Wednesday, March 17, 2010

Once More Into the Breach


I'm recruiting for my forum-based Dragon Warriors play-by-post game once again!

Since I started the campaign some time last year, we've had a few player dropouts. At the moment, the game is on hiatus. I've only got three active players, with one potential recruit looking over the rules. I'd like to pick up one or two more and get the ball rolling again.

I'm looking for people who fit the following criteria:



  • Like the Dragon Warriors game and have access to the rules (either the original Corgi digest paperbacks or the new Magnum Opus version - the changes are minimal).

  • Don't mind playing through (tweaked) published scenarios, many of them at least partly dungeon-based.

  • Are able to post to the forum at least a few times per week.

So, if that's you, and you think you'd like to give it a try, leave a comment to this post. Thanks.

[UPDATE: I've got enough players for now. Thanks, everybody!]

Wednesday, March 10, 2010

Changer of the Ways

This blog has always been somewhat stream-of-consciousness in nature. It's largely become a receptacle of little ideas that never really get used much in my own gaming time. I constantly spout half-baked campaign concepts or fiddle around with books I've acquired, but I haven't talked much about what I'm actually playing right now. So here goes.

First off, after a long love affair with the game, I've finally somehow managed to get my group to give Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay a shot. I'm using the 2nd edition of the game, since I own literally everything that was published for it. There are a couple of people in my weekly group who I think were a bit skeptical about my insistence on random character generation, but we're now two sessions into the Terror In Talabheim adventure scenario, and the players seem to be having a good time rooting out a Skaven plot to poison the inhabitants of the nigh-impregnable fortress that is the Taalbaston. As much as I talk about wanting to run this campaign or that, I often find myself freaked out and frustrated once I'm actually behind the screen, but happily, I've avoided any such crises of confidence thus far. Maybe my love for WFRP overcomes the usual jitters, or maybe it's because the current plan is to run just this one scenario, relieving some of the pressure?

Then we've got my online forum-based Dragon Warriors campaign. I recently discussed some of the difficulties I've run into, both with the play-by-post format and with a rather poor choice of adventures I had made. We've finally slogged our way through The King Under the Forest, but the nature of the adventure combined with the fact that the characters started it just as the holidays were upon us has pretty much killed the campaign's momentum... and a good deal of my enthusiasm along with it. At the moment, I've put the game on hiatus until I'm finished with WFRP. When I start it back up, I will need to recruit more players (since one of my regulars dropped out), so if you're interested in playing a Dragon Warriors play-by-post campaign, keep an eye on this blog.

Lastly, I continue to participate in my good friend Bret's forum-based OSRIC campaign, set in his homebrewed (and wonderfully detailed) "Realms of Lakoria" sandbox setting. The AD&D rules have been a lot of fun to work with, and I have been having a great time playing a grumpy ranger character in that ruleset. For whatever reason, OSRIC really seems to get people into a fun, not-too-serious, old-school mode of play that's much different from the style I'm used to. It took a little while to get used to, and I sometimes think our party has been going about things in a more gonzo way than our DM anticipated, but it really is a blast.

And as a last random note, I just got a bunch of Creature Crucible D&D supplements in the mail yesterday. I picked them up on eBay with the inkling of ripping them off for use with Labyrinth Lord. We'll see how that works out.

So, yeah, a happy gaming time for me. Hope yours has been good as well!

Tuesday, March 9, 2010

Gloomspear's Saga: Part Five

In Central Casting: Heroes of Legend, the twists and turns of a character's life have an effect on their personality, represented by Lightside, Darkside, and Neutral traits. Considering all the crap Gloomspear's been through, you'd expect him to have a pretty negative take on life, but apparently not: the winding road to adulthood has left him with four Lightside, one Neutral, and two random personality traits.

