Roll a d20 for the man and thank your GMs for being incredibly amazing!

I leave you to a great quote from the man :

“The secret we should never let the gamemasters know is that they don’t need any rules.” Gary Gygax

Yesterday, Wednesday September 17^th, Shimizu Okie, a student at Zoshi high, was reported as missing a short time after school was over. The police believes that the time of disappearance would have been between four and six pm.

The seventeen years old student was said to have left early for home, not feeling well. However, she never came home. Her parents, worried, called the police at around six but so far the search has yielded no success.

“Some say she has ran away from home. We do not believe her, she was a good girl and we always took care of her. Something must have happened.” Commented Ishimura Natsuyo, her mother. “If you see her, please let us know. We love you Okie, come back home”.

These kinds of incidents have actually been on the rise lately in the city of Tokyo. Compared to the last three years, there has been an elevation of 5% in the case of kidnapping and 3% in the case of disappearance. Schoolgirls are usually a prime target for criminals. The police force, however, is assuring the population that there is no need for alert.

-Yoshida Kenichi

Shuichi’s Dairy

Day 1 : Wednesday, September 18th.

Today I woke up to a weird dream. It was about a bus filled with people having blurred faces making no sounds when they talked. It seem I was not alone in this bus that was puzzled by this. The bus went in a tunel and the lights flashed. The only persons left on the bus were the puzzled passengers I saw earlier. I woke up when the foremost one’s head turned intn some mouth with countless teeth… It is definitely NOT a good way to wake up.. I hate having a dream in which I was studying. I already study enough when I’m awake I don’t need to study more when I sleep…

It was a mostly normal day. Shiro was reading a book hanging down from a tree and we got a new strange American man as a helping teacher. Vale, was his name, I think. He asked us to call him “James”. I’m surprised he got the job with the clothes he was wearing… Anyhow, Mei still teased me and Tsukasa still laughed for nothing. It’d be fun if she’d stop teasing me all the time, but they are good friends none the least.

I also had Track and Field practice today. I still can’t believe I joined this club. If mom wasn’t so scary, I would’ve dropped a long while ago.. To say I do this just “to get into a good university and make my parents proud”… Still, I got a bit faster: 32 sec for 100m. I shaved a second.. Woop-de-doo! ><

The weird part starts then.. On my way to cram school, I heard some strange dissonant music from an alley. I was curious so I try to find it’s source, only to end in some alley crossroad where I met Emisawa-san and Kazuo-san. The music seamed to come from midair in the middle of the intersection. It was then that some strange blade-y beasts appeared from the various piles of garbage along the alleys. I somehow felt… different. I picked up some stick from the garbage and I knew that if I hit those things with it, they would be in quite a pain. Same with me being able to use a trashcan cover as a shield efficiently. It seems that Emisawa-san got the same thing and that he could _heal_ wounds, while Kazuo-san was actually sending bolts of lightning from his fingertips… After a while, we ended disposing of those… beasts. Their corpses were no where to be found, surprisingly… While we were figuring out what just happened, Kazuo called his family to get a car to come pick us up. They were kind enough to provide us with new uniforms, since ours got screwed in the fight, and gave us a ride home. We also all agreed to keep this to ourselves.

The worst part had yet to come, though.. Kazuo tried to help me cover up my skipping cram school only to make it somewhat worst by mentioning that he was one of the persons who always got better grades then me.. And that he did not go to cram school.. Man… I do not want to get scolded again like that. My mom’s a real devil.. An Italian mama inside a Japanese body with some Godzilla blood, and a level 20/20 fighter/barbarian. It really refreshed my memory as to why I don’t go against her.

Day 2 : Thursday, September 19th.

I woke up early. I’m also really energetic today, for some reasons. I felt like running a bit after breakfast. I somehow lost myself while I was running and found myself running laps around the school. I had to bum into Ken-kun, who actually fell down, to stop myself. I can’t really believe it. I was not even sweaty after running all those laps right after running from 4 stations away… Definitely a strange thing.

