Thursday, October 23, 2014
Rethinking rules: NUMENERA?
I've been wanting to update this setting more often, which got me thinking that I could switch to a different ruleset as well. Since it's inception, I was going off Mike Davidson's awesome riff of Swords and Wizardry called Ruins and Ronin. R&R is great because it has the old school feel and simplicity with just enough theme to point you in a certain aesthetic direction. But I can't deny the appeal of something wholly different like Numenera, which already has the barbaric/post-civilization thing going for it. It also already has rules for ancient tech and such.
Maybe it's just that Numenera is just so damn beautiful--the artwork is amazing. I can easily see Ketoru as an Eastern version of the game. The art is subjective though, and I've already built up a cache of images for Keturo on Pintrest.Still mulling this over, as I don't want to delve too deeply into rethinking this at the moment, but it's sort of fun to imagine.
More later.
Thursday, May 9, 2013
Mutants: Humans in the grip of the Spheres
Some could take months, others mere days to turn. Those that are already physically mutated are shunned or hunted, but they could still be of help to the remaining human population in the resistance against the Spheres.
Mutants take many forms, from combining the traits of animals to becoming grotesquely deformed humans--or even gestalt with several other afflicted mutants.
Tips for creating mutants for Ketoru
- PCs who are Hybrids sould be scratch-built, as one-offs, where no real "race" of that iteration exists.
- NPCs could either be scratch-built one-offs, or those who have escaped or deserted their brethren with whom they were turned.
- Tribes are whole strains of a single type of mutant. There is no limit on the number of monsters in a given strain. However, in order to serve the mythos of Ketoru, they must have all been created that way during a single encounter or event with Sphere. For instance, there could not be multiple strains of bullywugs-type mutants on Ketoru, there's can only be one tribe that was mutated after a Sphere changed an existing band of humans. No two tribes are alike. To make things easy on statting, any monster in a given manual could become a strain/race of that type.
Images via Monster Brains.
Some things I'd like to develop...
Classes
- Fighting Men - Demon Hunters/Samurai (catch-all warriors).
- Psionnes - The "magic" users Those who specialize in mastering psionics.
- Hybrids (Elves in Swords & Wizardry) - partially mutated humans who will inevitably "turn" but have a wide range of abilities that they can use to help the humans in the meantime.
- A spirit city populated entirely by ghosts.
- Lairs for the spheres and spawn points from which their monstrosities emerge.
- City of the damned - a city that has been completely "turned" (e.g., mutated/corrupted) by a sphere.
- Pockets of unreality that have emerged on the planet.
- Roaming warlord tribes.
- Re-animated dead (including prehistoric creatures).
- Mutants (all types).
- Unterrestrial (totally new/alien to Ketoru).
- Spirits/Demons (in the Japanese sense).
- Kaiju (Referred to as "gods").
- Tips of forming hunting parties, what type of roles need to be filled.
- Gazetter-style updates on sightings of the Spheres, monsters, treasures, astronomical observatios relating to the Spheres' appearances and the coming supernova, etc. for adventure hooks.
- Possible history of Ketoru and where some of the re-animated originate from.
Some quick campaign notes on influences
Princess Mononoke - Ecological disasters create monsters. Monsters fed from polluted chi energy.
Ghostbusters - Demon hunters/exterminators, problem solvers.
Spirited Away - some spirits/monsters seek nonviolent resolution and may even end up helping in fight against the spheres. Memories of the long past chain spirits to Ketoru, preventing them from finding peace and getting them mixed up in situations with the living.
2001: A Space Odyssey - Spheres are like the monolith, having an effect on the human population (re-animate dead, mutatation, causing changes to physical reality, blending physical and spiritual world, opening dimensional gateways)
A Princess of Mars - Planet is post-apocalyptic society in the far future that's fallen into barbarism. Barbarian warlords rule the day.
Smallville - Humans are undergoing the effects of the Sphere's mutational and warping powers (much like kryptonite affected the citizens of Smallville). Cases of "infection" crop up that cause problems for our heroes.
Psionics - The base type of magic. No purely-fantasy based magic exists. Rip out the spells in R&R, replace with psionics (in-game PCs would refer to it as "magic" just the same).
Re-animation of the dead - Zombies, wights, skeletons that roam and attack (or sometimes don't attack) without a base-alignment. Sometimes they even attack each other. They're more like terrain to be encountered--not an fighting force that can be organized.
Ancient technology - Level of technology is mainly barbarian/medieval but occassionally something form the long past is recovered--and ancient treasure. This could be something from our modern world or even more advanced that appears to be completely "magical" to the people of Ketoru.
