Blood of the Dragon for Sword & Sorcery Gaming

I downloaded this small scenario pdf from d101 games days ago and went looking to see what it had to pilfer for my introductory fantasy campaign I've been crafting.

Holding true to its Sword and Sorcery inspiration I quickly decided the module was unsuitable for Fantasy Campaign #1.

Nothing left to do but craft a new Sword & Sorcery campaign and make it available for players who wish to game the rich journeys brought to life by such fine writers as Edger Rice Burroughs, Michael Moorcock, Lin Carter, Fritz Lieber, Robert H. Howard, August Derleth, etc.

Game mechanics will be Scott Malthouse's USR System, and your first "house rule" would be Human player characters only.

Sorcery is also not available to PC’s. This is not to say PC’s cannot attempt to learn the use of magic, or use enchanted items, or drink potions, or read the words off hide bound scrolls during game play. Just that starting PC's will be human and must use their skills and smarts to win glory in their deadly fantasy world.

Ripping off Thulsa's map for his World of Xoth should suffice to give my on the fly S&S homebrew campaign its physical underpinnings. Reviewing the gorgeous map I plop The Spires in a suitable location.


The Blood of the Dragon offers a small sandbox setting for your new PC's with one fleshed out small dungeon.The bleak landscape described is suitably sparse with frontier settlements inhabited by desperate and corrupt men. With the PC's background threads one should be able to get your players involved in desperate, dangerous situations.



Utilizing USR System I quickly generated a party of three warriors. Attribute set up was the same for all three characters; d10 Action, d8 Wit, and d6 Ego.

For specialisms they all had close combat and riding +2 in common. For each characters third specialism I mixed skulking, climbing, and ranged combat amongst the trio to give an overall roguish mix.

USR requires each starting character to have a background story. I've decided to use random rolls on background tables with guidance taken from the Fiasco rulebook to interpret the results. I'm using Chaosium's Elric! Background table for the first roll, and a long extinct optional background table which provides another layer of detail.

The Elric! Background Table; 

01-20 Warrior (Roll d10, 9-10 indicates Assassin as well).

21-30 Merchant (Roll d10, 8-10 means Trader, otherwise Shopkeeper).

31-45 Sailor (Roll d10, 9 indicates a Mate giving + 5% to all skills, 10 indicates a Captain, giving + 10% to all skills)

46-60 Hunter

61-65 Farmer

66-70 Priest

71-75 Noble

76-85 Thief

86-90 Beggar (Roll for afflictions).

91-00 Craftsman (specify Craft).

The second background table roll;

Remember that this is optional material for Elric...

Tables of Background

These tables are used after the adventurer occupation has been determined by the player. Simply roll 1d10 and refer to the descriptions given below. Not all the occupations are treated here (others will be published in a future issue of TATOU and maybe in the Chaosium Digest).

      Beggar             Craftperson          Hunter                   Merchant
d10
                       
1    Temple            City                        Kn: Area                Bad Associate
2    Spy                  Enemy Merchant Kn: Animal           Claim
3    Blackmail       Legacy                   Beasts' Curse        Antiquarian
4    Tout                Craft Secret          Hated by Baron     Slave Merchant
5    Catacombs    Embrss. Witness Kn: Treasure          Angered King
6    Corpses Tr.    Dexterity                Murder Witness   Caravaneer
7    Victim              Black Sheep         Resilient                 Ransomed
8    Kidnapper       Thief Murderer  Animal Companion War
9    Kn: City          Poverty                  Hunting site          Taxes
10  Free choice     Free choice            Free choice            Free choice


