Anyway the sludge guitars and long tracks really inspired me to look at Blades & Black Magic in a bit of a different light as well as inspiring more spells to be created and hopefully a better "game world" to experience. In fact the heavy feel has led me to sort of thinking of the work as 3 separate parts: Swords of Doom, Spells of Doom and Lords of Doom.
Swords of Doom would be the core rules and Mercenary class--it includes all the character creation, skills, combat rules, and equipment. In addition it will include some quick start Archetypes like Thief, Barbarian, Ranger, etc. These will be full stated, skilled, equipped archetypes so you could copy it onto a sheet and be ready to play. For the Lord of Doom (referee) these could be easy NPC's to use as well.
Spells of Doom would be the Sorcerer class and contain all the magic spells as well as usable Archetypes such as Druid, Witch, Necromancer and Shaman pre-made with stats, skills, spells, equipment so you could copy it down and start playing. Again it provides an instant NPC stash for the Lord of Doom as well to use.
Don't worry the full and normal character creation (choice of attribute and skills/spells) is still included! The Archetypes are meant as a quick hook for those wanting/needing a "class" idea for their character.
Lords of Doom would be the referee book with a look at the world, creatures, random tables for generating ideas and adventures.
I am also working on including hit locations and feats/favors as well.
I am seriously looking at these being in a smaller paperback book size-kind of lock the old paper backs the we all read, re-read, and dog eared back in the 70's and 80's. Small, portable, and suitably unimposing from a "want to try this game?" perspective.
So the works is clicking along by fits and starts but now it has a different sort of inspiration and tone. It may change again before it is all done, but for now this is where I am headed. Thanks for coming along fellow adventurer, enjoy some traveling music.
Interesting...
ReplyDeleteVery cool! Though I'm still hoping for a very Robert E. Howard feel to the final product and the campaigns it generates. I'm very excited about this project and really looking forward to seeing the finished product!
ReplyDeleteI love Sleep, I love HoW, win win !
ReplyDeleteI would totally do art for this. grimandfrostbittenkingdoms.blogspot.com
ReplyDeleteThe Snail Knight is awesome! Great inspirational music, too.
ReplyDeleteReally looking forward to this game system. I always liked Melee / Wizard, but didn't like when it got over-complex with Into The Labyrinth. The Swords & Spells v1.3 really speaks to me, so a slightly more complex version of that is what I'm hoping the Lords of Doom, etc., becomes.
ReplyDeleteI am glad to see you found some inspiration. Of course the best band in that vein, other than Sabbath, is Kyuss - they even named themselves after a Fiend Folio monster. Anyway, it is great to go out of the box like this. I completely get the whole vibe you are going for; the pulp novel, the art, the music, it screams sword and sorcery to me. Go with it!
ReplyDeleteThis is going to be an off-topic comment -- you've been warned!
ReplyDeleteFirst, a little personal background. I'm not a fan of "gritty" fantasy. I play Fantasy RPGs to ESCAPE from "grit," not wallow in it, and while we all know the dark ages were nasty, brutish, and short, that's never been something I wanted to spend hours playing at on the gaming table.
So, as a result, I studiously ignored Lee Reynoldson's offering of "Raedwald" for HOW. I figured there were things I was more interested in (you know, things in the "high fantasy" genre) that were much more worth my time and money. Low fantasy in the worst part of the Saxon dark ages? Simply not my cup of tea!
Well, I can be the bigger man here, and simply admit flat out I was wrong. A couple of weeks ago, I had a few extra dollars burning a hole in my pocket, and Lulu was offering free shipping (and I do prefer print copies of my RPG stuff when I can get them), so I decided, "Oh, what the heck!" and ordered it.
I must say, I was simply blown away. This may be the best single fantasy campaign supplement I've read in the past four or five years. It absolutely destroys even things like Morgansfort and Chaotic Caves that have been done for HOW! Frankly, even if I never play in the Raedwald world (and, blasphemous as it sounds to people like me who prefer our fantasy "high" and our grit "low," I can DEFINITELY see myself playing in a Raedwald campaign), the presentation of the society and its relationships, the political intrigue, and the whole concept of a "wolfshead" campaign is so well done that I can easily see it informing (and very much IMPROVING) my concept for the more barbarian societies in my normal campaign setting. To sum up, Raedwald is a triumph among campaign source books and I think it may be the best gaming dollars I've spent so far this year (since I already own everything else HOW there is...).
To C.R. Brandon and Lee Reynoldson, all I can say is both "Bravo!" and "More!" And for any of the rest of you who either felt like I did about "low/gritty fantasy," or who simply haven't had the occasion or opportunity to check out Raedwald, don't walk, but run to your computer (or FLGS if you're fortunate enough to have one of those) and get a copy as soon as you can. It truly is amazing!
So, I apologize for hijacking the thread, but frankly this just needed to be said. Now back to your regularly scheduled programming! ;-)