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Well, Post Number One, or 'How We Got Here' So with the COVID lockdown, my wife has been working from home in our apartment. Due to space constraints, her home office setup is in the living room while I occupy a bedroom set up as a library /computer /junk room most of the day. I've been pretty bored, especially since I quit Facebook in the wake of Election Assault on the Capitol. I've been trying to pay more attention to my family during the crisis, and slew of birthday presents had me asking one of my nieces if she'd like me to teach her and her older two girls how to play RPGs. She enthusiastically agreed. The Cast of Characters: Me- I'm an Old Geek in my mid-50s. Been gaming since the 70's. I'm a US Army combat veteran and have been diagnosed with PTSD and a couple other things, for which I am in treatment. I have some empathy issues and a bit of temper [nothing violent, but I have a cruel streak that isn't very pretty] and I'm determined to keep the worst of my mental issues away from the kids in my family. This has naturally led to some distancing between my siblings, their children, and I, but most of them understand to a degree. Since the lockdown, I've been trying to reconnect with family, keeping track of birthdays and what-all, and I see gaming as a way to share something I love with people I love. My Spouse- My wife, Aunt E, is a bit younger than I am, but she's an Old Geek like me. She got into gaming in junior high school in the early 80s and had to deal with all the knucklehead pubescent male nonsense at a gaming table. She learned to get pink pens and dice to make sure she them back after a game session 😂 She once worked for a major game producer for 15 or so years and has had trouble in the past with fanboys trying to use her as an entrepot into the industry. Because of this, she's asked me to keep the personal details to a minimum. My Niece- A nice woman with four children. She got pregnant fairly young and hasn't had much of a chance to let her imagination loose and I think gaming will be JUST the thing for her. Grand-niece #1, or Niece C- Is the most interested among the kids. She's in her early teens and is pretty impressionable. I have to take real care to keep some of my latent cynicism reined in around her. She hasn't missed a session yet and is an incredibly smart young girl. Some of her decision making has surprised me a great deal. The Setting: When we set all this up, I asked 'the girls' what milieu /world they wanted to play in. My niece and her kids don't have a real huge background in RPGS, just some computer games [Skyrim mostly], so I didn't want to hit them with a huge Wall of Text that playing Glorantha would require. Instead, I offered to adapt the RuneQuest in Glorantha rules set to whatever setting they wanted. I figured it'd be Game of Thrones or Lord of the Rings... but NOPE! Surprise #1 is that the Niece C is currently reading the Percy Jackson and the Olympians books and was interested in that. I didn't want the PCs to demigods per se, so I countered with Atlantis. And here we are. I have renamed Atlantis 'Atalan' and taken some of Plato's work and other sources to create a setting where the Atalan subcontinent still exists. It is about the size of Greenland and sits in the North Atlantic. It's southernmost points are near the Equator and have jungle terrain, and it's northernmost reaches are near the permanent ice pack. The Atalan nation is what could be described as a 'theocratic confederation'... The Atalans know themselves to be the Children of Poseidon and have a semi-divine extended family that rules over them. The principle line are the Emperor[-ess] Priest who rule the capital city and surrounds. The 'cousins' of this main line rule one of eight kingdoms as King/Queen-Priests. While everyone in the family is mortal, when one ascends to the throne they are imparted with a certain divine power that increased their lifespan and preserves their mental faculties. The family exhibits many of the same character faults and foibles as normal humanity, but the rulers themselves have a remarkable ability to stay sane and senility is unknown to them. Each kingdom is run independently by their respective ruling family, owing taxes, troops, and goods to the empire as a whole to be used for the greater good, and each one has certain unique qualities about them. At some point, I'll even get around to detailing just exactly what those are 😁 What I am sure of is the following: - Atalans consider themselves to be the only 'civilized' people on Earth, with all others being 'barbarian' to one degree or another - Atalans understand hydrology better than anyone on Earth, including water tables, sanitation, tides, currents, weather, and so on. - Atalans field an army consisting of the classic Greek hoplite phalanx, supported by crossbowmen, light cavalry on horses using spears and javelins and heavy cavalry using elephants. - Atalans forge a mystical metal named 'orichalcum' [no relation to Earth Prime's metal of the same name]. This metal is an alloy of copper, tin, and 'orichal', a reddish mineral that causes standard bronze take on the properties of mild steel. Furthermore, it is more accepting of enchantments than bronze or iron. No orichalcum smith is allowed to leave the Atalan subcontinent, and no outsider is ever taught the secrets of orichalcum. To date, the Atalans have never found a source for the orichal ore anyplace other than the Atalan subcontinent. There will be more about the Empire, Kingdoms and People of Atalan as I get it written. Stay tuned.

