I just started a new 4e campaign and want to bounce around some ideas for you guys. I was gonna post some more broad strokes stuff but I feel like talk about where my campaign is right now so that is what I'm gonna do. So first the backstory on the game and on my group. My players are all very new. Two of them played in a previous campaign for about two sessions before things fell apart and never played before. The other two have never played at all. As such we are still working out what they want from the game and its been years since I've DM'd for an extended period so I'm getting back in to rhythm. So basically we're all starting pretty close to square one. My Campaign is starting in my standard setting which has some interesting stuff I think but its close enough to normal that there shouldn't be something I need to immediately explain.
I started the campaign by linking everyone to a note. It described the starting Town of Mortals Height and cast them as the last surviving members of four previously powerful families. The Eladrin High Lord of the town was murdered and afterwards the families fell to ruin. It is believed by the townspeople that the four families had conspired to murder him and take control of the town but that they were cursed for doing so. All of that is basically right but I plan to introduce some winkles into the situation. Anyway the note ends with them each receiving a letter telling them to come up the Lords Manor which has been long abandoned since the High Lords murder and their curses will be lifted.
With that prompt everybody made characters and over the first session fleshed out the how's and why's of their characters. Speaking which our characters(which are starting at level 1 by the way) are a Dragonborn Warlord, a Goliath Avenger, a Dwarf Fighter and an Eladrin Wizard.
The Characters
The Dragonborn Warlord is one of the two that's played before if briefly. She decided to play a male character and except for a change in class she is basically her previous character. She didn't really get to dive into him satisfactorily last time so fair enough. He's the displaced prince of the old Dragonborn kingdom which is sort of the roman analogy for this world. He's sorta got that Thorin action going where all dragonborn know him by looking but most have given up rebuilding his kingdom. He means to be proud and arrogant with plans to raise a grand army to rebuild his lost Empire. Presumably that's what his ancestor had been intending when he killed the High Lord but his curse is that any attempt to take power only casts his family down further. An added wrinkle from this and the Eladrin player is that they both realized that their ancestor wouldn't be dead yet by the timeline I set out so they had both of them disappear instead of die.
The Eladrin Wizard is the other previous player. He's also played a number of Video Game RPG's and so has a pretty solid place to start from which the Dragonborn did not. He didn't really have any story stuff coming into the first session. He mostly just wanted to be a magic user. He was a druid last time and is a big fan of magic in general. He ended up deciding that his father had been the Wizard adviser to the High Lord and that he denies that his family had anything to do with his death. His family's curse is that they become more and more clumsy until its difficult to live safely. The most shame for the graceful haughty Eladrin. All though the rest of his family died in various accidents his father has disappeared.
The Goliath Avenger was the liaison to the local Goliath tribes and assisted in the towns defense. Its unknown currently what might have caused him to conspire against its High Lord. The curse take a terrible toll on the family focused Goliaths. Their first born die as they reach adulthood. The Avenger remembers his older brothers death and fears what will happen if he has a child. He says that in his culture the first born has several responsibilities that no one else can perform.
The Dwarf Fighter just had his last campaign with us which is a shame but he got a job out of town so that's nice for him. He was playing a Dwarf woman who's family was something like the heart of commerce. She lives in a now condemned Brewery/Bar/Mine. Mortals Height is built into the side of a mountain face so that is why the mine. He basically wanted the character to be the most Dwarven thing he could think of. Along with being the center of commerce I've decided that the Dwarven family ran the black market and sort of a Mob in the town. The curse causes his family to shrink until their body can't support itself.
The Campaign so Far
The campaign began with the PC's meeting each other as they trekked up the mountain that Mortal's Height is on to the Lord's Manor. They had the normal "first meeting" hijinks you'd expect from dnd mixed with everybody still trying to figure out their characters. They proceed to the Manor where an ancient looking Elf sit on the porch. He is the groundskeeper and curmudgeonly points them through to the dinning room where he says their benefactor awaits. Asked if he will accompany them he is surly and refuses. He also mentions that if they mean to meet the Master of the House they can go through the Dinning room or go out back to the family graveyard. They head for the Dinning room and after some ghost attacks and a side trip to the graveyard they pass through the dinning room into the study where the ghost of the High Lord waits for them.
He informs the group that yes it is true that their family killed him and with his last act he did curse them. However if the High Lord is allowed to pass from the corporeal plane the curse will end. For some reason the families each took a part of his body and hid them. For as long as these pieces exist his soul is bound to the house. They parse out that the pieces are likely to be found in the Dwarfs Mansion, the Wizards Tower, a Goliath Prayer grounds and the Dragons Graveyard(you know, like Elephants) and agree to hunt for them.
They headed for the Dwarf's Mansion first which was a pretty straight forward dungeon thing with an Ooze and some rats. They are about to enter the Vault where the piece of the High Lord is where they will face a ghostly sentinel set there to protect it.
My plans and what I'm working on
They've already said they plan to hit the Wizards tower next. I plan on having them find a portal to the Feywild where the piece will be hidden behind a Zelda lost woods style puzzle. Im still working on how to do that. My first plan is a 3 by 3 grid with pathways to random squares in each. A few will have distinct signposts so they can try and find their way out. Also maybe some random encounters?
My idea regarding the Ghost High Lord is that he's a cross between the suaveness of David Bowie and the terror of Freddy Kruger. As they break the seals he'll begin to attack the town.
The Eladrin and Dragonborn Fathers are probably going to make an appearance but I haven't decided what their goal with binding the High Lord is.
So, our long-missing comrade, the Virtual Adept known as "Sh@dy DeNada" returns. Or rather, his player returns after a multi-week hiatus while he was on a long film shoot on location. The player having to leave presents the immediate choice: Does he get a quick write-out and return, do we NPC him and then catch him up later, or do I get freaky?
I decide -- fuck it, get freaky. What results is a flashback to the finale of the prologue, where Sh@dy disappeared at the Dresden Room. As it turns out, he was zapped through time to 2076. And wouldn't you guess it, 2076 sucks pretty hard, with the Technocracy having effectively eliminated nearly all of the Awakened in Los Angeles and seemingly abroad. Well, all but for our chantry's NPC leader, VA Yasmine (Last Name Unknown), who's turned the Dresden into her own personal Sanctum.
Yasmine is now a powerful Arch-Mage, and she needs a Virtual Adept to go to an anchor point along the previously-mentioned teleporting rail line that draws a penis across Los Angeles to lock down the rail line and connect it both in meatspace (heh) and in the Digital Web. Why can't she? We'll get to that in a second.
So Sh@dy does so, finding his way to the portal on the LAX tarmac, which in 2076 has no commercial jets, just a forward staging area for the Technocracy. He's then attacked in the Web by a daemon, a centipede looking thing that through magic and his hacker's ability, he kills somewhat handily on his own. This of course attracts attention, but he's able to use a Talisman given to him that's in the shape of the Correspondence sigil (more on that later) to merge the rail line with the Web.
