Brother Brian Jaques - Scribe's page

You live in Amateru in the kingdom of Karros. The cpital city with a population around 50 thousand. Karros is run by the king and the three great houses. It is near ruins of the Akashi Empire. Ruins are scattered around the kingdom and rumor has it that they are scttered throught the world. The biggest ruin by far is near the capital.

There is a rumor that someone is selling stuff from the ruins. Most are harmless but some are not. According to rumor one household has been wiped out. Lord Keldarrin assigned Gelwyn and Rokarrin to investigate the rumors and highered two others to help them.

You are all gathered in Lord Keldarin's gardin.

This is the ooc discusion for my second game

You are in a forest. The trees tower above you. Their trunks can't be spanded by the arms of two large men.

You can hear animals everywhere. Sound is muffled here. It disappears into the floor of the forest. The floor is covered with leaves fallen from the trees. The forest has undergrowth everywhere. Since it is spring flowers are every where, springing from bush, popping from the forest floor.

There seems the place for magic and wonder.

I'm running a Rifts campaign in which the party has started their own small but growing nation. I plan to use the Kingmaker kingdom rules, but obvious there are some major changes needed.

I've already figured out how I'll be changing the rules for the positions, although suggestions for new positions are welcome. What I need help with is figuring out what new buildings should be avialable and their stats. If you have any suggestions please list them, preferably with BP costs, economy, stability and loyalty bonuses and any special rules.

I'm also going to be overhauling the event system. I want them to be rarer, and when they do happen that is when the players get into RP mode. So any suggestions for how to handle that would also be welcomed.

Welcome back everyone! This years X-Crawl season seems to have started off in high gear with some AWESOME runs. But you don’t come to this little blog to hear about the big boys. You can go to the magazines or the news papers for that. Me I like the newbies, the unknowns. It’s so much fun to see the grow or better yet crash and burn.

Now I always to put in a little explanation of X-Crawl every year just in case someone out there doesn’t actually already know about it. (Do you live under a rock Mr. Hypothetical?) If you already know what I’m talking about just skip the next 3 paragraphs.

So X-Crawl is that greatest of televised sports where contestants risk life, limb and sanity for glory, fame and riches. Individuals or teams go into a dungeon carefully designed by the Game Master to test their bravery and skills with a variety of traps, monsters, villains or other assorted nastiness.

The leagues are divided into East Coast and West Coast. East Coast favors puzzles and trap, while the West Coast favors combat. According to most East Coast fans the West Coast league is pretty much just gladiator combat disguised as a crawl, and not a very good disguise most of the time. According to most West Coast fans most East Coast fans are sissies who can’t stand the sight of blood. The leagues are divided into different levels going from D to A or even S for the very best of the best.

Contestants can bring in three types of items. First the crawl itself may offer the loan of a specific value of magic items. These are usually pretty basic. Second when contestants win a crawl they get a specific amount of money to buy more custom items for use in future events. There is usually a limit on both types items or a limit on the combined total of the two types. The third type are Signature Items. These are pretty care items unique to a specific dungeon. They are almost always allowed in any kind of dungeon and are usually pretty powerful. Also there are sometimes item in the dungeon the party can use, but they never get to keep those.

Kicking off the X-Crawl season for both East and West coast is the 157th Gygax Crawl. Named after the legendary man who thought of making this a sport it’s pretty much the gateway to becoming a professional. After all they mean it when they “if you can’t make it here you can’t make it anywhere.” Of course since it’s filled with amateurs trying to break into the big leagues it’s frequently more of a joke than a contest. True it’s funny to see some house wife or salary man with delusions of grandeur get stabbed somewhere painful, but it’s not the true excitement of a REAL crawl.

