Aerth

Recently reading the Shadow of executioner and watching Beowulf movie starring Christopher Lambert I wanted to run a sci-fantasy game. Since I have many materials for my Cthlol campaign I've decided tu reuse them in Aerth campaign. Here's a sneak peak of the world map:

Barbaric Frontier blog

Ok so my Barbaric Frontier Campaign has grown through those last weeks so I've decided to make a new blog Barbaric Frontier.

Toying with a hexmap

Well I'm working on Cthlol and just having a short break from it I've decided to GM a sandbox for a friend from my university group. So here's map for it:

One hex map sheet

Cthlol restart

Well, for last few weeks I didn't have time to work on Cthlol. But now I'm thinking about rebooting the whole thing, add some new things. Well since I am a big fan of such movies as Heavy Metal, Wizards and Fire & Ice, Thundarr and He-man I've decided to fliter my campaign through the lenses of those movies. The formulae of the former Cthlol campaign became too strict to my taste, now I hope it'll change. Stay tunned.

some features from Sword and Sorcery RPG

Last time I've posted covers for my rpg. Now I'll tell you about some features of my game.
First of all, I'm a skill junkie, so there will be a skill system like that in 3.5 ed., though with consolidated skill list(~20). There will be four classes: fighting-man, magic-user, cleric and rouge(well I'm also working on a variant of Holmes split classes). Four races: human, dwarf, elf and halfling(I'm also thinking about race-as-class variant). 3.x saving throws, Bab, Defense like in d20 Modern and armour as DR like in Conan d20. Combat is going to be like in 3LBB(i.e. 1 minute round, with no fiddly actions, free actions and full rounds just attack, use skill or cast a spell and move, everything else will be up to player's/gm's description). Magic will be more or less standard vancian with sanity rules. My game will also include extensive rules for wilderness exploration/creation, city and dungeon style of game.

I intend this game to be a free rules-lite d20 system based game with old-school flavour. If you have any questions or/and suggestions concerning the game, please do it by commenting this post.

Sword and Sorcery RPG covers

So here're covers for my upcoming Sword and Sorcery RPG, which is sort of simulacrum game or simplified d20 with some rules taken from RQ, CoC S&W core rules, LL and modeled after 0d&d. The main part of the text is ported from PF SRD document(i.e. flavour text) with twist of mine. I suppose it will be published in late August. Stay tunned

Skill expertise at 1st level

Today Gavin of the City of Iron blog wrote about impossibility of being an expert in some skills at first level. I just came up IMHO good solution for this. In a d20 charater of a certain level can have max. rank of class skill at actual level+3. So simply by removing this rule we can get an expert in some skills. Of course this change can bring some inconsistencies with feats etc., but I believe this issue can be resolved by a good GM.

Character sheet for my homebrew Sword and Sorcery

So here's a character sheet for a game that I'm writing simultaneously in polish and in english, the game I've entitled Sword and Sorcery, it's a mashup of d20, Swords & Wizardry and Labirynth Lord.

Ha! finally got the cthlolian human culture!

Reading through my copy of Swords & Glory v.1 sourcebook for Tekumel and Humanspace Empire RPG, I've got an idea. Getting to the point, I've decided that my cthlolian humans will be descendants of a crushed fleet of Humanspace Alliance with some inspirations taken from mycean and troy culture. Later this day I'll post some more information concerning them and maybe a better picture of a city.

Stay tunned

Cthlol map w.i.p update

This time I've placed some locations like fungimen and hlugru tribes and main city-states of cthlolian humans. Still thinking about human culture, d'oh.

Return

Alas, last few weeks I've been preoccupied by my study at the university, some projects and students' congress. Hopefully all my duties will be fullfilled by thursday and than I'll return to regular posting. The lack of new post is also caused by lack of gaming, though it will change soon.

I'm still thinking about native human culture, by now I've got religion, social structure and tech level, but still I can't decide upon which culture base them(first thought was dako-thracian, with some hindu and Catal Huyuk culture, but I have mixed feelings about that).

