A follow-up on this.
This is just to say that it might be possible to produce the following:
- 2000 pages (40 gr. paper, which is just a little thicker than bible paper which is usually 30 gr.), black and white, no images (or just very few: space here is going to be precious)
- Serious, lay flat binding (professional work, not POD-quality)
- Larger than a 6x9, smaller than 7x10...
I need to work out the numbers about editing and layout costs (and it will take a while), and of course, even before that, I'll need some serious proof of concept of what I want to do, and I'll need a team, etc.
But... assuming there is the proper content to put into the book, the OSR Bible might be doable and I hope with a market price around 99 U$ if I do a kickstarter for at least 500 copies.
This would resolve issue no. 1 (is it economically viable?).
Doing a kickstarter would be the only option, but it would transform the project from a dream into a book. Note: I would not do a kickstarter for 500 copies at 100$ for 50,000$ total (minimum) before completing everying. What I have right now is a ton of material, unedited and unsorted.
Expect the kickstarter some time in 2025 or so. So please no warnings about not being able to produce the material. There is going to be NO kickstarter unless the entire book is ready.
Now, for the other issues:
2- build a team... fuck it, I'll just do it alone, for now. I will put together the 2,000 or 3,000 pages and make a team only afterwards, only for editing and support with the layout and perhaps to improve and edit and add... not for the project itself. This way, if I never finish it or finish it in the year 2050 when everyone is just going to play D&D edition 9-VR in cyberspace, it's just going to be my own failure.
3- find the correct material... I said I'm working on it! :-)
4-royalties: the only possible idea that I have is this:
No one is going to make a profit out of this.
Every contributor will have a 0.x% or even 0.0x% in terms of how many "words" (I am thinking about just counting words) they contributed to the project.
Alone, this would count for nothing, even on a 100% book.
So I am thinking: kickstarter to fund the printing and shipping, all remaining funds will go towards addressing problems (i.e. lost copies, damaged copies, unforseen issues etc.). What is left, and all the proportional royalties, will go to charity. How?
Each contributor will pick a charity in a short list of 5 or 10, and each contributor share will add up with all others that selected the same charity.
This way, Chartity X might actually get for example a 10% of the profit (summing up all the 0.x% of the individual contributors that picked this specific charity).
Monday, June 25, 2018
Wednesday, June 20, 2018
The OSR Bible (re-post, number 1)
This was originally posted on my Gplus profile. Considering that the Google platform is going offline next year, I am putting the content again here, to keep track of how this started.
I posted this originally in June 2018, and since then a lot of things changed... But for now, let's just put this here as it was originally written.
Thinking about something.. more of an idea (a dream?) than a project at this stage.
Perhaps it's not even doable (not at a reasonable price: maybe it would be too expensive even running this through a kickstarter).
But...
What if there was a way to print a ton of OSR material on bible paper?
(same format, same binding, same very light and thin paper)
A single (decently portable) book that would collect 2 or 3,000 pages worth of content.
I am thinking of: 1-rules, 2-GM section,
1- One or two rulesets (S&W and LL?), tons of additional rules (additional classes, backgrounds, careers, additional equipment such as firearms - LotFP? - random and quick-start equipement lists, selected house-rules for every topic, XP and levels, combat, HP, skills, actions, etc.); special attention to spells and spells' lists, with variants, integration, alternative rules, alternative spells/effects, etc. Basically you build your rules (or play the original S&W or whatever, with just one or two selected house-rules, but you have a wild but organized selection of additional rules if you want to use them).
2- A gigantic GM section with crowdsourced wisdom on how to adjudicate various topics (i.e. an alphabetical index how on to make rulings about every conceivable topic... even presenting different point of views). It should be a sort of "law" section: when in doubt, consult it to see what other GMs/other groups have done to sort things out. Pick your preferred method and build your own selection of "precedents" (as in a tribunal).
3- Random generators for what you need for your game; from a single one-shot adventure up to a campain. At least generators for: campaign concepts/maps, wilderness maps, cities, dungeons, buildings, specific locations, encounters, monsters, NPCs, etc. Everything crucial for the design of an encounter-adventure-campaign should be here, with reference to the next section for details.
4- A huge section of random tables and content, in alphabetical order, of monsters, locations, NPCs, various topics (I'm thinking 2 or 4 pages for each topic/subject)... ALL gameable material, such as the one you find on your favourite OSR blogs. It would not just be a monsters' manual; it should contain everything you need to "fill" your adventures/dungeons/whatever that you designed in section 3.