Then he books it back home. Yasmine makes it clear that he's going to have to do the same back in his time, because the rail line doesn't matter when the world is already fucked. The rail line (aka the D Train) is needed to be secured in 2016 for only acceptable Awakened for the battles to come. She then sends Sh@dy back to the modern day as close as she can -- which of course, is six months from when Sh@dy left, landing him right with the chantry just as Yasmine's telling the rest of the party that she's behind the rail line.
And today-Yasmine immediately gets a migraine. It turns out, in the future, all magic is vulgar. Sh@dy, just doing basic magic, racked up four points of Paradox in no time flat. So imagine the super powerful Yasmine fucking with time and space over the course of years to send these Correspondence distortions and connections back 60 years. Her Pattern basically exploded across that very time and space, so much that our Yasmine felt it.
The party now merged, they realize that the Correspondence Talisman is the same as the Entropy one they recovered earlier. Once they fill the Correspondence Talisman with Quintessence, they realize that it's got an energy connection to something in the chantry library. Lo and behold, it's the Artifact/book that killed a shitload of Sleepers at the Dresden Room.
The closer a Talisman gets to the book, parts of the unknown language, much like the Black Box testing scene in Sneakers, starts to unravel and decode. They then find, in the final moments, that touching the Entropy Talisman to the Artifact results in the cover showing this:
The Web
The Blood
The Machine
The Light
The Demon
The Clock
The Crack
The Fury
The Silence
And the book, long since impossible to open, finally does so.
----
THINGS LEARNED: I wanted to set up a one-on-one session with Sh@dy and wrote things up to do so, but life is a motherfucker, and I had to essentially do the one-on-one with the whole group. While I think the novelty of it was fine for one go around, it ain't something I'm going to be doing again anytime soon. I think the group knew I was trying to pull off something tricky.
I think I'm just going to have build up some pre-made "outs" for characters that could then lend itself well to have their return mean something, as I intensely dislike the equivalent of "Jane gets a call from her mother" and disappears until she comes back.
Other thing learned: I was resisting it, but I'm going to have to essentially make my own Digital Web sourcebook, because it doesn't account for the modern Web and even if we were back in Y2K/Early oughts, I dislike the mechanics. So... good luck, me.
Anyway, this is turning into a novella, so I'll stop here. It was nice table-setting, but I'm sure I could've done this a tad more efficiently and gave the rest of the party more to do this run. Live and learn.
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JacobkoshGamble a stamp.I can show you how to be a real man!Moderatormod
So I watched Giant Bomb's Quick Look of the PC version of Twilight Struggle
That looks like a really rad game
How difficult is it to play the actual tabletop version smoothly?
It seems like it's super easy to forget at least 1 of the 80 things you have to keep track of at all times
The game mechanics themselves are piss-easy: play cards, put tokens on the board, sometimes roll dice. The rulebook is slim and a good third of it isn't even rules but historical synopses of the cards.
But it is absolutely a game that tests your ability to make decisions in three or four arenas at the same time and penalizes you hard for hyperfocusing. It is very much a game where good multitasking and the ability to change mental gears in a hurry are at least as important as crafty plotting.
Some world-building for my world. Hope this interests @straightzi as I'd love to hear some notes on it.
Alright
Gods and the Beginning
There are three primary Gods in my setting.
Ahlelilolua
Im still working on the name. Going for some mix between a reference to Hallelujah and using all vowel sounds.
Also called the Chroma and the absent father, Ahl is the creator of the core concepts of reality. He created the cosmology and rules before losing interest in his creation. Almost immediately Ahl disappeared into the aether. Why he created the universe and what he is searching for is unknown. Spells which make use of the core concepts of the world like Prismatic sphere are 'considered his magic. Many worship Ahl but their prayers are rarely answered.
The Twin God's Estina and Eshere are the Gods progress and decay. They are the true creators of the world as we know it. They originally came together to create the Earth and all its races but quickly discovered they had very different interests when it came to the things and people they made. Estina set her people on the path of civilization to find out what they would do. How far could they go? Eshere cared only for the end. What would their existence destroy? How would they die? After discovering their differences the two Gods began working against each other. Estina could not bare to see a living thing or grand work destroyed and Eshere became impatient to see the end of things. They found however that fighting each other directly brought the world to a stand still. Estina held on to her creations as tightly as she could and found that only created stagnation. Her people could only create new things or grow if others receded or weakened. Eshere found in her people a similar problem as without allowing her people to rise up and create they were incapable of the fall she craved. The sisters came together and agreed to let their creations act as they would without direct interference but neither trusted each other to hold to their bargain. To keep the other from meddling each agreed to take the form of a humanoid and walk the earth. Estina began her existence being repeatedly reborn to mortal parents. She would grow to adulthood living a life and gaining a new perspective and once she reached her apex disappearing and starting the cycle again. Eventually an order of Clerics formed with the express purpose of finding and protecting their child god. In time they created a home for her, a fast complex named "Estina's Garden", which she now spends nearly her entire lives in. Eshere's coming and goings are less clear. She appears in moments of great strife as a half decaying ancient woman.
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FaranguI am a beardy manWith a beardy planRegistered Userregular
So I watched Giant Bomb's Quick Look of the PC version of Twilight Struggle
That looks like a really rad game
How difficult is it to play the actual tabletop version smoothly?
It seems like it's super easy to forget at least 1 of the 80 things you have to keep track of at all times
@Mr. G if you want there's a bunch of games of Twilight Struggle that were run over in CF where things went turn by turn, it could be helpful as examples of how the game should be run
Some world-building for my world. Hope this interests straightzi as I'd love to hear some notes on it.
Alright
Gods and the Beginning
There are three primary Gods in my setting.
Ahlelilolua
Im still working on the name. Going for some mix between a reference to Hallelujah and using all vowel sounds.
Also called the Chroma and the absent father, Ahl is the creator of the core concepts of reality. He created the cosmology and rules before losing interest in his creation. Almost immediately Ahl disappeared into the aether. Why he created the universe and what he is searching for is unknown. Spells which make use of the core concepts of the world like Prismatic sphere are 'considered his magic. Many worship Ahl but their prayers are rarely answered.
The Twin God's Estina and Eshere are the Gods progress and decay. They are the true creators of the world as we know it. They originally came together to create the Earth and all its races but quickly discovered they had very different interests when it came to the things and people they made. Estina set her people on the path of civilization to find out what they would do. How far could they go? Eshere cared only for the end. What would their existence destroy? How would they die? After discovering their differences the two Gods began working against each other. Estina could not bare to see a living thing or grand work destroyed and Eshere became impatient to see the end of things. They found however that fighting each other directly brought the world to a stand still. Estina held on to her creations as tightly as she could and found that only created stagnation. Her people could only create new things or grow if others receded or weakened. Eshere found in her people a similar problem as without allowing her people to rise up and create they were incapable of the fall she craved. The sisters came together and agreed to let their creations act as they would without direct interference but neither trusted each other to hold to their bargain. To keep the other from meddling each agreed to take the form of a humanoid and walk the earth. Estina began her existence being repeatedly reborn to mortal parents. She would grow to adulthood living a life and gaining a new perspective and once she reached her apex disappearing and starting the cycle again. Eventually an order of Clerics formed with the express purpose of finding and protecting their child god. In time they created a home for her, a fast complex named "Estina's Garden", which she now spends nearly her entire lives in. Eshere's coming and goings are less clear. She appears in moments of great strife as a half decaying ancient woman.
