#gurps
Hey everyone, I’m #newhere -- although, I was messed around with Diaspora* about 10 years ago. I've been on the internet since before web browsers. Argued in favor of an ad-free internet, lost that one. Was one of the first people to use Phil Zimmermann's PGP encryption, while he was still facing espionage charges. Used about every flavor of *nix, including Gentoo, but settled on Debian-based distributions. Currently fooling around with Stable Diffusion and Large Language Models. Still haven't mastered Bash. I’m interested in #chatgpt, #gurps, #stable-diffusion, and more.
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
Knudroff
A new digital drawing. It was made for the very complicated story I am constructing for a role-playing game with a sinister magic used in different magi-technological machines. I already posted something similar in this post: Norn and in this one: Whora Baba
This bloke is called Knudroff.
As my old Disapora pod which hosted this free culture project got closed I am posting my art here. You can see it using the #katharsisdrill tag.
Go here for the high resolution Image.
As always Creative Commons - attribution
#art #mywork #Krita #penandpaper #roleplaying #evilGod #technology #GURPS #cc #creativecommons #freeculture
Nuln of the water
A new digital painting. One of the sinister Gods I have invented for my roleplaying game. Nuln of the water. A nightmarish entity who is associated with fresh water, crabs, squid fish and death.
As my old Disapora pod which hosted this free culture project got closed I am posting my art here. You can see it using the #katharsisdrill tag.
Go here for the high resolution Image.
As always Creative Commons - attribution
#art #mywork #Krita #penandpaper #roleplaying #evilGod #pantheon #Nuln #GURPS #cc #creativecommons #freeculture
Whora Baba
4828 x 4201 px - 16.6 MB PNG.
A sinister God.
Go to katharsisdrill.art
Like all other works published on the Katharsisdrill website this work is licensed under a
Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
Attribute: Katharsisdrill - Link to: https://katharsisdrill.art
#art #Krita #Gimp #drawing #Illustration #God #sinister #GURPS #penandpaper
#mywork #ownwork #cc #creativecommons #cc-by
Hey everyone, I’m #newhere. I’m interested in #gurps, #science-and-technology, and #technology.
Getting off Facebook sounds like a GREAT thing to do!
Monday 8th / Tuesday 9th May 1854 - Days 6 & 7
Mythical London Shared Universe.
A lot has happened in the last two months and I have a lot to catch up on. Remind me not to have months like this again any time soon.
Dramatis personae:
Kerryn - [Leece] - Adventurer who has lived among the Inuit.
Augustus Abelgoff - [Rob] - Antiquarian, surveyor and amateur mountaineer with experience in Scandinavia.
Sam (Samantha) Drydale - [Elaine] - Hunter and explorer with arctic experience.
Chris Heyerdahl - [Richard] - Hunter and prospector with arctic experience.
Aseir - [Gary] - A young noble of the Winged Folk (a GURPS Fantasy race) with temperature tolerance and great ambition.
The party had two rest days. The naval druids wanted to monitor Sam who was scratched during the fight with the Viking skeletons.
People did various things, talking to specialists, taking out a dory and dragging the possible viking Drakar wrecks in the anchorage, finding burnt timber for their efforts, attempting unsuccessfully to trap something that was travelling under the snow. Nothing serious happened, some information was gained and Sam did not have any unfortunate side effects.
Wednesday 10th May 1854 - Day 8
Early discussions with the Royal Marine sergeant suggested the party try a different route given that someone had tried setting a trap along their return route on day 5 so they selected to follow the old viking track and strike Southeast towards the presumed site of the beacon. Entering the city at point A they discovered a 30' deep pit surrounded by dry-stone walls and a couple of possible huts. Heading onward they pushed in a little over two miles encountering small annoyances but no serious opposition. All of a sudden there was yelling from one of the marines. Wrapped tightly around him was a misty insubstantial form. The marine was slapping at himself with his cutlass and chaos ensued as the party tried to work out how best to assist him. In the end the wraith slipped back into the ground leaving the party to search for shelter with two unconscious members. A short way ahead a building was found and the party rested up and tried to revive their unconscious friends. After a while they revived and the party set out again. Their dead reckoning suggested that they were just over a mile from their destination so they pressed onward but within half a mile they were fighting off another wraith. Again the party struggled to find effective ways to attack the apparition and again it was driven off. I can't be sure but I think they lost one of the marines. At this point the party elected to backtrack and return to camp. No further trouble was encountered.
