So, I was asked by a friend to write about Religion in RPGs. My main issue is that, most religions in major Fantasy Table Top RPGs seem to fall into this... broad pantheist pantheon similar to Greek and Norse gods. And it always seems everyone believes in all of these gods and just chooses their favorite, or whichever is in charge of their species.
It’s kind of a punch in my verisimilitude. Religion doesn’t work that way in real life. My friends who are pagan don’t believe in the same God as my Christian friends, and then some of my Christian friends believe that their God is the same as Muslims’ and others don’t. My Buddhist friends eat meat, and my agnostic friends don’t eat pork. Religion and being religious is complicated and varied.
I know what some of you are thinking, “That’s way too hard and complicated, I can cut/copy/paste a pantheist pantheon and call it a day.” Sure. No need to stress yourself if this is a subject you’re eight-hundred percent sure won’t be a major factor. But for me having “Human Religions”, “Elf Religions”, and “Orc Religions” feels about as weird as having race-specific languages (which I’ll write on later).
People talk, and faiths proselytize. A relative dies and we’re left asking “what now?”. A friend has a near death experience in battle and says “where will I go?”. Someone breaks their dogma in the name of love and asks “did I really believe?”. Someone loses an argument. Someone realizes that their doctrine hurts others. Someone sees a miracle.
This is vastly more complicated by the fact that, in Fantasy RPGs divine intervention is a very real thing, and the forces of both Good and Evil with capital letters is readily apparent in their divine and infernal agents. You cannot say “Your God is a false-god, Ben-hur!” when Ben-hur’s God literally steps down to punch you in the mouth.
And then the scene is further complicated by the fact that gods are monsters, and not just posited by the excellent “Revelations of the Mononoke Hime” by Mastered by Marquis. The original game itself encourages such by giving them stat-blocks, a trait belonging to characters and monsters. Modern incarnations give them more vague statistical information, but it is still there. And it isn’t like people fighting with God or gods isn’t a story we don’t tell: The Odyssey and Evangelion both tell that kind of story in very different ways.
For my home-brew world, I want a variance of religions and religious beliefs. I’m not gonna worry about how the Monothiest god of religion A interacts with the Pantheon of Coastal Region B. Not yet anyways. But I am gonna come up with 5 or so religions for my world, and see what sticks.
Friday, March 22, 2019
Thursday, March 21, 2019
The Anglerfish Dilemma
So I read a lot of other blogs by better writers than me, and they’re smarter and more creative game-masters than me. So it only stands to reason I’m gonna take some of their ideas and concepts and make them my own. Here is one I call “The Anglerfish Dilemma”.
So, a Dungeon Based Economy is the trope that dungeons are good or necessary for economic sustainment/boom, right? There was a post I wish I could find a while back explaining it, but basically the gist is, in a world where you have teleporting wizards and invisible wind-men, banks and treasuries just aren’t that safe. Hence dungeons to the rescue: wizards can teleport around, and inside of a dungeon, but not into or out of. So dungeons are effectively better banks. If you now see your adventurers as heist-planning bank robbers and all dungeon accoutrements as security measures, you’ve got the right idea. I mean, one of them is probably literally playing a Thief.
And then there is another thought process: Dungeons are a malign reality invading our own. I don’t know who wrote it first, but I first bumped into the concept on a review of “The Nightmares Underneath” by Johnstone Metzger on another blog. I immediately fell in love with the idea: that there is another world pressing ever so slightly into ours, or maybe just... breaking down the walls a little. And that those who go through those gates step into a literal Hell fashioned to look like a dungeon. It explains so much. It’s like the movie Cube, and also Pacific Rim. It’s where monsters come from, and why. Why is the whole reality doing this? Who knows? Better question: why try to fathom an alien and extra-dimensional intellect?
Now for the real fun: in my homebrew world, both of these are true. Dungeons, especially Megadungeons, are a sadistic and utterly incomprehensible world testing the boundaries of our own. And you can’t teleport into or out of them. Because Hell is the best bank ever made. What’s even better is that this reality makes silver and gold and magic treasures. Literally baiting adventurers to become bloodstains and gnawed bones in mouldering crypts. So, there’s interest. Beautiful, shining, compound interest. And for those cunning or brave enough, they seek to cultivate dungeons, which is half of why wizards build towers. It’s why castles have (traditional) dungeons. It’s why the foolish and the insane take up torches and swords and climbing gear and start crawling through caves.
