Tool Trunk Thursday: Acid Flask

Welcome back to all of the Dog Brothers and Sword Sisters that are stopping by to read these words, before we dive into the Tool Trunk I just wanted to say thank you to everyone for any comments that reach my ears.  

 NOW onto the Trunk, what strange concoction, tool or weapon will be unearth today? 

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The Acid Flask

This alchemical concoction is favored by rogues and thieves, but others can certainly find uses for it.  It can be intensely satisfying to watch the thing that stands in your way, dissolve into nothing.

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Remember this isn't the end times, this is humanity working together to save as many lives as we can through a proven methodology for fighting a new virus. Stay Strong.

Till next time, don't forget to Keep it Weird!

Tool Trunk Thursday: Moon Scorpion Husk

By Mitra!  Thursday is here again.  Time moves ever forward, and so it has brought us another look into the tool trunk. 

When I started these I thought I would just look over at game-icons.net and I would be able to find some random icon and from it make some new piece of equipment, and for the most part I have. 

Many of them are inspired by my adventures in the Exiled lands of "Conan Exiles", and I suspect this is one is as well.  I only suspect because, really, this actually originated in a dream.  But I have been spending time around scorpions in Exiles, so I suspect that dream was inspired by the game.

Don't forget to grab your free narrative terrain deck!  I have used them to add a little more skill challenge to my games and would love to hear what you think of the system!

Like the plants, the animals of the Hyborian Age, and those that came before it, often contain poisons compounds and venom that can be used for nefarious purposes.  These scorpions are no different, and their ancient remains still contain a highly toxic venom that can be used to create a poison even deadlier than that of the black mushroom.

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Equipment icons are found on https://game-icons.net/ and are provided under CC BY 3.0.

Remember this isn't the end times, this is humanity working together to save as many lives as we can through a proven methodology for fighting a new virus. Stay Strong.

Till next time, don't forget to Keep it Weird!

Tool Trunk Thursday: Black Mushroom

Thursday again Conan fans!  I hope you are having a good week and have something fun planned for the weekend.  Out into the deep swamps of the Hyborian Age this week to see what kind of interesting plant life we can come across ...

The plants of the Hyborian Age are not that different than the plants of the modern world.  Some of our mushrooms are delicacies and some are deadly if consumed.  A cunning thief or alchemist might seek these out in a market or in the depths of a stygian swamp and use them for some nefarious purpose.

If you have questions or comments don't forget to hit me up on Twitter, Facebook, YouTube or Instagram!
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If you need to check out any of these great games stop on by DriveThruRPG and pick something up through my affiliate link to help support the blog!

Equipment icons are found on https://game-icons.net/ and are provided under CC BY 3.0.

Remember this isn't the end times, this is humanity working together to save as many lives as we can through a proven methodology for fighting a new virus. Stay Strong.

Till next time, don't forget to Keep it Weird!

Tool Trunk Thursday: Incense

By CROM!  Another Thursday is here and as always more items are dumped into the mighty tool chest!  The chest is bursting at the seams as we cross beyond 40 new items for your Conan 2d20 games!

Incense has an exotic and relaxing quality to it.  Using it while attempting to calm down someone can prove to be quite effective as it serves to focus the mind.  Likewise, the scent of some incense can focus the mind and allow the user to more effectively pull on the strings of reality.  You can use this as generic incense and apply both effects to it or invent multiple types that give various effects.  Perhaps sandalwood can be used to heal, while incense made from purple lotus can enhance sorcery.

If you have questions or comments don't forget to hit me up on Twitter, Facebook, YouTube or Instagram!
Make sure you don't miss a single post and subscribe by e-mail today! 

If you need to check out any of these great games stop on by DriveThruRPG and pick something up through my affiliate link to help support the blog!

Equipment icons are found on https://game-icons.net/ and are provided under CC BY 3.0.

Remember this isn't the end times, this is humanity working together to save as many lives as we can through a proven methodology for fighting a new virus. Stay Strong.

Till next time, don't forget to Keep it Weird!

Altered Carbon the RPG: Creating a Character

I am back with another RPG look, this time at the new Altered Carbon from Hunter's Entertainment.  I will circle back to my actual thoughts on the rule book, but I thought we would start with character creation since the characters are how players interact with the world. 

Chapter 2 is dedicated to the character, there is a blurb saying to jump to page 41 for the character creation process, and then proceeds to go over each of the character's stats & attributes.  This isn't a bad approach, building a character without knowing what everything is can be tricky, especially if you are trying to create a specific type of character.  We will of course jump straight to page 41, and fumble our way through.

Character creation is detailed on page 41, but they include an expedited process on page 41, which is a nice touch.  Let's see if we can get up to speed quickly with only having seen the quickstart rules, shall we?

Expedited Character Creation

The rules say this is a quick way to create a character but at the cost of some customization.

Step 1: Choose an Archetype (pg 54-65)

This will determine our starting attributes and default sleeve.  It will also determine starting skill checks and wealth.

Archetype: Soldier

Default Sleeve: Synthetic, Mid Range

Starting Sleeve attributes: 

    Min/Max Strength: 35/55

    Min/Max Perception: 30/45

Starting Stack attributes:

    Empathy: 30

    Willpower: 30

    Acuity: 30

    Intelligence: 30

Starting Skill Checks (there are many, so here is a taste):

    Sleeve:

    Athletics: d8

    Toughness: d12

    Detection: d10

    Stack:

    Survival: d10

    Cultures: d12

Wealth Level: Lv1

Step 2: Pick a Starting Package (pg 54-65)

This determines the starting traits and equipment.

