War Cry

Re: Viking shamanism Dagnabit. I knew I was missing something of extreme importance for the rune carvers. Doesn't really help the shaman, but all the same, thanx for this. It most certainly helps with the other. Not a lot of critique on this one. Did I actually do something right the first time around?

Re: Viking shamanism

Continueing (sp?) with the work on my viking based game, I am in the process of refining one of the magics available - shamanism. I've included a brief description of the shaman magic (how it's done and what it does). What I am looking for is help on the limitations. I want to make sure they match the written text. I've included a list of what I've come up with, but a critique would be most beneficial. Oh, the term Sveldig is a holdover from my highschool gaming days. It is so ingrained in me and a couple of the people I game with that we can easily connect Sveldig=Viking. The shaman magic practiced by the Sveldigs is much different than what is commonly perceived or practiced in other cultures. In order for a shaman to cast her spells, she first has to enter a trance, by listening to singers chant songs of enchantment. The trance state lasts several hours and cannot be broken without risking injury to the soul of the shaman. She also has to be standing on a gallows like platform raised up on pillars. While in a trance, a shaman can send her soul out in animal form to see faraway places or to travel to the underworld to ask for insight into the future or for glimpse of the past. She can communicate with the plethora of spirits around her, both good and evil, and can compel them to serve her by helping her friends and allies or hindering her foes. She can also animate the unburied battle dead and send them out to fight the next day or place curses upon her enemies or the foes of her family and lord. Most of a shaman’s magic involves blessings, curses, spirits, and divination. It must be noted that the shaman is not a medium; she cannot contact a specific dead person’s soul and question it. Instead, she will travel to the Land of the Dead in spirit form and look back on the world of the living. Her visions can be either detailed and symbolic or fuzzy and literal. Some shamans have familiars. These creatures are nothing more than natural beasts with which the shaman has a strong connection, either spiritually or by taming the animal. The familiar of a Sveldig shaman does not grant her any more mystical powers than usual but a shaman can use her magic through her familiar. As a shaman is forbidden to carry or use weapons of iron, her familiar fills the role of guardian and protector. Common limitations Concentrate 0 dcv (trance) - 1 Extra time 5 hours - 3* OAF immobile (platform) - 2** Incantations (chants) - ¼*** Gestures (stand; arms raised)- ¼ Requires a skill roll - ½ Side effects (soul attacked) - 1 1 charge - 2**** Only cast at night; dark - ½ Total limitations - 10 *the nights vary greatly depending on season, but 5 hours seems reasonable as an average. **I dunno about this one - limitation or sfx? ***her helper is doing the chanting, not the caster - is it still a limitation on the spell as is or should it be different? ****shamanism is a "fire and forget" magic. I'm more used to the traditional FH magic. The idea is the shaman spends the night working her magic and the next day she can release the spell. If it's a curse or blessing, she touches her intended target to activate the magic. Is the trigger advantage more appropiate? Or is it lingering? Bah, I'm still working my way between 4th and 5th edition So much to remember! Anyway, my last 3 points are really the ones I'm the most concerned with. Any help and ideas, as always, are greatly appreciated. Once again, many thanx to all of you:D

Re: Stone/Bronze Age help Ancient Greece is the first thing to spring into my mind when thinking broze age. Agriculture is important, with herd animals and trading supplementing this. Permanent structures amd settlements are now established - ie, city states and buildings of stone and timber. Governments are more oragnized, either along the lines of a monarchy, aristocracy, or other forms higher than "this is our chief, Bob, he knows how to follow the buffalo." Bronze being the most advanced form of metal, it will have a significant impact on weapons, armor, and war in general. The largest blades are likely short swords and axes with heads about 3-6 inches across. Anything larger has a nasty tendency to bend or break. Helmets and breastplates of bronze will most likely be the toughest armor out there. Most will wear just leather, if any. The vast majority of fighting men will rely on a shield to keep them from harm. (There was a form of full plate armor, called "Dendra Panopoly", but it was so heavy and cumbersome that for the most part, it wasn't practical on the battlefield) A lot of the broze age cultures relied on slavery to help and boost the economy. IIRC, it was estimated that about half of the ancient Greek population was composed of slaves. Corinth was the first city to mint coins, and they actually had banks and moneychangers. The family unit in both the stone and broze age was very important. The head of the family made all of the important decisions - who married who, who did what, so on and so forth. Of course, I'm basing all this on ancient Greece, and I'm sure other cultures have more to offer. ICE produced a book "Mythic Greece", and it has a lot of useful info that may help you out - if you can find it.

