Month: January 2022

Rambling about Lilliputian

by goobernuts

Lilliputian: Adventure on the Open Seas is a naval adventure RPG that has its roots in Mausritter and is compatible with Into the Odd and Cairn. It’s creator, Matthew Morris, expands on these rules-light games by adding 18th century navy and seafaring aesthetics and rules and procedures for exploring the seas, naval combat, upgrading ships, and rules for solo roleplaying. It is currently in crowdfunding for #ZiMo2022 so if that short description sounded interesting to you, consider supporting it!

Let me tell you about the stuff I found interesting about it! In a stream of paragraphs that don’t really flow very smoothly!

If you’re familiar with Into the Odd, Mausritter, Cairn, or any of the many wonderful ItO hacks out there, a lot of what’s in Lilliputian will sound familiar to you. Its game philosophies, principles for wardens and players, the core d20 roll-under system, character creation, advancement, etc. It’s a great, simple, and flexible base for a game. I mean, I’m making one myself.

It has a starter pack table like in Into the Odd, where a character starts with equipment based on their HP and highest attribute. The lower their HP and attribute, the better their starting equipment might be. The higher your HP and attribute, the worse off they are at the start. 

To give you an idea, someone with 6HP and 15 attribute score gets a staff, some notes about an island, and is disfigured. Meanwhile, someone with 1HP and 3-7 attribute score starts with a sword, a pistol, some armor, and has the ability to sense changes in the wind. It makes for a varied and somewhat balanced starting point for characters.

It adds stress mechanics. Whenever characters experience grave danger or bizarre events, they will suffer damage to their WIL attribute. Once their WIL reaches 0, they might get temporarily spooked, permanently traumatized, or even suffer a heart attack. It’s simple, but fits the setting very well.

Magic exists in the setting, but it’s extremely rare and potentially dangerous. All magic is in the form of single-use scrolls and talismans. Talismans are like Arcanum and Relics in Into the Odd and Cairn. They have limited use, but can be recharged.

Casting spells from scrolls is really interesting. Each scroll has an effect, and most will require you to roll a d6. Based on the roll, the one casting the spell might use up one of its limited uses, or even miscast and destroy the scroll completely. Miscasting a spell might have very dangerous and deadly consequences. 

You can choose to roll more d6s, enhancing the effects of the spells but also increasing the chances of a miscast. It has a degree of flexibility I like in magic, but also an element of danger that can make the game spicier.

Travel and exploration works sort of similarly to how I’ve been doing it in my own games, but Lilliputian’s rules are more polished. It abstracts time in a day into a resource called Watches, which is used for travel, resting, and other action that would take a lot of time. It uses exploding encounter dice, which I personally love, and even has an expanded one for open sea travels. It gives me inspiration for my own travel rules (when I get to writing it)

I’m making my own Cairn hack set in Filipino-inspired archipelago, so I was especially interested in Lilliputian’s naval rules. I was pleasantly surprised by how simple and usable it reads! It doesn’t add many new mechanics, it’s more of a recontextualization of the mechanics that are already in Into the Odd. 

Ships now have HP and attribute scores. Losing HP leaves a ship vulnerable, but it is attribute loss that actually disables a ship. Initiative is decided by the speed of ships or surprise. There are different scales to ships, giving bigger ships an advantage over smaller ships. 

It has a great list of ships of different scales, it has a short list for ship upgrades that encourages Game Masters to adjudicate more, it has variable ship weapons. It has a lot of fun ideas for naval gameplay.

The available PDF on its itch page is currently a work-in-progress and only covers the player rules, but Lilliputian has a lot of great ideas for adapting the rules-light core of Into the Odd, Mausritter, and Cairn to a swashbuckling, high seas sort of adventure, without adding unnecessary bulk. I’m really excited for the final product!

Creating an Early Philippines-inspired D&D World – Local Cultures and Additional Trades and Professions

by goobernuts

It’s a new week so let me share some stuff that I changed or added to my setting!

Local Cultures

I wanted to make each local culture more distinct from each other, so I gave each their own sort of specialization. Some of these specializations are more apparent in their professions, which I’ll get to later.

The Taga-Bundok have little to no seafaring traditions and are mostly in nomadic hunter-gatherer setups. Some semi-nomadic Barangays with farms exist, but don’t produce as much crop as other cultures.

War for them is a means of protecting their families and home.