Hello, I would like to dedicate this topic to a more-or-less classic BRP solution related to Toughness and Readiness present in Revolution D100. That is, the usage of unified Hit Points (or Hit Locations Hit Points for those preferring the localised damage), as well as Action Points in general. I have been considering tweaking Action Points into my own game, as I am currently running on Mythras and seeing a lot of interesting things in Revolution D100. Perhaps it is the slight unfamiliarity of mine on how the Readiness (SR) functions in general as I didn't get to try it just yet. I would probably assign a unified 2 (or 3) Action Point value per round for every Player Character regardless of their species. Basic movement would be a free action if used to engage an opponent within the non-running/non-sprinting range. Every Action and Reaction would cost a single Action Point, meanwhile various Spells would have Action Point (and Effort, also known as Exertion Points) cost relative to their casting time. What about the rest of you, have you devised your own alternative of the rules, or perhaps the author himself has some alternative rules in store for us? I'd be very curious to read your input on this matter!

I have a few ideas concerning scenarios bouncing around in my head. I'm quite new to CoC (but not horror rpgs) and would appreciate a tad of input/help. The scenarios are nothing more than some scribbled notes, and some historic research. Below are some of my scenario seeds: Voyageurs I have always been fascinated with the historic fur trade in Canada and North America. Voyageurs will be a scenario were the PCs/Investigators will be Quebecois fur traders who travel down some remote river only to notice that something is stalking them among the trees of the riverbank. It's basically Predator/Deliverance/The Edge but with French-Canadian fur traders, Native tribes and Mythos creature. But what creature? A Wendigo could perhaps be an obvious choice, but maybe just too obvious? What other Mythos-inspired being could be just as terrifying and at home in the wilderness? Any suggestions? Reflectoscope This scenario takes place in Grand Canyon in 1932. The Investigators might be a group of ordinary tourists, treasure hunters/researcher looking for evidence of lost civilizations, treasure caves, etc. They could also be detectives searching for some missing people (inspired by the historic disappearance of Glen and Bessie Hyde among others). The important thing is Mary Colter's Desert View Watchtower with it's reflectoscopes. One of those reflectoscopes is different in its nature. When looking through this cursed reflectoscope and viewing the sharp corners, edges and cracks of the canyon rockface one happens to summon the Hounds of Tindalos. And thus the hunt is on. No title yet (feel free to suggest one) This scenario takes place on some island among the Aleutian Islands where a skeleton crew (the PCs) maintain a whaling station during the harsh off season winter months. The time period is probably the first decade of the 20th century. I have plenty of source material concerning historic whaling, canneries and such, but what I lack here is frankly the source of the horror. It's an isolated, frozen place just like in The Thing. But what Mythos deity/being could be used? I know Deep Ones, Dagon and Hydra could be obvious choices, but so many scenarios contain Deep Ones. Maybe Ithaqua himself walks across the thick ice to haunt the PCs? The Cove This scenario takes place in late 19th century, probably around the 1890s (Gaslight era). The setting is an en plein airimpressionist artist camp i New South Wales (in the vicinity of Sydney) with inspiration from the historic camp at Balmoral Beach. The Investigators are most likely bohemian painters, but could of course have more diverse professions than that if they feel like it. This scenario is just the beginning of a seed, but I want a man-eating huge tiger shark in it, an artist in the camp that paints more and more hideous paintings as if possessed by some unknown force. This is all I have apart from period art, historical info of the region, the artist camps and other stuff. The tiger shark is kind of a red herring but is there because I'm fascinated by sharks and because there has been historical attacks in that region where the culprits were believed to have been tiger sharks. Maybe some artist that the PCs come to like is killed by this shark? The crazed painter is the real CoC-mystery though. Maybe there could be some Dreamlands connection (although most Dreamland material doesn't seem creepy, really)? The Janus Head/Diprosopus/Geminus (any title suggestion is appreciated)? This is a 1920s or perhaps even better a Depression era CoC scenario set somewhere near the more southern parts of the Appalachian Mountains. The Investigators are probably hired as workers relocating a small town about to be flooded by a future reservoir. The Investigators may be a part of a ragtag team occupied with relocating old graves, loading crusty old coffins on trucks and carts - dirty work like that. But towards the end of this assignment a crew of roughnecks come across rumours concerning an older graveyard in the area, down in Black Hag Holler/Hollow (I want Hag Holler in the name but not sure about black? Well, maybe someone can come up with an even creepier name for a holler). Digging up these newly discovered graves the crew come across an old, odd looking 19th century iron coffin with hex marks and rusty chains wrapped around it. They bring it into a tent and try to open it during their off-time. Maybe they believe the chains, the etched hillfolk hex signs and the thick iron coffin were meant to stop graverobbers but there's