Alright man, I love what you're doing here. Here's what I got:
The Deism styled great creator is super rad. I'm a big fan of that sort of thing, but it does get a bit squirrelly in a fantasy setting. Are there clerics/priests of Alelilolu? Do they cast spells? Like, I love the grand uncertainty of Deism, and I'm an agnostic myself, so there's a lot that I'm into there from a personal point of view, but how does that translate into a world where people can actually talk to god? Does he still grant spells, but you just never get any like, one on one time with the cat? Or is it supposed to be more of a mystery - he has no real priests (at least in the D&D sense), and may not even really exist?
Also, what exactly did he create? Like, in Christian terms, how long did he stick around? I'm thinking three days, right? Light, darkness, the land and the sea, but not really any sentient living beings?
I love the flavor of twin gods, and the whole twin aesthetic in mythology. Progress and Decay are pretty good elements to link them too as well, but I worry that Eshere will start just seeming like the evil goddess. You've already begun to address that, but in the modern world especially we hold that view, and that will absolutely reflect down on the game world. I might recommend diversifying their portfolios - this is largely to benefit Eshere, but I think it will benefit them both. So Estina is, for instance, the goddess of technology, progress, law, justice, and death; whereas Eshere is the goddess of destruction, war, anarchy, hunting, and birth. Because every death is an act of the natural order, whereas a birth is an act of continuing entropy upon the world.
Now you say that these are your three primary gods. Do you have more planned? Because honestly, with just three gods you're going to start developing a secondary religious structure of some sort. Which isn't a bad thing, mind you, but it's something to keep in mind. I'd point you towards the ideas of saints and prophets, animism, and ancestor worship - they all tack on pretty easily to a system with minimal divine influence.
I might have more in a bit as well - I'll mull things over while I work.
Some world-building for my world. Hope this interests @straightzi as I'd love to hear some notes on it.
Alright
Gods and the Beginning
There are three primary Gods in my setting.
Ahlelilolua
Im still working on the name. Going for some mix between a reference to Hallelujah and using all vowel sounds.
Also called the Chroma and the absent father, Ahl is the creator of the core concepts of reality. He created the cosmology and rules before losing interest in his creation. Almost immediately Ahl disappeared into the aether. Why he created the universe and what he is searching for is unknown. Spells which make use of the core concepts of the world like Prismatic sphere are 'considered his magic. Many worship Ahl but their prayers are rarely answered.
The Twin God's Estina and Eshere are the Gods progress and decay. They are the true creators of the world as we know it. They originally came together to create the Earth and all its races but quickly discovered they had very different interests when it came to the things and people they made. Estina set her people on the path of civilization to find out what they would do. How far could they go? Eshere cared only for the end. What would their existence destroy? How would they die? After discovering their differences the two Gods began working against each other. Estina could not bare to see a living thing or grand work destroyed and Eshere became impatient to see the end of things. They found however that fighting each other directly brought the world to a stand still. Estina held on to her creations as tightly as she could and found that only created stagnation. Her people could only create new things or grow if others receded or weakened. Eshere found in her people a similar problem as without allowing her people to rise up and create they were incapable of the fall she craved. The sisters came together and agreed to let their creations act as they would without direct interference but neither trusted each other to hold to their bargain. To keep the other from meddling each agreed to take the form of a humanoid and walk the earth. Estina began her existence being repeatedly reborn to mortal parents. She would grow to adulthood living a life and gaining a new perspective and once she reached her apex disappearing and starting the cycle again. Eventually an order of Clerics formed with the express purpose of finding and protecting their child god. In time they created a home for her, a fast complex named "Estina's Garden", which she now spends nearly her entire lives in. Eshere's coming and goings are less clear. She appears in moments of great strife as a half decaying ancient woman.
So, you were looking for Straightzi, but I'd like to offer a competing view/alt note.
Why not go a bit more to the core concept of one wanting to see where things will go and one wanting to see the end.
If Estina wants to push where will they go and what will they do, I think that implies a stronger chaotic, free-form view of civilization. Probably more confederated, democratic, and anarchic with her people and portfolio. She would be all about life and change and weird twists. So hurricanes and wildfires, trade (with particular encouragement of laize-fair and disruptive innovation) and birth. She embraces change even if it hurts the majority, or benefits only a small segment, because she wants new things. If she is reading the book of creation, she wants to see something like Axe Cop, where it can go in any direction.
If Eschere wants to see the end, she likes orderly progression and finality. If there is change, it should be incremental and carefully telegraphed. She can embrace tyranny, but also agriculture (predictable harvests and weather being far more conducive to growing). She encourages bureaucracy and utilitarianism, which can protect the weak but could just as likely encourage slavery and drudgery. If she is read the book of creation, she wants to skip to the last chapter and have it all make sense and understand the motivations, like any Sherlock home story.
This would allow you to have the twin gods without one of them being the absolute evil. Unless you want to make your setting far more black and white, in which case ignore me.
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StraightziHere we may reign secure, and in my choice,To reign is worth ambition though in HellRegistered Userregular
Yeah that's pretty much what I'd be doing as well. Especially if these twin gods are like, the primary religious figures - their portfolios need to cover effectively everything, so you need to decide whether any given element of creation is an aspect of Progress or Decay. And I think a lot of the splits are going to come out differently than you might expect.
Or maybe not! You can have diametrically opposed gods of good and evil, there's nothing wrong with that. It's not how I roll, but I'm also like, really into mythology and mythic structures and stuff like that.
Some world-building for my world. Hope this interests straightzi as I'd love to hear some notes on it.
Alright
Gods and the Beginning
There are three primary Gods in my setting.
Ahlelilolua
Im still working on the name. Going for some mix between a reference to Hallelujah and using all vowel sounds.
Also called the Chroma and the absent father, Ahl is the creator of the core concepts of reality. He created the cosmology and rules before losing interest in his creation. Almost immediately Ahl disappeared into the aether. Why he created the universe and what he is searching for is unknown. Spells which make use of the core concepts of the world like Prismatic sphere are 'considered his magic. Many worship Ahl but their prayers are rarely answered.
