Merry (Lemurian) Christmas!

A slayer-iffic Santa by Conor Burke

A lot has happened since my last post (29 June 2021), much of it involving eldercare and heavy-duty adulting, but the impending release of Ludospherik's Barbarians of Lemuria Mythic+ Edition has got me thinking about sword and sorcery blogging again. So here I am with holidays wishes—and BoL stats for the Lemurian version of a certain jolly old elf!

KRINGAL OF VALGARD

Attributes
Strength 2
Agility 1
Mind 0
Appeal 1

Combat
Initiative 1
Melee 2
Ranged 0
Defense 1

Careers

Barbarian 1

Beastmaster 1

Mercenary 1

Thief 1

Resources
Lifeblood 10
Hero Points 5

Gear
Valgardian axe (d6, can be thrown 10')

Red gambeson (light armor, d6-3/1)

Large sack

Boons
Detect Deception

Stealthy

Trademark Weapon (Valgardian axe)

Flaws

Distinctive Appearance

Feels the Heat

Kringal grew up in frozen Valgard, helping his family herd the giant deer of the north. Lured south by mercenary company recruiters promising easy riches, Kringal soon grew tired of military life. He now dwells in Satarla, where he has acquired a reputation as a skilled second-story man, able to get in and out of houses without waking any of his targets ("he sees you when you're sleeping, he knows when you're awake"). He has an uncanny ability to distinguish truth from falsehood ("he knows if you've been bad or good") and can be readily recognized by his obsession with wearing red garments. He plans to return home once he has acquired a sizable hoard—enough to challenge for leadership of his clan.

[Uncharted Worlds] Kylara Vatta

I'm currently blowing my way through Vatta's War, Elizabeth Moon's five-volume series about the adventures of Kylara "Ky" Vatta, Space Academy dropout and merchant trader scion. (This is so I can get up to speed before starting Cold Welcome, the first book in the new Vatta's Peace series.) I don't want to give away any spoilers, but I can say that the Ky Vatta who appears at the beginning of Trading in Danger (the first book in the series) is a perfect starting character for Uncharted Worlds (or pretty much any other SF RPG).

Vatta's home planet, Slotter Key, provides her with a Productive Origin. (Given the interstellar reputation of Vatta Enterprises, I considered giving her a Privileged Origin, but it's clear that Vattas are expected to work for a living, no matter how much money they may have inherited.) Vatta's not particularly intellectual, so "Education" is out as an Origin skill, and so is "Calibrations"—she's not much of a mechanic. "Acumen" is an obvious choice for a merchanter's child, but she'll be able to get that skill from her Commercial Career (see below). I'm therefore opting for "Vocation": Vatta could use the Expertise boost, and her hard-working nature justifies the choice.

Careers are a no-brainer: her parents raised her from infancy to be Commercial, and her contrary nature led her to the Slotter Key Space Academy and thus Military. Because Vatta never made it out of the Academy (she's kicked out for political reasons on p. 2 of Trading in Danger), one skill from Military should be enough, and "Authority" is the obvious pick here. As the plot of the novel will go on to make clear, Vatta may be a neophyte captain, but she knows how to command her crew. The remaining two skills a starting UW character gets will come from Commercial: "Marketing" (Vatta knows where to go to get what she needs) and the aforementioned "Acumen" (she knows how to read the market once she arrives).

Stats are also straightforward. Vatta puts her +2 in Mettle (courage under fire is her forte), one of her +1s in Physique (she is deceptively tough for her age and size), and the other +1 in Influence (she's certainly charismatic). Her 0 goes into Expertise, which is subsequently raised to a +1 courtesy of her "Vocation" Origin skill (she's not a genius, but she knows how to apply herself). Her -1 has to go into Interface: she's no hacker, even if she knows her way around an cerebral implant.

The mission she's given by her father (to deliver some goods in an aging hull en route to the scrapyard) is straightforward enough, so her Advancement trigger is "A cargo is exchanged." The clear choice for a Workspace is "Mercantile," but here Vatta's GM might intervene and make the space a bit less cushy (to reflect the decrepit condition of Vatta's ship, the Glynnis Jones).

Characters normally start play with a Class 0 Attire outfit, but Vatta's fashion-minded mother has made sure that she has a stylish Vatta Enterprises uniform (Class 1 Uniform, Impressive) as well. She also has her setting's ubiquitous cerebral implant (Class 1 Cybermod, Head, Implement-Broadcast Kit), allowing her to connect to local networks, transmitting and receiving information. Finally, her Class 2 asset is a top-of-the-line Deere Ltd. pressure suit (Class 1 Simple, Tough, Sealed).

It's always a good sign when a game system allows you to accurately translate the abilities and qualities of a fictional protagonist from a related genre, and that's certainly the case here with UW.

[Macchiato Monsters] Taking Character Creation for a Spin

Let's make a Macchiato Monsters player character!

1. Roll dice to generate ability scores.

The rules say to "Roll 3d6 in order" for the classic six abilities, but I haven't done that since rolling up my first character in 1980. I'll use Method I from the AD&D Dungeon Master's Guide instead: roll 4d6 in order, dropping the lowest die each time. With a little help from Brock Jones's Online Die Roller, I get this array of scores:

STR 10, INT 12, WIS 12, DEX 14, CON 15, CHA 9

Right away I see that I'm looking at someone quite tough and fast with more than a modicum of cleverness and common sense as well. I am allowed by the MM rules to switch one pair of scores; in this case, I'll swap DEX for CON:

STR 10 (50%), INT 12 (60%), WIS 12 (60%), DEX 15 (75%), CON 14 (70%), CHA 9 (45%)

The parenthetical percentages above aren't officially part of the MM rules; I've just included them as a means of gauging the character's chances when trying to roll under a given score on an ability check.

2. Create a trait.

There are no set classes and races in MM, so I have lots of flexibility in choosing one free trait (race, occupation, background, or faction). For the sake of this character creation exercise, I'll make my life easy and go with the assumption of a standard D&D-esque fantasy world. High DEX and CON point me toward a roguish character of the dwarf/gnome/halfling variety. I like dwarves, so let's go with that for race. As for occupation, I'm going to steal a page from 13th Age and say that this character uses his thievish talents to recover treasures "borrowed" from the dwarves over the years. In other words, my trait is:

REPO DWARF

In game terms, this trait will give me advantage on ability checks related to "either repossessing" stolen treasures or being a dwarf. I could conceivably cram more information into that trait (e.g., "Repo Dwarf for His Subterranean Majesty" or "Repo Dwarf from the Pox Cities") to gain advantage in additional contexts, but my read of the MM community is that traits preferably consist at most of two elements combined. I'm more than willing to be corrected on this point, though!

3. Record hit die.

A straightforward step: all MM characters begin with 1d6 HD.

4. Choose two character creation options.

Here's where I can make choices that flesh out my character mechanically: enhance a score of 10 or less, write down an additional trait, gain a second hit die, undergo Magic Training to acquire two spells, undergo Combat Training to get a larger hit die and proficiency with bigger weapons and stronger armor, or undergo Specialist Training to get just about any other type of capability.

I'm not interested in boosting my STR or CHA, nor do I want to cast spells. "Repo Dwarf" covers everything I want in a trait right now, so I'll pass over that option as well. A second hit die is certainly in a dwarf's wheelhouse, but I am going to hold off on that now for reasons to be revealed in the next step of the process.

That leaves Combat Training and Specialist Training, and I'm more than happy to take both. One level of Combat Training raises my hit die to d8 and allows me to handle d8 weapons and armor; most rogue concepts could probably get by with d6 weapons and armor, but I envision dwarven rogues as packing more serious kit. As for "Specialist Training," I'm going to take "B&E" so as to be able to get through a locked door without a check once per day.