Because the Anglerfish has beautiful, shiny bait, rats return to it. Some rats get lucky, some get smart, but the trap always has teeth and an appetite. And sooner or later, luck runs out. Plans fail, and when it does, the Anglerfish gets a meal.
One it’s waited for for a long, long time.
So, a Dungeon Based Economy is the trope that dungeons are good or necessary for economic sustainment/boom, right? There was a post I wish I could find a while back explaining it, but basically the gist is, in a world where you have teleporting wizards and invisible wind-men, banks and treasuries just aren’t that safe. Hence dungeons to the rescue: wizards can teleport around, and inside of a dungeon, but not into or out of. So dungeons are effectively better banks. If you now see your adventurers as heist-planning bank robbers and all dungeon accoutrements as security measures, you’ve got the right idea. I mean, one of them is probably literally playing a Thief.
And then there is another thought process: Dungeons are a malign reality invading our own. I don’t know who wrote it first, but I first bumped into the concept on a review of “The Nightmares Underneath” by Johnstone Metzger on another blog. I immediately fell in love with the idea: that there is another world pressing ever so slightly into ours, or maybe just... breaking down the walls a little. And that those who go through those gates step into a literal Hell fashioned to look like a dungeon. It explains so much. It’s like the movie Cube, and also Pacific Rim. It’s where monsters come from, and why. Why is the whole reality doing this? Who knows? Better question: why try to fathom an alien and extra-dimensional intellect?
Now for the real fun: in my homebrew world, both of these are true. Dungeons, especially Megadungeons, are a sadistic and utterly incomprehensible world testing the boundaries of our own. And you can’t teleport into or out of them. Because Hell is the best bank ever made. What’s even better is that this reality makes silver and gold and magic treasures. Literally baiting adventurers to become bloodstains and gnawed bones in mouldering crypts. So, there’s interest. Beautiful, shining, compound interest. And for those cunning or brave enough, they seek to cultivate dungeons, which is half of why wizards build towers. It’s why castles have (traditional) dungeons. It’s why the foolish and the insane take up torches and swords and climbing gear and start crawling through caves.
Because the Anglerfish has beautiful, shiny bait, rats return to it. Some rats get lucky, some get smart, but the trap always has teeth and an appetite. And sooner or later, luck runs out. Plans fail, and when it does, the Anglerfish gets a meal.
One it’s waited for for a long, long time.
Wednesday, March 20, 2019
Dragon Names
About two years ago I was working with dragons in my setting. I loved the names “Charsaug” and “Everblight” from Iron Kingdoms, “Lofwyr” from Shadowrun, Tolkien’s “Glaurung”, and of course Dragonslayer’s “Vermithrax Pejorative”. All of these felt like dragon names to me: ruinous curses, biblical plagues, natural disasters, guttural god-wyrms.
This was at a time that, dragon names by some major publishers just... didn’t whet my appetite. They didn’t feel like destructive forces of nature personified, or malign gods come to raze and torment. Most of the names I seemed to bump into were all Z’s, X’s, and apostrophes.
So I made this list to kind of slap around bits and pieces until you got a decent-sounding dragon name. Some work better than others, and it’s obvious that I put more thought into some colors than others. It should also be noted I didn’t include any metallic, or gemstone, or weird colors because in my home-brew worlds (typically) there are no “good” dragons.
Names for dragons
All Dragons:
fing
fang
Lung
saur
Laur
Rung
Rug
Thryx
Rex
fwyr
Mal
Blight
Warp
Gor
Rath
Ruin
Thrax
Connections:
iel
a
en
us
or
el
il
eld
ius
an
Red:
Volo
Char
Mag
Ano
Orch
Volc
Vulk
Tyr
Tyran
Hel
Pyro
Black:
Caust
Mire
Bog
Pest
Skol
Brine
Brack
Tar
Corros
Mort
Gloam
Fester
Green:
Faug
Lurk
Laug
Adder
Coil
Viper
Serp
Snok
Naga
Pyth
Mist
Scath
Venom
Blue:
Strato
Mira
Dune
Arid
Sahar
Evap
Salin
Thar
Tenger
Drought
Sturm
Bolt
Krak
Wing
White:
Tundra
Cryo
Frost
Bite
Chill
Hoar
Gale
Cryst
Wite
Shiver
Whip
This was at a time that, dragon names by some major publishers just... didn’t whet my appetite. They didn’t feel like destructive forces of nature personified, or malign gods come to raze and torment. Most of the names I seemed to bump into were all Z’s, X’s, and apostrophes.
