Notes from my campaign

[Fifth]

I'm working on a quasi-Indian setting, I thought I'd post some notes from my setting for feedback. The setting is a mix of interesting things I've picked up and ideas I've been contemplating for a while.

The land is called Medas. Medas is basically shaped like modern day India. The North gradually becomes swamp the farther West you go, while the Southern regions are heavily forested. A river known simply as the Great River flows through the center of Medas, two offshoots of the Great River further divide Medas.

Medas ruled by a king, however, his sons control most aspects of the Kingdom. Each of the King's sons control a prefecture defined by the borders the river creates.

Medas is home to several different religions and sects. The most common religion worships the Great River as the birthplace of the world and all reality. They believe that anything which effects the river also effects reality - if the correct rituals aren't preformed for the river, reality becomes corrupted.

Recently, a new people have come to Medas. The Impi are a group of about 1000 people seeking asylum in Medas because of religous persocution in their native land. The Impi possess the secret of forging guns. Most of the Impi live at the King's court in the capitol city of Medas. They forge weapons for the nobility of Medas in return for protection.

Other stuff I'm thinking of adding - Aztec traders, bringing exotic animals; a cult of annarchist youth whom form gangs and wander the country (maybe called Thuggees); Elephants!; Crocodile people; a plot for my game

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That's what I have so far -> just some notes I've written as they came to me. The game will probably revolve around political intrigue in the court of the King, the character's might be advisors to an advisor of the king - wander around the country learning about what's happening, spying, and reporting back.

Comments appreciated

[luke]

i can't believe i missed this post!

Wow, that sounds like a very cool campaign. I love court intrigue games, just ask Kublai. We just finished a short campaign where everyone played a person of high station in the court of an inexperienced, but venal emperor. We had an Admiral-Engineer, a Great Priest, a General, a high concubine, an Imperial Inspector and, of course, a couple of "antiquers" thrown in. (Can you guess what an antiquer is?)

The plot was to uncover the secret maneuverings of the emperor and protect him from another secret plot by a council of sorcerers. It was fantastic! It ended with coup-detat, the General, Admiral and Inspector arrested the entire court--including the concubine and Great Priest!

Anyway, I love the fact that the Impi have come seeking asylum...with guns. Which means whomever they are fleeing from is nearby...with bigger guns.

keep posting so we can help you brainstorm traits, lps and stats for beasties.

-abzu

[Fifth]

I finally started the campaign yesterday, we only had time to play for 2 1/2 hours, so the PC's got about halfway through the adventure. Both the players spent rp's for contact with some fairly influential people within the government, so I used their patrons as a hook for this intriductory session.

1 The Players Meet
a) Adam's PC, a retired soldier who served as an aide to a powerful commander, is asked in a letter to meet up with Stu's PC, a sorceror who needs someone to guide him through life outside of academia. The game starts as Adam reaches the roadhouse at Bagrit.
b) Stu reached the roadhouse at Bagrit earlier that day, and spends his day reading while he waits for Adam.
c) The PC's meet at dusk and get places to sleep in one of the longhouses. After this, Adam insists that Stu starts learning to use a staff, and begins teaching him outside.

2 Tigers!
a) As dusk falls, villagers begin filtering into the mud walled roadhouse compound to bet and compete in an illegal boxing match. The compound quickly fills.
b) Adam moves closer to the ring to watch the match, while Stu mumbles about barbarians and cycles of violence. As they manuever through the crowd, they hear two people talking about a white "spirit tiger" leading a band of other tigers. They ask the villagers about the spirit tiger, and learn that it's a white tiger that possesses supernatural cunning. It's said to be possessed by the spirit of a long dead sorceror. The local ruler is offering a large reward for it's capture, and a smaller reward for it's skin. Stu and Adam decide to find the tiger - Stu's interested in the sorceror, Adam want's the money.
c) Suddenly, several tigers leap over the 10 foot mud wall sorounding the inn and begin attacking anyone they can. Adam recovers quickly and pulls the panicked Stu close to a wall. Two tigers single them out and rush forward to attack. Adam takes a defensive stance while Stu quickly casts TAtB. Adam begins fighting one tiger, and isn't able to strike it because it gets too close, Stu casts the fear. One tiger runs and the other hesitates, allowing Adam to finish it off. The rest of the tiger's are driven off, and Stu uses surgery and the dull needles from Adams armor repair kit to sow a flap of skin that had been ripped from Adam's thigh back on.

3 The Morning After
a) Stu and Adam both get up early. Stu goes to the woods and consults the spirit of the wood about the tiger's location. Adam goes into town to see about making a cloak from the tiger he killed.
b) The PC's locate the tigers' trail and start following it. Stu summons a spirit of the wood to keep other hunters from following them so that the white tiger isn't harmed. Stu insists that the tiger is possessed and can be freed of the spirit inhabiting it, despite Adam's insistance that he'll get them both killed. Stu ends up making a deal with the forest - if the forest will block other hunters, Adam will protect the tigers from harm.


