Contact Information:

jay@vanishingtowerpress.com

Tuesday, June 27

ConTessa 2017 Bundle of Awesome

Yes, a $10.00 bundle of RPG PDF's is now up at RPGNow.com  to support Contessa 2017 convention schedule. 

I'm happy to participate and I've thrown in USR Sword & Sorcery, Anthropomorphic USR, Fear & Loathing USR and Western USR into this bundle.

Of course the reason you purchase the bundle is to get Patrick Stuart's and Scrap Princess' awesome Fire on the Velvet Horizon release. And support the great women who add to our hobby!



Sunday, June 11

Anthropomorphic USR Session Report

Only two players could make my Sunday morning Clockwork & Cthulhu campaign so we decided to run a one-shot of something different. I pulled out my USR hack Anthropomorphic USR with the accompanying introductory adventure I wrote. 


Utilizing USR for an impromptu game session is a no-brainer because it is a free rules-lite system with the basic free rules by Scott Malthouse like only nine pages. Character creation can be done in literally five minutes. At least that was the case for two PC's approaching The Terror of Central cold with no previous experience with the system.

The PC's selected their attribute mix and rolled for Hits. They both decided to roll randomly for their animal they derived from. One got a yak and the other an ape. Each fancied the other's animal so they switched. F%^$ng PC's. Always monkeying with stuff. For specialisms the Yak chose Mentalism, Demolitions, and Repair. The ape identified some form of hyper-polyglot ability and flinging poo. I don't think his third specialism was called out as it didn't seem to come up in play. Since The Terror of Central adventure has a specific set up there was no need to go through an equipment selection process. While the PC's bandied about names I read out the introductory "boxed text" for the adventure.

The introductory adventure in the rule book is an "escape the lab" scenario. As newly created anthropomorphs the PC's seek a way out of their current confinement during an apparent system wide malfunction. It didn't take long for Yak 'n Ape, the two jackanapes,  to begin exploring and messing with anything which looked messable with to start figuring out the environment. Per the scenario I rolled to see if Central comes back online every time the PC's entered a new keyed location. Central rolled positive when the PC's hit the teleporting tunnel. This calls for the PC's to be transported by Central to an alien planet. But before that they triggered the nuclear core meltdown by striding through the irradiation room, and lulled a sonic wailing unfinished clone to sleep before it shrieked them to death. The two anthropomorphs decided on keeping the little horror and pushed through to the cold storage server room. The ape, using his tremendous strength, ripped apart the door on the clone pod to fashion foot protection to retrace their steps back across the rapidly heating floor plates of the nuclear meltdown room. Shortly after flooding the rooms with glycol coolant in an attempt to stop the floor-melting heat in the irradiation room they found themselves in the teleporting tunnel.

But where to send them? Lacking a plan for this I turned to the random table I generated for The Monolith Beyond Space and Time. That adventure has a similar event and I penciled in a 1d6 table to roll a random world for PC's to transport to. The table consisted of: 1. Quelong, 2. Champions-based Earth filled with superheroes and supervillains, 3. Corum(Darksyde), 4. Carcossa, 5. Scenic Dunsmouth, and 6. Peril on the Purple Planet. If I rolled #5 I probably rolled again as I wouldn't have time to generate the village. Or I guess I could have just pulled things out of the book I liked on the fly. It's not like that isn't how I end up running a session anyway. But I didn't. I rolled a six and sent them and the sonic "baby" to the surface of the Purple Planet

Using the opening pitch of this DCC module I put the PC's within the teleporting tunnel, but now it is just a torn out section lying twisted on the side of a rugged hill. In the distance the weak, red sun. Below on the purple sands ursine-like humanoids battle each other around a cairn, each trying to plant their battle flag. Unnoticed but outnumbered the Ape PC decided to weaponize the weaponized unfinished clone by swinging the sleeping thing over his head and hurling it into the ursoids' melee. This happened after he snuck down close enough to hear them curse over the din of battle. Using his polyglot specialism he was able to get a handle on what was going on. The hurling has the predictable result of waking the unfinished clone who once landed amid the warring creatures began shrieking it's deadly wail. This killed many close to the wailing creature and put others to flight. The balanced now tipped in favor of one side and the losing clan fled the field. 

