https://wandering.shop/@adamheine/112946912074556314 adamheine@wandering.shop - New D&D party just dropped.
#ttrpg
https://hoosier.social/@thekitmalone/112932924866901336 thekitmalone@hoosier.social - REMINDER!
ICV and yours truly are hosting DUNGEONS & DEMOCRACY tomorrow at 1pm at the Upland College Ave. Tasting Room (4842 North College Avenue Indianapolis, IN 46205).
Get your character past obstacles to cast their vote! I'll followup the gaming session with a primer on Indiana election laws.
The event is FREE and all ages. (due to a snafu the RSVP says it's not accepting new entries, but we have space I promise!)
After having finished a #ttrpg campaign lasting 2 years with me as GM. I have this spring been a player while my brother took over with a new campaign in a new setting. Some sort of #steampunk fin de siécle game.
Here's the first drawing of my character - Baron Cenobiss Starroflang-Coruman, chief librarian of a provincial library and archive, linguist, historian and former navy veteran. It has been great fun to play him... and relaxing not to be the GM :)
And the miniature made by my brother...
The #book I am reading these days. Gardens of the Moon by Steven Erikson . (As far as I understood) based on a yearlong AD&D #ttrpg campaign. For that reason it also sports some of the absurdities of the Dungeons & Dragons game. For one humans seem to becoming Gods at some point in their career.
The universe is enormous and one of the attractions of the book is to be taken through some really strange places that internally seems logical an thoroughly thought through while it also is foreign and weird. It also has some demanding purple prose which is one of my special pleasures.
Refugee from Nerdica, Pluspora and Google+ looking to reconnect
I don't have much luck with social networks, do I? I used to be mcv@nerdica.net, but nerdica seems to be quite thoroughly dead. Database is corrupt, and nothing can be recovered.
So that means I lost all my posts, comments, contacts, followers, and my place in the Fediverse. I'm trying to cobble things together, so if you recognise me, or even if you don't, please reach out and reconnect. I used to be on #Nerdica , #pluspora and I'm even a #googleplusrefugee.
So I'm not #newhere in the Fediverse, but I am new at this server. I run a #shadowrun #rpg #ttrpg campaign, occasionally post about a #boardgame I played, especially #18xx #railroad games, but also many others. I'm a #programmer , and I'm pretty sure I was also connected to a bunch of people in the #opensource #software world. I'm also interested in #tech, #science, and #computers in general.
I'm also occasionally interested in discussions of #politics, especially of the #leftwing #liberal #green and/or #libertariansocialism kind, though I'm not overly dogmatic on any of them. I #bicycle regularly, use #linux, and after all these social media servers I lost, I'm considering running my own #friendica server. I might even be nuts enough to try to write my own #fediverse software, which would probably end up much like Friendica (or #Diapora, or Google+), but not in PHP.
I'm probably forgetting a bunch of stuff, but I hope this post will help me reconstruct and reconnect what I lost.
https://paizo.com/community/blog/v5748dyo6si7v?Paizo-Announces-SystemNeutral-Open-RPG-License
Paizo introduces a new Open RPG license and breaks the internet.
right now hte site is down.
quotes from those able to get there earlier
"The ORC will not be owned by Paizo, nor will it be owned by any company who makes money publishing RPGs. Azora Law’s ownership of the process and stewardship should provide a safe harbor against any company being bought, sold, or changing management in the future and attempting to rescind rights or nullify sections of the license. Ultimately, we plan to find a nonprofit with a history of open source values to own this license."
"In addition to Paizo, Kobold Press, Chaosium, Legendary Games, Rogue Genius, Green Ronin, and a growing list of publishers have already agreed to participate in the Open RPG Creative License, and in the coming days we hope and expect to add substantially to this group."
"Paizo does not believe that the OGL 1.0a can be “deauthorized,” ever. While we are prepared to argue that point in a court of law if need be, we don’t want to have to do that, and we know that many of our fellow publishers are not in a position to do so."
An open letter to D&D and it's creators Wizards of the Coast/Hasbro to please NOT enact the horrible OGL that they have announced,
some big names have already signed.
Mage Hand Press, Foundry Virtual Tabletop, Rogue Genius Games, Plane Shift Press, Alchemy RPG, The DM Tool Chest, Sly Flourish, The DM Lair, Bat in the Attic Games, Astral Gaming, Lone Wolf Development,
many, many more.
