jagerfury

Obligatory "Previously on Cthulhu & Chivalry"; (as compiled by Dr. Norton (Butters)) a campaign recap to date. A VERY ROUGH TIME LINE DATE: DECEMBER 1645/JANUARY 1646 SIX MONTHS AFTER THE BATTLE OF NASEBY WHERE TERRIBLE CLOCKWORK WAR MACHINES WERE UNLEASHED BY THE PARLIAMENTARIANS AND COUNTERED BY HE DEVIL PRINCE RUPERT AND HIS ALCHEMISTS AND BY THE END OF THAT BLOODY DAY A KING LAY DEAD AND BRITAIN WAS CHANGED FOREVER. The Party are returning to the county of Norwich and the city of Norfolk some are returning home whilst others are looking for work and a safe place to restart their lives after the horrors of war. 1. Home is where the heart.... bladder and kidneys are all wrapped up in monster. A group of Satanists called the Cardinals are encountered at the church of Gothards hollow after a hard fought and deadly battle they and the demon that was accidentally summoned were defeated at the cost of a Party member 2. Meet the family now get to work. Dr Norton meets up with his family who own and run a large foundry and Clockwork smithy his Father hires the whole party to investigate why the coal supply from the new coal mine is drying up. 3. Sprichst du Deutsch? The mine and its surrounding camp is empty of the of the recently arrived German miners but their wives are still there and are angry it seems that Mallenbench a man who works for Norton works arrived with some armed men and told the miners they were needed at a new mine for a couple of days but would be back after helping set it up, the women had heard nothing since. And the Norton Foreman is also missing but some confusing paperwork is found in his office this is collected and taken with the party. 4. That's not the kind of baby shower I meant. The party then heads towards this new mines location the nearby village has a semi deserted air about it as it seems that a lot of locals have headed out to a wedding. The Inn is still open and we encounter a couple heading to this wedding they are an elderly couple the woman is oddly heavy with child, it seems this wedding is a really big thing locally. The child is born during the night but has to be killed due to it being a creature from hell as its features are all twisted and inhuman. In the morning the old couple are no where to be seen. 4. When is a hole a mine? The party having been awoken by the birth of the devil child decide to check out the new mine but arriving there they can only find a large barn. So checking out the barn they find the missing foreman who is tightly wrapped up under blankets and sheets he is sat next to a strange clockwork machine which loudly clicks and whirrs away next to him. He says he was injured recently and was brought here to the new mine to recover by Mallenbench and he will be happy to answer any further questions later on in the morning but as he feels weak he is unable to say more at the moment. The party return later to find the foreman has vanished leaving behind his wrappings and a pair of hopefully very fine calfskin gloves. The Barn was searched and in the office strange clockwork arms were found as well as more documents again pointing to Mallenbench as being the prime agent behind this new unauthorised mine, where ever it may be. There was also a deep hole with rough cut steps found half hidden behind a locked set of double doors it was not thought to be a mine due to its small size and its location but with no other clues the party headed down. 5. The Temple under the ground, The stairs and the roughly cut tunnel led into a strange stone chamber which seemed somehow ancient and otherworldly this led to worked tunnels which in turn led further down into the black. The party came across various wonders and objects but apart from a few bones there was no sign of the miners. The party ended up after various adventures falling into a deep cavern where something evil stirred, tentacles reaching up to grab them but then someone rang a ruby bell and the corrector of sins appeared the many dead adding to his form and instead of attacking us it fell upon whatever was at the bottom of the cavern whilst the party seemed to be stretched out to impossible thinness and with a painful snap they fell into unconsciousness's 5. Whats up Doc? They awoke screaming but no longer underground instead they strangely enough found themselves in a flower strewn meadow. Some of their equipment was missing but apart from that they all seemed intact. Thy soon met the locals who were well bunny men and somewhat embarrassingly they soon found themselves captives of these rabbit men. The party was taken to a palace of flowers and thorns where dirty and scared looking human children were forced to harvest flowers as rabbit men whipped them the party meanwhile were thrown into pits to await whatever judgement awaited them. Weirdly this judgement was "If you want to live and return to your own lands one of you must make the beast with two backs with the Pale Queen" luckily William was prepared to take one for the team and after a very tiring day and night satisfied the Pale Queen and possibly became the Father of some sort of godling. the party did meet another prisoner who said he could help us escape if we agreed to kill someone for him but we had decided to take the I'm a lover not a fighter approach this time we turned the creepy weird guy down. The now very quickly and obviously pregnant Queen was good to her word and she sent us back but in doing so we may have caused further problems. 6. Back to Blighty and wet again Returning involved pain, darkness a loud bang and a causing a fairly large crater, a brief encounter with a stone head and some mercenaries who seemed to work with Mallenbench . 