So I made this list to kind of slap around bits and pieces until you got a decent-sounding dragon name. Some work better than others, and it’s obvious that I put more thought into some colors than others. It should also be noted I didn’t include any metallic, or gemstone, or weird colors because in my home-brew worlds (typically) there are no “good” dragons.
Names for dragons
All Dragons:
fing
fang
Lung
saur
Laur
Rung
Rug
Thryx
Rex
fwyr
Mal
Blight
Warp
Gor
Rath
Ruin
Thrax
Connections:
iel
a
en
us
or
el
il
eld
ius
an
Red:
Volo
Char
Mag
Ano
Orch
Volc
Vulk
Tyr
Tyran
Hel
Pyro
Black:
Caust
Mire
Bog
Pest
Skol
Brine
Brack
Tar
Corros
Mort
Gloam
Fester
Green:
Faug
Lurk
Laug
Adder
Coil
Viper
Serp
Snok
Naga
Pyth
Mist
Scath
Venom
Blue:
Strato
Mira
Dune
Arid
Sahar
Evap
Salin
Thar
Tenger
Drought
Sturm
Bolt
Krak
Wing
White:
Tundra
Cryo
Frost
Bite
Chill
Hoar
Gale
Cryst
Wite
Shiver
Whip
Hexcannons
Magic wands are sticks that shoot magical stuff out of them. Yes? Yes. You’ve all seen Harry Potter, so I’m guessing you have the general grasp.
“But-“
Magic sticks. The magic goes from wherever, through the wizard and into the wand.
Well what happens when you hack the branches off a whole tree and do that?
This is a Hexcannon, magical artillery. When mechanized magical warfare hits your world, it won’t be with giant robots, or powered armor. That’s insane. Instead it’s gonna be WWI style Shelling, with awful magical howitzers, and all the horrible associations that go with that.
They take the big wand, and they carve a small wooden chair at the back of it, and affix the orichalcum manacles to it, and the safety-collar of banded iron and pyrite. This is the mechanism that keeps it just from firing over and over. They latch the wizard in, and now he’s the firing pin. There’s a big metal sextant, and a manning crew that runs it, with hot brands who force the mage to use the wand over and over until the fresh, sigil carved tree is a used and blackened matchstick of what it once was. Wizard’s probably gone by then too. Only so much even a prodigious mind can take before they lose themselves to pain, and guilt at what they’ve been forced to do.
I know what you’re thinking: why are the wizards unwilling? Certainly they chose sides, or are fighting in the war, yes?
No. Wizards do not care about your petty mortal squabbles. Enough study of the arcane will render them deaf to the incessant ticking of their life’s clock, let alone to all the noise made by those maddened by it. When one has their third interstellar vortex anomaly to decrypt before transcending it’s Aeon Barrier, one does not care that hoary men with calloused hands are carving the trees outside your tower, and men with soft hands and greedy eyes are moving little figures on a map. They’re not even looking at a fully-rendered quasi-dimensional overlay. They are meat and bone and wizards are spirit and mind. Hardly do the twain ever meet.
Which is why when the armored vagrants come and kidnap them, it’s all the worse as a wizard who suddenly has lost his paranormal might. The fatsacks in pompous clothing should have offered riches, heaps of lesser treasures, but often it’s just mediocre pleas, idle threats, and of course, useless coin. Wizards always have enough coin.
This is why wizards stay away from society and study on their own. This is also why covens of them sometimes establish magocracies, or level cities. It’s not meant as an offense, but the wizards all confirmed that city’s 89% chance of sending a band of whiskey-soaked vagrants after them to kill them or rob their coin, or worse, use them up like a battery.
And if you think about it, how awful must it be to be the wizard to made the first of these? The last? To be the mage who first invented them?
“But-“
Magic sticks. The magic goes from wherever, through the wizard and into the wand.