    Minor Noble                     Peasant Farmer                    Sailor     Slave
d10
1    Duelist                             Tax Collector                       Pirate                      Scars
2    Bracelet                           Peasant revolt                      Ports Knowledge Free Man
3    Royal Court                   Peasant Defender                Corsair                   Torturer Master
4    Don Juan                        Mercenaries                          Mutilated              Wizard Master
5    Ancestral Weapon        No money                             Watch                    Marked
6    Successful Merc.           Looted                                   Galerian                 Murderer
7    Domain Seized              Very Healthy                        Treasure Island    Miner
8    Rescuer                           Lord's Right                          Shipwrecked         Rescuer
9    Gambling Father           Away                                     Bad Luck              Storm
10  Free choice Free choice Free Choice Free choice

   

Warrior                                  Thief
d10

1    Gates Guard                   Last Survivor
2    Mercenary                    Secret Passage
3    Crusading Knight        Dexterity
4    Training                         Infamy mark
5    Executioner Grd.           Banned
6   Outcast                           Gangs War
7    Big Battle                        Sorcery
8    Temple Guard                Good Job
9    Desertion                         Ring
10  Free choice                     Free choice

 

My rolls came out very satisfactory for gaming in Blood of the Dragon's mini sandbox Sword & Sorcery world; Peasant - no money, Warriorr - executioner's guard, and Hunter - animal companion.

Most people capable of role play will be able to fashion a reason to be out on the ash plains of the Spires with a suspect crew just randomly rolled. The players and the game master should use these sparse details and create satisfying starting relations in which to launch the game session. The DM should use these story details and the NPC's own motivations to gin up a host of hoary problems for our grim faced adventurers.

OpenQuest Character Creation; Cashiered Ranger

Further utilizing the material found on the blog Tales of the Grotesque and Dungeonesque I will create the next ill fated player character for OpenQuest Fantasy Adventure Campaign #2.

This character of country birth worked as a scout in the army, but has been recently let go. Missing a cleverly set ambush while out on patrol many soldiers died. Only your savage fight for survival against grim odds spared your court martial. Back here in the city far from any one you know you are beginning to desire the safety of the wilderness.

OpenQuest Fantasy Adventure Campaign #2 is predicated on a dark fantasy setting with players urged to use human characters. This character is designed with the ability to function well in the wilderness surrounding the campaign's starting point.

Significant points are invested in the Combat Skills as well as Perception and Riding. As a ranger you carry very few personal possessions. What you have is usually tied in the bedroll at your feet. What few points you have in craft are intended for the repair of your outdoor gear and weapons.

Taking advantage of OpenQuest's suggested rules for Background, Appearance and Personality I give this poor mercenary an intriguing map with unknown inscriptions. Maybe one of his more learned friends could aid you in deciphering it?

All starting OpenQuest player characters receive six points worth of Magic Magnitude. These six points allow you to further customize and design the PC you have in mind.

For the ranger I keep it simple; a small package of abilities I will name "Ranger Lore", abilities he picked up growing up in the untamed northern forests. Clear Path (4 magnitude) is the ability to move through dense undergrowth as if it was clear terrain. The points of magnitude of the spell determines how many people the ranger can effect within 10 meters. A Heal (2 magnitude) spell will be extremely useful when it comes to weathering the extremes of wilderness adventuring.

While I have incorporated OpenQuest's magic requirements into the character creation process, you can see how I have not necessarily given the ranger an overtly wizardly nature. While the initial expenditure of magic points may seem an awkward mechanic for innate class like skills, consider the adventure implications of devices, quests, etc. which would enable the player to acquire magic point stores or otherwise overcome the built in limitations.

OpenQuest Character Creation; Searching Sailor

My OpenQuest Fantasy Adventure #2 is a dark fantasy setting. Unlike Adventure #1 which has all the trappings of "classical" fantasy, #2 requires the players to create human characters in a world where life is cheap and integrity is a liability. Much in the spirit of the great gaming blog Tales of the Grotesque and the Dungeonesque or the horrible fantasy books The Game of Thrones, everyone is out for themselves.

I find these type of settings where the world is a swirl of grey instead of black and white suite good character development. In fact, rely on it. Since everyone is a turd what sort of polish can you bring?