That's all for now. Stay tunned.

Cthlolian human settlement sketches

Ok, so here're my pictures of cthlolian humans' settlement and clan house, really crappy, but at least you know how I imagine it. More on cthlolian native human society in the upcoming post. Sorry for my bad english. Stay tunned.

Hlugru II

Oh, again I'd like to apologize for my crappy english.

General description

Blue-skinned, four-armed race, very tough and agile. Generally they possess all features typical for mammals, but they lay eggs, and their sex is determined by the temperature of the nest.Once a great space faring civilization, now deceased, primitive gathering of stone age level tribes on planet Cthlol. The reason for their fall is no longer known. They possess great affinity with magic, especially spiritual one. Some of them have mild talent in psionic- these are eremites, who live deep in the wilderness studying the potential of their minds.

Society

Hlugru live divided into matriarchal tribes. Each of them is lead by a group of elders adviced by tribial shaman. In times of war, one of the elders is chosen for a warchief(the only exception were a male is in charge of something important, well also sometimes shamen are males), who gains absolute power for the time of war. The gender roles consist of:

-males:

-hunting

-protecting tribe

-cultivating some crafts which require big amounts of strength

-females:

- nursing and nurturing younglings

- conducting religious rituals

- healing

- keeping household

- practicing magic

Religion

Most of the tribes of hlugru revere ancestors and nature spirits. Usually they build small shrines and stone circles on swamps and moors. Shamen conduct magical rituals and animal sacrifice.

Designer’s note

Their general outlook of culture seems to be similar to that of native americans, polinesians, early hindu and a bit of picts.

Cthlolian magic-user class

Magic-user

Level	Exp	HD(d6)	BaB	Def	Fort	Ref	Will
1	0	1	+0	+0	+0	+0	+2
2	2 500	1	+1	+1	+0	+0	+3
3	5 000	1	+1	+1	+1	+1	+3
4	10 000	2	+2	+1	+1	+1	+4
5	20 000	2	+2	+2	+1	+1	+4
6	40 000	2	+3	+2	+2	+2	+5
7	80 000	3	+3	+2	+2	+2	+5
8	160 000	3	+4	+3	+2	+2	+6
9	320 000	3	+4	+3	+3	+3	+6
10	640 000	4	+5	+3	+3	+3	+7

Class skills: Art(Cha), Bluff(Cha), Craft(Int), Gather information(Int), Intimidate(Cha), Perception(Wis), Persuasion(Cha), Sense motive(Wis),

Casting spells and psionic powers: Player during character generation chooses which path his/her magic-user will follow – psionic or magic. Either way he/she acquires number of spells/powers determined by the level of character.At the beginning of the game magic-user of magic path can cast all 1st level spells from his/her list, in case of psionic path, magic-user randomly determines how many powers he/she knows by rolling psionic table 3 times(and once during level advancement in odd levels). His/her amount of power points per day is equal to his/her Intellect score plus additional points. Every day magic-user can cast a finite number of spells of a certain level or psionic powers. To do so player must state that and that’s all. When Character has acquired some insanity points or damage, magic-user must make a Will-based saving throw of DC 15+number of acquired insanity points+damage. If he/she fails the spell/power will miscast and appropriate table should be consulted. If he/she succeeds everything goes normally.

Experience bonus for high Intellect: Strength is the Prime Attribute for magic-user, meaning that a high Intellect score(15+) grants them an additional 5% experience.

Additional power points for psionic path

level
	Additional power points
1	+1
2	+1
3	+1
4	+1
5	+2
6	+2
7	+2
8	+2
9	+2
10	+3

Spells per day for magic path table

level
	1	2	3	4	5	6
1	1	–	–	–	–	–
2	2	–	–	–	–	–
3	3	1	–	–	–	–
4	4	2	–	–	–	–
5	4	2	1	–	–	–
6	4	2	2	–	–	–
7	4	3	2	1	–	–
8	4	3	3	2	–	–
9	4	3	3	2	1	–
10	4	4	3	2	2	–

Two Planet Cthlol campaigns

Currently I'm running two campaigns on Planet Cthlol. First with my friend Kara, who is also illustrating my setting and second with my friend Asia. Kara is an astronaut who accidentally crushed on Cthlol and Asia is part of rescue team with task to bring back Kara and her research group on Earth.

