Heterodox expressions of Religiosity in Dungeons and Dragons

Given the large pantheons of gods that exist in various parts of Fantasy worlds, it's odd that most games are content to treat deities, and the churches they inspire, as monolithic entities rather than vibrant institutions that might be host to a complexity of divisions, internal and external. I think there are fairly good reasons for this - Game mechanics aren't particularly malleable and the Gods exist primarily to guide a divine character's motivations and allow some flexibility in the powers they manifest. Most campaigns don't deal centrally with religion. The deities provided are generally broken down into three major categories - good, evil, and neutral - which gives players quick context when dealing with followers of a particular God or Goddess.

The variation within the mechanics usually manifests itself in the various domains attributed to a particular deity. For instance, Forgotten Realms includes Tyr as a god of justice, covering the Order and War domains (5th Edition has simplified this somewhat from previous editions). So a player choosing a Cleric or Paladin of Tyr has a few powers related to these domains. If they meet followers of Tyr in game, they'll know they're forthright and honest. Probably very interested in justice and enforcement of the law. This is how it goes for every deity in the system. There are some power tweak for players and there are some identifying characteristics for NPCs.

Now, a clever DM will, of course, accentuate some traits and mask others. Maybe, in the case of Tyr, the local temple leader has an idea of justice that's more the letter than the spirit of the law and many people are getting thrown in jail on frivolous charges. It's turned neighbor vs. neighbor and either the players have to navigate this problem or solve it. Maybe the head church of Tyr sends the players out to find out why a paladin of theirs is laying waste to the countryside. Turns out he's trying to bring a person or monster to justice and doesn't care about he collateral damage. Again, the players can help or hinder depending on their read of the situation.

This is about as far as it ever goes, however, with regard to this religious expression in DnD. The next step, I think, is to manifest heterodox religious practices. This doesn't mean perversions of existing religions, which is another common trope - the local priest of Pelor has been seduced by the dark and runs terrible rituals involving a goat man and human sacrifice. Think Martin Luther or Jesus or various flavors of Baptist, Buddhist, Judism, or Islam. Wars have broken out over issues that might seem minor to the outsider but represent an attack on the core orthodoxy of the existing church. Of course there are probably campaigns out there that delve deeply into these issues and if you run one of those, I'd be interested to hear what gave rise to the idea and what you've done in the world.

The genesis for this post is probably this tweet coupled with a re-read of Anathem by Stephenson:
https://twitter.com/misspenart/status/1119630786557349888

I've been thinking about how to increase representation in my games anyway and this tweet got me thinking really hard about how my NPCs were usually drab dudes with different voices. There's no reason for me to not to replace the local mayor/alderman with a woman, except that I didn't really think about it before. Likewise, I always thought I played interesting characters but they're generally dwarves of one stripe or another who like to hit things. Out of this tweet, I dreamed up a one legged rogue. He's got a pretty fool proof disguise when he's in a big city - few people spend time on the blind beggar leaning against the building looking like he's got the plague. I figured he could hide in plain site as long as he's in an urban area. Out in the woods, he'd probably be a bit more of a liability, which would be kind of fun to role-play.

The central theme of this line of thought is that it's a fantasy world. There are all sorts of possibilities and to allow them to be unexplored is a shame. So instead of allowing our characters and their methods of worship to be these unchanging monoliths, I thought it would be fun to loosen them up a little.

Most of what I've schemed up represents small changes to existing orthodoxies. These aren't very daring changes to the existing gods but I felt it best to start with small changes and build up from there. Here's what I have imagined so far:

A matrilineal Dwarven hold that revolves around a matriarchal sect that believes Moradin and Berronar are two aspects of the same deity. The hearth and the forge are two sides of the same coin. Most of the master crafters are women and child rearing plays a huge part in the community.

An interpretation of Lathander that involves some texts the main church views as apocryphal. Lathander has always been very strict on the subject of undead but this break-away church holds the view that the reason this is so is because the soul of the undead becomes trapped in the material plane forever if the body is destroyed without certain precautions.

A view of Lloth that's much more complicated based on which of her family members one believes took Lloth's place after the great silence (which is when she died/was killed/transcended to something more powerful).

Worshippers of Akadi who interpret her teachings as not traveling physically, but mentally or spiritually. They work to learn everything possible and study about how astrally project into other planes of existence.

There are many more that can be created. I'm not the most familiar with the current 5e Pantheon so I'm sure others can create much more imaginative diversions from the monolithic orthodoxies that are represented in the Dungeons and Dragons of today.

Rocket Girl Part One

I supported the Hanger 18 Pinups Kickstarter and backed for Dive Girl, the Panzer girl bust, and the Cosmonaut. I hadn't done anything with any of the figures except to pull them out of their bubble wrap and then put them back in. Looking for the latest issue of Lady Thor, I wandered into my local comic book store, Time Warp, and saw a large poster for Rocket Girl.

Looking at the markings on the helmet, they made me thing of Soviet style lettering and I immediately thought of the Cosmonaut. I bought the trade paperback, went home and read it cover to cover in one sitting. It's about a 16 year old time traveling cop named Dayoung Johannson. It's really good, and I felt better about my decision to turn the Cosmonaut into Rocket Girl. If you like comics and stories, check it out.

First thing, of course, was to clean the model. Since it's resin, and resin dust isn't the best thing to be breathing in, I made sure to wear a dust mask while I filed and sanded. Cuz I have kids, I made sure they weren't around and cleaned the figure outside, just to be sure. For the most part, the body was pretty clean. There were few mold lines and only a little bit of flash on the torso. The major change was to take the sickle and hammer off the right breast. I did kind of a half-assed job at first and had to go back, but that happened later so you can still see a bit of the outline in this picture.

Here's the head. The ear things require too much work to remove, so they'll have to stay. The lock of hair had to go, since Dayoung has short hair, and the microphone (not pictured), also had to go. The face also needed a change. The cosmonaut has a sharp face with a lot of angles. Dayoung has a button nose and lacks the cheekbone definition.

Before gluing the head on, however, something needed to be done about the shape of the figure. The cosmonaut is done in a pinup style and that's reflected in the model's ample bosom and shapely lines. This presented, conceptually, the most difficult part of the conversion. I wanted to do justice to the Cosmonaut by painting her in the style of Rocket Girl, but also didn't want to produce a hypersexualized 16 year old pinup. On the other hand, I wanted to maintain the pinup lines and the posture for a variety of reasons, not the least of which is the whole scene I'm trying to portray. Also, it would be a shame to convert a model to the point where I may as well have tried sculpting a whole new figure.