At least it isn’t most years. This year we’ve got a team with some REAL promise. I was on the edge of my seat watching them. Some of you might remember from last year the little Kobald in the Jersey Bloody Shore who stole all the Cobalt Cola meant for the cast and crew and then sat in front of a security camera drinking it for the whole match. (Where do they find so many douchebags willing to risk getting stabbed? Especially since almost no ever wins, which is just the way the audience wants it.) Well it seems he’s back and has put together a team. There’s martial artist who loves mugging for the camera and a pretty homely chick who has some decent rogue skills and some piss poor magic skills. Hopefully they’ll pick stage names pretty soon.

The first room was a swamp with a locked door. Once the party entered the GM released Bessy, a hippo with a bad temper. She almost slaughtered the goblin in her first charge, but then he got on her back where he’d be safe. Or at least that’s what I thought until she rolled over to try and scrape him off. Still between him the chick’s pet monkey they got the key she wore around her neck and the entire party booked it for the next room instead of staying to mess with the hippo.

That’s when I perked up a bit. A usual rookie mistake is to try to kill everything you come across. But like lots of them the Gygax Crawl is basically a race and unneeded killing wastes time. It also frequently wastes blood which is almost as important.

The second room was pretty nifty. The walls close into crush the crawlers with a locked door on the other side. As a little bonus the ten feet or so in front of the door is a pit trap covered by an illusion of a real floor with poisonous looking snakes at the bottom. I say poisonous looking since the kobold quickly realized they weren’t and climbed down to look for treasure. Unbeknownst to the party he found the first gold prize necklace.

The little kobold loaned his slippers of spider climbing to the chick so she could pick the trio of locks on the door. In the meantime the martial artist mugged for the camera like crazy. I’ve never heard someone so blatantly or sincerely fish for endorsement deals, it was HYSTERICAL. Ugly she might be, the chick was competent and they got out of there well ahead of the closing walls.

The next room had a door with crystal ball and no handle. There were about a dozen handles on the wall and they were given the instructions “only one handle is the real one and the crystal ball shows it”. They quickly realized the real handle was IN the crystal ball and moved on to the next room.

It had a pair of scary looking orcs guarding a chest. The room itself looked like it had seen a lot of battle damage with a huge scorch mark on the floor and a helmet imbedded in the wall. Forget meeting those orcs in a dark ally I wouldn’t want to meet those orcs in a brightly lit police station!

At first I didn’t blame the party for wussing out, especially considering the trash the orcs were talking. They started scouting ahead, but them came back for the chest. Negotiations failed, but it turns out the orcs were all bluff. They went down faster than a spoon full of sugar.

I don’t know why the chick tried to drag off the chest but it revealed that there was a gold prize necklace under the chest, then her monkey found one under the helmet he pried out of the wall. The chick made short work the traps on the chest, even being able to remove the gem used to detonate a fireball trap. In the chest was prize necklace number three (four if they knew about the kobold’s) along with a few magic weapons.

They picked the right fork in the next passage and walked straight into a trio of ogres. I gotta tell you I thought they were done for, but then the martial arts guy starts throwing the ogres around like rag dolls. His martial art MUST be Akido. The chick pretty quickly realized the door at the other end of the room was fake. The real one would only open if people stood on two pressure plates at the same time and a third ran through the open door.

With the martial artist treating the ogres like his own personal juggling set they didn’t have too much trouble opening the door and stepping through. They even snatched the final prize necklace off the lead ogres neck. They finished a full 4 minutes faster than the second best time!

Afterwards they almost had a brawl over the prize necklace the kobold hid from them. Each necklace represented a pick of 1 of 5 surprise prize doors. Eventually they agreed that the chick would get two, the kobold got two and the martial artist got one but he got to decide when he would use it. That was pretty good deal for him since they always include a booby-prize.

The chick won a 72 inch plasma tv and a Vespa. The kobold got a new car which he looked disappointed at and 12 live turkeys which he attacked on sight. Man, you should have seen the feathers fly. The martial artist won a trip for four to Aruba and promptly invited any pretty ladies in the audience to come with him for the trip. He was happy about the pair of panties some lady threw him until he realized they were about 5 feet wide when held up. Man his expression was priceless.