The victors planted their battle lance on the cairn, took trophies from the dead, and departed with the body of the unfinished clone. During the battle the wailing clone was attacked by some of the more resilient ursoids and silenced by brutal blows. When the coast was clear the PC's descended upon the purple plain and inspected the cairn more closely. It was artificial, metallic, and scoured by ages of windswept sand. Further the battle lance holding the flag of dried skin was obviously a rifle of advanced design and technology. They also found a handle recessed in the side of the cairn which allowed the side to be opened. The Yak used his Repair specialism to restore power to the artifact which in turn teleported the PC's back to the lab. 

When PC's cross dimensions in my games I'm of a mind if the adventure isn't about escaping the new dimension don't let the game stay for a long time in the new dimension. This will mean not making it difficult to leave, or to backtrack to the original game world. And this is fitting with the genre of action-orientated anthropomorphic animal comics.

So the PC's returned to the lab arriving at the junction of the teleportation tunnel, but with a section of the tunnel now missing leaving only bored basalt stone walls and severed power couplings. Here I made note my instructions for how the teleport tunnel works in the printed rule book is all garbage. In the book I have anyone walking down the passageway in either direction will be "flipped" into walking the opposite direction right before they return to the junction. This doesn't work as described at all. After this blog post I'm editing the book to make the "endless" teleporting tunnel work, make sense, and add more to the adventure.

Now the lab, apart from the missing section of tunnel, appears to have come alive in the party's absence. Including audible instructions ringing out from hidden speakers to cease resistance and prepare for termination sequence. Nonplussed, the Yak wants to examine the rifle they brought back from the purple planet. Making rolls against his Repair specialism he figures out quickly how it operates and that it is an energy weapon powered off of battery packs. Then the security robot arrives in the corridor. The PC's don't hesitate with a ranged fusilade of poo and plasma. Badly damaged the security bot lurches forward to engage the PC's but the Ape uses his Climb! (that's it, that is his third specialism!) to jump up onto the ceiling, using his strength to grip into the corridor ceiling, out of the way of the attacking robot. The Ape concludes the demonstration by dropping down onto the robot and stomping in its head. Before another security robot shows up the Yak has taken apart the downed bot and fashioned a bomb out of its power supply complete with wireless detonator, and the Ape has hammered the head casing into a serviceable helmet. 



The second attacking security bot beats the Yak senseless before the Ape can get the better of the bot and it to lies in ruin upon the hallway floor. The Ape revives the senseless Yak and he makes another bomb. It is here time was up and the session called.

Besides the error in the printed adventure the system, rules, and all seemed to work as intended; fast, loose to interpretation. As a one-shot I wasn't too concerned if I got some of the details on how the lab functions incorrect, but I could organize some of the most important information better and more on the front end of the text. Reference sheets for the Game Keeper with all the charts and tables from the rule book would be useful at the table. I'll need to create one and add it to the publication.

At the end of the day it was the great willingness of the PC's to embrace the genre and game accordingly which made the session work. Between the two of them they could carry the game without my input for stretches, but that is something I've gotten used to with this bunch during our long running Clockwork & Cthulhu game. As a group they don't need much from me to keep the action going.

6/19/17 [Edit]: The recovery and healings rules need to be looked at. They will most likely see a rewrite in the upcoming POD copy of the game I am writing right now!

Sunday, April 30

AD&D Rules I Never Used

I remember penciling in all the pluses to hit AC per weapon type, but I don't ever recall the DM paying any attention to it. I think we had to dig into the Monster Manual to identify our opponent's armor class and push the issue. You added strength bonuses if you had it and yeah boyo magic weapons was how you improved your chance to hit. 

I do know for a fact we never played surprise as outlined in the Dungeon Masters Guide. Too bad, it would have added a layer of deadliness, a quickening of combat which the drag out nature of "did I hit, yes 6 points of damage" and the DM would make some notes on paper would sometimes bug me about D&D combat. We were teens so combat really only became cinematic when fireballs were unleashed or the monk PC tried something stupid.

But I pulled out my 1e DM Guide cause, well, there are so many things which delight and frustrate me about the AD&D system I like to revisit the 1e books and figure ways to enhance my B/X games or port the flavor of the classic D&D magic system into BRP. And so I was reading the surprise rules on page 61 getting the usual bemusement. That is a necessary mechanic, providing a rules for a combat event I would want to have in my game, but man they are worse than the los rules in Wellington's Victory. I think they are a confusing mess.  I can see why my DM in those heady days just passed them up.