7. There be monsters The nearby village was devastated and what few buildings were still intact suffered later during the great flesh beast attack as it seems there was now something mutating people into twisted and horrific mockeries hungry for blood (Think the movie the Thing) the party holed up at the local Inn where they met with Mallenbench and his henchmen. The meeting did not go well as it seems we had interrupted his casting of a ritual and we had also messed up some of his other plans as well along the way he did confirm that the German miners were no more having been spent as a sacrifice to the thing in the pit. As mentioned the meeting did not go well and after dealing with poison, various henchman including the gorgeous Echo and the magic of Mallenbench himself the party almost managed to capture this most mysterious of men but unfortunately he choose to jump out of a window instead and flee into the night on an Iron horse (Clockwork armoured motorbike) leaving the party and the Inns staff to fight of the now rapidly approaching flesh beasts which they barely managed to do and with the coming of daylight the remaining creatures started to burn and melt leaving nothing but fleshy puddles in the dirt. 8. Travelling back, The party return to Norwich passing through a now devastated landscape time had seemingly passed strangely in the kingdom of the Pale lady as the weather had taken a turn for the very cold and wet and there was a strange disease in the land which turned flora brittle and then into dust. Norwich was reached after fighting giant crabs in a half submerged windmill and then basically running away from the oddly more deadly tiny red bugs which caused another party members death as he mutated into a flesh beast and another party member to lose their arm. Then there was a brief stop off at a village to hang a Witch and then we sneaked into Norwich in the back of a wool cart. The party report back to Norton and presented the evidence of Mallenbenchs treachery to him. They then go and search the house of Nutley the missing engineer who had recommended Mallebench as his replacement. 9. Norwich or why did we come here again? We find Satanists, a demon monkey, more poison, crooked gangs, a huge conspiracy involving Mallenbench but we have no idea what he is really up to but he seems to want to summon something for some reason, Various journals and grimoires which belonged to Mallebench, Slum clearance through arson, a cell in a split Castle, a horde of grey skinned demons under the ruins of a church, a few corrupt New model army officers and men, charges of witchcraft being levelled at us, clockwork corpses which threw knives, Satanic temples hidden in a posh part of town, Ralph's cooking skills killing most of said satanists, A cursed sword and a dodgy salesman, the curse of Mother and the Norton empire being seized by the government due to the association with Mallenbench and the continuing lack of work done on the Leviathan because of the continuing coal shortage (Even after we had arranged for the mine to be pumped out and a new workforce,starving refugees are cheap it seems (The weather had caused massive flooding as well all over) being on trial oh and being offered a job we can't refuse by Lord Ireton the regional governor to join the semi secret Clockwork Underground Bureau otherwise known as the club and to find and capture this man known as Mallebench who was last seen heading towards the port of Great Yarmouth which was handy as we could be escorted by Zeal for the lord Harrison the New Model Armies Scoutmaster General as he also had a need to go to Yarmouth as reports had reached Norwich that the weather had caused massive damage through flooding which quickly iced up trapping people and ships killing many and destroying much of the towns infrastructure. Lord Ireton was also concerned about rumours of various armed groups rioting amongst the frozen streets oh and he was also a bit worried about the cause of the second and most devastating flood which was a new landmass which had just risen from the depths of the North sea especially after learning that Mallenbench had left as soon as it had appeared. 10. Journey is not just an awesome band The party again re-armed and re-supplied join a small band of soldiers and Zeal and head off towards Yarmouth passing through the village of Badgers Drift the party get into a fight with a man claiming to be a Withchfinder and his men this ends badly for him as he really should have got that paperwork stamped. One of the party leaves in the night on some secret errand to hopefully return in the future, One of the women spared runs of with a new born and Zeal decides to give chase taking a few party members and troops with him they end up fighting a couple of very annoyed tree spirits and all the party meet up again to storm the witches farmhouse. 11. That ain't no gingerbread. The party kill the Witch/crazy old lady but suffer greatly doing so after getting stuck in bear traps, being attacked by rabid wolves and for some reason attempting to disembowel themselves because of the weird singing coming from a loom which was making a flesh rug. They also ran away from the plants in the basement and the Witch/emotionally tortured young girl who was half buried in the basement. All was cleaned up and made good though by the nice warming fire that the party made using the farmhouse as kindling. 12. All the Herrings you could ever want they just might need thawing out first. Great Yarmouth and up to date. 