#rpgplay #gurps #blackcity
Earlier posts can be found using the #blackcity tag.
Sunday 7th May 1854 - Day 5 part 2
Mythical London Shared Universe.
Dramatis personae:
Kerryn - [Leece] - Adventurer who has lived among the Inuit.
Augustus Abelgoff - [Rob] - Antiquarian, surveyor and amateur mountaineer with experience in Scandinavia.
Sam (Samantha) Drydale - [Elaine] - Hunter and explorer with arctic experience.
Chris Heyerdahl - [Richard] - Hunter and prospector with arctic experience.
After descending the tower the group (well Augustus anyway) decided to head east towards the presumed source of the beacon (the yellow square on the map). After a short distance one of the keen nosed hunters noticed the small of carrion. Diverting a short way they found the remains of 3 humanoids. Inspection of the teeth suggested they were not strictly human but there was not much else to go on as they had been skinned and stripped of meat.
Heading further East the party stumbled into a scary zone that messed with the danger sense of the two sensitives. Nearby was another empty broken building. Further east another bare circular patch alarmed the sensitives wile a family of oversized rodents chittered angrily at the intruders. A few hundred yards on there was another building which had been modified to provide a defensible campsite. Inside there were signs of viking occupation. Another few hundred yards on and another building. The party bypassed this one. More slogging on and another building was spotted. As they headed towards it there was a scream from the rear and people turned around to see one of the trailing Marines being hacked down by a band of Vikings. A melee ensued and the Vikings were soon downed. Effective use was made of the caplock revolvers and Augustus brought his shotgun into action. Sam got a glancing axe blow to the leg but was in no real danger. The Vikings were, of course, another batch of skeletons that had been hiding in a pit covered by snow. The party took care to truss the fallen marine to one of the ladders an headed back home.
Nearing the tower one of the trackers spotted something odd with a snowdrift they had crossed earlier that day. It seems that the snow had been smoothed over and their tracks had been re-created. Some poking around triggered a noose on a springy rope trap. The party carefully headed back to the wall poking suspiciously at various places that would be good places to set traps. Near the city wall they spotted that the indigenous family had been poking around near the entrance. The party exited the city and rejoined with their guards and were soon heading back to the camp.
Earlier posts can be found using the #blackcity tag.
Sunday 7th May 1854 - Day 5 part 1
Mythical London shared universe.
Dramatis personae:
Kerryn - [Leece] - Adventurer who has lived among the Inuit.
Augustus Abelgoff - [Rob] - Antiquarian, surveyor and amateur mountaineer with experience in Scandinavia.
Sam (Samantha) Drydale - [Elaine] - Hunter and explorer with arctic experience.
Aseir - [Gary] - A young noble of the Winged Folk (a GURPS Fantasy race) with temperature tolerance and great ambition.
Chris Heyerdahl - [Richard] - Hunter and prospector with arctic experience.
Overnight, the temperature dropped back below freezing and the rain briefly turned to snow before drying up. Kerryn had a restless night as his watchdog alarm kept going off long after the spell should have expired. In the morning he went aboard the Great Western and put together a trade package of attractive foods to possibly make contact with the white haired locals. Then he was off to one of the druids to see if there was a cure for his locked spell. "I don't suppose you know Dispel Magic? No? Hmm, how about Counterspell? Of course not, no-one learns that any more. Okay, try this then, go back to the location, you do remember the location? Good, then re-cast the spell over the top of the original casting. If that doesn't unlock it then go see my colleague this evening."