It was even announced that they found the secret signature item! Wow! I mean it’s been a rumor that they put one in since Mr. Gygax died a few years back, but no one had EVER found it till now. Most people thought it was an urban legend. But the gem the chick snagged off the chest turned out to be a signature item. Kind of like a reusable fireball hand grenade.

The Cobolt Cola team has gone pro and after seeing them in action that’s exactly where they should be. They picked East Coast which is even better. I’ve heard they’ll be on the next episode of Predator and Prey. I’m definitely not going to miss it!

Up until recently I ran a PF game at the Game Parlor 2 in Woodbridge Va on Saturdays. For a couple of reasons I can't run there anymore. Instead I want run game at my apartment in Manassas. Unfortunately most of the players I had cannot afford to come out that far each week to attend the game, so I need some new players.

I have several years of GMing experience under my belt and I am willing to run multiple different systems. I usually like a table of 6 - 8 but am willing to run smaller if people insist. One of the players from the previous game is guaranteed to play and I feel I owe it to him to include him if I get another game up and running.

Systems I have enough books to run:
3.5
GURPS
Palladium (particularly Rifts)
Anima
Big Eyes Small Mouth

Systems I have run, but would have to borrow books for:
Rolemaster
Hero System
4e
PF

Systems I am familiar with but have not a run a game in:
Jadeclaw
Shadowrun
Vampire

The appartment has plenty of space and parking, although not nearly as many chairs as I would like. Hopefully we will be able to afford to do something about that eventually.

I try to run a game that is as fun as possible. I do not run the RAW precisely, although 90% of the time that is in the player's favor. There is a limit to the number of situations the RAW can cover of course.

If you want some idea of what I'm like as a player or GM feel free to look over my posts.

If you are interested either post here with some way for me to contact you or email me at Darkorinth@gmail.com

Alright you pack o’ wenches and wastrels belly yerselves up to the bar and find something to occupy yer bootlickers. If yer lucky the panty-waste snot-rag manning it won’t have water the horse piss down too much. It’s time for this lady to spin ya a few tales o’ violence and intrigue, mainly violence.

Now a little bit about big ole me. My daddy was Jose Monkamuck. A well reknowned captain o’ tha sea. O’ course unlike the rest of me family I hate the water. Still I’ve followed in his footsteps a bit. I swear by Kord, even if I don’t have the patience to be chantin’ for his help. I sell my sword and not a bloody thing else. So I’ll spin my tales fer free as you all get hammered into unconsciousness.

Now I’ma headin’ out towards da promised lan’s, or at lest the one’s promised meh. I ain’t alone, which is good. Mah daddy always said ya gots ta’ have a crew. Der’s only t’ree o’ us, but I t’ink dat will be plenty.

Dere’s Sneaky, he seem da underhanded time, but dem types kin be useful. We’ll just have ta see how competent he is.

Also we gots dis bounty hunta I’ll call Woodsy. He’s da quiet type, but he seems ta know what he’s doin’.

I’m goin out ta make me a fortunate, and more important like make me my own space. I’ll have more dan just dese two aftore we’re done. But so far dis is what I gots ta work with.

Alright, I need some help with something. An idea I have been toying around with for a while is running a low-magic game. When I say “low-magic” I mean that at best there would be 1 spell casting class that isn’t a prestige class and nobody is going to be finding magic items until level 10+ without some truly astounding RP. DR ?/Magic will actually mean something.

Now I don’t want to take away all the fancy shiny gear and not give the players anything. So I plan to include weapons and armor in my game that are of superior craftsmanship. In essence with a sufficient skill check it is possible to make +1, +2, +etc. armor and weapons that are non-magical.

