sagas without severed limbs! And so, hit locations! There is a nifty "rules clarification" for shields (in fact it fixes a little bug in the BGB). It exploits very well the stormbringeresque Alegiance system, it offers nifty rules for legal litigations, generating a raid target on the spot, farming, prophecy, the weather, drinking... just WOW! 4- The Rune Magic system is delightfully flavorful, and eminently playable. How is it cool to have your scripts actually written on your rune script sheet??! The idea of narrative + mechanical effects is just superb. It allows, for example, the players to buff their sword skill +20% for the battle AND the gamemaster to add mysterious omens and happenings to the telling of the battle. Cool. By the way, if the people that designed D&D4 had understood that principle they would have resolved half the problems of that wretched game: the detailed and pretty limited effects of power X are for combat, but instead or in addition to that the DM can narrate cool effects of your power. To conclude. I just hope to be running it soon! Smiorgan (Now listening to Eivør Palsdottir)

Rod, I think you should try to keep Classic Fantasy BRP - be it published by Chaosium or licensed. It is very well integrated with the system. For instance, I like a lot how it expands on the (old) Magic World magic system. I love Open Quest, but I'm not sure it's the ideal engine for Classic Fantasy. OQ is very rules light, while CF is quite a rules-heavy-ish implementation of BRP. If you decide to self publish I would not rule out using the Gore engine, which is the closest to BRP. Gore is not supported anymore, but it should not be a big problem as long as it will be 99% BRP compatible. Just my two cents, Smiorgan Smiorgan

I finally got to read this summary of the seminar: Inside Call of Cthulhu 7th Edition | The Unspeakable Oath Well ... I agree with Nick ... and I must confess I immediately, ferociously (irrationally) HATED the gratuitous changes, especially those that touch the BRP core and ignore the BGB: "Characteristics in 7th Edition are strictly percentile scores. There’s no Intelligence 12 with an Idea roll of INT x 5 or 60%; you have an Intelligence score of 60% and that’s your roll" ... Interestingly, the hoary Resistance Table is gone. Instead, in opposed tests the Keeper sets the difficulty based on how good the opposition is. If your opponent has about a 40% skill or characteristic rating, you’d roll at your full skill rating to overcome. If your opponent has something like 90%, you need to roll one-fifth your skill to overcome." Cool! It seems that - when everybody is going old school - including WotC - they want to modernize the only game that remained the same for 30 years...and they are going to update it to the tastes of 1999! Well, I cannot claim any expertise on the business side of things... maybe it will be a great success, but it's not for me. And why did they ditch "Fast Talk"? PS: "they" refers to the authors not to Chaosium. PPS: Don't take this post too seriously. I have no ill feelings for the authors. I'm sure they love the game and did their best.

Cool! I'm tempted. I'v spoken about that with a friend today. I've to check the dates but I might be really coming to say 'hallo' in Modena in March. With a friend and my older boy. Thanks for the answers.

Hi Paolo, I think focusing on Fantasy Grounds makes a lot of sense - at least it does for a displaced gamer like me who mostly games online and has made the investment in FG. So I look forward to the FG stuff. Too bad that Loz decided that FG was not a priority for RQ6. I feel it's kinda of a mistake. As a just across the border Italian expatriate, I rejoice that Alephtar is contributing to the Italian language gaming scene. After the unfortunate demise of the (perhaps over-ambitious) Italian translation of RQ2 it would be great to have some RQ2 compatible Legend goodness in Italian. I'm pretty curious but I bet on something specifically Italian: an expanded version of Stupor Mundi for Legend would make a lot of sense. Or, even cooler a Legend of Rome book drawing setting material from BRP Rome and adding a Roman fantasy campaign to the mix. These two would be cool and would argualy sell in Italy. As Roman things are concerned, the announced Punic Wars campaign is not in the schedule. Does it means that it has been cancelled? postponed to 2013? I am a bit on the fence on the mecha stuff. I never played that kind of rpg back in the day. But now my children have developed an inordinate fondness for the old Gundam anime episodes - 1st series. So, in the end it could be cool for a straight Gundam game. Young terrestrial pilots against the Zakus of Zion. Cool. Anyway. Have a great 2012! Andrea

