Bismark

While looking through some history/archaeology books as research, I came across an interesting picture, dated about 7-8th c. AD and I believe originating from Piandjikent in Central Asia. It shows one group of Turkic cavalry chasing another at full gallop; the pursuing group are furiously firing arrows at the pursued, who are all turning around in the saddle and using their sabres to cut the arrows out of the air - nice trick if you can manage it... [samurai eat your hearts out...] Might be an appropriate fighting stunt for PCs from the Steppes of Pelosa. Of course, it could be used in Turakian Age campaigns as well (would be especially suitable for Gorthundan characters).

Re: Rolemaster Shadow World Conversion Sadly, there are no stats for the Breathless themselves in Bladestorm; just the Hue-Eaters. The other "jolly" thing is that I will have to convert back from Bladestorm to RM stats so I can then apply the RM-to-FH conversions that our esteemed colleagues have invented. The bonus is that stats for the other Feeder Races (Bone Eaters, Flesh Eaters, Teeth Eaters) can be derived from the Hue Eater stats, working in conjunction with the descriptions in the Bladestorm Sourcebook.

Re: Rolemaster Shadow World Conversion RPMiller: Regarding the 'missing bits' pertaining to the Hue-Eaters and Breathless in the Shadow World Master Atlas 2nd edition: I misremembered the nature of the mistake - they were mentioned in the text on pp. 79-80 but the stats were omitted from the chart on page 82 (odd - 5 Agothu mentioned in text, only 4 statted up in the table; 6 Agothu servants mentioned in the text, only 5 statted up in the table). I have just found my copy of Bladestorm, so Hue-Eater stats will be done [i love the Ogres in this book - [i]furry, tailed marsupials[/i] ...]

Re: Rolemaster Shadow World Conversion A friend of mine has all the Shadow World stuff from the era of dual-statting; I cannot remember seeing any Shard stats though. I have been toying with the idea of converting the Feeder Races (Hue Eaters, Bone Eaters, Flesh Eaters, etc. - i.e. the followers of the Breathless) to HERO, as soon as Real Life lets me. This will actually be a conversion from Bladestorm as the Shadow World Atlas I have (2nd ed.) had an error in it (well, it looked like an error - it looked like some paragraphs had been left off the page and not flowed onto a new one) where they were described, but not statted up properly (whereas their masters were). The only stats I have were those in the Bladelands Sourcebook (part of the Bladestorm boxed set). As soon as I get them done I will post them here/and or put them on the Hero Designer site. I was going to do an Agath (Demon-Drake), but the HB, MMM and NKN volumes have that pretty well covered already. Eventually I hope to turn stuff out with the regularity and the quality of Susano's output (), but first I have a load of Real Life Work () to do (and my 'mousing' shoulder needs to quit giving me trouble - that's where I am prone to RSI-type problems, and it's not much fun when my job [typesetting + book layout] involves moving a mouse around all day).

Re: Campaign Log Turakian Chronicles Albert Shiney indeed... Someone has been plundering the Cthulhu for President packs for inspiration, methinks... [rather appropriate for a Priest of Thun ] Keep the logs coming - I could do with some inspiration right now.

Re: Large Creatures Versus Head Shots At times like this I have fond memories of the Rolemaster Large Creatures Critical and Super-Large Creatures Critical tables I think the way to go with large beasties is Damage Reduction and/or a honking large amount of PD (plus, justify a way for the beastie's skin to be at least 1 pt of resistant defence - which should not be hard, to be honest). For a really tough cookie you could combine them - I did that with a lamia once and the party had to 'nickle and dime' it to death as they could not Stun it no matter what they tried (and these were 225pt epic Greek heroes - i.e., "combat monsters"). One of these days I will codify some rules I have been trying to work on regarding low-momentum weapons without massive kinetic energy (i.e. arrows, light slingshot, light javelins etc.) against people in armour (especially padded types, rigid types or both) - it is way too easy to Stun someone with arrows in HERO, even when they are wearing a plate helmet and it is not point-blank range. I was considering using a Reduced STUN multiplier mod or maybe a negative Piercing effect to simulate this. A human-sized sword against a massive dragon would be like trying to stab a human with a hat pin - can be dangerous or even fatal, but STUN? Forget it!

