Art & Rolemaster

Just a quick thing, but I've always preferred the art in Rolemaster to D&D. I mean, yeah, D&D, T&T, and WFRP all have cool art, and I find them all to be inspiring. But the illustrations in MERP and RM!

I mean, just look at the cover for Rolemaster in the 90s:

I mean, to me, that just yells for me to roll up some characters and go adventuring. It has danger, non-combat awesomeness, the citadel in the distance, the griffon/hippogriff/I can't remember the difference flying in the background.

Man, I think I should change my new setting to Rolemaster.... Does anyone know a good character generator? That's always been my big problem with the game...

The King in Yellow: The Great Joke of Ur-Nannu

Centuries ago, when a great war was waged between Law and Chaos, the Sorcerer Ur-Nannu, renowned for his power, went with his armies to fight the King in Yellow. After many victorious battles, Ur-Nannu's forces were finally overrun in the Skaldian Pass. Ur-Nannu was taken to the King in Yellow's fortress, were he was tortured for many years for the devastation he had unleashed upon Chaos.

Ur-Nannu eventually escaped, and swore that, in revenge for his torture, he would make a mockery of the King.

And so it was that he wrote the play, The King in Yellow, which drove all who read the second act to insanity and despair, and placed them under the power of the King in Yellow. It is considered the greatest of the King's tools.

Yet the King despises it, for it mocks him. It is a work of art, admittedly, despite it's evil, and it is a work of culture and civilisation. For this, the King in Yellow hates it.

For this, though few realise, Ur-Nannu has his revenge. Through this, he has made a mockery of the King.

New Setting

Well, I have decided to create a new setting, loosely based on the Celts, but sort of mixed with the traditional fantasy campaign. I am, however, going to be using my last post as a basis for the setting.

I have yet to create a new map, but I am just going to be doing the initial thinking first.

The initial map will be a medium-sized region, divided between several small kingdoms, with a few more independent barons and counts thrown in for good measure.

The west will be dominated by two or three kingdoms, centred around a cluster of small cities in a large bay, with heavy fighting around one main city-port. The further east you go, the wilder it becomes, being more and more dominated by Chaos.

The Chaos forces will be semi-united under the service of the King in Yellow, who has forced Madness and Insanity to do his bidding.

While Law and Chaos will not be fighting at the time, I think it is a good idea to have that card in reserve, and to make the Civilised Lands a bit less prone to war. Although there will still be fighting, the kingdoms will be trying to organise against the possibilty of war with the King in Yellow.

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.

Mesopotamian Currency

I've been doing a very brief bit of research on the money that was used by the Mesopotamians, and have become pretty sure of what they used.

(sorry about that sentence, it reads rather strangely)

So, the Mesopotamians used the silver shekel, and (I believe) silver mina, with their value based on the amount of grain. Using a base sixty (?) system, I'm pretty sure I read that 1 shekel equalled about sixty mina, and each mina had a 'base price' of about 10 grains I think?

So yeah, not 100% sure, but my players won't know any better, so everything's cool.

I'll post about the Mesopotamian pantheon soon, as I've got it all sorted out (i.e. who was descended from who, their domains, for lack of a better word, and which cities that they're patrons of).

I'm also finishing off a not-quite-accurate-but-good-enough-for-me hexmap of Mesopotamia.

Weapons & Armour in Mesopotamia

I've been researching the weapons used in mesopotamia, and looking at the list of weapons and armour in my copies of B\X, to see what I need to get rid of.

As a note, it turns out the Mesopotamians were very advanced in terms of military. I mean, there is evidence of them forming shield walls, phalanxes, and squares in battle!

So, onto the list of what weapons are allowed:

Battle Axe

Hand Axe

Short Bow

Dagger

Short Sword

Sword

Two-Handed Sword

Mace

Club

Javelin

Lance

Pole Arm (specifically pikes, or at least their equivalent)

Sling

Spear

Staff

So, for those reading along with their B\X books, that means every weapon except for the long bow, crossbow, and war hammer.

The new weapons are two in number, being the Egyptian bladed mace, and spearbreaker.

The Egyptian bladed mace is, quite simply, a normal mace with a large blade stuck on the back of it. Costs 16 gp (or rough equivalent, I'll post about money later) and deals 1d8 damage, and, if using weapon vs. armour class tables from AD&D, uses whichever is better: broadsword or mace (light or heavy, you decide).

The spearbreaker is essentially a handle with two sharp prongs, in which you catch a spear and proceed to snap it. Costs maybe 20 gp, and requires a roll to break the spear?

Now, onto armour in Mesopotamia.

Looking at the B\X list, we find shield, leather, mail, and plate.

Here is where I'm torn. The Mesopotamians had shields, leather, copper studded leather, and bronze or iron breastplates and other such armour. My initial thought is to keep the B\X armour list as is, but swap mail for studded leather and just note that plate is essentially a breastplate and maybe greaves, over some leather armour.

That's it for now, next up: Money in Mesopotamia

Mesopotamian Setting

So, I've decided to start work on a fantasy Mesopotamian setting for D&D, although I might end up running it under a different system.

For the purpose of the blog, I will post the setting information on this blog.

So, I am stuck with a few things, and as I hate making decisions, I've put up two polls.

The first one is for the era in which to set it:

1. The Empire of Sargon the Great. About early 2000 BC, Sumerians have fairly recently been conquered, so, while Akkaddian is still the common tongue, a large amount of people will speak

Sumerian.

2. The 'middle age'. There are several empires: The Hittite Empire, Babylonian Empire, Assyrian Empire, and the Egyptian Empire, so a lot of food for conflict.

3. The Assyrian Empire at its height, in 650 BC. This also has the advantage of a more civilised Europe and western Africa, allowing the players to go to more familiar waters if they want.

So that's the first one, and the last one, the level of fantasy:

1. Normal D&D level, with magic and monsters everywhere.

2. 'Historical' level, with all their beliefs being real (ruins infested with demons, etc.)

3. Somewhere in between the two.

Cool, hope you make the decision for me!

My Setting

I've started on creating the setting for our game (still undecided on the rules).

For the basis, I've created a rough map of the Kingdom of Ether, and a few surrounding nations, and made a fairly detailed hex map for Ether, though I still need to stock the map.

The kingdom is centered around the Jewel of the Eastern Coast, Etherim, made entirely out of jade, obsidian, and marble.

There is currently great tension between Ether and the surrounding nations, as they are members of the Church of the Triumvirate (I found this on some blog or other, I can't remember which one), while the officials of Ether worship their own pantheon.

The reason for this is that Ether is ruled by a foreign warlord from a distant land (ans Assyrian culture, determined using Kellri's CDD#4), though most of the natives of the kingdom worship the Church (being, like the surrounding nations, a basic Germanic culture).

So that is my setting so far. I'm currently working on a list of German and Assyrian names to help me name NPCs, as well as details for the two religions.

An Idea for a Modern Campaign

Just a random idea I had today, but basically it is a modern rpg game, but set in the 50s or 60s, with the characters being greasers (or, if the game is set in England, Teddy boys).

I'm not sure what rules I'd use, maybe some form of S&W, but with AD&D's unarmed combat. Weapons would be knives, bike chains, the occasional gun, and things like broken bottles, etc.

I might post more on this later.