Homebrew tabletop game system thread the II

[Feralgnoll]

Rohal's face contorts into a snarl at that fact.

[Simon_Jester]

Andrea pulls herself together, stands up, says with confusion 'I nearly did that, he didn't seem- he had too sharp a tongue for that, duty wasn't him, why would he sacrifice himself?'

Detrick asks her 'Are you all right, is he the only one who's...gone? Is he all right?' the second person there being Larric, and the answer would strictly be 'no', suffering from the non- physically induced equivalent of a concussion.

There is some screaming and wailing from outside that indicates they might not have been the only casualties- but not much; one person (unfortunately not the treasurer) had a heart attack at the sight of it, someone jumped off the inner ring wall and broke both legs trying to get away, another blundered into the coils that flickered out from the keep wall- but as opposed to everybody, you got off lightly...

The senior wizard of the guild present- a relatively squareset type, greyhaired but healthier than most wizards, more into intricacy than raw power these days, Lurentius Torr is his name, arrives shortly afterwards, looks to Verone and says 'Well done- when he's fit, we need to talk to both of you. Of this, and other things- the predictions of doom are still coming thick and fast.'

'Anyone with an interest in odd magic would have noticed that for miles.' Detrick realises. 'We may not have to go and find the Countess at all.'

Amid the screaming and concernedness, Larric begins to roll back and forth, then manages to gather himself up onto his hands and knees. He crawls over to the wall and manages, somehow, to get back on his feet. And the wall.

"Are we missing... oh, gods, Will actually did it?" He shakes his head and his eyes focus on Verone and Torr (though he probably doesn't know Torr's name yet).

He's very weak, but (barring DM contradiction) basically tracking reality, except for a strange urge to chip flint.

[Panzersharkcat]

(OOC: Bugmen take moo-moos at night. Torr scared! Hep Torr? (Well, as I said, they are nocturnal in their feeding habits. I sure could use some assistance in guarding the brahmin. Will you kill any bugmen that you see near the brahmin?

Sorry. Couldn't resist.)

[Kaelan]

OOC

If only they had carried that onto fallout 3

[White Haven]

"Well."

Verone frowned and rubbed at his mostly-clean-shaven chin, looking over the used-to-be-William and shaking his head slightly back and forth. He slipped the ornate rune-pen back into a pocket somewhere, then gave a slight shrug, "That was unexpected. I suppose that desire to eat everything unusual meant he was closest to being a monkey of some sort to begin with, perhaps?" A brief pause, then a grimace, "Academic at this point. I am, however, somewhat disinclined to translate any more of those letters."

At a thought, he glanced over at the staggering, stumbling Larric and inclined his head, "Excellent warding, however you managed it, by the way. Perhaps the trapspell wasn't set up to deal with crayons?"

[Simon_Jester]

"You want to make mock of me... can't blame you, should have seen something like that coming-" Larric grimaces- "but at least wait an hour or so to speak ill of the dead."

[Eleventh Century Remnant]

Nothing else happened? Hm.

Detrick looks at Verone in a distinctly unfriendly manner, says 'You have just made yourself the prime candidate for the next suicide job I have to hand. If you're as good as your own opinion of yourself you might even achieve something. She'll be coming this way- find her, get in her way, slow her down.

Buy time to organise something, anything, a stand, an evacuation, as may be. If I can get enough people to stand and fight we may have a chance- if where you saw the hellhounds makes sense,' he adds to Rohal, 'she's basically looping round to the north, coming in from the hills.'

[Feralgnoll]

"With the right winds I'll be able to tell you." nods Rohal Respectfully.

[Panzersharkcat]

"I shall attempt to rally the men, then." He begins to take off to equip his armor again and won't stop unless somebody tells him to.

(OOC: What's Kaelan going to do now?)

[Simon_Jester]

Larric will probably have everyone looking at him like his wits are gone; they may be right.

"Wait, what... Calvern coming from the north? Last stand... wouldn't trying to parley be a good idea? She might think it's her city now, and not want to burn it down again."

[Panzersharkcat]

"Yes, but nonetheless, I would prefer to not be unprepared if negotiations go wrong."

[Simon_Jester]

"Preparations for... wait, you haven't got a fast horse. 'M confused..."