The party gathered together with their Marines ad headed off back to their entry point of yesterday. Sam noticed that the family of white furred people had been out to inspect the snow fort. After splitting off their entrance guard the party proceeded to the site of the watchdog spell so that Kerryn could re-cast it. The casting went well and only time will tell if it was successful. Then it was off to the building that the group visited yesterday. Almost 30' square with about 10' above the surface and about 5' buried. A ladder was placed against the side of the building and the roof was quickly gained. In one corner, protected by a slanted slab was an opening just over 3' square. Another ladder was set up and the interior was explored. The top floor was divided into 5 rooms and the lower floor was a single room. In the largest room of the upper floor were some human remains wrapped in a cloak but everything was crumbling at the slightest touch. The lower floor was empty and the party spent some time examining the metal door. The metal was silvery with very little corrosion and did not deflect a compass needle. Eventually the corpse was disturbed and crumbled to dust but a belt buckle and a knife were recovered. The buckle looked like viking work but the knife was of the heavy black metal and was an unfamiliar design with a wavy blade.
The party then headed Northeast to another building they could see about 700 yards away. Two (two!!) of the party have danger sense and started getting uneasy as they neared the building. There was some mucking around including a brief scuffle while the party investigated a patch of bare ground that was disturbing the sensitives. Eventually after dragging a ladder on a rope across the patch it was deemed possibly dangerous but non threatening. Proceeding to the new building the party found another square building with the same layout but this time cut off at the first level but with a a basement. Nothing interesting was found inside but some experiments were tried with the door and it slid open for a couple of inches before sticking. Eventually the party backtracked to the first building and pushed on to a third building around an equal distance to the Southwest. This building was a ground floor and basement like the second building but here the door was open by about a foot. Inside the ground floor had been used as a camp possibly within the last decade or two. There were bones from snow hares and the skull of a dog sized carnivore that the naturalists decided was like an oversized weasel. Among the other bones was a possible human femur that had been sharpened on one end and decorated. It was similar to tools that the humanoids were carrying.
After this the party backtracked again to the first building and headed off to the tower. Aseir did some reconnaissance and spotted two statues at the top of the stair and a door that they were flanking. He also spotted movement on the ground to the East and West of the tower. Strangely, all of the humanoids that he has encountered here have well developed and effective responses when they spot a person in the air. After a quantity of mucking about a detail of 4 Marines was left in sight of the base of the stair while the rest of the party headed up. Again everything stopped when they came within sight of the statue with glowing green eyes at the top of the stair. After more mucking about Aseir managed to ascertain that there was a glowing green band around the door and both statues had eyes glowing green. Non-players can read more about the original versions of the statues here. My version are somewhat smaller and have different powers. Incidentally Gary is a stonemason and has a weight calculator on his phone. My version are about two meters across and a similar amount high and come out to around 30 tonnes.
It was determined that the statues can track people out of direct line of sight and divide their attention between multiple groups. At some point the party heard rifle fire from below and found out via a shouted conversation that someone had been creeping around the base of the tower towards the base of the stair.
About this point the session ended. Being GURPS players, the party has a tendency to demand infinite detail for everything they examine. I had to remind them that most locations have only a one line description and while I will build additional detail if requested everything past that first line is not significant. The day will continue next week.
#rpgplay #gurps #blackcity
Saturday 6th May 1854 - Day 4
Mythical London shared universe.
Dramatis personae:
Kerryn - [Leece] - Adventurer who has lived among the Inuit.
Augustus Abelgoff - [Rob] - Antiquarian, surveyor and amateur mountaineer with experience in Scandinavia.
Sam (Samantha) Drydale - [Elaine] - Hunter and explorer with arctic experience.
"Wozzer" - [Matt] - Mining engineer with arctic experience.
The map scale is 3 squares to the mile, the top of the map is east. V is the viking encampment that is being excavated. A is where the marked trail from the viking encampment enters the city. X marks two locations where large statues with glowing eyes have fired on previous mapping parties. The dark grey square marks where a tower is visible.