The first step was to reduce the size of the figures breasts. Dayoung is portrayed as not having a ton of cleavage when in her uniform. Since I'm painting her as Rocket Girl and not in civvies, I thought it best to make her a little less prominent. I took out my knife a whittled away. The shape was awful so out came the needle files and sandpaper (and mask).

At this point I decided that in order to get everything looking the right size, I should probably glue the head on. Turned out this wasn't exactly the best idea, but the head was sort of rolling around the hobby box and needed its permanent home so on it went. Here she is, looking pleased, despite her jagged underboob.

You can see from the frontal view, she still has too much cleavage. That's okay, we can fix it so it doesn't look like she's wearing a uniform that doubles as a wonderbra.

 Kinda reminds me of this gem:

At this point, she was dropped and her index finger broke off. Not sure where it went so I had to fix it. I also started updating the face. I'd filed off the nose earlier, while removing bits from the face. Dayoung's nose seems to be more of a button nose and the Cosmonaut had a sharp upturned nose. I flattened and widened the nostrils and filled in the cheeks. I also did a slight reshaping of the forehead. After all that, I began a subtle shallowing of the cleavage.

A better view of the new face.

More finger and face reshaping. I'm really happy with how the face is turning out. I need to smooth the right cheek, but overall, the face looks different enough that I'm pleased.

I noticed some inconsistencies in the surface in and around her breasts so I went ahead and put a super thin layer of green stuff down and made it really smooth. I've added the base strap for the holster for her mass reaction gun and started gap filling on her hips. Also, more work on the finger. I'm really impressed with how fine the fingers are and am annoyed this one broke off. Sculpting it back is a totally pain and what I ended up with was only a facsimile of the original.

I forgot to take more progress shots, but one of reasons for smoothing out the chest region was to make the work on the neck region more natural looking. Dayoung's uniform has these straps up in the neck and I needed to put those on. I was able to do that, but was only able to get two straps instead of what looks to be three. I need to add buckles and improve the lines between the straps.

Next is the rocket pack itself. I spent a bunch of time looking at the rockets and decided to build an armature and then sculpt the backpack off the figure, the glue it on. After much bending and clipping, this is what I ended up with (it's being held on by a bit of blu-tac).

This is as far as I've gotten. Working time is pretty limited so I expect this project to take a good long while. I'm excited by the work I've been able to do and am looking forward to getting all the little touches done. I'm hoping it'll look really neat, even with the broken finger.

Longmont Paint and Take

On Sunday there was a Cultural Resource festival at the Longmont Museum. It was hosted by the Grey Havens YA group and the theme was Geek Day. Spreading and encouraging geekdom (geekhood?) being a cause near and dear I volunteered to run a Paint and Take. The idea being to introduce people to my primary hobby by letting them paint a miniature and then take it home. I got some donations of old RAFM and Grenadier miniatures from the community at large so I used those, some GW Fantasy figures (skeletons and goblins I had laying around), and some Reaper Bones from the Bones II kickstarter (I'm never going to be able to paint all of them).

I arrived and got setup. I only had two lights so table coverage was a little sparse, but there were huge windows behind the table that more than made up for the lack by providing amazing natural light. I'd totally paint here again. At least during the day:

I should have had the foresight to request more than two chairs as things spiraled out of control pretty quickly and we had to steal some:

The table remained full throughout the day with one little lull right around 3:00.

Everyone came curious and seemed to leave happy. I had a good time helping people choose colors and helping them with their math (we learned about piecewise functions). Since it was the first time painting for most people, I didn't spend much time talking about technique. The only blot on the day was I didn't manage to get pictures of each and every miniature painted. Some of the kids painted two, and I only got the chance to take pictures of one. Other children ran off before I remembered to take the picture. Here are the rest of the pictures. I think the vampire is my favorite of the figures I photographed, but they all look great and I couldn't be happier about the turnout. It prevented me from checking out the rest of the fair so something went right.

From Russia: With Blood

From Russia: With Blood

A while back, I was poking around on the internet and decided that it was high time I ran some more Night's Black Agents (NBA from here on out). I came up with a plot for a one shot but it was too rote and formulaic so I pinged the inimitable +Zeb Doyle and together we hashed out the structure for a one shot NBA adventure. Adventure in hand, it was just a matter of getting permission to take over someone's gaming group for the night. Lucky for me, +Fred Kessler allowed me to run his group for an evening, with him as a player.

The Prep

Building on my previous NBA DMing experiences, I decided to do the preparation correctly this time. One of the things I like about running NBA with new groups is the idea that you're just a bunch of badass spies doing badass spy stuff when suddenly, everything goes all pear shaped! I used the counters I've posted about before (see here) with three improvements: The first time I ran an NBA game, I didn't have enough counters. So I created a spreadsheet where I tallied everyone's skills and then sorted all the counters, made some more, and so on. I also made some counters to represent Trust Points. I hadn't used them before but that was a huge mistake. They added so much to just this one session that I'll never go without. Lastly, I made some new character sheets that removed the Vampirology skill (I meant to do this last time but didn't. Luckily it didn't matter because my players didn't notice. I didn't want to count on that happening again).

The idea behind all this obfuscation is two fold. There's the roleplaying aspect of encountering vampires for the first time. It's easier to act surprised if you actually are. The second is to cut down on metagaming. As a player, I know if I'm playing a game that I know involves Vampires, even if I'm technically not supposed to be aware of them, my character is going to be eating nothing but Garlic and Onion sandwiches.

The last thing I did was to make characters. Because I only had about four hours to run the game I didn't want to get bogged down with character creation. I copied out some barebones descriptions of the skills and allocated their skills chits in little baggies. I didn't get around to making table tents color coded to the trust counters but c'est la vie.

The Plot

Talking with Zeb about the possibility of an NBA session, we decided it would run best using current events. The situation in Crimea provided a perfect background for my first foray into NBA (and GUMSHOE as a whole) adventure writing. Previously, I'd relied on the Zalozhniy Quartet (excellent, btw), but it didn't fit the schedule. After poking around on the internet a while, I came across the legends of Tafur, King of the Beggars. He was a general during the Crusades and wielded a great deal of power due to the fanatical loyalty of his troops (who seem to have been the poor sods who followed after the knights and their men at arms). The Muslims had a different view of Tafur since he and his men practiced cannibalism, sometimes going so far as to roast and eat captured soldiers in view of the opposing army as a method of intimidation.