One of the regular players noted a year has passed since I ignobly pushed for this campaign to continue and took the reins of Keeper. I am happy to report that the gang of PC's have carried on Andrew's mission and intent with aplomb, wit, and panache while your humble Keeper has attempted to make the game interesting. I would be lying if I did not wish the chevalier Du'Main was not witness to the game's adventures. The beauty of Chaosium's BRP system is any character, regardless of genre, may drop into any BRP based game at any time and take their chances. The true #Flaisnails system!!!

A regular player has had to drop from the game. We have an opening for additional players. We run via hangouts every other Sunday 8am eastern standard time, I believe that is 1pm Norwich time. Send me a message if you want in.

I have more BRP books on my shelf than any other game. Different flavors for sure, but the BGB BRP system is the system I use when I'm creating my own homebrew campaign. I can rely on it to fit into the flavor I try to derive. No other system hits the mark every time. The systems strength is in the universal tool kit capabilities.

"More spells" is my shorthand for what I really mean; a dense magic chapter in the Magic World rulebook which details all sorts of magic "systems" so a game master has many templates to work from when designing their fantasy campaign. And yeah, I would want sample spell lists for each system. Kind of a call for Magic World to earn its name. The ship sailed a long time ago and Magic World is what it is and anything between its covers can be cobbled from other Chaosium editions. For what it is Magic World is a useful utility, but there was an opportunity to create a gigantic rpg classic with a voluminous magic chapter.

Yep, and it should be under the covers of Magic World. Big, fat, chunky. And just the beginning. Come on, "twenty four new spells for sorcery", that needs to be one hundred for starters.

So I'm feeling the World of Greyhawk is a great setting for starting a homebrew fantasy campaign utilizing Magic World. Here are my initial thoughts on hacking this classic D&D setting for a BRP based game; Character races available; Human, Elf, Dwarf, Halfling. The three demi-humans use the bestiary stats for characteristic rolls. Otherwise follow regular character creation steps. However you qualify magic ability for starting characters establish the "schools" of magic for the type of magic wielding "classes". Wizards/Sorcerers use the school of magic known as Sorcery. This is established in the MW rulebook so you have your mechanics. Create some "academies" where sorcerers come out with specific known spells. Utilize MW, old Rolemaster Spell Law Essence lists, and TSR's Player's Handbook for custom spell lists. The other sorcerer school would be "shamanism". A specific, hand me down or self-taught path of spell casting. This would need a limited starting spell list customized by the player and the DM. Don't forget to blatantly rip off Palladium for the summoner and use the Stormbringer mechanics for demons to iron out the mechanics. In true MW fashion new spells would have to be acquired through adventure. Clerical or Divine magic I would use Jennell Jaquays' fabulous Revised & Expanded Petty Gods and make the PC pick a deity if they are unhappy with the standard Greyhawk pantheon. Useful as well for Paladins and Druid-like characters. Once again customize a starting spell list specific to the conception of the god/servitor chosen. Lamentation of the Flame Princess is a good place for inspiration here and the DM would be wise to keep future acquired spells a bit of a mystery while at the same time allowing the player to craft future spells per the rules. Rolemaster's spell law book "Channeling" is useful in crafting custom spell lists. The important thing here is not get hung up on what further spells will be available from the "Cleric's" god. The PC should be required to define their deity's wishes and attributes through play. Then appropriate future spells will naturally occur to both the PC and DM. What about those f#$ing demi-humans? You will need an additional school of magic and call it Fey. Here the magic is inherent to the race. Not learned. Both spells and rune magic would need to be defined. Runes for those stubborn dwarves. Elves and halflings just eat berries and smoke weed and fart magic out of their ass. Dwarves need to crush metal and burn ore to get their magic rocks off. The mentalism book from Spell Law and the druid spell lists from the Player's Handbook are good resources here. Of course you will want to rip off the Diabolist from Palladium for the Dwarves. While you are at it steal liberally from the Alchemist rules for an additional school for the Wizards/Sorcerers. You do all this and you should be able to use Magic World rules for a very Greyhawk fantasy experience built on BRP. Magic World is aptly named, as this is what gives the game its unique stamp. So why is the book so light on magic? I think Magic World should see the magic section just massive. DCC has shown that a very thick fantasy rulebook is saleable. Magic World could really show how a b-i-g fantasy rpg rulebook is done.