It's unrealistic but... it's like, buy this and game, litterally, forever.
(as long as you're content with OSR)
The four issues that I see here are:
1- is it economically viable? even assuming 500 or 1,000 backers, printing only 500 or 1,000 "custom" bibles would it be possible at a reasonable price? (what would be a reasonable retail price? 50 U$? 75 U$?) Would it even be possible at all, to make such a print run?
2- build a team that could work on this in a reasonable time-frame. Not too many so that it would be possible to coordinate people, but enough that it would not take 10 years to complete the project... (maybe even finding enough authors/curators interested in this would be hard... especially because they should be knowlegeable about OSR quite a lot, to be able to judge the material to include, how to tune it, how to present it)
3- find the correct material: I would love for the project to be completely based on non-copyrighted material, but it might be impossible to find enough to cover every topic and be of above-average quality... plus there is the issue of obtaining permission for example to quote blogs, social media discussions, etc. where the copyright is not explicit... Plus there is a lot, really, of published and copyrighted material (from books, but also from fanzines) that would be great if it could be included because of its quality (for example, why not to use the Veins of the Earth rules for caves and climbing etc.?)
4-royalties: regardless of going for non-copyrighted material only, or working out some acceptable deals for copyrighted materials (it could be only a % of profit; it would be impossible to pay a fixed upfront fee and buy rights for thousands of pages), I believe that all those used as "sources" for the book should receive a % of its profits. But how to deal with this if there are like 500 or 1,000 sources? Does it even make sense to offer a 0,5% of all revenues when, let's be honest here, the book would have only a niche audience?
Yes, I know I am basically talking myself out of even dreaming of this project... but it has been in the back of my head for months and it's not going away no matter how much I focus on other stuff.
I posted this originally in June 2018, and since then a lot of things changed... But for now, let's just put this here as it was originally written.
Thinking about something.. more of an idea (a dream?) than a project at this stage.
Perhaps it's not even doable (not at a reasonable price: maybe it would be too expensive even running this through a kickstarter).
But...
What if there was a way to print a ton of OSR material on bible paper?
(same format, same binding, same very light and thin paper)
A single (decently portable) book that would collect 2 or 3,000 pages worth of content.
I am thinking of: 1-rules, 2-GM section,
1- One or two rulesets (S&W and LL?), tons of additional rules (additional classes, backgrounds, careers, additional equipment such as firearms - LotFP? - random and quick-start equipement lists, selected house-rules for every topic, XP and levels, combat, HP, skills, actions, etc.); special attention to spells and spells' lists, with variants, integration, alternative rules, alternative spells/effects, etc. Basically you build your rules (or play the original S&W or whatever, with just one or two selected house-rules, but you have a wild but organized selection of additional rules if you want to use them).
2- A gigantic GM section with crowdsourced wisdom on how to adjudicate various topics (i.e. an alphabetical index how on to make rulings about every conceivable topic... even presenting different point of views). It should be a sort of "law" section: when in doubt, consult it to see what other GMs/other groups have done to sort things out. Pick your preferred method and build your own selection of "precedents" (as in a tribunal).
3- Random generators for what you need for your game; from a single one-shot adventure up to a campain. At least generators for: campaign concepts/maps, wilderness maps, cities, dungeons, buildings, specific locations, encounters, monsters, NPCs, etc. Everything crucial for the design of an encounter-adventure-campaign should be here, with reference to the next section for details.
4- A huge section of random tables and content, in alphabetical order, of monsters, locations, NPCs, various topics (I'm thinking 2 or 4 pages for each topic/subject)... ALL gameable material, such as the one you find on your favourite OSR blogs. It would not just be a monsters' manual; it should contain everything you need to "fill" your adventures/dungeons/whatever that you designed in section 3.
It's unrealistic but... it's like, buy this and game, litterally, forever.
(as long as you're content with OSR)
The four issues that I see here are:
1- is it economically viable? even assuming 500 or 1,000 backers, printing only 500 or 1,000 "custom" bibles would it be possible at a reasonable price? (what would be a reasonable retail price? 50 U$? 75 U$?) Would it even be possible at all, to make such a print run?