On page 62 though the rules on surprise made me perk up and get interested. And I quote; "Because the party surprised is (relatively) inactive, the surprising party will be able to attempt telling blows during each segment of surprise as if the segment were an entire round!" Okay, now there is a reason to figure out those fiddly segment rules back on page 61. A chance to land more than one telling blow before an initiative check. But here is the combat game changer I never saw at my early game table; "Even if distance prevents striking with weapons, the discharge of arrows, bolts or hand-hurled weapons is permissible at three times the normal rate..."



I want to track down my old DM, book in hand and wave it around saying WTF?! This rule never hit our table. I generally prefer my Moldvay B/X rules over AD&D. Clarity, brevity, and well organized the first rpg rulebook I had was really helpful. But this rule is kind of a tactical combat game changer. It incentives setting up surprise situations, ambushes you know. Also a place to dump all the gold your PC's are accumulating; bow-wielding henchmen.

The Dungeon Masters guide is a thick book with rules scattered pell-mell so I know there are many more my early gaming group never used. And generally when I peruse my old books I don't really care. The new retro-clones available now clean up the rules mostly to my satisfaction. But the surprise rules, there is something there to like. 

Sunday, April 9

I've never been to a con, but

I already have a huge beef. Whenever I google a con, whether I end up on their web site or a press release, the con never says where it is. Australia, Ethiopia, Cleveland? Fuck if I know. Pick a con, any, and maybe you will get dates on the splash page, and then...? 



What disconnect happens when gaming convention organizers discuss on site logistics, convention bids, vendor space, etc and no one says, "Hey, should we let people know what continent this will occur?" 'eF 'em is what I think convention organizers say. I shudder to think such basic information is merely overlooked.  

Build it and they will come is not a recipe for success for RPG conventions. I guarantee a game convention success is happenstance, relying on the sheer desire and interest of the participants. And your customers are being thwarted by your lazy-ass text. Just let people know where the event is being held. I'll help; "No story-games-allowed will be held in Aspen, CO, USA (emphasis added) December 8th - 10th 2017 at the Mt. Chalet. For further information email jay@resortrenovations.net." Just cut and paste and fill in your gaming convention's pertinent details. 

Put this info at the top of your web page. This will allow an untapped market of interested gamers the ability to say, I can make that. The quest should be found at the game table, not the reservation desk.

[Edit 04/09/2017] Gamehole Con does it right...

International two letter and three letter codes.

Thursday, March 30

Clockwork & Cthulhu Story Arc

Butters wrote up a concise synopsis of the games arc to date on our community page. Here it is reprinted for those interested in the plot which has unfolded so far. This is a cockpit view of the PC's experience as they've rolled through the adventure I've set up as Keeper over a year of play. Make no mistake; this is not a regurgitation of description I told my players, they're knowledge has come from kicking in doors, faces, and prodigious lopping of limbs (not to mention the caving of baby skulls with rocks in the rain). Two PC's have died bloody death piecing things together so far. The game has been run bi-weekly, sometimes with a month break; and managing pace, intrigue, and excitement has been a fun challenge. The big lift, the helpful bits have come from using published game material and hacking it to my tastes. Trying to come up with all this stuff on my own and not be dull and predictable would be demanding.



What is he up to?

Mallebench and his brother come to Norfolk looking for heretical items all of which are possibly connected with the order of Kites a religious crusading order which their ancestor belonged to.
Mallebench brings in the Crows a mercenary band whilst his brother brings in the Cardinals to support him.