#DND #OGL2 #OPENDND #TTRPG #RolePlaying #RolePlayingGames #WOTC #OGL1
Korolæmardoff Tarms
Digital painting that I have made for my role playing game by stealing completely unrestrained from German late medieval and renaissance masters. His surname Tarms is in Danish almost intestine so his family weapon is well... The box in his hand have the tentacles and three eyes of his God, Nuln.
Not sure what to do with all these illustrations yet. Some have been published on my #Katharsisdrill website, but this one might have to be reworked again if I want to publish it.
#rpg #ttrpg #penandpaper #GURPS #map #maps #imaginary #world #worldbuilding #illutration #Krita
Missionaries and a soldier
(This post is about all the world building I have made for my role playing club.)
I am jumping around in this world building thing like a unicorn in heat. I could of course go through all those many institutions, animals, magic machines and whatnot I have invented in a sorted way that resembles eighteen century scholars and encyclopedists, but I am following the images instead... I look at my creations and pick something nice.
Today it is four digital paintings of the player characters and another bloke that I needed for some rulepages. The game system we use is very rule heavy so I made some so called cheat sheets with important tables and stuff to make the occasional combat encounters a bit easier to handle.
In a role playing game you have one game master, sort a director, and then you have the players who all play one main character - they are like actors. In our game I am Game master which makes me Stanley Kubrick, and the other three are Brad Pitt, Liza Minnelli and Leonardo DiCaprio. When I started to make these drawings I decided to make my own version of the characters that the player had invented. They are based on their own drawings (the are all very fine artists).
Before jumping into it I need to say that all three characters are part of the Mission, an organisation that is run by the undead God Morkala, the first and most powerful of Norn's 11. They are a sort of warrior-monks and warrior-nuns whose mission is to bring the word, the magic and the machines of their Gods to the heathens and disbelievers of just about everywhere if possible.
No. 1 - Lube Gaal
Lube is an ambitious, young battle witch (a sort of military sorceress) whose personality can best be described as antisocial personality disorder. In the world I have created she is probably the one who fits in the best with her sadism, borderline personality and complete lack of moral limits.
In the words of her commanders (from a so called player handout - a piece of written text that I create sometimes as a clue for the story).
Lube Gaal – a former thrall from the North who has whored her way into knowledge of magic. Extremely talented, ambitious and energetic, unstable and aggressive. Was recruited at the age of about 15 years after she was caught for wild witchcraft in the area west of Tomm. Trained locally in Monk Cohort 5 North by very unstable elements. At the behest of commanders in Mission Command North, she was sent to the academy in Koto Norn for 1 year and did it with distinction except in discipline. Afterwards admitted to the Monk Legion East.
No. 2 - Umptar Huskelhorn
Umptar is a more mellow person. He has a phobia of sexuality and loose women and has, as best he could, repressed all memories of his early childhood. But apart from that he is as stable as they get. He is a model missionary, not only a formidable warrior, but also interested in healing (which in this world is magic and therefore is based upon mutilating someone else). He is a conformist and not a leader at all as he suffers from indecisiveness.
In the words of his commanders: (from that same document)
From a craftsman family from Spolsor. Trained in the parish service where he was incorporated after the family was wiped out by robbers. Drafted to the mission by Inquisitor Spordask during the zombie assault in Gool. Has mainly had domestic service in the south, already distinguished himself during the Kassar rebellion and later in the battle against General Sparsoff. Has fought in Naz companies, is strong in liturgy, in missionary spirit and has abilities as a healer. Admitted to Monk Legion East recently.
No. 3 - Erasmus Greiber
Erasmus is the one who is least happy about the state of things. His morals and empathy makes things really hard for him in the gruesome world he inhabits, and he hates magic most of all. He gets along by a combination of being absent-minded and phlegmatic. None the less he attracts a lot of people who depends on him and a numbers of these folks have followed the protagonists almost from the beginning of the game. Erasmus's upbringing and life has been as hard as his two comrades.
In the words of the commanders:
Survivor from a children's legion from Arangungel. Recruited after the children's battle at Spasser. Foreign mission service from the age of 26, Combat experience on the continent and set for Odansk training (sort of a squad leader), which was never completed for the following reason: Been in the nuttery in Torm Atareoff for 2 years after the incident at Rota Havtares. Has since been discharged as fully cured and functional, but is being kept under observation. Admitted to Monk Legion East recently.