I use the three +10% cultural skill bonuses as not affecting skill point totals, so you could get one skill getting 70 points. Curious if there has been any debate on at high levels of experience do characters all start to look the same? All the PC's getting high weapon skills, and insight skills, and potion skills..., etc.?

Was searching the D101 site for the SRD. Where would that be?

Vague, I can work with vague...

Butters wrote up a concise synopsis of the games arc to date on our community page. Here it is reprinted for those interested in the plot which has unfolded so far... What is he up to?Mallebench and his brother come to Norfolk looking for heretical items all of which are possibly connected with the order of Kites a religious crusading order which their ancestor belonged to.Mallebench brings in the Crows a mercenary band whilst his brother brings in the Cardinals to support him.Mallebench goes to a great deal of trouble to get himself set up in Norwich, he arranges to have Randolph Nutley (A clockwork engineer) murdered by the Crows so that he could take his place at Norton Ironworks. This gives him access to a clockwork production facilities and after impressing the owner with his skills managed to become part of the companies inner circle very quickly especially after he helped secure a major military contract and happened to discover a nearby source of cheap coal.All this seems to have been done to be able to secure men to mine and further guards/enforcers as the military contract required armed guards to be employed and as he was so trusted by the now grateful owner there was very little oversight on how resources were being used.His brother remained outside of Norwich itself and seemed to be roaming around the surrounding countryside with his gang (The Cardinals) collecting artifacts and gathering information.They were killed during the incident at Gothards hollow where they had attempted to recover a strange ruby bell from the tomb of a knight who later on appears to have been their ancestor from the Order of Kites.Meanwhile Mallebench was spreading his influence in Norwich bribing some whilst corrupting others through blackmail he even hired a local gang by the name of the name of the Tenebrous handSeemingly one of the first to fall was a man called Rimehart a man who ran an import /export company of somewhat shady reputation and ideally placed to help Mallebench gain more artifacts and blackmail material. More weak men followed including a Captain in the town garrison.Also during this time he seems to have set up a satanic temple and recruiting members of the upper classes into it this provided more funds as he soon made requests for soft loans.All this effort seemed to be in aid of gathering resources and funds for some big operation various tunnels were explored under Norwich including several under the castle (The source of the cracked wall?)It seemed he was after something in particular though as he seemed happy to sell a powerful artifact to one of the new Satanists (The cursed sword) for a huge amount of money.All this effort seems to be spent suddenly after something was found at the small hamlet of Conistan and even though his brother had died the plan was still on.Mallebench now started spending money and transferring miners from the New Norton coal mine at Wythburn to excavations now starting at Coniston.More and more resources were diverted from Norton ironworks including men, digging equipment and a variety of clockwork devices.This couldn't go on for too long though as the diverted resources started to effect the main ironworks the dwindling supply of coal being the most noticeable.The dig at Coniston uncovered a strange and terrible structure which seemed to be a vast temple complexSoon all the German miners were sent to the Coniston dig where they were all sacrificed to call forth a demon of some sort if this was the plan then due the somewhat accidental actions by the Party this failed to go off correctly resulting in the destruction of Coniston, the sending back of the demon? and the creation of the blighted area.Mallebench then seemed to go into clean up mode as the effective removal of the demon combined with the Parties return from the Pale Ladies realm not only caused a big explosion, the Blight but brought other strange changes. So after leaving the Coniston area via Keswick (This resulted in the centre of Keswick being burnt down during a flesh beast attack) he returned to Norwich and seemed to begin eliminating anyone who could identify him.The Hand were set up to be attacked by the Party after failing to recover some books that he wanted he also arranged for the murders of the Satanist group he had set up.The last of the Crows died in a cavern under a ruined church in Norwich to some sort of hell toad ? Whilst trying to return those self same books.So what's Mallebench up to his brother is dead, the demon didn't work out, he blew his cover at Norton's by using up all those resources, he hasn't managed to get his books back and seems to be destroying whatever was left of his Norwich network so what is he up to and what if anything is he still looking for? What were Ghwon and Tobias doing in that cavern and more importantly where the hell is he?Still aliveRimehart

In answer to the opening post; I use Renaissance, Elric! and the BGB. Elric! I run straight out of the box for Sword & Sorcery gaming, Renaissance because I am running a Clockwork & Cthulhu campaign and BGB to create my own homebrew Top Secret, Traveller and Gamma World settings.

Does River of Heaven have rules for exposure to hard radiation?

I have found that some of the best "source books" is a copy of the inspiring fiction in one hand and a simple rules set in the other! So yes, I agree with your sentiment 101%.