2- build a team that could work on this in a reasonable time-frame. Not too many so that it would be possible to coordinate people, but enough that it would not take 10 years to complete the project... (maybe even finding enough authors/curators interested in this would be hard... especially because they should be knowlegeable about OSR quite a lot, to be able to judge the material to include, how to tune it, how to present it)
3- find the correct material: I would love for the project to be completely based on non-copyrighted material, but it might be impossible to find enough to cover every topic and be of above-average quality... plus there is the issue of obtaining permission for example to quote blogs, social media discussions, etc. where the copyright is not explicit... Plus there is a lot, really, of published and copyrighted material (from books, but also from fanzines) that would be great if it could be included because of its quality (for example, why not to use the Veins of the Earth rules for caves and climbing etc.?)
4-royalties: regardless of going for non-copyrighted material only, or working out some acceptable deals for copyrighted materials (it could be only a % of profit; it would be impossible to pay a fixed upfront fee and buy rights for thousands of pages), I believe that all those used as "sources" for the book should receive a % of its profits. But how to deal with this if there are like 500 or 1,000 sources? Does it even make sense to offer a 0,5% of all revenues when, let's be honest here, the book would have only a niche audience?
Yes, I know I am basically talking myself out of even dreaming of this project... but it has been in the back of my head for months and it's not going away no matter how much I focus on other stuff.
Sunday, August 30, 2015
About the Advantage Die
I had the chance to review some comments about the Advantage Die used in and I wanted to share some thoughts about this specific mechanic. Somehow, this is also connected with the Spirit counter mechanics.
In a few words: the Advantage Die is incremented during the game by some successful moves (usually on a 10+, sometimes on a 7-9), and the same happens to Spirit (increased by certain moves on 10+ or 7-9). Both are “good” for the characters when they have high values: the Advantage Die can be used to replace any die that rolled low, and Spirit can become problematic especially if getting to a negative score.
Both of them are somehow a measure of how well things are going for the given character.
Now, in terms of design, an epic RPG telling the story of a group of heroes, would reverse this mechanic.
If we’re aiming for powerful characters — with solid chances of defeating any type of opponent and with some sort of “balancing” power against unfavorable twists in the story — then I’d say give +1 to the Advantage Die on a 6-, and give +1 to Spirit when the character suffers some setback (bad outcomes) in certain moves.
This would basically create a mechanical counterbalance for failure.
The reward for success (let’s say 10+) would be the fictional result of the success itself, while the consolation prize for a 6- would be a +1 to the Advantage Die - that would allow the player perhaps later on to break out from a series of bad rolls by using indeed a high Advantage Die.
This is all nice and cool.
Actually, if anyone wants to give it a try, please do! and let us know how it went.
But City of Judas is something different. It aims to create a different fiction.
It gives certain rewards (i.e. the +1 to the Advantage Die or to Spirit) as additional prize for certain successes, inline with the spirit of each playbook. It does so to make certain actions, certain successes, to bear even more weight in fiction — so that we see the ripple-effect of these positive consequences even later on.
When players roll a 6-, on the other hand, City of Judas can be quite harsh. In combat, and in general when it comes to harm, City of Judas can be deadly. Should be deadly.
A single 6- won’t kill a character, but a few of them, against a powerful opponent, would do it. This is by design.
I think you can see now why — since I wanted to depict a harsh and dark-fantasy world — there is no “consolation prize” for failure. The prize of failure has to paid by the character, and the rules offer no compensation for it.
In a few words: the Advantage Die is incremented during the game by some successful moves (usually on a 10+, sometimes on a 7-9), and the same happens to Spirit (increased by certain moves on 10+ or 7-9). Both are “good” for the characters when they have high values: the Advantage Die can be used to replace any die that rolled low, and Spirit can become problematic especially if getting to a negative score.
Both of them are somehow a measure of how well things are going for the given character.
Now, in terms of design, an epic RPG telling the story of a group of heroes, would reverse this mechanic.
If we’re aiming for powerful characters — with solid chances of defeating any type of opponent and with some sort of “balancing” power against unfavorable twists in the story — then I’d say give +1 to the Advantage Die on a 6-, and give +1 to Spirit when the character suffers some setback (bad outcomes) in certain moves.
This would basically create a mechanical counterbalance for failure.
The reward for success (let’s say 10+) would be the fictional result of the success itself, while the consolation prize for a 6- would be a +1 to the Advantage Die - that would allow the player perhaps later on to break out from a series of bad rolls by using indeed a high Advantage Die.
This is all nice and cool.
Actually, if anyone wants to give it a try, please do! and let us know how it went.
But City of Judas is something different. It aims to create a different fiction.