OpenQuest is great for allowing a player to create a character quickly with much depth of character.

I also am not above providing pre-generated characters for a new group to chose from. Since I am still attempting to accomplish the blog's main goal of regularly playing role playing games with other people in the wilderness, immediate gaming with minimal prep is essential.

I also aim to give the players opportunities to organically foster group relations with "believable" hooks, themes, and plots. A well appointed list of character backgrounds with just enough detail to make the character interesting to play, fight and die can only help deliver a dynamic player group from the outset! This means you will want to offer your players many different character choices. Pick a system which allows you to generate characters quickly!

Starting the campaign in a city offers legitimate reasons for characters of diverse races and backgrounds to be found together, and with intriguing character descriptions it makes it even easier to start table dialogue.

One such character I can offer as an example is The Searching Sailor. Here are the background notes which were the springboard for quantifying the character's abilities;

Washed up on the shores as a child, superstitious peasants took you in as a gift from the sea gods. Much to their disappointment you only found happiness on the tips of the waves and the edge of the wind. Soon you left your poor village behind without a second glance and became a daring sailor on the open sea. Your quest to find your true origins has led to family secrets steeped in darkness. Do you pursue these tantalizing clues further? Or do leave them, like the miserable village of your childhood, in the misty fog of past days?

Any player with salt will have no trouble fashioning your traditional sailor skill set; navigation, swimming, cutlass and some other skills of personal preference will get the usual character creation work completed. Where OpenQuest aids in satisfying depth of character, your character concept, is the addition of the Battle Magic school of magic required to complete the character creation process.

My thoughts on Magic in OpenQuest for Non Magic Users comes into play here. For this sailor character I create an Enchanted Item and devise an Elemental Talent to spend the required magic points on.

I call the enchanted item the Brace of Burk, a leather embossed wrist guard. It can predict approaching storms two days out and detect land up to twenty miles away. Yes, I know the OpenQuest does not include these specific effects in any of the listed spells, but if you get anything from the OpenQuest it should be you can make it up. So, predicting weather and detecting land seem to be mundane powers in which Battle Magic would seem to thrive.

The elemental talent is restricted to the realm of Battle Magic if nothing else but to avoid taking on another school of magic such as Divine Magic or Sorcery. The character's latent elemental talent was first awakened when the brace was first donned as a piece of armor. So far it has given the Searching Sailor the ability to communicate with Air Elementals.

OpenQuest Character Creation Point Total

I've spent some time creating characters with Newt Newton's great fantasy rpg rules OpenQuest, and I have to admit to the few house rules I've settled on.

If my addition is right, the overall points used in creating a character are 255. If you decide to have your character have the powers of Sorcery or Divine Magic they get +40 pts towards either their Sorcery or Divine Magic skill. There are some additional restrictions on how the points can be distributed amongst the characters abilities and skills, but it seems 295 is the uppermost point total for starting character creation.

As I've mentioned in other posts on my blog, I really dig the "Open" of OpenQuest. Therefore I've decided that players can spend the 295 points any way they want. The only restrictions I would be keen on enforcing is some max limits on attributes as they relate to the race so selected by the player, but that's about it!

There doesn't seem to be any reason to impose any more limits, unless the Game Master is not involving himself with the character creation process with his players.

But that, to me, is an rpg no no. I find GM involvement in new character creation important when beginning a new campaign.

Magic in OpenQuest for Non Magic Users

To fully enjoy OpenQuest d100 based RPG from d101 Games one must embrace the author's approach to magic for a fantasy role playing game.

There are three "schools" of magic in the core rules; Battle Magic, Divine Magic, and Sorcery. Unlike fantasy rpg's which limit the use of magic to a specific "class", OpenQuest allows any character at creation to be adapt in the magical arts. In fact every character at creation has to apply six points of magnitude towards the creation of spells whether they are interested in playing some type of magic wielding character or not.