The Twin God's Estina and Eshere are the Gods progress and decay. They are the true creators of the world as we know it. They originally came together to create the Earth and all its races but quickly discovered they had very different interests when it came to the things and people they made. Estina set her people on the path of civilization to find out what they would do. How far could they go? Eshere cared only for the end. What would their existence destroy? How would they die? After discovering their differences the two Gods began working against each other. Estina could not bare to see a living thing or grand work destroyed and Eshere became impatient to see the end of things. They found however that fighting each other directly brought the world to a stand still. Estina held on to her creations as tightly as she could and found that only created stagnation. Her people could only create new things or grow if others receded or weakened. Eshere found in her people a similar problem as without allowing her people to rise up and create they were incapable of the fall she craved. The sisters came together and agreed to let their creations act as they would without direct interference but neither trusted each other to hold to their bargain. To keep the other from meddling each agreed to take the form of a humanoid and walk the earth. Estina began her existence being repeatedly reborn to mortal parents. She would grow to adulthood living a life and gaining a new perspective and once she reached her apex disappearing and starting the cycle again. Eventually an order of Clerics formed with the express purpose of finding and protecting their child god. In time they created a home for her, a fast complex named "Estina's Garden", which she now spends nearly her entire lives in. Eshere's coming and goings are less clear. She appears in moments of great strife as a half decaying ancient woman.
Alright man, I love what you're doing here. Here's what I got:
The Deism styled great creator is super rad. I'm a big fan of that sort of thing, but it does get a bit squirrelly in a fantasy setting. Are there clerics/priests of Alelilolu? Do they cast spells? Like, I love the grand uncertainty of Deism, and I'm an agnostic myself, so there's a lot that I'm into there from a personal point of view, but how does that translate into a world where people can actually talk to god? Does he still grant spells, but you just never get any like, one on one time with the cat? Or is it supposed to be more of a mystery - he has no real priests (at least in the D&D sense), and may not even really exist?
Also, what exactly did he create? Like, in Christian terms, how long did he stick around? I'm thinking three days, right? Light, darkness, the land and the sea, but not really any sentient living beings?
I love the flavor of twin gods, and the whole twin aesthetic in mythology. Progress and Decay are pretty good elements to link them too as well, but I worry that Eshere will start just seeming like the evil goddess. You've already begun to address that, but in the modern world especially we hold that view, and that will absolutely reflect down on the game world. I might recommend diversifying their portfolios - this is largely to benefit Eshere, but I think it will benefit them both. So Estina is, for instance, the goddess of technology, progress, law, justice, and death; whereas Eshere is the goddess of destruction, war, anarchy, hunting, and birth. Because every death is an act of the natural order, whereas a birth is an act of continuing entropy upon the world.
Now you say that these are your three primary gods. Do you have more planned? Because honestly, with just three gods you're going to start developing a secondary religious structure of some sort. Which isn't a bad thing, mind you, but it's something to keep in mind. I'd point you towards the ideas of saints and prophets, animism, and ancestor worship - they all tack on pretty easily to a system with minimal divine influence.
I might have more in a bit as well - I'll mull things over while I work.
Yeah I want there to be other Gods or at least worshiped figures but I'm still working on the specifics. My leading idea is that the actual Pantheon are made up of Ascended mortals acting as the stereotypical pantheon as a contrast to the way the Real Gods act. The Pantheon is still concerned in furthering mortal causes. They favor a race, or a country or a cause and politik among themselves.
Alelilolu created the cosmology basically. So yeah about three days. The light, the darkness and the Earth. Think about it I think he's both worshiped a little by everybody and worshiped primarily by a small few. He is cold and dispassionate towards his followers. I think you can get magic from him but you have to catch his interest and that's as much a blessing and a curse.
When it comes to how we might see him or how he sees himself what we have is a sort of scientist. He's interested primarily in testing discovering this new thing he's created and the intelligent life on the earth is simply to small and uninteresting to catch his notice most of the time.
For the characters I think he's viewed somewhere between old testament God and the terrible Old Gods. The average citizen gives offerings and respect to him but fears just as much the God with power beyond measure on no real love for his creations.
Some world-building for my world. Hope this interests @straightzi as I'd love to hear some notes on it.
Alright
Gods and the Beginning
There are three primary Gods in my setting.
Ahlelilolua
Im still working on the name. Going for some mix between a reference to Hallelujah and using all vowel sounds.
Also called the Chroma and the absent father, Ahl is the creator of the core concepts of reality. He created the cosmology and rules before losing interest in his creation. Almost immediately Ahl disappeared into the aether. Why he created the universe and what he is searching for is unknown. Spells which make use of the core concepts of the world like Prismatic sphere are 'considered his magic. Many worship Ahl but their prayers are rarely answered.
The Twin God's Estina and Eshere are the Gods progress and decay. They are the true creators of the world as we know it. They originally came together to create the Earth and all its races but quickly discovered they had very different interests when it came to the things and people they made. Estina set her people on the path of civilization to find out what they would do. How far could they go? Eshere cared only for the end. What would their existence destroy? How would they die? After discovering their differences the two Gods began working against each other. Estina could not bare to see a living thing or grand work destroyed and Eshere became impatient to see the end of things. They found however that fighting each other directly brought the world to a stand still. Estina held on to her creations as tightly as she could and found that only created stagnation. Her people could only create new things or grow if others receded or weakened. Eshere found in her people a similar problem as without allowing her people to rise up and create they were incapable of the fall she craved. The sisters came together and agreed to let their creations act as they would without direct interference but neither trusted each other to hold to their bargain. To keep the other from meddling each agreed to take the form of a humanoid and walk the earth. Estina began her existence being repeatedly reborn to mortal parents. She would grow to adulthood living a life and gaining a new perspective and once she reached her apex disappearing and starting the cycle again. Eventually an order of Clerics formed with the express purpose of finding and protecting their child god. In time they created a home for her, a fast complex named "Estina's Garden", which she now spends nearly her entire lives in. Eshere's coming and goings are less clear. She appears in moments of great strife as a half decaying ancient woman.
So, you were looking for Straightzi, but I'd like to offer a competing view/alt note.
Why not go a bit more to the core concept of one wanting to see where things will go and one wanting to see the end.
If Estina wants to push where will they go and what will they do, I think that implies a stronger chaotic, free-form view of civilization. Probably more confederated, democratic, and anarchic with her people and portfolio. She would be all about life and change and weird twists. So hurricanes and wildfires, trade (with particular encouragement of laize-fair and disruptive innovation) and birth. She embraces change even if it hurts the majority, or benefits only a small segment, because she wants new things. If she is reading the book of creation, she wants to see something like Axe Cop, where it can go in any direction.
If Eschere wants to see the end, she likes orderly progression and finality. If there is change, it should be incremental and carefully telegraphed. She can embrace tyranny, but also agriculture (predictable harvests and weather being far more conducive to growing). She encourages bureaucracy and utilitarianism, which can protect the weak but could just as likely encourage slavery and drudgery. If she is read the book of creation, she wants to skip to the last chapter and have it all make sense and understand the motivations, like any Sherlock home story.
This would allow you to have the twin gods without one of them being the absolute evil. Unless you want to make your setting far more black and white, in which case ignore me.
No no I like this thank you. I want Alelilolu to be sort of beyond good and evil but for the Twins to possess aspects of both even though your initial thoughts take you one way.