5. Roll hit points.

I haven't rolled hit points while playing D&D at first level since the 1980s—and I'm not about to start now. So I'll just take 8 HP and go my merry way. (The official MM rules allow characters to burn a permanent point of CON to get a reroll, so no one is stuck with 1 HP.)

6. Roll for languages.

At the start of play, characters check INT, WIS, and CHA to see what languages (if any) they know beyond their native tongue (or the common trade language). I rolled a 2 against my INT of 12, a 9 against my WIS of 12, and a 13 against my CHA of 9. So Dwarven and two other languages: the humans' Tradespeak for the first and Goblin for the second (since those little buggers are often in illicit possession of dwarven artifacts).

7. Roll for equipment.

The final step is probably the most distinctive of MM's character creation steps: equipment isn't purchased with randomly rolled funds (e.g., the traditional 3d6x10 of old school D&D). Instead, you receive a d20, a d12, a d10, a d8, a d6, and a d4 to roll on any combination of equipment tables (equipment and food, wealth and valuables, melee weapons, missile weapons, and armor). The idea here is that beginning adventurers are cobbling together their kit.

I want a shot at thieves' tools, so I'll spend my d20 on the equipment and food table. A natural 20 (!) gives me peppered cheese and cider (dR4), a fine horse, cartographer's tools (dR8), and torches (dR6). Clearly I'm on the trail of something big.

Since I didn't get thieves' tools, I may have to buy them. That requires cash, so I spend my d12 on wealth and valuables. Whew! A result of 8 gives me a leather pouch of silver (dR8). That won't get me high-end lock picks, but dR6 is better than nothing. (If I'm reading the price guidelines correctly, a pouch of silver isn't enough to purchase quality gear worth dR8 in value.)

Treasure thieves don't hand over their ill-gotten goods easily, so I need weapons. A d6 on the melee weapons table produces a hammer (d6), and a d8 on the missile weapons table results in a quiver of dR6 darts (d6). I feel like I need a bit more attack power, so I roll my d4 on the melee table and acquire ... a dR10 bag of polished rocks (d4).

Yipes! I hope my d10 pays off on the armor table. I roll a 7, good enough for a leather harness (dR6) that at least looks sufficiently roguish. That decision to take Combat Training doesn't seem so wise retrospectively, but I suppose that having 8 HP will let me live long enough to loot better-quality weapons and armor—right?

8. Put it all together.

Here's my character in pure game terms:

AUDO (medieval variation on the name of Emilio Estevez's character from Repo Man)

Level: 1
STR 10, INT 12, WIS 12, DEX 15, CON 14, CHA 9
Traits: Repo Dwarf
HD: 1d8
HP: 8
Abilities: Combat Training (to d8), Specialist Training: B&E
Languages: Dwarven, Goblin, Tradespeak
Gear: bag of dR10 polished rocks (d4), cartographer's tools (dR8), peppered cheese and cider (dR4), fine horse, hammer (d6), leather harness (dR6), leather pouch of silver (dR8), quiver (dR6) of darts (d6), torches (dR6)

I'm happy with these results. Going in order with the abilities made me choose a concept I probably wouldn't have considered (the classic defense of old school ability generation), and I'm fine with that. It's balanced by the character's freeform traits and training. In some ways I would have preferred the "pool of GP" approach to equipment, but I'm willing to bend in the direction of randomly determining gear (and the story behind said gear). Just don't try to make me give up my "4d6, drop lowest" and "maximum HP at first level"!

[Uncharted Worlds] James Holden

Right now I'm obsessed with two things: James S. A. Corey's Expanse setting (in both its novel and TV forms) and Sean Gomes's Uncharted Worlds RPG. And because I like to test out RPGs by seeing if they can replicate characters from other media, I thought I'd take a shot at using Uncharted Worlds to create James Holden, "the luckiest dipshit in the solar system" (episode 6, "Rock Bottom").

Unlike other RPGs in the Powered by the Apocalypse family, characters in Uncharted Worlds are not created using preestablished archetypal playbooks (e.g., the Gunlugger of Apocalypse World or the Spectre of Urban Shadows). Instead, UW characters are generated by combining two careers with a single origin and then selecting a combination of skills from those packages (three from the careers, one from the origin).

In Holden's case, his upbringing on a Montana farm would give him the Rustic origin. There are four skills associated with each origin (as well as with each career). The choices for Rustic characters are Hard Labor, Construction, Survival, and Chemistry. Hard Labor's description ("You can perform long grueling hours of physical labor with minimal rest") seems most suited to the Holden of the novels, so I'm going to select it. When I get around to selecting Holden's attributes, I will receive a +1 bonus to Holden's Physique stat.

On to careers. Holden's time serving as a First Lieutenant in the United Nations Navy makes Military an obvious choice here. Picking a second career is a bit harder: Holden could take Commercial or Industrial or Starfarer to reflect his time serving as XO on the Pur & Kleen ice-hauler Canterbury—all three seem thematically appropriate. He could also take Personality since that's what he becomes over the course of the series: the most notorious man in human space. But I think it's best to hold off on Personality (and the Fame skill that comes with it) until later in the notional Expanse campaign. Looking at the other three careers, I'm going to reject Commercial as too financial (Holden isn't anymore particularly adept at business than the rest of the crew) and Industrial as too much in Amos Burton's wheelhouse as the group mechanic. That leaves me with Starfarer, which seems perfect for Holden and his system-roving ways.

The skills I select from Holden's Military and Starfarer careers are (from Military) Toughness and Authority and (from Starfarer) Weightless. Toughless lets Holden suffer two injuries of each severity level instead of one (necessary for our much beaten-on protagonist) while Authority reflects Holden's innate charisma, allowing him to convert even resistant NPCs to his latest righteous cause. With Weightless, Holden can ignore the Clumsy trait that otherwise comes with zero-gravity movement.

Time to distribute stats. UW has six stats (Mettle, Physique, Expertise, Influence, and Interface), and characters have an array of +2 / +1 / +1 / 0 / -1 to assign to these stats. Influence (personality and charisma) is the definite home for the +2 value. As the generic protagonist figure, Holden is generally an all-rounder, so I'm going to put the +1 values in his Mettle (courage, reflexes, discipline) and his Expertise (education, cleverness). Then I'm going to leverage Holden's Hard Labor skill to turn a 0 in Physique (strength, fitness, good lucks) into a +1. That leaves me with a -1 for Interface (technological aptitude, programming). Holden's not a total ignoramus with tech, but really he has Naomi, Amos, and Alex to handle all the beep-boop-beep stuff.

At this point, players select an advancement method from a career they wish to pursue. These are triggers that allow the group to check XP when set off by any character. For example, Starfarer's advancements include such triggers as "A passenger reaches a destination" or "A piloting maneuver causes a reversal." The expectation is that characters will start off looking to advance one of their beginning careers, but this is not mandatory—and that's good since I want Holden to pursue his "famous troublemaker" ambition right from the get-go. One of the Personality triggers is "A statement starts or ends a fight," and that seems ... appropriate for the man whose broadcast message on the destruction of the Cant begins an intersystem war.

The remaining steps of UW character creation focus on gear. Characters can add a workspace from one of their careers to a ship, station, or city (based on the scope of the campaign), and they can select  a package of personal assets (clothing, weapons, and other gear). I'm not going to bother with these steps at present.

