EvilDrPuma

Re: Tuala Morn Discussion

Re: Tuala Morn Discussion

Re: Tuala Morn Discussion The "Music to Raise the Dead" thread gives me a thought. What sort of background music would one use for a Tuala Morn game? I can think of a number of songs on my Enya CDs, the "Braveheart" soundtrack, and a couple of tracks on "Last of the Mohicans." What else might there be? Good musical choices could really sell the ambience of this setting.

Re: Tuala Morn Discussion

Re: Tuala Morn Discussion Right. And Tuala Morn isn't that big (I guesstimated it as a little shy of 850 miles east-west and slightly more than 600 miles north-south)--bigger than Ireland by far, but still pretty dinky by American standards. Actually, that reminds me of a question I had. Is there a scaling problem with the Northlands map? At a glance, those water routes across the Aquitainian Sea seem like they should be about three times greater if the 850 x 600 mile estimate for Tuala Morn is correct.

Re: Tuala Morn Discussion Ya know what? This is a terrible idea, and I decided not to go to bed without disclaiming myself. Tuala Morn is basically a romantic setting for larger-than-life heroes, and although I think it has room for some shades of gray, doing something like this would instantly plunge any campaign into the grim'n'gritty, no matter who was playing in it. I've excised the above paragraph from my last post, but I comment on it here as an object lesson in letting professional interests interfere with a damned good game.

Re: Tuala Morn Discussion My first thought was to cut the wizard package, but as I debate it with myself, I don't know whether I'll go through with that. I kind of like the way druids and wizards access the same style of magic through different methods. It turns the old D&D "divine"/"arcane" dichotomy neatly on its head. Besides, some players might come to the setting with thoughts of Merlin without being aware that the legendary Merlin could be a druid. Ease of translation and all that. I know that I'm probably going to reduce the stone castles to motte-and-bailey types and/or hillforts. That's mostly a change in flavor text as the book presents it, but it creates more of a post-Roman/early medieval vibe for me, or evokes the earliest versions of the Arthur legends rather than the Mallory versions that the castles Steve describes bring to my mind. Similarly, I'm debating the role of knights. I kind of like the "changing times" angle, so I may keep them as well, but tone down the plate armor in favor of plate and chain. Again steering closer to a "dark ages/early medieval" feel. If I keep them, they're going to be about as common as the Golden Temple is prominent from place to place. I don't want to make them into paladins, but I do want to emphasize that they are a newfangled type of warrior closely connected to newfangled religious and social values imported from a foreign land. That's a few off the top, and mostly not rules-related. I'm trying to meet Steve's vision of the setting halfway as much as I can, because I think many of the things that aren't quite as I would have done them are more marketable Steve's way, and that's as much a consideration when drawing players as when writing a setting book that you want to sell.

Re: Tuala Morn Discussion

Re: Tuala Morn Discussion

Re: Tuala Morn Discussion

Re: Tuala Morn Discussion

Re: Tuala Morn Discussion

Re: Tuala Morn Discussion Not really. Hmmm...kingdom building rules and a dollop of Tuala Morn expansion...OW! My bank account!

Re: Tuala Morn Discussion Nice, aren't they?

Re: Tuala Morn Discussion My reading list probably won't help you very much on that count. My goals for the course have been to primarily cover the pre-Roman Iron Age, to present a reasonably balanced coverage of continental and insular Celtdom, and to use the available archaeological and historical evidence to build at least a broad anthropological understanding. Early medieval Irish law texts aren't getting a lot of very specific coverage, but I am assigning some readings that reference them. The required (purchased) readings include: Simon James' World of the Celts as a general topical/thematic source; I encourage the students to start with the assigned pages for a broad overview and then move into the more specialized readings on a topic. Simon James' The Atlantic Celts as an introduction to the many issues of relationship between Iron Age and recent Celtic speakers (a disclaimer, since this book is controversial: I tend to place a bit more emphasis on the very real linguistic and genetic relationships than did Simon, with whom I am somewhat acquainted, but I am inclined to agree with him that the transmission of some cultural essence across two thousand years is problematic). A volume edited by Bettina Arnold and D. Blair Gibson, Celtic Chiefdom, Celtic State: The Evolution of Complex Social Systems in Prehistoric Europe; as the title implies, this is a collection of short chapters spotlighting anthropological perspectives on sociopolitical organization and political economy. And Thomas Kinsella's translation of the Tain, which the students will be reading as an example of Celtic mythology. There are also quite a few library-reserve readings from sources I chose not to use in their entirety: The Celtic World, the enormous 1995 edited volume edited by Miranda Green and written by just about every well-known Celtic archaeologist in Europe, Britain, and Ireland. The Ancient Celts by Barry Cunliffe. The Celts, edited by Venceslas Kruta and colleagues, an edited volume from a 1991 exhibition in Italy with a strong art-historical and classical bent. Tribal Societies in Northern Gaul by Nico Roymans; his chapter on sociopolitical organization is one of my favorite one-stop resources on the subject. Towns, Villages, and Countryside of Celtic Europe by Francoise Audouze and Olivier Buchsenschutz. A good treatment on all things settlement-related, from household architecture and fortifications to regional settlement patterns. And a small number of journal articles I found useful for their coverage of such subjects as gender roles, feasting/drinking, cemetery archaeology, environmental archaeology, and so forth.

