STILL Not Dead (Terrors & Tactics Updade)

About the only other way to avoid the "refusal to end stories" problem is to constantly reboot, to tell different versions of the same tale. Transformers does this, as do the DC and Marvel animated adaptations. Gundam's funny in that the constant reboots take the concept down to its roots, then build it back up as something different, to the point that the characters aren't even the same, even if their roles are.

By the way, you've mentioned the Sun Empire and Star Kingdoms, Bestia, and the Endless Archipelago, but you haven't talked much about the Vaults of the Steam Lord. What's his deal?

The Steam Lord is an original Eldritch (as in he’s never been reincarnated after his initial exile) fire giant who turned to gadgeteering and has been honing his craft for millennia now and operates from a vast foundry and workshops in The Deep. In the realms above his just being considered for an apprenticeship by him is an honor.

According to some he may also have been the original inventor of the first golems.

So the eldritch are biologically immortal, dying only when they're slain? Now you know that guy's seem some stuff.

Page 99 - "As with all primal spirits, Eldritch are immortal, but their physical bodies can be killed by disease or violence. Due to their exile their spirit does not return to The Source in death, but sinks into the earth where its memories are wiped clean and it awaits rebirth to an Eldritch mother (who needs only be of the same elemental affinity not incarnate form). It is said that this cycle will continue until each Eldritch has earned its way back to the Primal Realms."

So, yes, in theory, any Eldritch could be thousands of years old. But its a big violent world they've been in for thousands of years. One bad day is all it takes to have to start over whether yo 50, 500 or 5000.

Naturally, the Steam Lord is on the paranoid side despite his power. That's why few ever meet him directly and he's almost mythic because of that air of mystery. He's also certainly got safeguards in both loyal followers and magic artifacts of his own creation (build a major item and use it for a few thousand years and it'll pick up a potent personality).

Pretty much - the only thing that an extended lifespan grants you is more chances to get killed. It doesn't make you indestructible.

I'd imagine that any eldritch or similarly long-lived being is going to be extremely cautious after their first century or so. The risk-taking eldritch probably get selected out pretty early on, going straight into reincarnation.

Yes and no... some critters are more resilient than others; dragon titans aren't especially cautious, other than the utterly over the top that is the dreadnought golem, they're among the most powerful entities in the world. For them immortality grants them a longer view; they can wait decades or centuries for elements of their plans to be ready (and mostly lay around among their treasures in the meantime) and then strike with all the suddeness of a volcanic eruption once everything is in place.

Lesser Eldritch though? Yeah, they tend to be more cautious.I

High elves too tend to be more cautious, while common and low elves who are fully indoctrinated can be convinced to throw away their lives precisely because they'll reincarnate back into a life pretty much like their current one.

Fetches also tend towards the cavalier because to fight the shadows and go into p!aces of mass disease and death to lend care and comfort is basically the purpose of their existence and their immortal souls are safe and secure from any lasting harm.

The absolute most paranoid are the true Cambions because they've not only lived for millennia, but their kin scheme against them, their descendants hunt them and their souls are basically damned to the same Outer Darkness their ancestors are trapped in (and as the weakest will be tortured and degraded for the petty amusement of their ancestors) so this is the only existence they have and are terrified of losing it.

And considering that seeking redemption means giving up their infernal power (and thus, dying right then and there), the true Cambions are pretty much stuck in a predicament of their own making.

Yup.

People give the old Comics Code Authority restrictions a lot of crap, but the fact of the matter is they also, mostly unintentionally, required the use of certain good storytelling techniques.

In this case I’m referring to the requirement that villains who die in comics that followed the code must do so by their own actions. Sounds limiting, but at the end of the day it’s at the heart of some of the best stories.

Tarkin dies aboard the Death Star not because Luke launched torpedoes down the shaft. He died because at the start of the sequence he’s informed by an underling that the Rebel attack has been analyzed amd there is a danger... and instead of saying “right, let’s evacuate myself and other non-critical people immediately” he says “evacuate? In our moment of triumph?” and dies for his hubris.