Starting Package: Mercenary

Traits:
    Combat - Common Trait Tree

    Business & Society - Anomalous Trait Tree

    Others - Uncommon Trait Tree

    Energy Weapons - Rail Weaponry Training

    Long guns - Basic Training

    Prof. Network, Business - Commission

Starting Equipment:

    CTAC Praetorian railgun, Flak Coat, Toolkit, 3x Lvl1 Credits

Step 3: Pick a DHF Age (pg 45)

This determines the characters starting resources, Ego, Influence, Stack.  Archetypes may modify Ego and Influence Points.

DHF Age: 35

    Starting Stack: 20+Acuity bonus (3) = 23

    Starting Ego: 45+Willpower bonus (3)= 48

    Starting Influence: 0+Empathy bonus (3) - 2 = 1

    No of Baggage D6s: 1

    Baggage Rolls: 1d6

Step 4: Roll for Baggage (pg 75)

Roll: 5

Personality Quirk: A new interest or addiction acquired from the sleeve.

Step 5: Finishing Up

The rules state that we now have a fully playable character, but allows us to make a few modifications, like swapping in some equipment specifics, spending stack points and tweaking the player as per page 50, which allows modification of starting skill levels.

And there we have it a quickly expedited soldier character creation.  The book makes many many references to DHF, and through context, you understand that this is the character's digital self, the bit stored in a stack.  DHF = Digitial Human Freight.  

This book also makes massive use of icons, we see icons for each of the attribute bonuses, ego points, stack points, tech points etc.  Once you get your head around the game and the mechanics although they are small, they are fairly explanatory and think they will work out well.  Even after just doing the expedited character build I have a much better handle on them.

Tool Trunk Thursday: Books of Knowledge

Dog Brothers and Sword Sisters welcome back!  Little later post than usual!  I bet you thought I forgot it was Thursday!  Not this time! 

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Libraries are full of books and they are clearly not all about magic and sorcery.  The topics covered in these tomes may be of use to the intelligent adventurer, even help them accomplish tasks.  Of course, the time it takes to look up the information and utilize it can add time onto tasks, that added time, as well as the considerable weight of these books, makes them less than ideal to use in every situation. 

If you have questions or comments don't forget to hit me up on Twitter, Facebook, YouTube or Instagram!
Make sure you don't miss a single post and subscribe by e-mail today! 

If you need to check out any of these great games stop on by DriveThruRPG and pick something up through my affiliate link to help support the blog!

Equipment icons are found on https://game-icons.net/ and are provided under CC BY 3.0.

Remember this isn't the end times, this is humanity working together to save as many lives as we can through a proven methodology for fighting a new virus. Stay Strong.

Till next time, don't forget to Keep it Weird!

Whetstone, Issue 1. A review

Recently a new Sword & Sorcery anthology came across my social media feeds, if you have been around the Sword & Sorcery or Weird Fiction circles you will know that we have quite a few small publishers putting out various collections of these sorts of fiction such as Skelos Press or Rogue’s Blade Entertainment, so seeing another one wasn’t a large surprise, but it was welcome.  

Whetstone bills itself as an “Amateur Magazine of Pulp Sword & Sorcery”, and the first issue contains 10 stories across 60+ pages and is free, so I thought I should check it out. 

The editor of this anthology is Jason Ray Carney, who teaches creative writing at Christopher Newport University.  He is also an editor on “The Dark Man: Journal of Robert E Howard and Pulp Studies”.  We are off to a good start, which only continues to get better.

Thumbing through the PDF, I immediately notice that the cover and seal credits are given to Bill Cavalier, whom I do not personally know, but he is someone I certainly know of.  It is a hard name to miss among the fans of Robert E Howard.   You can check out more of his art here, “http://www.billcavalier.com/”.

Clearly, the Anthology has strong roots in pulp from within the scholars with a love of Robert E Howard.  Whetstone is a PDF anthology with the following submission guidelines.

Length: We prefer short, compressed stories that are nevertheless complete and cohesive narratives (1500 to 2500 words). These limits are firm. No more, no less. Style: We prefer “dialog light, action-heavy” fiction that is unselfconsciously literary but nevertheless takes joy in an occasional old word that gives the breath of antiquity.

And so as you would expect from those guidelines the stories in this anthology are short, quick reads and I could generally get through a couple of them in my 45-minute commute on the train.  Settings and ideas run from wizards vs. heroes in classic fantasy settings to more indigenous settings and everything in between.  I believe it is a good cross-section of pulp and sword & sorcery.

I am not going to review each story here, although I may talk about them in the future as there are some that have intrigued me.  For my personal tastes, a random guy with no writing experience or training in English, each story had its good points, but some I certainly liked better than others. Some just needed more room to breathe as they had excellent ideas others felt more like a snippet from a larger story.  The shortness of the fiction left me unable to really get to know the setting and the characters.

For me, the pros of the stories and the quickness of the reads outweigh the negatives and I look forward to seeing more glimpses of new worlds and to where this anthology of Sword & Sorcery goes in the future.  You can find Whetstone for yourself by visiting their blog at https://whetstonemag.blogspot.com/

Remember this isn't the end times, this is humanity working together to save as many lives as we can through a proven methodology for fighting a new virus. Stay Strong.

Till next time, don't forget to Keep it Weird!