Mallebench goes to a great deal of trouble to get himself set up in Norwich, he arranges to have Randolph Nutley (A clockwork engineer) murdered by the Crows so that he could take his place at Norton Ironworks. This gives him access to a clockwork production facilities and after impressing the owner with his skills managed to become part of the companies inner circle very quickly especially after he helped secure a major military contract and happened to discover a nearby source of cheap coal.
All this seems to have been done to be able to secure men to mine and further guards/enforcers as the military contract required armed guards to be employed and as he was so trusted by the now grateful owner there was very little oversight on how resources were being used.
His brother remained outside of Norwich itself and seemed to be roaming around the surrounding countryside with his gang (The Cardinals) collecting artifacts and gathering information.
They were killed during the incident at Gothards hollow where they had attempted to recover a strange ruby bell from the tomb of a knight who later on appears to have been their ancestor from the Order of Kites.
Meanwhile Mallebench was spreading his influence in Norwich bribing some whilst corrupting others through blackmail he even hired a local gang by the name of the name of the Tenebrous hand
Seemingly one of the first to fall was a man called Rimehart a man who ran an import /export company of somewhat shady reputation and ideally placed to help Mallebench gain more artifacts and blackmail material. More weak men followed including a Captain in the town garrison.
Also during this time he seems to have set up a satanic temple and recruiting members of the upper classes into it this provided more funds as he soon made requests for soft loans.
All this effort seemed to be in aid of gathering resources and funds for some big operation various tunnels were explored under Norwich including several under the castle (The source of the cracked wall?)
It seemed he was after something in particular though as he seemed happy to sell a powerful artifact to one of the new Satanists (The cursed sword) for a huge amount of money.
All this effort seems to be spent suddenly after something was found at the small hamlet of Conistan and even though his brother had died the plan was still on.
Mallebench now started spending money and transferring miners from the New Norton coal mine at Wythburn to excavations now starting at Coniston.
More and more resources were diverted from Norton ironworks including men, digging equipment and a variety of clockwork devices.
This couldn't go on for too long though as the diverted resources started to effect the main ironworks the dwindling supply of coal being the most noticeable.
The dig at Coniston uncovered a strange and terrible structure which seemed to be a vast temple complex
Soon all the German miners were sent to the Coniston dig where they were all sacrificed to call forth a demon of some sort if this was the plan then due the somewhat accidental actions by the Party this failed to go off correctly resulting in the destruction of Coniston, the sending back of the demon? and the creation of the blighted area.
Mallebench then seemed to go into clean up mode as the effective removal of the demon combined with the Parties return from the Pale Ladies realm not only caused a big explosion, the Blight but brought other strange changes. So after leaving the Coniston area via Keswick (This resulted in the centre of Keswick being burnt down during a flesh beast attack) he returned to Norwich and seemed to begin eliminating anyone who could identify him.
The Hand were set up to be attacked by the Party after failing to recover some books that he wanted he also arranged for the murders of the Satanist group he had set up.
The last of the Crows died in a cavern under a ruined church in Norwich to some sort of hell toad ? Whilst trying to return those self same books.
So what's Mallebench up to his brother is dead, the demon didn't work out, he blew his cover at Norton's by using up all those resources, he hasn't managed to get his books back and seems to be destroying whatever was left of his Norwich network so what is he up to and what if anything is he still looking for? What were Ghwon and Tobias doing in that cavern and more importantly where the hell is he?



Still alive
Rimehart


Thursday, March 16

Gamma World Skill List for BRP

The (B)ig (G)old (B)ook for Chaosium's BRP is a decent touchstone for creating your own specific homebrew game world. The big advantage is the system is remarkably modular, allowing the Game Master to pick and choose levels of complexity, and the systems built in internal consistency. When coming up with your own game universe and setting it sure helps to be able to rapidly come up with a rules judgement without having to search through rule books for special cases. 

The other place where BRP shines is character creation. You can follow the step by step character creation instructions and quickly customize the mechanics to develop player characters tailored to your desired setting. The most useful feature is the "Guide to Creating A Character" flowchart. On two pages there are 10 steps clearly illustrating how to build your PC. While all these steps are detailed within the pages like you would find in any other RPG rulebook, this flowchart allows you to readily apprehend the overall process. I find this pictorial representation allows me to make design choices immideatly as I craft a brand new game. I could literally sit at a table with players and ask what kind of game do you want to play? If they answer 1920's gangsters good to go. Ruthless pirates on the Spanish Main game on in twenty minutes. If I have sourcebooks from other games on my shelf for the desired genre I have ready made setting material at my fingertips. 

To keep things simple I took a stripped down approach to creating a Gamma World character. Specifically with skills. 250 point for skills. That's it. For powers there will be Mutations, of course. The guidelines for major and minor mutations will be taken. Four slots total, a major mutation will take 2, minor 1. Declare your selection and roll away on random tables!

The table of contents can give you an idea how versatile and organized the Chaosium approach is: Characters (covering basic attributes), Skills, Powers (further broken down into Magic, Mutations, Psychic Abilities, Sorcery, and Super Powers), System, Combat, and Spot Rules. The only thing left is your full on imagination.