Sauron is destroyed because he believed it impossible for anyone to voluntarily throw his ring into Mount Doom (and failed to account for Gollum stumbling in by accident after his struggle with Frodo over the ring). Every time the villain falls victim to the creature or magic or science he abused to get power (or started using without fully understanding the consequences... to this day I contend that the first Iron Man would have a better payoff ending if it had ended with Stane plummeting to his death after “how’d you solve the icing problem?”) is a case of proper villain comeuppance.

Anyway, yes. The idea that the True Cambions are trapped because renouncing their power means their death is exactly the point. They’re trapped because they’ve convinced themselves that they’re beyond redemption... which is itself just hubris; “I’ve done something so awful even the God of infinite love and forgiveness couldn’t forgive me.”

In terms of book progress, I added four pages on naming things and how, even if a city has 40 taverns, you only need to develop the few the PCs actually visit and some of the highlights of Blackspire just for the GM whose got no ideas at all.

I’m presently two and a half pages into the ruins design section and hoping to get a couple more pages yet today. I want to be into the events section by Wednesday morning at the latest so that, with luck, I’ll have this beast done by New Years.

At the rate you're going, I don't see that being a problem at all. And between your work ethic and prayer, you've made your own luck.

***

Limitations can provide a focus for creativity. To give you a Transformers example, the 90s series Beast Wars used CG animation that precluded having a large cast like G1 did, so the writers were forced to focus on a small cast and develop them. Back to Batman for a minute, Batman the Animated Series (the early 90s series) depicted the death of Dick Grayson's parents, but they couldn't show the Graysons falling, so what they did was swing the characters and the fraying trapeze rope out of frame, then the broken rope swung back into frame. Both series were very good at working around those limitations or incorporating them into the story for great effect. I've got no problem with series that don't have those limitations, but they often provide a different way of looking at things.

As an aside, I can't help but notice that one particular indirect consequence of a villain's actions happens to be bringing a wrathful hero down on his head, John Wick style. Goes against the spirit of the Comics Code limitation, but it still works if you're a smart aleck.

Update; I’m still not dead, but I had a lot of work to get done ahead of going to DC for the 6th so I didn’t get much book work done... so I’m basically a week past my deadline, but the end is still in sight.

Today? I’m at my aunt’s home in Alexandria and resolved to finish the last parts of my book over the next couple days because, frankly, the world needs another thing in the world that is Superversive and good rather than something giving in to anger and nihilism. Plus, The Free Cities are my happy place.

I have made progress on the Ruin building section though; size, danger, distance, type, conditions, importance, threats and threat relations.

Size is pretty straight forward; how many locations of interest are there in the ruin and how many types of threats are within.

Danger is the CP budget for threats within the ruin. For example, in a “Beginner” ruin each threat is worth 1d4x100 CP. These could be traps, hazards and/or opponents scattered throughout the ruin (so that a smaller/weaker party can handle it a piece at a time) or concentrate it in a couple of locations while the other locations are just points of interest (so it can be a challenge to larger/stronger groups).

Distance is how far the ruin is from civilization; ranging from “inside it” to “at the edges of the region”.

Type is what the ruin used to be, an arcane academy has a different feel than an abandoned mine.

Conditions describe the state of the ruin; is it merely abandoned, crumbling (so more structural hazards like weak floors, sections that could collapse, etc.), toppled (everything is sideways), flooded, boobytrapped by a previous occupant, suffering shadow or abyssal taint, etc.

Importance is why anyone would even care to explore the ruin; are there lost treasures or magic? Is one of the threats holding someone hostage? Is it controlled by someone Hostile to civilization?

Threats are general categories of threats to be found; undead, raiders, demonic cults, etc.; basically ideas for the type of threats PCs could face.

Threat relations come up in larger ruins where multiple threats are found; basically it’s how well they get along (or if they’re even aware of each other).

But that should give a fairly solid basis for building an adventure location out of and since many of these have 15-20 entries, it should also ensure that no two ruins will ever feel identical.