They have a sort of better-you-than-me attitude about the other cultures having problems with colonizers, as their habitat and environment is too difficult for large forces to travel.

The Taga-Buwaya has a big focus on trade and farm production. They have turned the Buwaya’s flatlands into irrigated farms, producing a lot more than forest swiddens. Their seaside Barangays are bustling trade ports, profiting from being the platform of trade between inland Barangays and foreign merchants.

War for them is more of a business venture than anything. If there is no profit to be made, no sails will be raised.

Because of their business-focused attitude, many of them welcomed the colonizers with open arms, sensing profit to be made.

The Taga-Pawikan are experts in seafaring. They have the most fractured group of Islands, so skill in sailing is a must. Their boats are also the most finely made in all of the Islands. Their Sea Raids are feared by all others.

War for them is a means of attaining glory and wealth.

The colonizers have fractured their Islands even more. War is being waged between those who support the colonizers presence, and those who want them off the Islands. 

The Taga-Haribon are fearsome warriors who celebrate the Sultan, a royalty above Datus. Their island-wide organization is unmatched, and so they have been able to prevent a major colonizer foothold on the Haribon.

War for them is a means of establishing the Sultan’s rule. That has not changed in the face of colonizers.

They have seen what the colonizers have done to the other Islands, so they are doing all they can to prevent the same from happening in the Haribon.

Trades and Professions

I edited and added some trades. There are now professions that are unique or have a subset that is unique to a specific culture.

All cultures have Magsasaka, farmers, but only the Taga-Buwaya have the Masawarat, farmers who innovate in irrigation technology.

All cultures have Kabalangay, paddlers/oarsmen, but only the Taga-Pawikan have Mandaragat, sailors capable of rowing in complete sync from sunrise to sunset.

The Taga-Bundok’s Mangangayam were the Islands’ first hunters. Their accuracy with the bow is unmatched. They taught their ways to the other cultures, creating Mangangaso, but the latter pales in comparison.

The Taga-Bundok’s Mangkukutkot have a monopoly on the ores of the caves on the Islands.

All cultures have Karakal, merchants, but this profession is mostly part-time mixed in with a warrior profession. Only in the Taga-Buwaya have folk taken this profession full-time. 

Because they have less warriors, the Taga-Buwaya sometimes resort to less direct means of warfare. Infiltration, information-gathering, and sabotage. These are things the Tiktik are trained to do (yes they are named after the kind of aswang who creep onto roofs or under floors to eat babies still in their mothers’ wombs). 

Manglalantak are musketmen, trained in all manner of blackpowder artillery. The Taga-Haribon were the first to incorporate these weapons to their forces, and so their Saksama have the most experience and precision with them.

Sakay-sakay warriors riding atop beasts of burden. They are rarely seen on the Islands because of their limitations when it comes to crossing rivers. Only the Taga-Haribon have tamed elephants and ride them as Sakay-sakay Gaja.

Tambalan are those who dedicate themselves to healing diseases, but in a broader sense than just sicknesses of the body. Disruptions of harmony such as War, distrust, conflict, destruction, and what not are all included in their concept of disease. 

Creating an Early Philippines-inspired World – Ancestries Physical Features Tables and Feast Food Table

by goobernuts

As I’m going through my setting document and trying to trim off some fat, I’m also doing some revisions and additions here and there. One part that got a significant revision is the Ancestries. Let me take you through it.

Changes to Ancestries

First of all, I wrote a bit more depth into the Tawong Kinis or Smoothfolk (previously Smoothmen). They are the sort of default human ancestry, so I have to admit I didn’t really know how to characterize them. Characterizing the other ancestries were easy, because I could draw from their animal characteristics or cultural significance. 

What I did was draw inspiration from how early Filipinos decorated themselves. The Tawong Kinis see their other Tawo siblings and take inspiration from them. Their hair, their obsession with wearing gold, their piercings, their tattoos. It may be an act caused by insecurity of being featureless.

I also added a d6 physical features table for all the ancestries, because more random tables is good.

Tawong Kinis (Smoothfolk) Physical Features

  1. Tattoos covering apppendages.
  2. Hair flowing from head to knees.
  3. Teeth pinned with gold scales.
  4. Tattoos covering face.
  5. Teeth filed to be saw-shaped.
  6. Multiple ear piercings.

I also revised the other ancestries to be inspired by a broader species rather than specific animals. Crocodilemen are now Scalefolk or Tawong Kaliskis. Ratmen are now Bristlefolk. Carabaomen are now Hornfolk. Treemen are now Treefolk, not much change there actually.