But being a generic RPG rulebook there are going to be gaps. Gaps and holes. A common complaint against BRP is that it doesn't do Super Hero roleplaying well. That the normal to heroic human-centric baseline breaks down when designing super powers. By extension this critique can be applied to Sci-Fi, specifically vehicles. I think this is a legit complaint. The BGB even cops to this, and I quote; "a comprehensive listing of all vehicles or even most major types of vehicles would dominate this rulebook." Reading between the lines you realize that coming up with comprehensive vehicle rules and vehicle combat is an entirely new subsystem which needs to drafted for technologically advanced gaming worlds. 

The other gap, and one much more easily managed, is skill lists specific for the genre being played. The BRP character sheet lists all the skills common to the system as well as blank lines to add additional skills as needed for the specific game. What this creates is kind of a mess which players and Game Masters have to sort out during character creation. Short of drafting a custom character sheet for each genre I recommend a Game Master provide a Complete Skill List to the players for the game. For example; if I was going to run a "Gamma World" inspired BRP game my complete skill list would look like this.

Gamma World Skills – Complete Listing

COMMUNICATION
  1. BARGAIN/BARTER
  2. COMMAND
  3. DISGUISE
  4. FAST TALK
  5. LANGUAGE, OWN
  6. LANGUAGE, OTHER
MANIPULATION
  1. CRAFT: JURY RIG
  2. DEMOLITION: EXPLOSIVES
  3. FINE MANIPULATION: PICK LOCKS, MECHANICAL
  4. FINE MANIPULATION: PICK LOCKS, ELECTRONIC
  5. FINE MANIPULATION: DISARM/SET TRAPS
  6. REPAIR: PRIMITIVE
  7. REPAIR: COMPLEX
  8. SLEIGHT OF HAND
MENTAL
  1. APPRAISE
  2. FIRST AID
  3. GAMING
  4. KNOWLEDGE SKILL: THE ANCIENTS
  5. KNOWLEDGE SKILL: SURVIVAL
  6. MEDICINE
  7. SCIENCE: THE ANCIENTS
  8. TECHNICAL SKILL: COMPUTERS
  9. TECHNICAL SKILL: DRIVE
  10. TECHNICAL SKILL: PILOTING
  11. TECHNICAL SKILL: POWER ARMOR
  12. TECHNICAL SKILL: ROBOTICS
PERCEPTION
  1. LISTEN
  2. SCAVENGING
  3. SPOT HIDDEN
  4. TRACK
PHYSICAL
  1. ATHLETICS (covers Jump, Swim, Throw, etc.)
  2. CLIMB
  3. DODGE
  4. HIDE
  5. RIDE
  6. STEALTH
COMBAT
  1. ENERGY WEAPONS
  2. SLUG THROWERS
  3. MELEE WEAPONS
  4. RANGED WEAPONS
  5. BRAWL
  6. GRAPPLE
For Mutations you have rules and examples provided in the  BGB, and Psychic Abilities will most likely come into play. But the list is not altogether long. It has gaps. The Metamorphica, Being a Very Large Collection of System-Agnostic Random Mutation Tables by Johnstone Metzger is indispensable for building out your mutations list for a gonzo-tinged game of Gamma World. The BGB makes a distinction between Major and Minor mutations so random rolls on the the Metamorphica tables will take some work with the Game Master. I decided my Mutant Humanoid I'm rolling up will have one Major and two Minor Mutations. I rolled Hallucinations, Reverse Pedalism, and Bad Breath. Okay, so my Major is technically an affliction. The character would be severely plagued with Hallucinations. Not very gameable. So I will turn this into the psychic ability Emotional Control. The effect, and power of this ability is based on the Power attribute. As a Major mutation I decide the character's Power attribute is doubled when using this ability. Reverse Pedalism just means he has four legs. As a minor mutation I will increase his max movement by 50% then say double if it was a major mutation. No Gamma World character is complete without some type of negative mutation and this guy has got Bad Breath. Like nasty, gut wrenching bad breath. Why not say if he successfully Grapples an opponent they can paralyze them if the victim fails a resistance roll.     

So there you have it, a Hallucinating projecting, four-legged, foul-mouthed mutant humanoid striding the radioactive wastes!

Saturday, March 11

The World Between for the Renaissance Game Engine

Jack Shear's Tales of The Grotesque and Dungeonesque  is a Gothic Fantasy Supplement for old-school fantasy role-playing games. He now has three publications in print containing house rules, random tables, new spells, new monsters, and a campaign setting for Gothic Fantasy adventures. He calls the setting "The World Between" and it is fit to drop right into your favorite B/X retro-clone. That means, if you are like me, this wonderful setting needs to be dropped into a completely different game system!