DC was more important. I'm glad you made it out okay. Either way this turns out, things are going to get ugly. God help us all.

And you're right, we do need more Superversive things in the world, especially given how things are likely to go. As an aside, I'm plenty angry, so angry that I can't say what I really want to happen online, but giving into nihilism? No way. Hope is what keeps people alive in dark times, keeps them from suicide and despair until they can find something good to hold onto or until the dark times end.

***
It sounds like you've hit the necessary marks for the ruins section, though I'd probably add a threat severity section as well, to encompass places like the Stormhold Necropolis something similar.

Oh, I have opinions as well, but the thing my prayer and reflection has hit on is that perhaps God's purpose for President Trump was not to drain the swamp, but to fully and completely expose it (right down to his own VP, my former governor, supposedly good Christian... SPIT) while leaving it to US to clean it up because we shouldn't be waiting on lone saviors to magically save us. He already sent The Savior.

Rather than "release the Kraken" we need to "Be The Kraken" and that starts by getting our own houses (spiritual and material) in order so we are positioned to fight Principalities and Powers that the swamp is just the material manifestation of.

One of those things I have to get in order is this book. As I put in my description of Superversive; these are important whether they're true or not because they're worth believing in. I was explaining all this to my aunt this evening and she, a complete non-gamer, found the idea of friends gathering to create heroic adventures to be something inspiring and worth pursuing.

Threat severity as written would be a combo of Size...

1d20 - Ruin Size
01-05 - Tiny (1d4+1 locations; One Threat)
06-10 - Small (1d6+2 locations; Two Threats)
11-14 - Medium (1d6+4 locations; Three Threats)
15-17 - Large (1d12+8 locations; Four Threats)
18-19 - Huge (1d20+15 locations; Five Threats)
20 - Massive (2d20+30 or more locations; Six or more Threats)

and Danger

1d20 - Ruin Danger
01-05 - Very Low (PC levels 1-2; threats have 1d4x100 CP each; average 250)
06-10 - Low (PC levels 3-5; threats have 1d6x100 CP each; average 350)
11-14 - Moderate (PC levels 6-7; threats have 2d4x100 CP each; average 550)
15-17 - High (PC levels 8-10; threats have 2d6x100 CP each; average 700)
18-19 - Very High (PC levels 11-13; threats have 3d6x100 CP each; average 1050)
20 - Extreme (PC levels 14-15; threats have 4d6x100 CP each; average 1400)

So, for example, you roll or decide that Stormhold is a Massive structure with (rolls) 53 locations and six threats. You decide that its a Very High danger and so for each of the six threats you roll 3d6x100 or select a number in that range for each threat (say 1200, 1400, 1100, 800, 1700 and 1100 = 7300 CP total).

Note that for a party of four level 12 PCs, an average encounter is 320 CP and a very difficult one is 640 CP so that 7300 CP is about 15-ish challenges (and probably 4-ish sessions worth of play including addition exploration of uninhabited locations).

For specific threats you might divide them up as follows;

Undead Lord (1200 CP) - a Ghoul Lord, 5 ghouls and 10 lesser ghouls; schemes against his fellow undead as much as he does against the living. The Lesser Ghouls and one ghoul might be guards for a difficult encounter on the upper levels while the Ghoul Lord and the four other ghouls are a very difficult climax near the heart of the ruin.

Horrors (1400 CP) - A Gallu Slave Pit, Slave Master and five slavers + Two Horrid Masses, Six Horrid Eyes and Six Eyeless Slaves. Allies of the Necromancer Cult (see below). The Slave Pit and Master would be one difficult encounter and the five slavers another, meanwhile the Horrid Masses and affiliated creations are a normal to slightly difficult encounter locked away in some chamber.

Undead Lord (1100 CP) - A Death Lord, Two Death Knights, 5 Greater Wright Infantry, 5 Greater Wright Maulers and 4 Greater Wright Stalkers. Suspicious of his fellow undead and the Necromancer's alliance with the Horrors. These control a wing of the complex split into 3-4 chambers.