Ghostbusters - Demon hunters/exterminators, problem solvers.
Spirited Away - some spirits/monsters seek nonviolent resolution and may even end up helping in fight against the spheres. Memories of the long past chain spirits to Ketoru, preventing them from finding peace and getting them mixed up in situations with the living.
2001: A Space Odyssey - Spheres are like the monolith, having an effect on the human population (re-animate dead, mutatation, causing changes to physical reality, blending physical and spiritual world, opening dimensional gateways)
A Princess of Mars - Planet is post-apocalyptic society in the far future that's fallen into barbarism. Barbarian warlords rule the day.
Smallville - Humans are undergoing the effects of the Sphere's mutational and warping powers (much like kryptonite affected the citizens of Smallville). Cases of "infection" crop up that cause problems for our heroes.
Psionics - The base type of magic. No purely-fantasy based magic exists. Rip out the spells in R&R, replace with psionics (in-game PCs would refer to it as "magic" just the same).
Re-animation of the dead - Zombies, wights, skeletons that roam and attack (or sometimes don't attack) without a base-alignment. Sometimes they even attack each other. They're more like terrain to be encountered--not an fighting force that can be organized.
Ancient technology - Level of technology is mainly barbarian/medieval but occassionally something form the long past is recovered--and ancient treasure. This could be something from our modern world or even more advanced that appears to be completely "magical" to the people of Ketoru.
Friday, May 28, 2010
How this whole crazy thing got started
The short version:
So last summer the incomparable Jeff Rients (not worthy! not worthy!) came up with a neat formula for creating campaign settings. I'll let you read up. Done? Okay, so this was my proposal. And it's been stewing in my brain for a while. Actually, I've written quite a bit of the material, and I'm using this blog to begin fleshing it out. Anyway, the original idea is listed here, but now I can explain myself a bit:
1. System: Ruins and Ronins version of S&W Whitebox (technically cheating I guess)
I wanted something decidedly Asian and the R&R version of Whitebox was enough of a departure from the regular rules and added enough flavor that it was an easy choice.
2. Supplements: Oriental Adventures and Expanded Psionics Handbook
I'm not sure exactly how much I'll need from OA, and technically I should have varied it a bit more from the rules I chose, but I figured it would bolster my Asian-inspired setting. I wanted this to be very science fantasy, in the sense that the magic is really based on sci-fi conceits. For that reason, and also because I planned to include a strong psionic element from the beginning, I went with the EPH. To be honest, any solid psionics material will work, this one was cheap and easy to obtain. I've also had my eye on the next revision of X-plorers which might possibly include psionics.
3. Fluff: A Princess of Mars, A non-fiction book on exo-planets; and Ghostbusters, the movie
So the John Carter and Exoplanets material is to help broaden the scope from a mere "realm" I wanted a very solid planetary feel with strange beasts exotic locales, plus some more basic sci-fi tech (hover skiffs and ray guns). The people on Keturo are also a near-barbarian equivalent. They're re-discovering their ancestors' more civilized, bushido-like ways, but they have to make do with the ruins and remnants around them. I liked how the Tharks and Red Men of Mars lived among the ruins of much more advanced society, I envision the Keturo living the same way. The exoplanets book helped inform that the world was an old one--that came with all the problems of a world orbiting a dying star (like Jack Vance's Dying Earth series) but this helped mitigate all of the source material which seemed like baggage to me at the time. As soon as you say "Dying Earth" that leads into a whole setting already well established, and while I like it, I needed to push away from it.
Ghostbusters is the key to the whole thing. I wanted the people on this planet to be outnumbered by the dead, simply because the world was so old. The dearly departed have remained so, but a strange otherworldly anomaly has awoken them--and worse yet begun mutating them and the living. The result is a waking nightmare. To stem the tide of ghostly and re-animated weirdness, teams of demon hunters have been formed to exterminate. Ghostbusters made the grade. Within the ghost-busting teams (just like in the film) we have a mix of warriors and investigators. It was important that they try to learn as much as they can about the phenomenon behind the weirdness so they can be more effective at routing it.
But after doing this exercise, I realized I would need to break Jeff's cardinal rules (keeping the supplements limited) because I had an over-arching story developing. So I need to add to more to the fluff list:
So how's that for genre-bending!