It was decided that Putin, along with the help of a sinister Dr. Lischinsky, had resumed the Super Soldier programs that had been pursued during the Cold War. The Soviets had been injecting "volunteers" with a toxic cocktail of drugs and tailored viruses that enhanced speed, strength, and pain tolerance (actually made skin tougher and deadened nerves), but came at the cost of degradation of sanity and a great desire to drink blood. The inevitable result was the test subject devolving into bloodlust and killing indiscriminately until they either gave up and drowned themselves trying to slake an unquenchable thirst with the blood of the fallen, or imploding as all their muscles collapsed in the most gruesome way possible. Before the subject reached this point, the only sure way to kill them was to cut off their head. Some even showed the ability to function without a working heart. 

Of course certain subjects lasted longer before succumbing to the insanity. With the help of modern technology, Lischinsky had found the virus they were using was the cause of the physical changes. Those who lasted the longest seemed to have a genetic sequence unique to the descendants of Tafur. This, of course, made Putin interested in finding the body of the fallen general in the hopes of processing some stem-cells from his bones and perfecting his Super Soldier serum.

Putin's had his agents scouring the Middle East and Europe to find the body of Tafur and have finally tracked him, they think, to a tiny church in Istanbul. Little do they know, the church used to be a safe house for the Templars (cuz I mean, why not). Tafur used to be buried there but was spirited away and transported across the seas to Sevastopol, where his remains were interred in the cliffs surrounding the harbor. Later, while the Russians dug tunnels to hide from Nazi bombs, the tomb was found but the soldiers/slave labor that was doing the digging didn't understand the significance, died shortly thereafter, were shell-shocked into catatonia...

At this point, our characters enter the scene. They're all hanging around in Istanbul for various reasons. They've worked on various ops for the NSA before. They've been told the NSA has detected some major movement from the Russians over SIGINT and need local assets to carry out a mission. Our characters are the only capable assets who can act swiftly enough and are now riding in a van toward the Church of Godefroid (first king of Jerusalem, crowned so by Tafur). 

The Execution

The evening started with me handing out the characters and the players realizing they weren't playing DnD. That was fine since I'd told them approximately nothing about what was happening, just that gaming was going to occur. This was mostly to keep them from Googling "Night's Black Agents" and getting an inkling this wasn't merely a spy thriller. 

I spent about three minutes explaining the rules and set the scene. The characters were in a van racing toward the aforementioned church. The van was driven by their NSA handler, Jason Harbin, an analyst character I had made. Only three players were available so I sort of played Jason as a handy NPC who could get the characters gear or provide a mouthpiece to some of the more complicated questions they asked. Harbin had contacted the characters with urgent business, top-dollar pay scale. He told them what he knew. Something big was up on SIGINT and the Russians badly wanted something in this church. Their mission, get their before the Russkis or, worst case, prevent the Russians from using what they found.

At this point the players asked for a variety of gear which I mostly let them have. I gave them a few tidbits of information to demonstrate how the point spending went and then told them the van had arrived at the destination. The assassin character, played by Anthony, went forward to investigate while the other two players casually wandered up the street, talking in Turkic. Mr. Harbin stayed in the van to monitor the situation.

The players asked how they knew it was a church. The outside was poorly marked and dimly lit. The only overt sign was a small Templar cross on the ancient wooden door. I showed the players a picture but it didn't ring any bells right away. It wasn't until the had searched the place (finding the priest drunkenly snoring in his small cell) that they asked about the symbol. A spend of Occult Studies later, and they were aware this was related to the Templar's somehow.

The characters had found a small wooden door tucked behind some dirty tapestries hanging from the wall behind the crucifix. Taking out flashlights, they descended into the darkness. At the bottom of a steep, winding stair case, they found a small cave. In the middle was a tomb/sarcophagus with the effigy of a crusader in bas relief. The walls were painted in brilliant colors in a style akin to the Bayeux Tapestry. There was some Templar imagery apparent in the frescos and a boilerplate Latin inscription on the the tomb but nothing beyond that.

I expected a bit more paranoia at this point considering they knew the Russians were on their way but no preparations were made. They opened up the sarcophagus and learned two important things. One, the skeleton entombed there was that of a woman and probably wasn't as old as the it ought to have been (Forensic Pathology), second, they spotted the word "Tafur" inscribed on the bottom of the tomb. Before further examination could be made, the players heard footsteps on the stairs and they took up defensive positions.

Much to their surprise, there was a sort of sniffing noise and a voice in Russian said that there were three people in the cave down the stairs. The players exchanged concerned looks and wondered aloud how the hell that worked. That was sort of their first clue that something was out of the ordinary. 

What was coming down the stairs were 4 Russian soldiers, just basic infantry men with 4 hit points each. They were accompanied by one of the Super Soldiers from the reactivated program. I modified the stats from a Feral Vampire to represent the Super Soldier. I decided that silver would make the Super Soldier virus seize up like Tetanus (which is super gross, look it up if you want). Since none of the players had silver, it wasn't really a problem. Any other banes weren't a concern either so it was just them versus some crazed vampire type guy.

The first two soldiers were disposed of pretty quickly. Despite not really knowing the rules, the players figured out the spending system quickly making some excellent decisions without any prompting from me. They worked well as a team, coordinating in believable ways. The two remaining soldiers were firing their weapons from around a corner in the stairs with the vampire stuck behind them (the stairs were narrow, of course).

Using one of the soldier's body as a shield (with a great roll and a large Athletics spend), two of the players rushed up the stairs to take the confrontation to the Russians. The third player rummaged in the other soldier's pockets for a flashbang. I had decided the Russians didn't have grenades because it would have been a very short fight considering the position of the characters so he didn't find anything. Due to some good rolling, the players sudden rush was wildly successful. the soldiers were down but the vampire was unhurt. One of the soliders wasn't quite dead and was screaming in pain, having been shot just above the hip. The vampire picked him up with one hand and flung him at the two characters on the stairs, knocking them both backward (requiring an abberance spend and killing the poor chump in the process). I repeated that he'd just picked up ~250 lbs of human and gear with one hand and thrown that load with a great deal of force but it didn't seem to register with the players that this was abnormal.

