Vikings campaign (converted from RQ)

[rabindranath72]

Hi all,

long time lurker, I have recently bought HQ2, and I'd like to start a campaign. As I am a sucker for everything Viking, I thought of perhaps converting/adapting the Legend Vikings and/or RQ3 Vikings material, but I am a bit at a loss where to start. Has anyone done something similar? Or is there a "conversion" of RQ to HQ?

Thanks in advance,

Antonio

 

[Joerg]

Depending on the level of seidr and galdr or divine/otherworldly interventions you are willing to include in your Viking setting, the Orlanthi archetypes will offer good ideas for Viking characters. The Futhark does have magical meanings that can replace the Gloranthan runes, but that may take a couple of pages to give short descriptions of how the runes are expressed and what their influences can be.

The RQ3 campaign should be usable without any adaptations. Ignore the stat blocks except as rough guidelines.

The Orkneys or the Hebrides might be a good place to have a campaign outside of the classical Viking areas. The Danelaw and especially Jorvik aren't that far, offering numerous other opportunities besides the ones in the campaign.

Depending on how much you are married to the maps of northern Europe and surrounding lands, you can use the material on a re-arranged map with more magical places in between. That's how I ran the stuff under RQ3.

[JonL]

What sort of feel are you aiming for? Epic Sagas? Realistic-ish? Somewhere in between?

What do you want to focus on? Local politics and family drama? Exploration and trade? Raiding and conquest? Slaying monsters?

[soltakss]

18 hours ago, rabindranath72 said:

long time lurker, I have recently bought HQ2, and I'd like to start a campaign. As I am a sucker for everything Viking, I thought of perhaps converting/adapting the Legend Vikings and/or RQ3 Vikings material, but I am a bit at a loss where to start. Has anyone done something similar? Or is there a "conversion" of RQ to HQ?

Oh, it can be very easy.

What I would do is to have Professions and Backgrounds as Keywords, with important skills as Breakouts. Spells could be Breakouts of some Keywords.

So, Viking and Warrior would be Keywords, You might have Warrior 18 (Sword +3, Berserker +2) or Skald 17 (Play Lute +2, Sing +3, Honey Words +2) or Viking 19 (Longship +2, Brave +3, Hardy +1, Well-Combed Beard +3).

With magic and spells, it all depends on how you want to do them. I'd have them as Breakouts, as I like Breakouts. You have a choice whether to make them Narrative or Functional. Narrative just means that a spell is a Breakout and adds to your Keyword, so you narrate the consequence of using the spell. Functional means that the spell has a concrete effect on the game, so you might say that Berserker adds a boost to you combat skills and allows you to ignore mind-affecting spells.

 

[rabindranath72]

Thanks everyone for your feedback, much appreciated!

A little bit more background to put things in context. I have actually already started a campaign, we are two sessions in and I used Pendragon 4e/Land of Giants, with a lot of background info taken from Legend Vikings (LV) and RQ3 Vikings (RV). 

The campaign is the one laid out in RV, and I plan on using also the two scenarios in LoG, and the suggested scenarios in LV at some point. 

Now, for a series of reasons my players aren't happy about Pendragon, so I thought I'd go with HQ2 which has similar but overall simpler mechanics (my group isn't much into complex games in general.) In terms of magic, the level I expect to inject is mild fantasy; ideally, I'd use the magic rules in LV (Divination, Shape-shifting, Rune Casting, Seidr) and I'd like to each as skill (breakout?)

Following the HQG framework, I think I'd use:

1) Professions from LV, and make them into Keywords abilities

2) Magic skills from LV, and make them into Keywords abilities (with each Rune as a breakout?)

3) Traits from LoG, and make them into Flaws and Distinguishing characteristics

4) Clans/Tribes from RV and LoG and make them into Keywords

I am not sure how Runes would work if I used them as in HQG.

Anything I am missing?

Cheers,

Antonio

 

[Joerg]

I guess I would tie RQ3 Vikings divine magic to Futhark runes, possibly in a system similar to RQG. Inscribing the runes to gain the divine favor, which then is a derived ability from the applicable rune with the best rating, and can be augmented with an appropriate secondary rune. Some of the runes could be matched to the Gloranthan concepts, inheriting those associations.

Such inscribed runes would be something like words of power - inscribing and then invoking them could release the magic.

As we are talking about HeroQuest, the individual feats should be somewhat based on myths from around Yggdrasil. Rather than requiring initiation, I would make this Viking magic opportunistic polytheism, where even svartalfr or trolls could be invoked by the magician. Always for a price, to be paid in blood or blot (sacrifice).

(I'd probably produce a number of skaldic kvaths in alliterative poetry as examples...)

[rabindranath72]

Thanks again!

On 5/12/2019 at 4:12 PM, Joerg said:

I guess I would tie RQ3 Vikings divine magic to Futhark runes, possibly in a system similar to RQG. Inscribing the runes to gain the divine favor, which then is a derived ability from the applicable rune with the best rating, and can be augmented with an appropriate secondary rune. Some of the runes could be matched to the Gloranthan concepts, inheriting those associations.

Such inscribed runes would be something like words of power - inscribing and then invoking them could release the magic.

As we are talking about HeroQuest, the individual feats should be somewhat based on myths from around Yggdrasil. Rather than requiring initiation, I would make this Viking magic opportunistic polytheism, where even svartalfr or trolls could be invoked by the magician. Always for a price, to be paid in blood or blot (sacrifice).

(I'd probably produce a number of skaldic kvaths in alliterative poetry as examples...)

I am afraid I am not very well versed in Gloranthan lore to understand how magic works. 

Are you suggesting that each character should start with three Runes?

Looking at HQG, I was thinking of making Runes work roughly like spells; the ability (similar to a Grimoire?) would be Rune-Casting, and the Odinic Priest would choose five of the Futhark runes for free at the start of play, with the possibility of learning more runes or perfecting the knowledge.

There is also the issue of Occupations. My player will convert his Odinic Priest character to an Occupation, so would magic/runes perhaps be best described as a breakout ability? (But then I suppose I'd lose the ability to define breakout runes like spells in a grimoire.)

If I keep Rune-Casting as a separate ability, could the Odinic Priest occupation (or one of his breakout abilities, e.g. Read Runes or Odinism) be used to augment the magical ability?

Thanks in advance for your help, I am still not entirely sure how to handle it all.

Cheers,

Antonio

Edited May 15, 2019 by rabindranath72
removed extra spaces

[Joerg]

In HQG, you get three runes for your character, and you can assign some of your major ability ratings to one or two of them. That's what I did when I created a character for a memorable HQG session at Chimeriades a few years ago. These were the Gloranthan runes, but I didn't play a vanilla Orlanthi cultist, but rather a slightly weird spirit-talking shepherd boy whose signature trait was having this spirit owl companion - a break-out ability from my spirit rune. I actually based one or two more of my abilities on that rune, and that was how that character's magic worked.

It is possible to base the runes on a profession, or the ability "rune-writing".