Overall, I think UW does an excellent job of representing Holden in game terms. The other members of the Rocinante crew fit the system as well: Naomi is a Galactic Industrial Technocrat (i.e., a Belter engineer and coder); Amos, an Impoverished Scoundrel Industrial (a mechanic from the mean streets of future Baltimore); and Alex, a Colonial Military Starfarer (origin aside, the Martian pilot is the closest in skill set and archetype to Holden). Toss in Miller as a Crowded Academic Clandestine (Belter neo-noir detective), and you've got the main characters down cold.

[Barbarians of Lemuria] Terry Pratchett's Moist von Lipwig

The news of Terry Pratchett's death last Thursday hit me harder than I expected, probably since I had only recently finished teaching Going Postal for the first time (and consequently binging on other  Discworld books—Feet of Clay and Raising Steam—as well). I wasn't a fan of Pratchett's at first: the Rincewind novels didn't appeal to me when I first encountered them as a teen in the 1980s. It wasn't until a friend convinced me to try Small Gods in the mid-1990s that I got the point and became a lifelong fan. The Tiffany Aching books are my particular favorites, but I have also assiduously followed the Death, Guards, and Industrial Revolution sub-series as well.

So as a tribute to Pterry I'd like to revisit my first Vargold post on his work by writing up a Barbarians of Lemuria Mythic Edition version of Moist von Lipwig to stand alongside my 2011 Barbarians of Lemuria Legendary Edition write-up for Captain Carrot Ironfounderson. I haven't had a chance to really read the Mythic Edition rules yet (despite backing the Kickstarter), so this should be fun.

Moist von Lipwig

Attributes

Strength 0

Agility 0

Mind 3

Appeal 1 

Combat

Initiative 2

Melee 0

Ranged 0

Defense 2

Careers

Beastmaster 0
Merchant 0
Scribe 1
Scoundrel 3

Resources

Lifeblood 10

Hero Points 5

Gear

Nothing noteworthy

Boons

Detect Deception
Master of Disguise
Silver Tongue

Flaws

City Dweller
Greed

These game stats represent Moist as he is in the novel just after he gets his first visit from an angel named Vetinari—so no golden suit yet, no avatar-y goings on, only the vaguest inklings of a change of heart. Attributes: Moist is almost Vetinari-clever, so he gets the maximum possible starting Mind score; his Appeal is only at 1 because his looks are rather average. Combat: Moist is not really much of a fighter (a plot point in Raising Steam), so I've put his points here into getting the jump on threats (so that Moist can run away) via Initiative and avoiding getting hit through Defense. Careers: His grandfather raised Lipzwigers, so there's some Beastmaster-potential in Moist; Merchant also gets a 0 to reflect Moist's ability to know just enough about the economy to scam people; Scribe has an actual level since Moist is an active forger; and Scoundrel, a variant of Thief, is obviously maxed out at 3 for our favorite conman. Boons and Flaws are all straightforward, obvious choices.

"Goodnight, sweet Hogfather, and flights of anthropomorphic
personifications sing thee to thy rest!"

[Supers!] Big Hero 6's Wasabi

With the DVD/Blu-Ray release of Disney's Big Hero 6 coming up on February 24th, I thought it might be fun to stat up at least one of the members of the team. So here's the Supers! Revised Edition sheet for Wasabi, my favorite character in the film.

Wasabi

Resistances (5D)
Composure 1D
Fortitude 3D
Reaction 2D
Will 3D

Aptitudes (8D)
Academia 3D (Lasers 4D, Applied Physics 4D)
Athleticism 2D
Fighting 2D
Technology 3D

Powers (7D)
Armor 3D (Device -1D)
Super Weapon 5D (Plasma Blades, Split Action 1D, Device -1D)

Advantages (1D)
I Brought This Along 1D ("What do you need, little man? Deodorant? Breath mint? Fresh pair of underpants?")

Disadvantages (-2D)
Enemy (Yokai/Callaghan) 1D
Minor Mental Hindrance ("A place for everything, everything in its place") -1D

Competency Dice (1D)

Since the characters in Big Hero 6 are all starting their characters, I built Wasabi using the standard Supers! amount of 20 build dice. He's a big guy, and he doesn't give up, so Fortitude and Will were his top Resistances. He is also easily flustered, so Composure at 1D seems appropriate. The Athleticism and Fighting Aptitudes reflect his experience with tai chi; I've given him "lasers" and "applied physics" as specializations for his Academia, but I could just as easily move "lasers" to be a Technology specialization. Note that Wasabi very deliberately doesn't have any extra dice in Vehicles ("You have to indicate your turn, it's the law!"). Powers are straightforward: his Big Hero 6 costume ("Anyone else's suit riding up on them?") doubles as high-quality Armor, and his plasma blades are a Super Weapon with a Split Action Boost (since he can use the blades independently of one another for attack and defense). The Advantage is an obvious choice given the quote I've attached to it. Even though Yokai/Callaghan's daughter is safe, he's still in play as a potential Enemy, and Wasabi's OCD is a definite Minor Mental Hindrance. I didn't give him a Phobia (Heights) because, while he whines about having to fly holding on to Baymax, he seems just fine fighting Yokai at various elevations. Finally, I left him with a Competency Die just because it's a good idea.

[Supers!] Brute Squad

Last night I started playing in a Supers! Revised campaign at my FLGS. I knew going into the game that I wanted to play a brick, but I was having trouble coming up with a concept that worked ... until a thesaurus search turned up "brute." Suddenly the light bulb went on: "brute" leads to "brute squad" leads to "brick with the ability to duplicate himself."

In other words ...

With this mental breakthrough, my character came together in a flash. Here are the stats for Brute Squad, a former henchman trying to make it as a hero:

Brute Squad

a.k.a. Andrew Irons

Resistances (7D)
Composure 2D
Fortitude 4D
Reaction 3D
Will 2D

Aptitudes (4D)
Athleticism 3D
Fighting 3D

Powers (12D)
Armor 4D
Duplicate Self 4D
Super Strength 4D

Advantages (1D)
Is That Your Best Shot?

Disadvantages (-4D)
Enemy (Wise Guy)
Obligation (Parole Officer)
Social Hindrance (Disreputable)
Social Hindrance (Ugly)

Competency Dice (2D)

Backstory
Andrew Irons grew up on the wrong side of the tracks. He didn't have many options in life, and his brutish looks didn't help him win friends and influence people. A crappy job in an unsafe factory exposed him to a bizarre chemical solution, granting him the typical brick power suite as well as the more unusual ability to duplicate himself. His newfound abilities made him particularly attractive to the villain community, and "Brute Squad" found himself working as a henchman to a number of different bad guys. But his heart was never in his villain work. In fact, when his last boss, the super-genius crime lord Wise Guy, ordered him to execute a captured superhero, Brute Squad not only refused to do the deed but turned on Wise Guy as well. After serving a shortened sentence on account of his face turn, Brute Squad tried to find legitimate work for a man of his talents. But this ex-con is having trouble finding anyone who trusts him: will he stay a hero, or will he fall back into a life of crime?

[13th Age] Red Nose Roger, 1st Level Human Ranger

Something I've been toying around with in my head for the last month or so is a series of thirteen first-level 13th Age characters—partially as a means of really familiarizing myself with all of the classes and races in the game, but also as a way to provide starting pre-gen characters for the larger 13th Age community. Putting together the stats for Sergeant Kesek, the dragonic commander, convinced me that I needed to follow through on this idea, and this post is thus the second in the series.

I'm a big fan of rangers as a class, especially when they're given access to pets. (My time playing a dwarf hunter in World of Warcraft is a big factor here.) Since I've already created a fourth-level ranger with the Animal Companion talent (Mim the gnome and her woolly rhino Loth), I thought I'd opt for something smaller this time round and go with Ranger's Pet as the core of the character. At which point I realized that I could generate a rat-catcher, everyone's favorite career from Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay, and give 13th Age fans game stats for the notorious "small but vicious dog."