Well folks, having just re-read The Order of the Stick episode (#20) which featured the elf wizard Vaarsuvius 'nuking' a rampaging Chimera having just restocked his spell arsenal for the day, I was intrigued by the third spell he used and how it could be statted up in Fantasy HERO, specifically for the Turakian Age setting. The spell in question is: Evan's Spiked Tentacles of Forced Intrusion (The name pretty much describes its effects - OUCH! :eek: ) Reputation will be awarded to the most "entertaining" design...

Re: Under the Eagle Standard--Roman HERO If you are bothered about some semblance of 'accuracy' (insofar as it is possible when dealing with events that far back in history), be careful which sources you use: the Middle and Late Roman Empire's big bad enemy next door - the Sassanian Empire of Persia, has had a lot of research done on it in the last 25 years or so - which has led to opinions of its army organisation diverging greatly from the picture in the 1980s. [Just compare the old Osprey Rome's Enemies 3 book with the recent Sassanian Elite Cavalry book from the same publisher and you will see what I mean]. The aforementioned Sarmatians have also had a bit of a 'revamp' (it appears they used less armour and fancier {e.g. horned} saddles than previously thought, but they still used big honking lances [kontos]). Last time I checked (earlier this year) the latest opinion was still that stirrups were invented somewhere near Korea and arrived in Europe in the 500s AD with the Avars. N.B. Don't be fooled by the "stirrup myth" with regard to effective lance charging - the design of saddle is at least as important to a charging lancer as the presence of stirrups - a Celtic/Roman/Sarmatian horned saddle provides a lot of support. If using the earlier period as a template, note that eastern legionarii tended to keep with mail as their armour, even when lorica segmentata was standard issue in the western provinces. Time to add some Weapon Familiarities to the 'usual suspects' that 'normal' characters take, methinks. You can also have fun statting up period weapons like the pilum and (for those pesky barbarians - the Dacian sica/falx, the Germanic Angon and francisca, etc.). Also remember that in the Early to Middle Imperial period, slings were important missile weapons for those Auxilia who were not archers, especially in the eastern provinces (horse archers - and their horses - not appreciating being hit by fast-moving lead slingshot, which I believe averaged about 50-60g in weight). Anyway, best of luck...

Re: Best and Worst Costume/Appearance Changes Some examples from the 80s (I gave up collecting most comics in about 1987 because of the 'angst' thing and being unemployed and lacking the spare cash []): Alpha Flight's Aurora - the change from the black/white bodysuit to the black/yellow suit with the hot pants was OK, but the new hairdo was blecch!! Ghost Rider's new bicycle (when he replaced the "fire-bike" with a flash hi-tech job which could spontaneously re-assemble after being blown apart). While the hairdo change and increase in 'buffness' when Black Widow changed from her black/dark blue body suit to the mid-grey one with the black spider logo may have made some practical sense, I think they went a bit too far (messing with one of my favourite characters, grrr!). The original Robin/Nightwing changeover - about time (that Robin costume was just wrong on someone that old, and the original Nightwing costume had a certain style - another nice George Perez job) Another thumbs-up for the Aquaman blue/white camo suit - way better than the old brown/green jobbie.

Re: Need some high-falutin' biochemistry theory here Antarctica would currently be a very BAD place to put such an organism (even given the favourable temperatures) unless it has serious sunscreen and free radical scavengers: lack of ozone layer (and hence seriously increased solar radiation reaching the planetary surface) + oxygen in atmosphere = free atomic oxygen (= oxygen radicals ), peroxides ( :thumbdown ) and superoxides ( :eek: ) Ouch! We (and other oxygen-tolerant organisms) have special enzymes (such as superoxide dismutase) to deal with these nasty by-products, but, if those enzymes are not present the results are - ahem! - terminal [anaerobic bacteria have no such enzymes and die at an impressive rate when exposed to oxygen]. I am currently unable to remember what effect photo-oxidation would have on the ammonia-based organism, but it is unlikely to be pleasant...