It gives certain rewards (i.e. the +1 to the Advantage Die or to Spirit) as additional prize for certain successes, inline with the spirit of each playbook. It does so to make certain actions, certain successes, to bear even more weight in fiction — so that we see the ripple-effect of these positive consequences even later on.
When players roll a 6-, on the other hand, City of Judas can be quite harsh. In combat, and in general when it comes to harm, City of Judas can be deadly. Should be deadly.
A single 6- won’t kill a character, but a few of them, against a powerful opponent, would do it. This is by design.
I think you can see now why — since I wanted to depict a harsh and dark-fantasy world — there is no “consolation prize” for failure. The prize of failure has to paid by the character, and the rules offer no compensation for it.
Thursday, July 23, 2015
Hunting demons
Here is another short report; this is about a sorcerer and the Hunting Demons (see the preview image below).
Hunting demons are relatively weak monsters, although I wouldn’t underestimate them unless I was playing a seriously martial playbook like the Veteran or the Sellsword (or the Raider, with my gang covering my ass). The annoying thing about Hunting demons: they can be raised from corpses, even random pieces of dead meat assembling together and coming to life fueled by the dark force of sorcery. Sometimes, they appear as an animated statue or an empty armor. So, basically, they can appear almost anywhere, without notice.
They are evoked by the GM by spending points on the Taint Tracker; which is increased by characters taking -1 to Spirit. For a brief comment about Spirit, see +Michael Sands quick and cool review here on G+.
When you invoke with the Taint Tracker, as GM, you act as the Hell Prince himself: you know how to find your targets (including the character!). This is really a pain in the ass for my players (in a good way).
One of my best players (say hello to Tom, everybody) plays a Sorcerer.
His first encounter with a Hunting demon (in the form of an empty armor coming to life) was within a tower, while he was sleeping. He had no time to prepare a spell, so he just went for his mace (he’s got quite an attitude, combining spells and furious mace swings). He made it out of the room, while the Raider and his gang came to his aid, blocking the demon inside the room while the sorcerer ran out.
Then the Barber stepped in, got hurt, and the Sorcerer got mad. They finally burned the bastard after breaking the armor into pieces.
The next time, in the desert, the Sorcerer (I have a soft spot for him, I know…) was on duty watching the camp, and was attacked by another Hunting demon (this time a collection of pieces of – mostly – human corpses, with dogs heads instead of hands). He had a big fire next to him, and managed to use his elementals powers to get rid of the beast.
Now, after a third encounter with a Hunting demon, our Sorcerer is gaining a strange reputation among the ranks of the Iron Fist.
He’s already quite a peculiar subject, with a nasty attitude (and dresses like a scarecrow basically). Add to that, that now he demands to have always a big fire lit in his room at night (remember, we’re in quite a warm climate), or several buckets of water always at his disposal (he likes to use water to confuse enemies and then strike with the mace). He needs the fire or the water to cast his spells fast enough to be able to fight the next Hunting demon.
I am inclined to let the mercenaries of the Iron Fist think he’s a paranoid, crazy bastard. And then to bring up a Hunting demon just so that he can go all smug on them with his “I told you so”.
What’d you think? :-)
Hunting demons are relatively weak monsters, although I wouldn’t underestimate them unless I was playing a seriously martial playbook like the Veteran or the Sellsword (or the Raider, with my gang covering my ass). The annoying thing about Hunting demons: they can be raised from corpses, even random pieces of dead meat assembling together and coming to life fueled by the dark force of sorcery. Sometimes, they appear as an animated statue or an empty armor. So, basically, they can appear almost anywhere, without notice.
They are evoked by the GM by spending points on the Taint Tracker; which is increased by characters taking -1 to Spirit. For a brief comment about Spirit, see +Michael Sands quick and cool review here on G+.
Having a more detailed look at the characters, I really like the interaction with Spirit and the Tainted condition.
In brief, Spirit is kind of your moral/humane health. Each class has a couple of conditions where they will lose some (e.g. the barber if they ignore a person in need of healing). If you lose too much you mark a condition, either Tainted (by evil magic) or Infamous (due to your callous murdering).
Now the thing about the Tainted condition, is that everyone has a bunch of moves that say "If you are Tainted, you are more effective in such-and-such a way". Nicely tempting!
I also note that a very efficient way to recover Spirit is for everyone to get stoned with a Priest of Judas :)
When you invoke with the Taint Tracker, as GM, you act as the Hell Prince himself: you know how to find your targets (including the character!). This is really a pain in the ass for my players (in a good way).