Tawong Kaliskis (Scalefolk) Physical Features

  1. Rough, bumpy back scales.
  2. Loose, scaly skin.
  3. Long, slender tail.
  4. Slightly slimy to the touch.
  5. Brightly colored.
  6. Long, moon-shaped claws

Tawong Balahibo (Bristlefolk) Physical Features

  1. Long, bushy tail.
  2. Large ears.
  3. Black and white fur.
  4. Dark stripes along the spine.
  5. Elongated snout.
  6. Hairless, flexible tail.

Tawong Sungay (Hornfolk) Physical Features

  1. Moon-shaped horns, dark fur.
  2. V-shaped horns, dark fur.
  3. Tusks, bushy mane.
  4. Tusks, bushy beard.
  5. Long, thin antlers, brown fur with white spots.
  6. Short, thick antlers, plain brown fur.

Tawong Puno (Treefolk) Physical Features

  1. Long, knife shaped leaves atop head.
  2. Fan-shaped palm leaf crown atop head.
  3. Long, fine vines flowing from head.
  4. Smooth, green, fibery skin.
  5. Flowers and orchids sprout from parts of skin.
  6. Green, soft moss covering parts of skin

I had the idea of adding Tawong Pangil or Fangfolk, based on tigers, dogs and other predatory mammals, but I thought I should probably finish edits first before adding anything new. Some other day, maybe.

Feast Food Table

What I’m doing to paragraphs that were previously just me listing down stuff is turning them into random tables. Much more interesting than long paragraphs, for sure.

So here’s a d6 + d4 table of what’s on the table during a feast.

What is served in the feast? (roll d6 across and d4 down)

1. Boiled2. Roasted/Smoked3. Fried4. Steamed5. Sauces6. Drinks
1. Sweet potato1. Game meat1. Minced meat1. Rice1. Shrimp paste1. Coconut juice
2. Purple yam2. Fish2. Minced fish2. Flour and grated coconut cake2. Vinegar2. Sugarcane wine
3. Banana3. Shellfish3. Minced vegetables3. Fish3. Fish sauce3. Rice wine
4. Sago4. Leafy vegetables4. Rice cake4. Shellfish4. Honey4. Sap and palm wine
I doubt modern boodle fights changed much from early Filipino feasts! Piles of food, all on banana leaves, eaten by hand!

A Small Update!

by goobernuts

Hi! It’s been a while since I wrote on the blog about my Classical Filipino setting. I used the holidays as an excuse to put down editing it and refresh my mind a bit. Now that that’s done, I’m back on working on it.

I received some very, very valuable feedback on my setting. Lemme ramble about those and what I’m doing to address the feedback.

1. Readability and conciseness. As it is, the setting is a 17k word document full of paragraphs in the perspective of an in-world character with a vague identity. It would get tiring to read and also would be a chore to find a specific detail. It needs to be more of a reference doc than a lecture.

That’s the major thing I’m working on. I have to balance the bullet points and the flavor. It ain’t easy, but I’m up for the challenge.

2. Show the multiplicity of cultures better. I’m thinking of more ways to make the cultures in my setting more distinct from each other. There were a lot shared between the cultures of the different peoples on the archipelago, but each one were still different in many ways. If my own setting’s cultures could reflect that, it will be all the better for it.

Acting on a suggestion, I wrote some professions to have come from or unique to specific cultures, as well as adding a few more. I’m still thinking of other ways to do this, but this will do for now. I might write about the new professions in a blog later on.

3. More hooks, more stories. There should be more tales or even just snippets of it to bite into, to grasp onto. Stuff that can help readers imagine themselves in the world.

I haven’t done much to remedy this yet. I’m taking cues from Mitsa, which has plot starters after every section. Small stories that a GM can to plunge their players into. I doubt alternating between editing mode and writing mode is very efficient, though. I’m just trying to find the groove again.

4. Writing more from the ground up. Focusing on the locales, on the smaller details, rather than the big picture.

This is something I’ll try to address much later on. After I finish with this, I want to try looking at my setting with a microscope and making small adventures about the smaller parts of the Islands. The Locales section in my setting doc are sort of prompts for myself to detail out in the future.

There are more but smaller details I have to fix. These changes might be cause for their own blog post, who knows. I just wanted to write an update to let people know I’m still working hard on this project. See you next week!