Re: PTOLUS Conversion Open Discussion As far as Monte Cook's stuff is concerned - check out an old campaign setting he did for ICE back in about 1991 - Darkspace (a RoleMaster/SpaceMaster hybrid with a lot of Call of Cthulhu-style nastiness added). It's pretty good (magical nanobots, anyone?)

Re: Ultimate Skill (STR Min 13) Equation (from experience): (Backpack including TUS, 5ER, FH, MMM, HB, TA, FHG1, FHG2, campaign notes, characters, dice, pens, pad of paper) + (the nice hilly terrain of Sheffield UK) = ( Spinal Compression injury ) OR (improved fitness ). Try carrying that lot down an icy slope in winter (minus TUS of course, as it was not in existence then), with a busy road at the bottom - at least both arms are free to help with the balancing required if it comes to having to 'ski without skis' . Forgot to mention that the equation above worked out positively (i.e. improved fitness) - can't really complain about that...

Re: Wanted - Comprehensive Western Martial Arts Design Well, I could split hairs here - after all, Rus (by which I mean the Kievan Rus state) existed for about 350-400 years before the Mongol invasion, and during that time gave rather powerful steppe nations 'a good kicking' occasionally; they did after all deal the death blow to the Khazar Empire by sacking their twin capitals of Itil and Samander . Of course, the state fell apart and split into competing principalities after about 1000AD (I believe that some rather unworkable land inheritance systems were to blame for much of the trouble - feel free to correct me). They also settled lots of Pechenegs/Patzinaks, Oghuz and other members of the Karakalpak confederation on their borders (I believe the term for them was Svoi Pogyane) to provide a buffer between themselves and considerably less friendly nomads like the Qipjaq/Polovtsy). [As an aside, my DBM Rus wargames army has rarely let me down - though it is third in my affections after my Khazar Empire and T'ang Chinese armies (spot the Dark Ages buff ) About all I know about Turco-Mongol wrestling is that serious mismatches used to occur because of the way the contestants were chosen (something like matching contestants' heights rather than weights or somesuch) and that it used to be a lot more vicious than it is now (people getting crippled etc.) - which is what reminded me of Sambo.

Re: Wanted - Comprehensive Western Martial Arts Design

Re: Alternate Swords, cuz Katanas are overdone! Cheers Mark - I stand corrected... [] BTW, where the Japanese tankô is concerned - the stuff I saw (which was the top end of the market, as it were) looked like a crude analogue of the Roman lorica segmentata - in bronze. Question for you (as you appear to know your stuff) - when did Japan come out of the Bronze Age? - I heard it was about 300AD [just curious...] Back to the original thread topic - try this for an exotic sword (exotic because it was not exactly popular or widespread judging by the paucity of surviving examples): the flammard (1-H analogue of the flamberge). Wavy-edged blade, sometimes with an early pattern basket hilt as well.

Re: Wanted - Comprehensive Western Martial Arts Design That was clumsy sentence construction on my part: I should have put Sambo in a different sentence as I am also unsure of its exact time of origin (whereas Kamppfringen is Medaeival and Pankration Classical in origin). The manoeuvres should still be valid as it would surprise me if Sambo was not derived equally as much from Turco-Mongol wrestling arts as Far Eastern ones (and the former were of course in touch with the state of 'Rus' from that state's inception).

Re: Wanted - Comprehensive Western Martial Arts Design Unarmed Western Martial arts I can think of off the top of my head include the Mediaeval German Kampffringen, the Graeco Roman forms (G-R Wresting, G-R Boxing, and my personal favourite - Pankration ) and the Russian Sambo (this last one is roughly equivalent to the Japanese Sumai bone-breaking techniques ). All the above are in the Ultimate Martial Artist, btw (shameless plug here ), as are some of the armed ones (Sevillan knife-fighting etc.). Bearing in mind that people across the globe all have the same number of limbs (unless something has gone horribly wrong ) and their joints move in the same planes, lots of people across the globe independently discovered efficient fighting techniques [the inefficient stuff was weeded out by natural selection in a time when knowing decent fighting moves was essential to continuance of one's own life...]. A fully tooled-up veteran/expert knight should actually have a pretty comprehensive set of manoeuvres - armed and unarmed. An interesting early 14th-C knightly martial art was the use of a demi-lance or sword in the one hand and a sparthe (knightly axe) in the other. Also, try out this jolly website: http://www.thearma.org Lots of fun info (and mythbusting - always fun ), plus jolly videos and even occasional free downloads of early Renaissance fighting manuals. I love this stuff (particularly the occasional swipes at the more effete fencing weapons and style, plus the katana myth :thumbup: )