Undead Lord (800 CP) - Wraith Lord, Two Greater Wraiths, 4 Wraiths and 4 Lesser Wraiths. Loyal Servants and Spies of the Ghoul Lord. Mix and match these into other encounters as they act as the Ghoul Lord's messengers.

Necromancer Cult (1700 CP) - Lich King, Two Greater Liches, 5 Skeletal Hordes, 25 Animate Corpses and 20 Animated Beasts; Allied with the Horrors whom they summoned up from the Shadow World. The Lich King and each of the Greater Liches has their own chamber with various quantities of the mindless animated dead as their servants and guards.

Relic Golems (1100 CP) - Four War Golems, Four Siege Golems, Four Shield Guardian Golems and 20 Sentry Golems. Unknown to even to the Undead, the innermost vaults of Stormhold still hold dormant golems who protect the potent magic items there. Split them up into one weaker encounter as an Outer Vault and the rest in a Very Difficult encounter for the Inner Vault.

Also, since there's the budget for it, throw in about 360 CP worth of various traps and hazards into the mix... some minor and a major ceiling collapse traps, weak rungs on ladders between floors, a room with several weak floors, sections of toxic fumes, maybe some gorgon glyphs, repulsion runes and fire projectors inside the magic item vault.

Ah, that makes sense.

***

Pence is as much a Christian as Judas Iscariot was. And regardless of whether Trump is removed from office or if he takes the next step, what he's done in exposing the traitors and swamp demons in DC is nothing short of miraculous.

I’ve mentioned how things are at Riverhold... there’s definitely a Pence at Riverhold.

I’ll be on the road home today, but I’ll be getting back to the book in earnest tomorrow. I’ll keep you apprised.

I was thinking that Riverhold might resemble the modern U.S. down the road if Trump doesn't have an ace up his sleeve. It'd make Riverhold a foil to the Free Cities.

And I am home safe, and while originally it was a generic corrupt kleptocracy, I am now in agreement that I have a lot of free resources to use as the basis for it as a specific location.

I’d never do just straight lifts; those age badly and are more petty than Superversive. But a puppet leader (I’m thinking the title should be Chairman) of diminished mental capacity, ostensibly elected by the people but actually installed by crony merchant princes is timeless. So is a parliament of ostensibly two parties who actually collude to ensure that the common folk never get a real say in their government. And a Robin Hood inspired resistance leader with growing support of the common folk that the government is desperately seeking to destroy is another timeless element that echoes not just the present day, but many past tyrannies as well.

The latter is also an opportunity to push the extreme end of realm creation as the Robin Hood figure’s hidden refuge would be the heroic realm of that region. Small (extreme low end of 4-5k people), Dispersed (hidden camps throughout the rural parts that Riverhold claims but does not truly control with no camp having more more than a few hundred people), cosmopolitan (can’t afford not to be), democratic monarchy (the latter in the sense that the Robin Hood figure is basically THE uncontested leader in any crisis and settler of disputes... the subsidiarity element otherwise applies), meritocracy sufferage (anyone who can make a contribution gets a say in the Rebellion), unwritten common law that exists to protect individual freedoms with fair punishments from crimes committed by those under the Robin Hood figure’s command), all religions tolerated, elite militia warrior society (given that they exist in a state of rebellion against Riverhold). Resources to be determined.

Throw in gangs of thugs controlled by the kleptocrats to silence opposition as their de facto police force and operatives and you can get all the themes while placing it in code (like the Book of Revelations was... symbols representing real people and places in order to bypass censorship of the day) and making it more a timeless struggle (which actually does highlight how, as ugly as things can seem, this isn’t actually new territory in human history... but speaks to even deeper themes of power and it’s responsible use).

Direct one-to-one lifts like that also run into the problem of being rather shallow - taking inspiration from certain figures and making the inspiration your own character works better, for the reasons you listed.

