Landmarks

Dotting down some landmarks as I think of them. I will be editing this thread for a few days.

Banshar Krush - Broken Mountains intersected with a few large rivers. Rife with inhuman inhabitants.
Hours of Glassnettle - Small area, only 5 or so square miles but full of glass tangles that seem to grow like weeds. Very difficult to cross.
Gura, the Stained Peaks - Isolated mountains from raw ores, creating a poisonous habitat. Strange plants and animals make a home here.
Autumn Rowe - Orange-leaf trees and yellow grass makes this light forest appear in perpetual Autumn.
Bitter Vice - Bottle neck canyon and pass through the Banshar Krush.
Goupien Gulf - Poisoned sea bordering the stained peaks.
Tidiel - Great alpine valley among the Banshar Krush.
Vamarine Reaches- Emerald deciduous forests and meadows making up the Kamarine kingdom and the southern wilderlands.
Dome of the Thundergod - Cresting peak that is perpetually stormy.
Cyrellia - Large island with tall peaks, dotted with glaciers.
Golla Geyser beds - Hot springs and boiling pots periodically shift in these prairies.
Beria - Plains, home to roaming were-mammoths. Usually avoided as such.
Icanulian - Great peaks surrounding a dead lake. Said to be the resting place of a pre-deity being.
Jungles of Thoog - Flabby jungles with terrible malformed things.
Anvil of the Makers - A lone peak of sullen gray stone that gives a headache when viewed, causes vomiting when traveled towards and death should one reach the base.
Eluraelon - Taiga forests deep with many hidden glades and valleys.
Forlorn Clutch- Deep and dark woods with a perpetual curtin of miasma, home to many unkind spirits.
Ice Thistle Gorge - Large glacier-cut gorge, and very deep, up to a mile. Large hatched and hatched eggs lay within.
Bulbbog - Iridecent bulbs light this light marsh.
Slobermuck - Mulchy swamps, home to several smaller humanoids.
Tearsands - Desloate stretch of dunes.
Twilight Boughs - Dark woods, home to many elves who prefer isolation.
Silverpine Gnash - Great light forest which many races claim.
Mist Mounds - Hill and perches with a perpetual sheet of mist among the peaks.
Lushwater Ravines - Cliffs of a 1000 waterfalls. The many nooks and broken terrain make it a beautiful but nigh inexplorable place.
Starlight Folly - Crater, quite large. Mostly dead, mostly.
Mornshade - Great desert will a wide variety of terrain.
Nublet Cove - Sweet water cove, but strange nodes appear on anyone entering the water.
Northfury Canyons - Dry storms make these canyons dangerous and noisy.
Tarpsrings - Tarpits and tar-geysers make up this wide lagoon of muck.
Valley of Blue Snail - Vale of light forest and mild lakes. Not close to any large cities so relatively untouched. All PC races have some representation in these peaceful lands. (proving grounds)

Voke of Navia - Liniar valley of five small Elf states
Iskantria - Smaller Halfling realm in the subtropics. Surrounded with lush forests.
Vamarine - One of the big 3 kingdoms
Orobia - One of the big 3 kingdoms, former seat of Seleucid
Kabdoria - One of the big 3 kingdoms.
Kepiquan - Archipelago islets, halfling and elves mostly who keep a distant but copperative arragment.
Yithnia - Torn forbidding realm, variety of racing including human.
Karinstia- Former agricultural holdings, now quite wealthy human realm since the breaking of the three kingdoms.
Phorumn - A vagrant council manages this realm which is mostly a Halfling nomadic land.

And away we go again

A new server opened up in WoW so I rerolled once again. The last server to open was about 3 months ago and before that about a year. I generally like the rerolling process since its more of the journey than the destination for me, at least when it comes to WoW toons and the WoW endgame (which gets old pretty quick). I sold my last account on playerauctions.com for 240$ for one PC and $330 for another. In the hayday of UO I made well over $10k a year just from selling incidental crap and while this is no means nearly as lucrative, it is still nice to have a hobby that pays for itself, not mention groceries for a few months.

Anyhow, posting will be light while I level up once again. And if I have to write up a villain for that contest that will likely consume quite a bit more time until the 23rd. Anyhow, I have a mental image of the material I want at this point. I expect to start putting some form to it the following weekend. Until then, probably sporadic posting. I may do a map or perhaps some more artwork while I am in the mood.

Gear and Quality

I've been glossing over a bit of the starting equipment and I think I will expand the lists by race so that they are separate things. Steel will be fairly new to Human and plate will be fairly rare. Iron will be much more common and more in line with common use. In most cities and towns, mostly nobles and professional mercs would have access to steel to some extent. The vast majority of standing armies would be mishmash of hide wielding barbarians to more professional skirmishers, spearmen and so forth.