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StraightziHere we may reign secure, and in my choice,To reign is worth ambition though in HellRegistered Userregular
Hmm. Is there a scientific community in this world of yours? I mean, even if it's just like, medieval alchemist sort of stuff, those folks are probably really into Alelilolu. What I'm getting at is that his churches might not be staffed by D&D style clerics, but rather by other classes. Specifically what I am thinking is that maybe that's where the monk class comes from in this world (I'm going very traditional D&D with my thoughts - let me know if you want me to change systems). Not so much a spellcaster the way that clerics are, but still gains some power through contemplation. And occasionally you'll get a real cleric in the middle of all that, but clerics aren't the primary content of his worshippers.
A thing that I think is important that we're kind of dancing around is also based on mythological structure. Fantasy games have a really weird mix of how they handle gods - they have pantheons, like the Greeks and the Nords and so on, but you also have people who are wholly devoted to one deity. It's essentially a very monotheistic way of looking at polytheism, as you pray to your god for everything, rather than choosing to sacrifice/pray/whatever to the god who is associated with those domains.
Now, that's a fantasy game staple, and I don't blame you if you want to stick with it for your setting, but I think it's also a fun thing to work around. Rather than devotees of Estina and Eshere, do you have people who understand that they're both an important part of life? Farmers who pray to Estina for the rain and to Eshere for the harvest, y'know? Not saying that those are their actual domains or anything, but that's the basic idea.
And then if you add in your thoughts on a further pantheon of ascended mortals, you can go some really interesting places. Everyone believes in/worships Alelilolu and the Twins, and while everyone believes in the lower pantheon, maybe there you get to pick and choose your god a bit more. That's where your patron deity comes from, from that level. And that ascended pantheon might be a bit more place specific - you travel across the world and while Alelilolu is still worshipped, the Twins still hold their power, but all of the lower deities have changed - they're culturally specific figures.
Finally got the new version of Pandemic & On The Brink yesterday
looking forward to playing that again
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FaranguI am a beardy manWith a beardy planRegistered Userregular
@nightmarenny the Metal Gear fan in me really hopes that there is a scientific faction associated with Alelilolu, and that they want to subvert society and infest it with their memes.
JacobkoshGamble a stamp.I can show you how to be a real man!Moderatormod
I am in the middle of reading it and it's as good as I'd hoped. Like, as a system, it's a huge improvement. But a lot of those improvements had been discussed during open development for the past several years, so weren't really a surprise. What I am really liking is how strongly humane it is. I mean, it's still a World of Darkness game, there is still horror and corruption to go around (both of the mundane, real-people-can-actually-be-this-bad variety and scary supernatural horror) but so much of the book, and I think the real thrust of the game, is about inquisitive, sometimes obsessive but basically decent people holding back the dark with their curiosity and their wits. It strikes a chord with me that unrelenting grimness doesn't.
Hmm. Is there a scientific community in this world of yours? I mean, even if it's just like, medieval alchemist sort of stuff, those folks are probably really into Alelilolu. What I'm getting at is that his churches might not be staffed by D&D style clerics, but rather by other classes. Specifically what I am thinking is that maybe that's where the monk class comes from in this world (I'm going very traditional D&D with my thoughts - let me know if you want me to change systems). Not so much a spellcaster the way that clerics are, but still gains some power through contemplation. And occasionally you'll get a real cleric in the middle of all that, but clerics aren't the primary content of his worshippers.
A thing that I think is important that we're kind of dancing around is also based on mythological structure. Fantasy games have a really weird mix of how they handle gods - they have pantheons, like the Greeks and the Nords and so on, but you also have people who are wholly devoted to one deity. It's essentially a very monotheistic way of looking at polytheism, as you pray to your god for everything, rather than choosing to sacrifice/pray/whatever to the god who is associated with those domains.
Now, that's a fantasy game staple, and I don't blame you if you want to stick with it for your setting, but I think it's also a fun thing to work around. Rather than devotees of Estina and Eshere, do you have people who understand that they're both an important part of life? Farmers who pray to Estina for the rain and to Eshere for the harvest, y'know? Not saying that those are their actual domains or anything, but that's the basic idea.
And then if you add in your thoughts on a further pantheon of ascended mortals, you can go some really interesting places. Everyone believes in/worships Alelilolu and the Twins, and while everyone believes in the lower pantheon, maybe there you get to pick and choose your god a bit more. That's where your patron deity comes from, from that level. And that ascended pantheon might be a bit more place specific - you travel across the world and while Alelilolu is still worshipped, the Twins still hold their power, but all of the lower deities have changed - they're culturally specific figures.
Monks as the principle worshipers of Alelilolu is a great idea. I wonder if I should tie all psionic classes to him? Or maybe make the Church a combination of Monks and Wizards?
There is another idea I've had that has been tied to this one for a long time. Recently I've been reconsidering if they should really go together at all. Let me know what you think guys.
The world was nearly destroyed recently. A few short centuries ago somethings monstrous and fast appeared in the world. Thinking interlopers from another plane. They nearly eliminated humanoid life with the great heroes of the time fighting them off in the last moment. The new starting point for humanoid society is what is now a massive cosmopolitan Metropolis that still bears the humble name it had when it was created as a the last salvation and gathering place for the humanoids who had survived the invaders attacks so far: The Hold. Another artifact of the time is "The Line" a massive mile wide hole that cuts the principle continent in two. On the other side is an untamable land of pure madness. In some places time refuses to turn, men refuse to die and spell refuse to act on the rules.
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StraightziHere we may reign secure, and in my choice,To reign is worth ambition though in HellRegistered Userregular
I think tying all of psionics in there would be rad. I feel like wizards get kind of shoehorned in to the medieval scientist role, which they're not actually a good fit for. Psionic types are way better.
Wizard makes as much sense for science guys as clerics or psionics, being as they'd be of the few learned people.
Also i've been thinking since it came up, i've never really worked on a pantheon that wasn't a mockery, or just abstract concepts manifest. been thinking on that as i continue to work on my stupid crab battle setting.
It's just more fun for me tto build a divine misunderstandign into something that will eventually burn everything held dear down.
Awakenings happen in a ton of different ways. As Tox said, it's all of the above. Sometimes people Awaken because of shock or trauma (one LP I read had a character who Awakened in a deep-sea diving bell that was about to implode), or while in altered states of consciousness. Those Awakenings often go full frontal, with the person (at least as far as they can tell) traveling to the Supernal, experiencing cosmic forces, and scaling their own Watchtower. Other times it plays out as a "mystery play," which is a more covert Awakening, more like the stuff you've seen in movies and TV, those sci-fi or fantasy or horror stories where the hero or heroine is minding their own business but everything around them seems to take strange, portentous turns: a stranger keeps calling you by the wrong name and looking at you funny; a random passerby on the street grabs you urgently and says "They've almost found you! Run!"; the pager at the supermarket starts asking for soimeone with the name of your long-dead kid brother to come to the customer service desk. The only constant to Awakening is that it concludes with the person signing their True Name either in a Watchtower or in a metaphorical representation of one, like a batjroom stall or a hotel ledger. (It's the mage's first and most powerful spell: they leave a piece of themselves in the higher realm so that the rest of them always has a sympathetic link to that place to draw power from.)