Lightside traits first, then. I turn to table 647: Lightside Traits and roll 2d20 four times, resulting in scores of 13, 14, 32, and 10. This means Gloomspear is Pious (which the author defines not-too-subtly as "reverently devoted to worship of God"), Honest ("always gives what is due"), Benign ("gentle, inoffensive"), and Trusting ("trusts others to behave correctly"). So Gloomspear's a big pussycat, considering everything he's been through. Too bad about that berzerker rage.

Gloomspear's Neutral trait, rolled on table 318B: Neutral Traits, is Grim - "unsmiling, humorless, stern of purpose" - a roll of 28 on 2d20. Well, that's more like it. Even though Gloomspear is strong of conviction and generally morally upright, he's not cheerful about it. That makes the Lightside rolls easier to swallow.

Last, I need to make a roll on table 318A: Personality Trait Check to see what to do with his random traits. My first percentile roll of 99 indicates that I need to roll up an Exotic Personality Feature on table 649. First, I need to figure out what type of exotic trait he has by rolling a d20... and I roll a 20, so "Several Features manifest themselves. Roll 1d3+1 times on this table." All righty, I get a 4, so that's 3 more rolls: 18 (Sexual Disorder), 11 (Behavior Tag), and 10 (Allergy). All right, Gloomspear's getting weird...

Deep breath. A quick glance at table 649F: Sexual Disorder shows me that it's definitely the product of somebody who's not particularly open minded: transsexualism, bisexuality, and homosexuality are all listed as disorders, and it's explained in a sidebar that "All Sexual Disorders are considered to be Darkside personality traits by most societies, fantastic or otherwise." Nice editorializing there, Jaquays. I guess the description of the Pious trait should have tipped me off. But we've come this far, so let's see what happens, shall we? I roll 2d8 and get "Too Prude: Convinced that sex is bad in any form. Despises all who lower themselves to it, including self." Well, that could sort of make sense, considering that Gloomspear's cursed to cause the death of anyone he loves, and who knows what happened to him (or what he witnessed) when he was enslaved or imprisoned as a child? I'm now directed to roll a d8 to see if his prudishness is an attempt to hide his own sexual disorder, and thankfully, it isn't.

That gave me the heebie-jeebies a little.

I still need to roll Gloomspear's Behavior Tag and Allergy. I roll a d20 for Behavior Tag and get a 4: "Distinctive Possession". I'm to select an object "for which the character is well known and which he may not wish to be parted from". I'd say it'd make a lot of sense if this was his cursed spear. It's given him his moniker, and he actually can't get rid of it - not that he'd wish his curse on anyone else. The Allergy is pretty unremarkable, as my roll of 5 indicates an "unusual food type", with a 1 for its strength, meaning it's a mild allergy. So, Gloomspear has a mild allergy to... let's say frog meat. Underwhelming, as I said, but they can't all be telepathic tamarins and wondrous wizards, right?

One last random trait to go. I roll an 86 on d100, meaning it's a Darkside Trait. (Hopefully it's not something really monstrous, like being gay or having premarital sex.) I roll 23 on 2d20, meaning Gloomspear is Angry: "spirit always unsettled, never at peace". That directly contradicts my earlier roll of Benign, but hey, that's how the cookie crumbles. I'll take Angry over Benign, anyway - it just makes more sense for this character.

You're instructed to total up your Lightside, Neutral, and Darkside traits, and assign the character an alignment according to whatever you've got the most of. In this case, Gloomspear would come out as a Lightside (i.e., "good" or "lawful") character, but I've already written in Neutral on my character sheet. Next time I'll make the character after using Central Casting, as I think that would make more sense.

That's it for Gloomspear! Overall, I'm impressed with how this worked out, despite the prejudices of the author and a few rolls that were contradictory or not to my taste. The subtitle of the book, Heroes of Legend, turned out to be very appropriate to the results I got. Gloomspear feels like a big, high-fantasy tragic hero, maybe a bit more AD&D 2nd Edition than Labyrinth Lord, but still pretty damned cool.