Specifically, a challenge I have never had before. During the last 3 years (and especially the last 2), the role-playing society I belong to at the local university had a drop in membership combined with a shortage of players compared to the number of would-be GMs. This led to a situation where one of my friends shared the GMing duties with me - I was running a Turakian Age HERO campaign on alternate weeks and he would run Pendragon during the other weeks (with the same players, on the whole - I played in his campaign and he played in mine). As this situation worked so well, we decided to keep it for this year. Guess what happened - this year saw the biggest upsurge in membership the society has had for along time, and less of the newbies (as a percentage) want to GM than in the last 2 years. Added to this, the prospect of alternating systems and GMing styles appealed to rather more people than we expected. While Chris (the other GM) is used to large groups and has run games for them many times in the last 15 years, I am a n00b at this sort of thing (the most players I have run games for is 5, and I now have 9 ). I also made a bit of a rod for my own back with my choice of PC power levels, which was chosen last term so I could get the concepts from, and design characters for, the players I knew would be back this term: Bearing in mind that this is VA, not TA, we are using 150 point characters (built as 100 + 50 disads, starting all characteristics at 10). I am not enforcing Normal Skill Maxima (except for Sorcery - and none of the players really want to play an S&S sorceror apart from our Brewmaster, who only needs default level skill plus a few Knowledges and a PS: Brewer), but I am using the 'No Skill Levels apart from Combat/Penalty Skill Levels' option. Nine characters of this level are actually a bit 'hot to handle' in Elweir (especially as I have yet to attain the encyclopaedic level of knowledge I like to have where settings are concerned, and this is rather necessary to set adventures in a city of sufficient complexity for this party). The cast of characters is: Haile - an Abyzinian merchant with mucho bureaucracy skills; Mbembe - a massive Savannah tribe warrior with big shield and spear, plus one of those spiffy multi-bladed throwing knives - he has mucho MA with his spear; Bayan - a north Pelosan Steppe nomad with the classic Bow Tricks and Riding Skills; Freya - a Khorian Brewmistress with an impressive frame (and COM 20 to go with it - a 1.85m tall blue-eyed redhead [yes, she is a wish-fulfilment character on my part ]); Tarja - a Pelosan forest-steppe boundary tribeswoman with a spear, lariat and a savage reputation (think savage pagan Finnish tribe like the Burta or the Moksha); 'Synthia' (name not yet finalised by player) - a Cynthian Rider (female, good-looking [COM 14]) with the usual gear, plus a shield faced in human bone and a human skin undershirt and a drinking cup made from a skull; Tessa - a barbarian from the Crumble (female, COM 20) with a big axe, a long 'flat bow' (which can stand extreme cold without breaking) and Beast Speech; 'Nimblefingers' (name not yet finalised by player) - an Elweirnian sophisticate with an amazing array of skills appropriate to his profession (a rogue and smuggler); 'Stabby' (name not yet finalised by player) - another Elweirnian sophisticate who specialises in the darker side of roguery [he knows Brew Poison - go figure] Somehow I have to come up with adventures that can involve that lot - I started by getting everyone introduced with a little delivery errand inside the city, and now they are going out into the Nylssen Forest to retrieve an artifact which was stolen from Abyzinia a very long time ago and news of it has just surfaced recently. This will keep three party members really happy as they are very good riders (and the party have been given horses for the duration of the mission). This campaign is going to be a challenge - I want to keep everyone involved as much as possible (there are signs of intra-party bonding, which is good). The real novelty of this party is that, of the 4 female characters, 3 of them are actually played by females (and they all requested the seriously OTT COM scores - so it wasn't just my idea). Wish me luck! Any helpful ideas regarding handling big parties are most welcome.