The players put up a good fight against the Super Soldier but he was starting to do some real damage to them when the Hacker put a bullet in soldier's head at close range (rolled a six while spending the remainder of his shooting pool). However, instead of collapsing and dying as the party expected, the vampire rolled down the stairs and started sucking at the wound of the dead Russian infantry man (the guy who had no grenades, not the erstwhile body shield). 

The player reactions to this were what a DM lives for. The look on their faces was amazing and made my whole day. Questions were fired at me from all sides of the table: "wait, what?" "What the fuck did he just do?" "Sucking? Like not licking at the blood but actually like drinking?"

I had decided that in the first stages of duress/virally induced breakdown, drinking blood would restore abberance and hit points to the super soldiers. At this point, the Russian soldier, his muscles swelling from the intake of fresh blood, burst out his bullet proof vest. This elicited another round of shocked reactions as the Russki/vampire wheeled and roared at our heroes. 

The Wet-worker decided to end this for once and for all and spent most of his weapons pool to take a called shot at the neck with his sword. His desperate gambit worked and despite the vampire's panicked backward lunge, the sword neatly decapitated the unfortunate Russian. The man's body collapsed in on itself, cracking bones and wrenching itself apart until it lay in a soggy mass on the floor. This necessitated a stability check for the players which they all passed. They raced up the stairs to hear Jason yelling into his radio about how more Russians were on the way and they had to get the hell out of there (and hello is anyone alive omigod!). Leaping into the van, the players careened away from the scene. 

Repairing to a safe house on the other side of the city, the players began doing some research. They started with Tafur, the name etched into the underside of the lid of the tomb. This brought a wealth of results regarding the Crusades. They followed various threads to the Mount of Sion and the Templar's base in Scotland. 

While processing this data, the Face leveraged some Russian contacts he worked for to get the Hacker some help in breaking into the FSB database. A quick Data Intrusion spend and a decent roll later, and he was rifling through reams of data regarding the resurrected Super Soldier program. He found a separate server where Putin had a secret internal email account he was using to communicate with a scientist named Dr. Lischinsky. This revealed to the players that the safety of western civilization was at stake and some feelers were put out about the location of Lischinsky.

More importantly, at least in the short term, was the location of the body of Tafur. Through some more research, the players found a Church of Hermon's Mount in Sevastopol. They concluded that this would be where Tafur was buried considering the direct connection to the Templars (from some of the documentation they'd found earlier). The next challenge was how to get into the Crimea.

Jason came back with the news that something big was going on in Sevastopol and the players decided they Russians had come to the same conclusion they had. They found there was a big Anti-Russian protest being organized with an equally large Pro-Russian counter protest in the works. The Hacker found both protests were being organized from the same IP cluster in Moscow and was able to track a bit of troop movement going toward Sevastopol.

The Face created a cover identity so he could pose as a Turkish oil investor fearing for the safety of the oil in the Crimea. With a little help from the other two (and Jason), he was able to convince one of the Russian oil companies to fly the team directly into the city. The Wetworker contacted his Ukranian colleagues to get enough equipment to arm a small South American nation delivered to a warehouse some ways off the harbor.

Locked and loaded for bear, our heroes cautiously mounted the hill up to the church. There they found an old priest who wore an inconspicuous Templar badge. Seeing this, the players explained the situation and he ushered them down into the tunnels beneath the church, pulling an old Tommy gun out of a closet and vowing to protect the door. The Russians however, hadn't figured out about the church and had, instead, been wandering through the tunnels cut years before.

Due to the superior research, the players reach the tomb of Tafur a few minutes before the Russians. At this point we were out of time (the first combat dragged on because everyone was having too much fun). I asked them what they were going to do with the remains. The unanimous answer (from the players, Jason had no voice) was "destroy it, do you think we trust our governments or any government with the remains?" This before I even had the chance to present them with their options. What a bunch of do-gooders. 

The problem then was how to make sure there was nothing salvageable. The Wet Worker had a few points in Explosive devices and we hashed out that he could make a fuel-air explosive device by dissolving the bones with the silver nitrate he had made and then detonating it all with a blasting cap (they had some foam explosives). I have no idea if any of this would actually work but his chemistry spend said it would. I told him it was going to take a miracle, especially since the Russians arrive during the blowing up process so they were going to have to be held off until the fuel-air mixture was correct. He spent all his explosive points, got trust points from everyone (they party been pretty stingy with them up to that point) and rolled a 5! Enough to judge the mixture right and blow up the bones (and a good portion of the cave) with his jury-rigged explosives. 

After a quick discussion of strategy and escape routes, I deemed the party had successfully retreated into the night, leaving the ruins of an ancient tomb with some fresh bodies in it, but without the material to really kickstart the Russian's Super Soldier program. Civilization was saved! Much fun was had and new rules were learned. 

All in all, I think it went very well. The obfuscation of the system worked to a tee. The introduction of the vampire/vampire-spawn was more successful than I hoped. One of the players asked me, after the combat, "so everything we know about this world, up to this point, is that it's normal, right? There's no magic or other freaky shit that we're aware of?" To which, of course, the answer was no, until that moment, everything was just like the real world. I like that Night's Black Agents can capture that spy thriller feeling without being heavy handed in the Vampire/horror realm. I like knowing I could run a mundane NBA campaign if I wanted to and it would work great.... but why bother. It just wouldn't be the same.

Terror Tot Tournament Report

On Sunday (Feb 23rd), my FLGS, Hobby Quest Games, held a 40SS Malifaux tournament. There were no painting requirements and the strategies and schemes were preset per board. All very n00b friendly. I took my Vickys down to the shop to get a few games under my belt. I'd only played three games prior to this, all with the Vicks so I viewed this as a way to get a better handle on Malifaux and to play against some crews that I hadn't seen before (previous experience was two games against Lady Justice and one against Seamus).

Game One:

The first game I was matched against Marcus. I love the look of his crew and might pick it up in the near future. I went with a pretty vanilla Vickys crew dropping Taelor for Vanessa and adding the Convict Gunslinger. Taelor is awesome and hits hard but I liked Vanessa for the survivability and wanted to see what would happen. I gave Victoria of Ashes the upgrade that allows her to cast a spell to give all the sisters a plus damage flip. Victoria of Blood had the Howling Wolf Tattoo (all mercs can flurry/rapid fire without discarding first).