During the English class, I spoke to James a bit more in English. It seems my English is so great that they want me to help them out. This should have my mom calm down a bit, it’s good for my “future” that’s for sure. I’m glad I read that many DnD books and forums.

At lunch I actually got teased by Mei because I forgot my bento. I was unhappy, since I was really hungry, so I ran home and came back with my lunch (an increased portion). I still don’t know why, but it took me about 15 minutes to do that. I somehow manage to get out of this mess by acknowledging to me “hiding my bento just to get teased by Mei”. Kazuo came to me shortly after this to ask me about yesterday, if I remembered anything. I definitely did not forget the scolding… As well as the beasts.. It looks like this part was indeed not a dream. We agreed to meet after school at the shrine to talk it up, especially since it seems we have a classmate that went missing yesterday night…

I had a lot of fun after school in the Improvised Theater And Historico-Fantastic Literature club with my classmate geeking out in our club room. I always look forward to those days. We sadly did not play our regular game, since the GM was sick, but we still played some board games. I’m sure no one would believe that Akahito and Renjiro were actually rpg-geeks. ^^

I met up with the other at the shrine after that, where we saw Shiro sleeping with a broken guitar. Saki got angry even more when she was told Shiro found her hot. We ended up agreeing to search for Okie, which seems to be missing since yesterday night, since it may have something to do with our strange powers.

I have to control myself a bit more, it seems I am letting my RPG player side come out a bit too much these days. 

I also seem to have one hell of an appetite now. I stopped by the supermarket and got some supplies for my lunch tomorrow. Good thing I got some meat. Supper was not enough, so I cooked more food and made me some HUGE bento (3 layers of meat and protein) that I hid pretty well in the fridge. I feel strangely good, albeit strange now.

Day 3 : Friday, September 20th.

Another early morning. Still as energetic as yesterday. Breakfast was good and I left for school with 2 bento : the one I made and the one mom made. It should be enough. I got a lift from Kazuo to school. He’s a nicer guy than we can think, with his father supposedly a Yakuza.. Siro had a black eye this morning. I guess this proves that Saki may have a thing for him, she has yet to punch someone else.

I had to use a “growth spurt” to hide the fact that I had such über lunch today. I slipped again and said that “I gained a level” as an excuse. It got me a nice foldable D20 from Akahito, and weird looks from the rest of the class. Still, that dice was so worth it! They were even more flabbergasted when they saw me eating that lunch. Mei didn’t even find anything to say to that. I then went to thank Akahito for the dice, which got me some more stares, since I don’t really fit with those bishies. If they only knew. XD

After that, I went to get some more info on my English teaching job while Kazuo surely got some more info out of Aiko about the route the missing girl used to get home.

Tell me what you think!

Wuxia Jumping

PCs can use either the Acrobatic or the Athletic skill for jumping. In addition, the distance covered, both vertically and horizontally is

([D20]+[Acrobatics or Athletics]) / 5

That distance is in squares. In the case of a running jump, the number of distance covered is doubled (though limited by the character’s movement, unless noted otherwise)

Magic items as Level orbs

Instead of magical items, players find energy orbs, harvested on the corpses of fallen enemies (maybe through absorbing their souls or energy or whatever, very megaman). Orbs are attuned to different types of items, either Weapons, Armor, Neck slot items, misc. items or free orbs.

Using an orb on one of your items will make it more powerful by one level (for example, making a +1 sword, a level 1 magic item, into a +1 sword with a 2nd level ability, and so on)

The player is, of course, allowed to choose what he turns his stuff into, and may also use an orb to create an item of either 2 levels under is own or lower (or first level, in the case of first and second level characters)

Standard treasure per level are to be changed to the following treasure scheme :

-One of each non-free orbs per PC

-One free orb per 2 PC, rounded down

This only replaces standard magic items, changing in no way GP allocation.