A vermin hunter isn't the typical ranger hunter archetype, but then again the sewers of the Dragon Empire are nowhere near as tame as our more mundane sewers—albino alligators would be the least of a sewer-dweller's problems! So the Empire needs brave (desperate) heroes (losers) to journey below and protect its cities from drainage-dwelling monsters.

Red Nose Roger, Human Ranger

Level 1

STR 12 (+1), CON 16 (+3), DEX 18 (+4), INT 10 (0), WIS 14 (+2), CHA 8 (-1)

AC 18, PD 15, MD 11

HP 30, Recoveries 8 @ 1d8+3 per recovery

One Unique Thing: After my nose was bitten off while cleansing the Horizon sewers, the Archmage gave me a orichalcum replacement. Now I smell things that aren't there.

Icon Relationships: Archmage +1, Emperor +1, Prince of Shadows +1

Backgrounds: Born a beggar on the streets of Axis +4, kitchen drudge for the Imperial Court +4, licensed as one of His Imperial Majesty's Rat-Catchers +5

Racial Power: Quick to Fight

Class Talents: Favored Enemy (defaults to beasts), Ranger's Pet, Tracker

Feats: Favored Enemy (Adventurer), Ranger's Pet (Adventurer)

Basic Melee Attack: +5 vs. AC, 1d8+1 damage, 1 miss damage (iron-bound cudgel) or +5 attack, 1d6+1 damage, 1 miss damage (excessive knife)

Basic Ranged Attack: +5 attack vs. AC, 1d6+4 damage (sling)

Gear: Leather armor, iron-bound cudgel, excessive knife, sling, 25 gp

Roger's backgrounds give him ins with the urban poor and the servants dwelling downstairs in the houses of the nobility. His efforts to stop a particularly bad infestation in one of the Emperor's palaces led to his appointment as an Imperial Rat-Catcher—a license that has taken him to the sewers of all the cities on the Midland Sea. It's this third background that was picked up with Roger's urban variant of the Tracker talent: as suggested by the folks on the 13th Age Google+ page, the text of Roger's Tracker talent reads "urban" where the book says "wilderness" and vice versa. To gain facility in tracking beyond the city walls, Roger will need to acquire the relevant feats (now inverted to cover wilderness environments). Roger's backgrounds account for his positive Icon relationship with both the Archmage and the Emperor—but a man can't spend as much time in the sewers as Roger has without developing a working relationship with the Prince of Shadows as well. Roger just never mentions this to his superiors in the Imperial Household.

Snapper, Small but Vicious Dog

Abilities: Counter-bite, Tough

Snapper was obviously destined to take the Counter-bite ability, but I also wanted him to have that irrepressible mutt quality. I therefore used Crooked Roger's second feat choice (the one he got from being human) to purchase the Adventurer feat for Ranger's Pet and cover the two ability slots needed for Tough. The result is a nasty little bastard who will nip anyone getting too close to his master.

[13th Age] Sergeant Kesek, 1st Level Dragonic Commander

William O'Connor kicking it.

One of my favorite aspects of Fourth Edition Dungeons & Dragons was the game's inclusion of the dragonborn as a player character race. Humanoid dragons are a logical extrapolation of the typical D&D universe—that they weren't core before 2008 has always surprised me. (Does it have something to do with the perception that a breath weapon ability is overpowered? I can't say.) Anyway, I loved everything about the race and made my first Fourth Edition character a dragonborn warlord named Sergeant Kesek.

When I picked up 13th Age, I was pleased to see that dragonborn had made it into the game in the form of "dragonics" or "dragonspawn." But the game did not yet have a warlord class analog ... until the commander came along in 13 True Ways. I've got my PDF copy of the book at last (waiting on the hardcopy), and I thought that I could test-drive the class by putting together a 13th Age version of Sergeant Kesek. Here goes ...

Sergeant Kesek, Dragonic Commander

Level 1

STR 17 (+3), CON 14 (+2), DEX 10 (+0), INT 10 (0), WIS 12 (+1), CHA 16 (+3)

AC 16 (17 w/shield), PD 13, MD 14

HP 27, Recoveries 8 @ 1d8+2 per recovery

One Unique Thing: I'm the sole survivor of the Crusader's Brimstone Falls campaign ... and the Diabolist is the one who saved me.

Icon Relationships: Emperor +1, Diabolist +1/-1, Crusader -1

Backgrounds: Hard-bitten mercenary sergeant +4, carouser extraordinaire +2, specialist in dragon lore +2

Racial Power: Breath Weapon (quick action, close quarters, +5 vs. PD, 1d6 fire damage)

Class Features: Command Points, Fight from the Front, Weigh the Odds

Class Talents: Armor Skills, Combat Maneuver (Carve an Opening), Martial Training

Commands: Rally Now!, Save Now!, Try Again

Tactics: Basic Tactical Strike

Feats: Fight from the Front (Adventurer)

Basic Melee Attack: +4 vs. AC, 1d10+3 damage, 1 miss damage (2-handed glaive) or +4 attack, 1d8+3 damage, 1 miss damage (1-handed longsword)

Basic Ranged Attack: +1 attack vs. AC, 1d6 damage (short bow)

Gear: Half-plate armor, shield, glaive, scimitar, short bow

If I've done my build right, Kesek is a lead-from-the-front Sergeant Striker figure—John Wayne with scales. His OUT is based on the vestigial backstory I developed for his original Fourth Edition incarnation: he and his fellow PC Cynfael (human rogue) were the only survivors of the massacre of Sulech's Heartbiters. Here I tied it into the Crusader's conflict with the Diabolist: Kesek hates the Crusader for the debacle at Brimstone Falls, but is not sure why the Diabolist saved his life. Was it just a whim of hers, or is he somehow part of her long-range plan to unleash Hell on the Empire? Either way, he owes her a life-debt.

[13th Age] Gnome Ranger Mim and Her Woolly Rhino Loth

Back when I played World of Warcraft, my character was a dwarf hunter—primarily because of my penchant for woodsy characters. I soon discovered the charms of pets, though, an enchantment that has reached the point of RPG evaluation criterion. (Seriously! I find myself judging games based on how easily they integrate pets among other companion NPCs.) Although my character had many pets, including a six-legged alligator named Crocostimpy, his favorite was the woolly white rhino he picked up from the Wrath of the Lich King expansion. Said rhino was named Alexei (after Marvel Comic's Rhino), and his most charming feature was the nearly subsonic thundering sound made by his feet as he charged around Azeroth.

So I was thrilled to realize, while making a Ranger for a 13th Age game at my FLGS, that I could reskin the Boar Animal Companion as a Woolly Rhino. (All Animal Companions in 13th Age share the same base stats, being differentiated only by a single trait; this makes diversifying one's pet beyond the six book options extremely simple.) Because the only thing cooler than having a rhino as a pet is riding one's rhino pet, I opted to make my character a gnome. Here are the current stats for Mim the ranger and her rhino Loth:

MIM, GNOME RANGER

Level 4

STR 13 (+1), CON 15 (+2), DEX 18 (+4), INT 10 (+0), WIS 15 (+2), CHA 10 (+0)

AC 20 (22 vs. OA b/c Small), PD 17, MD 14

HP 72, Recoveries 10 @ 4d8+2 per recovery

One Unique Thing: I know what the North Wind is saying

Icon Relationships: Archmage +/–1, Dwarf King +1, Orc Lord –1

Backgrounds: Woolly rhino wrangler +4, Frost Range guide +4, Flunked out of illusionist school in Horizon +2

Racial Powers: Confounding, Minor Illusions, Small

Class Talents: Animal Companion x2 (woolly rhino), Lethal Hunter, Two-Weapon Mastery

Feats: Animal Companion x3 (rhino adds Escalation Die to attacks, rhino can attack 2x in a round 1x per day, rhino has +1 to PD and MD), Extra Backgrounding (increases to "Woolly rhino wrangler" and "Frost Range guide") Two-Weapon Mastery (adds level to miss damage)

Basic Melee Attack: +9 attack, 4d6+2 damage, 8 miss damage (2 hand axes)

Basic Ranged Attack: +8 attack, 4d6+4 damage, 4 miss damage (thrown hand axe)

LOTH, MIM'S WOOLLY RHINO

Level 3

AC 19, PD 18, MD 14

HP 45

Companion Power: +1 attack when Loth moves before attacking

Basic Melee Attack: +9 attack, 3d6 damage

Mim has had three Incremental Advances since she began play, adding both a feat and a talent as well as increasing her hit points. She also has a few magic items she's never really used in play (they're objects the other players/characters didn't want, and they don't fit Mim's theme); I didn't bother including them as a result.