During the previous summer the first British expedition encountered the Black City while following up on rumours about he lost Franklin expedition. The southern boundary of the city was mapped and a draughtsman was sent up on a kite to produce an approximate map of the rest of the city. Four towers were visible and their locations were carefully plotted as well as the source of the beacon visible in the enchanted telescopes. After mapping the periphery the expedition tried to reach the beacon site but disappeared without trace. The matter would have probably languished there for a few decades except that diviners from the Royal Circle of Druids declared that the city was vitally important. It appears that Queen Victoria whispered into to the ear of Lady Alcyone who virtually runs the Royal Society and a plan for an expedition was hatched.
The plan for Saturday was to make a foray to the closest point of the city and head towards the southernmost tower. When our party arose for the morning it was quite gloomy as low overcast had rolled in and a light drizzle was falling. The winged folk princeling muttered darkly about the dangers of icing up and retired to locate some de-icing fluid which smelt suspiciously like good navy rum. Chris managed to twist his ankle and the druids suggested that he sty off it that day as they had been busy with the healing spells the previous day.
With the idea of leaving a better guard at the entrance of the city an extra 4 marines were attached for the day. Kerryn hitched up his dogs to the sled and the party set out for the city wall. With no visible landmarks the group navigated by compass ending up a few hundred yards north of where they intended. A suitable gap in the wall was located and the heaped snow was shovelled out and a sort of snow fort was created to enclose the 4 sentries and the sled dogs. Kerry cast the Nightingale spell on the gap which would alert the sentries if anyone tried to pass it. Our party had acquired a bundle of thin poles with a brightly coloured flag on each one to use as markers. The first one was planted to mark where they had entered the city and and Kerryn cast a Watchdog spell to let him know if anyone tried to tamper with the flag. Unfortunately he made a critical fumble casting the spell although I assured him that the spell seemed "just fine". Inside the city the drizzle was noticeably lighter, There were patches of snow on the ground but also patches of clear ground. There are a profusion of low bushes several of which will produce edible berries. There are also a good number of snowshoe hares bouncing about. A bit of a search was made of the area and Augustus made a lucky discovery of a near perfect smokey quartz crystal about a foot long and around an inch and a half across.
About 500 yards in the party encountered a building. Windowless slab sides made of black rock with broken walls where the top floor had probably been smashed and no sign of a roof. A scout around the building turned up a door - some kind of metal hatch unfortunately buried in rubble at least 4 feet deep. A bit of experimentation showed a grappling hook could be tossed over the broken walls and it was stable enough to give relatively easy access to the upper story. There was a flat floor (roof?) with partial walls and a more or less sheltered area in one corner with a bit over 3 foot square hole into the building. A few of the party poked around and looked to see what could be seen. Another building was just visible to the Northeast and a third to the Southwest. Their target tower was dimly visible just South of East and to the north an enormous statue loomed out of the misty rain.
Our party squished North to examine the statue. Standing about 10 yards tall the statue featured scales, a fish tail, tentacles and a head with tusks and bulging eyes. Notable there were signs that someone had once attempted to dig down to the original ground level around the statue. After some mucking around in the spoil heaps where a rusty tool fragment was found the base of the statue was cautiously approached and some rubbing were taken of a band of random raised dots that circled the plinth. Similarities were noted to the French system of raised dots used to create writing for blind persons. Our party returned to the building and headed off in the direction of the tower.
Half way to the tower location the mages in the party noticed a distinct bump in the local mana level. This persisted for about 200 yards but no other effects were noted. Now in clearer view the tower is about 100 yards tall and about 30 yards across up to half way and about 20 yards across thereafter. A single external staircase winds up the outside of the lower climbing to the ledge in a single turn {Note to players:Yes, I described it as 60 yards across on the night but I was wrong}. Near the top of the tower there were a number if geometric projecting shapes reminding the party vaguely of gargoyles. As they approached the tower Augustus looked around and announced they were crossing some kind of road that ran Northeast to Southwest. Sam piped up that people were using it because she had spotted a few human-ish tracks in a patch of snow, "Three smallish people or sub-adults and one child heading Southwest".
