jagerfury

Have you fleshed this out at all?

Factions, like alignments, is useful for the Game Master to run NPC's. Matter of fact, all behavioral mechanics in a game I consider strictly to guide the GM in running the NPC's. This has been a great perspective for myself in re-looking at how I play a rpg.

I'm not sure. I have "people" who handle those details. But I will be doing daily hiking along a well known trail.

7th Sea Sold to Chaosium

Funny thing, we are temporarily suspended and won't be able to play until May, and then I will be in Scotland so... Right at the endgame too! 😣 Anyways, for a group of strangers to keep each other entertained for three years something good was happening for sure. I do hope to see it reach some sort of conclusion or earth is doomed for sure.

Energy drinks are poison. Strong black tea lad, strong black tea.

Bendal Dolum Unjay obviously did not sleep the night. Vilhelm was sure of it. The Hexenjager came to with a start like a tropical dawn, bright and abrupt. Unjay was looked across the glade absorbing the morning jungle like a benediction. The bloody ruin of the night’s combat was to be seen about them on the flagstones. At least thirteen bodies in various states of decay lay where there heads had finally been dashed. The open ground between the zigurate and jungle was heavily trampled. Norton, Cuthbert and Father Goodchild crawled out from the inner chamber to also greet the dawn. “We have our heading gentlemen.” Dr. Norton girded his loins. “Pack what you need, we move out immediately.” The stern Mayan Prince was having words with Father Goodchild. Seems his wounded man would not be coming further. The other two braves which followed their prince into the jungle were to take their injured brother back. Unjay then shed his tribal necklace and flung it at the Jesuit Priest’s feet. He dared then and there that the Mayan gods were stronger than anything the thin priests piety could bring and was willing to go to the gates of hell to prove it. If this group of mercenaries was bent on banging down those gates he was going to lead the way. The rain forest was thick and unforgiving for eight solid hours and then the party arrived at the lake of the dead. Stark cliff walls surrounded the water casting the crevasse in shadow while out at center the last stabs of light caught the pinnacles of late Bendal Dolum. For a thousand years it lay moldering beneath the spring fed waters. The doctor ordered a raft to be built. He was determined to make the lake-drowned city before night shuttered in. The temperature dropped markedly as the party clambered aboard the hastily made raft and poled out towards the submerged city. Then the sky cleared. It was hot and the sky was ablaze with birds. The city lay scintillating full an adorned before them. "Time and distance has been distorted.Unjay says this is a power of the Itzal." Father Goodchild extols while the C.lU.B.'ers row. It is sickening, the wrench of tentacles grasping the sides of the homemade raft, that flings the brave passengers into the water. Only after several have gained the shore that a proper accounting can be had.

Not to put too fine of a point on it, buuut the slow down in session reports is all due to the group agreeing to live stream our game sessions. There hasn't been a need to weave the live play experience into words cause we all get to look back any time at what really transpired. I must say I do prefer the narration of the good Dr. Norton to the live stream, buuut it is also very rewarding to see as a passive observer how the sausage is made. So the question stands; shall the tale be told to conclusion or should the videos stand for themselves?

I prefer the P&D ship rules to that found in Blood Tide. Simpler.