Re: Norse Beastiary - a little help Yup, got it. It's the main reason I started the thread. "Vikings" has a few flaws, but none of them are major.

Re: Norse Beastiary - a little help Really? Hmm. My opinion is the opposite, though I won't call the book awful. It was interesting and fun in places, but it just didn't grab my attention. For me, Eaters of the Dead was a "read for an hour;put it down, read a little more two or three days later" kinda book. I never finished it though.

Re: Norse Beastiary - a little help Are you sure? I could've sworn I saw a pikachu write-up hidden in there.

Re: Norse Beastiary - a little help So.....is there anything I WON'T find on your site?

Re: The Saga of the Smiling Fox -- possible future convention event Alright, I gotta few ideas....... A ranger with an addiction. This guy isn't a typical nature loving defend the weak type. He loves the woods because he knows where to find all the "ahem" medicinal herbs - and he's addicted to them. Could play up the humor value or he could be fighting his vice and trying to overcome it. Either way, he should still be very good at blazing trails and geting people from point A to point B. "Seen Everything There is to See" mercenary captain. Missing an eye and has a limp from old injuries. He is the last survivor of his company and is bitter. Comes across as a grumpy old man but when things get ugly, he seems to know just what needs to be done. His motivations could be almost anything. Royalty has money and he expects to be paid a handsome sum or maybe he is honor bound to help. He might even be a former royal guard who took to the mercenary life when his side lost. Now it's payback time. The rescued/reformed bar wench. Makes a good rogue or thief type. She can sweet talk a man out of his money and if that fails, keep him distracted with her womanly charms while she liberates his purse. She can be the one who gathers the info and intel. I mean, who's gonna suspect a sweet little bar wench? Very handy to have around in more civilized areas, but relatively useless in the wilds, unless its dinnertime. Makes a mean stew. The Farm Boy with Daddy's sword. I know this is a bit of a classic trope, but its too much fun to not mention. He lacks smarts and skill and is a bit on the clumsy side, but oh dear, he is BIG. One thing he does have in over abundance is heart. His daddy was in the army, god rest his soul, and died a brave hero on the front lines (or so "Jim Bob" believes). He grew up daydreaming of the day he could follow in his daddy's steps and be a great hero himself. Now that his little brothers have grown up some, he grabbed his daddy's sword and set out to make a name for himself - or die within the week. As for magic users, how about a wizard who is actually losing power? His spells are weakening and getting more and more difficult to cast. He really wants to regain his former glory and power and perhaps helping a princess is the key. Maybe he needs royal blood to jump start his magic or get her to fund his research.

Re: The Saga of the Smiling Fox -- possible future convention event Are humans the only race or are there dwarfs, elfs, orcs, ect? And if so, how far from "ordinary" are non-human races? Hmmmm.......I'll have a few for you Sunday that I have used in the past as NPC's.

Re: Norse Beastiary - a little help Heh, well, of course not. Gotta have a nod to the 13th Warrior.

Re: Norse Beastiary - a little help You're not speaking from experience.....or are you? Might be a little hard for pc's to do this. Characters are going to be starting in the 125-150 point range. Hmmmmm....I'll have to come up with some Nordic "feats".....backbreaking, arm ripper, head crush, ect. Should be easy enough as variants of deadly blow and HA.