Now I have to decide a few things 1) special abilities other than a +x bonus, 2) what craft check is needed for what ability/bonus and 3) what should all this cost. Some special abilities that I have already decided to include:

Serrated: +1 crit range (debated whether it should stack with improved crit)

Laminated: +1 crit multiplier (This the classic x hundred times folded Katana)

Custom Fitted: +1 max dex, -1 armor check

Also to get a more realistic money system I will be down grading the costs in the PH to silver pieces and change the copper:silver:gold ratios from 1:10:100 to 1:100:10000.

So any suggestions of other armor/weapon abilities, general pricing schemes and/or craft DCs would be appreciated. Also if you have any other ideas for items that would be useful to include, particularly alchemical ones, please feel free to post them.

First I must provide a warning to those who would peruse this book. I have cleaned and edited as best I could. The most horrifying and detailed descriptions of the author’s deeds as well as the many detailed drawings have been removed. The few that do provide some relevant and worthwhile medical information have been preserved in another volume. I have annotated where necessary, but to distinguish my own insertions from the author’s words I will be using the [] symbols.

Still what remains can be gruesome and horrifying. This is after all the personal scribing of a madman. His evil is renowned and recorded in detail in many other works. It is likely that without these journals we would never have had the slightest idea of the number of victims he left in his wake. To have removed enough for it to be safe and comfortable for all eyes would have left precious little text for us to work with.

While these horrific ravings are disturbing they are not without educational value. It provides us a chance to study this man’s madness and perhaps help prevent or at least identify those who might follow in his footsteps.

The first thing that struck me as I worked on these texts was that his evil is not the normal evil that one assumes. Many stories tell of his delight in his victims suffering. That he enjoyed the depths of cruelty to which he sunk.

This is simply not true. He took no pleasure in his victim’s pain. In fact it is likely that he was unaware of their suffering except for its physical manifestations. He seems to have no understanding of other people as being of emotion. To him they were simply research material. This in difference might at first blush seem to indicate that he was not an evil man, but nothing could be further from the truth. Women, children, the elderly and even expectant mothers were all victims of his. In some ways his indifference was a greater evil than innate cruelty could have been.

Some background on the author is important. Many know of him only from the stories told of him, which frequently leave out key details. He is known as Ob or Bob as that was an easy sound for him to make. His birth name was Eldratch Frankle. He was born deaf. Perhaps this accounts for much his apparent madness. It was not that he ignored the please for mercy or screams of pain he caused, but simply that he did not perceive them in the first place. Unlike many who were born deaf his spoken language ability was rudimentary at best, although is writing ability was exceptional. Nor did he have the ability to read lips. In fact many who met him said he would only rarely respond to any attempts at communication other than writing.

His parents were well to do and when they realized their child was deaf they did everything in their power for him. The best clerics they could find could not relieve his deafness. At this point they turned to education in hopes of finding a way for him to makes his life. His early education included some minor training in combat and the use of armor, although he did not show much promise in these areas. In the area of study however he showed much promise. His tutors found that though he was deaf, once he grasped the concept of writing he was one of the most promising students they had ever had. His parents went into debt to provide the best, hoping their son would someday live a productive life.

It was when he was sent to the healer academy at the capital that he seemed to find his true home. The records show that he was known as the most gifted and promising student in decades, although one teacher with more foresight than the rest noted the young man’s growing obsession with life. Not the meaning of life which many question, but the nature of living happens. I will not attempt to explain further. The author’s own words will do that more effectively than I ever could.

He returned home for only a short time after graduating. Some books and ballads on the topic wonder if his parents ever realized the monster they had birthed. More learned sources know that they did, as they are counted as his first victims. This is unlikely to be true as going over the records of his schooling shows that 23 students and 2 teachers disappeared during his schooling.

His mother died of repeated poisoning. She apparently was poisoned and then allowed through skillful healing to recover from the poisonings for a period of 18 days. 12 different poisons were used and each was administered at least twice during the time. His father died by having a ¼ oz. section of his liver removed each day until it was no longer able to sustain function. These two processes are described in minute detail in the oldest journals so far found.

From here on out the madman’s own voice shall provide the details of his life and adventures.