One of my best players (say hello to Tom, everybody) plays a Sorcerer.
His first encounter with a Hunting demon (in the form of an empty armor coming to life) was within a tower, while he was sleeping. He had no time to prepare a spell, so he just went for his mace (he’s got quite an attitude, combining spells and furious mace swings). He made it out of the room, while the Raider and his gang came to his aid, blocking the demon inside the room while the sorcerer ran out.
Then the Barber stepped in, got hurt, and the Sorcerer got mad. They finally burned the bastard after breaking the armor into pieces.
The next time, in the desert, the Sorcerer (I have a soft spot for him, I know…) was on duty watching the camp, and was attacked by another Hunting demon (this time a collection of pieces of – mostly – human corpses, with dogs heads instead of hands). He had a big fire next to him, and managed to use his elementals powers to get rid of the beast.
Now, after a third encounter with a Hunting demon, our Sorcerer is gaining a strange reputation among the ranks of the Iron Fist.
He’s already quite a peculiar subject, with a nasty attitude (and dresses like a scarecrow basically). Add to that, that now he demands to have always a big fire lit in his room at night (remember, we’re in quite a warm climate), or several buckets of water always at his disposal (he likes to use water to confuse enemies and then strike with the mace). He needs the fire or the water to cast his spells fast enough to be able to fight the next Hunting demon.
I am inclined to let the mercenaries of the Iron Fist think he’s a paranoid, crazy bastard. And then to bring up a Hunting demon just so that he can go all smug on them with his “I told you so”.
What’d you think? :-)
Tuesday, July 21, 2015
Against the Cult of Nergal
Against the Cult of Nergal is an actual play from the playtest phase of City of Judas, by Richard Sardinas.
Cast:
Aberlardus – The barber indebted to Geilar for saving his life. Played by Fred.
Eban – The Sorcerer. Hungry for magical power. Played by Adrian.
Geilar – The Raider. A Vandal prince who stole the ring of the King of Corsica. Played by Ray.
We started the game in media-res. The caravan the characters were escorting was attacked by what appear to be indigenous nomads. The sorcerer acts first, and with some foresight, by creating a stone barrier around one of the nomads who is trapped there. Geilar charges a large concentration of raiders with his gang, but is repulsed. Geilar took the move Last Stand so elects to face the enemy force by himself on one flank, while the rest of the group attempts to attack the other flank. Aberlardus goes to Geilar’s aide. With a few good rolls the nomads are beaten back and retreat. The character’s have a prisoner.
The caravan master, Calix of Damascus, tells the characters that his rare beetles (a delicacy around these parts) have been stolen, but even worse the nomads kidnapped his daughter. He beseeches the characters to go find her. The characters agree for a fee then interrogate the prisoner. The raider starts torturing him, allowing Eban to manipulate the captive. The nomad talks saying they took her to an abandoned barn and adds cryptically that “She is to be give to the One that rises from Meslam”.
The captured raider leads the group to the barn. The nomad claims that they have taken the girl into the tunnels under it. Eban casts the light spell on the captive. They go into the tunnel and after a long walk enter a large room where the captive is shot in the chest and killed by 2 other raiders. They run, but the sorcerer casts a fire spell blocking the way. One of the raider knocks the other one into the fire, and he is subsequently killed by Geilar’s gang. Since it’s difficult to carry a glowing body Geiler decides to cut the body to pieces and hands out body parts to the group to use as torches. (I added a level of taint here because this was pretty gruesome and the players were treating the captive pretty callously.) Eban took the create fire, but not the control fire spell, so the fire can’t be stopped. He had to cast Stone Spell to turn the burning stones away from the tunnel. They continue and emerge from a trap door into a house.
The house is empty right now. Eventually the players leave (Geilar’s gang stays behind in the house waiting for the sign) and poke around town, finding a few things. The name of the town is Karak and there are several issues going on. Animal pit fights, infighting amongst the ruling houses, and of course mysterious disappearances. The characters ignore the pit fights and go directly to the militia and bully help from them by showing them the glowing body parts, claiming they are from some weird cult. The militia captain admits he has heard rumors that the cult of Nergal has been up to no good, but that cult has been dead for hundreds of years. We assumed that most of the inhabitants are Christian with a few Judiasts here and there. With amazing perception rolls they figure out that everything points to one of the weakest noble families.
