Search the Community

Hey folks, I've been whittling away at a d100-inspired ruleset in a setting inspired by the excellent Shadows of the Apt series. The setting as inspiration provides an interesting set of powers/abilities to try to model, plus some steampunk or clockpunk - it's been fun writing it. I've done one simple combat focused playtest a couple of months ago but since have added quite a bit. It's still very much work in progress. I welcome feedback if anyone's interested in checking it out: https://shadowsandechoes.world/ The ruleset is under a Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/); this is for fun only! There's also some code - I've been playing around with what is mostly a NPC generator: https://gitlab.com/robertprince/sae/. Cheers, Robert

This is the system I've been using for Battles and Skirmishes for a few adventure-years now, and I think by this point I've worked out enough of the kinks that I feel comfortable enough sharing it. Credit where credit is due, a number of the ideas involved here are inspired by similar mechanics found in the Book of Battle vol. 2, which we had been using before this but had found unwieldly and unintuitive to our tastes. This isn't a reinvention of the wheel, rather a reworking. I went into this with a few design goals in mind: How well the player-knights do in combat in some way impacts the tide of the battle, but at such a level that is appropriate for the scale of the engagement they are in. One valiant knight critting every round would be decisive in a skirmish, but next to negligible at a huge battle like Badon or Camlann. The players and the GM have a general understanding of how the battle is going, at which points along the battle line, with more detail closer to the players and less detail the further away you get. Much like the Book of Battle, have a high level of abstraction that lets the players understand their objectives in terms of a minigame without either they or the GM needing to be an expert on medieval battle tactics. I will start by explaining the Skirmish system first, because the Battle system is more or less just a framework for stringing along a series of skirmishes. Skirmish Rules Skirmish here is defined as an extended combat between two units. A knightly unit, or Eschille, is conventionally between 15 fighting men (5 knights and 10 footsoldiers) and 60 fighting men (20 knights and 40 footsoldiers), with an average of about 30. Saxon units, entirely afoot and in tight formation, tend to be twice as large. The diagram below shows the starting position of two units, the players on the left and the enemies on the right. The red line running down the middle represents the tide of combat. It begins in the middle, but will move either right, or left, or stay where it is, to reflect the balance of power. If it moves right, so that it crosses the box marked "Front Ranks" on the enemy unit, that means that the players have penetrated the enemy's front line and are now fighting in amongst the inner ranks, and the enemy unit is in danger of breaking. If it moves another step rightwards and crosses the "Back Ranks" box, that means that the enemy formation has been shattered and put to rout. Likewise, a step leftwards means that the Players have been pushed backwards into their own ranks, and two steps leftward means that their unit has been destroyed. When the Line is in the middle unmarked box, that means that the two sides are evenly matched and both fighting in good order. In short Line goes Left = Losing, Line goes Right = Winning. A skirmish may be over in a single round, or the balance of power may seesaw between the two sides for a number of rounds. The skirmish ends either when one of the commanders orders his men to retreat (who must spend 1 round then doing so), or one side has been put to rout. The Line moving rightward 1 space is called a "1 Tick", which is why I call this system "Tick the Boxes". The Procedure is as follows: Step 0: Context What is happening? Who is fighting who, and under what circumstances? Is either side outnumbered, outflanked, or surprised? If so, assign the appropriate modifiers to be assigned to the Unit Commander's Battle roll in the following step. Examples of appropriate modifiers: Unit is outnumbered 2:1, -5 Battle Unit is outnumbered 4:1, -10 Battle Unit is outnumbered 6:1, -15 Battle Unit is surprised, outflanked, or fatigued, -5 Battle. Step 1: Maneuver Roll "To me! On the Left! Charge! Hold the Line! Retreat!" The Unit Commander rolls at the top of each round to see how effectively they have coordinated their men. This covers any number of potential granular factors, such as