I have this perverse streak of grabbing hold of cool game settings and wanting to use them in an entirely different system than they were written for. Probably because the preponderance of great DIY stuff being released these days is written specifically for old school D&D. Therefore there is always a high chance I will need to convert because I have a head full of game systems and I'm always on the hunt for the "right" setting to play them in. Not all the time. Dolmenwood in the pages of Wormskin I would slot right into LotFP without changing a thing. I'm still on the quest for the right mash up of system and setting for a Space Opera campaign. With over a year of play I may be just starting to get comfortable with Cakebread & Walton's Clockwork & Chivalry game. More to the point, getting comfortable with using Chaosium's system, commonly referred to as BRP (Basic Role Playing) system. You know, d100 mechanics and the whole Call of Cthulhu engine.

I've mentioned plenty about my first exposure to BRP through Stormbringer. How I fell in love with it and believed it would give me the flexibility, the ability to go beyond a class and level system I had been playing with A/D&D. But I never got a chance to play it all that much. In fact the game puzzled me some. I knew I liked the combat system, and character creation framework seemed just what I wanted. The chance to make characters pretty much how I wanted them. I guess as a teen I just didn't know how to uncouple the system from the setting and then reskin.



Now that I'm back gaming I can reap the benefits of getting older and wiser. The plethora of DIY game materials available online from the OSR community continues to be an embarrassment of riches. There is literally a f$%k-ton of material so that players and referees can create any flavor of game they wish.

So now I finally have a satisfying fantasy setting to place a d100 game I can get my teeth in. The World Between's most attractive feature is it is relatively complete in concept. There is enough information on the game world and fantastic random tables I can sprout adventure ideas with relative ease. This also avails players with character color to give them a handle on what kind of world they are in for. The world map, found in Volumne II, conjures up Moorckock's other fantasy realm The Tragic Millennium, the world in which Dorian Hawkmoon quested for the Runestaff and battled the vile forces of Gran Breton. This is helpful because I have a copy of Chaosium's Hawkmoon on my shelf so can utilize these slim sourcebooks for immediate NPC and monsters stats.

The Clockwork & Chivalry rule book will give me all the Chaosium rules mechanics I could want including a nice framework for character creation. Its specific ties to European 1600's colors the magic system a certain way so it will need to be tailored to better reflect Shear's fantasy setting, but hell you have all the clockwork rules you could want! Cakebread & Walton also offer a free PDF of the "Renaissance" system which is actually much easier to flip through when creating characters. The free PDF does lack clockwork rules, but has alchemy and witchcraft, so keep that in mind when deciding whether to spend money or not.

Here is how I retrofitted character creation with this D&D based setting: Go ahead and roll starting attributes per the Renaissance/C&C rules. Then flip to the Character Background Table in TotGaD and make a random roll. Chaosium attributes line right up with D&D's. The only switch is Wisdom becomes Power. So attributes which receive bonuses from the character background  table translate point for point. Now compare the background rolled to the list of professions available in Renaissance/C&C. Pick the one which most aligns with the background rolled. For example; if you rolled Initiate then you have many good options. Witch/Warlock, Witchfinder, Scholar, Preacher, and Cunning Man or Wise Woman are all good matches for this one background. Your profession picked gives bonuses to certain Common Skills as well as giving the new character particular Advanced Skills. Also the profession picked indicates which Social Class you can pick from the five available.  Your Social Class gives your character further bonuses to Common and Advanced Skills. Note this is backwards from the regular character creation process outlined in the Renaissance/C&C rules.

Two Advanced Skills to pay attention to at this point are Lore(Any) and Craft(Any). If your character ends up with these it is now a good time to roll the character's nationality. There are fifteen nationalities listed in the World Between so make a random 1d15 roll for nationality and then a review of the TotGaD books, focusing on entries relating to the nation rolled. For example; if you rolled the Island of Jade Mysteries there is a section on "Monsters of the Jade Mysteries". This becomes a setting specific Lore skill which makes sense for your new character's background. Note the preponderance of undead listed amongst the different nations. Each has their own flavor and the unliving flesh is a common trope in gothic fiction. Characters having knowledge about these monsters should be useful in their upcoming adventures when they must confront these terrors. A look at the examples of suggested crafts in the Renaissance/C&C book should help with selections which relate to this gothic setting. Apothecary, Alchemy, Weaponsmith; all should find use in this world. I suggest skill in "Clockwork" can be either a Lore skill or a Craft skill.