That's as far as we've gotten so far, but there's a few good hooks for some interesting things later on. The interaction between Adam and Stu is pretty great. Adam's character is a pragmatic, exprerienced soldier. He gamely doing what the sorceror wants right now, but he argues every step of the way.

"What do you mean you promised not to hurt the tigers? They're tigers! They'll kill us!"

[eruditus]

very cool Fifth!

Wish I lived closer to Atlanta... or Georgia for that matter :)

Good stuff. Keep it coming.

[luke]

so cool!

damn, i can't believe the survived a tiger attack. tigers are one of the nastiest predators out there.

stu's right though, that tiger's got ties to the spirits. i've recently done a bit of reading on tigers for BW. but i won't spill, because i don't want to spoil anything.

btw, how did the villagers react to the tiger pelt?

-abzu

[Kublai]

Wow! this sounds swell! :D

[Fifth]

I based the tigers on Kublai's Cougar, and gave it a bite attack with VA 1, to simulate grabbing onto someone and ripping.

The spirit tiger should be a surprise to both you and my players.

I actually forgot to give any reaction from the villagers that saw Adam dragging a blood soaked tiger carcass through the village. Though I did get to use a slightly crazed tanner.

I was actually hoping for more injuries in the tiger attack, but I rolled pretty badly when the tiger's charged. The only injury was a midi to Adam when a tiger tore a chunk out of his thigh.

[luke]

Cougar/Mountain Lion
Traits: Clawed, Keen Smell, Cat’s Eye, Fanged, Loner
Stats: Per B4, Will B4, Agi B4, Speed B6, Pow B6, Forte B4
Atts: Reflex B4, MW B12, Steel B5
Skills: Hunting B6, Claw/Claw/Bite B6, Lock and Shred B6, Stealth B6

While formidable, and a good start, kublai's cougar needs to "upgraded" a bit to represent the tiger.

Tiger Stats:
Per: B4/6, Will: B4, Agi: B6, Spd: B6, Pow: B7, For B6
Ref: B6, MW B12, Steel B6/Hestitation: 6 actions

Traits: Eye of the Tiger (increases Perception by +2D for assessing and reflexes. Reduces all visibility penalties by one step), Padded Feet (call on for Stealthy), Striped Hunter (Call-on for Stealthy at night), Fortitude (tigers may not be all that fast, but they can swim and run and hunt for hours), Feline Intelligence (tigers are cats, but a whole lot smarter than your house cat)

(yep, that's a double call-on for Stealthy at night)

Skills: Hunting, Swimming, Climbing, Brawling, Stealthy, Intimidation, Prey-wise. I think making them all B6 is fine.

Scything Claws: +2 Power, VA 1
Crushing Jaws: +3 Power, VA 1

Tigers are one of the biggest predators out there. They hunt by stealth and surprise (not by running down their prey), and they kill with sheer brute force. They are over 8' long and can standing leap something like 20' up into trees. They can swim for many kilometers if they need to, and they can easily kill massive prey animals like buffalo.


that should give them some punch...

[Fifth]

Damn, with B6 reflexes, those things are killing machines. Hmmm... how to explain the fact that tigers move almost twice as fast (b4 -> b6) as they did before?

[eruditus]

Lets not forget my favorite things about them... their sheer cunning and ferlessness. Although B6 is formidable would the fact that the tiger is the ONLY creature that will attack an elephant warrent a gray steel? :)

[luke]

Damn, with B6 reflexes, those things are killing machines. Hmmm... how to explain the fact that tigers move almost twice as fast (b4 -> b6) as they did before?

just tell them those were young tigers.

save these stats for the big mamas. besides, you said you were a bit disappointed in their performance... ;)

also, feel free to tweak these stats to give your tigers a range of personality. You could easily give a few lesser beasts a Per B3/5 and drop their Ref down to B5.

and they should probably have their own speed multiplier.
haven't come up with one for leonid/felinoids yet, though.

Ungulates (hooved animals) are 2, 3.5, 5. Very fast.
Wolves are: 1, 3, 4.5

Big Cats should probably be: 1, 3, 4
so for a big cat with a B6 Speed he'd have
Paces per volley: Walk 2, Jog 6, Sprint 7
Paces per exchange: Walk 6, Jog 18, Sprint 24

They just arent't as fast as wolves, but still a step ahead of two-leggers.

[Fifth]

I like that idea of young tigers. The PC's are heading towards their lair now, so it should be fun telling them that these tigers are a good deal larger than the others they encountered.

Of course, they kind of agreed not to harm any tigers. I'm thinking of trapping them in the forest if tigers are harmed, neither of them have any kind of direction sense or forest wise, so they'll have to rely on astrology to get out. So what should they stumble on as they wander? Mischevious monkey god temple, full of decaying traps and the last traces of an intelligent simian civilization? A hidden monestary where they can rest and get directions? A spiffy cave like the one from the movie Aladdin, which was the home of the spirit tiger for the last hundred years? Thuggees practicing death worship on the site of an ancient battlefield? A work party of elephants and villagers eagerly clearing the jungle for more farming land?