nothing a sledgehammer, a wedge and greedy minds can't fix. They manage to open the coffin late one evening. The next morning they don't show up for work. The boss is furious and sends the PCs to get the lazy bums back to work. It turns out that some of these men have died horrible deaths, torn to shreds while some are completely missing. The Investigators find the opened iron coffin with some dusty bone fragments of a woman inside. A more in-depth study of the bones show that they have been gnawed upon. There is hardly any bones left of the dead woman and the insides of the coffin has been clawed as if she was buried alive (which isn't the case). This scenario features an unique being I just call The Coffin Birth, the spawn of a pregnant but murdered witch. It's a hideously misshapen monster with two conjoined heads/parasitic twinning (like the Edward Mordake yarn). One head is almost nothing but sunken rat eyes and a gaping, drooling maw with rows upon rows of yellow tombstone-like teeth. It's the head that eats. The other head is definitely more human albeit twisted into form. It is the head that lures. Across moldy lips comes the sweetest sounds as it mimics birds and animals of dusk and night. It can even mimic human voices to perfection where it lurks among the hills beneath the silvery moon. The entity is slowly growing for each new victim it feeds upon now that it has found release from its cast iron prison. This is basically inspired by the movie Pumpkinhead, historical flooded towns, the tale about Edward Mordake, folk magic and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rehmeyer's_Hollow I'm not sure though where to locate the fictious town to be drowned, in what state. Perhaps someone on this forum lives in states bordering the Appalachians and could give me some advice on locations. I need hollers and spooky mountain forests. I have bookmarked alot of dams/reservoirs made in the era, but haven't yet decided upon which one to use (as I would like a real historical dam/reservoir/man-made lake, but a fictious flooded town). I appreciate all the input and advice I can get.

So while I think I like the intended seasonal flow of adventures in RQG, I wanted something a bit more specific in terms of how training, downtime, and so on are handled. This is what I came up with. It's somewhat rough (and I'll start rolling it out to players this upcoming session) so fair warning. My goal was to get something a bit more granular and ongoing than "Okay, adventure's over, let's narrate a few events then jump to end of season..." but not go so far as the bookkeeping of counting hours and estimating hours available for training and occupation and all that like I remember from RQ3. A big part of devising this comes from my experience that most of my campaign's adventures last at least a week, and often several, largely due to travel time. If you're playing a much closer-to-home campaign, you may want to change some of the train/research week requirements. On the attached sheet, record your adventurer's main activity each week. Your main activity is whatever you did the most (4 of 7) days. Mostly, this is for focusing on week-to-week activity, rather than day-to-day; but if you get back home on Clayday and go back to work that's an Occupation week, not an adventuring week. At the end of each season, record your main activity (at least 4 of 7 weeks). Common weekly activities include: Occupation: you were focusing on your occupational or cult duties. If your seasonal activity isn't occupation, then you get -20% to your Income roll during Sacred Time. This stacks each season. If you get at least five weeks of Occupation within one season, you get occupational experience checks per standard RQG rules (this is 4 weeks/5 weeks difference is intentional). Shamans and Rune Priests can use a Occupation week to teach a spirit magic spell. Most of the time, for a shaman going into the spirit world, awakening their or an apprentice's fetch, and so on counts as Occupation. This includes spirit pilgrimages for taboos. Adventure: you were gone adventuring. Learning spirit magic: you spent time at the temple or with a shaman learning a new spirit magic spell. Train/Research a skill: you were improving a skill. This costs as listed in RQG (though I may change that later) for training. Research is free, but may require access to suitable materials, and requires a successful experience roll. Training increases by 1D6-1 or +2, Research by 1D6-2 or +1. Time required for either method is five weeks. They may have one interlude, and the time between must be spent either doing Occupation or Adventure. If more interludes occur or the adventurer begins a different training, research, or learning a spell, they must begin the previous from the beginning. No skill which may improve by experience can rise above 75% by training or research. Train/Research a characteristic: you were improving a characteristic. This costs 500L for training (though that may change), and nothing for research. Research requires a gain roll, training is automatic. Under species average (for humans, 11), this takes 5 weeks; over, it takes 10. Same rules as skill improvement for time spent. Training gives 1D3, research gives 1D3-1. If the characteristic is 18 or higher, only gain 1 point. Can't train SIZ or INT. You can't train POW as a weekly activity. Per RQG, donating 500L to a temple and spending one day per week in meditation gives a POW Gain roll at the end of the season. This still applies. You can POW Gain this way and continue any other weekly activity (provided you spend enough total days focused on that activity). Example: Yorick comes back from an adventure on Waterday. The next day, he goes back