Wick was a crook, or, as he prefered, a “solicitor of illicit and profitable goods”. Drugs and illegal magick was his trade and made is fortune. The military had finally issued a warrant, John’s squad was to ambush Wick’s caravan. The soldiers had enough guns to fuel both sides of the war and a pair of spellsingers borrowed from the Golden Brigade. “At this point, nothing can go wro…”

John was interrupted by a clicking from behind him. “Turn ’round slowly capt’n, not looking for a fight, but if I have to, ain’t gonna hesitate, you ain’t my first.” John turned around slowly to see the Flintlock Repeater, goverment issue for soldiers as a side-arm in war time.

“Are you with Wick?” John said, visibly angry, a simple mission failed to a goon with a gun.

“Wick? Who the hell’s Wick? Nah, I work for myself, soldier-boy. Jus’ want some o’ your guns, and whatever cash you tools are packin’ and I’ll be on my way” The man must have been six and a half foot tall, his head shaved in the last few days and sporting a 3-day beard. He looked like he would be covered in scars, but wasn’t. Was he that good?

John signaled to one of the mage’s to stand down, he didn’t want to accidently be set on fire or covered in magical acid.

“Tell you what, bastard, we’re here waiting to raid one of the most powerful smuggler from Ludsburg. Help us out and you can have some of the loot.”

Thus Started Jode Klank’s military career.

The idea for this character comes from listening to “Ain’t no Rest for the Wicked”, from Cage the Elephant, for 3 days straight, on repeat. I don’t know what it is about this song, but it is such a great inspiration for a game.

Looks

Klank has everything of a thug. He’s huge, seemingly carved out of rough stone, his skin like leather. He has little more body hair then his tiny eyebrows, over his small eyes, hiding deep in their sockets. He wears a pair of thick, brown leather pants, dirty with oil and mud, and sporting a pair of suspenders he never actually bothers wearing. Has a shirt he wears as little as he can, depending on the weather and the area. Generally staying topless (proves more intimidating, when you can see that your opponent as more muscles in a square inch of his body than in the the whole of you), unless in civilized lands, in which case he’ll wear a tank-top at most.

He carries a pair of goverment issue repeater pistols, and has a wrench strapped to his leg, covered in old blood and various tiny pieces of sharp metal, apparently stuck there to make the weapon look as nasty as possible.

Personality

Jode believes in one thing : cash. He’s nothing more than a highwayman with a bit of creativity who wound up with the adventuring party after a series of random occurences bringing him to become a military grunt. He loves laughing at the suffering of others, thinking all irony is hillarious and cares little for his own pains. At first look, one might think this is a man who needed a few more hugs when he was a child, but it becomes clear after being with him for a while that he sees physical and emotional pain as a game, in himself or others.

One thing is for sure, Jode Klank never backs down. Whatever the ridiculous amount of punishment he takes, he gets up and fights until somebody dies, seeing his own pain as both hillarious and a proof that he’s still alive (alive and kickin’, even). He’s ultimately a crazed masochistic psychopath who ultimately, just wants to be part of the action.

Side note : Evil characters in good campaigns

I love evil characters. Love them, especially when most of team is good-aligned, but I loath PvP in my RPGs. To most, it’s hard to picture evil characters collaborating with the good guys, being a useful member of the team and not slowing the game to a crawl. Hell, I’ve seen good aligned characters refusing outright to work with an evil-aligned character (paladins in 3.X, unsuprisingly).

My best example for an evil character working with the good guys is Jayne from Firefly. The man’s a criminal and selfish douchebag, but hey, he’s a good fighter and probably won’t betray the whole team that much. Klank is evil, hell, he’s not in the prisoner taking buisiness, won’t leave much survivors, will even have fun making one die slowly, but he’s not a leader and he’s not stupid. He’s in hostile territory and needs the rest of the party to survive. Of course, he’ll push the line as far as he can, will get into shouting matches with the crew’s more vocal goody-two-shoes, but he’s ultimately a valuable member of the team. He would probably get things done faster than most, skipping over the moral aspect of a situation if the rest of the party is willing to close their eyes, this once (with a Firefly example, like Mal sometimes would do). Plus, nothing stops you, as a DM, to stick a little bit of red tape to make sure the team sticks together (IE, in the new Heroic Orchestra campaign, Klank could be the military envoy, and doing anything to him would end up hurting the relationship between the Golden Brigade and the Ludsburg military, having consequences on the choice of the new emperor, for example.