whether the unit is in an appropriate formation, has attacked the right part of the enemy line at the right time, or has made best use of their environment, all things which are no doubt important to the success of a military action, but which would be a headache to work out in detail. Simply have the Unit Commander roll Battle unopposed, modified if at all by the factors determined in step 0. Crit: Maneuvered Brilliantly Success: Maneuvered Well Failure: Maneuvered Poorly Fumble: Maneuvered Abysmally This result does not have any direct impact on combat, but combined with the result of the combat, will determine how well the Unit does overall each round. Step 2: Combat Substep A, Combat Stance Each player decides how aggressively they want to fight. Bold: The Player is charging out boldly ahead of their comrades. Player fights 2 enemies this round and checkmarks Valorous. Do this if you have a very high skill, perhaps as the result of a Passion, and would like to maximize glory and the chance of victory. Orderly: The Player is shoulder to shoulder with their fellow knights, taking an equal share of the danger. Player fights 1 enemy. Do this by default. Hesitant: The player holds back behind their friends, trying to avoid danger. Player fights 1 enemy with the help of another (enemy at reduced skill) and checkmarks Cowardly. Do this if you are close to death and you don't care how the rest of the unit fares. Substep B, Resolve Combat Each player rolls their Weapon Skill against that of an enemy combatant, or combatants, as the case may be. The player should be facing a different enemy every round, ideally rolled for on some kind of Random Enemy Table appropriate for the encounter. The player does not need to roll damage against the enemy combatant on a success, only the result matters. If the player loses, the enemy does roll damage against them however. The result gives the following Combat Score, per player, per enemy if fighting several. If fighting Hesitantly, give the Combat Score appropriate for 1 result lower. Crit: +2, "Fought Valiantly". Win: +1, "Fought Well". Tie: +0, "Held Their Own". Loss: -1, "Was Hard Pressed". Vanquished: -2, "Was Struck Down". Example 1: Sir Ambrut fights Boldly (against 2 opponents), winning against 1 opponent and critting against the other, his combined Combat Score for that round is +3 Example 2: Sir Laingrin ties against his opponent, but because he fought Hesitantly (opponent at half skill), his Combat Score for that round is -1. Substep B Alternate: Resolve Duel Sometimes it might be appropriate for a player to duel an important enemy NPC, such as a commander or a monster. This can either happen by GM Fiat, or happen as the result of a random enemy roll. When this happens, the Player and their Opponent enter an extended melee, and fight for as many rounds as necessary, the rest of the engagement paused around them. Both roll for damage as necessary. Either combatant may withdraw from the Duel at any time, but doing so counts as a Loss. Results: Vanquished Opponent: +2 Combat Score Opponent Withdrew: +1 Combat Score Withdrew: -1 Combat Score Vanquished by Opponent: -2 Combat Score. Substep C : Determine Combat Result Average the Combat Scores of all the Player-Knights participating. Average > 1 : Unit Combat Triumph Average > 0: Unit Combat Victory Average = 0 : Unit Combat Tie Average < 0: Unit Combat Loss Average < -1: Unit Combat Disaster Example: With Ambrut achieving a +3 Combat Score and Laingrin a -1, the average of the two = 1. They therefore achieved an overall Unit Combat Victory. Step 3: Determine Unit Result Compare the result of the Maneuver Roll in step 1 with the Combat Result in step 2 on the table below. Remember that "+1 Tick" = the Balance Line moves 1 box rightwards, ie the Players get a step closer to winning. You need a net total of +2 Ticks against the enemy to rout their unit. Regardless of the current balance, a result of +/- 3 Ticks in one round will always rout the respective unit. For example, Ambrut and Laingrin's Unit Commander rolled a Success on their Maneuver roll. Combined with their Combat Result of "Unit Victory", that means that their Unit Result is +1 Tick. Their unit is now at a net of +1 Ticks against the enemy. Ambrut and Laingrin's unit have the enemy on the ropes, but they have not won yet. Restart the Process at Step 1, but with the following change: The Unit Commander receives a -5 modifier to their Maneuver Roll, as indicated on the diagram. This is because their men are in amongst the enemy ranks now, and it is therefore harder to maneuver effectively. This is essentially a catch-up mechanic for the side that is losing. The process is repeated for as many rounds as necessary until either one side is shattered, or spends 1 round retreating without being shattered. Sometimes the Skirmish is over after 1 round, usually it's 2 rounds, but I've seen them go as long as 4 or 5 rounds on occasion. Battle System Here a Battle is defined as an extended conflict between groups of multiple opposing units. The main conceit of this system is that it imagines every army as being comprised of 4 parts: a Left, a Right, a Center, and a Reserve. Each of those four parts is then itself divided into four parts, and then those in turn are divided into four, all the way down to the Company level, which is comprised of 4 Units. 