Well what happens when you hack the branches off a whole tree and do that?
This is a Hexcannon, magical artillery. When mechanized magical warfare hits your world, it won’t be with giant robots, or powered armor. That’s insane. Instead it’s gonna be WWI style Shelling, with awful magical howitzers, and all the horrible associations that go with that.
They take the big wand, and they carve a small wooden chair at the back of it, and affix the orichalcum manacles to it, and the safety-collar of banded iron and pyrite. This is the mechanism that keeps it just from firing over and over. They latch the wizard in, and now he’s the firing pin. There’s a big metal sextant, and a manning crew that runs it, with hot brands who force the mage to use the wand over and over until the fresh, sigil carved tree is a used and blackened matchstick of what it once was. Wizard’s probably gone by then too. Only so much even a prodigious mind can take before they lose themselves to pain, and guilt at what they’ve been forced to do.
I know what you’re thinking: why are the wizards unwilling? Certainly they chose sides, or are fighting in the war, yes?
No. Wizards do not care about your petty mortal squabbles. Enough study of the arcane will render them deaf to the incessant ticking of their life’s clock, let alone to all the noise made by those maddened by it. When one has their third interstellar vortex anomaly to decrypt before transcending it’s Aeon Barrier, one does not care that hoary men with calloused hands are carving the trees outside your tower, and men with soft hands and greedy eyes are moving little figures on a map. They’re not even looking at a fully-rendered quasi-dimensional overlay. They are meat and bone and wizards are spirit and mind. Hardly do the twain ever meet.
Which is why when the armored vagrants come and kidnap them, it’s all the worse as a wizard who suddenly has lost his paranormal might. The fatsacks in pompous clothing should have offered riches, heaps of lesser treasures, but often it’s just mediocre pleas, idle threats, and of course, useless coin. Wizards always have enough coin.
This is why wizards stay away from society and study on their own. This is also why covens of them sometimes establish magocracies, or level cities. It’s not meant as an offense, but the wizards all confirmed that city’s 89% chance of sending a band of whiskey-soaked vagrants after them to kill them or rob their coin, or worse, use them up like a battery.
And if you think about it, how awful must it be to be the wizard to made the first of these? The last? To be the mage who first invented them?
About
What this is: this is a place where I’m dumping a lot of my table-top RPG ideas, and I decided for some terrible reason to make it public. I may also just scream into the digital void here about stuff that’s going on in my life, but will try to keep it related to gaming and creative pursuits.
What I want it to be: a big ol’ stack of nerdy pancakes that you all enjoy, just one delicious treat after the next that leaves you hungry for more. I also hope that more than enjoying my content, it gets your own imagination going. That it inspires you to come up with your own ideas. There will be some gaps in logic or even direct contradictions in the things I write. That’s ok: I want you to choose how to fix them, or better yet, ask your players how they work.
Why: Because I really wanna write. Fiction, honestly, but really if I’m not thinking of game-stuff, my imagination goes a little dry. I once tried to stop writing nerd-game stuff to take those ideas and make them “serious writing”, aaaaand promptly stopped writing. My good fiction story ideas come when I also have good game story ideas. I know the last thing the internet needs is another gaming blog, but this one is mine.
Who: I’m an early 30s nerd who likes old-school games, short speculative fiction, writing, and painting little figurines. I listen to a lot of punk and metal music.
What I want it to be: a big ol’ stack of nerdy pancakes that you all enjoy, just one delicious treat after the next that leaves you hungry for more. I also hope that more than enjoying my content, it gets your own imagination going. That it inspires you to come up with your own ideas. There will be some gaps in logic or even direct contradictions in the things I write. That’s ok: I want you to choose how to fix them, or better yet, ask your players how they work.
Why: Because I really wanna write. Fiction, honestly, but really if I’m not thinking of game-stuff, my imagination goes a little dry. I once tried to stop writing nerd-game stuff to take those ideas and make them “serious writing”, aaaaand promptly stopped writing. My good fiction story ideas come when I also have good game story ideas. I know the last thing the internet needs is another gaming blog, but this one is mine.
Who: I’m an early 30s nerd who likes old-school games, short speculative fiction, writing, and painting little figurines. I listen to a lot of punk and metal music.
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