[luke]

ohhh, so many good options.

but the real question is where do YOU, Mr GM, want the story to go?
What information do you want to reveal? What hints to drop? What do you want to set up for later? What to do you want/need to reveal about the spirit tiger?

every element to the story should have a purpose. sometimes that purpose is to reveal, somtimes to distract. other times it is simply to relieve tension and make them laugh, and sometimes it is to ratchet up the tension.

You're keeping an open mind, which is good. And you seem to have a captive audience. What are your short term goals in this story arc?
What are your long term goals with these characters?
What are these characters' Beliefs?
What don't you want to happen?

-abzu

[eruditus]

Although my vote is the ancient Simean civilization and the temple to the monkey god.

I also really like the elephant and farmer clearings. How do the forest spirits feel about this? You get that whole nature vs man perspective. Whose side do the characters chose? How does the forest and it's denizens react to the players and can they use them to their own ends. Will the characters kill humans to protect the forest? And what if the farmers are forced to this land by tyranny, Impi migration or a plague spirit?

And most importantly, how does the monkey god feel about all of this :)


http://www.geocities.com/realityvault/spork.gif

[Fifth]

I get the feeling you're just in this for the monkeys Eruditus. :)

I was actually thinking of giving this a somewhat Princess Mononoke type twist, the Impi's advanced tech and more rational beliefs vs the different native religions of Medas and it's own culture.

next session:

1 Find the lair of the white tiger, just a few shallow caves in a limestone cliff.

2 Learn that the spirit tiger is not a white tiger but a human wearing the cursed cloak of a white tiger. The cloak forces the human to follow the ancient will of a long dead Tiger God. Controlled by the spirit of the Tiger God, the human keeps the tigers from attacking the PC's, and challenges one of them to one on one combat. The possessed human fights as a tiger would, rushing the PC and trying to bite or claw.

3 As the possessed human falls, his cloak detaches itself. Once the human dies, the tiger's hesitate, then rush the PC's, chasing them through the jungle, waiting to catch them off guard.

4 The PC's see a cave entrance shaped like the head of a tiger, which all the tigers keep away from. They enter the cave for protection, and it's "mouth" closes, shutting them inside.

5 Panic. Eventually make it out of temple.

6 Meet a group of farmers leading elephants through the jungle, clearing land. Learn that they've traveled 10 leagues in a single night.

[Kublai]

Why do the stripes only help them at night? It's my understanding (from constant devotion to the God of Discovery) that these patterns make them nearly undetectable in their natural habitat even during the day!

[luke]

Why do the stripes only help them at night? It's my understanding (from constant devotion to the God of Discovery) that these patterns make them nearly undetectable in their natural habitat even during the day!

there you have it! who am i to contradict the good of discovery?


as for monkeys, tigers and elephants.
tell me more about the this tiger "cloak". You know that such "cloaks" were thought to be werewolves, too? you wore the pelt of a black wolf and you could transform yourself at night.

why does the tiger cloak exist? why is the tiger god favoring the one who wears the cloak? it sounds like there are two parties at war here. what is the cloak's agenda? what is the tiger god's agenda? what is the tigers' agenda?

also, that challenge better take place outside of that hidden temple, there is no way two bumbling humans are going to out-run and out-hide a bunch of jungle tigers!

btw, TAB will definitely protect you from tiger teeth and claws. But I see know reason why i a tiger couldn't figure out what's going on and pin you to the ground to get a closer look. They sure do weigh a lot... Of course, after a few minutes of unsuccessfully trying to rip you to shreds, he'd get bored and wander off (and probably never bother you again, you're inedible). But OH what a Steel test being pinned by a tiger would be!

[Fifth]

The cloak was once the skin of a rare white tiger, a beast which was sacred to the tiger god. A bit of the tiger god's sould is in each white tiger, and the beasts are much larger and more intelligent than any other tiger. 700 years ago, a legendary human hunter boasted that he could hunt down any beast, and to prove it began hunting the last surviving white tiger. He tracked the tiger for many years, killing scores of tigers and other beasts as he hunted, adding to his reputation. Eventually he found and killed the white tiger.

The Tiger god lived for a few seconds longer than his host, long enough to hear the hunter declare that he would make a cloak of the white tiger. With the last of his power, the Tiger god cursed the skin of the white tiger, forcing any person who wore it to become the enemy of mankind.

The wearer of the tiger skin cloak loses their natural human intelligence, and forgets everything, their memories being replaced only by a desire to destroy the works of humans. The cloak grants it's wearer the ability to control other tigers, and gives the wearer the stealth of a tiger while it is worn. The wearer always makes his or her lair by the forgotten temple of the Tiger God.

When the wearer of the cloak dies, the jaws of the Tiger God's temple opens as their soul is received. The cloak lies where it fell, waiting to be picked up by an unsuspecting human. All tigers who were under control of the cloak are stunned for a minute or two as it's effects wear off.


The Tiger God no longer has an agenda, because he is a dead god. The only thing remaining from the tiger god is his curse, embodied in the cloak, his temple, and the spirits within forced to guard it.