1 Army = 4 Battalions 1 Battalion = 4 Divisions 1 Division = 4 Companies 1 Company = 4 Units. This is a fairly abstract construction that is intended to create a simple, scalable, battle mini-game, not to accurately reflect how the respective armies are actually organized. Dividing everything into Left, Right, and Center is fairly intuitive and one would imagine it actually looking that way on the battlefield, but the 'Reserve' portion of each formation down the chain is the most abstract; the Reserve may, in the actual organization of the army, be an actual distinct unit with a designated commander, or it may simply represent deeper and deeper ranks of the army. The purpose of the Reserve, in this system is to reflect the following: that a Battle is generally not just every Unit from each Army fighting each other side by side all at the same time; Armies get deeper as they get bigger. Observe, a Company vs Company diagram: The general idea is that when you destroy a unit, their respective 'reserve unit' moves up to replace it. When that happens, you move the Balance Bar back to center, and cross out the Reserve box, to show that the company no longer has men in reserve. If you then proceed to destroy the unit opposite you a second time, without your side having lost any units, you destroy the enemy company. This then scales up further. When you destroy an enemy company, a reserve company moves in to replace it. If you then destroy the enemy company again, you destroy the enemy Division, etc. Here is a Battalion vs Battalion diagram: Even though Battles can and will get larger than the Battalion vs Battalion scale, trust me, the above is all you're ever really going to need. Battles bigger than that should almost always have scripted outcomes. At the Army vs Army scale, things get hard to read down at the unit level. Here for example is the Army vs Army Diagram from the start of the Battle of Lindsey, which we ran recently: That's King Uther in the center battalion, Duke Ulfius on the (flipped) right battalion, Duke Gorlois on the (flipped) left, and Duke Corneus in reserve. You can just make out the arms of the player-knights, three of them commanding their own units. You will notice, regardless of the size, that the unifying principle here is that the diagram is detailed close to where the players are, and vague the further away it gets. The procedure for running a Battle is essentially the same as running a series of skirmishes, except inserted into the procedure is an additional step every round: Step 4: Determine Fate of Neighboring Units You do this with a simple 1d6 roll for each unit, as follows: 7: +2 Ticks 5-6: +1 Tick 3-4: +0 Ticks 1-2: -1 Tick 0: -2 Ticks As the situation may dictate, assign a modifier of +1 or -1 to this roll in circumstances in which the player-unit may get a +5 or -5 to its Maneuver Roll, for example when one side outnumbers the other. This includes the typical -5 penalty for being among the enemies ranks, at net 1 Tick. You roll for the other Units in the player's Company at the end of every round. You roll for the other Companies in the players' Division at the end of every 2nd round. You roll for the other Divisions in the players' Battalion at the end of every 3rd round. The Fate of Other Battalions really ought to be scripted, but if you really want to you can roll for them every 4th round. This way, at the end of 3 rounds, the Battalion v Battalion diagram may look something like this: I hope you get the general idea. When a unit, company, division etc. is broken, the corresponding reserve will usually take 1 battle round to move up and replace it. During that time, the victors may: a) Keep moving forward and attack the incoming reserve immediately. b) Prepare for a lance charge next round. c) Take advantage of the gap and flank a neighboring unit. This is a high-risk, high-reward maneuver. For 1 round, you get a +10 to your maneuver roll, but if you fail to break the enemy