No. 4 - Soldier of the Soloma Congregation Guards
In a world of relative peace you need to find an enemy... just look at the US right now. Rich, peaceful, well organised and full of longing for a second go at a civil war. In the world I have invented the military and the mission is like two gangs. Large battles are happening from time to time and even small wars. The rulers - the 11 - seems to accept things this way, or maybe they even instigate them in their internal power battles. No one really knows, but the result is the same even so.
Until now at least half of the hostilities in the game has been with blokes like this one.
I hope you can find at least a little sense in all this. As you can see the player have adapted to the evil world I have made and found coping mechanisms for their characters - the good, the bad, and the ugly.
#rpg #ttrpg #penandpaper #GURPS #map #maps #imaginary #world #worldbuilding #illutration
Well this is also part of my role playing game series, but this time a bit more technical.
I have experimented with using the open source 3d suite Blender for making landscapes and architectural images. The technique is similar to what modern film matte painters do, combining the fastest solutions from both worlds.
Of course there is also an explanation of what you are seeing, and what i represents in the game world.
The Junjun temple
Below is the finished image of the Jun jun temple in the mountains of the family Tarms. As you can see I have tried to make it a bit painting like in style, but the result does have the slightely cold feel that 3d adds. I will probably try to get it even more painterly in future ventures, but as of now I am pretty happy about it.
Below you can see the actual geometry. The temple deformation is made with maps, while the diffuse map like on the landscape behind (the image you see) is made in Krita as a painting. Alot of the geometry showed up to be unnecessary. The stones in the foreground for example. In the ambient light it didn't mean much for shadows, but they didn't harm either so they stayed. I work pretty fast so making it neat in Blender is not interesting to me.
And so what is this JunJun temple? As you can read in the previous post there are eleven living Gods that are the result of Norn's magical technology. Junjun was a peasant woman who joined Norn's little cult, and who especially plays a role when Norn's dream contains erotic elements. This dream is broadcasted through out the realm of Norn every five days when he returns from the underwolrd. She is often depicted with spread legs and occasionally bare sex. The mask inside her magic machine in Arangungel has human features.
She is worshipped as a fertility deity by the peasants, and are also popular with both the sacrificery (the part of the administration which takes care of the large scale sacrifice business) and the Mission (the frontier soldiers and warrior monks of the administration), as she is seen as a sub-aspect of Morkala who is their leader and one of the most powerful undead Gods of Norn's realm.
The inspiration is of course from the Irish Sheela-Na-Gig.
#rpg #ttrpg #penandpaper #GURPS #map #maps #imaginary #world #worldbuilding #Krita #Blender #Sheela-Na-Gig
An abundance of Gods
This is the second post about a world building project that I am creating in connection with a role playing game. The games are played using the system called GURPS (Generic Universal Role Playing System) which is rather good for exactly this sort of endeavour as the rules tries to cover the possibility to make the game happen in any sort of setting.
It is also considered a bit complicated, very realistic and simulational (which makes battle less heroic and much more dangerous just like it actually is in the real world) and with a very detailed character creation process.
This new hobby has required a lot of world building, so I have decided to show some of the things that I have made.
In the last post I showed some of the maps I have made, and the next step will be to show some of the Gods that are worshipped in these lands. As it is a world where magic derives from sacrifices of humans, animals and plants these Gods are not very sympathetic to say the least, and the implications of them being Gods at all is a bit complicated for this post so I will mainly name them and show some of the images I have made. I will maybe one day collect it all in a book, but until then this is what you'll get about the Gods.
Norn in his machine.
So... on the large Isle of Amadeff there has for three hundred years existed a monotheon, a system of only one God. This God is called Norn, and he was once a man. Now he resides in a magic machine driven on human sacrifice and from there he return to some sort of life every five days. The machine is still embedded in the same house where it was originally set up, now know as Norn's House.
Surrounding him is the grave machines of his 11 followers, who now live in machines constructed after the same principles as the machine of Norn, but actually working, keeping them in a living state. A sort demi-Gods and the true rulers of Amadeff.
The 11 of Norn, Not really dead, not really living, so more like a Politburo of zombies.