How do people play them? A lot don't, I think. By the fluff, the first couple dots of Arcana that your character starts out with represent months or a year or more of practice or training. Vampire stories often have that whole kind of "oh fuck! I'm a vampire! aaaah!" first night having to learn the ropes vibe, but Mage stories often skip the origin and begin with the characters leaving their apprenticeships to establish a cabal, or traveling to a new city/getting assigned a new job/other traditional campaign starts. I think also, in a practical sense, Awakening is supposed to be this really symbolic, personal thing and players (and the GM) may not know their characters that well when the game begins. Out of my group of 5 mages I RP'ed one Awakening (and that was with the benefit of a lot of preparation and talk beforehand).
I'm hoping to be able to convince my players to let me run Mage after were done with Pathfinder. I have one guy though, one of my really close friends, who is really adamant that any game that takes place in the moden age is stupid and can't be any fun because he wants to escape the modern world. I keep telling him things like Urban Arcana and Mage are still role playing, but I'm having a weirdly hard sell
there is a supplement coming out with lots of historical WoD settings in it, the Mage setting is set just after the Alexandrian conquests, during the formation of the Diamond orders.
I personally think that renaissance Mage game set in northern Italy would totally rule, and it would be entirely possible as well!
Posts
That looks like a really rad game
How difficult is it to play the actual tabletop version smoothly?
It seems like it's super easy to forget at least 1 of the 80 things you have to keep track of at all times
I started the campaign by linking everyone to a note. It described the starting Town of Mortals Height and cast them as the last surviving members of four previously powerful families. The Eladrin High Lord of the town was murdered and afterwards the families fell to ruin. It is believed by the townspeople that the four families had conspired to murder him and take control of the town but that they were cursed for doing so. All of that is basically right but I plan to introduce some winkles into the situation. Anyway the note ends with them each receiving a letter telling them to come up the Lords Manor which has been long abandoned since the High Lords murder and their curses will be lifted.
With that prompt everybody made characters and over the first session fleshed out the how's and why's of their characters. Speaking which our characters(which are starting at level 1 by the way) are a Dragonborn Warlord, a Goliath Avenger, a Dwarf Fighter and an Eladrin Wizard.
The Characters
The Eladrin Wizard is the other previous player. He's also played a number of Video Game RPG's and so has a pretty solid place to start from which the Dragonborn did not. He didn't really have any story stuff coming into the first session. He mostly just wanted to be a magic user. He was a druid last time and is a big fan of magic in general. He ended up deciding that his father had been the Wizard adviser to the High Lord and that he denies that his family had anything to do with his death. His family's curse is that they become more and more clumsy until its difficult to live safely. The most shame for the graceful haughty Eladrin. All though the rest of his family died in various accidents his father has disappeared.
The Goliath Avenger was the liaison to the local Goliath tribes and assisted in the towns defense. Its unknown currently what might have caused him to conspire against its High Lord. The curse take a terrible toll on the family focused Goliaths. Their first born die as they reach adulthood. The Avenger remembers his older brothers death and fears what will happen if he has a child. He says that in his culture the first born has several responsibilities that no one else can perform.
The Dwarf Fighter just had his last campaign with us which is a shame but he got a job out of town so that's nice for him. He was playing a Dwarf woman who's family was something like the heart of commerce. She lives in a now condemned Brewery/Bar/Mine. Mortals Height is built into the side of a mountain face so that is why the mine. He basically wanted the character to be the most Dwarven thing he could think of. Along with being the center of commerce I've decided that the Dwarven family ran the black market and sort of a Mob in the town. The curse causes his family to shrink until their body can't support itself.
He informs the group that yes it is true that their family killed him and with his last act he did curse them. However if the High Lord is allowed to pass from the corporeal plane the curse will end. For some reason the families each took a part of his body and hid them. For as long as these pieces exist his soul is bound to the house. They parse out that the pieces are likely to be found in the Dwarfs Mansion, the Wizards Tower, a Goliath Prayer grounds and the Dragons Graveyard(you know, like Elephants) and agree to hunt for them.
They headed for the Dwarf's Mansion first which was a pretty straight forward dungeon thing with an Ooze and some rats. They are about to enter the Vault where the piece of the High Lord is where they will face a ghostly sentinel set there to protect it.
My idea regarding the Ghost High Lord is that he's a cross between the suaveness of David Bowie and the terror of Freddy Kruger. As they break the seals he'll begin to attack the town.
The Eladrin and Dragonborn Fathers are probably going to make an appearance but I haven't decided what their goal with binding the High Lord is.
So, our long-missing comrade, the Virtual Adept known as "Sh@dy DeNada" returns. Or rather, his player returns after a multi-week hiatus while he was on a long film shoot on location. The player having to leave presents the immediate choice: Does he get a quick write-out and return, do we NPC him and then catch him up later, or do I get freaky?
I decide -- fuck it, get freaky. What results is a flashback to the finale of the prologue, where Sh@dy disappeared at the Dresden Room. As it turns out, he was zapped through time to 2076. And wouldn't you guess it, 2076 sucks pretty hard, with the Technocracy having effectively eliminated nearly all of the Awakened in Los Angeles and seemingly abroad. Well, all but for our chantry's NPC leader, VA Yasmine (Last Name Unknown), who's turned the Dresden into her own personal Sanctum.
Yasmine is now a powerful Arch-Mage, and she needs a Virtual Adept to go to an anchor point along the previously-mentioned teleporting rail line that draws a penis across Los Angeles to lock down the rail line and connect it both in meatspace (heh) and in the Digital Web. Why can't she? We'll get to that in a second.
So Sh@dy does so, finding his way to the portal on the LAX tarmac, which in 2076 has no commercial jets, just a forward staging area for the Technocracy. He's then attacked in the Web by a daemon, a centipede looking thing that through magic and his hacker's ability, he kills somewhat handily on his own. This of course attracts attention, but he's able to use a Talisman given to him that's in the shape of the Correspondence sigil (more on that later) to merge the rail line with the Web.
Then he books it back home. Yasmine makes it clear that he's going to have to do the same back in his time, because the rail line doesn't matter when the world is already fucked. The rail line (aka the D Train) is needed to be secured in 2016 for only acceptable Awakened for the battles to come. She then sends Sh@dy back to the modern day as close as she can -- which of course, is six months from when Sh@dy left, landing him right with the chantry just as Yasmine's telling the rest of the party that she's behind the rail line.
And today-Yasmine immediately gets a migraine. It turns out, in the future, all magic is vulgar. Sh@dy, just doing basic magic, racked up four points of Paradox in no time flat. So imagine the super powerful Yasmine fucking with time and space over the course of years to send these Correspondence distortions and connections back 60 years. Her Pattern basically exploded across that very time and space, so much that our Yasmine felt it.