They convince the militia to give them authority to search the family’s compound. While there they use perception moves to find a secret doorway. Once inside they come to a large room with some demonic statue at one end. There are body parts all over the place (all those disappeared people) and 3 masked nomads. Spirit rolls are made, but the barber gets a minimum success; he takes the -1 spirit and we move on. The nomads attack the characters. Abelardus jumps to block the attackers to prevent harm befalling Geilar, and is badly wounded (received the unstable condition). A fight ensues, with 1 of the nomads getting killed and the rest escaping. Geiller gives the signal, the sorcerer causes the body parts to flash, and his gang is on its way. One of the nomads ends up killing several of the militia guards and then scales the walls of the compound like a spider. The other nomad is killed by Geiler’s gang. The killing of the guards causes the family to escape and a chase ensues.
They reach the outskirts of the city and Eban causes the groundsunder the family head to rumble and they all fall. The group catches up to them and slaughters most of the family except one of the servants who agrees to take them to the Temple of Nergal.
The characters arrive at the ruined temple and come up on a ceremony. The sorcerer can tell that the ceremony is charged with magic energies. Geiler tells Eban to prepare the Stone Spell to collapse the temple. The characters charge in, and with crazy rolls manage to push back the cultists who outnumber them. Abelardus then runs up and grabs the girl, but he is hit by the high priest (who is the surviving nomad from the shrine encounter in the city). He rolls over the altar with the girl and they escape. The rest of the group pulls back, and Eban causes the temple to collapse on all the cultists killing them.
The characters head back and collect their reward.
Epilogue:
The final scene shows the blood of all the dead cultists running to the altar. It then opens and two large Hell Knights step through. The end.
If you’re interested in the game, check it out by clicking here.
Aberlardus – The barber indebted to Geilar for saving his life. Played by Fred.
Eban – The Sorcerer. Hungry for magical power. Played by Adrian.
Geilar – The Raider. A Vandal prince who stole the ring of the King of Corsica. Played by Ray.
We started the game in media-res. The caravan the characters were escorting was attacked by what appear to be indigenous nomads. The sorcerer acts first, and with some foresight, by creating a stone barrier around one of the nomads who is trapped there. Geilar charges a large concentration of raiders with his gang, but is repulsed. Geilar took the move Last Stand so elects to face the enemy force by himself on one flank, while the rest of the group attempts to attack the other flank. Aberlardus goes to Geilar’s aide. With a few good rolls the nomads are beaten back and retreat. The character’s have a prisoner.
The caravan master, Calix of Damascus, tells the characters that his rare beetles (a delicacy around these parts) have been stolen, but even worse the nomads kidnapped his daughter. He beseeches the characters to go find her. The characters agree for a fee then interrogate the prisoner. The raider starts torturing him, allowing Eban to manipulate the captive. The nomad talks saying they took her to an abandoned barn and adds cryptically that “She is to be give to the One that rises from Meslam”.
The captured raider leads the group to the barn. The nomad claims that they have taken the girl into the tunnels under it. Eban casts the light spell on the captive. They go into the tunnel and after a long walk enter a large room where the captive is shot in the chest and killed by 2 other raiders. They run, but the sorcerer casts a fire spell blocking the way. One of the raider knocks the other one into the fire, and he is subsequently killed by Geilar’s gang. Since it’s difficult to carry a glowing body Geiler decides to cut the body to pieces and hands out body parts to the group to use as torches. (I added a level of taint here because this was pretty gruesome and the players were treating the captive pretty callously.) Eban took the create fire, but not the control fire spell, so the fire can’t be stopped. He had to cast Stone Spell to turn the burning stones away from the tunnel. They continue and emerge from a trap door into a house.
The house is empty right now. Eventually the players leave (Geilar’s gang stays behind in the house waiting for the sign) and poke around town, finding a few things. The name of the town is Karak and there are several issues going on. Animal pit fights, infighting amongst the ruling houses, and of course mysterious disappearances. The characters ignore the pit fights and go directly to the militia and bully help from them by showing them the glowing body parts, claiming they are from some weird cult. The militia captain admits he has heard rumors that the cult of Nergal has been up to no good, but that cult has been dead for hundreds of years. We assumed that most of the inhabitants are Christian with a few Judiasts here and there. With amazing perception rolls they figure out that everything points to one of the weakest noble families.
