Religion, Alignment & Alignment Languages

Ok, just as a warning, this is sort of a stream-of-consciousness post, so I apologise before-hand if it seems a little incoherent or if it just comes off as a ramble.

Right, now that's out of the way, onto the post: I was up thinking about this last night. I had been reading Boethius's Consolation of Philosophy, which is basically a dialogue in the old Greek style. Now, this is mostly irrelevant, except for this one fact that spawned the whole post: You see, in the book, when Boethius is imprisoned, he is consoled by Philosophy in the form of a woman who discusses life, fortune, etc. with him.

So, this struck me as a sudden thought: What if, instead of worshipping the god of writing, and the goddess of magic, the people in my games worshipped Writing and Magic. I then thought, 'well, what about alignment? Do they all worship the same thing?'

After that, I decided to group the various things into Law and Chaos (you see, I tend to lean more towards B/X than other editions of D&D). But then it occured to me: What if it was the entire structure of the world?

Now, I have a feeling other people have posted about this before, but it only recently struck me.

So, with the alignments, they would be where you stand with regards to civilisation. The Lawful characters are the defenders of culture and learning, while the Chaotic characters believe in the 'beautiful savage' and other such things. This would give more of an over-arching, well, plot to the setting.

The orcs destroy libraries and murder scholars, not just because they are evil, but because they are opposed to all that they stand for. The great soldiers of the kingdom who sell their lives dearly, do so not just because they are fighting for their families, but because they believe they are fighting for something greater than themselves.

You can take this even further. Let's say there are two deities, one representing Law, and the other representing Chaos. Now, the Neutral characters are those who do not understand, know, or care about the war being raged in the heavens, nor do they care that it has spilt into the land. They will only fight the orcs to safegaurd themselves and thier families. The Lawful characters could be the educated, whether they are aristocracy, scholars, or priests, who are aware of the great battle being fought for civilisation as a whole.

The Chaotic creatures then, would just have a burning hatred of civilisation, and would serve the deity of Chaos.

This brings us to alignment languages. With this system, these could actually make sense. The Lawful language would be the equivalent of Latin or Greek, as the Lawful characters would be the educated ones, for the most part, while Chaotic could be something analogous to Celtic, having many dialects, but with someone from the South being just able to get along with someone from the North. Neutral could then just be a sort of 'trade tongue' amongst the various neutral creatures and characters, a sort of pidgin common, with bits and pieces of various languages thrown in. Most people would know enough to get along, but not really enough to carry on a proper conversation.

What do you think of this? And again, I apologise if it seems a but unclear.

An system for more realistic damage in Traveller

Well, I've just been reading this article on traumatic damage sort of, well, 'simplified', and the sadistic part of my mind had a cunning plan to utilise it and construct a damage system for Traveller.

While it will be quite bloody and gruesome, making combat even more violent, it may just lead to some amazing stories of heroism, with PCs with shattered bones and massive blood loss somehow clinging to life and pulling through, despite the odds.

It will also lead to a lot more characters being rolled up. :)

Whenever a character has been shot, roll 2d6 to determine where the shot hit (or, even better, get the players to state where they're aiming and adjust the difficulty).

2-4 head

5-6 chest

7-8 abdomen

9-10 limb (1-3 leg, 4-6 arm, 1-3 right, 4-6 left)

11 pelvis

12 neck

After that, just check the damage done and whether the character is wearing any form of armour in that location, then check up to see the what damage level dealt.

1-6 light -2

7-12 medium no modification

13-18 heavy +2

19+ very heavy +4

Now, roll 2d6 + the damage level modification on the following charts to determine the injury dealt to the character (yeah, this system is full of charts, get over it!).

Head

1 and less: Scalp wound. Heavy bleeding

2-5: Cracked jaw. 20% chance victim cannot breath. Light bleeding, unable to close mouth properly.

7-9: Face wound. Several bones damaged, 50% chance extreme haemorrhage, lots of shock, face paralysed.

10-12: Bad scalp wound. Extreme haemorrhage, heavy bleeding.

13+: Skull fracture. Blood leaking from ears/nose/throat, blood in white of eyes, loss of vision in one eye, loss of smell, lose consciousness in 2d6 rounds. 80% chance enter coma, if not almost instantaneous death.

Neck (all 50% chance damage to neck muscles, unable to hold head upright)

1 and less:Brachial Plexis damaged. Numbness and partial paralysis in either left or right arm.

2-3: Stellate Ganglion damaged. Pupils dilated, loss of long vision.

4-6: Jugular wounded. Heavy bleeding and hypolovemic shock.

7-8: Cranial nerves. Unable to shrug shoulders or rotate chin, tongue paralysed, hoarseness, difficulty in swallowing.

9-11: Spinal cord. Paralysis.

12+: Larynx and Trachea. Spitting blood, sucking neck wound, difficulty with breathing, high-pitched, noisy respiration.

Chest

2 and less: Ribs fractured. Difficulty in breathing, making it hard to do any exerting activity.

3-6: Collar bone/shoulder blade damaged. Unable to move arm unless splinted, and a lot of pain with any type of activity.

7-9: Sucking chest wound.

10-12: Tension Pneumothorax. Victim unable to breath, pass out in about fifteen minutes, and will suffocate if not treated.

13+: Heart. Massive blood loss, heart failure. Very quick death.

Abdomen (80% chance localised pain, nausea and reflex vomiting)

2 and less: Stomach muscles. Great pain, almost impossible to do most things without immense amounts of pain.

3-5: Blood vessels. Cuts off supply to leg, making it impossible to stand very soon, and may cause severe swelling in the leg.

6-7: Intestines. After a day or two after receiving the injury, severe pain, fever, vomiting and, if untreated, death in a week.

8-10: Bladder/kidney. 50% chance massive haemorrhage, otherwise long term renal failure, 50% chance fatal.

11+: Spleen/liver. Massive pain in upper abdomen, massive haemorrhage, shock and death very quickly if not treated.

Pelvic wounds

Unable to stand, 50% chance cuts off blood supply to leg, with heavy bleeding and haemorrhage.

Limb

3 and less: Extreme pain, hard to use limb.

4-7: Muscle damage. Very hard to use limb.

8-10: Bone cracked/shattered. Extreme pain, blood loss, Practically impossible to use limb.

11+: Massive haemorrhage.

Notes

Sucking Wounds: Victim will feel short of breath, air visibly sucked in through wound. Low oxygen will cause unconsciousness in ten minutes.

Bleeding and haemorrhage: Usually, if heavy, unconsciousness and death, very faint, suffering penalties to all activities.