Zomben, You are gentleman. Bear in mind that I cannot possibly be angry with the man who wrote (at a very young age, I gather) the crazy demon summoning rules of Stormbringer 4th. Man, we had hilarious and epic moments playing with your rules! If we ever meet I'd gladly accept the beer, though. Smiorgan

Hi Paolo, You are right. This was not a constructive contribution. It was a rant and a very bitter one at that. Having calmed down I can say I went a bit overboard. I just wanted to lash out verbally at Chaosium and vent my frustration and disappointment. As a fan I am deeply invested with Chaosium not only in terms of books bought but also emotionally. It sounds silly - and probably is - but I'm sure many people here are like me. Chaosium did not oblige me at gunpoint to buy the magic booklet for the third time (RQ3 box, tape bound photocopied monograph pre-BGB, and this latest Magic Book). So, I should probably be angry mostly with myself. That said I hoped that after reprinting that same stuff several times without updates they would do a proper adaptation work. Chaosium are still putting out good stuff. And the BGB is admittedly good. I do think, however, that even with their limited resources they could have done better with BRP. Most of what happens in this micro-renaissance of d100 is fan-driven and freelance based - the freelancers (and third party publishers) being mostly themselves fans. That's fine, but Chaosium could have put a bit more added value into that process. But that would be a long discussion... Andrea

Great! Chaosium showed that they can compete with Mongoose on their own terrain. I'm going to use these rules in conjunction with "Cults of Glorantha 2" for MRQ1: combined they will make perfect sense! Those who have that book know what I mean. Sarcasm apart, this is SO sad and I feel so stupid having ordered this unusable "adaptation" in the latest sale. They are really taking advanage of the stupid loyalty of a bunch of fans like me and finishing dilapidating what remains of the goodwill capital attached to their brand since a long gone age when they put forth quality products. I am sorry but there is a difference between a small company with scarce means and a company that just does not give a damn about what their throwing out. Chaosium seems more the second than the first. When was the last time they did anything half decent in-house?

Hi All, Since I do not post often here I will introduce myself. Forty years, roleplayer since 1985, favorite game (Stormbringer, the one with demon summoning!). Devout Catholic. Unabashed Papist. Professor of linguistics, with a specialization in the fields of formal semantics and of argumentation. I don't want to impress you with my academic or rpg resumé - you're probably way cleverer than me in both fields- just to say that I like reasoning, argument and rolling criticals as any other guy here. AND I must say I'm with Simon. This thread is off topic and at times VERY unpleasant. Saying that believers have little or no room for reason, really does not help the discussion. Casting pre-emptive doubt on the reasonableness of your interlocutor goes against the very ethos of a discussion. By the way, it's nice to point out how logic flourished in the Age of the Cathedrals as Abelard, Roger Bacon, St. Thomas Aquinas, Duns Scotus, Ockham and other fine Franciscans and Dominicans can attest. It was in the Renaissance that, in many respects, it started to languish and made little progress until the late XIX century. As those fine friars, I would not give much credence to a faith that was contrary to reason or obliged me to believe in contradictory statements. The role of the Bible in the Christian Faith is a quite complex matter and it would not lend itself to being settled by pointing to contradictions between the texts. The blessed cardinal John Henry Newman - someone who certainly was a friend of reason - had a few interesting ideas on that subject. If anyone is genuinely interested to see how Christians cope with that I can really reccommend to have a look at his books (like 'An Essay on the Development of Christian Doctrine'). It's all online: http://www.newmanreader.org/works/index.html Also, reading what the current Pope actually said in his (in-)famous Regensburg speech (the one which infuriated Muslims worldwide) would not hurt. That's the most constructive input I can think of to this discussion. But, moving to serious things, I really look forward to read Simon's Merry England. BTW one of those English Franciscan logicians - Roger Bacon - was also a wizard of sorts and accused of summoning demons. An with that we have come full circle. Have fun. Roll low! Smiorgan

LOL! I could tell you horror stories about Italian internet bookshops shipping to Lugano (just across the border in Switzerland!) at the same rate they ship to Australia! La Grotta Di Merlino is a very cool ebay shop and apparently ships everywhere. I've bought several things from them. Shipping rates are not unreasonable, but they are not cheap either.