Re: Alternate Swords, cuz Katanas are overdone! To add my 2 pennies-worth to the above posts: 'Half-swording' was often done with bog-standard swords (both 1-H and the longer varieties of 'war sword') - the practitioners are usually wearing plate gauntlets (whether or not they have the full set of plate armour), so a ricasso that far up the blade is unnecessary It is the use of these kind of 'half-swording' techniques that renders the myth that the 1-H sword was just a status symbol during the plate era (because it could not get through the armour) obsolete You can get the sword tip to move both fast and precisely using this technique - just what you need to strike at the joints in the armour or at the eyeslit etc. I am not saying it is easy because it isn't - not remotely - but it can be done, and that is why it appears in those fighting manuals. Back on topic of interesting weapons, you could try a pallash (sabre predecessor with a straight blade): This was usually sharpened on the back edge for only a few centimetres, and often had a blunt section on the leading edge of the blade just in front of the hilt. The quillons curved forwards, and the idea was to put a finger 'in the hole' as it were, to increase the power of a cut. It was popular with steppe nomads and the like (see Avar, Khazar, Magyar) during the Dark Ages. Eventually replaced by the 'true' sabre, but it made a bit of a comeback in the late Middle Ages and Renaissance period (I have seen one as part of the panoply of a Polish Winged Hussar - who also had a large estoc, a mace and 2 pistols ) BTW, do not confuse a true rapier with the civilian or fencing variety - the military ones are actually pretty robust, often hexagonal or pentagonal in cross-section (and incidentally have a different origin to the estoc or tuck - which was usually triangular or square in cross-section). As mentioned above, rapiers are useless for cutting, but it is rather scary how little force needs to be applied to a thrust with one to penetrate flesh to a frightening depth:eek: (where the user runs the risk of the weapon getting stuck - brownie points to GURPS for the ules to cover this )

Re: New VA campaign throws up need for 'unusual' weapon rules Just found a couple of references to the early use of these lariats which involved both pinning an opponent's arms to his/her sides and using them like a garrote (PSLs vs. Hit Locations required for doing that on a regular basis, methinks). I forgot to mention that the character with the lariat has Fighting Tricks skill bought for it, so 'cinematic' uses are perfectly fine.

Starting my new Valdorian Age campaign next Wednesday; will be recruiting players tomorrow night at the local university RPG society (and hoping to get at least 2 to add to the 4 I have already; for the last 3 years there have been too many prospective GMs compared to players, so the groups have been smaller and GMs have often had to 'do their thing' on alternate weeks ). The current 'cast of characters' is as follows: 1. an Abyzinian merchant (with a "walking stick" that also doubles as a Dembus - a 2-handed maul); 2. North Pelosan steppe nomad warrior (modelled after north Siberian Turkic nomads of the Dark Ages - the Kimak); 3. A female tribal warrior from the edge of the Wolfwood forest (modelled on Finno-Ugrian [Mordvin/Muroma/Moksha] tribal type). 4. A Khorian 'brewmistress' (red-haired Valkyrie that brews healing mead/lager, but still gets stuck into combat with bearded axe and Viking shield). So far, this party has given rise to one 'rules value judgment' and one rules question: a. Although Elementalism in VA is defined as the 4 elements only (no nature elementals) in the Sorcery section, elsewhere in the book elemental nature spirits are mentioned, so I have defined the Brewmaster/mistress as as Hedge magician who has the ability to use communion with minor nature spirits combined with herbal knowledge etc. to produce the potions. b. [and this is where I will be asking for assistance from you wonderful people - bow, scrape, grovel] The 'Finn' character will be using a big spear from horseback, but her other weapon is a lariat/lasso. I have so far failed to locate rules for lariats (I do wish 5th ed. Western HERO existed at this point ) I could do some myself, but being under time pressure, I am hoping that someone else has had a stab at this. Just to add to the fun, this character is using a low saddle (no frame) and no stirrups , so will be using the lariat in the old Scythian/Hun style (which I would imagine will call for a few PSLs to overcome the penalties for this).