Starting magic is selected by the expenditure of 6 points of magnitude. The player is free to spend them in any manner. A player may choose six individual spells all at 1 magnitude, or select one spell at magnitude 6. Or some variation in between. As stated above, selecting spells from the Divine Magic and Sorcery lists come with some restrictions. This is an attempt to simulate the commitment necessary to master these schools of magic by restricting the amount of character creation points allowed on other skills outside of magic.

But what if you are interested in playing a Barbarian, a Mercenary Knight, or even your traditional Thief? To leave those magic points on the table and not use them would make your starting character much weaker than other players who embrace the use of magic.How should the basic spell list found in Battle Magic be added?

This is where the aspect of "character concept" really shines for OpenQuest. For example I will use Jongo the thieving gnome. Through the character creation steps we've spent some points on attributes, many on the appropriate skills such as Athletics, Deception, Mechanisms, and Dodge. Now it is time to deal with those pesky magic points. Well, since we are playing a nonhuman race, one with a rich literary tradition of magical tricks and talents, it should not be too difficult. Probably the most useful Battle Magic spell for non spell users is Enhance Skill. What thieving gnome would not have an uncanny ability to disappear amongst the underbrush? Or surprising skill discovering hidden traps, or perhaps see normally invisible pixies and sprites?

This is an effective technique for giving your barbarian "berserker rage", or your martial artist a "killing strike". Want your archer to have an effective "called" shot, the enhanced skill spell is your ticket. Creating an elf warrior you may want to add the unusual ability to see in the infrared spectrum. Not a problem with the right application of Battle Magic.

Don't limit yourself to the initial skill list found in Newt's original rulebook. There is no reason why you can't come up with suitable spells which fit your character's concept. Any good Game Master will help you shape your ideas to fit well with the game. Anyone who has ever enjoyed Champions from Hero Games will be familiar with creating interesting effects and abilities from fairly general spell lists.

*OpenQuest uses the Mongoose Publishing RuneQuest System Resource Document.

OpenQuest 2 now available for pre-order

Everyone should be well aware of D101 Games releasing OpenQuest 2 and you can pre-order the game at the company's web site here!

Get it, love it, play it!

Here is a link to a review of OpenQuest from way back in 2009.

OpenQuest and why I'm using it...

My first gaming years were spent under the magic and poor game mechanics of AD&D.  This led to the rest of the TSR line; Gamma World, Top Secret, Boot Hill, and GangBusters. While the different genres afforded great flights of fancy for my regular teen game group, there was always the nagging disappointment that I was unable to create a player character to my exact tastes.

This led first to Space Opera, Flashing Blades, and Pirates & Plunder. Then GURPS and Champions. The only thing which increased was complexity while game opportunities shrank and shrank. I eventually found my way to Chaosium and Elric! which introduced me to the D100 system for the first time. But by then it was too late. Gaming was now just an interesting shelf on my bookcase. Or instant death to dating if left out!

So this OSR is flaring up everywhere and my discriminating taste has landed on OpenQuest, from D101 Games.

This is the game which gets fantasy role playing right. It has won me over. It has resisted every attempt to tinker with the mechanics. When I mean resisted I mean after some reflection I would abandon the proposed fix which would pop into my opinionated GM head. Studying the rule set (as there is no one yet to play with) I could not help but feel I was being well cared for as a player. Hopefully this means the Game Master load should be very manageable, because I am positive I will have to shoulder this burden as I attempt to uncover RPG players in the rural Rockies.

It is an excellent introduction to role playing games for newcomers as well as the long dormant player. This is because of the simple entrance point provided by the insightful author by "Starting Character Generation with a Character concept. A character concept is a one sentence summing up of what the character is all about."

Anyone can do this!

The only issue I have yet to resolve is Literacy. A required eighty percent or higher is required to be literate in the specific language skill. This means many illiterate magicians with a maximum of 75% in any starting skill.

Otherwise I'm going with no House Rules!