They convince the militia to give them authority to search the family’s compound. While there they use perception moves to find a secret doorway. Once inside they come to a large room with some demonic statue at one end. There are body parts all over the place (all those disappeared people) and 3 masked nomads. Spirit rolls are made, but the barber gets a minimum success; he takes the -1 spirit and we move on. The nomads attack the characters. Abelardus jumps to block the attackers to prevent harm befalling Geilar, and is badly wounded (received the unstable condition). A fight ensues, with 1 of the nomads getting killed and the rest escaping. Geiller gives the signal, the sorcerer causes the body parts to flash, and his gang is on its way. One of the nomads ends up killing several of the militia guards and then scales the walls of the compound like a spider. The other nomad is killed by Geiler’s gang. The killing of the guards causes the family to escape and a chase ensues.
They reach the outskirts of the city and Eban causes the groundsunder the family head to rumble and they all fall. The group catches up to them and slaughters most of the family except one of the servants who agrees to take them to the Temple of Nergal.
The characters arrive at the ruined temple and come up on a ceremony. The sorcerer can tell that the ceremony is charged with magic energies. Geiler tells Eban to prepare the Stone Spell to collapse the temple. The characters charge in, and with crazy rolls manage to push back the cultists who outnumber them. Abelardus then runs up and grabs the girl, but he is hit by the high priest (who is the surviving nomad from the shrine encounter in the city). He rolls over the altar with the girl and they escape. The rest of the group pulls back, and Eban causes the temple to collapse on all the cultists killing them.
The characters head back and collect their reward.
Epilogue:
The final scene shows the blood of all the dead cultists running to the altar. It then opens and two large Hell Knights step through. The end.
If you’re interested in the game, check it out by clicking here.
Monday, July 20, 2015
Exploring politics in City of Judas
During our playtesting, I played a few sessions with only a couple of characters, and the game went well. Having only two characters of course leaves less room for possible conflicts between them; but the game holds.
In this specific adventure, we decided to explore some political conflicts between the Church of Christ and the Cult of Judas. The Iron Fist worked to convince the two sides to negotiate a truce, and finally both Christians and Judaists sent a couple of negotiators to the location designated for the talks. The characters, a Veteran and a Priest (which in the game is a follower of the Cult of Judas), were in charge of the security of the meeting, which was held in a small fortress half a day out of Jerusalem.
While the four prelates began the negotiations, which lasted for several days, the characters collected evidence of someone trying to sabotage the meeting. In one case, a messenger sent by one of the negotiators was killed while carrying a truce proposal to Jerusalem for approval from the high clergy of the Church of Christ.
Seeking a final proof of the talks being sabotaged, the Priest broke into the rooms of the two negotiators from the cult of Judas. In one trunk, he found ciphered documents but managed to get a sense of what was going on: someone inside the Cult of Judas was subtracting money from the cult, and using it to hire mercenaries. In a previous adventure, in fact, the characters have retrieved a shipment of opium that someone stole from the Church of Judas ‘ and apparently it was an inside job, orchestrated from the same man.
With this final proof in their hands, they confronted the two prelates from the Cult of Judas. They managed to obtain a confession from the guilty one, but not before he managed to poison both the emissaries of the Church of Christ. While the Priest worked to save the lives of the Christians priests and avoided what could have triggered an armed conflict between the two religions, the Veteran managed to stop the traitor from escaping.
We ended the session with the militia of the Cult of Judas escorting away the traitor, while he threatened the members of his own cult of their mistake. And in the next session, those mercenaries indeed could have proved handy when the Book of Q. moved a little army to raid along the southern borders of the Kingdom of Jerusalem… but that’s another story.
So, this was for those who asked for another session report. I chose this one because, in contrast to the first that presented the giant demon, the characters basically had almost no need to resort to violence for the entire session - and it was a great session even for the Veteran which is in theory a ‘tank’ playbook.
This time, our preview image is text-only: it should give you an idea of the basic instincts and GM moves for threats like the Church of Christ and the cult of Judas.
If you’re interested in the game, check it out by clicking here.
In this specific adventure, we decided to explore some political conflicts between the Church of Christ and the Cult of Judas. The Iron Fist worked to convince the two sides to negotiate a truce, and finally both Christians and Judaists sent a couple of negotiators to the location designated for the talks. The characters, a Veteran and a Priest (which in the game is a follower of the Cult of Judas), were in charge of the security of the meeting, which was held in a small fortress half a day out of Jerusalem.
While the four prelates began the negotiations, which lasted for several days, the characters collected evidence of someone trying to sabotage the meeting. In one case, a messenger sent by one of the negotiators was killed while carrying a truce proposal to Jerusalem for approval from the high clergy of the Church of Christ.