Before Norn a pantheon of sea like creatures ruled the lands. Norn was actually a priest of these Gods until he discovered the magic technology that helped his followers avoid the horrors of the realm of the dead. These Gods were overthrown in a war waged by the eleven disciples of Norn, and the worship and sacrifice in their honour is now deemed heretic.
Here is the main God, Nuln in a couple of incarnations.
Nuln depicted with the Nuln-child in front of him. the latter is part of some of the sinister rituals connected with this God.
Nuln is always depicted with three eyes and often with tentacles.
Of other Gods in Nuln's pantheon can be mentioned, Zorg, a crab God, Enema A mermaid like Goddess of fertility (yea, just change the pronunciation and think of something else),
The crab God Zorg or Tzorg - notice the magic circle of 13 next to him. Nuln and his pantheon is all about 13.
And this is only some of the Gods that are invoked in Amadeff, not to mention what is happening on the main land. I have been going amokko creating Gods. You will get some of them here in arbitrary order.
Serto, the most important God on the mainland... or rather he was. Just like Nuln he got overturned by some priest that had figured out som magical technology. Just like in our world monotheons take over pantheons.
Amulet of Gunthor, the God that overthrew Serto's pantheon. As you can see he is depicted with some of Serto's bird form characteristics, probably to make the transition from one Gods to the other easier to the believers.
Shiirik, Female warrior Goddesses of the North. Acording to legend she killed a giant magical insect called a Shiirik to protect her siblings, and after dying from the magical schock she rose in the netherworld as a warrior God with the head of that beast.
That must be it for now. Did any of this make sense? Probably not. I will see if I can find time to show some more details from this imaginary world.
#rpg #ttrpg #penandpaper #GURPS #map #maps #imaginary #world #worldbuilding
Maps, maps and maps
Last year I revitalised an old hobby: Role playing games. A lot of my creative energy have gone into this, which have been more than fine as it also has involved taking up some old, personal relations that has not only been a great joy for me, but for all of us playing.
This new hobby has required a lot of world building, and when @Rasmus Fuhse visited me with his family we talked a lot of role playing, so because of that fine experience I have decided to show some of the things that I have made for the game if anyone else could be interested in an imaginary world.
In this post I will show some of the maps I have made. A very important part of any world building effort - the actual physical image of the world. The maps below are part of a greater map that shows a large formation of Islands, but which is not described in any detail in the game. So I have just included the maps that are important for the game.
This is the Island of Amadeff, the home to the theocracy of the undead God called Norn. His remains are buried in a machine in the capital of Arangungel, surrounded by the congregation of undead demigods, who are the actual rulers of the land. You can see a drawing of the poor God Norn right here.
So now we will move a bit closer...
This is the administrative region of Norgatar, North of the valley of the large cultic city of Soloma. No one wants to be in or even near one of those big cities, but in this area there's reasonably good living conditions. As good as they get in this hellish realm actually. About in the middle you will find the town of Tuskvod... that is where we are heading.
So here we are in the moist lake area of Tuskvod, a town that is built in the high-altitude plateau called the Tuskvod valley. The place has some millet and buckwheat agriculture, but is importing most of its grown food products from the south. Instead the fresh water crab fishing is the large income of the town and the menus in the inns and pubs bears the stamp of the crab fishery. Crab stew with beer made from the shell of the sugar-crab...
East of the town of Tuskvod is a sparsely populated area of marshland where poor farmers, hunters and fishermen struggle to survive in the rugged mountains. A lot of things have been going on in the valley of Darmon Gar, named after a characteristic mountain peak.
You might see where the Tuskvod map overlaps with the map of the Darmon Gar Valley.
OK, this is it for now. I will see if I can find time to show some more details from this imaginary world.
#rpg #ttrpg #penandpaper #GURPS #map #maps #imaginary #world #worldbuilding
#TTRPG #TweetReview
Campaign Sourcebook and Catacomb Guide - DMGR1
I loved these grey/blue books for AD&D 2e. This was the first of the DM sourcebooks in this series.
My favourite part of this book was a look at different dungeon types and why things should be where they are.
Refugee from pluspora
Since pluspora seems to be closing, I decided to take refuge at nerdica for a change. I hope to reconnect with old friends and new ones.
My interests include, but are not limited to: #rpg #ttrpg #Shadowrun #boardgame #lego #starwars #theexpanse #tech #green #libertariansocialism #pluspora #GooglePlus #googleplus-refugees