Monday, March 8, 2010

Gloomspear's Saga: Part Four

Having escaped from slavers and befriending a dwarf and a wizard, Gloomspear is ready for adulthood (or so we hope). Table 217: Significant Events of Adulthood works a lot like the Childhood & Adolescence chart, right down to the number of events: 1d3. I get a 4 on my roll, so Gloomspear has two events. This time, I roll 2d20 plus his SolMod. My results are 15 and... 15! This means that I need to roll on table 544: Exotic Events twice. Gloomspear will also have to roll up two more Lightside Traits later.

My first Exotic Events roll is a 16: "The character and another player character become acquainted with each other." Cool - this reminds me of the random cooperative character generation that Mongoose's new versions of Traveller and RuneQuest use. I roll a d10 to see exactly how they're acquainted. I get a 9: "One saves the other's life." A roll of a 5 on d6 indicates it was Gloomspear who saved the other PC's life. I like this. Adult events work a bit differently than Childhood & Adolescent ones in that you pick at what age they happened. Let's say this one happened when he was 20 years old.

I roll a 12 for Gloomspear's second Exotic Event, a long and detailed entry which explains that Gloomspear discovered "a waterlogged old chest" with "an apparently drowned animal" inside, that then awakened and became his pet. Well, that's definitely exotic. So, I have a roll on table 759: Unusual Pets up next. A roll of 7 on d20 indicates that it's a monkey, and another roll on table 760: Special Pet Abilities tells me that it's "Telepathic - Can communicate by mental speech." 19 seems like a good age to find a half-drowned psychic monkey, right?

I notice at this point that I was supposed to roll "Noteworthy Items" for Gloomspear's friends, the dwarf and the wizard, by using table 114: Parents & NPCs. Obviously, you wouldn't want to roll up a detailed history for everybody Gloomspear's ever met, so instead, each of his friends will get d3 rolls on the table. The dwarf gets one roll, and the wizard gets two.

To make a long story short, the dwarf (a male) is "persecuted or villainized" for "being involved in illegal activities", namely "organized guild thievery". Gloomspear befriended a notorious dwarven thief when he was a slave. The poor guy was probably in the clink with Gloomspear when the prisoners' amnesty was declared, and ended up enslaved alongside him.

Gloomspear's wizard friend (a woman) is forever telling "tales of a legendary treasure" and has vague hints as to its location. Interestingly, she is also believed to be the destined mate of "some unheard-of god from another land". The wizardess disagrees, but is still harassed and annoyed by this god's followers. Well, whatever else you might think, you can't say this book doesn't provide some colorful results.

Next, I'll finish up Gloomspear, roll up his personality traits and post some final thoughts about Central Casting: Heroes of Legend.

Gloomspear's Saga: Part Three


When last we left our unfortunate hero, he had been released from prison at the tender age of 12, only to be enslaved by a conquering force that reduced his home city to ashes.

Table 539: Enslaved! is one of the more complex entries in Heroes of Legend. First of all, you have to generate your character's owner. So, let's see who bought poor Gloomspear. I roll a d6 to determine gender (getting a 6): a female owner. Next, I roll a d10 to see if this woman is from a different Culture, and get a 3, meaning she's also from a Civilized-Decadent background. Then I have to generate her Social Status by rolling a d20 and adding 83, then checking table 103: Social Status. I get a total of 96, meaning she's Wealthy, but not Nobility. Finally, I need to determine her Occupation on table 423D: Upper Class Occupations. I roll a 7, indicating that she's a Merchant, and then have to roll on table 425: Merchants to see what sort of business she's in. I roll a 16. She's a Slaver.

Okay, so young Gloomspear is enslaved and sold to a slaveress. Next, I'm told to roll a d6 to determine the duration of enslavement. I roll a 4, meaning Gloomspear serves this woman from age 12 to age 16. This also means that some Adolescent Events, which I still haven't gotten to quite yet, might happen to Gloomspear while he's a slave. I also roll a d3 to determine how many "Enslaved! Events" I need to roll up, and get a 6! (Jeez, Zocchi, are you sure these dice are "more random" than the competitors'?) 3 events on the chart, d20 roll for each: 17, 13, 5.