Dwarven gear is more exotic and thus, highly sought after. I going to take the slant that their 'steel' is very much like bronze but much stronger. This will be the most advanced metal to be mass produced. It will also be difficult for non-Dwarves to acquire it since they are a possessive race. However a giant bag of gems can go a long way with Dwarves. Dwarven alchemical-sorcery will less useful to PCs since it will require constant repair. I suspect only the Dwarf title class to be able to use it effectively.

Elven goods are nearly all antique and simply not for sale to non-Elves. In I suspect Elves really have no 'markets' and mostly have prearranged deals spanning decades. They have little need for trade, and when they do they often do so with raw materials rather than finished works. Most Elven military equipment is likewise very old and most Elves are weary of non-Elves carrying their ancient swords and bows.

Halflings are prolific traders and often carry goods of other races, fair and foul. Halfings are not particularly moral when it comes to trade and take a pragmatic position towards what they need. It is not uncommonfor a village of halflings to be trading with a race they were at once in mortal combat with a year ago. Halflings are also have notoriously long memories when towards those who cheat them, often waiting for years before murdering a cheats children.

Other races vary widely with goods, availability and general likelyhood of devouring thier trade partners. So it is no surprise that other inter-race trading is minimal.

Villains

The next round of the RPGSuperstars contest is going to be a 'create your own villain' sort. While I still have mixed feelings about the contest in general, I am still presumptuous enough to think my entry will be in the top 32 out of the couple thousand who entered. So it is natural for me to think of Villains, since it is the next round and you only get 3 days to write, edit, and submit it (and I hate rushing).

Perhaps I am an exception in DMs, but I rarely use individuals that are intended as reoccurring villains. This does happen on occasion but it is usually the players own doings when they let something get away or just a set of odd circumstances. So, I generally have little experience with villains, at least in the way that Paizo intends.

I have a bit of a road block here, but at least I can kill two birds with one stone and use whatever I make in Valley of the Blue Snails as well as the contest. Some of my initial inclinations:

• A pickled villain in the rum cask (ala Cask of the Suffering Bastard). The reason this poor sap in the rum cask could be pretty broad, but it would be safe to say he is undead now. I think it would be interesting should anyone drink the rum, they would be under his influence. Really it is just a matter of motivation for him and his minions which is a bit ?.
• A Clockwork Raccoon. I've been on a raccoon kick lately and for some reason bad-ass clockwork raccoon that shoots black puddings out of its orifices sounds interesting. Again we need some motivation as why this particular thing is a villain rather than simple monster.
• An Elf Prince. Some fairly powerful mage who sought to keep winter at bay while the Elves could harvest their crops. Instead his spells created an endless Autumn. And so he rules his own little Great Rot. Perhaps he is seeking a way to end it, albeit a bit mad since he doomed his own people. This is usually not typically 'me', but it may be a good villain never the less.
• The Raccoon Lord. Write up below, which I found his motivation to be pretty easy and it should fit into Valley of Blue Snails easily enough. I'm not sure if it is a winner, but I would probably use it in some game I was running.

- - - -

Ahrah-koonem, The Raccoon Lord
‘He who rubs, scratches and despoils with its hands’

History

The embodiment of Raccoon traits, both fair and foul, Ahrah-koonem is a primeval creature simply known as The Raccoon Lord. Once a verdant and benevolent trickster, the Raccoon Lord has fallen from his light-hearted ways. A rotten bough of the world tree known as Boletus fell to the deep wilds of the Raccoon Lords domain. There the gargantuan branch lay to rot, bringing with it the taint that the world tree sought to be rid of. Ever curious the Raccoon Lord investigated the wondrous, albeit forbidding bough. To his delight he found a pair or acorn still attached to Boletus. As a being of perpetual hunger, the Raccoon Lord quickly devoured one to sate his appetite.

The acorn rotted within the Raccoon Lord and he languished for years, tormented by pain, hallucinations and wracking. Over time the Raccoon Lord found that devouring rotting material would ease his suffer; and so he sought rotten leaves, piles of compost and forgotten carcasses of anything he could find. He quickly found the need to traverse great distances to sate his hunger, baying his discomfort the best he could. The Raccoon Lord sought a solution to his woes, beseeching greater powers and urgently searching the civilized races for knowledge.

Eventually the Raccoon Lord found what he desired, a plan to end his suffering. The Raccoon Lord still possessed the other acorn from Boletus and he learned that if he were to plant it in the right location, it would grow a new sapling world tree. It was possible the power of this new world tree would cure him if he were to devour a fresh untainted acorn. Secondly, the rise of the new sapling would pulled the power of the natural world to itself, and halt the rotation of seasons for hundreds of miles around. Thus the Raccoon Lord knew if he was to plant the seed in Autumn, the season would never end and a great rot would ensue, sating his hunger until the sapling could grow.