The Robin Hood figure is a very good idea, since it gives the PCs somebody to help in the setting without having to take over Riverhold themselves. It also brings up the idea that Riverhold isn't beyond saving, that the PCs can turn a hostile realm into a heroic one. Also, I think that the Robin Hood figure could have been inspired by the Free Cities, or vice versa.

The Robin Hood figure also provides a very different start point for new PCs. One of goals with the world books is to embrace different themes.

The core books are an almost idealized world for adventurers; a benevolent government with a light hand, lots of ruins and uninhabited places where PC could settle and establish their own communities. It’s very much in the frontier vein of early D&D (heck, think of the Free Cities as “back east” and the Toria Tribes as “friendly Indian tribes” of a Western setting papered over with fantasy European trappings).

Riverhold is very much a rebels vs. corrupt authority setup. Robin Hood is one approach, Star Wars (the originals) is another. For those who want to play thieves and brigands, robbing from the corrupt and ruining their plans provides an acceptable target for Superversive characters, particularly if they also appy the second part of Robin Hood’s addage; though “Rob from the rich and give to the poor” is a corruption by people wanting to paint him as Leftist... it was actually “Take back from the government what they stole from the people.”

One option I’d include for Riverhold would be the option to “Be The Hood” where, instead of a specific NPC Robin Hood figure, the PCs are set up to become the leaders of the rebellion themselves (either in play or as backstory that makes them responsible for the “Sherwood Forest” realm; which in this case would have paltry military forces that the PCs would have to gather themselves).

By contrast, Ironhold as basically the “neutral” realm on the heroic to hostile scale (I’d use options available to both types for the categories as much as possible) would likely focus on native PCs as members of a good and honorable noble household (think the Starks in a non-crapsack world) with other less noble houses as rivals and the Bloodspear Empire as an external threat. This would be very much a “work within the system to affect positive change” type setup.

The idea of each World Book would be that it’s got enough material for a complete 1-15 campaign. So a fairly wide array of NPCs, realms, ruins, schemes and events with some sort of theme to them.

They might even need more evocative names for the titles; for example instead “Riverhold” I think “Rebellion at Riverhold” or “The Ironhold Insurrection” (where a major scheme/event is that corrupt nobles plot to overthrow the rightful king with the threat of a resurgent Bloodspear Empire and the king’s refusal to launch a preemptive attack as part of background... so possible false flag attacks, a secret peace mission to one of the four Bloodspear factions, an actual palace coup by those who wish to profit from a renewed war, etc.).

“Explorers of the Endless Archipelago” (fantasy equivalent of Star Trek or original Battlestar Galactica) with a heroic realm in the form of a fleet/convoy that survived the Cataclysm and now travels the region supporting itself through trade and exploration where each settlement is a ship and a much heavier focus on using the random region/ruin generator to establish island realms as the heroic fleet travels from place to place.

But that’s probably getting a little ahead of myself.

Robin Hood was the original tax rebel.

***

I think that starting each book with an idea of a fantasy version of X is a good way to differentiate them, so that you don't have redundant sub-settings. The core setting as fantasy Western has already been established, and Riverhold as fantasy Robin Hood or Star Wars could work rather well. With regard to Riverhold, I wonder if you could lean into the Star Wars portion, as both a way to differentiate Riverhold from the Free Cities and to exorcise some of the ghosts of the original Star Wars, given what Disney's done to it.

You could probably turn Ironhold into your version of Birthright, making it more of a campaign based on political maneuvering. As to the main thread of the Ironhold Insurrection, I could see the PCs having an issue with both the corrupt nobles and the dove-ish king.

And "Explorers of the Endless Archipelago" sounds like it could bring something that a lot of settings really don't. The closest thing I can think of to it is Chris Perkins's Iomandra setting from 4e, and that one had dragons ruling over each island like tyrants.

I don't think you're getting ahead of yourself, I think you're laying the mental groundwork for future developments.

The Star Wars angle could be thing; Though I think I’d need to redo the upriver portion of the map a bit to give it a full Old Praetoria-sized region to call its own instead of just being the upper corner of Old Praetoria. I might need to pull more from Hidden Fortress (the Japanese film ANH is based on) though since “Death Star” really doesn’t work for a game set on a single planet.