I'm really happy with the combined effect of Mim's One Unique Thing and her Backgrounds: they give her the wintry effect I was after as well as defining how she differs from the stereotypical gnome. Finally, it's quite clear to me that animal companions are one area where 13th Age has it all over Dungeons & Dragons: the latter game's CR 1/4 limit on a Beastmaster Ranger's companion choices has really undermined what's cool about animal companions in what appears to be the name of game balance.

[Supers!] Ms. Marvel (a.k.a. Kamala Khan)

To celebrate the news that Supers! Revised is now available in print format, I've decided to stat up Kamala Khan, the new Ms. Marvel (as of issue #5 of her eponymous title). I love the story that G. Willow Wilson (writer), Adrian Alphona (art), and Ian Herring (colors) are telling about Jersey City's first Pakistani-American superhero—especially the way Alphona depicts Kamala's power set.

RESISTANCES (5D total)
Composure 2D
Fortitude 2D
Reaction 2D
Will 3D

Even though she's just a teenager with no training, I've given Kamala 2D in her two physical Resistances to reflect the toughness upgrade most characters get along with their superpowers. She's a fairly grounded character, so 2D for Composure as well. I did give her an extra die in Will to reflect her stubborn determination to do what's right even if it gets her grounded.

APTITUDES (2D total)
Academia 2D
Art & Craft 2D

Not a lot of Creation Dice to spend here: Kamala is an ordinary high school student. She's smart and studious, so I bumped her Academia a die. I also gave her a die in Art & Craft: she writes well-received Avengers fanfic, and she does a solid job of kit-bashing her costume.

POWERS (11D total)
Regeneration 4D (complication: only out of combat)
Shape Change 4D (complication: only humanoid forms)
Size Control 3D (down to 9 inches, up to 18 feet)
Stretching 2D (up to 20 feet)

Metaphorically, Kamala is figuring out who she is—and thus she gets a power suite reflecting the instability of her identity. It's also clearly a fun set of powers for Alphona to draw. We've seen her turn into variations on Ms. Marvel as well as a store mannequin, so I thought the "only humanoid forms" restriction fit her current level of Shape Change. As for Regeneration, we know that she can only rapidly heal damage in her ordinary form; I phrased this as "only out of combat" but it could just as easily be "never in hero ID" or some such. Willing to take suggestions on refining this, especially since she also apparently needs to eat like the Wally West Flash to fuel the power.

ADVANTAGES (2D total)
Dumb Luck (1 reroll per session)
Occupation (superhero fangirl, 1 related reroll per session)

Kamala has been lucky rather than smart so far in her hero career. (Issue #5 suggests she's starting to get a handle on things, so I can see her buying off this Advantage to pay for improved Powers soon, though.) She's also known among her friends as an Avengers fangirl: I gave her a die in Occupation to reflect her command of superhero trivia.

DISADVANTAGES (-3D total)
Enemy (the Inventor)
Secret (her hero ID is a secret from everyone except her friend Bruno)
Social Hindrance (she's a teenager and has to deal with all the limitations of being a minor)

Issue #5 ends with Kamala making her first archenemy, so a clear Disadvantage there. I've also given her Secret (for her secret identity) and Social Hindrance (she can be grounded by her parents). Note that I haven't created any Disadvantages to go along with either her Inhuman lineage (the book's done nothing with this yet) or her Muslim faith (she's observant, but I don't see her background limiting her in the way that her age does).

COMPETENCY DICE (3D total)

As you can see, Kamala fits nicely into the 20D/beginner level of Supers!

[Supers!] Kitty Pryde

Supers!, Simon Washbourne's wonderful superhero RPG from 2010, has just come out in a revised edition ($10 in PDF, POD coming soon) from Hazard Studio. I haven't put together an itemized list of the differences between the two editions, but my initial pass through the revised version convinces me that Hazard has done an excellent job of clarifying the rules without unnecessarily complicating them—a very welcome outcome in the case of this, my favorite superhero game.

Of course, it wouldn't be a superhero RPG without a character conversion or two to see how well the rules handle archetypal comics characters. So I decided to do a Supers! RED version of my favorite Marvel mutant, phasing wunderkind Kitty Pryde. Like Josh Whedon, I too was introduced to the X-Men through Kitty's eyes, and she's remained one of my favorite characters since then.

The version I've chosen to stat up is the Kitty we see at the end of Uncanny X-Men #143 (March 1981), the final issue of John Byrne's run on the title as penciller. In this story, Kitty has to survive the attack of an N'Garai without any help from her teammates. It's a classic done-in-one, a real rite-of-passage for Kitty that more or less marks her emergence as a superhero in her own right. So it's also a perfect point to stat her up as a beginning 20D Supers! character.

Resistances (4D)
Composure 2D
Fortitude 2D
Reaction 2D
Will 2D

Kitty is not yet 14 years old, so giving her Resistances higher than 2D (already a step beyond human average) seems wrong to me.

Aptitudes (8D)
Academia 3D
Aircraft 2D
Athleticism 2D
Fighting 2D
Performance 2D
Technology 3D

Kitty is explicitly described in the comics as a genius, so I've given her MA/MS equivalent ability in academics and technology. Her 2D in Performance reflects her skill as a dancer (and looks ahead to her ability as a storyteller), while her other 2D Aptitudes are part of her X-Men training (issue #143 explicitly makes a story beat out of her SR-71 Blackbird study).

Powers (7D)
Flight 1D (only when insubstantial)
Insubstantiality 5D
Super Weaponry 4D (touch attack, only versus electronics)

Phasing is Kitty's main mutant power, so it gets the most dice. Her ability to walk on air molecules (and thus "fly" at running speed) is handled as Flight—which she gets for free courtesy of her "Only when" Complication. I've also given her Super Weaponry to reflect her power's effect on electronic systems: it's not called out as part of her power set by issue #143, but we've seen her use it to free Wolverine form a cage during the Dark Phoenix storyline.

Disadvantages (-1D)
Secret: Mutant

Kitty doesn't look like a mutant, so she doesn't get the Social Hindrance that many other mutants (e.g., Nightcrawler, Toad, etc.) get. Instead, her mutant status is a lurking secret, and its exposure becomes a plot point in future story lines.

Competency Dice (2D)

 I left Kitty with two Competency Dice to reflect her protagonist power—and also as a way of saving up for the dice she'll be spending to make Lockheed the space dragon her Companion. Well, that and the ninja training. Chris Claremont was a rather generous GM when it came to character advancement!