The Ziggurat of Doom (Chronicles of the Keeper) we are far behind in detailed session reports, but your Keeper will try and keep you all up to speed as the PC's race to their final confrontation with Mallebench! Guilio and Tomas are the first to join Cuthbert at the top of the stairs wheellocks leveled. The horrible night sounds of the shambling dead is drowned out by their fusillade. The heavy lead slugs tear through tattered and rotting flesh. Guilio and Cuthbert’s fire rips away frightening chunks of moldering guts and a limb, but the grotesque creatures stumble forward undeterred. Tomas, the consummate marksman, plants his bullet through the forehead of his target exploding it like an overripe cantaloupe. The Itzal zombie collapsed like a stringless puppet. “Aim for the head!” yells Tomas even as the trio of C.lU.B.’ers are forced back onto the ziggurat’s wide platform by more and more zombies crawlingd up the stairs out of the ghoulish, flesh-eating fog. The Italian slides his musket back along the flagstones without a look back. The group of disparate Parliamentarian agents together facing death innumerable times, Guilio knew either the Doctor or Vilhelm would see to reloading the piece. He unslung his telescoping glaive fashioned from the dead strangers, those weird knights the Paladins of the Fall. Snicking it out to its full length he uncapped the skull off a skinless head as the zombie reached out to grapple the large mercenary. Unjay, the Kayo prince, leaped boldly into the fray coming to grips with his ancestors hated foes. His swinging war club crunched down again and again. Tomas snarled as he discharged his pistol full in the face of an attacking corpse. Firearms spent he stepped further back onto the platform giving himself room to loosen his sword. “Toss your musket!” Doctor Norton hollered out to Tomas all the while priming Guilio’s gun. Cuthbert, feeling the lack of numbers, calls to his frightened African slave and lobs his secondary pistol to him. Hoping a weapon in hand will put steal in the purchased man’s soul Cuthbert stands agog as Molasses points the loaded gun at his master’s heart. Face twisted in rage, mind obviously broken by the surrounding horror Molasses screams in his native tongue and discharges the black powder pistol. Cuthbert loses his breath as searing pain brings him to his knees. It feels as if lightning struck him across the ribs. He sobs for a gulp of air clutching his bleeding side. Vilhelm, witnessing the betrayal, brings his side sword down on the slaves’ still outstretched arm cleaving through the bicep just below the shoulder. Reeling from rage and madness Molasses stumbles forward determined to kill the alchemist before his remaining lifeblood pumps out of his body. Two zombies fall upon the mortally wounded slave dragging him down screaming and rending his gore-soaked body. Dr. Norton, seeing his compatriots all engaged, lifts the primed musket and sites down his one good eye and fires into a crush of several zombies gaining the platform and streaming past the party’s thin line pushed back from the ziggurat’s steps. The shot rips through the hip of a native who must have turned into a lifeless horror mere days ago. Mobility gone the fully-fleshed zombie topples. “Grab the end of my rope!” Vilhelm shouts to the doctor. Realizing the witch-hunter's scheme he drops the discharged musket, grabs hold of the rope and rushes with Vilhelm and together they clothesline the other two creatures off the edge of the Mayan shrine. And then it is over. The pressing horde lay disemboweled or decapitated at Tomas, Unjay and Guillio’s feet. Though more creatures can heard milling about the ziggurat under the cover of the glooming green fog the chanting from the surrounding jungle changes. The shuffling horrors, however many remain, begin to return into the impenetrable jungle. When their movements can no longer be heard the throaty chants recede into the distance leaving only the rolling fog and star-filled night sky. Dr. Norton moves to see to the injured alchemist and administers first-aid. The bullet only grazed his side, but the wound was still nasty. Without proper attention Norton knew Mr. Sharp would succumb to infection. He had seen such a turn too many times in NMA field hospitals to leave him no room for doubt. Unjay and Tomas finished off any zombies still animate because their heads had not been damaged. Vilhelm coiled up his rope quiet surprised he and the rest of the group were still alive. “I’ll keep first watch,” he announces. “Father Goodchild. Please inform our royal friend here I wouldn’t mind the company. The rest of you find what rest you can and let us trust till morning god keeps us.”

Yes I agree. I am just encouraging the OP to dive deep in their vision of their campaign world. Pick up the book after and the BGB is not a confusing plethora of options. It is a better RPG toolkit then Hero 5th or any version of GURPS.

If you have a firm grip on the genre the BGB is fine. Read and review the character creation process. Modify it as you see fit to support your specific genre. Then you world build. Your PC's are done and ready to go!

The Elric! rulebook is an amazing example of a TTRPG rule book done right. For that reason alone anyone serious about the TTRPG medium should be looking at it.