Orc campaigns?

[Evil Dr Ganymede]

OK, so maybe converting Earthdawn to BW was a bit too much to try at first...

So we've decided instead to do a short Orc campaign - this seems to appeal to everyone and I think it's better to use BW for what it was made for to start with :).

My plan is to just let everyone make whatever characters they want (probably 5 LPs) and see what they come up with and build something around that. (and yes, I had a look at Poisonous Ambition but I wasn't too impressed with it. It's not really the sort of thing my group likes).

So I'm wondering, what sort of Orc games have people run? I was thinking of maybe having them as a raiding party, possibly isolated from their main tribe and having to find their way home. Or maybe they're chasing someone or something that their ruler want...

[ChrisG]

I've got a two- or three-shot that I hope to convert to BWr soon. It's partially ripped off from a fellow nerd (RedBaron's scenario Prey) at nerdnyc.com's forums (http://nerdnyc.com/forum/index.php), so I can't take too much credit but...

It's a fantasy setting where the Elves, Dwarves and Men lost the big battle against the Orcs. Dwarves closed off their tunnels forever and Elves sailed into the West. Men were brutally enslaved.

The PCs are a crew of slave hunters. Their job is to re-capture escaped slaves, or track them so the Boss orcs can hunt them for sport. They also hunt the few remaining Elves who for some reason have been rescuing human slaves lately, after years of ignoring their plight.

I'm following Abzu's advice for one-shots of One Goal and One Twist. The goal is to hunt down and capture an Elf they've been tracking. However, the Elf is not rescuing any old slaves, just those who are reincarnated Elf Souls. The twist is that when captured, the Elf identifies one of the PCs as an Elf Soul.

Cue mayhem. Of course, in the BWr version of this, the Beliefs and Instincts are loaded for bear against each other, so the situation is ready to explode. Naturally, when the Boss gets wind of this, he orders all the PCs killed, "just to be safe". :twisted:

I'm running it now as a d20 game (my BWr shipment was delayed), but I'll let you know how it goes once I get a chance to run it the way I intended.

[Judd]

http://forum.rpg.net/showthread.php?t=195964

[Kublai]

Even with short campaigns, I highly suggest a character/story burning session. Don't let the players make characters seperately. Ge them together and just brainstorm the hell out of any and all ideas they have. From this, goals, themes, conflicts, and characters will arise naturally and then everyone has a stake in it. You'll also avoid the misift characters that have nothing to do with the campaign or any other characters.

[Evil Dr Ganymede]

Even with short campaigns, I highly suggest a character/story burning session. Don't let the players make characters seperately. Ge them together and just brainstorm the hell out of any and all ideas they have. From this, goals, themes, conflicts, and characters will arise naturally and then everyone has a stake in it. You'll also avoid the misift characters that have nothing to do with the campaign or any other characters.

That's my plan at the moment...

[Evil Dr Ganymede]

Actually I wouldn't mind some explanation as to what some of the Orc LPs actually DO:

The Rites
Servant of the Gate
Gate Forger
Hatred Bearer
Goblin (isn't that a different race?)

[Kublai]

The Rites are like a hazing ritual for orcs, methinks.

Goblins are merely a different status of Orc. In Lord of the Rings, there were the Uruk-hai, the Orcs of Mordor, the Goblins of Moria. They were still all orcs, though.

[Evil Dr Ganymede]

OK, so what's the obsession with "Gates" though?

[Kublai]

I dunno. Don't the skills and traits give you enough of an idea?

[Evil Dr Ganymede]

I dunno. Don't the skills and traits give you enough of an idea?

Well, Gate Forger seems to build impressive building. But again, no real connection to gateways there.

No clue what Servant of the Gate does though. Sounds like it's a fawning sycophant, but again, what that has to do with Gates is unclear.

[rafial]

Just a couple suggestion on the side for getting the gist of orc lifepaths.

a) check out the footnotes. Alot of the lifepaths have "full names" that only appear in the footnotes.
b) reading through the character writeups in "Poisonous Ambition" also help although with groking the implied orc social structure.
c) it's all color -- you or your players can decide what exactly it means.

[Kublai]

As for campaign ideas to bring to the table, I always thought it would be fun to be the bad guys who are trying to destroy the world rather than the heros trying to stop them! it'd be a great opportunity for a mix of all BW's baddest types - orcs, trolls, spiders, and wargs! Just like the Legion of Doom! (http://members.aol.com/SprFriends/bios-lod.htm)

[Evil Dr Ganymede]

well we burned up some characters (mostly), and have an odd little motley crew.

We have a Named, who is bloody hard. He's got a Hatred of 9, and most of his stats are way above the rest.
We have a Whipmaster, risen from the slave ranks. So oddly enough, he's been broken by the whip, and he also has where there's a whip there's a way... (is that even allowable?)
We have a Head-Taker, who is the token warrior of the group.
We have a Servant of the Dark, with Blasphemous Hatred of 9.
We have a really puny Chattel slave who's good at spitting, yowling, shouting and running away, with a Will of 1 (!)

They're a scout party sent out from a main Orc invasion force, who return to find that their army has been wiped out and they're on their own behind enemy lines. Think Twilight 2000 but with Orcs. What they do next is up to them - find their way home? Take out some of those accursed humans who did this to them? Burn and pillage?

Sounds like this is gonna be interesting... :)

[MetalBard]

Hey, that's a great idea for an orc campaign. I may want to steal that idea for a one-shot!

[luke]

Cool.

And yes, Orc characters may have Tasting the Whip and Where There's a Whip, There's a Way. Makes for some very fun play. It should obviously be a well-kept secret for that character!

[Evil Dr Ganymede]

Though one issue with this campaign is that Circles and Relationships and Resources are going to be meaningless. If you're five Orcs stuck in the land of your enemies then you're not going to be able to call on people you know for help or spend whatever passes for money in Orc society.

I guess the closest you could get with this is if they're passing through untamed regions of the human lands, that are maybe populated by trolls or wolves or spiders or something. Then they might be able to get some help there.

Still haven't had an answer as to how many things can be summoned by Rituals...


a) check out the footnotes. Alot of the lifepaths have "full names" that only appear in the footnotes.

Yeah, IMO those are really annoying actually. The only way I can tell I'm looking at the right entry is if the little superscript number is the same. Otherwise it is not remotely obvious that "He Whose Skin Is like Winter Night, Whose Mere Presence Causes Those Beneath Him To Shiver In Terror And Cower Beneath His Wicked Blade" is actually referring to "Black Destroyer". Or that "He Who Lurks In Twilight And Seeks Our enemies" is actually "Nightseeker". Or "He Who Is Fell And Stalks The Night" is "Black Hunter". Makes it rather difficult to refer to things easily when going from the lifepaths to the footnotes too.

[Verrain]

EDG, as I read the description of the Ritual they don't cause the various creatures to appear from thin air. They merely call together any of the creatures that are present within the radius of the spell.

So the answer to your question, "How many creatures can they summon?" is turned back to you as GM. "How many creatures of that type are in the area?" Because all of them are drawn to the caster of the spell.

Also bear in mind that nothing in the spell's description gives the caster control over these beings. It merely draws them to the caster. So have a large amount of fresh meat nearby and a really good story to tell them when they show up.