The party now merged, they realize that the Correspondence Talisman is the same as the Entropy one they recovered earlier. Once they fill the Correspondence Talisman with Quintessence, they realize that it's got an energy connection to something in the chantry library. Lo and behold, it's the Artifact/book that killed a shitload of Sleepers at the Dresden Room.
The closer a Talisman gets to the book, parts of the unknown language, much like the Black Box testing scene in Sneakers, starts to unravel and decode. They then find, in the final moments, that touching the Entropy Talisman to the Artifact results in the cover showing this:
The Web
The Blood
The Machine
The Light
The Demon
The Clock
The Crack
The Fury
The Silence
And the book, long since impossible to open, finally does so.
----
THINGS LEARNED: I wanted to set up a one-on-one session with Sh@dy and wrote things up to do so, but life is a motherfucker, and I had to essentially do the one-on-one with the whole group. While I think the novelty of it was fine for one go around, it ain't something I'm going to be doing again anytime soon. I think the group knew I was trying to pull off something tricky.
I think I'm just going to have build up some pre-made "outs" for characters that could then lend itself well to have their return mean something, as I intensely dislike the equivalent of "Jane gets a call from her mother" and disappears until she comes back.
Other thing learned: I was resisting it, but I'm going to have to essentially make my own Digital Web sourcebook, because it doesn't account for the modern Web and even if we were back in Y2K/Early oughts, I dislike the mechanics. So... good luck, me.
Anyway, this is turning into a novella, so I'll stop here. It was nice table-setting, but I'm sure I could've done this a tad more efficiently and gave the rest of the party more to do this run. Live and learn.
The game mechanics themselves are piss-easy: play cards, put tokens on the board, sometimes roll dice. The rulebook is slim and a good third of it isn't even rules but historical synopses of the cards.
But it is absolutely a game that tests your ability to make decisions in three or four arenas at the same time and penalizes you hard for hyperfocusing. It is very much a game where good multitasking and the ability to change mental gears in a hurry are at least as important as crafty plotting.
Alright
Gods and the Beginning
Ahlelilolua
Im still working on the name. Going for some mix between a reference to Hallelujah and using all vowel sounds.
Also called the Chroma and the absent father, Ahl is the creator of the core concepts of reality. He created the cosmology and rules before losing interest in his creation. Almost immediately Ahl disappeared into the aether. Why he created the universe and what he is searching for is unknown. Spells which make use of the core concepts of the world like Prismatic sphere are 'considered his magic. Many worship Ahl but their prayers are rarely answered.
The Twin God's Estina and Eshere are the Gods progress and decay. They are the true creators of the world as we know it. They originally came together to create the Earth and all its races but quickly discovered they had very different interests when it came to the things and people they made. Estina set her people on the path of civilization to find out what they would do. How far could they go? Eshere cared only for the end. What would their existence destroy? How would they die? After discovering their differences the two Gods began working against each other. Estina could not bare to see a living thing or grand work destroyed and Eshere became impatient to see the end of things. They found however that fighting each other directly brought the world to a stand still. Estina held on to her creations as tightly as she could and found that only created stagnation. Her people could only create new things or grow if others receded or weakened. Eshere found in her people a similar problem as without allowing her people to rise up and create they were incapable of the fall she craved. The sisters came together and agreed to let their creations act as they would without direct interference but neither trusted each other to hold to their bargain. To keep the other from meddling each agreed to take the form of a humanoid and walk the earth. Estina began her existence being repeatedly reborn to mortal parents. She would grow to adulthood living a life and gaining a new perspective and once she reached her apex disappearing and starting the cycle again. Eventually an order of Clerics formed with the express purpose of finding and protecting their child god. In time they created a home for her, a fast complex named "Estina's Garden", which she now spends nearly her entire lives in. Eshere's coming and goings are less clear. She appears in moments of great strife as a half decaying ancient woman.
@Mr. G if you want there's a bunch of games of Twilight Struggle that were run over in CF where things went turn by turn, it could be helpful as examples of how the game should be run
Chicago Megagame group
Watch me struggle to learn streaming! Point and laugh!
Alright man, I love what you're doing here. Here's what I got:
The Deism styled great creator is super rad. I'm a big fan of that sort of thing, but it does get a bit squirrelly in a fantasy setting. Are there clerics/priests of Alelilolu? Do they cast spells? Like, I love the grand uncertainty of Deism, and I'm an agnostic myself, so there's a lot that I'm into there from a personal point of view, but how does that translate into a world where people can actually talk to god? Does he still grant spells, but you just never get any like, one on one time with the cat? Or is it supposed to be more of a mystery - he has no real priests (at least in the D&D sense), and may not even really exist?
Also, what exactly did he create? Like, in Christian terms, how long did he stick around? I'm thinking three days, right? Light, darkness, the land and the sea, but not really any sentient living beings?
I love the flavor of twin gods, and the whole twin aesthetic in mythology. Progress and Decay are pretty good elements to link them too as well, but I worry that Eshere will start just seeming like the evil goddess. You've already begun to address that, but in the modern world especially we hold that view, and that will absolutely reflect down on the game world. I might recommend diversifying their portfolios - this is largely to benefit Eshere, but I think it will benefit them both. So Estina is, for instance, the goddess of technology, progress, law, justice, and death; whereas Eshere is the goddess of destruction, war, anarchy, hunting, and birth. Because every death is an act of the natural order, whereas a birth is an act of continuing entropy upon the world.
Now you say that these are your three primary gods. Do you have more planned? Because honestly, with just three gods you're going to start developing a secondary religious structure of some sort. Which isn't a bad thing, mind you, but it's something to keep in mind. I'd point you towards the ideas of saints and prophets, animism, and ancestor worship - they all tack on pretty easily to a system with minimal divine influence.
I might have more in a bit as well - I'll mull things over while I work.
So, you were looking for Straightzi, but I'd like to offer a competing view/alt note.
Why not go a bit more to the core concept of one wanting to see where things will go and one wanting to see the end.
If Estina wants to push where will they go and what will they do, I think that implies a stronger chaotic, free-form view of civilization. Probably more confederated, democratic, and anarchic with her people and portfolio. She would be all about life and change and weird twists. So hurricanes and wildfires, trade (with particular encouragement of laize-fair and disruptive innovation) and birth. She embraces change even if it hurts the majority, or benefits only a small segment, because she wants new things. If she is reading the book of creation, she wants to see something like Axe Cop, where it can go in any direction.
If Eschere wants to see the end, she likes orderly progression and finality. If there is change, it should be incremental and carefully telegraphed. She can embrace tyranny, but also agriculture (predictable harvests and weather being far more conducive to growing). She encourages bureaucracy and utilitarianism, which can protect the weak but could just as likely encourage slavery and drudgery. If she is read the book of creation, she wants to skip to the last chapter and have it all make sense and understand the motivations, like any Sherlock home story.