Re: ORCS! What makes them our favourite enemies??? Old-timers may remember a certain SPI boardgame called Swords & Sorcery, which featured an interesting Orc state that broke apart in revolution, where the 'White' Orcs lead by Tsar Krawn the Crazy battled (and lost) against the revolutionary forces of the ORC [Orcish Revolutionary Coalition] led by Chairman Naskhund. Good for a laugh - and gave people a legitimate reason (especially back in the late 1970s) to hate most Orcs - after all, 'Commies' were very, very unpopular back then. One of Greg Costikyan's (Paranoia 1st ed.) more amusing pieces of work. I tend to use Orcs quite sparingly in my Turakian Age game - Goblins take their place as the 'mooks to the slaughter' and Hobgoblins are the 'Kal-Turak's disciplined rank & File' option. I have used a few 'wild Orcs' (which the party dispatched with ease) and a couple of leader-types (a Necromancer and a Valakar battle priest) - both of which gave the PCs a lot of grief . The sparing use of Orcs is simply because the standard TA warrior Orc is so much more formidable than the 'classic' Tolkien-style rank & file Orc - TA Goblins fit the bill far better. BTW, Hobgoblins in a proper shield wall, with missile troops at the back, a couple of levels in Teamwork and backed by a couple of tough characters (like the aforementioned Orcs) are scary even for a party of 175pt characters who have a vague idea what they are doing (I so enjoyed scaring the PCs that day ). Those people wishing to 'streamline' or 'rationalise' their games could of course simply change 'Goblin', 'Hobgoblin' and 'Orc' into 'Orc varieties', and use other means of differentiating between sub-races (e.g. giving some [but not others] the usual Sunless Realms Life Support option, making some much more tolerant of hot/cold climates etc.). Basically I think people like killing Orcs because they (the Tolkein variety at least) are almost uniformly unpleasant and no-one (apart from the local dark Lord, who wants to recruit them) really gives a **** if they get slaughtered. Most RPG Orcs are actually rather more pleasant than the Tolkien variety (not necessarily being evil, for a start), but the stigma remains.

Re: Populating your Lost World For more speculative beasties there is the stuff in THE FUTURE IS WILD DVD; my favourites are the '200 million years in the future' thingies like the Megasquid and the Squibbon (and I have always liked the large predatory worms). The Swampus and Lurkfish (both from the 'hothouse' episode) would make nice denizens for a remote tropical swamp area.

Re: Stone/Bronze Age help Stone Age peoples may well have access to advanced leatherworking technology - which can lead to amazingly resilient shields, for instance [an example being the lamt shields of the African Tibesti Mountain tribespeople, where the leather is hardened by being soaked in milk for long periods]. Also, not all stone is created equal - the Aztecs and most of their neighbours had access to obsidian (which holds an amazingly sharp edge) -the Purempecha (aka Tarascans] who lived to the north-west may not have had such easy access, and edged their maquahuitls with copper. Also, sheet bronze body armour is not terribly efficient (it tends to be rather thin and flimsy, to keep the weight under control) - bronze scale/lamellar armour is better at stopping piercing attacks such as thrown javelins, for instance. It makes much better helmet material as the metal can be made thicker without weight being too much of a problem. Some 'bronze' is not exactly what we would call 'bronze' - some Qin [aka Ch'in] Chinese bronze was alloyed with chromium and apparently held a very sharp edge, whereas later, Roman bronze was metallurgically more like brass. As mentioned in earlier posts, terrain can really help - note that aboriginal tribespeople mainly equipped with nothing better than blowguns [apart from a few modern weapons - allegedly - supplied from Australia via Papua] are still giving the Indonesians trouble in that province which is the western half of the same island as Papua New Guinea.

Re: The turakian age Here are a couple that may 'fit the bill' for you: Sirrenic Empire = Byzantine Empire (try 9-10th century AD version) Hargeshite Empire of Vashkor = Sassanian Persia (with a few post-Islamic period bits added from the Samanid dynasty period). They work pretty well for my campaign...