The strategy was turf war and I remember taking protect territory as one of my schemes but forgot the other. I think my opponent took Line In the Sand and something else but it was early in the morning and I was mostly trying to figure out how to kill his giant gorilla.

Marcus was considerably more tricksy than the crews I had face previously (but not nearly as tricksy as the crews I'd face in the next two battles). Because of turf war, we both moved toward the center. The gate at the center provided some cover for one of his razorspine rattlers which proved to be a bit of a sticking point. Most of the action went down around the house "below" the gate (the one where you can see the door in the picture).

I messed up Marcus a bit by shooting at him and was able to get a couple of lucky blasts off using Vanessa's arcane staff. She did some damage to Cojo and one of the Rattlers early on but then got stuck in front of Marcus. He turned her into a beast and domesticated her. Things were not looking good as I couldn't really attack him since he could assign damage to Vanessa. Fortunately, the range on that is pretty short and I was able to pull Vanessa out of LoS using the Student of Conflict with the ability "Sisters in Spirit." However, I had to commit Victoria of Ashes(VoA) to tie up Marcus, not realizing what he would do.

He lowered her Willpower and then dominated her using his Alpha ability, sending her after Victoria of Blood (VoB). Fortunately for me, I had five cards in my hand, which meant I got a positive flip on all Df and Wp duels for VoB. I got pretty lucky and pulled a lot of high cards thanks to the extra flip. She survived the fight against her sister but both were pretty damaged. With everything locked down by the Ronin, I was able to pull VoA out of the LoS again using the Student. After that, my next activation was to heal with Vanessa and I was fortunate enough to get a moderate heal of 3 points putting the Vicks back in high spirits.

The sisters had had enough of Marcus and so VoB went after Cojo and the rattler who were trying to settle down in the center by the gate, in order to win the Turf War VPs. Cojo had been roughed up already by the Gunslinger but had a few hit points thanks to Myranda's healing ability. Thanks to VoA's LoS Melee Expert, however, VoB made short work of both the snake and the gorilla, leaving her, a ronin, and the gunslinger facing down the Jackalope (it was cowering behind the gate...).

At that point we called it. My opponent had sacced Myranda to summon the Cerberus tiger thingy but all that was left besides that was Marcus and the Jackalope. He had killed a Ronin through poison damage but failed (fortunately for me) to rip the heart out of my force with his Alpha maneuver. I ended up winning with 2 points from Turf War, 2 points from Protect Territory, and 2 points from my mystery scheme. He managed 1 point from Turf War so a resounding victory for me.

Game Two:

In game two, I made two alterations to my crew. I pulled the spell that adds damage flips from VoA and gave her the Howling Wolf Tattoo. I like to keep her within LoS of as much of my force as possible anyway, so it made more sense to give it to her than VoB. With the two free points, I dropped a Ronin and added Hans for a bit more ranged ability. I kept this list for Game Three as well as I liked the shooty support.

Overall, Hans and the Convict Gunslinger performed below expectations. My draws for them were pretty consistently poor. Hans was able to pick off a couple of wounded models with Hard to Kill that were sticking up some melee battles, but didn't really do much damage beyond that. The Gunslinger roughed up Cojo but in all the shooting he did, I only triggered Rapid Fire twice in three games. So all in all, a poor drawing day for shooty times. They did, however, provide much needed tactical support and gave me a psychological edge. The fact that Hans could select targets in a combat spooked both my Game Two and Three opponents and I think they played more conservatively because of the range of the sniper rifle. In game three, I noticed a distinct lack of interest in going near the Gunslinger which prevented my opponent from dropping his fourth counter for Line in the Sand (not that it would have mattered, but we'll get to that later). So despite their lack of damage output, they did a great job tactically.

Game two was played on a very crowded map that featured a host of ruins and a cool train set:

One could see through the building so shooting along that line was possible. The strategy was Reconnoiter and my two schemes were Breakthrough and Plant Evidence. The deployment was the twelve inch corner bubble and I was in the bottom right hand corner looking at the skull on the Engine. I set myself up with most of my heavies going left to try to occupy the center and make things difficult for my opponent to get points from Recon. Meanwhile, I sent VoB and two Ronin out on the right flank to run up the table. The first thing I did, however, was to give Hans fast (Student of Conflict is handy) and push him over the tracks so he could sight all the way down the rail platform. This effectively cut the board on the diagonal.

My opponent was playing a mixed McMourning list with a Hanged and a Belle. They ended up in Han's line of sight and eventually he was able to pick off the Belle. VoB got tied up with both Hanged and the Belle which prevented the Belle from fouling up my scheme runners. She died a noble death after getting hosed by the Hanged. She managed to hold them off long enough for my Ronin to lay all the scheme markers necessary for me to win the game. Meanwhile, the Gunslinger and Hans dominated the center of the table, preventing the Crooked Man from laying enough scheme markers by himself to complete Line in the Sand. This forced the Hanged to have to put down a marker after he blew up VoB which sprung my Ronin to lay the last marker to get me full points for both schemes.

In the meantime, all the action was happening by the ruins near the stairs. My opponent had moved McMourning down into range of my heavies in an attempt to assassinate Vanessa. There was an epic clash between VoA and McMourning and I was lucky enough to pull a Red Joker on a neg three damage flip (pull four, take the lowest). He certainly felt the nine damage. Unfortunately, VoA was damaged and poisoned and McMourning had healed up a bit of the damage he had taken (also there was some soulstone spending for mitigation). Sebastian moved up to add poison damage to VoA and she would die as soon as she activated.

Fortunately, the Student of Conflict came to the rescue again, pulling VoA out of range of Sebastian's nasty poison boost. After a quick heal from Vanessa, I activated VoA and she charged McMourning again (after taking a poison damage). She sliced into him, not triggering whirlwind as I had hoped (I was really gunning for Sebastian at this point because of the nasty poison boost). On another three negative damage flip I pulled a weak damage which was completely mitigated by a soulstone spend and a 13 flip. My second desperate attack landed true with yet another three negative flip. The four cards revealed another red joker and that was the end of McMourning. His soulstones spent, his blood stained the hard ground of the ruined town. VoA turned to Sebastian and jammed her blade through his skull.