No-one was visible nearby so the party started to trudge up the stair. As they came around the tower the lead marines spotted a large statue with glowing green eyes positioned at the top of he stair. This was just what they had been warned about so they hurriedly backed up out of sight. Some discussion was had and some attempts were made to toss the grappling hook up onto the ledge above them. As the was nothing for the grappling hook to catch on they kept failing {maybe I'll succeed if I make a better roll}. Coming back down as the base of the stair cam in sight the lead marine spotted "People sir. One large 4 medium and a child sir. White clothes or maybe fur, sniffing around the base of the stair sir." As soon as the party was spotted the child was bundled up and the group retreated to the Southwest. The party continued to descend the stairs and retraced their steps back to their sentry group outside the city where they stopped for a meal before heading home.
Elsewhere during the day:
One of the viking experts organised a sweep along the beach beside the viking encampment and found "at least 40 viking origin stone anchors and a fair quantity of burnt wood fragments among the stones".
Friday 5th May 1854 - Day 3
Mythical London shared universe.
Dramatis personae:
Kerryn - [Leece] - Adventurer who has lived among the Inuit.
Augustus Abelgoff - [Rob] - Antiquarian, surveyor and amateur mountaineer with experience in Scandinavia.
Sam (Samantha) Drydale - [Elaine] - Hunter and explorer with arctic experience.
Aseir - [Gary] - A young noble of the Winged Folk (a GURPS Fantasy race) with temperature tolerance and great ambition.
Chris Heyerdahl - [Richard] - Hunter and prospector with arctic experience.
??? - [Matt] - Mining engineer with arctic experience.
Today's foray was a quick trip up the "beach" to asses the condition of the glacier. The party set out accompanied (as usual) by a sergeant of marines and 8 men. The beach is an expanse of small rocks largely un-smoothed and mostly free of snow. With no time spent trudging through snow, progress was fast to about half a mile of the glacier. While the party was trudging along Aseir soared aloft and reconnoitred the glacier area. The glacier flows in two streams each a little less than one mile wide. Between the streams is a stagnant area with 3 sizeable islands. The final approach to the glacier was a tangle of ice blocks up to 4 meters high. The party would have to tread their way through these until they reached a point where they could transfer to the tops of the blocks. The party was not happy with this and comments about "ambush central" were aired so Aseir was sent aloft to find a better route. When he returned and reported the party decided to cross the snow and enter the city and head up through the city to the snow. FYI the map scale is 1 square is 1/3 of a mile and east is to the top of the map. The snow was slogged through until the city wall was reached. The wall is not much of a barrier as it has many breaches. Immediately outside the wall the snow piles deeply, up to 5 yards thick, while inside there is considerably less snow and many patches of low arctic bushes. Also on the inside there are many piles of rubble all of the black rock that gives the city it's name. Our geologist examined the rock and pronounced it perfectly ordinary dark basalt. This is quite at variance with the local rock for hundreds of miles around which uniformly has a high feldspar content as is pale coloured or stained reddish with iron.
It was decided to leave two soldiers at the entrance in case a retreat needed to be covered and to carry word back to camp if they should get into trouble. The party headed east until they neared the glacier edge. Near the start of the ice the party spotted a regular shape that appeared to be a building. Sketches were taken and two soldiers we detailed to take the sketches back to the entrance detail for safe keeping. While they waited for the runners return they idled around and chatted with Aseir about the best place to put their ladders. Suddenly shots rang out two and then two more. Aseir sprang into the air and the party grabbed their stuff and headed back at a run. Aesir spotted their four soldiers under attack by a band of half a dozen vikings. Our intrepid wingman swooped in and emptied 3 revolver shots into the back of one of the vikings but he was made of stern stuff and did not falter in his charge. This annoyed him enough that he conjured a fireball and started charging it up to full power. While this was happening the soldiers, who were fighting with cutlass and buckler against the long axes of the vikings, downed one and wounded 3 more. The fireball took the rear most viking in the back and he fell in a heap with his clothes burning. As Aseir circled around for another pass the soldiers finished off the rest of the vikings. All four soldiers were injured and losing blood but luckily there were no crippling blows. The party soon arrived and first aid and some healing magic was applied. Attention was turned to our fallen vikings who were not staining the snow with blood and it was found that they were skeletons dressed in viking clothes. It was thought prudent to smash the bones and a sample set of clothes armour and weapons was taken for later investigation. The skeletons were backtracked to a snowdrift where they had been covered so an aerial sweep was made and a humanoid figure was spotted lurking to the South East. The interloper spotted the Wingman and quickly ducked out of sight. At his point a retreat was called and the party retraced their steps back to the beach. As they did so there was a loud hooting call from the vicinity of the glacier margins.