Re: Tuala Morn Discussion

Re: Tuala Morn Discussion Right, and for what you are trying to do with Tuala Morn, that's perfectly legitimate. If my reaction is to tone down the castles and wizards elements a little, that's just my own background making me sound like a "purist." And, truthfully, I think your version will sell better to classic fantasy buffs, and if that eventually meant a Tuala Morn Companion book, that's fine by me.

Re: Tuala Morn Discussion As I said, I think you got more right than wrong. I'm skeptical of the traditional overdependence on migration as an explanation for the distribution of Celtic languages and material culture, but you need that for a low fantasy setting inspired by the legends and early literature. It's all over the Book of Invasions, after all.

Re: Tuala Morn Discussion Those are both good reads, and especially useful for a "heroic" Tuala Morn campaign, since Llywelyn tones down the sometimes-outrageous escapades in the Tain a fair bit. For a sense of old Irish law, too, her Finn Mac Cool is worth a look. I would also recommend Bard: The Odyssey of the Irish, which is Llywelyn's take on the Book of Invasions. The Horse Goddess and Druids are based on the older Hallstatt culture and on the Roman conquest of Gaul, respectively, but the latter may still be worthwhile for another perspective on those ever-elusive druids. I was a bit surprised not to see Llywelyn in the Tuala Morn bibliography, but maybe Steve hadn't run across her work before. I always find her "adaptations" of the legends and early literature entertaining and well-researched, and they often ride an interesting borderline between historical novel and low fantasy. Can't go wrong.

Re: Tuala Morn Discussion No, it isn't. Either a working knowledge of the setting or of its inspirations (if not both) is definitely a must, as you say. It wouldn't be bad preparation for prospective players to read Kinsella's translation of the Tain Bo Cualinge, for instance--especially for a "superheroic" game. I actually find it to be a fairly fast and entertaining read, compared to...oh, say, the Homeric epics.

Re: Tuala Morn Discussion

Re: Tuala Morn Discussion I was a bit surprised that Steve pushed those restrictions as hard as he did, but maybe that's because so many of the HERO supplements he writes have a more generic feel. Or maybe it's his own appreciation of the historical inspirations. Or both.

Re: Tuala Morn Discussion I'm still digesting Tuala Morn and playing around with character creation, but as a whole, I'm enjoying it. In the interest of disclosure, I'm also teaching a university night class in Celtic archaeology at the moment, and for this setting to be released now means that I'm really inhaling this stuff from every possible angle. By and large, I think Steve got things right. I'm not so interested in the bits that he included to give Tuala Morn a small dose of "classic fantasy"--the knights and wizards and so forth--and maybe that's partly because I'm personally more focused on Iron Age and Roman Europe than on the early medieval period. But Steve has an interesting take on druidism, a nice analog for Christianity that works with the setting (although I'd prefer to give the Golden Temple a little more room to be non-villainous in a campaign), and a big heaping dose of the right kind of cultural and political flavor. It's worth the money I spent on the PDF.

Re: [Hooks] News articles that could be Pulp Adventures How about the spear-fighting ape women recently discovered in the wilds of French West Africa?

Re: Genres HERO GAMES may want to avoid (intended to be humorous) I dare anybody to find any kind of "mythos" in Manos: The Hands of Fate.