How would I build Jode Klank

In 4th edition, I’d make him a brutal scoundrel rogue, fighting with his trusty spiked wrench, occasionnally shooting his gun at people. He would be much more at home staying in the heroic tier, being as gritty as he is.

The Mission

The Draven Academy’s scholar have been working on a prototype airship, able to fly seemingly for ever at a never before reached speed. This airship is the machine that will bring our party to the Ancient island discovered a few weeks back. Problem, we need a power source. Solution : a village of beastmen, seemingly gone mad, are known to have, in their possession, a power crystal (ancient energy source of great power). Go get it.

The Cast

We only had 3 of our 5 players (maybe one or two more will be joining, I’m still looking) in for this game, all soldiers of the Golden Brigade.

Master Chief Ernest Falcon : A civilized beastman of towering bulk, this old veteran spent most of his career refusing desk jobs. He is a monster of a man, but though intimidating, known to never leave a man behind. His face covered by hair and beard sport many scars, including a lost eye concealed by an eyepatch. He is a cavalier.

Balladine Groundscaper : A field medic and proven warrior, gifted with the Song, as proven himself invaluable on the battlefield. In his 16 years of service, no Brigadier in his squad as ever fallen. He also looks like the type of guy with a flawless record. Shiny armor, long blond hair, chiseled jaw, blue eyes. The smallest of the trio, he likes to lift weights in his spare time and is a measly 6′1 in height. Ballad is a cleric

Kazaj Lorzick : A new recruit who has proven himself many times, always through raw intensity, never through foresight. Known in Ludsburg for his outstanding barbrawling talents, he is undoubtably the friendliest person who will ever punch you in the face (he’ll probably laugh and buy you a beer afterwards). Kazaj is a proud fighter.

Thus is our trio of Gears of War-type over-steroided supermen. Everyone is level 2.

The Session

After a short briefing, the players left to a small tribal village of Beastfolk with which the Brigade had a good relationship. After meeting a dwarven inventor (an envoy of the Brigade, in charge of taking care of the outpost) and the village chief, our band of merry adventurers heard a panicked woman, begging one of the tribes warrior for help. Her mate, a powerful warrior of the tribe, would’ve been attacked and eaten by the “Beast of a Thousand Maws”.

Of course, our friends decided to help without any hesitation, grabbing a few of the clan’s warriors with them (three level 1 warriors) and went off to the beast’s cave.

Now, I never prepared for this fight to be so ridiculous, in fact, I was scared the encounter would’ve been much too hard for a full party, hence why I gave them a bit of back up. But really, the fight with a Pathfinder common hydra, beast of CR4, no less, took about 2 rounds. Kazaj hit the beast solidly with both his sword and his shield, impaling one of the heads of the hydra (who had 5) on his shield-spikes. Falcon then proceded to casually charge the hydra, dodging three of the four attacks of opportunities and scoring a critical hit for over 40 damage. This hit sliced the hydra in half, leaving everyone in awe, the only casualty being one of the beastfolk warrior.

There was much rejoicing, the tribe even modified our friend’s armors with the bones of the beast (counting as a masterwork tool for the “intimidate” skill).

The next day, our friend assaulted the warcamp of the “Mad Ones”, corrupted beastmen, who were all destroyed without much difficulty, losing 4 of the beastmen (out of 7 accompanying them) in the process.

Conclusion

Nothing went has planned, the players had a blast. My job here is done. This game as had me reconsider the long-term planning of the game, we’ll see what comes out of it all. Overall, it was a good introduction and I am quite happy with it, even though i need to expand my musical selection.

Also, rolling magical items is worth it.

”I know it’s not ideal, sir, but our image needs it right now, if we associate with the Brigade…” The young, yet already balding man, sitting on the other side of the gigantic mahogany desk was terrified. He could set Frey on fire with a word, yet…

The History

The Order of the Tome was founded about 15 years back by Maelen Frey, an aging wizard who decided he would not put his son through the merciless combat training the Golden Brigade forced upon all young magic-sensitive, recruiting all spellcasters to their cause, mostly to not have them fight against them in the future. Thus began the Order, an alternative for spellcasters who ultimately just wanted to deepen their understanding of the Verse without having the responsability of fighting dissonnance wherever it appeared.