The final thing which nationality will help flesh out is the characters starting languages. The character's native language will be obvious from the table in Volume II. The next language a character should have is the common language known as "Tradecraft". This is in effect a free additional Advanced Skill which should be noted on the character sheet. Each character will be required to have at least 30% in this language so that the party will be able to converse with each other and NPC's. The 250 free skill points each character gets at creation will be used to boost their starting skill in this language to at least the minimum.

So the last step in your World Between character creation process will be to distribute your free 250 points per the Renaissance/C&C rules. Here players will want to work closely with the Game Master if they are interested in utilizing magic. Now it is time to roll on the Dark Secrets table in TotGaD Volume I. Between this table, your nationality, character background, and chosen profession will be all the information the player will get to make their case for starting magic. For example; say I roll a "Dandy" on the TotGaD Character Background table with "Arcane Dabbler" for a Dark Secret. The Nationality roll gives me Mord-Stavian, a land of clockwork technomancy and undead worshippers. With access to Lore(Any) and Craft(Any) skills I have plenty of ingredients from the TotGaD books to brew up some type of magic wielder. From the Renaissance/C&C book I choose "Courtier" for profession and "Gentry" for Class. This combination will give me access to a Lore(Any), Craft(Any), and an Art(Any) skill. Flipping through the TotGaD books I come up with Lore(Witchcraft), Craft(Clockwork Technomancy), and Art(Gypsy Fortune Telling). I will now discuss with the GM what spells and or magical equipment my character will start out with, relying on guidance and inspiration from Jack Shear's background information.

Actually the last step will be to purchase equipment, so let's take a look at how to go about this process. Roll starting coin per the Renaissance/C&C rules. The monetary system for Renaissance is English with the common coin being the shilling. Just convert shillings into silver. You'll want a fantasy appropriate equipment list and you will need to classify armor into Light, Medium, and Heavy categories. This will give you corresponding protection in Renaissance/C&C values. I recommend jacking the prices of black powder weapons than are found in the C&C rules. I want my gothic fantasy world to have a premium on firearms.

Let's take a look at the Renaissance character sheet as we wrap up character creation. I'm not using Factions from the Renaissance rules so this part of the sheet is not being used. "Player" is to be used for the character's name. "Adventurer" is where you would write down your result from the Dark Secrets table. In the TotGaD book this is on page 44 and is highly recommended. Irregardless of the character's national origins the rolled result should be tailored to the character's profession and background so the Game Master has "personal apocalypses and a constant exposure to danger" to work into adventures for their players. "Nationality" should be used to list the character's national origin and "Homeland" is a useful line to write down their native language as well as Tradecraft and its percentage skill value. Any other languages known can be listed here also.

"Profession" is what you get from the background table and add the short descriptor from Dark Secrets. For example; Pirate-Silent Witness. Don't write down the profession you compare it to from the Renaissance book even though you are using that particular profession to identify the Common and Advanced skills your new character is starting out with. In the Character Background description is a Leading Question. This should be written on the "Connections" line of the character sheet. This is another useful bit of color the Game Master can use for plot hooks and adventure seeds. On the back Alchemy may be used if the character takes it as a Lore skill and Witchcraft section will be useful for spell casting ability.

Here is a character example; we've rolled are starting attributes giving us STR:10, CON:08, SIZ:13, INT:14, POW:11, DEX:08, and CHA:09. Before we establish the three figured attributes we should roll now for character background. We roll 80, Servant. We have a choice of a +1 to CON, or +1 to CHA. We'll boost CON to 09 as this will increase the character's starting Hit Points as well. The leading question described in the background will be written down on the Connections line of our character sheet, this being "What scandal forced you to resign your position?" Valet/Lady's Maid is the obvious profession here. Townsman is the only listed Class available so this will set the starting skills for our character. To finish defining our character concept we roll on the Nationality and Dark Secrets tables. We get Ulverland and Spy for the Inquisition. Now I have all the ingrediants I need to complete the concept. Defining the two starting Lore(Any) skills and the one Craft(Any) skill I look to the TotGaD books. Ulverland has some nifty descriptions for Enchanted Teas and seems they have a bit of a Troll problem. I shape up these skills such; Lore(Enchanted Teas), Lore(Trolls), and Craft(Apothecary). The Craft skill is how adept the character is in brewing the magical beverage and the skill number can be tossed into the Alchemy section of the character sheet. You get the idea...