All in all, a good game. My opponent mustered 5 VPs. 2 from Reconnoiter, and 3 from Line in the Sand. I won the day with all 3 from Reconnoiter, 2 from Breakthrough, and 2 from Plant Evidence. I thought using the Gunslinger and Hans to hold the middle with range while VoB protected my scheme runners worked fantastically. I would have felt better about it had VoB done some damage before she died but I flipped a bunch of 2s and 3s for her attacks. Still, she served her purpose of screening the Ronin.

My opponent was pretty peeved (rightly so, I think) that I pulled two Red Jokers for damage. All in all, however, the combat where that happened was meaningless to the outcome of the game. Vanessa was never in danger of dying since VoA was slashing face on both of his big bads and with the movement tricks of the Student, I could keep both healed fairly easily. As nasty as McMourning is, I could have pulled Vanessa back and hit him with the Convict Gunslinger. I never felt the need to do this but given all the auras he's got, that's probably how I'll treat him in the future.

A point that was discussed after the tournament was that the first joker came at the tail end of the second turn. The second joker came up right at the beginning of the first turn. The thing is that with all the attack flips and the first low damage flip, I had churned through between 10 and 20 cards in my deck (with drawing for initiative at the start of the turn and pulling my hand and such). The massive damage reduction abilities can be a bit of a double edged sword, especially against someone like Rasputina with that nasty upgrade to treat the black joker as red.

Game Three:

This game was the championship match. I was surprised to find myself here considering my inexperience with Malifaux but tactics are tactics and I felt like I had done a solid job of playing to the schemes rather than just trying to slaughter everything on the board (always a temptation). Playing for VPs is always a good plan in tournaments and was some welcome advice from the store owner when he taught me the game.

Game three took place on a swamp board. The strategy was Squatter's Rights but the available schemes were not very palatable to my movement impaired crew. I ended up taking Line in the Sand and Make Them Suffer, figuring I could count on the Vickys to provide enough mayhem to account for at least a couple of VPs. Unfortunately, there was a bit of a miscommunication when I revealed Line in the Sand. I made an offhand comment about how it wasn't worth hiding the scheme because a) it's obvious what you're doing as soon as you put down a scheme marker, b) we were playing Squatter's Rights so there was going to be a lot of action on the midline, c) Even if you only got two counters down, you still got a single VP. My opponent interpreted this to mean that you only needed two counters down to get all three points which ended up costing him, sort of.

He was playing Yan Lo and had a variety of flying or incorporeal creatures who could ignore the movement penalties from the swamp. He took Line in the Sand and Power Ritual as his schemes. Which, as you can see from the board, were a lot easier for him than me:

We had the 12 inch bubble deployment again and I started in the bottom left corner of the picture. This meant I could place the gunslinger, the student, and a ronin out on the bit dock/platform thing on the center left of the board. This would be important later. Hans hung out by that big rock near the two bridges, somewhat behind the Vickys and Vanessa. 

VoA and Vanessa went up the right hand bridge toward the obelisk and the pile of rocks. VoB went with some Ronin to hold down the center of the board. Yan Lo floated around in back while the rest of his crew moved up to the island on the right with the rocks and the obelisk. Yan Lo's niece ran into the far right corner to plant a scheme token there for power ritual but then inexplicably floated back toward the center of the board.

I was able to push into the very center of the board and get my two squatter's rights tokens flipped. He had gotten there a turn earlier thanks to some movement tricks. I tried blasting the flying snake lady but the negative flips to hit and damage made the effort fruitless and I quickly gave up. VoA engaged Yan Lo's heavy (toshito?) and a couple of Ashigaru near the back pile of rocks. I got another Red Joker Damage flip which spelled the end of the big bad, or so I thought. Yan Lo raced over and rezzed him and then healed him, a rather frustrating turn of events. This did clear out enough of the corner, however, for one of my Ronin to run over and remove one of his scheme tokens for Line in the Sand. At this point, my opponent argued that rezzing his guy negated the kill for Make Them Suffer but that was quickly shot down by the organizer.

I was pretty pleased with VoA since she turned the whole corner into a snarl and slowed his crew's advance to a crawl. With Vanessa backing her up, I was pretty confident that she would survive what he could throw at her and she did. My other Ronin, VoB, and the Gunslinger, meanwhile, ran schemes, getting all four tokens on the centerline and flipping two of the Squatter's tokens. 

Yan Lo and the snake lady ended up in the swamp on the far side of the center stones. I took the opportunity provided by VoA to push the Gunslinger further out into the center where he was able to do a bit of damage to the Snake lady. Then I charged Yan Lo with VoB to cut down on his mobility. This worked wonderfully as VoB got stuck in with both the Snake Lady and Yan Lo, preventing her from running schemes toward the Gunslinger and the Ronin and stopping Yan Lo from running around doing whatever it is that he does.

The next turn, he pulled Yan Lo out of the combat with his movement guy. I was able to kill the Snake lady with VoB and then move over and take a shot at Yan Lo because VoA grants Melee Expert within LoS. This meant that Yan Lo had to heal himself before rezzing Snake Lady. Snake Lady then had to come deal with VoB instead of doing whatever else she was going to do after rezzing. 

At this point, time ran out on the game. I won by the skin of my teeth. He had 3 VP from Squatter's Rights, 2 VP from Power Ritual, and 1 VP from Line in the Sand. There was a bit of an argument about the VPs from the last scheme because he only had two tokens down, but in the end we cleared everything up. I had 3 VPs from Line, 2 from Squatter's and 2 from Make Them Suffer giving me 7 to his 6. 

Overall a very fun three games. I had a lot of fun at the tournament. Getting a chance to play more Malifaux was great. All three games had some pretty intense moments. I look forward to getting play more in the future, hopefully with painted models. :)

Big shoutout to Jules the tournament organizer and to Matt at Hobby Quest games. The whole event was great. The flips went my way and I was able to exert enough control over the board to get the VPs I needed to win. 

The Vatborn Hordes

My players converted their characters over to 13th Age and we ran through the beginning of a dungeon. They're currently in the district of Soma, investigating the lair of a rogue Dirz Biopsist (mad scientist biologist guy who clones monsters and such). They ran into a few clones and won the day. The battle went okay. I managed to do some serious damage to the Wolfen Fighter but never felt like the outcome was in doubt. For my first 13th Age battle as a DM, that's probably for the best.