The public generally views the Order as a potential threat; Dangerous spellslingers skittering away from the watchful eye of the Brigade, but they have gained quite a following amongst the younger generation, offering great wealth to any wanting to study the Verse, to understand it’s subtleties and to do some treasure hunting on the side.

Ah, yes, the treasure hunting. The facet of the Order that irritates the Brigade the most. The Order of the Tome claim that to better their understanding of the mystical, they need access to arcane-infused items, left in the various ruins of the ancient all over the old Imperial territories and beyond, thus dabble in the dangerous technology the Brigade seeks to keep as far away from  the people (Or as they put it : Wrong hands who could use ancient technology in harmful ways)

Beliefs

The Order of the Tome believes strongly that all knowledge should be shared, that arcane powers should be of the public domain. They claim that by understanding ancient technology, by understanding the Verse a little better, they can better the life of all Imperial citizens. Most, however, see them as arcane zealots and cultists, the evil wizards of the heroic tales.

Members

The Order accepts most to their ranks, as long as they demonstrate a skill that can be useful in either the study, or the acquisition, of magic. They also own a few factories throughout Ludsburg and are, if one would believe the workforce, quite fair. It is, however, extremely difficult to advance in the order, especially for one who is not gifted with magical power. As a general tendency, the higher a initiate reaches in the organization, the more secretive he becomes (hence, most likely, the stereotypes). The leader of the Order, one named Lord Theodore, as yet to make a public appearance.

For the next campaign, the players will be member of an elite team of explorers, soon to be sent to a strange floating island, far west, above the Valessian Sea. This floating island is believed to be one of the largest untouch ruins of the Ancients, a race of highly advanced proto-humans, believed to have had access to incredible technology and magic (IE : A FREAKING FLOATING CITY!).

More after the jump.

The Factions

The Golden Brigade : Currently led by High Lord Gaius Brandt, the Brigade was originally formed as a group of soldiers and wizards of great power who would fight the dissonance wherever it came. Not attached to any government, they send patrols all over the world, using pre-Symphony technology and incredible martial skills to fight dissonance wherever it appears.

The Ludsburg Imperial Regency  : In the absence of a true emperor in Ludsburg, the leadership is shared between the Senate and an imperial Regent. There are a few possible future leaders, but the higher ups have yet to decide in who’s hand to put the power. Now about 80 years after the events of the Dark Symphony, Ludsburg has been extending her power to other city-states, with the hopes of restoring the Old Empire back to it’s former glory.

The Dravin Academy of Ludsberg : Alasdair Dravin founded the Academy some 80 years ago. A renown scholar, historian and scientist, he decided his path would be to share the knowledge he had gathered throughout his years of study with the world (for a modest fee). This university has become one of the most proeminent institute of the known world in the field of natural and social sciences. More than a few of Ludsberg elite emerged from the Academy, such as Alphonse of Rivermoor, the celebrated poet, or the great scientist and tactician  Earl Von Hamilton.

The important thing is that my life is getting back on tracks, and although I’ve completely failed at following my ANY of my early plans, I do desire to make it right.

Do I have another chance? C’mon. I’ll be nice.

In any case, I’ll try to hold a regular posting schedule (I’d say again, but I really never did), and we’ll see what happens. Stay tunned!

It’s only way later that I’ve discovered all the mad prep that would need and I still needed to find an interesting player motivation that goes beyond “We’re time cops”. Because that ain’t how I work. And then my face was bludgeoned with inspiration. By that, I mean another blogger’s post.

Thus, the campaign will not be about time travelling. It’ll be about time being mashed together and the players trying to deal with it. I’m still undecided about the origine of the timefuck, it might just “be”, I do not know yet. I have 2 days.

In other news! Kimyou’s on Twitter, follow me and make me feel popular!