unit in that time, next round the incoming reserve will counter-flank you, and you will instead suffer a -10 to maneuver. d) Await the incoming reserve, during which time individual knights can take turns returning to camp to receive first aid or stowing away a captured prisoner. Conversely, when the player's unit is destroyed, they then have the following options: a) Go and join the incoming reserve. b) Go back to camp c) Strike out on your own as a unit of 1, like a lunatic. For the next round, fight three enemies at once. If you achieve a Combat score of at least +3, your routed unit will rally back to you in the next round at half strength (-5 maneuver with that unit for the rest of the battle), and you receive a bonus 100 glory. If that doesn't happen but you still manage to survive, you will be fighting among the incoming reserve next round. d) Allowed only for Player-Characters and occasionally Important Named NPC's: Rally your comrades to you with an Orate roll. On a Critical Success, half your own unit rallies to you and your losses are made up by scattered soldiers from other broken units. On a normal success, you rally your unit back to you at half strength, -5 to maneuver for that unit for the rest of the battle. On a failure or fumble, nothing happens. Successfully rallying a broken unit in this way grants a bonus of 50 glory. Glory Glory for participating in Skirmishes and Battles are awarded in 4 ways: 1) Combat Glory Glory is awarded every round, per enemy, according to your combat result and the size of the battle. The Battle Size Categories are as follows: Fight/Clash: Unit vs Unit. Average 60 total combatants. Engagement: Company vs Company. Average 240 total combatants. Small Battle: Division vs Division. Average 1000 total combatants. Medium Battle: Battalion vs Battalion. Average 4000 total combatants. Large Battle: Army vs Army. Average 16000 total combatants. Huge Battle: Grand Army (4 Armies) vs Grand Army. Average 64000 total combatants. Glory does not vary depending on enemy type in standard combat, only in the event of a duel, as described below. 2) Duel Bonus Glory It is generally appropriate to award bonus glory for winning a duel in the middle of the battle, should one occur, at GM discretion. I generally have two kinds of potential duel targets per engagement, an Officer type, and a Champion type. Defeating an Officer gives you +50 bonus glory for the round in addition to combat glory, while a Champion type might get you +100 glory. In a Saxon army I generally have a veteran Thegn as the officer type duel, and a Small Giant as the Champion type duel. For example, if Sir Ambrut, while fighting in a medium battle, encounters an Officer and vanquishes him in a duel, he gets +60 combat glory and +50 duel bonus glory for 110 total that round. 3) Commander Bonus Glory Commanding other knights in battle is an honor, and ought to yield a modest bonus to glory per round. The bonus glory per round for being a commander is not directly affected by how well your unit does, except in the following ways: a) If your unit is destroyed, you stop getting glory for being a Commander for the rest of the battle. b) You are first in line to receive Banner glory, described below, when your unit destroys that of the enemy. 4) Banner Glory "Banners" in this system are yet another abstraction; in literal terms they represent enemy battle standards or other such trophies retrieved from the battle field, in mechanical terms, a "Banner" is a transferable token awarded to a commander for destroying an enemy unit, worth a certain amount of glory. Unit Banner: 50 Glory Company Banner: 100 Glory Division Banner: 250 Glory Battalion Banner: 500 Glory Army Banner: 750 Glory Grand Army Banner (Such as the Dragon's-Head standard of the Pendragons): 1000 glory. By custom, the banner belongs first to the commander of the victorious unit. The commander may then choose to award it either to a worthy subordinate, or their own superior. Granting a banner to one's subordinate grants a Generous checkmark, and if applicable, a Loyalty (Vassals) checkmark. Granting a banner to one's superior grants a Modest checkmark, and if applicable, a Loyalty (Lord) checkmark. The commander is under no obligation to give the banner away to anyone and may keep it for themselves if they so choose. Unlike all the other sources of glory, Banner glory is flat and is not multiplied according to the overall result of the Battle. Battle Result Multipliers Decisive Victory: x2 Indecisive: x1 Decisive Defeat: x0.5 Total Glory Formula [(Combat Glory + Duel Bonus Glory + Commander Bonus Glory) x Battle Result Multiplier] + Banner Glory.