Re: Norse Beastiary - a little help [quote Off the top of my head, some of the more unusual abilities exhibited by draugar include immunity to bladed weapons (this one is very common, also found among berserks and trolls), the ability to eat anothers luck, some fairly common gaming undead abilities like consuming souls, paralying foes with terror with their gaze, and (most notably) the kind of contagion usually only found in various Zombie movies. I seem to recall one story where one wight turns an entire village undead in a fairly short period of time. Its one of those cases where not only will being killed turn you, but so will being bitten, breathig the ashes after burning the body, eating an animal that has breatheed the ashes, drinking water that the wight has touched,or letting any of the small critters that try and escape the pyre get away... the undead spirit will try and flee the flames as a horde of small crawly flapping critters of darkness, and each one may hide and grow up to cause additional contagion. Done right, norse monsters are SCARY. Probably comes from living someplace where the winter months are marked by long periods with no real sunlight. Makes you morbid Yeah, that's pretty much what I have gathered from the undead, though the bit about consuming luck is new to me - and the story afterwards. Looks like no major rewriting on stock critters - just adding new and scary abilities. Seems simple enough. The real problem is going to be iron. A LOT of Norse baddies are immune to it and I have already established that iron based weapons and armor are the standard - steel is very rare and can only be acquired from foreigners, either by raid or trade. It might be frustrating to the players at first, but I think I can work in a deadly innate weakness on some of these. Wood and fire appear to be common methods of defeating quite a few monsters. Just need to keep it somewhat varied so tough and scary critters don't become pushovers. Darn it. given out too much rep, blah blah blah. Note to self - L. Marcus, Susano, and Amamamadanama - y'know, Celtic dude.

Re: Norse Beastiary - a little help This is good to know. It looks like I'm making a classic mistake and assuming a fixed definition for the creatures from myth. I think I got what I needed - my imagination has been sparked. Thanks.

Re: Norse Beastiary - a little help Kewl beans. Thanx guys.

I have narrowed my game down to a Norse fantasy hero theme and have reached the point where I need a decent beastiary to keep travel interesting and provide the pc's a chance to obtain honor and glory. My sources seem to be woefully lacking. What I have gleaned from my source material is the following - giants, trolls, dragons, sea serpents, nicor, undead, shapeshifters, dwarves, elves, nis, and mermen and mermaids. The easiest solution is to use a lot of prehistoric critters - sabre-toothed cats, cave bears, and various other mammals that are large and frightening. I've gone through my books and there are a few that appear to fit quite nicely such as the bunyip, leucrotta, catoblepas, various breeds of "fantasy wolves", and "sub-species" of all of the above. I guess what I'm looking for are things a bit more........fantastic. Such as a Viking version of a vampire or a demon such as a succubus. I can't find one, and for me at least, it is a neccessity. Any kind of help would be greatly appreciated.

Re: Converting My methods are probably a bit more abstract than most. When converting, I go by the written description of what I am working off of and totally ignore the numbers and such. If there is no written description, I'll look at the picture and use that. End result, it looks and behaves like the original (mostly), but its overall "power Level" is a surprise. It seems to keep players on their toes.

Re: Elves Kewl beans! Thanx. I have a buddy with so many books that he now has two libraries in his home. If he doesn't have it - no one will. The bad news is he lives 2 hours away and I hosed my car a couple weeks ago.

Re: I have 4th Ed, do I need 5th immediately? yeah, what he said. I highly recommend you check out the sites of some of the board members. Really, with all the wonderful and useful info that you can get from these guys, the need for any other books diminishes greatly. You can put off buying more books until you know you are set for $$$ and have plenty of cash free to spend. Of course, Susano and Killer Shrike are the first two to pop into my mind. I know there are others, but my brain just went on vacation.

Re: Elves Now this is kewl. I will admit I chuckled at the "crybaby" impression. I take it the lack of an afterlife helps explain their fondness of singing, dancing, and the hedonistic lifestyle generally associated with elves? Mad props to you. Your description here invokes some really neat mental imagery when you wrap your mind around the implications.