Fate Accelerated: Mr. Baggins of Bag-End, Underhill

This is my one hundredth post on Vargold: The Wolf-Time, so I thought I'd dedicate it to J. R. R. Tolkien's Bilbo Baggins, the character who sparked my love of fantasy fiction back in the spring of 1979. I've never liked most of the RPG write-ups that I've seen for Bilbo; he usually ends up being awkwardly shoe-horned into a system designed for sword-and-sorcery action, something that's very far from his tea, cakes, and handkerchief-laden wheelhouse. Fate Accelerated does a much better job of accounting for this genteel fish out of water, so that's what I've used to generate the character sheet below.

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Bilbo Baggins

High Concept: Respectable Gentle-Hobbit
Trouble: A Took on His Mother's Side
Aspects: Would-Be Burglar

Approaches:

Clever +3, Careful +2, Sneaky +2, Forceful +1, Quick +1, Flashy +0

Stunts:

Because I am a Lover of Puzzles, I get a +2 whenever I Cleverly overcome obstacles generated by puzzles, riddles, and other conundrums.

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I decided to express Bilbo's fuddy-duddy Baggins qualities in his High Concept, leaving his suppressed Tookish penchant for adventure to his Trouble. Most of "An Unexpected Party" is about the conflict between these two sides of our protagonist. His remaining Aspect—"Would-Be Burglar"—reflects his position within Thorin and Company and will be repeatedly compelled by the dwarves' players to make Bilbo take the risks they hope to avoid. Because it's so perfect for his character, I stole Bilbo's Stunt right out of the main FAE rulebook (p. 31); at the start of the novel, it's encapsulated in his fascination with Thrain's map. My assumption is that Bilbo's remaining Aspects and Stunts will be determined in play. (In fact, I'd be tempted to skip ahead to "Inside Information" and make use of Bilbo's list of self-epithets to generate them.)

Thanks again to all my readers for sticking through my first hundred posts; I'm hoping to take much less than three years to produce the next hundred!

Beyond the Wall Blogtest: My Dwarven Adventurer's Raw Numbers

Everyone in the Beyond the Wall blogtest has agreed to first present the results of our playbook dice rolls and then to discuss those results before generating final character descriptions. Handling the process this way will also help us to collaborate on the village map and NPC list (rather than having to back away from decisions made in isolation).

Brett has already posted his dice rolls for his Would-Be Knight; Henry has done the same for his Self-Taught Mage. What follows are my results for my Dwarven Adventurer.

According to the playbook, my character has the following stats before any dice are rolled: STR 10, CON 12, DEX 8, INT 8, WIS 8, CHA 6.

The first set of tables answer the question "How did you come to the lands of men?"

In this section, the first subquestion is "What is the history of your clan?" I rolled an 8: "They have always worked the deepest mines, mining the richest veins of precious metals and gems." The mechanical bonuses for this result are +2 STR, +2 CON, and Skill: Mining. This subquestion comes with a map icon, indicating that I get to add a location to the village map. Since my character is from out of town, this decision is a bit tougher than the ones the human characters' players have to make. Perhaps there is a jeweler in town or a goldsmith who purchased the minerals dug up by my character's clan?

The second subquestion is "What drove you from the lands of your people?" I rolled another 8, getting the tragic result of "Your hold was destroyed by goblins." My STR gets another +2 bonus; my CON, a +1. Was my character the only dwarf from the hold to survive?

The final subquestion in this section of the playbook asks "When you left your own people, you found it difficult to live with humans. However, the other characters became your fast friends. Who else became your friend?" My roll of 3 on this table turned up a rather strange result: "Most humans found you too strange, and were frightened of you. You spent much time alone." Since this subquestion is supposed to generate an NPC for the list, it seems counter-intuitive for the playbook to produce a result that provides no hook for generating an NPC. My inclination is to roll again, but I thought I would consult with the group first about doing so. The mechanical bonuses for my roll are +1 CON, +1 INT, and +1 WIS.

At this point, I'm done with the first of the playbook's two major questions. My character's abilities are now as follows: STR 14, CON 16, DEX 8, INT 9, WIS 9, and CHA 6. He also has Skill: Mining.

Becoming a Level 1 Warrior, the character gains the class abilities Weapon Specialization and Knacks as well as a craft skill of my choosing. Since the specific nature of my class abilities will be decided by subsequent rolls on the tables, I initially thought that this skill would be as well. But that doesn't seem to be the case. Since the character came from a precious metals mine, I decide to make this skill "Goldsmithing."

Now I move on to the playbook's second major question: "What have you learned on your adventures so far?"

The first subquestion here is "How do you plan to build your hoard?" My roll is a 4, "You hold in your memory the location of the entrances to several lost elven tombs and plan to take their faerie gold." The mechanical benefits are +2 CON and Skill: Trapping. Can anyone say "plot hook for the GM"? I thought you could!

The next subquestion is "Like all respectable dwarves, you bear the weapon of your fathers. What is it?" With a roll of 2, my ancestors' weapon is apparently "A short but broad blade of heirloom steel." I get +3 CON and Weapon Specialization (+1 to hit, +2 to damage) with the short sword. I'm also supposed to add a building to the village map. Since this entire table is all about weapons, my choices here seem a bit limited: blacksmith, armorer, guardhouse. I'll take votes from the rest of the group.

(I'll also note that my character has run afoul of Beyond the Wall's maximum in-chargen ability value of 19. After these two tables, his CON should be 21—but it can't, so I settle for the 19 and hope I don't get another CON bonus.)

On the third subquestion table ("What was your first big hassle amongst the tall people? The friend to your right was there with you."), I roll a 1: "You were waylaid by a pack of giant spiders near the mountains. Your friend burned their webs as they descended from the trees, and gains +1 STR." My mechanic bonus is a +2 to STR and the Knack: Defensive Fighter (+1 AC). The friend bonus is a good one, given that the player to my virtual right is Brett's Would-Be Knight; he can definitely use a STR boost. We've also learned that the village is near the mountains.

The final subquestion is "What treasure do you keep that first drew the other characters to you?" My roll of 5 gives me "An untarnished silver chalice," a useless CON boost of +2 (that's four points of extra CON down the drain, boo-hoo), and a "cup which purifies its drink." I expect that the other players met my character in the tavern where he routinely drank from his own cup, the one family heirloom he rescued from the destruction of his hold. An NPC creation is signaled here. Since I earned a cup from this table, I think the NPC has to be the man or woman who fills that cup with strong ale: either the bartender at the tavern or the barmaid.

At this point, I'm done rolling. My character's abilities are STR 16, CON 19, DEX 8, INT 9, WIS 9, and CHA 6. My skills are Mining, Goldsmithing, and Trapping. About as classic a dwarf as you could expect (albeit clumsier than most—was he injured escaping from the goblins?). Time for the rest of the players to make comments and suggestions, I think!

Beyond the Wall: It Takes a Crowd to Source a Village

One of the best parts of Flatland Games' Beyond the Wall & Other Adventures neoclone is the way that its character playbooks seamlessly merge character creation and setting creation: as the players generate their YA-fantasy heroes, they simultaneously build and populate the heroes' home village. I thought it would be interesting to go through this process publicly, and so I asked for some partners-in-crime over at the Google+ OSR community.

Our premise is that the participants' blogs are actually players sitting at a table and going through Beyond the Wall character creation. Each blog is "seated" to the right of another blog, so the character it creates will take part in another character's backstory (as per chart 6 in each Beyond the Wall playbook). In addition, the locations and NPCs generated by each blog will be combined into a single village map and NPC key.