Still possessing the other acorn of Boletus, the Raccoon Lord seeks to find a suitable place to plant it. Only rumors of such places lay in legend; Nalateem the navel of the world, Gilhegrand the wild growth, Everebb heart of all rivers. Much to his chagrin, the Raccoon Lord and his minions have failed to find these locations and now search methodically while trying to keep his hunger sated. With rotting material in short supply the Raccoon Lord creates his own out of necessity, complicating his search for knowledge while among the civilized races of the world.

Description

The Raccoon Lord appears as a twenty five foot raccoon with an overly large maw, a ringed prehensile tail, and bristly fur that shimmers with supernatural radiance. He can easily stand on its hind legs and manipulate his delicate from paws with meticulous detail. The Raccoon Lords cavernous maw contains a barbed tongue and small swarm of stirges that live within feeding upon the roof of his maw. Should the Raccoon Lord be roused in anger he will often brush his tongue on the stirges and exhale them outward, creating an enraged cloud of stirges in front of him.

The Raccoon Lord can take other forms but prefers his own form greatly. When taking another form they are often imperfect and lack common traits of that race. For example, when taking the form of an Elf, in his haste the Raccoon Lord may apply a light coat of fur and forget the ears. The Raccoon Lord and shift between forms as a full round action as often as he wishes.

Sketch + Paint.net

Sketch I did today of the Crystal Orb of the Suffering Thoog. Modified with Paint.net for color and various effects. I rarely do much art anymore but once in a while I will put something up to mix things up. I find sketching to be much more draining than writing for some reason.

Just to show the massive amount of cleaning that Paint.net can do, this is the original scan (sketch on top of a photocopied crystal ball). The entire process (blank sheet to finished pic) probably took 1 hour. Not bad for a free program.

The Other Races

The non-PC races will likely be an eclectic mix of traditional B/X critters along with a smattering of Finnic lore and my own home brew stuff. I can not resist inserting Shrub Gnomes and Giant Fleas after all. I have decided that the races of Finnic lore will probably be the supernatural world races, that is races that been unchanged for many eons and are practically one with the world. These races will largely be spirits, and be the primary cause of supernatural events. Some examples:

Hiisi - Tutelary spirits that are goblin-esk, usually watching over sacred groves and woods.
Anteo - When Giants die they roam the earth as rotting corpses, very malign spirits.
Iku - Your standard river monster that will snatch you when your not looking.
Immatar - Daughters of air and creativity. Benign spirits, usually.
Kalevope - Giants who cut down trees and meadows endlessly. Why they have forest issues? Who knows.
Lemepo - Fertility spirits that are commonly sacrificed too by the peasantry.
Menninkaine - Gnomish tricker spirits, one of the few that can not be bribed.
Nakki - Spirits of stagnant water, and incredibly vile and vicious. For this reason stagnate water is almost always avoided.
Pekklo - Spirits of brewing, clearly sacrificed to by the peasantry.
Piru - Creepy spirits that love nothing more than to jump on someones back and scare the crap out of them. Oddly enough they are good luck if they do so in a sauna.
Tuoni - Messenger of death, usually the last thing one sees while alive.
Vainomoin - Spirit of the voice; singing, chanting an so forth. Often beckoned by magical incantations, be careful Mages.

So that is a few to get going. Now the B/X races such as Kobolds, Goblins, Bugbears and what have you will not be supernatural at all. I am inclined to make these races wrought during one of the many endless seasons. I eluded to this in the Elf section "It is rumored that in a 32 year long winter that a coven of sullen elves never recovered, and stayed the deepest of purples with coal eyes and stark hair" - and there you go, Dark Elves. I also eluded that humans were infact wrought into the world the same way. Perhaps humans were simply divergent Elves from a eon ago, I find this perfectly acceptable lore, though I will naturally leave it a mystery instead of fact.

The same can easily be done with Kobold and the like. Estaoculus, the Summer of Eyes, will already play a core role in the development of Bloodlines. I see no reason why previous endless-seasons would likewise have a dramatic effect. In time I suspect some bits of this lore will leak out in various adventures, game play and whatever else I end up writing. Still, in the Valley of Blue Snails setting this sort of thing should at least be lore to the demi-humans. None of this should really effect Kobolds or Goblins much, but I may insert my own twist here and there. Myconids would be a great inclusion from last great season, the 4 year Autumn, The Great Rot. That and I just like Myconids.