Hello there, While I've been reading the OpenQuest 3rd Edition core book, I've encountered a really interesting approach on page 220 about the sacred cows of D100 Gaming. In my opinion that's the right approach in order to revolutionise the D100 systems for breadth of audience. Some of the D100 systems remind me of GURPS when it comes to the number of skills a person might not have any incentive to touch (whether the referee or the player). What do you think about the constantly recurring Driving, Riding and Sailing skills? They do seem kind of redundant to me, as despite the fact that there are differences between various transports, I don't think they're a particularly frequent choice of many players around - to the point that my players even frown at the idea of these three skills being separate, thus personally I have merged them into one single Drive skill that handles all kinds of mounts and vehicles akin to how Vampire the Masquerade or some other systems already handle it. A lot of beautiful work has been done on uniting the skills within OpenQuest to avoid having so many smaller skills that practically nobody is decent at. I think rather than being present by default, at most these skills should have been an option to choose, as not every setting might feature ships, or even vehicles, or mounts - for example a setting that's based on floating islands might not find much use for the sailing skill, thus the optionality of the aforementioned three skills in particular, contrasting to the many other generally much more useful ones.

Hi all, I've been GMing Runequest Glorantha for about a year now, and I've been really enjoying the system. It gets over a lot of the issues that DnD 5e (which I have much more experience with) has, and the greater level of simulation aligns way more with what I try to get out or Role Playing. There are however a number of rules that I've found either frustrating or unnecessary, and have replaced with homebrew versions that much better suit my group. There is however one rule that I've been thinking about how to replace pretty much since day one, which is resistance rolls. I really like the success level system employed throughout the game, it really helps the flow as for most interactions I don't need to know what my players skills or attributes are, just whether their roll was a success or fail. Resistance rolls however break this mold completely, and every time they've come up in game (which is a lot), they've always been kind of awkward. I've been trying to think of a less awkward solution for quite a while, but I've never managed to come up with one that would achieve similar results. I think I've finally got one though, but I thought I'd run it past the forum before trying it with my group, just in case there's some horrible consequence that I haven't considered. So the main reason as I can see it that resistance rolls don't use contested rolls like everything else, is that contested rolls have the possibility of a tie, which doesn't really work for what resistance rolls are trying to achieve. This gets even worse when high power creatures and players are around, as ties tend to become even more common as skills increase. Perhaps we could get around this by just redoing the check whenever there's a tie, but such a system would surely destroy the tension whenever any more powerful opponents are faced due to the sheer number of rerolls required. But what if we reintroduce the tension by making the reroll a choice on the attackers side, and a choice which they have to spend one magic point for each time they make. This would make contests between individuals of high power still feel significant, rather than the current system which treats all equal power contests the same, and although large amounts of magic points could end up getting used I figure it wouldn't matter much, since high power players have a lot of MP anyway. So in summary, my replacement rule would be to make a contested roll and in the case of a tie, the attacker may choose to conduct another contested roll for the price of one magic point. I'm yet to consider how this would work for other kinds of resistance rolls, but they are far less common in my group than POW vs POW. Let me know what you think, and if you see any glaring issues that I've failed to consider. Advice on how to use the resistance table more efficiently would also be appreciated, I'm fully open to the possibility that I've just been missing something this whole time and it's actually really convenient to use.

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&#39;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