With an intense effort of will, he tries to rally some semblance of his wits.

"So, ah, who's in charge of the parley? I wouldn't want him talking to Calvern if my life was at stake, and I think it is." He gestures to Verone.

[Panzersharkcat]

"I'm taking Bryan's. I don't think he'll mind." He pauses for a moment to reflect on what Larric said about Verone negotiating. "I hope not, though it would be little better if I was doing it. I negotiate with my hammer, after all."

[Kaelan]

(OOC: What's Kaelan going to do now?)

WWKD
- PM ECR back and forth on a new character creation so as not to interupt the flow on the board. Still reading the posts though!

OOC - why are you all treating the countess as the enemy to fight with weapons when you know it will turn out badly if you attmpt to do so?

[Simon_Jester]

OOC:

I'm not.

[Simon_Jester]

OOC:

Damn, too late to edit. Anyway, Larric doesn't view Calvern as a problem to be solved by shooting at it (her, you know what I mean), any more than Tank Man at Tiananmen Square viewed that Type 59 platoon as a problem to be solved with a boxing match. It's not that, as such, he thinks she's a good thing to have around; the whole 'her troops burned my house down' does give her bad PR in his eyes. It's just that when confronted with a very serious problem, he doesn't actually default to "shoot it until it goes away."

[Eleventh Century Remnant]

'I've had a lot of time to think about this,' Detrick says in response to Larric's comment about trying to parley, 'some of it spent bleeding, and trying to figure out why and what, what she will and won't lash out at.

She's not a bully or an idiot, not even necessarily a psychopath even though she obviously knows many of them; it changes you when you have to kill things. Kill people.

I think she's far out beyond the horizon of death, that she has become so much a native of the sea of blood that she no longer really believes in ordinary people, that they can exist or that on some gut level that they deserve to.

I think failing to be ready for her would draw her contempt, and her violence, more readily than anything else; she knows a lot of us think she's a monster, she has to, and what kind of idiots would we have to be if we just rolled over and waved our legs in the air to a monster like her?

I want to parley, but I don't think we're going to get it unless we show ready and willing to stand up to her. You're much more likely to slow her down and buy these people-' meaning the city- 'time with words than arms, but you're not going to get to the words unless you at least have the arms.'

That, at least, is Detrick's opinion- there are a number of others crowding in now, the latecomers come to see what all the fuss was about, and there are more than a few dissenting opinions.


Kaelan- the concept is interesting, it has plot, do you want to tell the rest of the group or shall it be a surprise? PM you stats once I figure them out.

[Kaelan]

ECR

I'll leave it up to you to bring him into the party in a manner of your choosing when you are ready.

[Simon_Jester]

'I've had a lot of time to think about this,' Detrick says in response to Larric's comment about trying to parley, 'some of it spent bleeding, and trying to figure out why and what, what she will and won't lash out at.

She's not a bully or an idiot, not even necessarily a psychopath even though she obviously knows many of them; it changes you when you have to kill things. Kill people.

I think she's far out beyond the horizon of death, that she has become so much a native of the sea of blood that she no longer really believes in ordinary people, that they can exist or that on some gut level that they deserve to.

I think failing to be ready for her would draw her contempt, and her violence, more readily than anything else; she knows a lot of us think she's a monster, she has to, and what kind of idiots would we have to be if we just rolled over and waved our legs in the air to a monster like her?

I want to parley, but I don't think we're going to get it unless we show ready and willing to stand up to her. You're much more likely to slow her down and buy these people-' meaning the city- 'time with words than arms, but you're not going to get to the words unless you at least have the arms...'

Well, that seems sensible enough to Larric- although someone's still going to have to go out with the parley flag on a stick anyway, and he still hopes it's not Verone.

He nods, shoulders slumped, and remains silent. He might volunteer to help in various capacities, but he's not the sort to speak without being spoken to in councils of war- he's not a general. Hell, he's barely a specific after the wringer he's been through.

[Kaelan]

OOC - anybody point me in the direction of ECR's magic rules, just to save me digging thru all the posts?

[Panzersharkcat]

(OOC: Damn it, he's going for an evil necromancer to sic zombie Dleam on Alfred, isn't he?

Also, in another world, Alfred would be wearing something like this medieval Batman armor.)