I created three monsters and attacked them with two (the third lays in wait for them in the next encounter). They're a scrapper and a defensive, both second level, taken pretty much straight from the basic stat line. Here are the mobs, comments and criticism welcome and appreciated:

First is the Halberdier. They wear blue robes, have pallid skin, and wield a giant halberd. I figured they look kinda sickly but have a giant weapon so I made them into scrappers based loosely on the human thug in the basic book. The Halberd is a little slow to swing which is reflected in their initiative. Because of their high to hit, I lowered the extra damage on next attack to +4 since that could get deadly quickly. The "Step Back" ability is due to the length of the halberd. I thought if they missed, there would be a chance they could distance themselves from the target using the long reach of their weapon.

Here's an example (yes, red robes) of what they look like (not painted by me): http://www.coolminiornot.com/25030?browseid=8068343

Dirz Halberdier:

Level 2 Scrapper [Humanoid, Clone]

Initiative: +2

Halberd: +10 vs. AC - 7 damage

16+ +4 to damage on next attack

Step Back: Natural odd miss: Can immediately save to disengage.

AC: 18

PD: 16, MD: 12

HP: 25

The basic clone makes up the bulk of the Syhar armies. They're a little more defensive minded, being armed with a mace or sword and a shield. I chose the defensive type and added a defensive posture kind of like the fighter as well as a nasty debuff. Because of the debuff, I lowered the normal damage slightly.

Here's a picture (again, not me): http://www.coolminiornot.com/104069?browseid=8068343

Dirz Clone:

Level 2 Troop (defensive) [Humanoid, Clone]

Initiative: +3

Mace: +7 vs. AC - 6 damage

Nerve Shot: 16+ Target is dazed (save ends)

Even Miss: +2 to Defenses

AC: 20

PD: 16

MD: 14

HP: 25

The flesh pests are little constructs made of leftover flesh and bone. I figured their saliva was poisonous but probably didn't get activated very often.

Flesh Pests:

Level 2 Mook [Construct, Clone]

Initiative +1

Claw Hooks: +7 vs AC - 5 Damage

18+ ongoing poison damage/2

AC: 18

PD: 16

MD: 12

HP: 9

Overall, the Dirz army allows for a wide variety of interesting opponents to fight against. Not all the clones are humanoid and a bunch of them have various combat drug abilities that can boost defenses or attacks. Since I'm still feeling out the system, I'm wary of creating a whole bunch of these guys. I don't have many ideas on how to represent these effects and need some more time with the mechanics lest I TPK on a poorly thought out ability.

The Races of Cadwallon, Take Two

The Races of Cadwallon, Take Two

After thinking about some of the feedback I received on the first attempt at this, I monkeyed with some of the racial powers. I've also added a couple more types of humans, the minotaur, and elves. I've got a couple where I've listed options cuz I'm having trouble coming up with what should happen. I think we'll probably play test it all the different ways and see what happens. Maybe it'll spur some more creative thinking. Also, hopefully you'll find this better edited. :)

Dwarf

The dwarves have populated Aarklash ever since the beginning of the Creation. They believe to have been conceived and named by the gods at the same time as the other races.

The dwarves are known for their extraordinary stamina. They share an intimate link with the earth and have a natural tendency to dwell in subterranean locations or isolated on vast plains. They are reluctant to move and hate strangers. Finally, they possess a sharp sense of the community: even though they might come from different regions and meet for the first time, two dwarves would feel shared trust at once.

Males are rather hirsute. Bearing a dense and decorated beard is not a social imperative, although it is wide spread. Females are less hairy than their brethren, but just as stout. Dwarves fingers and limbs, being smaller than other races, predispose them to the activities requiring agility and precision.

Dwarves add +2 to Con or +2 to Int

Science!: Dwarves may be Engineers. Add +1 to checks requiring fine motor skills like precision engineering and picking locks.

Tough as Nails: Dwarves start with the toughness feat at adventurer level and gain +1 to PD

Elf:

The elves have paid a heavy tribute to History; their race is no more one people, but three: Akkyshan Elves, Cynwäll and Daïkinee. Besides culture, these factions distinguish themselves from the others by minor morphological differences.

Akkyshan:

Akkyshans are often capable of seeing in the dark without any trouble. Some rare warriors received the blessing of their goddess, Lilith, and where blessed with arachnid features: additional members, strength and overdeveloped reflexes, etc

The Akkyshan elves gain +2 to Dex or +2 to Cha

Venom of the Spider Queen:

Gain a +2 to saving throws made against ongoing Poison damage. In addition per battle deal ongoing poison damage to a target you hit with a natural even attack roll as a free action. The ongoing damage equals 5 times your level. (For example, at 3rd level you would deal 15 ongoing damage against a single  target.) As usual, a normal save (11+) ends the damage. A critical hit doesn’t double this ongoing damage.

Champion Feat: Once per day, you can instead use cruel to deal 5 ongoing damage per level against a target you have missed or had a natural odd attack roll against. (Yes, you could even deal the ongoing damage with a natural 1; you’re that cruel.)

(A reskin of the existing cruel power for dark elves, the only change is to switch the damage type to poison so it might not work on constructs and other such beings).

Cynwall

The elves of Cynwäll origin are a little taller and stronger than their fellow creatures, but live far from the heart of Quithayran. They do not feel fear of heights.

Cynwall elves gain +2 to Cha or +2 to Int

Students of the mind: Gain +2 MD, gain 2 background points to be used in some sort of mental discipline (e.g. monk, ascetic. DM’s decision)

Maybe needs something else?

Diakinee Elves

Daïkinees form the original stem of the elven race. They live closest to the forest of Quithayran and still follow a sylvan existence. Many of them maintain a symbiosis with animals or plants, which feed from the Elves’ bodies, strengthen or protect them. The Daïkinee women suffer from a curse cast by Scaëlin, the matriarch of Akkyshans: they die shortly after giving birth to the fruit of their first union with a male Daïkinee.

A Diakinee character gains +2 Dex or +2 Con.

Daikinee characters get Elven Grace (renamed to something like Desperate Energy since a hero with a strong connection to King Menryl will probably be looking for a way to lift the curse at least in the back of his or her mind).

Goblin

There is not a place goblins have not settled. Those of Cadwallon are one of the oldest communities and most thriving. Like all the representatives of their race, the Cadwë goblins

quarrel for the control of the goods and the money generated from its commerce. Besides, they considerably influence the geography of the city, which has to take into account their small size and their high birth rate.