This would allow you to have the twin gods without one of them being the absolute evil. Unless you want to make your setting far more black and white, in which case ignore me.
Or maybe not! You can have diametrically opposed gods of good and evil, there's nothing wrong with that. It's not how I roll, but I'm also like, really into mythology and mythic structures and stuff like that.
Yeah I want there to be other Gods or at least worshiped figures but I'm still working on the specifics. My leading idea is that the actual Pantheon are made up of Ascended mortals acting as the stereotypical pantheon as a contrast to the way the Real Gods act. The Pantheon is still concerned in furthering mortal causes. They favor a race, or a country or a cause and politik among themselves.
Alelilolu created the cosmology basically. So yeah about three days. The light, the darkness and the Earth. Think about it I think he's both worshiped a little by everybody and worshiped primarily by a small few. He is cold and dispassionate towards his followers. I think you can get magic from him but you have to catch his interest and that's as much a blessing and a curse.
When it comes to how we might see him or how he sees himself what we have is a sort of scientist. He's interested primarily in testing discovering this new thing he's created and the intelligent life on the earth is simply to small and uninteresting to catch his notice most of the time.
For the characters I think he's viewed somewhere between old testament God and the terrible Old Gods. The average citizen gives offerings and respect to him but fears just as much the God with power beyond measure on no real love for his creations.
No no I like this thank you. I want Alelilolu to be sort of beyond good and evil but for the Twins to possess aspects of both even though your initial thoughts take you one way.
A thing that I think is important that we're kind of dancing around is also based on mythological structure. Fantasy games have a really weird mix of how they handle gods - they have pantheons, like the Greeks and the Nords and so on, but you also have people who are wholly devoted to one deity. It's essentially a very monotheistic way of looking at polytheism, as you pray to your god for everything, rather than choosing to sacrifice/pray/whatever to the god who is associated with those domains.
Now, that's a fantasy game staple, and I don't blame you if you want to stick with it for your setting, but I think it's also a fun thing to work around. Rather than devotees of Estina and Eshere, do you have people who understand that they're both an important part of life? Farmers who pray to Estina for the rain and to Eshere for the harvest, y'know? Not saying that those are their actual domains or anything, but that's the basic idea.
And then if you add in your thoughts on a further pantheon of ascended mortals, you can go some really interesting places. Everyone believes in/worships Alelilolu and the Twins, and while everyone believes in the lower pantheon, maybe there you get to pick and choose your god a bit more. That's where your patron deity comes from, from that level. And that ascended pantheon might be a bit more place specific - you travel across the world and while Alelilolu is still worshipped, the Twins still hold their power, but all of the lower deities have changed - they're culturally specific figures.
looking forward to playing that again
Chicago Megagame group
Watch me struggle to learn streaming! Point and laugh!
Monks as the principle worshipers of Alelilolu is a great idea. I wonder if I should tie all psionic classes to him? Or maybe make the Church a combination of Monks and Wizards?
There is another idea I've had that has been tied to this one for a long time. Recently I've been reconsidering if they should really go together at all. Let me know what you think guys.
The world was nearly destroyed recently. A few short centuries ago somethings monstrous and fast appeared in the world. Thinking interlopers from another plane. They nearly eliminated humanoid life with the great heroes of the time fighting them off in the last moment. The new starting point for humanoid society is what is now a massive cosmopolitan Metropolis that still bears the humble name it had when it was created as a the last salvation and gathering place for the humanoids who had survived the invaders attacks so far: The Hold. Another artifact of the time is "The Line" a massive mile wide hole that cuts the principle continent in two. On the other side is an untamable land of pure madness. In some places time refuses to turn, men refuse to die and spell refuse to act on the rules.
Also i've been thinking since it came up, i've never really worked on a pantheon that wasn't a mockery, or just abstract concepts manifest. been thinking on that as i continue to work on my stupid crab battle setting.
It's just more fun for me tto build a divine misunderstandign into something that will eventually burn everything held dear down.
The Finale of Weekly Affirmations' game of Monsterhearts.
I think I need to buy a battleCON set
@Dex Dynamo
It's actually pretty neat, real easy to pick up, and games are fairly brief.
Oh gosh i was JUST reading this game! i really dig it. Can't wait to see it in play.
Weekly Affirmations is great, I enjoy the replays a lot (i never get to watch it live, because it falls directly on my drive home from work).
The writers of the game were also in the chat to see how it went
All of the above?
@Jacobkosh @Solar
I say leave it up to the player. What are the characters' concept, needs, wants, their path...
I lean to the dramatic myself
@Bucketman
Awakenings happen in a ton of different ways. As Tox said, it's all of the above. Sometimes people Awaken because of shock or trauma (one LP I read had a character who Awakened in a deep-sea diving bell that was about to implode), or while in altered states of consciousness. Those Awakenings often go full frontal, with the person (at least as far as they can tell) traveling to the Supernal, experiencing cosmic forces, and scaling their own Watchtower. Other times it plays out as a "mystery play," which is a more covert Awakening, more like the stuff you've seen in movies and TV, those sci-fi or fantasy or horror stories where the hero or heroine is minding their own business but everything around them seems to take strange, portentous turns: a stranger keeps calling you by the wrong name and looking at you funny; a random passerby on the street grabs you urgently and says "They've almost found you! Run!"; the pager at the supermarket starts asking for soimeone with the name of your long-dead kid brother to come to the customer service desk. The only constant to Awakening is that it concludes with the person signing their True Name either in a Watchtower or in a metaphorical representation of one, like a batjroom stall or a hotel ledger. (It's the mage's first and most powerful spell: they leave a piece of themselves in the higher realm so that the rest of them always has a sympathetic link to that place to draw power from.)
How do people play them? A lot don't, I think. By the fluff, the first couple dots of Arcana that your character starts out with represent months or a year or more of practice or training. Vampire stories often have that whole kind of "oh fuck! I'm a vampire! aaaah!" first night having to learn the ropes vibe, but Mage stories often skip the origin and begin with the characters leaving their apprenticeships to establish a cabal, or traveling to a new city/getting assigned a new job/other traditional campaign starts. I think also, in a practical sense, Awakening is supposed to be this really symbolic, personal thing and players (and the GM) may not know their characters that well when the game begins. Out of my group of 5 mages I RP'ed one Awakening (and that was with the benefit of a lot of preparation and talk beforehand).
You wanna turn a dude into a kitten? Doable. Wanna turn a room of dudes into kittens for a week? Also doable if your willing to risk the reach.
Now to see if I can some players to whirl out Dungeon World with
all i ever seem to hear about is modern WoD settings
there is a supplement coming out with lots of historical WoD settings in it, the Mage setting is set just after the Alexandrian conquests, during the formation of the Diamond orders.
I personally think that renaissance Mage game set in northern Italy would totally rule, and it would be entirely possible as well!
Sorcerer's Crusade. It was in the Renaissance. They also did a dark age Mage, but it was a lot different