Noting they have nothing else to say, he walks off to equip himself.

[Eleventh Century Remnant]

Easiest to just repost it in full (ish)-

The system is based on a relatively open-form concept of what are effectively attributes, often referred to as powers, with skills, usually four to six, associated with them. There are no spells as such, only acts of magic.

The attributes are associates with the groups of normal attributes every character possesses, and contribute to the aspect totals;
Under Spirit, there are the Passions- Happiness, Entity, Fire, Water, Insight
and the Conjunctions- Misery, Shadow, Dream, Doubt, Divination

For the Mental group of attributes, there are
Wits- Light, Martial Arts by Guile, Air, Substance, Ethereal, Vision
and Ponderances- Sense, Void, Creation, Time, Consequences, Astral

and Physical,
Forces – Martial Arts by Strength, Fauna, Earth, Death
Talents – Martial Arts by Agility, Flora, Motion, Life, Shape

Attached to the totalities of being there are those forms of magic which do not fit in any particular aspect-
Divine magic (of the appropriate god- see the separate Deities sheet),
Higher Sorcery- Induction, Adjunct, Enchantment, Antimagic, Summoning
Dominions- Law, Chaos, Good, Evil, Fate
For certain particular types of being, divine magic is replaced by Creature Powers- what is appropriate to a particular magic entity.

Euphemism alert; some things are deliberately misnamed- ‘entity’ is a polite, don’t-frighten-the-villagers misnomer for Demonological magic, ‘shadow’ likewise for Necromancy, ‘vision’ for clairvoyance, ‘adjunct’ for go-faster stripes, ‘substance’ is basically transmutation, ‘consequences’ is understanding and locally altering physical law; ‘astral’ is the reductionist form of spirit projection-things as their component parts, ‘ethereal’ is the holist- all elements of one interconnected unity,

Restrictions; apart from reasons such as finding someone prepared to teach you, some magics cannot be effectively grasped by those of lesser talent at all. There is a minimum power of 11 required in one other field before a character can being to learn any Higher Sorcery, 17 for Creation, Substance, Time and Consequences, 24 for any of the Dominions except Fate, 30 for Astral, Ethereal, Dream and Doubt.

Points from disadvantages and pared off the attributes can go into magi, each AP sacrificed gets two points of power, each point of power gets you two points of skill to put into the skills based on that power.

Speaking of things lost in the past, the next time XP gets handed out (which should be relatively soon for the three...good grief, only three...characters who have been around for a while, Alfred, Larric, Eliska), I think updated versions of the character sheet, all more or less in the same place for easy lookup, would be a good idea.

The character concept is quite odd and may stretch the group's tolerance, but at least there's a reasonable excuse for this one.


Eliska's in the middle of a conversation that seems to be slightly out of time now, Caralus (the incomer paladin) has just admitted to having Ridebert and Andrea inadequately framed, in order to get the Constable to make an accusation against them that will not stand up and will weaken and further embarrass him; good luck proving it- without further evidence.
If that can be got on with, Eliska should be able to rejoin the party as the Countess approaches.

Alfred is getting kitted up, Larric can use that time to get his head to stop throbbing, Verone may want to dispute Detrick's right to send him on anything of the sort, or talk to Lurentius- who actually was coming to try to do something about the big green coils of doom, butr doesn't move as fast as he used to.

Anyone else you're trying to get to go along with you, anyone you're specifically telling not to come? Anything to be bought, borrowed or bogarted?

[Kaelan]

Noting they have nothing else to say, he walks off to equip himself.

Too the bat-horse......
http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_bdVR-JIDi2g/T ... lux-67.jpg

[Panzersharkcat]

(OOC: Four. You forgot Rohal.)

Nothing else. He goes off to join the rest of the men who would be assembling.

[Simon_Jester]

TENTATIVELY IC:

Larric lurches off in search of a pint of ale, but only one, because he doesn't want to face what he's pretty sure comes next in even an approximately drunk state. There's got to be some around here somewhere. If he can manage it, he'll look for a fairly good one and savor it a bit, since it might be the last one he ever has.

NOTE:

This is overridden if Verone actually says or does anything, or if Lurentius intercepts him. In which case he'll settle for a place to sit down.