17 means "Character is branded." On a 5 or a 6 on d6, the brand is large and unmistakably a slave brand. I roll a 5. Great. Gloomspear is now literally, rather than just figuratively, scarred for life. Now I have to go to Table 867: Body Locations to see where his mistress had him branded. I roll another 17 on d20, indicating the brand is located on his left hand. I could roll to see when this happened, but it just makes sense to me that he'd be branded as soon as he was bought, so that's age 12 again.

My roll of 13 indicates that Gloomspear was "promoted to a position of authority", and determine that this happened in his third year of slavery by rolling a d4. Gloomspear evidently served his mistress well, and was rewarded with a better position at age 15. Creepy.

"Owner dies" on my roll of 5, and I'm going to assume this happens in Gloomspear's final year of enslavement (age 16). I'm to roll a d6 to determine the consquences, and get a 3: "The owner's last request is that all of his or her possessions be interred in his or her grave. The character escapes." I'm then directed to roll a d8 for the fallout of the escape, getting a 2: "1d6 slaves accompanied the character." Upon learning their mistress' morbid last will, 5 slaves escaped with Gloomspear - possibly ones for which he was in charge.

On to Significant Events of Adolescence! I roll a 4 on d3, meaning Gloomspear gets two rolls on this table. My first roll of 12 indicates that Gloomspear gains a friend, generated on table 750: Others. I also add a Lightside Trait to be rolled later. Finally, Gloomspear gets a break. I roll a 19, indicating "A Nonhuman", determined on table 751: Nonhumans. I roll a 7, which means he befriended a dwarf. 12+1d6 to see at what age he made this friend gives me a 15, so Gloomspear met his buddy when he was still a slave. Presumably, this dwarf was a slave, too, and was probably one of the five that escaped with Gloomspear the following year.

My second roll is also a 12: Gloomspear gains another friend! Certainly beats being cursed or enslaved, right? Another Lightside trait to be rolled later, then. This time Gloomspear befriended somebody at age 18 (the end of his adolescence). I roll a 4 on table 750: Others... it's a "wielder of magic". What kind of spellcaster? I roll a d4, getting a result of 1: "A wondrous wizard." Things started off sword & sorcery for Gloomspear, but his life is getting pretty high-fantasy lately! Heck, he's basically got an adventuring party already.

Next, we'll see what happens when Gloomspear the boy becomes a man...

Sunday, March 7, 2010

Gloomspear's Saga: Part Two

Picking up where I left off, it's time for me to roll up Gloomspear's childhood. We already know he spent a good chunk of it on the streets, even spending a couple of years in prison. Nevertheless, table 215: Significant Events of Childhood & Adolescence ("where the action begins," according to the author) instructs me to roll a d3 for the number of events in childhood. I roll a 5, so I've got to roll up three events. For each event, I roll a d20 and add Gloomspear's SolMod of -3, since he's Destitute. My final results are 4, 8, and 2.

My roll of 4 means that Gloomspear learned an unusual skill, generated on table 876: Unusual Skills. I roll a 2 on d20: "Professional gambling." Well, that certainly makes sense, considering his background. My roll of 4 on the Significant Events chart is also annotated with an [N], which apparently means I will later need to make a check for a Neutral Personality Trait later on. Fair enough. Finally, I'm told to roll a d12 to determine at what age this event happened, and get an 11. This means Gloomspear learned to gamble while he was in jail. Works for me!

That roll of 8 indicates that Gloomspear had a religious experience, also at the age of 10 (while he was in jail, learning to gamble, natch). This gives me a check for a random Personality Trait later, and I'm directed to table 541: Religious Experience. I roll a 16, which means that Gloomspear "uncovers the activities of an evil cult" while in prison. I roll a d6 to see what that means, and get a 6: "Others shun character because of this, possibly out of fear of the evil cult." So, I'm thinking Gloomspear found out about some kind of nasty secret society among the inmates, and his fellow prisoners preferred not to know about it. Interesting.