How will the seasons effect things? A general guideline:

Autumn - Decay, rotting, harvest, and a bit of darkness. Not quite as dreary as winter however.
Winter - Sullen, lifeless, ice/cold, loss of color. Clearly a lot of bad things can come from a years long winter.
Spring - Life, growth, abundance, variety. A good area to include any 'giant' creature.
Summer - Growth, light, sun, and heat. Perhaps the most difficult to derive something from, I shall dwell upon it.

A third class of races will be available, and that is simply your natural ones that do not need a particular rhyme or reason to hang out. These will be your carnivorous apes, dragons, gorgons, dinos, and so forth. There will also be your one of a kind monsters, but these could be from any of the above channels.

I am leaning to do away with Demons, Devils and Angels. There will be servants of gods, but these will mostly be out of the realm of PCs. I will probably use various entities that are pre-deity, but these are so alien in intellect it would really be impossible to do much useful with them. Occasionally one could get loose or some crazy wizard would contact one. On that note I am still up in the air about top of the food chain type of critters.

Damage

I expect there to be three main types of damage which can be inflicted upon a PC, NPC or critter. One for Hit Points, one for Save Throws, and one for Wounds. Hit Points will essentially be a measure of skill, attrition, energy and so forth. Save Throws will be for most specifically effects, as in a Basilisk gazes upon you, Save or Turn to Stone. Wounds will be descriptive effects that will actually injure and kill your PC.

Save Throws will be the same as in B/X rules. Hit Points will be identical as well with two large exceptions; Hit Points will replenish if the PC can rest (essentially the same as spells). Hit Point do not denote death when a PC reaches zero (zero hp does kill npcs and monsters however). The reason for this is that I want to keep the flow of adventure without needing a pocket healer at all times. This is particularly an issue with solo play where a PC would practically need a weeks rest after every fight.

So with those Hit Point changes, we still need to make combat deadly and have some attrition as well. With that in mind the table above is intended to do this. This table assumes takes into account four things; worse armor means lower rolls will hit, high damage rolls will incur greater wounds, high die rolls are not heavily weighted but still a factor, and finally you won't even need this table if you miss so I see no need to use hit die/level or actual AC in the table.

For the wounds table, each letter will be a random chart for incurred effects.

• Green - Light blows. Minor imparing effects, smashed noses, dazed, stunned, bruising.
  
• Yellow - Telling blows. Limbs wounded, serious bleeding, serious imparing effects.
• Orange - Mortal Blows. Death unless magically treated, missing limbs and so forth.
• Red - Instant Death.
• Purple - Attrition blows. Bleeding, flesh wounds, accumulated injuries.

The lower the letter the more serious it will be in the tree. I will probably do a basic table for the wounded effects but it is not necessary to use. It would more be of a lazy-mans guide, but that would be useful in repetitious combat (which I hope to avoid anyhow).

As you can see, getting hit for a large amount of damage with a low roll is very bad. This should only happen to unarmored characters against very powerful critters. Or perhaps armored PCs against extremely powerful critters. In that sense things that do 15+ damage (Dragons..) will be a serious threat to even powerful PCs. Note that 'roll' applies to Save Throws that incur damage as well as to-hit rolls.

Lastly, should the PC be hit into negative Hit Points it will apply onto table above. Example: Vesper is at 5 Hit Points and is struck for 12 points of Damage. Since it knocks him into -7, 7 is added to the 12 for a total of a 19 on the 'Wound' table. The table will extend down, I cut it off at 15 for now since I did not want to post a big ass chart here. Anyhow, it would be very clear Vesper is certainly dead after such a blow, even with a high roll.

It may seem a little odd that high rolls are actually worse for striking Wounds, but I am taking into account that high rolls hit armored players much more easily and I want armor to play a factor. It is unlikely a Kobold will one-shot a dude in plate, however if several bring him down to zero hit point is certainly is not looking good for our armored friend. Likewise, those with no armor are open to serious wounds much more easily, which is what I intended.

Also note that this table will likely only be used against PCs, not monsters. If it is used against monster it would mainly be for flavor effects. Otherwise it would likely drag combat on too long for my liking.

So, I will play-test this and see how it does. I could naturally be making some bad assumption but its a start. I don't have a huge grudge against standard B/X combat, so I am keeping that in the back of my head. My main issue with it is that it is not particularly solo-friendly so I would need to stack up NPCs in this case to some extent. I suppose that is not a horrible thing, but it does feel like a crutch.

What I think will happen is that I will indeed use something like this, but leave it as 'advanced rules', and even then only as a general guide. It almost certainly would be a bad idea for large groups, especially in live session play. However for my uses during the Valley of the Blue Snails campaign I think it would fill a niche.