Here's map of the underworld beneath the continent, which Asia is about to enter, still work in progress:

P.S. I deeply apologize for my bad english.

Cthlol hexmap w.i.p

This is the main area of cthlolian campaign, still working on it. Though I wanted to share it with you right now.

Cthlolian fighting-man class

Fighting-man

Level	Exp	HD(d10)	BaB	Def	Fort	Ref	Will
1	0	1	+1	+1	+2	+0	+0
2	2 000	2	+2	+2	+3	+0	+0
3	4 000	3	+3	+2	+3	+1	+1
4	8 000	4	+4	+3	+4	+1	+1
5	16 000	5	+5	+3	+4	+1	+1
6	32 000	6	+6/+1	+3	+5	+2	+2
7	64 000	7	+7/+2	+4	+5	+2	+2
8	128 000	8	+8/+3	+4	+6	+2	+2
9	256 000	9	+9/+4	+5	+6	+3	+3
10	512 000	10	+10/+5	+5	+7	+3	+3

Class skills: Agility(Dex), Animal handling(Wis), Climbing(Str), Craft(Int), Intimidate(Cha), Perception(Wis), Riding(Dex), Stealth(Dex), Survival(Wis), Swimming(Str)

Favoured weapon: During character generation player decides with which weapon type his/her character is most proficient in, and acquires a +2 bonus to all to hit and damage rolls.

Experience bonus for high Strength: Strength is the Prime Attribute for fighting-man, meaning that a high Strength score(15+) grants them an additional 5% experience.

Obsidian Pyramid of Zaqquothl and Kr'ussh, city of Mi-gos map

In Underworld Kingdom-style.

Description of the Planet Cthlol

Planet Cthlol is twice as big as the Earth. In the begining Cthlol was a gas-giant but thanks to the technology of unknown race(probably some servitor race of Old Ones) was changed into a solid earth-like planet. Most of its surface is covered with vast oceans and the rest are myriads of isles, archipelagos and one big continent. There is no flora as we know it, most of its flora is a variety of fungi and mosses. In seas you can find algae and coral reefs. Also some of algae grow in the lower levels of the atmosphere floating around clouds.

Fauna of Cthlol is also very different from what we know- there are no mammals(except for humans and mutants). Most numerous are reptilians, birds, amphibians and insects.

Hlugru version 2.0

this one by me

Cthlolian specialist class

Specialist is quite universal archtype. Character who wants to be thief, craftsman, diplomat, hunter or anything else than fighting-man or magic-user can create its specialty with this class.

Level	Exp	HD(d8)	BaB	Def	Fort	Ref	Will
1	0	1	+0	+3
2	1 500	1	+1	+4	one	good	save
3	3 000	2	+2	+4		and
4	6 000	2	+3	+5	two	poor	saves
5	12 000	3	+3	+5
6	24 000	3	+4	+6
7	48 000	4	+5	+6
8	96 000	4	+6/+1	+7
9	196 000	5	+6/+1	+7
10	392 000	5	+7/+2	+8

Class skills(choose 8 skills as class skills): Agility(Dex), Animal handling(Wis), Art(Cha), Bluff(Cha), Climbing(Str), Craft(Int), Gather information(Int), Intimidate(Cha), Knowledge(Int), Open locks(Dex), Perception(Wis), Persuasion(Cha), Pick pocket(Dex), Riding(Dex), Sense motive(Wis), Stealth(Dex), Survival(Wis), Swift hands(Dex), Swimming(Str)

Skill focus: During character generation player decides with which 2 skills character can always take 10 in skill rolls in all instances.

Experience bonus for high Strength: X(choose one during character generation) is the Prime Attribute for specialists, meaning that a its high score grants them an additional 5% experience.