Still... goons in faceless armor, golem slave/servants (droids), human supremacy, rulers secretly worshipping unnatural powers while pushing gadgeteering as the way mankind will advance sounds like themes that could easily apply to Riverhold (sidebar, it’s a longer word, but I’m debating changing gadgeteer/gadgeteering to “technomancer/technomancy” as that sounds less dependent upon fiddling with individual devices and more broadly covers magic-based science). Hell, throw in an ISB (Imperial Security Bureau; basically space KGB) while we’re at it.

For that matter, masked goons (antifa), golem servants (automation), racial supremacy (BLM), secret worship of the unnatural (the amount of occult crap tied to certain people is disturbing) and pushing politicized “science” as the solution to all things and a weaponized intelligence service sounds disturbingly like today too.

* * * *

Regarding what Star Wars has become; the Mandalorian is fantastic (borrow someone’s Disney+ password or binge it during the free trial) and, if rumors are to be believed there’s a civil war inside Lucasfilm where, if the Mandalorian-side wins they’ll be using the World Between Worlds time travel element to decanonize the sequel trilogy; more accurately that it occurred in an alternate timeline.

Disney doesn’t have a tap into government contracts to keep them afloat so there may be something still resembling a profit motive that could salvage things. Plus keeping up with the SJW purity spiral has got to be so exhausting that some companies will bail out of fatigue. Also, SJWs are the useful idiot part of society... they’re always the first thing dropped once they’ve served their purpose.

You could pull a Death Star if some Riverhold jerk finds and refurbishes a floating fortress with a projector cannon built into the underside, basically making a small-scale Death Star, or an in-atmosphere equivalent of an orbital bombardment satellite.

I'd definitely redo the map, for the reasons you stated. And pulling more from Hidden Fortress means that you're not ripping off Star Wars, but drawing on similar source material.

If we go with the Star Wars angle, I'd make the Chairman, the public face of Riverhold, be the Darth Vader equivalent's puppet, or have the Darth Sidious equivalent be lurking in the shadows, using the Chairman/Pedo Joe (you're not the only one who's heard some disturbing crap) as his puppet.

***

It's almost like George Lucas prophesized the current situation, despite his own political affiliations.

***

According to a lot of people, the Mandalorian redeemed Luke Skywalker.

I just had a small brainwave with regard to husk demons: perhaps they could be fungus-based, as heralds of decay. I know that they run counter to your setting's lore, but maybe a husk demon could be coated in fungi representing the corruption of their base element. The catch is that you'd have to redo everything related to the husk malfeans and the husk portion of the diabolist.

Not a horrible idea. Alternatively, some sort of fungus-based Horror from the dreams of the dead Demon Emperor would also be a way to approach it. I lean towards the latter precisely because I have gotten very positive feedback for the appearance of the Husk Malfean and their branch-like horns as a design and treant-like husks as demons are similarly evocative.

Being a Horror also means they don't have to quite follow the typical demon rules of only existing if summoned, tethered to an object or a 'willing' host. Horrors are allowed to infest, enslave and poison unwilling hosts so a fungal horror that inflicts spores which slowly consume the target and transform their corpse into a new fungal horror whether their willing or not seems like a better critter for the setting.

* * * *

Progress-wise I'm about half-way through the ruin creation section... maybe. I added a table for location details (i.e. points of interest in the ruin; combat or non-combat) so we'll see how long that gets. But halfway through the outline I had when I started writing after getting back regardless.

While you could integrate fungi into the treant-like husks as flavor, kind of like how gargoyles are dust demons that animate statues, the Horror angle's another good one for the reasons you listed.

***

Good to see you making progress, man.

Edit: I meant cambion. Gargoyles are cambions, not demons. It's the shedim that are the dust demons.

I forgot to say anything with regard to the Gadgeteer, but I think that Technomancer could work. It's broader than Gadgeteer, allowing for more than just gadget-based science magic.