My third roll for childhood events was a 2: "A Tragedy Occurs." This entry has an [R] after it, which means I'll have to check for a random Trait later. I'm directed to table 528: Tragedies, and roll a d20, plus Gloomspear's SolMod, resulting in a 17: "War ravages the character's homeland." This happens when Gloomspear is 12 (almost out of prison), and I have to roll a d6 to see exactly how tragic this is. I get a 5, which means Gloomspear suffers 1d3 additional Tragedies. Man, this kid could not catch a break! I roll a 4, so I get two more Tragedies. Here we go again, d20 + SolMod: 5, 11. 5 means the "town where the character lives is wiped out". Normally, if the character lives in a city, only the neighborhood where he lives is destroyed, but on a roll of 6 on d6, the entire city is razed. I, of course, roll a 6. So, I guess that amnesty was declared because the city was doomed anyway. That roll of 11 indicates that Gloomspear was sold into slavery! So, the kid gets thrown into jail, and then when the war starts to go badly, amnesty for all prisoners is declared just in time for the conquerors to slap the chains back on him.

Next up, we'll see what table 539: Enslaved! holds for Gloomspear...

Saturday, March 6, 2010

Gloomspear's Saga: Part One

Previously, I introduced you to my fighter, Gloomspear. Now it's time to see where he's coming from. I've unbagged my battered copy of Central Casting: Heroes of Legend and broken out some Gamescience dice for maximum randomness. Let's get to work.

I can skip the first table, 101: Character Race, because I already know my character is human. Kind of a shame, really, because the chart has a couple of interesting possibilities (like Beastman or Reptileman) alongside the usual Elf, Dwarf, and Halfling. Ah well.

Next is 102: Cultural Background. I roll and get a result of 10 on a d10 - Gloomspear is from a "Civilized-Decadent" culture, and is native to the Urban environment. "Fictional examples of decadent Culture include: Robert E. Howard's Stygians, Michael Moorcock's Melniboneans, Fritz Leiber's Lankhmarites and Raymond Feist's Tsuranuanni of Kelewan." Never read any Feist myself, but nice! Gloomspear's a city boy. This gives me a Culture Modifier Number (or CuMod) of 7, which "will be used later to modify other die rolls". Right on. Gloomspear would also get a -10% chance of going insane, and some urban survival skills if he were being created for a game that used such things. Since Labyrinth Lord doesn't have systems for skills or insanity, I can ignore these modifiers, but can keep them in mind for roleplaying purposes.

I roll a 32 on d100 for table 103: Social Status. Even with my CuMod of 7, this nets me a result of Poor. I have a -1 Social Level Modifier (SolMod), but my survival skills increase, and I'd get a chance to get Dagger and/or Brawling skills, if applicable to the system. So, Gloomspear's from the mean streets of a decadent city. All well and good.

104: Birth Legitimacy is up next. Rolling a d20 and adding my CuMod of 7, I get a total of 15. Your character is illegitimate only on a modified roll of 19 or higher, so he's legit. Gloomspear has no LegitMod.

Since Gloomspear is of legitimate birth, I skip to table 106: The Family. It's d20 + CuMod again, and get a total of 24. "None known - left to fend for self. Change Social Status to Destitute." All right, so he was of legitimate birth, but spent his childhood as a homeless street urchin. Going back to the description of Destitute, he automatically gets Dagger and Brawling skills, and (being from a Decadent culture) has a 60% chance of having Underworld Experience. I roll a 40, so yep, I'm going to be rolling on that table next. I'm assuming my SolMod would also change to -3, the default for Destitute Social Status, though it's not explicitly stated as such.

So, since Gloomspear has been caught up in the world of crime, I'm directed to section 534: Underworld Experience. 534A: The Wrong Path will tell me what led Gloomspear to this lowly state. A simple roll of the d10 gives a result of 9: "The character is forced into a life of crime by criminals who threaten his loved ones." Well, Gloomspear never knew his family, but apparently somebody must have been taking care of him for his early childhood. This is a little weird, but workable.