Here's the list of participants, blogs, and playbook choices in the order in which they're seated at the virtual table:

+Rob Barrett of Vargold: The Wolf-Time is creating a Dwarven Adventurer.
+Brett Slocum of The Eye of Joyful Sitting Amongst Friends is creating a Would-Be Knight.
+Henry Wong of The Campaign Expanse is creating a Self-Taught Mage.
+Pearce Shea of games with others is creating a Witch's Prentice.
+Anthony Simeone of Once More Unto the Breach is creating a Young Woodsman.
+Mike Lizardi of Fear No Darkness is creating a Halfling Outrider.

Brett is to my right, Henry is to Brett's right, Pearce is to Henry's right, Anthony is to Pearce's right, Mike is to Anthony's right, and I'm to Mike's right. Playbooks were selected in reverse order (i.e., Mike got first choice, Anthony second, and so on).

Before we begin, I'd like to thank the others for agreeing to take part in this exercise. Look for the first character post soon!

Fate Accelerated: Menolly of Half-Circle Sea Hold

Ever since I was a boy I've had a soft spot in my literary heart for Anne McCaffrey's first six Pern books: Dragonflight (1968), Dragonquest (1971), Dragonsong (1976), Dragonsinger (1977), The White Dragon (1978), and Dragondrums (1979). The three Harper Hall books—Dragonsong, Dragonsinger, and Dragondrums--are my particular favorites, both because I prefer Menolly to Lessa as a protagonist and because I like empathic fire lizards better than telepathic dragons. It's also the case that the Bantam paperback edition of Dragonsong (the one with the amazing Elizabeth Malczynski cover, reproduced above) was the first Pern book I encountered—so I guess we Impressed one another.

I was always miffed that a tabletop Pern roleplaying game never came about. I did spend a little time on one of the Pern MUSHes in the 1990s, but I soon tired of playing an Ista Weyr guard while all the established MUSHers were off having tinysex with their dragons elseweyr.

When reading Fate Accelerated Edition, it occurred to me that here was the perfect ruleset to run a Harper Hall game. (I suspect that a Dragonriders game would be better served by Fate Core.) Menolly as depicted at the start of Dragonsong was the obvious choice for a sample character. Here she is:

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Menolly of Half-Circle Sea Hold

High Concept: Apprentice to the Deceased Harper Petiron
Trouble: Only a Girl
Aspects: Youngest Child of Sea Holder Yanus, Tall and Lanky

Approaches:

Clever +3, Careful +2, Quick +2, Forceful +1, Sneaky +1, Flashy +0

Stunts:

Because I am a Musical Prodigy, I get a +2 to Cleverly create advantages when writing songs.

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"Apprentice to the Deceased Harper Petiron" represents Menolly's musical skill and training, while "Only a Girl" (a direct quote from the first page of the novel) is the source of all her difficulties: women aren't supposed to be Harpers, period. "Youngest Child of Sea Holder Yanus" covers her family situation, her elevated position within Half-Circle Sea Hold, and her various fishing-related abilities. "Tall and Lanky" accounts for Menolly's athletic aptitudes even while it also undercuts her appropriateness for the female responsibilities forced upon her by her Trouble. I've left one Aspect slot open for Menolly's unprecedented Impressing of nine fire lizards (e.g., "More Fire Lizards Than Anyone Else on Pern"?).

"Musical Prodigy" is my first attempt at a Stunt; Menolly's playing is certainly skillful, but it's her song-writing ability and the intricacy of her tuning that makes her stand out. Once she picks up her fire lizard aspect, I envision giving her some sort of fire lizard stunt, possibly a defensive one (reflecting the overwhelming assault her lizards carry out when someone threatens Menolly).

Thoughts? Suggestions for improvement?

Fate Accelerated: The Grey Mouser

I've been tinkering with the draft of Fate Accelerated Edition, the rules-light version of Evil Hat Publishing's upcoming Fate Core game, and thought I'd post this FAE version of Fritz Leiber's Grey Mouser for comment. It's based on my 2010 write-up of the Mouser for Barbarians of Lemuria, although I've opted for the Mouser of "Jewels in the Forest" (the first published Nehwon story) instead of the "Ill Met in Lankhmar" version I used before.

The Grey Mouser

High Concept: Rogue of All Trades
Trouble: Curiosity Killed the Cat
Aspects: Bromancing the Stone with Fafhrd, Failed Wizard's Apprentice, Surgeon with a Blade

Approaches:

Quick +3
Clever, Sneaky +2
Careful, Flashy +1
Forceful +0

I'm holding off on generating some stunts for the Mouser because I still don't fully grok them, even with the streamlined FAE rules. I do think that at least one stunt should handle the Mouser's noted ability with a sling while another might deal with the statement in "Jewels" that Mouser is an expert forger of documents and objects. With a Refresh of 3, the Mouser technically gets a third stunt, but I'm not sure what that could be.

Overall, I'm quite pleased with the way that FAE cuts to the chase. The approaches (how the character gets things done) are a nice alternative to skills, and I like the system's relegation of magic to little more than an aspect. Any changes that need making here?

Beyond the Wall: Test-Driving the Character Playbooks

As promised in my last entry, here's my test-drive of one of the Beyond the Wall Character Playbooks. The game comes with six playbooks, two for each of the game's three classes: the Warrior is represented by the Village Hero and the Would-Be Knight; the Rogue, by the Untested Thief and the Young Woodsman; and the Mage, by the Self-Taught Mage and the Witch's Prentice. (There are other playbooks devoted to noble characters and demi-humans in layout right now.) To keep things simple, I'm going to start with one of the Warrior playbooks, the Village Hero. It's not exactly an Assistant Pig-Keeper, but it's as close as BTW currently gets to that archetype.

The Village Hero begins the character creation process with scores of 10 in STR and CON and scores of 8 in the remaining four abilities. These scores will change in response to my rolls on seven background tables, three detailing the character's childhood and four explaining how the character became a member of his or her class.

To discover what my character's parents did for a living, I roll 1d12 and consult the first table. A roll of 10 reveals that my father was a watchman, "stern but fair with child and stranger alike." In game terms, I increase the character's STR to 12, his CON to 11, and his CHA to 9. I also add the Athletics skill; in BTW, skills add +2 to relevant ability checks.

Attached to this table is an icon depicting a scroll. This icon tells me that I may now add a location to the village map and thus determine a fact about the characters' home town. (BTW's village map begins with a tavern icon in the center and then encourages the group to create the rest of the village as they move through the character creation process.) I don't have to link this location to my roll on the table, but I'll do so nonetheless, placing a town jail next to the tavern.

The second table asks me to roll 1d8 to learn what distinguished my hero as a child. My roll of 8 reveals that the character was fairly well-rounded as a lad, learning a bit of something from everyone. His DEX, INT, and WIS all increase to 9.

The third and final childhood table uses a 1d8 roll to determine which of the villagers befriended my character in his youth. (BTW assumes that the player characters were all best friends growing up, so this table is used to establish who else was particularly friendly.) I get another result of 8: "The grizzled mercenary who settled in town taught you a thing or two." I raise my hero's DEX and WIS to 10 and boost his CON to 12.

I also find another icon linked to the table, this time an image of a hand. The rules inform me that I may add an NPC to the list of villagers on the right side of the village map. Again I'll play things straight and make this NPC my character's mercenary mentor.

Three rolls into the process, I now have a warrior character with STR 12, DEX 10, CON 12, INT 9, WIS 10, and CHA 9. He also has the Athletics skill. Finally, I've made two explicit contributions to the party's home base: the town jail and a retired soldier. Perhaps the latter is my hero's father's deputy—or perhaps the mercenary was an amiable drunk who spend lots of time detoxing in the jail and thus got to know my character. There are lots of possibilities here.