Seeking a final proof of the talks being sabotaged, the Priest broke into the rooms of the two negotiators from the cult of Judas. In one trunk, he found ciphered documents but managed to get a sense of what was going on: someone inside the Cult of Judas was subtracting money from the cult, and using it to hire mercenaries. In a previous adventure, in fact, the characters have retrieved a shipment of opium that someone stole from the Church of Judas ‘ and apparently it was an inside job, orchestrated from the same man.
With this final proof in their hands, they confronted the two prelates from the Cult of Judas. They managed to obtain a confession from the guilty one, but not before he managed to poison both the emissaries of the Church of Christ. While the Priest worked to save the lives of the Christians priests and avoided what could have triggered an armed conflict between the two religions, the Veteran managed to stop the traitor from escaping.
We ended the session with the militia of the Cult of Judas escorting away the traitor, while he threatened the members of his own cult of their mistake. And in the next session, those mercenaries indeed could have proved handy when the Book of Q. moved a little army to raid along the southern borders of the Kingdom of Jerusalem… but that’s another story.
So, this was for those who asked for another session report. I chose this one because, in contrast to the first that presented the giant demon, the characters basically had almost no need to resort to violence for the entire session - and it was a great session even for the Veteran which is in theory a ‘tank’ playbook.
This time, our preview image is text-only: it should give you an idea of the basic instincts and GM moves for threats like the Church of Christ and the cult of Judas.
If you’re interested in the game, check it out by clicking here.
Friday, July 17, 2015
Facing a giant demon
In our last session of City of Judas, my players faced a Giant Demon:
They’ve been hired by the Christian church to investigate an obscure cult - apparently christian as well - that is raiding villages north of Jerusalem and killing priests. It turned out that the cult is searching for three little girls, born in the same day, and all three named Pax (Peace, in Latin). The girls, as our Sorcerer established, have some kind of significance in a ritual the cult is trying to complete.
The characters (a Barber, a Raider and a Sorcerer) kidnapped the girls to bring them to Jerusalem and protect them, but the demon managed to track them. They refused to let the demon take one of the girls and faced it in combat instead.
The fight was real fun: the Raider (known in our group for refusing to use anything but his own, cursed dice that roll 6- embarrassingly often) finally stepped up and his gang proved decisive in protecting the girls. The Barber, although not best equipped for the fight, did her share. The Sorcerer had a somehow clumsy start, but recovered and contributed to the final victory.
But the fight wasn’t easy: both the Barber and the Sorcerer ended up taking a Debility to survive. The Barber is now limping, and the Sorcerer horribly burned by his own magical fire, which the demon spit back at him.
We’re now on hiatus for some weeks, but the players really enjoyed the session and the final “boss-fight”. They felt all the time like they were facing a possible horrible death - which they did - but finally managed to prevail. We’ll be back in Jerusalem next.
I wonder why the church will now demand that the Iron Fist mercenaries will hand over the little girls to them, and what the characters will do [evil grin]
If you’re interested in the game, check it out by clicking here.
They’ve been hired by the Christian church to investigate an obscure cult - apparently christian as well - that is raiding villages north of Jerusalem and killing priests. It turned out that the cult is searching for three little girls, born in the same day, and all three named Pax (Peace, in Latin). The girls, as our Sorcerer established, have some kind of significance in a ritual the cult is trying to complete.
The characters (a Barber, a Raider and a Sorcerer) kidnapped the girls to bring them to Jerusalem and protect them, but the demon managed to track them. They refused to let the demon take one of the girls and faced it in combat instead.
The fight was real fun: the Raider (known in our group for refusing to use anything but his own, cursed dice that roll 6- embarrassingly often) finally stepped up and his gang proved decisive in protecting the girls. The Barber, although not best equipped for the fight, did her share. The Sorcerer had a somehow clumsy start, but recovered and contributed to the final victory.
But the fight wasn’t easy: both the Barber and the Sorcerer ended up taking a Debility to survive. The Barber is now limping, and the Sorcerer horribly burned by his own magical fire, which the demon spit back at him.
We’re now on hiatus for some weeks, but the players really enjoyed the session and the final “boss-fight”. They felt all the time like they were facing a possible horrible death - which they did - but finally managed to prevail. We’ll be back in Jerusalem next.
I wonder why the church will now demand that the Iron Fist mercenaries will hand over the little girls to them, and what the characters will do [evil grin]
If you’re interested in the game, check it out by clicking here.
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