Next is 534B: Type of Crimes. A 1 on d6 gives me "Petty theft. The character and several pals steal things they want or need. They act in violation of any organized thieves guild." I'm envisioning a sort of Oliver Twist situation.

Finally, I'm to roll on table 534C: Underworld Events d3 times. I get a 6 (three events!) and then roll 14, 18, and 8 on a d20. 14 is "The character discovers that several items taken in a recent heist are 'cursed'. No fence will take them and even the owner is making no attempts to recover his property. It seems impossible to dispose of these items or even lose them. Select 1d3 items on Table 863: Gifts & Legacies, then determine the alleged curse on the owner of the items on Table 868: Curses." Damn. Well, I'll get to that in a minute. 18 means "The character's thieving skills improve by one Rank." Gloomspear's a fighter, not a thief, dammit, and this indicates to me that if you're not using a skill-based system, it's probably best to pick your class after using this book. (Maybe I'll use the Advanced Edition Companion rules to multiclass him as a fighter/thief.) Anyway, my last roll of 8 indicates that "The character is imprisoned for a crime. Select the crime on Table 875: Crimes, then determine the length of imprisonment. After being freed, the character goes straight, but maintains his underworld contacts." Wow. All right, so I've got a lot of rolling to do.

863: Gifts and Legacies is going to tell me what cursed things Gloomspear stole. I roll a 4 on d3 (2 items) and so roll a d20 twice: 18 and 20. 18 is "A sealed trunk. There is a 60% chance that it contains 1d3+1 additional items from this table." 17. Yep, it contains (roll of 6 on d3) four freakin' additional items. All right, fine: 15 ("A musical instrument"), 5 ("A tapestry"), 10 ("A sealed bottle, determine contents") and 20 ("Roll again. The resulting item defnitely has both magic properties and some great significance to the character's destiny and the over-all scheme of things"). Jeez! So I'm rolling for two magic items, one that was in the chest, and one that was separate. Okay, I get a 12 ("A bound wooden staff", whatever that means) and an 8 ("A locked or sealed book"). Let's say the book was in the chest. Clearly, Gloomspear robbed a wizard, and nobody is willing to touch his ill-gotten (and reputedly cursed) magical wares.

And what exactly is that curse? A roll of 16 means "Character is subject to fits of berzerker rage" and gives pretty detailed rules on exactly what that means in combat (it's pretty similar to the barbarian class' "rage" ability from 3rd edition D&D). I'm told to roll a d10 (getting an 8), which is the "strength of the affliction", meaning that if I roll under that number on d100 when combat begins, Gloomspear flips out Wolverine-style. I also have to make this check any time he's wounded, a companion is wounded or killed, or if Gloomspear or a companion is insulted during combat. Yikes.

I still have to roll up Gloomspear's time inside, starting with table 875: Crimes. We already know he's been involved in petty theft and robbery, but let's see what landed him in jail. A result of 6 on d20 means it was "Offending an influential person." This means he's imprisoned for d10 years. I roll 9. Nine years in the clink.

Time to head to table 540: Imprisoned! I'm a little unclear as to exactly when this happened in Gloomspear's life, though. Normally, you only start rolling for this sort of thing when you're generating the character's Childhood and Adolescent Events, but I was directed into this whole Underworld Events sequence before I even got that far. I'm going to go ahead and say Gloomspear is imprisoned in childhood, and am directed to roll a d12 to figure out how old he was when this happened. It turns out that he was locked up at age 10. Damn. I get d3 rolls on the Prison Events table, and roll a 6 again. Three events rolled on d10. My first roll is a 2: "The ruler of the land declares a general amnesty. The character is freed after serving only 1d10 X 10% of his sentence (do not make any more rolls on this table)." I roll a 3, and Gloomspear lucks out, only serving 30% (roughly three years) of his sentence. He is released before the age of 13 by a kindly decree from the local despot, and so is spared some of the cruelties of prison life.

