Nothing old nothing new something borrowed

I haven't been really motivated lately for any kind of creative output.  I've been browsing sites, reading rules and researching savage world campaigns.  I usually go on these information gathering sessions before another bout of creative output.  I think I'm getting ready to focus on modifying the savage worlds ruleset for my campaign.  I get sidetracked when it comes to this, I still have the portal worlds campaign floating in my head and working out the rules for that campaign wants to take precedents.

Found some great resources.  This one is my favorite, Savage Worlds Eberron Conversion.  I found a few others including this page, Savage Iron Kingdoms.  Both these sites make me focus on portal worlds as Empires at Twilight is a more conventional fantasy setting.  I intend to borrow heavily from the magitech and steampunk concepts of both settings.  I was going to migrate Empires into that kind of setting, but its a tired setting, having been run thru the gamut of rule changes and concept evolutions.  Its my gritty fantasy campaign, I can't make it a high magic tech campaign, I suppose it wouldn't be fair to its essence.

Revenge of the Old Campaign

Here it is Sunday again and I am feeling the nostalgia coming on.  I've spent a majority of the afternoon honing my remedial coding skills working on Obsidian Portal.  I posted a link up earlier in the week directing everyone to the Twilight Empires campaign.  I've been cutting my coding teeth on that defunct campaign.  Got some cool stuff going on.  a hyperlinked MAP, some nifty homepage features; a menu on the left, some parchment backgrounds and a terrible banner.  Yeah I know how terrible it looks, I just wanted to make something.  Remember this is just a test. 

Now that I've sent you off to other websites, I will type this for my own amusement.  Continuing on with the Old School posts, here are some scrolls from the vault.

Page 1

Fendor - Southern city in Druin
  North of the Siafor ford and the Hera woods now known as the haunted woods.  Furry clothes, adorned with silvers, and shades of golden brown and browns.  Wide brimmed hats.  Cloaks are standard signs of status.  Color and design(and material) determining rank.  Druin Scouts are infamous and famous.  Fear the mountains and its foothills.

Rahar - Plain city and largest western keep rebuilt on ancient empires ruins.
((there are some scribbles at the bottom and the words Miak and Parth))

Page 2

Dwarven Kingdom
  Garuel-don
    King-Harven
    Has ladies in waiting/personal guard known as guardians of Harven.  Lives in Garvel-Kaer or the dwarven hall, largest mountain in the mountain range.  the mountain pass has seats on each end known as the high seats of western and easternesse.  Magically enchanted people of pure imperial blood can focus and look anywhere in the kingdom.

Page 3

Standard issue for soldiers.  Ringmail and platemail mix.  all wear helms, depends on family.  Families is how things are determined the most influential families are the Throne family, the Southron and Northron families.  Though all on good terms it appears that the Northrons may be attempting to make their own kingdom and rumor has it they are signing a peace treaty with the orcs.  Trading weapons and armor for an allegiance with them.

Page 4

Dwarves of the middle span have rediscovered the power of the stone metal.  Metal forged in the very fire of the mountains.  Forged of an ore created from deposits deep within the heart of the mountains.  The clerics from the Southron kingdom have discovered a way to create Orcbaine blades by infusing the blood of orcs within the blade but the process is long and hard and only four Orcbaine blades exist.  Though made of steel they appear copper.

Wow... about half way thru page two I almost stopped this.  This is some uninspired drivel.  I think its time to recycle the paper I wrote this on.  So terrible.  Blah.  The code achievements of today help balance out the terrible flavor of these four pages.  Now I just need to focus on a plan to get back out into the garage and start working on more terrain.

Twilight Empires

In searching around the internet I stumbled upon my own Obsidian Portal campaign, Twilight Empires .  What a nerd right?  The Twilight Empires campaign would be the final incarnation of all my compiled notes and a campaign that stretches back over ten years.  It started in a gray binder, which will be transcribed here as part of the Old School posts.

I think I ran this campaign world in MERPS, 3.x, Savage Worlds, and eventually 4E.  I Progressed the campaign forward during each of these phases.  Alot of the fluff between MERPS and 3.x was written without a ruleset or in conjunction with failed attempts to create my own rule set or modify some such ruleset to fill the role of what I wanted.

I'm still tempted to resurrect this campaign one day or take parts out and add them to Portal Worlds.  I am leaning more towards the later as I'd rather focus on that campaign more than running parallels.

The Perfect RPG for me

I mentioned earlier today I was looking to make a hybrid RPG/Skirmish game.  I've been reading a few different games to draw inspiration from.  Warrior Heroes, D&D miniature rules, Descent: Journey in the Dark and Mythic GM emulator.  Each of these games has something I really love that draws me and it makes me say that is a brilliant concept.  Now I just need to figure out how to hammer them all together and get the most out of my favorite parts.

Warrior Heroes has the artificial intelligence of NPCs that I love.  With this system encounters will have their own flow and outcomes completely random.  I also like how simple character advancement is with raising and lower reputation.

D&D miniatures has everything D&D 4E and 3.5 has reduced down.  Which are the systems my group are most familiar with.  My only complaint is damage does set amounts.  My players love to roll dice and all of the varieties, not just d6s.  Damage in D&D is where the majority of your dice are rolled.  D20 for everything else, every other dice in the damage category.

Descent: Journey in the Dark is a great game.  Being able to be pull no punches as the GM and having that GM vs. Player mentality is worth it.  I don't have to help them succeed, as a matter of fact I am trying to kill them.  Love that.  The part I think would do great in this game I am trying to make is the magic items, skills and treasure cards.  Which after a little research I found out Paizo also makes magic item cards.  Developing a characters base stats, as simple as those on the D&D miniatures cards and then adding to those powers with a few skill and item cards would limit record keeping and make the game more manageable.  Which is one my biggest complaints about the newest generation of games, MONUMENTAL amounts of record keeping.

And finally Mythic GM emulator to help develop plots and over arching campaigns without anyone really knowing the outcome, so everyone can play together as an adventuring group.

Those are my ideas are wandering around in my brain.  I just need to make them cohesive.  I also need to check out this Barbarians of Lemuria game.