I now move to the tables explaining how my character became a Level 1 Warrior. As a beginning Warrior, I acquire two class abilities: Weapon Specialization and Knacks. (The playbook instructs me that my rolls will determine the exact nature of these abilities.) I also pick up the Folklore skill.

Table Four asks me to roll 1d6 to determine how my hero made his name as a fighter. I get a 4 and discover that I saved one of the village children from a pack of ravenous wolves. A bonus of +3 increases my DEX to 13; I also acquire the Survival skill.

Next I roll 1d6 to establish where my character acquired his facility with arms. My result of 1 indicates that I stood in the shield wall during an enemy attack on the village, giving me +2 to CON (for a total of 14) and a Weapon Specialization with the Spear. There's a scroll icon linked to this table, giving me an opportunity to create another village location. Again I opt for the obvious choice and place a crumbling stone wall around the outside of the map.

The sixth table is one of the more interesting ones. It determines my hero's secret, but it also establishes that the hero of the player to my right shares this secret. I roll 1d6 and get a result of 2: apparently my hero once ran from danger—and so did my character's compatriot. My hero raises his DEX to 15 and gains the Fleet Knack; the other player's hero raises his character's DEX by 1.

The seventh and last table is used to determine one of my hero's key possessions. This table varies from playbook to playbook and class to class; in the Village Hero's case, it determines the character's reward for bravery from his fellow villagers. My roll of 3 indicates that the blacksmith made my character a "well-crafted" weapon; I raise my hero's STR to 14 and add a "very fine" spear to his inventory. Cued by the hand icon attached to the table, I also add the blacksmith to the list of villagers.

My hero is now ready for play. Here's his sheet:

STR 14 (+1 to hit and to damage in HTH combat)
DEX 15 (+1 to hit in ranged combat and +1 to AC)
CON 14 (+1 HP per level)
INT 9
WIS 10
CHA 9

Skills: Athletics, Folklore, Survival

Class Abilities: Weapon Specialization with Spear (+1 to hit and +2 to damage with this weapon), Fleet Knack (+1 to initiative)

Equipment: knife (d4 base damage), peasant's clothing, finely made spear (d6 base damage), thickest shield in town (+2 AC), leathers (+2 AC), free food and lodging forever, and 9 silver pieces

Alignment: Lawful

Base Attack Bonus: +1 (when wielding his spear, my hero has a total hit bonus of +3 and a damage roll of 1d6+3)

Initiative: +3

AC: 15

Fortune Points: 3

HP: 11

Saving Throws: Poison 14, Breath Weapon 17, Polymorph 15, Spell 17, Magic Item 16

Hulks & Horrors: Faraday King, ABD

For once, I'm getting some actual play out of a game book I've purchased: I've rolled up a character for a PBP Hulks & Horrors game run by John Berry himself. The game will be taking place in theRPGsite's PBP forum under the rubric of "The Korathraz Conflict"; there are still a few spots open for characters from interested players.

The character is a Scientist named Faraday King, ABD. (For those not familiar with academic shorthand, "ABD" stands for "All But Dissertation.") He only has 4 hp, so I haven't done a lot of work fleshing him out. For now, he's just a wet-behind-the-ears graduate student who's been unleashed from the lab to carry out field research on the Precursor cultures of Korathraz Sector.

Name: Faraday King

Class: Scientist

Level: Intern (1st)

Languages: Tradespeak, Scilang, Precursor-A

CLASS TRAITS

Hit Die: d6

Saving Throw: +1 WIS

Weapons: Pistol, Dagger

Armor: Light

Preferred Environment: Oxygen, Medium Gravity

Starting Credits: 1,200

COMBAT STATISTICS

Hit Points: 4

Armor Class: 7

Melee To-Hit: +0

Ranged To-Hit: +0

Carrying Load: 55 lbs. (29 lbs. carried)

STATS

STR: 11

INT: 15 (Charge +2)

WIS: 10

DEX: 10

CON: 11

CHA: 14 (3 languages)

SAVING THROWS

DEX: 10

CON: 11

WIS: 11

SCIENCE! ABILITIES

Charge Points: 4

Lvl 1 Programs: Detect Energy, Lock Opener

SPECIAL ABILITIES

Science!: See above for multi-tool’s capacity.

What Is It, Doc?: Provided multi-tool still has Charge, adds +1 to INT checks to identity foreign objects.

Overload: By overloading and destroying multi-tool, can execute one final program regardless of Charge cost. Can only replace multi-tool at home base / home ship.

EQUIPMENT

Laser Pistol: 2d6H damage, 2 lbs., 180 cr.

2 magazines: 15 shots each, 2 lbs., 36 cr.

Fiberweave: AC 7, 2 lbs., 100 cr.

Filter Mask: 50cr.

Rebreather: 1 lb., 100 cr.

EarPod: 100 cr.

Collapsible Solar Panels: 10 lbs., 200 cr.

Wrist Computer: 1 lb., 200 cr.

Filter Bottle: Holds 16 oz. of water; 1 lb., 30 cr.

Pocket Knife: 1 damage, 1 lb., 20 cr.

Backpack: Carries 50 lbs., 2 lbs., 40 cr.

Electronic Torch: lights 60’ area, 24 hr. charge, 1 lb., 20 cr.

Field Ration (x5): 1 day meal each, 5 lbs., 50 cr.

Clothing: 1 lb., 20 cr.

MONEY

54 cr.

Blood & Treasure: Test-Driving Character Creation

I recently discovered John Matthew Stater's wonderful Blood & Treasure roleplaying game and have been enjoying its skillful blend of the Third Edition SRD and AD&D. Here's a test character that exemplifies much of what I love about B&T:

JORY WALKER

LEVEL 1 HALF-ELF SCOUT

STR 11 (+0) DEX 16 (+2) CON 12 (+0) INT 10 (+0) WIS 14 (+1) CHA 12 (+0)

HP 6 AC 15 ATK +0 FORT 15 REF 11 WILL 14

Languages: Common, Elven, Goblin

Skills: Climb 11, find traps 15, hide 11, listen at doors 14, move silently 11, remove traps 11, riding 11, survival 14, trickery 15

Abilities: Darkvision 30 ft., 30% magic resistance to sleep and enchantment spells, knack for trickery, backstab (x2 damage)

Feats: Magical aptitude (daze 1/day)

Armor: Studded leather (+3 AC)

Weapons: Short sword (1d6 damage), dagger (1d4 damage, range 20/40), short bow (1d6 damage, range 90/200)

Gear: Quiver with 20 arrows

Treasure: 68 gp

First of all, Jory's class demonstrates the flexibility of B&T's approach to classes: "Scout" is a wilderness variant of "Thief" that swaps out the skills "decipher codes" and "pick pockets" in exchange for "riding" and "survival." Each class in B&T has a variant in the core rulebook (e.g., you can be an "Aristocrat" instead of a "Bard" or a "Beastmaster" instead of a "Druid"), and Tanner Yea of Pulpwood has put together Heroes of Lore, a free supplement containing dozens more. These variants open up the class structure of the game without losing too much focus (or necessitating the creation of entirely new classes to handle minor variations in archetype). B&T also opts for the three saves of 3E, one of my favorite features in Wizards of the Coast era D&D. Skills are based on the save system: each skill uses a class save as its base and then modifies it in accordance with a relevant attribute—another instance of streamlining. Finally, B&T includes a short list of (entirely optional) feats; these are nice additions to characters, providing for some additional customization without encouraging the optimization culture of the post-2000 game. Characters only get a single feat every four levels (with humans picking up an additional feat at level 1), so even the most powerful of characters (a 20th level PC) will have no more than five feats in total. I'm looking forward to creating more B&T characters and seeing what John Stater comes up with next for the game.