Re: NPC Creation Kewlness. Lighting goes a long way to enforcing the mood. Scared players are usually good players. On a side note, I ran some of my older characters against the write-up I sent you. I discovered that when I ran CK like a cold efficient stalker, he hosed them. If it turned into a stand up fight, they got hurt pretty bad but were able to take him down. During the day - no contest, he was killed in one phase. (I used 3 former characters from varying archetypes - a light warrior that weighed in at 256pts, a mage at 207, a half orc ranger at 189, and a elven thief at 222. that's over 700 points that were brutally murdered by this freak)

Re: NPC Creation Yup. We're on the same page on this guy. I'll have a write up for you in the next couple of days. Snow will make him easier to track, but that is easily fixed. BWAHAHAHA! And I have a couple of more nifty skills/powers that are going to make this guy uber creepy and very difficult to find and capture or kill - without doing very much to his basic stat line. Oh, and one more thing.............. Nah, I'll let it be a surprise.

Re: NPC Creation Well, if his mind has so snapped where he regularly performs self mutilation on himself, damage reduction would be a good one, and if you want him to be the antogonist for a fire mage, he should have some way to deal with fire. From the description you've given, he sounds like a classic hit and run combatant. A high stealth or even limited form of invisibility and/or teleport would be good. For extra fun, make him invisible to danger/combat sense and any type of mental sense if your players have those abilities. Animalistic and feral you say? My answer to that is poison/bacteria. You are in no danger of him stabbing you to death, but given your description of his current state, any wounds he inflicts should cause some kind of nasty infection. Just for giggles, here's a fun little power that should sufficiently cause enough fear. Scream in the night 5D6 EB, AOE line, NND, limited range 10", does no damage, stun rolled is only to determine if targets are stunned, only vs living sentient beings, incant throughout plus - +20 PRE, only to cause fear and terror, incant throughout Our bad guy jumps out of the darkness, screaming like a banshee. Any one caught in range of this is likely to be so scared they stand there and do nothing but wet themselves, curl up in ball crying for mommy, or run away like a bat out of hell. Baddie does a move by on an unarmored location and disappears into the night. Rinse and repeat as necessary. I gave no cost. I never bother with points when it comes to NPC's. I make them as strong or as weak as the conception and scenario warrants. If you're really interested in how I would write up some one like this, drop me a PM. Oh, and Kewl character. I am stealing this idea when/if I start my campaign.

Re: What are _____ like in your game? Dwarves for the most part are the typical archetype. Live in the mountains, excellent miners, smiths and warriors. Culturally, I went for a bit of a twist. My dwarves are loosely "Russian", as in Czarist Russia. Dwarven politics in my worlds aren't pretty. I never liked the dying race aspect, especially at the hands of the orcs, so I had a "what if" moment and most of my dwarven wars have been civil wars. Entire clans have been purged or sent to work in the deep mines until they die. Don't cross the Over King. Goblins are kind of a mix of halfling and gnome. Love to eat and build cool equipment, weapons, and seige engines, but goblin built things usually don't last long. Very impressive stuff for awhile, but it tends to go BOOM! Males are always ugly and females are cute, even beautiful. There's more, but I haven't quite worked it all out yet. Felines are modeled vaguely after the Roma Gypsies. They have no homeland per se but travel from place to place in brightly colored wagons trading and tinkering. Female felines are rather famous for their dancing abilities. All are viewed as thieves and scoundrels. Lizardmen are modeled after "velociraptors", but have fully functional hands and are capable of weilding weapons and wearing armor. They also breed like rabbits. Capable of speech and greedy, they are starting to become a menace. In less than a hundred years, they have overrun a handful of kingdsoms and even taken a couple of Dwarf holds. Very sly and cunning, they are also capable of learning things just by observation. Wolf men have replaced orcs. Travel and raid in packs, led by the strongest. As a wolfman grows, he evolves. For this rerason my ogres, trolls, and even giants are simply oversized wolfmen with special abilities. No one knows what a wolfmans lifespan really is - they die fighting or survive long enough to continue to grow and evolve into trolls. ogres, and giants. Orcs - haven't really done anything with them yet, but I plan on making them a fuedal Japan type of culture, complete with ninja and samurai!

Re: Knights of the Griffin Wow, this is an awesome set-up for character motivation. Another option is to write up the knight character without the griffin at all. maybe even work it into his background that he had a griffin, but it fell in battle. Now he has to go out and find a suitable replacement. He could leave a few points unspent and save XP to buy the follower at a later date.