Samurai barbarians fight paranormal entities that re-animate the dead, mutate the living, and twist reality--among the ruins of an advanced civilization on a planet that orbits a dying star.How we got there:
So last summer the incomparable Jeff Rients (not worthy! not worthy!) came up with a neat formula for creating campaign settings. I'll let you read up. Done? Okay, so this was my proposal. And it's been stewing in my brain for a while. Actually, I've written quite a bit of the material, and I'm using this blog to begin fleshing it out. Anyway, the original idea is listed here, but now I can explain myself a bit:
1. System: Ruins and Ronins version of S&W Whitebox (technically cheating I guess)
I wanted something decidedly Asian and the R&R version of Whitebox was enough of a departure from the regular rules and added enough flavor that it was an easy choice.
2. Supplements: Oriental Adventures and Expanded Psionics Handbook
I'm not sure exactly how much I'll need from OA, and technically I should have varied it a bit more from the rules I chose, but I figured it would bolster my Asian-inspired setting. I wanted this to be very science fantasy, in the sense that the magic is really based on sci-fi conceits. For that reason, and also because I planned to include a strong psionic element from the beginning, I went with the EPH. To be honest, any solid psionics material will work, this one was cheap and easy to obtain. I've also had my eye on the next revision of X-plorers which might possibly include psionics.
3. Fluff: A Princess of Mars, A non-fiction book on exo-planets; and Ghostbusters, the movie
So the John Carter and Exoplanets material is to help broaden the scope from a mere "realm" I wanted a very solid planetary feel with strange beasts exotic locales, plus some more basic sci-fi tech (hover skiffs and ray guns). The people on Keturo are also a near-barbarian equivalent. They're re-discovering their ancestors' more civilized, bushido-like ways, but they have to make do with the ruins and remnants around them. I liked how the Tharks and Red Men of Mars lived among the ruins of much more advanced society, I envision the Keturo living the same way. The exoplanets book helped inform that the world was an old one--that came with all the problems of a world orbiting a dying star (like Jack Vance's Dying Earth series) but this helped mitigate all of the source material which seemed like baggage to me at the time. As soon as you say "Dying Earth" that leads into a whole setting already well established, and while I like it, I needed to push away from it.
Ghostbusters is the key to the whole thing. I wanted the people on this planet to be outnumbered by the dead, simply because the world was so old. The dearly departed have remained so, but a strange otherworldly anomaly has awoken them--and worse yet begun mutating them and the living. The result is a waking nightmare. To stem the tide of ghostly and re-animated weirdness, teams of demon hunters have been formed to exterminate. Ghostbusters made the grade. Within the ghost-busting teams (just like in the film) we have a mix of warriors and investigators. It was important that they try to learn as much as they can about the phenomenon behind the weirdness so they can be more effective at routing it.
But after doing this exercise, I realized I would need to break Jeff's cardinal rules (keeping the supplements limited) because I had an over-arching story developing. So I need to add to more to the fluff list:
- 2001: A Space Odyssey
- Akira
- Hayao Miyazaki's Spirited Away and Princess Mononoke
- Cthulhu, minus the tentacles
- Smallville, minus the emo teenagers
So how's that for genre-bending!
Keturo, a sword and planet/science fantasy setting
This blog is for my Keturo setting for Ruins & Ronin written by the talented Mike Davidson, a supplementary setting for Swords & Wizardry. He's done a wonderful job of creating a modified ruleset for S&W that's Asian inspired, instead of the typical Western fantasy/pulp that is so pervasive in D&D clones.
I wanted this campaign to be more than just a fantasy RPG setting though. It's more of a science fantasy or sword and planet setting. Think Edgar Rice Burroughs world of Barsoom (Mars) with a Japanese influence. The planet itself is very old and circles a star that's near the end of it's life. As a result of wars and ecological disasters (natural and manmade) the planet's populous has met with catastrophic loss. Eons have passed and now the remaining people are near-barbarian-like, but are still cohesive enough to continue a dark ages civilization. The dead greatly outnumber the remaining people of Keturo.
This world, which was already "on the ropes" as it were, has been assailed by a powerful entity that's re-animated their ancestors and twists their reality to it's strange will. They're looking for a way to defeat the entity or face extinction in the face of a growing army of dead.
I wanted this campaign to be more than just a fantasy RPG setting though. It's more of a science fantasy or sword and planet setting. Think Edgar Rice Burroughs world of Barsoom (Mars) with a Japanese influence. The planet itself is very old and circles a star that's near the end of it's life. As a result of wars and ecological disasters (natural and manmade) the planet's populous has met with catastrophic loss. Eons have passed and now the remaining people are near-barbarian-like, but are still cohesive enough to continue a dark ages civilization. The dead greatly outnumber the remaining people of Keturo.
This world, which was already "on the ropes" as it were, has been assailed by a powerful entity that's re-animated their ancestors and twists their reality to it's strange will. They're looking for a way to defeat the entity or face extinction in the face of a growing army of dead.
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