Whew. So, after stealing some cursed items from a sorcerer, then being sentenced to jail for insulting his betters, Gloomspear's been scared straight. Where was I again? Oh, right, I was rolling up his family, and it turned out that he didn't have one. The next applicable table is 109: Time of Birth, but the reader is directed to make his own table if he deems it relevant. I don't.

Table 110: Place of Birth is next. I roll a 14, which indicates Gloomspear was born "In a cave" and gives him a Birth Modifier (or BiMod) of 5. Interesting, considering he's a city boy. I'll have to come up with a reason for that. The next table is 112: Unusual Births. I'd say being born in a cave is already interesting enough, but let's see what happens. A d100 roll of 77 plus Gloomspear's BiMod of 5 yields two Unusual Occurances, to be generated on the next table, 113: Unusual Birth Circumstances. I get d100 rolls of 32 and 74. The first indicates that "Water froze or boiled by itself" and the second that he was "Born with a curse (go to Table 868: Curses)." Foiled again.

So, back the Curses chart for Gloomspear. I roll a 3 on d20 this time, meaning that the poor guy "will be responsible for the untimely death of his lovers. When an event indicates a love affair, go to Table 545: Death Situations to determine the cause of death." Maybe this is an allusion to the destiny-affecting magic "bound wooden staff" he later stole? Could this curse at birth be tied to the berzerker rage curse he later acquires from robbing the wizard? Is he doomed to kill the people he loves? Hey, maybe the cursed staff's actually a spear? (No wonder they call him Gloomspear!) I'm getting a real "tragic hero" vibe from this guy now; too bad I gave him that goofy smirk on his character sheet.

Next is table 114: Parents & NPCs. Remember, Gloomspear never knew his parents. However, we know that somebody he loved was being threatened to force him into a life of crime during his childhood. So let's say that somebody found this cursed, abandoned child in a cave, then brought him to the Decadent City and raised him there, until he ended up on the streets. I get a roll of 9 on d20 for table 114A: Occupation, which means this kind soul had one occupation. Another roll on 423: Civilized Occupations (which has the inexplicable Ayatollah Khomeini illustration I referred to in my previous post) indicates he or she had a Middle Class Occupation, to be rolled on table 423C. A roll of 13 on d20 means that Gloomspear's caregiver was "An overseer". Another roll on 423A to determine what type of workers he oversaw directs to yet another table (422A, Barbarian Occupations). I roll an 18, indicating that they were Craftsmen. Yet another roll, this time on 424A Craft Table I, will tell me what type of Craftsmen: 10 on d20 means they were "Rope and Net Makers". Yeesh, that was a lot of rolls for a meager result. I should have just handwaved it and said he was a kindly puppet maker or something.

Still, I'm impressed: Gloomspear's already pretty damned interesting. Next post, I'll get into his Significant Childhood events, as if he hasn't already had enough of those...

Friday, March 5, 2010

Introducing Gloomspear

This is Gloomspear the fighter, a character I made for Labyrinth Lord. I rolled 3d6 in order and named him using my Core Names table. Check him out:






So far so good, right? Sure, his Hit Points roll could have been better, and he looks kind of like Saladin as played by Inspector Gadget, but his stats are well above average. He certainly seems to be a cheerful guy. His future is wide open, but it's his past that he needs to worry about. Why?

He's about to go through this:







"This book contains everything you need (except dice) to create detailed character histories and includes guidelines and rule materials to accomodate any FRP game system."

Yes, that's right, this is Central Casting: Heroes of Legend, Paul Jaquays' batshit crazy lifepath book, which I recently managed to pick up for a song on eBay. I don't know much about it, but I do know it has a picture of Ayatollah Khomeini in it for no reason whatsoever.

So wipe that crooked-eyed smirk off your Saturday-morning-cartoon-looking face, Gloomspear. Things are about to get real.