Back at the camp the soldiers were hustled off to a healer and the party examined their loot. The clothes were well patched and somewhat threadbare. The axe heads were ordinary iron forged in perfectly respectable 13th C Norse style but the hafts were not wood. Instead they were of some hard compressed fibrous material. The cloak was not wool or linen but some mostly waterproof woven fibre. The biggest surprise was the penannular broach that pinned the cloak. The metal seemed unreasonably light and a chemist was summoned to investigate. His verdict was the new expensive metal Aluminium. The helmet was ordinary iron but the faceplate had been hammered out and patched at some point. If the repaired damage had been caused by a weapon then the blow had probably been fatal for the wearer. Finally the chainmail was in a sorry state with more holes filled with woven cord than solid patches of links. None of the material seemed old enough to date back to the time it's style suggested and the aluminium broach was a flat out impossibility. But as Augustus said "someone has gone to a lot of effort to make these skeletons look like vikings".
During the late afternoon another party that had gone to investigate yesterday's ruin returned with stories of carved rocks and platinum discs found among the piles of rubble.
Kerryn was an unhappy man after the encounter with the skeletons as he had been warned by his shaman that this was a forbidden place because things did not stay dead here.
Yesterday.
Day one.
#rpg #rpgplay #gurps #blackcity #hexcrawl
Thursday 4th May 1854 - Day 2 - Mythical London shared universe.
The morning dawned bright and early at around 2am. Some hours later our protagonists arose and started preparing for their first expedition. Kerryn sorted out his dogs and harnessed them to his dog-sled and most of the others prepared their skis. Accompanied by a Sargent and 8 Royal Marines the group headed South to investigate the circular feature Aesir had spotted yesterday. Two hours of tramping, gliding or lounging on the sled brought the group to the site. Along the way some snake tracks were spotted which caused some confusion until Kerryn volunteered that the Inuit have stories about poisonous furred snakes. They also have stories about lots of other monsters too. A bit further on an old set of Polar Bear tracks was seen (I was making rather disappointing rolls on the encounter dice so I decided that missed by one means tracks). The feature was located in a shallow valley in some low hills protected from direct sight if the city. The team first dug a trench through the snow across the feature and discovered a course of laid stones forming a circular feature about 5 yards across. Within the laid stones was a tiled floor consisting of several colours of Pentagonal and diamond shaped tiles. Some magical detection and investigation was done and it was determined that the stones were most likely formed using some variation of earth to stone and they had decayed traces of other spells that possibly indicated it supported some magical structure. While this was happening Kerryn set up to provide hot drinks and lunch. When he chose a flat rock to set up his stove he spotted some Norse runes reading something like "Hrothgar waited here" ... there was some disagreement about the exact translation. This prompted the others to clean up the foundation stones looking for inscriptions. To their surprise they found writing in a script something like Arabic. They took rubbings after lunch and then packed up to head home. Some cursory investigation of some rubble piles was made put people were more keen on heading back to camp.
Back at base camp they reported to Dr Jackson who was well pleased with their efforts. He summoned an middle east expert who had come to look at the coins and he confirmed that the writing was Persian calligraphy contemporary with the coins found in the viking encampment. The text appeared to part of a ritual phase used in enchantments and the summoning and binding of djinni.
I awarded each member of the 1 character point for a successful hex explore.