to work as an Entertainer. On Godday he goes into seclusion to meditation on his god, working toward his POW Gain roll. He spent two days adventuring (Freezeday, Waterday), four working as an Entertainer (Clayday, Windday, Fireday, Wildday), and one in POW Gain, so this week he marks Occupation on his sheet. Attune a magic item: you were in seclusion and meditation attuning a magic crystal or other item. Usual attunement rules apply. Crafting: you focused on crafting an item. This doesn't count toward Occupation, because the item is itself yours rather than nebulously part of your occupation. Ritual Preparation: you were in seclusion and meditation ritually preparing for some magical activity. Weeks spent in training or research can roll over between seasons. The improvement occurs whenever the time is done. Adventurers who don't spend sufficient time doing Occupation may also face social penalties in addition to Income loss (reduced Passions, lower priority for healing/spell teaching, etc). An adventurer is more likely to draw the community's ire from endless self-improvement rather than from frequent adventuring. The characteristic improvement rules are slightly changed from RQG's default. I wanted it to be easier for my players to reach at least average characteristics if they chose, and I disliked that you could drop 500L (an enormous amount of money in RQG--a year's income for eight free households!!) and get no improvement. On the time differences, I wanted it to be easier for adventurers to reach at least average because (especially in some characteristics, like CON) low scores can be devastating. The five-week benchmark comes from RQG's note that you take penalties if you spend more than three weeks adventuring. I can see adding an increased time increment to skill training for higher percentages, but I figured the 75% ceiling already in RQG was sufficient. If I wanted to make this more granular, I'd change the number of weeks required for skill improvement, based on skill brackets of 01-25, 26-50, 51-75, and 76-00. I may also change the percentage gains for research & experience. I imagine it's a huge feel-bad if you've got 85%+ in a Lore skill, finally make your research experience roll, only to actually lose percentage. Anyway, that's what I've got for the moment. I hope it's interesting or useful. Downtime Renewed.doc

--"Dragonrise", Glorantha Sourcebook, p.40. My adventurers are currently exploring the region around Dragon's Rift and the ruins of New Lunar Temple, and the above text caught my eye in re-reading the section on the Dragonrise for ideas. As far as I'm aware, a True Dragon is really more a cosmic entity than a Middle World one. Further, magic crystals are IIRC the blood of gods either still-living or dead (I don't think this is noted in the GM's Pack, and think my memory comes from RQ3's Elder Secrets or maybe some sidebar in the Guide but I claim no certainty). So that got me thinking: what is a True Dragon's blood like? They're hugely magical and powerful creatures who fight gods in some of the Orlanthi myths, so I reckon their blood my have some parallel properties to a god's blood. Has anyone worked with something like this before? Is there some odd grognard-trivia which talks about True Dragons in that way? What sort of weird powers or characteristics do you think a True Dragon's blood would have? Currently, my thoughts are something involving attunement, like a crystal, but I'd prefer weird abilities to bestow rather than the generic chart. I'm thinking that using one might incur penalties to an adventurer's Elemental Runes? Invoking the whole "detachment from material things" schtick that dragonewts are into. I imagine it could also have some interesting alchemical or other magical properties.

Stumbled on this document I put together years ago, that had converted some effects familiar to World of Warcraft players into RQ3 terms. Maybe someone finds them interesting. The Death Knight ones I used for abilities of some of Delecti's Lieutenants, the Druid for a player that wanted to be a healer but not "just another Chalana Arroy". Yes, some of the effects are fiddly and will require things like tokens marking effects - for example a green d20 for plague, a red d20 for tracking bleeding, and a blue d20 for tracking frost effects. For that purpose, I'd typically say that the status effects like that are non-stacking with themselves - for example you either have the frostbite effect or no, not that you could be affected multiple times with frostbite. Depending on your preference, you could say they're exclusionary - you couldn't have both plague and frostbite at the same time. This management burden may constrain the use of some of these. For example I wouldn't (as a DM) want to try to manage more than one NPC with Death Knight abilities at a time. OTOH, if you have a player with lifebloom, let THEM track the stuff, so they work fine for player abilities. They're meant to be reasonably balanced according to RQ3 power levels - typically 1 Spirit mp= 1 disrupt = 1-3 nonignorable damage or = 1 point of immediate healing. Ergo, Lifebloom (as a 1 point spirit spell) heals 3 points which may seem overpowered, but it does it over 6 rounds starting NEXT round. Moonfire (2 point spirit spell) does 1d6 damage and rolls on the missile to-hit location at +10 (so likely head), but you need to roll to-hit, and armor protects. They also work well as magic-item abilities, for example a dagger shaped like an icicle may give the wielder the ability to cause Frostbite for 1mp on contact. Or a magical willow twig, that if broken, casts Nature's Grasp on the user. Anyway, enjoy. If people like these, I could certainly do more. RQ3 DK and Druid.pdf