Goblins gain +2 Dex or +2 Int

Blessing of Uraken: Goblins can be engineers, alchemists, or ninjas

Ubiquity: Goblins get +2 to any checks made to hide while in urban environments

Small: Goblins gain +2 AC vs Opportunity Actions

One of the crowd: Goblins gain + 1 to defenses for each nearby ally, up to a maximum of +2 or +3

Humans

The humans, stemming from the mythical continent of Kel, arrived on Aarklash at the dawn of the age of the Rebirth. Chased away from their native land, the people of Kel sailed off to find new horizons to be conquered. Alas, not all agreed on how to proceed and soon discord appeared. The human race split up as it took over the continent. Men tore themselves to pieces over excessive ambition, in the name of an ideology or religion; thus, they created powerful civilizations under the sun, caressed by the wind or eager for blood. Very soon, some chose to follow the Ways of Light, the others preferred to trust the Paths of Destiny, the others even got lost in Meanders of Darkness.

Humans add +2 to any stat

Humans gain an extra feat at first level

Cultural Abilities:

Akkylannie:

Unwavering Faith: Their faith in Merin is the compass that guides the Akkylannie hero. Gain a +1 to MD and a +2 to save against Charm and Confusion effects

Benediction of Merin: Once per battle, an Akkylannie character can add 1d4 to the roll of a nearby ally.

Barhan:

Against the Odds: The citizens of the Empire of the Lion are brave to the point of foolhardy. Gain a +2 bonus to saves made against fear and terror effects.

Dig Deep: During the battle, a Barhan character can rally a second time without having to make a save. Any subsequent rallies follow the normal rules.

Cadwe:

Ceaseless industry: Growing up in the most diverse city in Aarklash gives the Cadwe a unique set of experiences. Gain two background points that must be used for city related purposes (GM’s decision).

Quick to Fight: At the start of each battle, roll initiative twice and chose the result you want (basic power from 13^th Age)

Sessair:

One with the world: Sessairs are born under the stars. They are a tough, hardy people who are used to living off the land. Gain two background points that must be used for nature/wilderness purposes (GM’s decision).

War Cry (Quick Action):

Once per battle a Sessair character may let out a great shout adding damage equal to the character’s level to the attacks of all nearby allies until the end of the next turn and dazing 1D2 nearby enemies in a group (con or cha based attack vs. PD, save ends).

Syhar:

Sometimes an escaped clone will make its way to Cadwallon.

Biogenic construct: The combat clones are grown in chemical tanks, gain a Damage Resist 12+ to poison.

Endocrine enhancers: The clone’s body has ways to boost adrenal output during combat. Once per battle, the clone can force itself into this heightened state.

Option 1: An extra attack

Option 2: more powerful attack (d4 or d6 per level)

Option 3: Change initiative order and a free move action

Feats: Add poison damage to the attack

Minotaur:

Although they preceded the humans, the minotaurs are not from Aarklash. This race comes from Shenroth, an elemental Realm which has many contacts with Aarklash. When the minotaurs first appeared on the continent, they were welcomed with the respect owed to the wise scholars coming from a mythic land. Reasonable and well learned, they established friendly relationships with other populations, especially the centaurs and the giants.

When the men of Kel came from another land, the minotaurs became the heralds of a dark prophecy announcing a terrible war which would be wrought by the humans. They gathered around them representatives of all the races living on the continent but were unable to drive the humans back.

After this defeat, many minotaurs went back to Shenroth. The others who remained did not believe the prophecy or had lost faith. They were assimilated by the first Kelts and slowly lost their cultural heritage. The humans remembered the minotaurs once were powerful emmisaries and chose this figure as their emblem.

Minotaurs add +2 to Str or +2 to Wis

Large: -2 to hit and damage in small spaces (DM’s discretion)

Clumsy Fingers: -2 to checks that require fine motor skills like thievery (DM’s discretion)

Imposing Bulk: Cannot wear heavy armor but gain a moderate difficulty save to resist any ability that would force you prone.

Thick Hide: Gain +2 to AC

Anguished Charge: Once per battle, when reduce to half hit points or below, the Minotaur can make an immediate gore attempt against the creature that hit her. Attack is str, dex, or wis against AC and deals 1d8 x level + str.

Champion feat: Choose a nearby enemy to target in addition to the triggering target. Move yourself accordingly. This is still a free action. If there is no other target, the damage dice become 1d10 as both horns are now utilized for the goring attack.

Orcs:

The orcs were created by the Scorpion to be soldiers. There was a problem with the cloning process and the Orcs rebelled. They fled the deserts of Akkylanie and settled in the wild lands of Bran-o-Kor. The Orcs are strong and their culture is a straightforward one. They are a laconic people who have an appreciation for brute strength.

Orcs get +2 Str or +2 Wis

Primal Connections: Orcs may not be wizards (sorcerers and shaman are okay, however)

Brutal-  Option 1: Orcs add level bonus to hit and miss damage in melee

Option 2: Orcs drop damage resistance one category (so DR 12+ would become DR 16+). The problem is that Brutal only applies to Melee/Physical attacks and most DR is elemental based. Physical DR seems rare enough to make this be a “who cares” sort of an ability. This also seems complicated.

Option 3:

Created for Battle: Once per battle, rally as a quick action.

Adventurer Feat: This recovery is free

Wolfen:

A wild and intimidating race, the Wolfen reign where the “civilized” peoples did not impose their corruption. Nobody can evade their animal fury. The origins of the Wolfen are lost in the mists of time; their legends, passed on orally through the ages, claim that they would have been born from the union of Yllia, the moon-goddess, and from the most powerful of all the wolves.

Wolfen add +2 Str or +2 Dex

Trappings of Civilization: Wolfen cannot select the Sorcerer or Wizard classes. Also, they cannot wear armor.

Blessings of Yllia: Wolfen priests can access the Moon Domain. Due to their quickness and thickness of their fur, Wolfen are always considered to be wearing the heaviest allowable armor that does not confer a penalty for the purposes of determining AC. Ex: A wolfen fighter would calculate AC based on Heavy Armor (but no shield). A wolfen bard would calculate AC based on light armor.

Jaws of the Predator: When attacking in melee, if a wolfen rolls an 18+ they bit their foe for damage equal to 1d6 x level + str.

Large: -2 to hit and damage in small spaces (DM’s discretion)